Tinalles's page

Sorry. I've been on a two-day long road trip for work.

During the walk to the Count's estate, Mel used her Hat of Disguise to take on a new, previously unseen persona: Mala, formerly a diplomatic aide to a now-retired ambassador from Helm. The hat takes on the appearance of a headband taming a mane of black hair -- tinged here and there with a strand of silver. Grey eyes twinkle out from skin a few shades darker than her usual preference.

Mala laughs lightly. "Oh, yes. We have been exceptionally busy."

She quickly recaps their adventures in Bannerhold to date, including the recovery of most of the treasury, their dealings with Turick, the investigations into and downfall of Cust and Harcourt.

I'm curious as to what questions, if any, Count Aral has regarding those phases. I think we kept him tolerably well informed, but you never know.

"... and finally, we made contact with the 'Friends' -- a resistance group. Due to a series of misunderstandings, the circumstances of that meeting were highly unpleasant for Robin. I don't think the details are relevant here. Suffice it to say we made an uneasy accord with them. We're going to send a message to the Bishop of Helm on their behalf; beyond that, all we agreed to do is stay largely out of their way. They want to see Beaumont taken down just as much as we do. In exchange, their leader gave us some information about Beaumont."

She smiles slyly. "It's bad. Brace yourself. Pretend I'm telling a really funny joke."

After giving him a moment to ready a reaction, she leans forward, cups her hands around her mouth and whispers to him: "Duke Beaumont has been swapping state secrets with Amrynn Faedi, the Concordat's Magister of Divination, using a Book of Whispers."

Quick recap:

We finished with Cust. He's in Turick's custody.

We began thinking about ways to investigate Beaumont.

Túrion (alias Janus) went to the brothel to talk to the Madame and possibly get some leads. He didn't come back.

The rest of us went to talk to the Madame and said "Hey, what? Where's Janus?" She reported that Janus attempted to purchase (?) Isabella, one of her workers, who agreed to go with him despite the fact that she was not any sort of bondservant and had no contract etc to buy out.

We did some moderately comedy-of-errors fail-forward tracking, and found evidence suggesting that Janus got clocked over the head and shoved in a pickle barrel. Further sleuthing led us to rumors about an elf falling from the sky wearing nothing but his underwear.

Just then we spotted Alexander Mumblethunder III, the gnomish bookstore owner from much earlier in the Bannerhold arc, headed for a warehouse and muttering about being roped into Isabella's organization despite everything.

We deduced that Isabella-from-the-brothel and Isabella-leader-of-the-non-human-resistance were one and the same. We followed, knocked on the door and asked to talk to Isabella about our friend who seems to be in a pickle.

She let us in and told us that she took Janus for some kind of law enforcement officer or agent of her opposition, intent on breaking her cover as a service worker at the brothel and bringing down her organization. So she captured him, interrogated him, and was trying to figure out what to do next when we came knocking. She claims not to have used torture or lethal methods, but says that Túrion has taken a strong personal dislike to her. I'm a little unclear on whether he threatened to assault her or her organization, but she clearly perceives him as a potential threat.

She seems willing to work with the rest of us, but wants some assurances that we're not going to be a problem, i.e. hurt her or prevent her organization from achieving its goals (chiefly, bettering the lot of non-humans in Iustia, and/or evacuating some to someplace less oppressive to them).

I did get that Silence Dust off right at the very start, which probably helped with assorted other people noticing.

Template for this post

MAP INDEX

Whew. It took nine hours straight to get that all sorted out. Apologies if I missed anything.

It has been five years since we last had an updated index for this thread. And so, I have taken it upon myself to remedy this lack.

I am profoundly grateful to GustavoMalek for having the foresight to record the raw BBcode for these posts. So to pay it forward, here is an updated template for this post.

Many of the links previously marked "Unavailable" have been restored. A few of those were broken due to typos in the URLs. Others I found copies of, either elsewhere on the web or in the WayBack Machine. And a fair number were supplied by later posters in the thread.

NON BATTLEMAP CONTRIBUTIONS INDEX

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Back at the townhome

"Chalk on the lamppost means the townhome isn't safe, pigeons means speak no secrets, and my favorite pie is peach. Got it."

At Turick's

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (9) + 8 = 17

"Yes, my lord. We have several batches of papers, in fact. These came from the Reap base that Khaz and Fyrman raided." She passes over a folder. "They are written in code, but we deciphered it and have included notes on how to read it. The papers contain several pieces of information. First, they detail the drug smuggling ring on the Hill. Next, it seems the Reaps are extremely angry that we recovered much of the contents of the treasury, and are leaning harder on their compromised Council member in order to locate us."

"And finally, they were looking for leverage they might use to blackmail other Council members. They had two leads for that. One was that Duke Beaumont has very quietly been subsidizing a couple of playwrights of strongly nationalist plays. Certainly not blackmail material in and of itself, but the secrecy with which he is doing so piqued their interest. Their other lead had to do with Count Harcourt; and it is a good thing, my lord, that we got to Harcourt first."

She pulls out more papers. "These are the results of Janus' research in the legal archives regarding Harcourt's recent transactions." She passes over a second folder. "And these are a series of documents that I retrieved from a hidden compartment in the bottom left drawer of Lord Harcourt's personal desk." She passes over a third folder.

"I am sure you will want to examine these in detail yourself. But allow me to give you the overview."

"Some time ago, Lord Harcourt purchased several large groves of darkwood trees located in the Bishopric of Helm. He wishes to clear-cut them in order to realize the full profits of his investment immediately. But Helm has laws strictly regulating the harvesting of Darkwood: only a small number of trees may be cut each year, and they must be replanted afterwards."

"He does not want to wait. And so, he embarked on a scheme to arrange for Iustia to annex Helm. Some 90 years ago, Charles II issued a hegemonic decree to annex the Feld Islands due to rampant piracy that Feld had shown itself unable -- or unwilling -- to curb. Harcourt sought to use that precedent to allow for an annexation of Helm."

"Of course, Helm was not being used as a pirate haven. He needed it to be plagued by pirates. And so, he hired some, using one Lord Tyron Alabaster as his agent. In order to transfer the funds, he purchased several properties from Alabaster at vastly inflated prices. Alabaster then took that money and hired Captain Gertrude van Beem, a notorious pirate captain out of the Serpent Isles, to attack vessels in Bishopric waters. Although we have found no direct evidence of this among the papers, I suspect Harcourt and Alabaster may have fed van Beem information about which Iustian vessels carried the most valuable cargoes, so that her depredations would quickly become a genuine crisis, thereby forcing Iustia to act."

"The endgame was meant to be something along the lines of the King calling Council to discuss the issue of piracy in Bishopric waters. Harcourt planned to point out the hegemonic decree of Charles II and suggest it as a model. His Majesty, acting on the advice of his Council, annexes Helm by decree, sending in the army to secure the place, and the navy to scour the seas free of pirates. With Helm absorbed into Iustia, Harcourt would be free to harvest his trees, which Iustian law does not protect. Harcourt seems not to have been troubled overmuch by the cost to Iustia in treasure and lives that would rise from absorbing a neighboring nation against its will."

"We are uncertain how he meant to keep van Beem from blackmailing him. Perhaps he planned simply to continue paying her, accounting it a cost of business, and direct her piracy towards elven shipping instead. Or perhaps he had some agent on her ship with instructions to quietly sink it. Who knows?"

"Unfortunately for Harcourt, his plan failed. According to Count Aral's sources in Helm, some of the Bishop's agents destroyed Gertrude van Beem's ship. They captured her and returned her to Helm, where she was put to the question, tried, convicted, and executed. With his cat's paw dead and the Bishop very likely aware that van Beem was working for Iustian interests, Harcourt's bid to engineer an annexation was dead in the water. Much of his assets are tied up in Helmian darkwood groves or sunk along with the piracy plot. He is likely skating on the edge of financial ruin, and anyone with knowledge of his actions would be in a strong position to blackmail him in order to influence the Council. And once he finds that his personal papers have been stolen -- which he is likely to discover this morning -- he will no doubt become even more desperate than he was before."

"Beyond the papers, we have a lead on an opportunity to quietly abduct Tyron Alabaster from a brothel he is known to frequent. No doubt he would be able to corroborate and fill in details, either under threat of torture or if he were offered a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony."

"And, lastly, I note that there are four council members: yourself, Duke Beaumont, Count Harcourt and Baron Cust. The Reaps have compromised one of the Council. We know it is not you. And we know from the papers recovered from their base that they were interested in Beaumont and Harcourt, but had not yet found material for blackmail on either of them. That suggests that Baron Cust is the Council member who is currently compromised."

Notes: Mel knows van Beem was getting targeting info based on earlier campaign events in Helm, but Melia is merely offering a speculation here because the papers don't document that fact and she doesn't want to tip that we know more about the plot from its other end. Similarly she is attributing her own knowledge of what happened on the Bishopric end to "Count Aral's sources in Helm", neglecting to mention that she and the party are those sources.

Lastly, let it be noted that Mel has not told Turick about leaving that sign potentially implicating Beaumont for the theft of Harcourt's papers.

Ah, the Kazador plan. ^_^

What are we hoping to get get out of Turick? We're just cementing an alliance so we can ask for help later? He has no other interest in taking down the Reaps, right?

As far as I can tell, his interest lies in uncovering corruption on the Iustian council. I don't know that he's invested in destroying the Reaps as an organization, but they are part of that corruption. Which means he has to deal with them.

His motives are less clear. I can think of several reasons why he might want to do what he is doing:

• Political Power: taking down another house would create a power void for his own to fill.
  
• Wealth: perhaps the corruption is interfering with his own private interests; removing it would improve his income.
  
• Personal Animus: perhaps he knows where the corruption lies and hates the person/people behind it on a personal level, but needs evidence to destroy them.
  
• Ethical Considerations: perhaps he is ethically committed to lawfulness, leading him to oppose corruption based on abstract ideals.
  
• Loyalty to King Stephen: They were friends growing up; perhaps he is trying to save his friend from becoming a tool of corrupt elements on the Council.
  

It could be any mixture of those. Or other things I haven't thought of.

We have established a relationship with Viscount Turick, but he doesn't know a great deal about us. We show up out of nowhere, crack a case he's been working on for him, and take down a den of extremely dangerous criminals at his behest.

He has to be wondering, at this point, who we are and what we want. Operatives of this caliber do not appear out of thin air. Who are we working for? One of the other nobles in Iustia? A foreign power?

He is likely willing to use us to advance his goals. But at the same time he's got to learn more about us -- figure out how we fit into the broader picture of events in Iustia. If he fails to do that it could easily come back to bite him later.

That's what he wants from us.

As for what we want from him, I think you and I want different things out of this. Our goals line up, but we're approaching from different angles.

Mel's primary goal is to prevent Iustia from starting a war. In order to do that, she has to figure out what's going on amongst the power players in the kingdom. Who is pushing for war? Why? What liabilities do they have that she could exploit to undermine their efforts?

This whole elaborate scenario of infiltrating the Reaps, stealing their ship and then raiding their compound? She participated in that strictly in order to buy an in with Viscount Turick, who she believes can supply a whole lot of the information she wants, and perhaps serve as a useful ally in shifting the course of Iustia to a less warlike path. She doesn't like the Reaps, and if we happen to take them down along the way, great. But she wouldn't usually go out of her way to pick a fight with them. In this case, they got in the way of her broader goals.

Meanwhile, Hal has a deep personal investment in taking down the Reaps -- partly for vengeance, partly to protect his family. I think you might say of Hal "If we happen to prevent a war in the course of taking down the Reaps, great. But he wouldn't usually go out of his way to meddle in the politics of Iustia."

So I can see why Hal may not be super-enthused about the meeting. But for Mel this is the result of a lot of work. And she hasn't even met the man before!

Having sailed back to Bannerhold with no particular difficulty, assuaged a dubious dockmaster about their invisible crew and paid their docking fees, Melia returns to the terrace on Rider Road, eager to reconnect with the rest of the crew.

She unlocks the door and steps inside. "Hello? Fyrman? Janus? Khaz?" she calls. "We had a lovely time on our brief holiday, I can't wait to tell you all about it."

Presumably with Hal in tow. Also, you can take it as read that Melia briefed Hal fully, start to finish, on the way back.

Today, at long, long last, I finished running Rise of the Runelords.

The actual last fight was over a month ago on April 25th. I wrote up how our Karzoug fight went at the time. Today was the epilogue session, in which we wrapped up longstanding character arcs, and revisited a few favorite NPCs to see how their stories concluded.

There's no particular reason any of you should care, I guess, but just briefly:

Micah Valian Arneseph, half-elf ranger and the only PC to survive from level 1 to the end of the campaign, married his sweetheart Eri Valion at a fancy ceremony in Magnimar attended by all their friends (including Vernalia, a wyrmling copper dragon who did aerial cartwheels over the wedding party after the vows were exchanged).

Zoe the android wizard reconnected with a former colleague, Kane of the Technic League, and returned to Xin-Shalast to conduct research on the now-ruined Leng Device.

Wren Silver-Hand, the party bard, saved her family's tavern from being sold to pay off her father's gambling debts, and founded a bardic college of her own in a forest preserve outside Magnimar's walls.

Skrag, the half-orc blood rager and cub reporter for the Urgir Herald, used his newfound wealth to buy full ownership of the paper just so he could re-assign himself from covering gossip in the human lands. Now he has returned home to Urgir, defeated his rivals in both the streets and the sheets, and become a prominent local newspaper magnate.

Ronia, a cohort cleric of Ng, having managed to purge herself of her changeling ancestry and become a full human, is taking a long vacation to Aelyosos. She anticipates lots of swimming, tanning, and pool boys.

According to my email Sent folder, I emailed links to the Rise of the Runelords player's guide to the group on May 20th, 2012. And now, nine years later (almost to the day!), we are finally, finally done.

I went looking for Tintagel's maps of The Misgivings recently and discovered that the site is off line. However, they're still available through the Wayback Machine on archive.org.

The Misgivings, ground floor with environs by Tintagel
The Misgivings, ground floor house only by Tintagel
The Misgivings, Upper Floor by Tintagel
The Misgivings, Attic by Tintagel
The Misgivings, Basement
The Misgivings, Caverns

In related news, the Reddit user didido_two just posted maps of the Misgivings made in Inkarnate.

I think I'm done working on the defense flow charts. I just don't want to futz with them any more.

However, here are the original, editable documents!

Karzoug's Defenses Flow Chart (Draw.io XML)

Viorian Dekanti's Defenses Flow Chart (Draw.io XML)

I think releasing these is the way to go, so people can tweak them to taste. That's particularly important for Karzoug, because he's likely to get customized more than Viorian. For example, per the book he's got Spell Turning available. I didn't include it in the diagram, because dear god that would get complicated. But if somebody wants to, now they can.

These were created using Draw.io, an online app for creating diagrams. You can just run it in your web browser, or there's a desktop app available if you prefer. In the web-browser-based version, you can go to File > Open From > URL and feed it the URLs above to open a new copy of the diagram. With the desktop version you'll have to download the file like any other and open it. When you're done just save your own copy somewhere -- either to your computer or to a cloud service.

It's pretty straightforward to use. You can drag things around, draw new lines, etc. Go ahead and play with it -- if you mess up you can always load a fresh copy from the URLs above.

I'm running the fight against Karzoug tomorrow. One thing that makes high-level play difficult to run is that there's just so damn much to keep track of. In particular, I struggle to remember all the defenses of the monsters.

And so, for Karzoug -- and a little earlier, for Viorian Dekanti -- I took the time to put together flow charts for their defenses. Just so I would not forget anything. Here they are:

Karzoug's Defenses Flow Chart (PDF)

Viorian Dekanti's Defenses Flow Chart (PDF)

To use these begin at the top left box for physical attacks, or at the top-right box when the creature is targeted by (or in the AoE for) a spell. After that it should, I hope, be mostly self-explanatory.

One thing worth noting, is that when dealing with miss chances, I tend to resolve those by having the player roll a d20 instead of percentile dice. In Viorian's flow chart, I have therefore made notes on resolving her 20% miss chance that way. If the PC rolls 1-4 on a d20, the attack misses. On a 5 or higher they have beaten the miss chance and can proceed.

I find this is generally easier than reading percentile dice. And since we don't actually need the specificity of the full percentile -- a 17 and a 15 are both misses in this case -- we gain nothing from using them.

The flow charts were made in Draw.io a very handy web site (also available as a desktop app) for making flow charts.

There have been a number of different spell search utilities released recently. Here is one more that I've been tinkering on for several years:

Pathfinder Spell Facets

The idea here was to use faceted classification to let you drill down to a subset of spells relevant to your interests. Are you playing an Eldritch Knight and desperately want a comprehensive list of Wizard spells that lack somatic components? Hit the plus button next to Wizard, and the minus button next to Somatic, then click the Search button. And boom, there you go: all the wizard spells that have no chance of arcane spell failure.

Or perhaps your wizard has taken the arcane discovery Yuelral's Blessing, which grants +1 CL and +1 save DC to spells that appear on both the Wizard and Druid spell lists. Use the plus buttons to require both Wizard and Druid, then hit search. Tada!

Occasionally you will see spells appear more than once in results. This is usually because it exists in multiple sources with slight variations. For example, the spell Brightest Light was printed twice, once in the Adventurer's Guide and once in Inner Sea Intrigue, and the two (AG version, ISI version) are not identical.

It should work tolerably well on mobile, though I only have one phone to test it with. It is not compatible with Internet Explorer. If you are still using Internet Explorer, I urge you to move on to some other browser. It's time to let it go.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work of Tyler Beck from PathfinderCommunity.net, whose painstaking work building a spreadsheet of all Pathfinder spells provided the raw data that made this possible. And also to Paizo, for making their work available under the Paizo Community License for this kind of thing.

So a while ago -- 2014, I think? -- I had just made a wizard who had the arcane discovery Yuelral's Blessing, which gives you +1 CL and +1 save DC on spells that appear on both the wizard and druid spell lists.

Great! ... but how do I figure out what spells are on both the wizard and druid spell lists?

Rather than cross-referencing them manually, I located a spreadsheet full of spell data and sank a ton of time into writing a little web site that would make answering that kind of question trivial.

I tinkered at it a bit here and there for years. Occasionally I've shown a few friends, but it was just running on a little server under my desk and not really ready for prime time.

But at our illustrious GM's urging, I have finally put the finishing touches on it! I give you: Pathfinder Spell Facets.

The idea here was to use faceted classification to let you drill down to a subset of spells relevant to your interests. Are you playing an Eldritch Knight and desperately want a comprehensive list of Wizard spells that lack somatic components? Hit the "require" button next to "Wizard", and the "Forbid" button next to "Somatic", hit the Search button and boom, there you go.

This is a soft launch for this group because I want to get a little feedback before posting it in the main Paizo forums and the Pathfinder subreddit. Please take a moment to try it out and let me know what you think.

I invested some time in making it work on mobile devices, but I have a limited number of those to test on (i.e. one) so it may be flaky on some mobile browsers.

I also went ahead and used the CSS grid specifications for layout, including the grid-template-area and grid-area properties, which are not universally supported. As a result it will fail badly on Internet Explorer. And I do not care. If you happen to be one of the ten people who still use Internet Explorer, I urge you to move on to something else, because it is irredeemable.

Double posting on an unrelated note.

I think I've figured out the three challenges in Aeschildr's closet. We only have two weeks left before the next live session, so I don't want to drag this out too much. Therefore they're pretty simple.

The challenges were actually designed for her by three former adventuring companions: Ilvani, an elven ranger; Rhodos, a human fighter; and Hyram, a human cleric. She extracted her own memories of what they were after finishing the construction, stored them in a gem and cast it into the Astral Sea to float forever.

Ilvani's challenge is: archery. She left her key inside a modified, permanent force cage, attached to a target. The force cage is suspended a couple feet off the ground, and the target hovers in the middle. A bow and a plentiful supply of arrows were left outside.

When you hit the target, it knocks the key off, it falls down to the bottom, where it either falls out or is close enough that you can fish it out with your fingers. Teleportation, telekinesis, and all that sort of thing have been shut down since she can't cast spells. But even if you're not proficient with a bow, eventually you'll roll a nat 20.

Ilvani left a note tied to the key. It says: "If you must. But no sooner."

Rhodos, the fighter, really did not want Aeschildr to get that key. So his challenge is a bear. No literally, it's a bear. A big one, with the key tied around its neck. It too has a note attached. It says, simply: "My love ... don't."

The final challenge, from Hyram, is not really a challenge at all. At the base of the mountain lies a marble cliff, which has been smoothed to a high polish. A peg has been driven into it, and the key hangs there. Above it the following words have been carved into the stone: "I trust your judgement. You would not be here if you were not sure. I shall see you soon, my friend."

Aeschildr is going to accompany him in. She hasn't said anything, and the player doesn't know what's going on, but she's decided the time has come. She's going to send him back, and then she's going to put her house in order and go see one last sunrise.

Never mind, I think I worked it out. The "closet" was explicitly designed to hold her collection of planar tuning forks.

Behind the doors lies a demiplane with a variant null magic trait. Spells cannot be cast within it; however, spells that were cast before entering remain active. Spell effects with a duration count down at double speed, while permanent effects (including magic items, etc) remain active.

It is a broad, circular plane, with a great mountain at the center, cloaked all about with forests clinging to its rocky shoulders. The tuning forks lie at the peak of the mountain, within a chest of iron, locked with three platinum locks.

The keys are held by three guardians scattered about the area. I haven't worked out the guardians yet, but they're going to be things that are difficult for a witch to face without her magic.

Why this elaborate closet to protect some tuning forks?

Aeschildr retired to the Astral Sea when she grew old, so as not to age any further. It has the timeless trait. Her body does not age.

But for all that, age continues to accrue. And she knew, one day, she might decide she was ready to go. Back to a plane in the flow of time, to see a real sun again ... if only for a moment, before her time debt caught up to her ...

And so she locked away her tuning forks, all of those that go to planes within the flow of time; and hid them in this place she designed to be hostile to her own skills.

So that if that day came, she would not be able to reach them easily.

So that when that day came, she would have to be sure that she was ready to seek her own death.

And that is why Aeschildr's closet is full of complications.

Now I just need to pick out three challenges that would be difficult but not impossible for a high level witch to accomplish with little or no magic.

This past summer, Spotify introduced a "Group Session" feature that lets multiple people with Spotify Premium accounts listen to the same music at the same time. That would be *great* for playing background music during remote RPG sessions.

Unfortunately, it only works on the mobile app, not the desktop client, which is far more useful for remote RPG-playing purposes. There's a suggestion in their "Idea Exchange" to implement it for the desktop version, but the Spotify team apparently won't consider it until it hits 500 votes. As I write this, it's sitting at 134.

So ... if you have a Spotify account, please take a moment and vote to bring Group Sessions to the Spotify desktop client! It will make our gaming sessions better.

I have just finished a new map of the Sihedron Temple from book 6. Here it is:

Sihedron Temple, with grid

Sihedron Temple, gridless

The scale is 100px to the five-foot square, which should work tolerably well for VTT, and print nicely at 100 DPI.

This area is not really detailed in the adventure beyond a couple brief paragraphs. If my players choose to venture there -- which seems likely to happen tomorrow, actually -- they will encounter the Immortal Ichor of Lissala and some yet-to-be-determined minions.

Made in Photoshop with textures from textures.com, a few assets from dundjinni.com, and vector images I made in Inkscape for use as masks.

This Pack Empathy spell is great! I get to subject everyone to Mel's emotional states. >:-D

Ah ha! You are absolutely correct.

Thank you, Rysky. My curiousity has been satisfied.

I am amused that taking a whiz on somebody's house is the equivalent of "stooping to anything to achieve his goals."

I find this all highly amusing.

In other news, did you hear? Middle Earth Temporarily Bans Fellowships of More Than Five.

Here is a small adjustment that GMs could make to Tyrant's Grasp in order to offer PCs a more compelling reason for the final suicide mission.

Arazni is a lich; and she was obliterated by the Radiant Fire. Twice, in fact. The first time she re-formed. The second time is unclear. Certainly she hoped to die a true death, but the adventure leaves it open as to whether or not she succeeded.

When she prepared her spells for that final battle against the Whispering Tyrant, Arazni abandoned her protections against divination. It was at that point too late for her graveknight jailors to stand any chance of stopping her; and she would need every spell slot for the fight to come.

Thus, when she went to face the Tyrant, she did so knowing that anyone at all might watch her doing it. Perhaps she even voluntarily failed her Will saves against scrying effects. Let them watch! Let them see that for all their posturing, she was the one taking the fight to the Whispering Tyrant! She was truer to her vows than all those fools who spent these last millennia condemning her for things that were never her choice!

And so, when the Tyrant invoked the Radiant Fire and wiped Arazni away, one of Lastwall's strongest diviners saw it happen. They saw the faint smile of hope cross her face before the white energy washed over her. They saw her dissolve away.

The diviner was struck by a thought: "I am watching the dissolution of a lich. Her phylactery must surely be performing its perverted task at this very instant. But that weapon ... it's so powerful ... I wonder if ..."

And so, in that moment, they cast: Discern Location targeting Arazni's phylactery.

And it worked.

No one has ever been able to find Arazni's phylactery. Arazni herself doesn't know where it is, despite being one of the most powerful wizards in the history of Golarion, and having it bound intimately to her very soul. But the concentrated burst of positive energy resonated along the magic threads binding her tattered soul to her phylactery, and the sheer power of it momentarily disrupted the protections that have for so long shielded it from detection.

The diviner noted down this startling information immediately. When he tried it again, less than a minute later, the spell failed, as it always had before. Perhaps the phylactery was destroyed. Perhaps its protective wards reasserted themselves. Regardless, what that diviner learned was that when the Radiant Fire strikes a lich, it can reveal the location of its phylactery -- even one hidden by extremely powerful magics.

This did not seem terribly important. Arazni was gone from the battlefield. The location of her phylactery -- while certainly of great interest -- seemed moot. And the diviner couldn't really think of a good way to induce the Whispering Tyrant to vaporize himself with the Radiant Fire. Surely he would simply teleport away via a contingency, as he did when destroying Arazni.

But then the PCs return, with the obols gleaming in their hearts, and the assurance that the feedback will turn the Radiant Fire's power back on the Tyrant regardless of whether he has teleported away or not. And suddenly it becomes very relevant indeed ...

That is what the PCs are buying with their souls: information. The location of the Tyrant's phylactery. The hope that some day, someone might be able to destroy it and finally put an end to the vile lich who has warped millennia of Golarion's history.

Now, I don't know a lot about 2e lore so far, but I gather it presumes that the Whispering Tyrant is still around. If continuity with 2e world lore is important to you, then you can't just assume that all the armies in the world converge on the phylactery's location following the PCs' heroic sacrifice. There has to be a reason that can't happen.

Naturally any GM can invent reasons for this; I think, in my case, the reason that it's impossible for people to just go there and destroy it is that it's not on Golarion at all.

It's on Eox, buried deep in the heart of an airless mountain guarded by a ton of powerful constructs and warded by about a thousand layers of spells, including some unique ones of the Tyrant's own devising. When he reforms there, he has to prepare Interplanetary Teleport to get back to Golarion. He thought many times about destroying himself in Gallowspire just to get out, but wasn't sure whether the wards his enemies put in place would trap his soul there and leave him disembodied forever. If he tried it and it failed, what would that do to his connection with his phylactery? Would it even still work? He opted not to find out.

Once they know the location of the phylactery, the leaders of Golarion may not immediately launch an expedition to go deal with it, especially if the Tyrant goes and sulks on his island, as per the default outcome of the AP. A failed attempt on his phylactery would instantly alert the Tyrant that his secret got out somehow, after which he can just relocate the phylactery. He can put up more wards to conceal its location, and this time there's no more Radiant Fire, so their trick for finding out its location won't work again. They get one shot at it, and so they're not going to commit until they've done everything they possibly can to prepare. In the meantime, the Tyrant can continue doing whatever he does in 2e lore, and all is well.

So there you go. This little scenario gives you:

• A better reason for the PCs to sacrifice themselves.
  
• A hook for a high-level campaign to destroy the Tyrant's phylactery.
  
• Plausible continuity with 2e world lore.
  

And it requires minimal adjustment to the AP as written -- basically, the addition of one high-level diviner NPC to cast Discern Location and later brief the PCs on just why it is that they're laying down their souls.

I hope this helps future GMs.

I have long thought of this as the "too many cooks in the kitchen" phenomenon. Although they have gotten much better at managing it over the years, having as many as six authors working simultaneously on different parts of the adventure frequently leads to some jarring shifts in tone, awkward transitions, or occasionally continuity errors. I believe that the OP is correct in their assertion that such things are an inherent weakness of this production process. They can, and have, done a great deal to minimize it, but there's just no way to eliminate it altogether.

That said, I would point out that the same process also offers some major strengths. For one thing, a single author necessarily thinks in just one way. Having multiple authors adds variety, and makes it more difficult for players to anticipate the plot overmuch. Also, it is invaluable to have other people to bounce ideas off as you are in the process of developing an adventure.

There are other ways to produce adventures. The necessity of producing fresh content every month without fail or delay is a major factor in producing adventures in the way that they do. With a less driven time frame, you could produce an adventure using a process in which development takes a year or more and the entire thing drops all at once as a finished book-length campaign. That would likely make it easier to smooth out the transitions and make for consistent tone and so on. But it would also be risky. If you sink a year into developing a full-length hardback adventure and it sells poorly, well ... that could be a serious problem for the business. To make that model work, the stakes on any one product are a lot higher. You have to be Pixar, not Vogue.

So Paizo has good reasons for using the process that they do. It offers them a more predictable revenue stream. It shields them, to some extent, from mis-steps: if one month's adventure is poorly received, well, there's always next month. For those reasons, it's baked into the core of Paizo's business model. At its heart, Paizo is still publishing a monthly magazine. Just as they were when they published Dungeon Magazine all those years ago.

fOR MY PART, THE wARPRIEST LEVEL IS oH GODS MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS ON.

Better?

Better. Let's try that again.

For my part, the Warpriest level is a single-level dip, partly for story, partly to boost Mel's saves (which were woefully inadequate before).

After this it's straight back to Rogue.

Oh, and I've decided what to do about my rogue talents.

The Bullseye Shot that I've never used is staying, because it feels weird and meta-gamish to retrain it. (I've never been a big fan of retraining.)

And as for the other talent, the Weapon Focus (longbow) that has been made redundant, I have decided to leave it unallocated for this level and gain no benefit from it. There is a talent I want to take in its place, but I haven't laid enough groundwork for taking it yet. So I'll just leave it hanging loose for now, and next time we level up I'll take that talent.

EDIT: I've updated the stat lines for all of Mel's aliases. Her full statblock is available in the Melira Elenariel alias, and all of them are linked to one another.

There's a brawler in my CotCT campaign who used saps from about level 3 to level 7, and he killed so many people with non-lethal damage that eventually we started asking him to just punch them instead, on the grounds that there was a better chance we'd get a prisoner out of it.

He once punched a gazebo to death in one full attack. Ditto for that weird elephant statue construct thing.

These days his schtick is punching through superior masonry walls in one or two rounds and yelling "Ohhhhhhh, yeahhhhh!" As he emerges on the other side.

So after the PCs defeat the Hidden Beast, a day or so later their new skulk friends find a hidden shrine and give them a Bag 'o Loot.™

My PCs just defeated the Hidden Beast, and I've decided on a mild twist: the shrine was deliberately hidden by Mesmina, the prophetess who foretold the PCs' coming. She knew that it would be rediscovered when the time came, and so she left a letter for each PC. The letters will contain cryptic hints/warnings about things in Xin-Shalast.

Except for one: our ranger, Micah, is about as shallow as you can possibly get. He has basically decided that everyone in the entire world who's taller than about 6' 5" deserves to die. He has Favored Enemy: Giant, and just cannot get it through his head that some of them are rather nice if you can refrain from eviscerating them. He's firmly in the "kill them all and let Pharasma sort them out" camp, and flirting with an evil alignment as a result.

So his letter is going to be: "To Micah Valian Arneseph: the true measure of a person is not whether they are tall or short, but whether they are small-minded. Be a bigger man. -- Mesmina"

Hi, player here. My party just reached Castle Scarwall, and my GM has expressed a heartfelt wish for some kind of prop he can use to point out features rather than trying to describe it all. He struggles with description, which has at times in the past has led to some miscommunications and frustration when the players fail to understand the scene.

Some quick googling revealed a YouTube video of a Castle Scarwall model from 2013, probably done in Sketchup. That's already very helpful and we will be using it, but I'm hoping to find the 3D model file itself so that I can print out a copy on a 3D printer (small; say, about 5 inches side-to-side). The creator shared a dropbox link to the model in the comments on the video, but it's long dead.

Does anyone have a copy of that model kicking around? If so, would you mind sharing it with us?

For a while I've been trying to figure out: how is Karzoug feeding his army of giants? It's been established that it's really hard to get to Xin-Shalast, even by magic, and there's not exactly a lot of arable land, and giants obviously have to eat a lot because they're big. Plus it's cold so they burn a lot of calories just staying warm.

I thought about maybe putting goodberry bushes in the Snarl, or introducing a bunch of giant druids whose job is just to cast goodberry over and over.

I thought about giving them lots of sustaining spoons.

But what I finally settled on was: they're having their food shipped in by Denizens of Leng, who are of course famed as traders (and slavers). When the Rune Giants go out to collect new tribes of giants, they also kidnap any humans/elves/etc that they find, and trade them to the Denizens of Leng in exchange for vast shipments of curious fruits and unsettling meats, all procured in the distant dreamlands and brought to Xin-Shalast in the holds of the black ships sailing the dream-oceans that touch every mortal shore.

This gives me a way to introduce new PCs in the event of permadeath -- they were captured and brought to Xin-Shalast to be traded to the Denizens of Leng.

Mel pulls out her journal and jots down notes on the information Count Aral has given them thus far. She taps the pen against her lips, thinking. "I have a theory," she says, then stops with a wry smile. "Or rather, let's say a hypothesis, because my track record on theories is not great. In any case: Baron Cust is an arms dealer who recently came into a lot of money. That suggests a large sale of arms. To whom? And for what purpose?"

"Meanwhile, Count Harcourt is a shipping magnate who does a lot of business with the Bishopric, and for some reason he is pushing very hard for seizing control of the Bishopric. Could he have sent those weapons somewhere? The Bishopric, perhaps?"

"And Duke Beaumont apparently has excellent intelligence on happenings in the Concordat, and is a masterful politician."

"Here's my hypothesis: Duke Beaumont got word of the Concordat operations that were intended to let them move troops into the Bishopric. He decided to turn those plans against them. He found some agents in the Bishopric, and arranged for a large shipment of weapons and supplies to them: enough to arm a rebellion. Cust supplied the weapons, making a tidy profit in the process. Harcourt shipped them. Once the Concordat made their move, Beaumont's agents would assassinate the Bishop and blame the Concordat for it. Then they would reveal that the Concordat was responsible for the raids they were ostensibly saving the Bishopric from, and use the tide of anger from the citizens to raise a rebellion against the elven invaders, arming them with the weapons."

"Even with good weapons, a rebellion of farmers and craftsmen against crack elven troops would most likely fail. But that's the point: as the elves advanced on Helm, lo! The noble forces of Iustia land and charge to the rescue of their fellows in the Bishopric. The war has been kicked off. The Bishopric forces have whittled down the elven opposition a bit, and the Bishopric citizens most likely to resist Iustian rule die in the process. At that point, integrating the Bishopric into Iustia would be comparatively easy; at best, Helm might voluntarily ask to join the kingdom, which is ever so much tidier than conquest. None of it happened on Iustian soil, and now Iustia has a lovely staging area from which to press the attack on the Concordat. Iustia comes out of it looking like heroes, with some new lands added to the kingdom as a bonus."

Mel looks like she wants to spit, but out of deference to the Count's lovely furnishings, opts to content herself with a grimace.

"But it didn't work out that way -- because Brookside didn't fall, and the elven forces never moved in. Now there's a pile of weapons sitting somewhere in the Bishopric, and a bunch of agents who lack a convenient bogeyman to rebel against. Beaumont is fine -- it sounds as though he made sure to work through cutouts, making it hard to trace any blame back to him. Baron Cust is doing fine; all he did was sell some weapons, and didn't ask too many questions about where they were going or for whom. He's got a pile of shiny new coins, and has not even done anything illegal."

"But Count Harcourt -- he's in trouble. If it becomes known that he shipped a bunch of weapons to the Bishopric under false documents, the Bishopric would immediately ban him from conducting business there, and probably seize all his business assets. He stands to lose a lot. He could be ruined. So he's pushing for some other way to get the Bishopric into Iustia. If he can make that happen, then all that goes away. I wonder if he funded Tyron Alabaster's piracy ploy?"

"This is all conjecture," Mel finishes. "It fits the facts as we know them, but that doesn't mean it's right. And it doesn't account for everything. Viscount Turick is definitely the odd one out. It's puzzling that he would advocate for an alliance with people he is known to hate, and I am at a loss to explain how that would fit with the scenario I've laid out."

"But we could start addressing it by finding out the answers to some questions."

"First: Where did Baron Cust's influx of wealth come from? There must be people who know this. His bank might have records with information, for example. Warehouse workers who moved crates around, if it was indeed an arms sale. For that matter, the craftsmen who made the weapons would know what they've been making lately. We might be able to gather a fair bit of information indirectly."

"Second: What trouble is Count Harcourt in that makes him so eager to absorb the Bishopric? It's a pity Brolin chose to remain in Helm, he knows Bishopric shipping in and out. He might be able to point us in a useful direction. I would love to be able to ask him -- or one of our other contacts in Helm," she says, delicately referring to the Bishop without naming him. "Túrion, are you capable of sending a message that far? If Harcourt's business in the Bishopric is in trouble, we can probably find out things from that end."

"Third: How does Duke Beaumont get his intelligence on the Concordat? This one is more difficult; whatever or whoever it is that's getting this information to him, I've no doubt that that secret is closely guarded."

"Fourth: what is Viscount Turick playing at? In that case, I suspect we have an in -- we have an actual Avinoan with us. Perhaps Túrion and I could present ourselves to him as a highly unofficial delegation from Avinoax, and indicate that we wish to explore the idea of an Avinoax-Iustia alliance. Kazador and Fyrtor can be presented as local bodyguards we hired. It's risky, but we might be able to get him to just tell us what he's up to."

In the sitting room, Mel admires the gracious appointments.

When Fyrtor hesitates over her name, she smiles and says "Mel Elden; lately of Brookside, in the Bishopric of Helm."

Once Fyrtor has said his piece, she nods and says "That is correct. We believe that both the Concordat and Iustia have undertaken covert operations designed to give each of them a plausible cover for invading the Bishopric of Helm. Each sees it as an opening move in a larger campaign between the Concordat and Iustia."

Reaching into her haversack, she pulls out the receipt they had been given for the capture of Gertrude van Beem, and extends it towards the old Count.

"You may find this of interest, sir," she says. "It is a receipt for the bounty we received upon capturing Gertrude van Beem, captain of the Serpent's Serendipity, a notorious pirate. Over the past few months, she engaged in a series of attacks on Bishopric shipping, unerringly targeted at ships bearing sensitive or confidential cargoes. Her targets were chosen based on information provided to her by the Hand of the Reaper, a criminal organization which gathered intelligence for her."

"It was an elaborate operation, unusually well-executed for a mere pirate. Under questioning, van Beem confessed that she was not operating independently in this matter: she was hired by one Tyron Alabaster, a noble of Iustia. Her attacks on Bishopric shipping were intended to give Iustia an excuse to sweep into the Bishopric and 'rescue' it from her depredations."

She smiles grimly. "Meanwhile, the Concordat has been engaged in an almost identical scheme. Their version involved provoking tribes of orcs and goblins to attack the southern reaches of the Bishopric, so that benevolent elven forces could march into the country to 'save' it from these terrible aggressors. The first bunch of orcs hit Brookside, a small village in the south western reaches of the Bishopric -- where they were repelled thanks to the courage of the villagers, some timely reinforcements from Astin, and a great deal of luck."

"But not without cost." She drops her gaze to the floor for a moment. She thinks of Noln and his son dying in the darkened streets outside their own home; of Jonathan Golightly, who didn't deserve the arrow that took him; of Allen Dorner. She has a sudden, vivid memory of Perrin turning away in shame from Alice Dorner's weeping face as she buried the father Perrin failed to save despite his promises.

She returns her gaze to the Count. "I fought in that battle," she says. "And in others since. Good people died there. Between them, Iustia and the Concordat could make of this continent an altar on which to pile up such sacrifices: to greed; to hubris; to ambition."

"I want to put a stop to that war; before it even begins. My friends here want the same." She waves a hand broadly to indicate the group.

"Can you help us?"

She holds his gaze.

Step 2.

Kn (Local): 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (20) + 15 = 35

There you go, Fyrtor. ^_^

EDIT: Man, I got ninja'd twice while I was composing this. XD.

Step 3.

Mel looks around with curiosity at the dwarven clanhold as they walk through it. The hallways run straight and clean through the stone, laid out in an orderly fashion. Every surface is decorated with elaborate carvings depicting dwarves at work, in battle, at home; a few, Mel recognizes as scenes from dwarven folk tales.

While Kazador speaks, Mel drifts a bit to the side, studying one panel showing a dwarven woman hand-in-hand with a human man. Crowns adorn the heads of the stiff, formal figures. Beneath their feet, carven labels identify them as Brean Stonespinner, Queen Under Stone, and Henrik Lengacre, King Over Stone. Crowds of people stand behind them, humans and dwarves all mixed in together.

Poor Kazador, she thinks. Poor Algric. Their home is gone. And though these are their people, Revan and Kazad Gravr had very different histories. I hope Algric can find a place here, despite its differences.

She extends a hand and gently brushes her fingertips against the cold, rocky surface of Brean Stonespinner's shoulder.

I hope I can find a place again, too.

Done! Finally.

In the last few days I re-read the entire campaign from beginning to end, and brought the Brookside NPCs spreadsheet up to date. It now lists every named NPC, giving their first and last names, gender, race, class, and notes on who they are. Unknown values are left blank, though in many cases I made an educated guess on things like race and gender.

It's split into a whole bunch of different sheets: one for each major location (Brookside, Astin, Helm, The Sonder, The Serpent Isles, Kazad Gravr, and Bannerhold) plus one for PCs, the original Brookside NPCs sheet, and one for Miscellaneous NPCs.

The Miscellaneous NPCs didn't fit elsewhere. Some are only mentioned and have not appeared "on screen", such as Lady Janvier Otranto, the Iustian noble who did the cartography for Mel's Geography of the World. Some are not strongly associated with a single place, such as the orcs who came from Kazad Gravr to Helm with us. Others are associated with PC backstories, such as Brolin's spirits or Túrion's dryad friend Balanos.

There's also a sheet (the first one) called "Index of NPCs" which lists everyone from all locations (except the original Brookside notes, which don't follow the same format as all the other sheets). It's automatically updated. If you make a change in one of the other sheets, the Index will be updated to reflect that. Currently it's sorted alphabetically by last name. If you change the sort, it has a tendency to add a bunch of empty rows at the top for some reason; it's safe to delete those.

I omitted "Duke Alton", Fyrtor's mistaken reference to Count Aral.

Do we know if "Aral" is the Count's first or last name?

Lastly, I noticed that when Kelian asked after his father and the Bishop scryed on Vors, the Bishop said that Vors was raising a barn with a couple of his dwarven friends. Kelian then sighed in relief and identified the dwarves as probably Hirda and Noln. This cannot be correct: Kelian would know that Hirda never returned to Brookside following our capture of Elrin Weh: she went into the hills to live alone (or possibly commit suicide, that was left ambiguous). And Noln died in the Battle of Brookside. So presumably they're two other dwarves, perhaps Hirda's nameless daughter-in-law (now widowed) and grandchild.

Anyway, this has been a ton of work, but we really, really needed it. The first gameplay post dates to December 20th 2017, so we're coming up on its two year anniversary. In that time, we've invented quite a lot of imaginary people to keep track of! Specifically, 180 as of this writing.

I think I got everyone, but it's possible I missed someone. If you can't find an NPC you know exists, please feel free to add them. Also feel free to update entries as we go along. Having good notes on who's who will make life easier for everyone, particularly now that we're headed for a more intrigue-like campaign where relationships between NPCs may be very important.

Mel purses her lips. "Whew! That's a lot of gold just to avoid some scrubbing. Maybe when I unexpectedly inherit a vast fortune from an uncle I never knew I had, hey? Anyway, now that you two know where to find Pippi, I'll leave you to it. I've got some other errands to run." Mel nods at everyone, and steps out the door.

The streets of Helm: cobbled, spacious, and full of people. Mel makes her way through the area, stopping briefly at the potion shop run by Whisken de la Monega. "Your potions stood me in good stead, lately," she tells him. "Especially that one that lets you see in the dark for a few hours. Can't say I'm especially fond of the flavor, but there's no arguing with results!" She purchases another of those, plus one that wards off malign influences, and loads both of the tiny bottles into her wrist sheathes before even leaving the store.

Her next stop is The Bravest Soul. The sign is unchanged; Mel pushes the door open and steps inside to find Laine Windfall sitting in front of a piece of tough leather lain flat across the wood counter. A variety of tools lie neatly lined up beside it, and Laine has many small pieces of metal spread across the scored surface of the leather. The tapping of her hammer echoes slightly as she puts rivets in place and checks her work.

"Hello," Mel says.

Laine looks up, a smile crossing her blunt, square face. "Oh! My pardon for not noticing you there. I was caught up in my work," she says.

Mel looks curiously at the items on the table. "What are you making?" she asks.

"Gauntlet," Laine says. "The joints take careful work. Many small pieces, and they all have to articulate perfectly, or it could bind up." She picks up the half-finished gauntlet and puts it on one hand, demonstrating how the tiny plates of metal smoothly slide past one another. "I remember you," Laine adds as she takes the gauntlet off again. "Sold you some leathers, what, a month ago or so?"

"That's right," Mel says. "And they served me well."

"But you're not wearing them now, I see," Laine observes.

Mel shakes her head. "No. I ... had another altercation with orcs, and one of them had this." She shrugs out of her chain shirt and hands it over. "I don't think it's originially orcish work. It's not much like the last one I got from them."

Laine inspects. "Indeed not," Laine agrees, inspecting the links. "My, this is fine work! Mithral, and ..." she pulls the chain up close to her eye for inspection. "... every link's been welded shut. Makes for excellent mail, but it takes a damned long time. That's elven work, or I'll eat my hammer. Nobody else has the time -- except maybe the dwarves. But if it were dwarven work the shirt would be much broader across the shoulders."

"I thought so," Mel says. "Anyway, it's clearly also been enchanted, and although the leathers you made are excellent, I thought this might offer just a bit more protection."

"You're right at that," Laine acknowledges without rancor. She sets it down again. "So, have you come to sell back the leathers, then? We'll buy 'em, provided they're in good condition, but don't imagine you'll get a full refund just because came across a nicer set a couple weeks later."

Mel shakes her head. "No, actually," she says. "I plan to keep those. Partly to have a spare set, just in case; but really it's ... well ... here's my very first set of armor. See?" She reaches into her haversack and extracts a somewhat battered lamellar cuirass. "I bought it just for the journey to Brookside, in case of bandits. And then it stood me in good stead there, when the orcs came. Selling it would feel ... disloyal. So I kept it. And the same with your leathers. Perhaps I'll need them again some day; or perhaps I'll find someone else who needs them. Maybe it's foolish of me, but ..."

Laine smiles broadly. "Nah, I can see it," she says. "You take care of the armor because it took care of you. So what if it's just a bunch of leather and metal? It's kept your back like a friend, for all that."

"Exactly!" Mel says.

"So what brings you here, then?" Laine asks as Mel puts the cuirass away once again.

"I've two jobs for you," Mel says. "First, I want you to enchant this chain shirt further. Specifically, I was wondering if you could make it do what this cloak does." She lays out the Cloak of Elvenkind on the counter. "It tugs the shadows closer for me ... makes it easier to slip by unseen."

Laine frowns. "You're not one of them Reaps, are you? We don't hold with that."

Mel laughs. "Nothing like that, I assure you," she says. "In fact, I'm pretty sure the Reaps would be happy to see me dead. We've tangled a couple of times. No, I just ... I'd rather avoid battle, if I can. General Tullian wrote that the best fight is the one you win without fighting. And if it does come to a fight, I'd rather that I saw them coming before they saw me."

Laine relaxes. "A fair answer. Yes, I think I can arrange that." They dicker over prices, settling on 3,750. Mel hands over the armor and the money. "Good then," Laine says. "Now, what's this other job?"

"More leathers; but not for me. Hold on, let me get them out." She extracts Nelly's barding from her haversack.

"What on earth?" Laine says, as the leather piles up further and further on the counter. "Barding, but ... there's no horse in the world that these would fit."

"Not a horse at all. One of my travelling companions has a rather large wolf. She's very attached to him; and more intelligent than most wolves, I think. In any case, he outfitted her with this barding, and wants it enhanced to protect her better." She has a sudden, vivid memory of Túrion burning as he perished in the Magister's fire. "Though honestly he could do with some protection himself. But armor isn't really his thing."

"Well! A wolf, you say?" Laine shakes her head in bemusement. "That's a new one. But sure, armor is armor. I can make this tougher -- lay threads of magic through the construction to let it absorb blows better. Should be the same as working on any piece of armor."

They settle on a price, and Mel passes over the coin that Túrion gave her for the purpose.

"All right then, this may take a bit," Laine says. "I'd guess four days for each of the two projects. So eight overall. I'll do yours first -- I want some time to study this barding before I start working on it. You're lucky, I'm between big projects at the moment."

"I hope I'm not slowing down your gauntlet," Mel says.

"Nah. Don't worry about that -- that's not a paid job anyway. Da told me to make a pair because he's not satisfied that I've really mastered the technique yet. I think he's just being persnickety at this point; but hey, practice never hurts."

"How is your father?" Mel asks. "He was working the counter when I last came."

"Healthy as a horse," Laine says. "He's visiting my sister today -- she's just had her third child, and everyone's gone gaga over the tike."

"Well!" Mel exclaims. "Congratulations to her. And please tell Master Windfall I said hello."

"Aye, I'll do that," Laine says.

They chat a bit more, and then wrap it up. Mel takes a moment to duck into a fitting room and don her leathers before leaving.

Her eye falls on the fat fox on the interior of the door as she leaves. The painted eyes seem to glitter at her. "Not today, Mr. Fox," Mel mutters. "And I hope, never."

She pushes out through door and returns to the Cozy Badger. There, she reports to Túrion that his errand has been accomplished, and should be ready in eight days.

After bidding farewell to Kazador and Fyrtor for the moment, Mel resumes the same room she stayed in previously, on the second floor of the Cozy Badger. She sets her bag down on the bedside table and sits on the edge of the bed, facing the window.

For a moment, she simply stares out the window, which provides little enough for a view, facing another building opposite. The bustle of the street filters in: horses clopping their way along the cobblestone streets, the occasional call of a street vendor selling food. She can't make out any conversations, but undoubtedly there are people walking the streets on this fine day of early summer: parents remonstrating children, friends chatting, lovers holding hands.

She flops backward onto the bed and stares at the ceiling instead.

It seems unreal.

"Tätä rakastat, Ostara." Mel whispers. "Pehmeät vuoteet ja rauha ja lämmin sää. Ihmiset kaikenlaisessa muodossaan. Eläminen ja haluaminen ja tekeminen ja ajattelu ja rakastava. Jokainen voi tehdä niin kuin haluaa, kunhan se ei vahingoita ketään muuta."

"Ja puolustan sitä koko sydämestäni. Mutta se ei tunne ..." her voice trails off.

"Minulla oli paikka Lywelasissa. Ja tein paikan yliopistossa, Etsi Paljonissa. Olin jopa alkanut löytää sellaista Brooksidesta."

"Mutta täällä? Minulla ei ole todellista paikkaa täällä. Minusta tuntuu ... juurtumaton."

She pauses a moment, marshalling her thoughts.

"En ole kukka, joka voi kasvaa siemenistä kukkii muutamassa viikossa. Tarvitsen aikaa kasvaa paikkakunnalle."

"Mutta en saa sitä tänne. Muutaman päivän kuluttua lähdemme Iustiaan, ja minä tulen taas siemenen tuuleen."

She goes quiet. The bed is comfortable -- so much more so than sleeping on bare dirt in the barrens, or the floor of the smithy in Brookside, or a hammock slung belowdecks on a ship. Thoughts of their recent expedition swirl through her head.

Muse offering a meal of people to the sea serpent.

Van Beem's ship exploding, a blossom of boards and nails and death.

The pain of being shot in the darkened hallways of Kazad Gravr.

Kazador, vanishing under a pile of orcs, his prized hammer taken from him.

Túrion, lying so still and pale amongst thrashing tentacles while the Magister of Conjuration rained spells and curses upon them.

Fyrtor, heedless of danger -- driven by guilt.

The cloud of dust rising from Kazad Gravr to mark its grave.

"Haluan vain, että tiedät hyväksyväni sen," she says. "Luotan sinuun. Jonain päivänä ohjaat jalkani johonkin paikkaan, jota voin kutsua uudelleen kotiin. Mutta toistaiseksi teen sen, mikä on tehtävä, jotta muut voivat pitää kotinsa."

And with that, she heaves a sigh, sits up, and begins penning a note requesting an audience with the Bishop to report their activities, and noting the importance of clearing Fyrtor Smithson and Túrion Alagostor to participate, due to their important information and unstinting assistance.

Mel heals Fyrtor and the orc -- Grukkan -- after their sparring match, with no commentary.

During the days, as the orcish hands become more familiar with the ins and outs of running the ship, she takes to spending long hours in the crow's nest, keeping watch for other ships. She tries not to look down too often; every time she does, she winces anew at the sight of one of her people's finest ships being crewed by orcs. Yet they have hurt me less, in some ways, than my own people, she thinks. Ostara -- may the sea wash away their hatreds. They too have suffered. Under their own hands, as well as those of other races. Not to mention their harsh land.

But even as she prays for them, she knows that changing the culture of an entire race takes far, far longer than a few weeks aboard ship; and she doubts that such will come to pass even in her lifetime even should she live to see the rise and fall of kingdoms.

When not aloft, she socializes with the rest of her group. She does not seek out the orcs; but in their inevitable encounters, she works to avoid showing any signs of weakness.

In the late afternoons, or the long evenings when the sun sinks slowly into the amber sea, she works on her long-neglected journal: recording all of the events since Brookside, in as much detail as she can recall.

She adds observations on her companions.

It takes time to adjust to the motion of the ship, and her handwriting is not so clear in the early entries; but by the end, she has learned to anticipate the shift of plank and water. In calm weather, at least. By the time they reach Helm once more, the journal is up to date.

Ah yes, gestalt -- a wonderful way to make yourself MAD. MAD, I say!

Mel allows the silence to stretch for a moment as Fyrtor puts away his powdered herbs. She leans both elbows on the railing, peering out into the night.

"... and if by leaping to a friend's defense you give up your own life, that will atone for your failure. Is that it?" she says at last.

She turns to face him, catches his eyes with hers.

"Priest of Sarenrae, that is not a path the Dawnflower would bless. You have held this darkness in your heart; and it has brought you nothing but needless suffering. Take your sword and lay it at Brolin's feet. Ask him to conjure your father's spirit, that you may speak with him. Ask your father's pardon for this imagined sin; for it is clear to me that only your father can grant you the forgiveness you seek."

She lays a hand on his shoulder. "This I ask you to do, in the Dawnflower's name, even though I am not of her faith."

And with that, she gives his shoulder a squeeze and walks softly away, leaving him standing in the dark of night and looking for the dawn -- as he has ever been.

And I've finished painting a mini for Mel that I'll probably never need because she's a PbP character.

She turned out pretty well. I call this pose "Mel appeals to Perrin."

As soon as the tentacles slither back to whatever horrific pocket dimension they call home, Mel emerges cautiously once again.

The wizard's body lies on the floor, covered with the wounds of their fight: burns, cuts, arrow wounds, and finally the constriction of the tentacles he himself conjured. That was Greater Invisibility, as he used burning arc and remained invisible. It was cast 1 round before the black tentacles, so he should become visible again moments before they vanish.

She looks down upon him, feelings tumbling through her head and heart:

Relief, to be alive.

Sorrow, at Túrion's fate.

Thankfulness, for Ostara's blessing during the fight.

And that is all. She puzzles over this. It feels as though she is missing something. Something she should be feeling and is not; but it evades her, and after a moment she shakes her head, dismissing the concern.

"Kelian, help me take him into the null magic zone, please," Mel says, gesturing to the wizard. "If the Council checks in on him with divination magics, I want those to fail. Let them wonder what became of him. Or even better, let them waste resources on an expedition to discover his fate, after we are long gone."

Together, they haul him into the hallway where magic holds no sway, and leave him there for later inspection.

Returning to the main chamber, Mel says "Laeg nél,Throid tú go cróga. Lig dom tú a leigheas ..."

Approaching the great wolf, she takes out her healing supplies and begins binding her wounds, chanting a quiet prayer of thanks to Ostara under breath as she works, hands aglow with pale green foxfire.

Heal: 1d20 + 18 ⇒ (3) + 18 = 21

Nelly regains 5*HD hit point (25, I believe) and heals 4 ability score damage if any.

The wolf keeps nudging at her as she works. "What's this?" Mel asks. She finishes, and reaches for the satchel Nelly was so persistently nudging at, opening it and examining its contents.

Don't worry. It's not the suspense that kills you; it's the wizard.

There's mainly one guy who just would not let go of 3.5.

Well, and the other guy who still pines for the good old days (which he defines as AD&D). But he bowed out and has been running games for his family. I kind of pity their boy being raised on THAC0 ...

I am pleased to report that I finally persuaded my group to convert to Pathfinder!

Specifically, to Pathfinder 1e from 3.5. Now I can finally quit converting between grappling systems in my head on the fly when running PF1 content for 3.5 PCs!

... Eh heh.

The timing may be a bit ironic. See you all in another decade or so! ^_^

I am very glad to see the 1e bestiary added. I think that will smooth a good many ruffled feathers.

Question: if you get the 1e bestiary, will it include stats for the companions detailed in the Companion Guide?

I'd just like to add a voice of support for incorporating Dudemeister's changes. They improve the adventure substantially.

My Kingmaker experience lasted seven years. I started as a player in 2010, and the GM did not have the benefit of much added community material, because precious of it had been invented at that point. We made it to the end of Book 3 before the campaign fizzled (the GM developed a severe case of Real Life).

About a year after that, one of the other alumni of that group decided to start a fresh Kingmaker with a new group, and I joined in. By that time, Dudemeister had invented the Monster Kingdom and a couple other modifications, which the new GM integrated, and they made the play experience much better (even though I was going through stuff I'd already done for the first half of the second playthrough).

Later, I circled back and played out the remainder of the original Kingmaker campaign as the GM, for one of the other original players, finishing it as a part of a solo campaign -- though honestly, by that time it was so heavily modified as to only vaguely resemble the original campaign. I cherry-picked bits of Book 5, notably the Rushlight Festival; and ran a good bit of Book 6, but the plotting was drastically different.

Lately, I've been listening to Sugar Fuelled Gamers' Kingmaker, an actual play podcast by a GM running the AP for a solo PC played his wife. He integrated a lot of Dudemeister's additions, as well as some of his own; it's far and away the best run Kingmaker I've seen.

Anyway! Please consider integrating Dudemeister's modifications. They make the entire thing much better.

A really modular approach would be to remove the stat blocks from the main text of the adventure entirely and issue separate bestiaries for each supported system.

Advantages:

- The main text would be easier to read when it's not split up by stat blocks.

- Having the stat blocks in a separate book would reduce flipping back and forth while running the adventure, because you could keep the adventure open to the encounter area, and the bestiary open to the relevant stat blocks.

- You could have PF 1e, PF 2e, and D&D 5e bestiaries.

Disadvantages:

- It would definitely increase the costs of production and printing.

- It might increase shipping costs, due to extra weight.

Well, it also says things like "The god of cities is stern, but rewards those who work hard and whose actions benefit others as well as themselves, though his morally ambiguous enough to recognize that not every person can benefit from every decision" and that his temples also serve "as a bank, currency exchange, and moneylender, which helps keep interest rates reasonable and consistent [...] The banker in charge of the temple watches the local economy and adjusts interest to stimulate growth, encourage investment, or help recover from a disaster."

So they're less like Wall Street and more like the Fed. ^_^

it'd be an interesting character development if Savvy turned out not to be a cleric of Abadar after all. Maybe Savvy has been lying to Brolin all this time, and actually serves someone else.

Or -- and I think this would fit better -- Savvy genuinely believes she serves Abadar, but is actually self-deluded, and Savvy serves no one but Savvy, drawing her power from the one faith she holds above all else: her limitless, unwavering faith in her self.

Oh, and Brolin -- I think you are very mistaken about one thing! You do have a copy of Inner Sea Gods. I'm quite sure if you double check your digital assets you'll find it's listed right there.