Varknarnost Kettlewidget's page

I'm currently working my way through reading everything I missed. Man, you guys made short work of the Golden Goblin. Crit after crit. I appreciate that you played out Vark's involvement for a while there.

One initial question I have for you Slothsy (if you agree to letting me move forward with a fresh character) is if you will allow the occult classes? I've got a pretty sweet idea for an ex-gambler telekineticist who shoots cards/dice/darts. He's an albino and is obsessed with flying. He is searching for the tomb of a childhood friend...

And I was also interested in the mesmerist, possibly vexing daredevil although that would mean another melee combatant. Vanilla would probably work too.

Otherwise, I might try an archery (deep walker) ranger as I mentioned in the recruitment thread (although I would probably pass on this idea if Kwava is still with the party, I haven't caught up that far yet). Maybe he could be another representative of the Lantern Bearers? I love that angle.

Great, I am glad to see that I have not worn out my welcome! I posted some thoughts on the recruitment thread (the big one being that I would rather not continue playing Vark and would prefer to submit something new) and so I will wait to hear your thoughts on that before discussing the matter further.

Honestly? I am g%&*$#@&ed excited that the opportunity (no guarantees, of course) to slip right back into this thing just seemingly fell right into my lap.

Well hello, friends. I hope I am not overstepping my bounds by stepping directly back into the discussion thread, but I have just recently been scanning the recruitment boards after returning from a long absence and what do I see, but none other than Slothsy herself posting a re-recruitment for my old Second Darkness game.

How has everyone been?

Gotcha, thanks for the heads up Nel.

Steeling himself for the battle to come, Vark puts his small hand on the doorknob and turns, only to find it locked firmly in place.

"Ehm, the door is locked. Well, so much for stealth, eh?" A mirthless chuckle escapes his lips, "Ahem, sorry. Hmm, I could grease the lock. Would that help?" He looks to the rest of the (invisible?) party with defeated eyes. "Kwava, you wouldn't perchance know how to pick locks, would you?"

Maybe a few of us track you down while Pluck is busy scribing scrolls?

With a slight quaver to his voice, Vark nods, "Sure thing, Pluck. Ah, ahem, is everyone ready?" It's obvious that Vark is less than thrilled about going into such hostile territory. But Saul is a bad man, and he has done some very bad things. He needs to be brought to justice so that my friends and I can restore the Goblin to it's former glory... And beyond! A slight smile touches his lips as he entertains thoughts of regaining his status among the best bards in Varisia. And carving out a peaceful life for him and and his friends in this rough and tumble town.

Their preparations done, and being thoroughly invisible, he hopes the others follow as he finally leads them out of the furnace and into the flames.

Stealth while invis: 1d20 + 6 + 20 ⇒ (6) + 6 + 20 = 32 Vark can only move 20' per round (double move) without taking a -5 penalty to his stealth check, so this will be slow going. Sloth, if it makes more sense for the party to be moving at 40' per round, subtract 5 from the roll.

Also, after consulting the map, I am not entirely sure how to get to the catwalks, but I'm sure Vark would know. My best guess would be into the kitchen (12) from the skullery entrance (13) through the staff lounge (14), up the stairs, through the waiting area (24) and dining room (27) to the secret door. That looks to be roughly 130' so that would be 6-7 rounds at 20' per round.

Edit: I placed Vark outside of the skullery entrance, since that seems to be where we're beginning.

I believe Vark would be willing to scout, just as long as you don't mind him running at the first sign of danger. My only concern would be his 20 ft. movement speed. Maybe Kwava could scout for us instead? If the group trusts him enough to do so, that is.

It looks like a good plan, and splitting the party should definitely add a bit of excitement to the mix. Vark will be pleased to have been selected to ascend to the catwalks, and, hopefully, out of harm's way. ;)

Vark has 156 gp and the wand of shocking grasp he'd be willing to sell (unless Pluck wants it?) to contribute.

Thanks, Sloth. :)

Just a heads up: I am having LASIK surgery on Wednesday and, depending on the recovery time, I may be absent from the boards for a day or two until my eyes are healed.

That would definitely work for me. I'm sure Vark would love the excuse to see Sam again, he he he. He is still trying to crack that nut, it would seem.

Vark is good on the tactics discussion, as I posted for him a few days ago. Erm, that's a good question. I'm not sure that any of us are particularly 'stealthy'. Feel free, Pluck!

"Ah, yes, well I believe I will leave the talk of tactics up to those more knowledgeable of such things. You can count on my songs bolstering us all, from well behind the front lines, of course. And I believe a well-placed grease spell - possibly at a choke point, one of the doors perhaps? - would be just the thing to turn the tide in our favor. No matter the plan, I wish to see Saul brought to justice for his crimes." Vark says with a rare tone of seriousness and finality.

He looks up to Kwava, "I'm sure your duties are important, but won't you consider staying with us to increase our chances of success? In return we could pledge ourselves to your cause. I, for one, would be very interested to see legend made flesh in these dark elves you claim are harrowing the streets of Riddleport. What say you?"

Gnome Diplomat Power: Activate!: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26

A cold sweat bathes Vark's body as he realizes this isn't some cruel joke, "Drow in Riddleport? What could they want? Mazra, you mentioned the Blot, surely these two things are related?" Vark puts on his negotiating voice as he speaks to Kwava in very sincere tones, "Kwava, when the time comes to assault the Goblin and force Saul to answer for his crimes, will you help us in our cause? Surely, you can see that the reasons we fight are one in the same."

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

Looking down at himself in his finery, he hastily adds, "Besides, manacles would surely clash with my outfit. No, that wouldn't do at all." As he rubs an invisible piece of swamp muck from his sleeve.

Vark bursts into a fit of laughter, doubling over and clutching his rotund belly, "Drow? I didn't realize you were an entertainer as well, Kwava. Do you frequent any taverns in Riddleport? I'd love to hear you play. Come now, my elven friend, you can't expect us to believe some dark elves have sprang to life out of some tavern song. Surely, you're joking?"

Knowledge local/nature: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (15) + 10 = 25

Hey guys I've been bedridden for the past 36 hours with a stomach thing so feel free to bot Vark as needed as I'm not sure when I'll be posting again.

Kn. Local on the Lantern Bearers: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (16) + 10 = 26

Questions surged through Vark's mind like a tidal wave, so he blurted out the first two that came to him, "What is this creature that Saul is allied with? And how does Zincher fit into all this? Surely, he must play a part, or was he just another one of Saul's scapegoats?"

Memory flooded back to him, "And Zincher sent men to kidnap me! They claimed to be taking orders from someone called Boss Croat. Do you have any idea why? All of these names and intrigues are starting to make my head spin." Vark said with a somewhat defeated look.

Looking to their newfound elf ally, "Then I say we make way to your camp. Let the shape-changer go, I suspect he'll lie like a good little rat." Vark says with an odd gleam in his eyes and a meager attempt at a cold, heartless smile on his lips. Because he is, no doubt, utterly terrified of me, he he he! Seeing Nel petting Gabraltar's neck, he leans down to do the same, all the while maintaining eye contact with the wererat. Yes, quite terrified of me, indeed.

I fear we may have lost Vara again?

Vark clucks Allegro forward and hops down off the gray. Tentatively, he slides his small hand into the wererat's pocket and retrieves the note. Springing back a few steps he unfolds it, his brow furrowing as he tries to make out the text, "My street slang is a bit rusty, but I believe "Old Stumpy" is our good friend, Saul? I'm not sure we need much more proof than that." He holds the unfolded note aloft for all to see.

Turning to the trembling shapeshifter, Vark uses his best stage voice to sound confident and intimidating, "Go on, get out of here before my friends dice you up and feed you to the swamp things."

Gnomey intimidation!: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (8) + 9 = 17

Vark blushes immediately as he realizes he had completely forgot the presence of the wererat pleading for his life, "Ahem, yes, well. What do we do about that?" Vark squints in the direction that Nef ran to chase down Gibraltar, turning an even deeper shade of crimson when he remembers that that was his fault as well.

Frustrated at this mess of things, he sighs inwardly, hoping she would return soon to lend her thoughts to the matter at hand, and remove some of the spotlight from himself.

Any response from Kwava, Sloth?

Shocked by Tamiro's hostile reaction, Vark quickly urges Allegro up to his side, laying a small hand on his... leg?  Whichever part of him he could reach.  "Please Tamiro, put down your blade!" Then he looks to Pluck, "While I have my doubts about Saul's intentions," gesturing to the remaining wererat, "he claims to not know who Saul is.  So, what proof do you have that Saul is connected this Zephras' attempt on our lives?  And who is your friend?"  He finishes, gesturing to the dark-skinned elf.

Addressing Kwava, "My apologies, I am Varknarnost Kettlewidget, but you may call me Vark. Nice to meet you." He says with a small bow from the saddle, "Let me be the first to thank you for your help in getting us out of this predicament.  But, forgive my forwardness, I must ask what your hand is in all of this?"

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (12) + 9 = 21

Sighing with relief as the last rat-fiend surrendered, Vark urged Allegro up to the edge of the pit, but stopped well short of the hairy half-man. Turning to Pluck as he started firing off questions, Vark gasped as his fears were finally confirmed. It was one thing to suspect the man, but as the reality of the situation set in, it became quite clear to him. Saul really had set them up. "I can't say I'm surprised Saul was behind all of this. But this Ziphras, who is he?"

Kn. Local on Ziphras: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (2) + 10 = 12

Let's just have him maintain his performance and move on.

Vark, since that happened before your initiative, did you want to redirect your grease?

In that case...

Vark will urge Allegro forward until he has a clear view of the pit containing the struggling wererat. Maintaining his performance, he mumbles a few words and points to the pit. The walls of the pit instantly become slick and hard to grasp. "He will have a hard time getting out of there now. Maybe we can interrogate this one to find out exactly what is going on here!"

---

I will leave it up to you to determine exactly how much of the wall area is covered, but since the spell cites a 10' square, I'm hoping it is most of the surface. Not sure exactly how that will affect this climb DC, I will leave that up to your discretion. Here is a link to the spell description.

Inspire courage and Flagbearer combine to grant a +2 bonus to atk/dmg and a +1 bonus to save against charm/fear to all allies that can see/hear Vark. Vara, Pluck, and Kwava only get a +1 due to being more than 30' away.

15 rounds of bardic performance left.

Nope.

Also, now that I think about it Sloth, I may be a round ahead. My first round action (your recap says otherwise so maybe I'm wrong here) was to begin my bardic performance (which I wrote lyrics for). But since then I have cast ghost sound and grease. So maybe grease was my 3rd round action?

Apparently, Vark is a real fancy boy.

After reading over your round 1 recap, I thought that was Vark's action for round 2.

Vark will hold his position, keeping up his performance. An idea strikes him, and, dropping Allegro's reins for a moment, he begins murmuring and waggling his finger's. The wererat in front of Tamiro (W2) finds that the hilt of his blade has suddenly become extremely slick and difficult to hold on to.

---

Maintain bardic performance as a free action and casting grease on the wererat's shortsword. An object wielded or employed by a creature requires its bearer to make a Reflex saving throw (DC 14) to avoid the effect. If the initial saving throw fails, the creature immediately drops the item. A saving throw must be made in each round that the creature attempts to pick up or use the greased item. 3 minute duration.

Inspire courage and Flagbearer combine to grant a +2 bonus to atk/dmg and a +1 bonus to save against charm/fear to all allies that can see/hear Vark. Vara, Pluck, and Kwava only get a +1 due to being more than 30' away.

14 rounds of bardic performance left.

Hey Vark, Gabraltar moves base 50 feet. Saving Finale can only affect creatures that are within 30 feet of you. (It is a close spell with 25+5/2 levels). Gabraltar would be out of range at the end of his action. Don't waste your spell on him, he can't injure the wererats enough to get through their dr.

That's a good point. I was picturing it as an immediate reaction, but I guess in pathfinder you can't really interrupt actions like that. Can you all tell I never play casters? Shocking, isn't it? I'm more of a ranger/slayer/swashbuckler player, but we have that niche covered in spades. Well, if Vark ever dies, you'll know what I'll be rolling. :)

So, I guess we'll retcon that spell, so inspire courage is still active (which is probably better for the group, anyway).

Yep, normally it is. In this instance, I had to cease it to cast Saving Finale (so for this round everyone only gets +1 atk/dmg until I can start it back up again). It's just out of character for Vark to attack, but he would probably do so if prompted by his allies (I could easily imagine Nel or Tamiro doing this, haha.) Bottom line, he wants to do whatever he can to help, attacking is just his last resort.

Realizing the error of his ways, Vark ceases his performance with a flourish, attempting to soothe Gabraltar.

Casting Saving Finale as an immediate action.  One living creature (Gabraltar) gets to immediately reroll a failed saving throw.

Yep, pretty much. I'm just trying to do something other than maintain bardic performance until something happens that I can react to. My first idea was a silent image of Samaritha arriving with some cyphermages, but I didn't think that would be effective. My go to spell is grease, but obviously it wouldn't be as effective in swampland. In a few levels it'll be haste.

Hopefully Saving Finale pays off here.

Man, I gotta find more inventive ways of using that spell, haha. F*#k.

Vark will urge Allegro down around to the south to ensure both Nef and Mazra maintain a solid front line between himself and the wererats. He continues his song and takes comfort in the strength of his allies. All of a sudden a vile screeching scream reverberates off the crumbling terrain all around them. Vark turns sheet white as he looks back to see what could have caused such a terrifying sound.

"What was that!?"

Bluff: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (13) + 3 = 16

---

Move to I13, maintain inspire courage as a free action. Casting Ghost Sound with a point of origin just south of our position, hopefully with the fog obscuring sight in that direction. The spell description says that for each caster level I can create a sound equaling that of 4 humans and a lions roar is equal to 16, so at caster level 3 I can dish out 12, so the sound is something not quite as loud as a lion's roar. Will save DC 14 negates.

Inspire courage and Flagbearer combine to grant a +2 bonus to atk/dmg and a +1 bonus to save against charm/fear to all allies that can see/hear Vark. Vara, Pluck, and Kwava only get a +1 due to being more than 30' away.

15 rounds of bardic performance left.

I was delaying since I'm last up in initiative. I'm watching my son today, but I'll get a post up this afternoon either way.

Ugh, swarms and haunts - the bane of many ill-prepared low-level parties. :P

Slight RotRL spoilers...

The first time I GMed Pathfinder was for three friends running RotRL anniv. ed. They were a summoner, gunslinger, and ranger. When they got to Foxglove Manor in the second book, they had absolutely no way of harming the 9 billion haunts there. Talk about a string of rough sessions... And that is why my group hates haunts.

Yeah, no worries. Feel better Sloth!

My bad, I didn't fact check, I was just assuming. I'll make a note of it in my little Vark doc.

While Vark saw that they were clearly set up for an ambush, he struggled with managing Allegro’s reins and ended up being on of the last members of the party to take action. Vark maneuvers Allegro up to just south of Mazra’s position before lifting his voice in song.

”A trap, a trap,
New allies, old friends,
Hold fast and don’t be swayed,
Through muck and mud,
Fend off these beasts,
For justice we fight today!”

---

Move to F10, inspire courage. Flagbearer applies since it is strapped to Vark’s saddle and clearly visible, although only allies within 30’ benefit from it so Kwava and Pluck would only receive +1 to atk/dmg. And, yes, welcome back Pluck. I most certainly didn’t see that coming. A welcome surprise!

Inspire courage and Flagbearer combine to grant a +2 bonus to atk/dmg and a +1 bonus to save against charm/fear to all allies that can see/hear Vark.

16 rounds of bardic performance left.

Got it, thanks.

OOC, obviously, but just so I'm understanding the scene correctly, a drow appears to be helping the party? Or by dark-skinned do you simply mean tanned?

Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (17) + 1 = 18

(Hopefully) before Tamiro charges in, "Wait, Tamiro! Those are dummies! It's a trap!"

Keep in mind that even if Vark hasn't begun performing, the party flag is still clearly visible and therefore grants +1 to atk/dmg to those who can see it, which should be everyone.

Vark nods as Nel explains the plan. He wasn't the bravest gnome that ever was, but he would surely get close enough to the action to embolden his allies. "Oh yes, I can help too!" Just before heading into action, Vark will cast resistance on...

Tamiro or Nel: 1d2 ⇒ 1

...Tamiro buffing all of his saves by 1 for one minute.

For expediency's sake, let's just say that Vark made some small talk with Bojask before parting ways with him.  He had too much on his mind to worry why Bojask was also in Saul's office without his knowledge/permission.

Vark doesn't dare play a note until battle is joined.  He has his spear flag strapped to the side of Allegro, easily within arm's reach.  When they circle up, Vark struggles to make Allegro move exactly where he wants, but with some prodding and some sweetly whispered words, he manages to reign her in.

Looking to the others, "So, what's the plan?"