I didn’t get to play much, but I enjoyed it when I did.
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As the unconscious guard gets tossed in, Zarque gives the guy only a moment to check on his companion before continuing, ”So how many more of you are leaving, are there any who know you’re leaving but aren’t going with you, and what all are you taking, and why is not everyone here?”
”Why did he come here from so far away? And how did he become a justice?” Zarque asked, seeking more information, and letting her companions do their part.
”So none of you have any loyalty to the city? Why were you brought here instead of hiring locals?” Zarque asked, clearly suspicious regardless of how well he lies, as his story just doesn’t add up.
I am here. The storm knocked out our power and connection. And the backup caused at work put me back on doubles this week. I’ve been running around like a headless chicken. I even had to clear off the road so I could get out to work. In any case, let me post real quick.
”Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Now where are you going in such a hurry?” Zarque asks quietly, calmly, and like she is talking to an ant, trying to keep her voice low without sounding like that is what she is doing.
Zarque stealthily followed the giant lady stomping around, but if she notices, or is told by Khamul, the person heading for the carriage house, she will intercept them with a blink and maybe some gliding if needed. Coming up from behind, hopefully unnoticed, she will make an extradimensional room and “help” the person into it if they somehow manage to avoid falling into it, though it will be a long and steeply slanted room so as to minimize any sound the person makes yet the fall will be uncomfortable while still being non-lethal. There is a 5’ ledge at the top where Zarque will stand, her stature keeping her invisible from the grounds above.
Alright, double fast paced physically demanding shifts seem to be over, though a busy day or two may come along, not expecting any. I caught up on the main thread, Go ahead and ask any questions you have for Zarque. And I’ll go ahead and post. Hope guys enjoyed the holidays, cause I was too tired and sore for anything of the sort.
I’m sorry for not posting lately. I was surprised with extra shifts and am working doubles at least till Christmas.
”Well, if this evidence is enough to cast doubt on Ironbriar, then I say we go to the mayor. Knowing of a threat to the city is certainly something to take to the mayor. And before this Ironbriar has a chance to spread the word of what we look like to all his contacts to have them watch for us. But if we do that, I would actually suggest we leave this scene relatively intact. It wouldn’t help our case to look like we were trying to hide our tracks. But time is against us if that is what we go for, in which case we should not wait for morning, but we should go now.”
”Well, I overheard these folks trying to find you, so I figured I should follow along, but I haven’t met them yet.” Zarque tells Khamul while putting out the fire. To everyone else as introductions are made, [/b]”I’m Zarque. I’ve worked with these two before. I happened to overhear that you were looking for them. Should be careful about that in the future.”[/b] In response to the request to put things in Zarque’s extradimensional room.
Zarque blinks around moving stuff away from the fire, especially evidence and the more flammable of things. Any papers or light items that serve as evidence she will put in her pocket dimension. Then she will help with the water. She even has a pot if it will help.
Zarque takes a short step back as she builds up a bit of golden magic before she throws another golden spear at the cultist closest to her companions that she can see.
Zarque moves up behind Khamul, out of sight of those on the topside of the map, and it looks like gold seems from her scales to form a golden spear in her hand, which she throws at the solid pink cultist.
I do! Or at least in part. One of the things I like best about 3.x is that it scales smoothly from commoners who run from axe murderers to demigods that find Superman a mere annoyance and beyond. That said, I like a fair amount of realism, not too realistic, but I actually like old school play of being normal people sometimes. Having one system that can handle both normal people and high fantasy people is in my opinion awesome. The only downside (which I’m fixing in my system) is the limited advancement within a particular tier of play. There are very important additional considerations,
But around the beginning of 3.0, the community started moving towards combat as sport. In fact, WotC originally published modules following the guidelines in the DMG for variety in encounter difficulty only for the community to disparage them for making modules “unbalanced.” Clearly the community never read the DMG (confirmed this many times over on several different issues). Thus WotC started making combat as sport modules since those seemed to make the community happy, and many of the other issues the community has complained about 3.x for have been direct results of the community using 3.x contrary to it’s design. Things like advancing characters from 1 to 15+ in a single AP with little downtime, the lack of proper resource management, little to no downtime, etc. 3.x was designed around old school expectations and experience, but the community at large played in a new school fashion. Right now we should have a whole squad of minions between us rather than facing this fight alone. Heck, the 2e dnd DMG even mentions parties with more than 100 members, as in that happened often enough that they felt the need to mention it.
I’ve done a ton of exploring the math of 3.x, upon which pf1 is based. One thing to keep in mind that most players miss is that a level 1 character is an adult that has completed their apprenticeship, or roughly that equivalent. Further, level 5 is about the maximum of real world human ability. The best olympic athletes might be level 5, and the best of elite soldiers are level 5. Anything beyond level 5 is basically supernatural. That javelin thrower that smashed the world record multiple times with throws so far they had to increase the weight of javelins to shorten their range, that guy might have been a level 6, maybe. Once you realize that, then it’s much easier to see how 90% of the population is merely level 1. Once you realize that, you can start to see how 3d6 models real world much better. And you can also see how PF1 basically gave everyone a boost in power. That goblin has hardened leather armor, basically stiff plates of leather, and a shield, and is an adult with plenty of practice and experience in combat, plus with a +2 dex mod is really talented in the agility department (around 1 in 6 humans would be equally dextrous). Just from the description I gave, do you really think a non-combatant would see that goblin as anything but terrifying? A noncombatant would have very little chance of defeating such a goblin, and the mechanics reflect that quite well, especially with 3d6. That said, on 3d6, a 16+ on the dice is supposed to be a critical hit. Thus when you consider how knights in fullplate are described as the tanks if the medieval era, and were more often battered to death ir defeated by immobilization and sticking a special dagger through the suit cracks rather than hitting with a sword, now you begin to see why and just how accurate it is to call them tanks of medieval times. As you can tell, this is a favorite topic of mine. :)
Zarque puts a hand up in peace as Jominda notices her. ”I’m a friend. We can talk after dealing with the locals.” Jominda would notice the kobold has wings and scales of gold color, and her voice, though high pitched, speaks common fluidly and more like a posh and educated human than how kobolds normally speak, though with an accent of those south of Magnimar. She also wears leather pants and coat, though nicely made leather and nicely decorated. She also has boots, a very unusual feature for kobolds, and a hat.
Zarque quietly pops through the open window and heads towards any noise she happens to hear (or if silence reigns, she’ll head for where she thinks the crazy gnome would be heading for.)
Zarque comes gliding in out of the gloom above, landing lightly on the roof to look around for any guards. The dead bodies laying around tell her that one or both of the other groups have probably arrived. It was pure luck, or fate, that she overheard those newcomers getting info from that boy. Probably fate since she seems to arrived while things are underway. She looks for a good spot to see the interior from up here.
The GM made clear what his posting rate will be. What about all others (Just to do some expectation management on my side)? One reason I’ve stuck with this game is that it tends to be a bit slow, and I have been less than a daily poster of late, so it’s been an alright match for me because of that.
So Radek, Why are you trying to get into the building? I missed the GM’s little spoiler for the newcomers, because of that, it sounded a bit like one of those “I’ve actually been with the party the whole time” things. Anyways, I figured I was missing something, and now I know what it was. Anyway, I’ll be joining in a bit. Need to finish leveling, which means looking up SoP again and all that jazz.
So Radek, Why are you trying to get into the building?
I'd like to get at least a rough idea of what happened between then and now, but it doesn't necessarily need to be as in depth roleplay as it has been thus far. Did the queen back off? What happens with Ripnugget? Etc. I figure Zarque would at least have stabilized everything so a few of the thugs from Sandpoint would be there as a guards, maybe a lad or two cleaning up to at least run a bar to start being self-sufficient until she can expand to include more, and perhaps she meets up with the group again because she went to Magnimar for supplies that couldn't be acquired in Sandpoint as well as to do some research on the thing in the basement, and ran into Khamul there.
Ooh, I get to level up! Of course, I’m still waiting to find out what happens in my thread. Gotta figure out how to go from there to here too, and that I think will depend on how the current encounter ends and whether the guys I discussed security with will work with me on it.
I’m fourth level, but pretty sure I’m playing in the past relative to Khamul. Note to GM: I’m not bothered by a level difference.
Welcome Radek!
Zarque looks down at Ripnugget. ”I think we found a point of agreement.” She turns to the kobold queen, ”You cannot hold this place against just me, and I have others who will be coming to help. Longtooth can not help you until they come, and you will die long before that. The question is whether the rest of your tribe dies with you, or will you die alone to save them.” Turning to the others, ”I will not fault you for having loyalty to your tribe. But the best you can do for your tribe now is to leave and take them with you, or to commit yourselves to my service. There are many brambles not far from here which the goblins made and will serve as a good shelter until you find a more suitable home should you decide to leave.” Zarque is trying to sound reasonable to the others, hoping that seeing her power and that she bears no ill will to them will keep them out of the fight one way or the other. She also is hoping the queen will falter and decide to not involve any more of her tribesmen in needless death, though she doubts that will happen. She waits a moment to see if the other kobolds make a move. If they don’t move or respond,: Zarque will say ”Fine. Goodbye miss queen.” She launches a golden blast right at the queen’s throat.
I’m still around. Life is in the air, but looking to settle down here shortly. If you want a scaly partner.
Be safe! And remember, no wrecking the train allowed!
”We!? Who is this ‘we’ you mention? You are intruders here. You don’t get to stay unless I allow it. And now you opened your mouth and got yourself marked for death. Not very smart.” Zarque thinks for but merely a moment, but long enough to see the queen’s initial reaction to Zarque’s words. That reaction will determine her fate.
”So, where would you go from here?” Zarque asks in a friendly way.
”You attack me because we attacked you. Did you expect us to not do the same when you attacked us? What did you expect us to do about being attacked?” Zarque inquires.
”I am doing the same. You attacked my home. So I remove threat to my home. Why did you attack Sandpoint?” Zarque has a firm tone, but she keeps it civil. She would rather either turn the undead against whatever demon manipulated the goblins, if any, or at least relieve it’s hatred and maybe bring it calm.
”You attacked us! We acted in defense. Either you chose to act for which you only have yourself to blame, or that demon manipulated you into attacking us, in which case the demon is the one to blame. Either way, anger at me is misplaced and will get you nowhere.”
Upon seeing that he will try to escape, Zarque opens and extradimensional room under them, with her on a shelf up high (easy to talk to the kobolds outside without leaving the room), with the rest of the space being 20 feet deep. The extra space being a wider opening sloping down to the deep section. Another way of describing the room is a pit, 20’ deep with a 20’ opening that slopes into only 10’ wide, save for a small shelf near the top.
Zarque decides to focus damage on Rip.
Zarque rushes over to grab a wagon wheel and then blinks up high. As she falls with the wheel, she directs the path of the wheel with wings and falls straight for the leader goblin and using her wings to adjust for any movements the undead thing makes and a bit before the last moment she pulls a trick. Falling from above is a bluff but also to gain speed. At the last moment, she teleports just beside the goblin but side ways, so all the speed the wheel gained from falling is retained but comes from the side instead of above as she lets go. Zarque does this not only to be safer for herself, but also to take the goblin by surprise.
Zarque sees this is going to be rather challenging. She calls out to the kobolds in draconic, hoping the goblins don't understand it, "The undead are harmed by healing, so heal them, throw healing potions at them and hit them with curative magic!" Zarque moves along the roof, circling the courtyard, and throws a more directly damaging spell, rather than molten gold in entangling strands, this time the spell looks more like a golden blade flying at the head goblin.
How many are even in the group right now? I have not worried about keeping up a pace because I felt Zarque's storyline was secondary, but at this rate, Zarque will have to save the world by herself.
Zarque is thankful to be on the roof right now as she sends another blast at the undead.
She yells out towards the kobolds below, "Keep clear of the big one!" Hopefully that will keep the minions fighting other minions rather than being weakened by that stench.
Zarque evades the majority of the flames and sends back another blast of molten gold.
Zarque stays on the roof for the moment but blasts the lead zombie with gold.
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