ealms's page

So as my party slowly wends their way through Dance of the Damned, they're at Vyre. My party is all good and skews to lawful -- not heavily, but a bit -- which makes this an interesting campaign, and Vyre a particular challenge. Molly Mayapple warned the party to keep the paladin of Abadar away from Heretics Row. They've had pretty good legal reasoning so far (the paladin is literally profession lawyer), so we haven't really had many alignment issues.

Having read through the banquet several times, I have a problem. I might just confront them with it and let them see if they can figure out a solution -- or slide it under the radar if I can and let them realize later... or just make them deal with the consequences of refusing to eat a course.

But there's one course where they eat an invisible stalker. An invisible stalker is Int 14, which makes this a sapient creature. At my table, eating a sapient creature is pretty much universally an evil act. I don't think I'll ding the paladin for doing so non-knowingly -- if he doesn't realize that's a sapient being on his plate -- so it could cause some RP later.

But I've also contemplated substituting 'invisible stalker' for 'invisible cow' or something. Are there any canonical possible substitutions that aren't intelligent? As far as my searching has turned up, all invisible creatures I've found are smarter than the average human.

I could also just assume she's got someone in the kitchen capable of casting invisibility and the expiration of the spell is why the meat becomes visible.

ealms wrote:

In my game, we're playing a lot with law and lawyerness. One of the PCs is a paladin of Abadar (yes, I know, but he's making it work) with profession lawyer, so I'm having Barzillai make technical mistakes that his power over the city would make moot in the long run. If it weren't for those pesky Ravens.

First of all, I want to say that all of this is awesome. I never would have thought of this! I'm going to look forward to posts updating how all of this goes.

Second, I have an important NPC from the church of Abadar, Banker Andronicus, a paladin and COO of Abadar, second to Mehlrem, the CEO. They cut a deal with the PCs: we raise and restore your dead PC, and in return we get special rates and first purchase rights on diamond dust, plus the right to do weekly seminars to educate the Ravens on the importance of organization, leadership theory, sound financial management, and the rule of law. I basically troll pinterest for "Organize Your Life" or Corporate Leadership boards. It's a hoot.

It's been fun so far. He also intimidate-lawyered the thugs at the informal excruciation. Demanded to see their authorization, etc, etc. Something about "This an unlawful presumption of Court-reserved powers, an unauthorized demonstration of civil disobedience without a license, and probably a conspiracy to cause public disturbance." Convinced them their own excrutiations would be scheduled next just on principle.

Most everything else has been solved in traditional adventurer fashion, of course.

We're just about to start Turn of the Torrent; it's been slow going because we haven't been able to play as much as we'd like. I know the paladin won't approve at all of forgery, so unless the rest of the party can convince him, they'll be trying stealth through the upcoming rescue, I suspect - or possibly doing it one body down and giving him something else to do.

They, too, are frequent flyers at the Temple of Abadar, often renting their private meeting rooms for certain strategic conversations they don't want any risk of anyone overhearing.

ealms wrote:

If I feel the need to push them into the open, I'll probably have Barzillai start making moves to assign the family's holdings to some ally of his, in the apparent 'unfortunate' extinction of the line, preferably someone that the PCs have clashed with. For now, I'm assuming with the estate in Kintargo destroyed, any other holdings are too minor to have high value.

As outlined in the brief description of the Kintargo Opera House on IHBS/65, the Victocora family owned and maintained that building, so Barzillai's already assigned one Victocora family holding...to himself!

Ooh, I missed that. I hope I can make that a "Why didn't someone tell me we had a wheelbarrow!" moment for the paladin. Thanks for the heads up!

In my game, we're playing a lot with law and lawyerness. One of the PCs is a paladin of Abadar (yes, I know, but he's making it work) with profession lawyer, so I'm having Barzillai make technical mistakes that his power over the city would make moot in the long run. If it weren't for those pesky Ravens.

I think given the later Kintargo Compact stuff, this fits thematically with the game perfectly.

We start with the fact that the Night of Ashes was extra-legal because he was not yet officially Lord Mayor - he officially arrived and took authority the NEXT day. (Much less what was done to Jilia even earlier.) This is how they talked their way past the Scrivenite - when the Scrivenite was bound, the Lord Mayor was actually OFFICIALLY Jilia, missing or not. Therefore the entire contract (which because I'm giving them chances to lawyer their way through things did specifically refer to the authority of the Lord Mayor) was null and void. It helped, of course, that the Scrivenite wanted to be convinced.

At any rate, because the fires are officially the work of 'some naughty lawless arsonist', while Rexus is missing and we're all pretty sure some other naughty lawless crime would mysteriously happen to him if he popped up where Barzillai could find him, the family hasn't been outlawed. Among other things, Barzillai doesn't want to talk about the secrets of the Order because that, his knowledge of it, etc, points at his actual reasons for being here. He'd rather just have them all 'sadly' deceased. At some point, I intend to let our lawyer spring Rexus on someone as his mother's heir that Barzillai has assumed is dead in the fire.

If I feel the need to push them into the open, I'll probably have Barzillai start making moves to assign the family's holdings to some ally of his, in the apparent 'unfortunate' extinction of the line, preferably someone that the PCs have clashed with. For now, I'm assuming with the estate in Kintargo destroyed, any other holdings are too minor to have high value.

I have ordered both Humble Bundle packages complete with physical shipments. The RPG Beginner Box has actually already been delivered. That whole process went well. I redeemed the code for the miniatures shipment but nothing happened. It says it is redeemed but it do not ask me for any information such as address, payment method, shipping method, etc... I do not see any indication that this package will ship. Is this just a part of the issue where everything is overloaded now? How will the system let me know when it is ready for that information?

I am also having this problem. Exactly the same - got the beginner's box from the first humble bundle sitting next to me on my desk right now. I sent an email to customer service yesterday evening and heard nothing today.