I didn't so much handwave it as "comp" it. A spellcaster capable of casting clone would only need to cast gentle repose on a corpse twice a month (at most) to keep it fresh indefinitely. And that's if he doesn't just make his apprentices do it. Given the incredibly low resource cost of such maintenance, I doubt a seller of such a rare and exotic service would bother tacking on trivial costs for extra services... especially given Farden's Diplomacy, black market connections, Noble Scion abilities, good Charisma, and so on. Also, Farden's buddies now want to pay for the service too, so this cloning business is really paying off for some lucky Nerosyan wizard.
If it gets excessive, I might have Farden pay for a wand of gentle repose for the guy, but even that cost would be a pittance for Farden and the mage both, so I doubt it.
And all this assumes that a tub of formaldehyde wouldn't suffice.
The real question is... how many times will the bad guys have to kill Farden before they realize he's being cloned... and go after the lab? ; )
Waking up in a cloning tank? Unpleasant, but better than death. Waking up in a cloning tank surrounded my demonic and undead minions of Orcus? Far worse than either!
I didn't so much handwave it as "comp" it. A spellcaster capable of casting clone would only need to cast gentle repose on a corpse twice a month (at most) to keep it fresh indefinitely. And that's if he doesn't just make his apprentices do it. Given the incredibly low resource cost of such maintenance [..]
I'm not sure I'd call 900 gp a month incredibly low (a 15th level wizard casting a 3rd level spell costs 450 gp), especially considering Clone only costs 2200 gp to begin with. Having apprentices do it doesn't save any money either (since you just have to cast it more often).
[..] I doubt a seller of such a rare and exotic service would bother tacking on trivial costs for extra services... especially given Farden's Diplomacy, black market connections, Noble Scion abilities, good Charisma, and so on.
That's where the handwaving comes in. :-)
And, of course, if the GM says that there's a cheap way (like formaldehyde) to keep clones ready for hatching, I won't argue!
As to the keeping the body fresh (Unguent of timelessness) would be my idea.
We found out about the key by interrogating the ogre with all the kobolds.
Before Brugard was abandoned and taken prisoner.
As to the keeping the body fresh (Unguent of timelessness) would be my idea.
Good idea -- that stuff's dirt cheap!
Great update. I love the hexploration/worldbuilding aspects. Did you develop any specific stuff for Nerosyan or do you just wing it?
One question though: Can you please add a bit more description for the NPCs? I.e. (apparent) race/class/equipment. I find it hard to keep track of all of them by name alone. (Haven't read RA in detail yet...)
And another few:
How do you justify the PCs knowledge of and the general availability of specific and partially obscure (non-core) magic items and spells? Do you roll Spellcraft checks for that? Also do you roll item availability for the settlements? ( and when?)
What level are the PCs now? How about some build sketches for the new ones? Anyone plan on resurrecting/raising the paladin?
In a major metropolis like Nerosyan, I don't track the availability of magic items below the listed gp values for "availability by settlement size" (modified by Farden's traits and class abilities). But... that's almost all irrelevant in this case; the PCs (mostly Glitch) are, by and large, crafting their own items.
The PCs are level 9 now; close to 10. I'll get into some detail regarding their builds soon, or maybe some of my PCs will stop in and do the same.
Hey, no pressure !
Guess one has the right to lay down and go to the beach in august.
I quite enjoyed this... too bad to see it let go!
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Out of reading material?
For an absolutely amazing (level 1 up to epic) Rappan Athuk Story, travel to enworld for Lazybones' tale of the Doomed Bastards.
LINK
Also available as a pdf, all 600,000 words of it :-)
LINK
It's near the bottom, along with his excellent Forgotten Realms and more-than-excellent Shackled City stories :-)
So freakin sweet!!!
carborundum that party definitely didn't start at 1st level though.
I must say that this has been extremely enjoyable read! I love the blow-by-blow of the battles, and that raid on Orcus's Temple was EPIC!!!
To the OP: I hope you find the time to update us again. I'm assuming RL is getting in the way, which is perfectly understandable. (And that last update could have been serialized into 5 parts. It was seriously amazing!)