I'll be posting shortly.
On Bronze Age roleplaying, a blog: The Sundaland RPG Setting.
RPG setting content based on the real sunken subcontinent of Sundaland. Imagine a land where the progenitors of the ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indus Valley and American cultures came from. The overall tone is Bronze Age to Classical Age type civilisations with a touch of Sword & Sorcery.
Talar Level 6
HP: 6 (base) +2 (con) +1 (FCB) = +9 hp
BaB: +1
Saves: All +1
Class Features: Combat Style Feat (Improved Precise Shot)
Wild Card Feat: Changed to Manyshot as a default unless stated otherwise
Skill Ranks**: 6 (class) +1 (human) = +7 skill points
- - - No new skills picked up except diplomacy
Wow ok Talar got a lot scarier this level. Those feats are no joke, I forgot that at level 6 the ranged feat options exploded open.
Ramul Level 6
HP: 5 (base) +4 (con) = +9 hp
BaB: +1
Saves: All +1
Class Features: Natural Armor Bonus +2, Str/Dex +1, Bonus Trick (Sneak), Devotion
Skill Ranks: +1 (base)
- - - Rank into acrobatics
Fun fact: Ramul's light load is 400 pounds.
So I've finally bit the bullet and put some ranks into diplomacy. Not a class skill, charisma of 10, and Talar isn't that socially capable, but diplomacy is just called for so many damn times in this campaign that I can't justify not putting some ranks into it. Especially since intimidate doesn't even make people helpful short term, just immediately pissing them off instead.
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"I do marvel at such a capacity to trust. Indeed, what a marvel,"
Ah, no. This sarcasm is not appreciated.
I know that there can be problems arising when a character is introduced mid-game, but I honestly thought that wouldn't happen here.
I'm waiting for my You Seem Trustworthy moment so I can be brought into the greater story...
She would give Talar and Samir a better rundown of Thoth-Apep's words once they had some privacy.
...but it looks like that isn't going to happen.
As things look now, I've been brought in for a side-quest and I'm being deliberately isolated from any sort of main quest. All for the sin of not being with you people since level 1.
So what's going on?
The sarcasm was meant for all three characters as that is Tairin's way and was not only and wholly directed at Mal. She was out working hard with a certain bad guy only to come home and find three people merry making in her home especially since it's dangerous times for the party in game since the majority of the party murdered some bad, influential people. It's merely characterisation and nothing more ominous or exclusive.
And I like an organic introduction of a new character. I do not understand how one brings a new character into the fold and immediately every PC considers them trustworthy...That honestly makes no sense to me. Tairin just came back from an important meeting with a few of the others and she isn't just going to blurt out their secrets before a random stranger whom she and the others do not know. OOC I know you are now coming in as one of us, but in character it's different and it may take more than a few charming words to earn the trust and open lips. I'm a little confused as what is so wrong with this? And no one is excluding you, especially not me, since I am the one who asked you to check out the game and was/am eager for you to play.
"I do marvel at such a capacity to trust. Indeed, what a marvel,"Ah, no. This sarcasm is not appreciated.
I know that there can be problems arising when a character is introduced mid-game, but I honestly thought that wouldn't happen here.
I'm waiting for my You Seem Trustworthy moment so I can be brought into the greater story...
She would give Talar and Samir a better rundown of Thoth-Apep's words once they had some privacy....but it looks like that isn't going to happen.
As things look now, I've been brought in for a side-quest and I'm being deliberately isolated from any sort of main quest. All for the sin of not being with you people since level 1.
So what's going on?
To clarify a bit:
1. It's not a sin that you weren't in the party since Level 1, most of the players weren't. However, to clarify - generally the RP in this game takes a bit of time to develop.
From an In-Game dynamic the party is dealing with multiple issues of having to cope with threats in the city - most notably they had to deal with spies following and hunting them; political intrigue, bounty hunters and assassins pretending to be something other than what they are - not to mention brushes with dark sorcery, summoned demons or, at least, some form of aborted dark god from below the realms of mortal men called forth to do battle under the auspices of a high priest who commanded a dark cult.
Given all of that, I don't think it seems very unreasonable that that before they embrace you as a comrade it takes more than one or two posts to develop some bonds of trust between you and them might occur via some Social RP.
2. While it's true you've just joined the party and are formally a PC, they're writing their character dialogue as if they don't know you're a PC, if that makes sense? Your guy has a good bevy of skills that he could be attempting to use to try to figure out why they're being so cagey; however, it's likely that their characters are acting a bit stand-offish at this point because they seem like most people I know when they're having a conversation with someone and that person deliberately switches to another language (and when some of them know your language, what you said wasn't very flattering).
That said, I'm aware of the difficulties of a new player bonding with a seasoned group. However, at this time you're hired to do a job for Talar. You've met people who either hire or work with Talar; they don't seem to be very trusting of you and almost seem a bit cagey/suspicious of you. If this happened to you in real life, what would you do to help make the situation better?
What I mean is; if you want to be included in the group (especially given your stats and skills) how would you respond to get them to like and trust you?
Honestly, all I can say is that from what I'm reading I don't think it's meant to be personal, it just seems like Social RP. Also, I feel like it will go much smoother than it might with your guy than a normal NPC, but I don't see much harm in taking a few posts to get two Southern Noble/Scholar types to feel comfortable with a Northern Barbarian type.
Why not try rolling with it for a bit as your character? Toss up some Diplomacy Checks and try to at least flatter them, or get to know them better in game?
As I said, from what I'm reading it seems like it's just Social RP. If it looks like it's becoming a personal thing I will deal with it, but for now I'm curious to see how your character responds to it from an In-Game dynamic.
The facility to add avatars to new profiles is back up and working, which is great news.
Honestly, don't take it personally Mal. Most of the party isn't the original, and Talar in particular had a very hard time getting over the distrust factor.
So please, understand that compared to previous new editions this is practically a welcoming fanfare. Just kind of the nature of the beast for this campaign.
I do imagine that this "side quest" (to Talar it is his main quest) will be giving Mal quite the opportunity to prove himself, and do not fear about being sidelined in the meantime; we don't have any large overarching narrative points at the moment (since we have killed The Spider God's Bride) and Talar will be absolutely focusing 100% of his time on this mission.
On a side note, we should drop a link to our discord channel so Mal can stay in touch there as well. Link
@Mal:
To echo the others, it really is nothing personal. This campaign world is quite cutthroat and trust can be harder to come by, even for new PCs. It would break versimiltude a great deal if we suddenly just trusted every newcomer.
For one, I'm enjoying Mal's take on matters. It makes for very engaging posts!
Edit: In case you hadn't heard, the problem with changing avatars has been fixed. :)
I am going to need some time off from things for a while. I don't have an approximation on when that will be.
Peace
Be well, Dain GM. Take the time you need.
All the best, Dain.
@Mal:
As you may have noticed, Patenemheb likes asking a lot of questions!
@Mal:
Welcome! I just realized that as you aren't on Discord you haven't seen my updates. I just returned from a work trip that had me pretty much AWOL from the game for a week. Finally able to post again.
Now that I've caught up on the reading, I want to also echo the "This is nothing personal" statement. This is a time in the game itself where strangers are definitely suspicious, so please forgive Yasala for being suspicious and asking questions about you in southern languages. I'm sure she'll like you once she gets to know you.
Yasala does not trust easily AT ALL after her experiences, and is especially distrustful of people who appear charming but seem to be more than they are...so you would have hit all her red flags if she was in that conversation from the start. I'm glad that I was gone for the initial conversations, as I would have been just as, if not more, suspicious during all of that. Instead I can just gloss over it quickly and then proceed from where we are now :)
@Dain GM: Take your time, I hope that things get more palatable in RL.
I am back at this point.
Thank you for those who asked about me; I appreciate that.
Good to have you back, Dain GM. :)
Welcome back!
Welcome back, Dain!
Thanks, guys. I appreciate that :)
As we head into our "downtime" for the levelup and individual information gathering, I propose that we have a quick discussion of our goals here in discussion to see how we can support each other. If we do it simply in RP then we might miss things, especially as so many of our characters are pretty circumspect in their language and spend so much time being subtle.
Although Yasala still hasn't told any of you (Don't feel bad Mal, she is slow to trust anyone it's not just you. The others don't know her full past or goals either LOL) She will primarily be looking for any connections to either the Jul-Juggan ruling class in Azimba or to the criminal organization that she came from. Any political connections she learns of might be of use to Tairin and Paten, as well as the already mentioned connection of the cult with the Ikunan.
She is also quite concerned about the local group she was originally sent to assist, who happened to be running slaves out of here towards the East, which as mentioned might end up being of use to Talar.
I posted in Gameplay, and that's all that the characters know of her goals, but here in Discussion I wouldn't mind knowing what everyone is looking into, as that way if she runs into information that might be of use to others I can hopefully find an IC way of passing on the information.
Hopefully you all could do the same (with both a Gameplay and a Discussion post) and that way we can all know what's going on.
I also propose that if this is going to be approximately a month in game, that even if we fully separate for the downtime we agree to meet periodically in character so that if anything is shared we might have time to act on it before the individual RP sessions are over, or if several of us end up being on similar tracks we could join forces for a bit.
Thoughts?
Followup for the above post:
I got some guidance from the GM as to how he's going to handle the downtime.
He would like us to outline what we plan on doing in a general way each week. For example (I want to find out about A so I intend to go the Q section of town for a week, concentrating my conversations with the X types). He didn't mention where to put this but I'm assuming here in Discussion.
He will then ask for any clarification and/or specific rolls that he will need for that week, and after getting our answer we will receive a spoiler full of information from him.
I propose that we try and do this in order as a group. If we each waited until we all had week 1 complete before proceeding to week 2 then we could meet in Gameplay to share what we are willing to share about our progress in character, which then could possibly be used to modify our individual plans for the following week.
Also - those of us who haven't leveled up yet: he'd like our plans for leveling to be posted here in discussion.
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To piggyback off that, Yasmala, does the GM also want my gameplan?
From a 50,000 foot view I'll be using the Foot-In-the-Door principle, as outlined before.
You and Talar might want to reach out to him as it seems like you'll mostly be working together. I'm not sure if you're in Discord but that's where it's easiest to get fast answers versus here. No pressure to join if you don't want to though :)
Bjoern, are you still with us, my buddy bodyguard? Hope all is well with you and yours.
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Mal seems like he's going to be an EXCELLENT addition to the game, bravo on your entrance thus far.
Also a gentle reminder to all: Talar is a short-tempered hothead and a bit of an emotional mess, but CampinCarl is a jolly soul and is reading along quite happily! :)
I believe it was mentioned that Mal doesn't care for discord, so private messages on the forums (or just discussing here) will be perfectly fine.
@Talar and Mal:
For reasons of her own, although Yasala does really need information about the slaver group she knows of, she cannot be seen by them or even be too obvious about looking for them...so I propose this for the morning.
You guys do your thing, but she is going to spend her whole first week split between spending time in the dive bars and alleys quietly listening and gathering information where she can, and with posing as the envoy to research official connections.
In both cases she'll be looking for trade agreements/connections (whether legal or extra-legal) to Azimba/Ikuna/Zaidj and other points south. With slavery being legal, but the group she knows of having stolen/kidnapped their slaves instead of purchasing them, she might find info in either the legal or criminal side.
If she finds any concrete connection at all to slavers, she'll be sure to pass it to you immediately, but for her own health she can't go with you to meet them or show her face to them in any way.
That work for you?
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@Talar and Mal:
For reasons of her own, although Yasala does really need information about the slaver group she knows of, she cannot be seen by them or even be too obvious about looking for them...so I propose this for the morning.
With that said,
Yasala, I have many questions.
1) First off, yes, everything you said is quite fine.
2) Mind you, I find this fascinating; that you are looking for a thing that you can not be seen by. Intriguing!
3) What exactly is your end goal? To me, (and I'm not that bright, =) it seems that your actions are to gather information on the slavers. But to what end? Do you want to kill them all? Do you want them to forgive you? Take you back? Disperse and never do slavery again? You have many plans to 'gather information' but I'm not entirely certain what that information is or what you want it for?
4)I'm just asking so I can be a help to your storyline however I can. Mind you, I would give it 50/50 that the people you are looking for are ALSO the people that have Talar's sister.
5) Since you can't be seen by them, it seems that I could be a great help to you. With my disguise, not only could I appear as anyone you want, I could even appear -as- you, if you thought that was what was needed.
*Yasala disappears around a corner*
*slavers round the corner and lay hands on her*
"Ha, Yasala! We've got you now!"
*Yasala comes around a different corner*
"First be sure WHO has WHO!"
Jus' brainstorming here. =)
@Mal - it's kind of a long story, all of it actually stems from my background which is in the profile.
Long story short, Yasala has been a smuggler/facilitator for a criminal group in Azimba basically her whole life, and over time has worked her way up in the organization enough to have worked around most of the known world.
She came up here for a job, but when she found out it was to facilitate the movement of slaves who were NOT sold or born into it but instead were kidnapped and very badly treated, she took off into the city and ended up with this group. She's unsure if they even know she's taken off versus just being in the city greasing palms and creating documents, or if they are looking for her.
She is looking for information as she wants to try and find out how much trouble she's in for abandoning the job she was given, and also needs to know if the slavers are actively looking for her, if word has been sent back home, and all of the potential issues that might result from everything.
Of course, none of that has been told to ANYONE in the group in character, so as far as Mal (and Talar/Paten/Tairin) know, you guys are aware of nothing other than she's researching official and unofficial connections to Azimba and specifically looking for information on a slaver group in the area. She's also relatively new to the group so at this point she's not 100% sure that none of YOU have connections that would get her in trouble if you knew who she was.
TL;DR - she is in the middle of a career change out of a career field that might not be happy to see her go, and trusts no one with her backstory yet.
Also - It hasn't been expressly stated but at one point GM hinted that my slavers and the ones Talar is looking for are NOT the same group, so I'd give it more of a 10/90 than a 50/50. That's OOC info though so in gameplay I have to work as if it's still a possibility.
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Ah! Okay, good to know (or, not know, as the case may be. ^_^)
Okay, now, at first blush (of this thing that I don't even know about) it seems like it "might" be an easy fix?
Again, this is just off the top of my head. Just trying to be helpful.
Mal could, posing as, I dunno, a bounty hunter, make contact with the slavers (this can't be too hard. You go to slave market, you ask who the owner is, or you look at the brand, or you say you wanna make a big purchase and speak to the local supplier...if it's not illegal it shouldn't be too hard, maybe?) and then either one of two things happen.
1) Pose as your "contact". (Or lawyer, or whatever) and say that you've (fill in the blank; flown the coup, been given a better offer, walked away because of the lousy pay, are fed up with not being promoted, etc) and you (through Mal) want to make sure there are no hard feelings.
If they try to kill me, then, yes, there are hard feelings, and wacky hijinks ensue. =3
2) Pose as, still, a bounty hunter and say I've heard yous guys 'eh lost Yasala. Hows much yous guys gonna pay for her head, eh?
If they say they don't want your head because you're not worth it, then that's that.
Anyway, yeah, it looks like we got a lot of options here...whenever you want them. =)
To be honest, she's not really worried about the slaver group. They are just peon clients, but they are her immediate connection to the south. The real worry is the long established organized enterprise back home who sent her here as their representative.
There's actually a bunch of directions she can go to find that out, but she's starting with researching what the slavers might know or might have sent back to her old masters, since that also might help out Talar. Without his sister being at stake she would have put them at a very low priority or ignored them completely.
No worries, I am still here, just hit hard by the quarantene
Keep safe during these difficult times, Bjoern.
@Bjoern: This is from my personal notes. Regarding the water to the manse, there is a freshwater well located within a circular clearing in the garden. The well is 10 feet in diameter and 30 feet deep. The water comes from a natural wellspring that itself originates in the underwater springs that formed the oasis of Zul before the city was built. Private wells such as this are rare in the desert city; most houses are supplied by small aqueducts or by water carried from central wells.
I hope this information helps.
Sounds great Yasala, solid plan.
@Dain: I left a message for you about alchemy.
@Talar: Understood. :)
@Mal/Talar/Yasala: Looks good!
@Tairin, I think you may have missed that Patenemheb will definitely be meeting Darius this day.
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I didn’t miss it, Paten. I just didn’t want to write for your character in case you decided to change tact and do other things before meeting with Darius.
That is a fair response. Regardless, we shall visit the priest together. :)
Sounds like a plan. Paten. :)
OK looks like we have a game plan.
Tairin and Paten are still paired up for RP at the moment, as are Talar and Mal, so I guess I'll prep my "first week of stuff" post and get it up later today.
Talar - I'll be sure to jump back into Gameplay and find you at the mansion or leave a message if I get any information for you during my rolls.
I talked to Dain on Discord, and Talar will be picking up Tharag Thulan but it will take the rest of the month until he's able to actually speak in it, and I'll be handling the RP in gameplay thread as that moves forward.
I look forward to seeing these various plans pan out!
Hey guys, I'm going to be AFK for a bit, so I may not be able to post.
Also, I may end up trying to make a new Discord Server for the game. As it stands, I feel remiss in my duties as GM in that I'm not creating/hosting the server myself. But more on that when I get a chance.
Sorry again for the delay; the virus is making things a bit complicated right now.
Talk to you all soon!
No worries GM, we appreciate being kept in the loop.
Also I transferred ownership of the Discord server to you, so no worries, nothing needs to be done on your end.
@Dain: Thanks for informing us and take care.
@Dain: Hope everything is going well. Stay safe out there!
Also - My leveling plan:
Taking a level of unchained rogue w/ Charlatan archetype.
Will give me a bonus to repeated bluffs, sneak attack, and skills @ lvl 1
Nothing special coming from the skills other than will take a level of linguistics for forging...need to pick a language :)
(further levels will probably continue w/ rogue for the sneak attack and rogue talents as well as the free rumormonger talent at lvl 3 from the archetype, although will mix in at least one more level of ranger at some point for the extra dirty tactics related feat from the underhanded combat style)
I'll wait on Dain's reply to my query when he has time again!
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