DungeonmasterCal's House of Respite


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I'd say that the rival king wants them captured so that he can interrogate them and find out who else on his staff has been compromised. If they manage to escape, great; if not, the campaign isn't over. If they get captured, you could have one or more intense scenes with the king or his interrogator, and the next adventure could be their attempts to escape.

Or perhaps there's another compromised member of the king's staff who can help them if they are willing to finish the job...


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quibblemuch wrote:
How mean should I be? How can I throw them a bone so they have a chance at surviving? Should I even? I mean, they got pretty cocky there after a few easy ambushes...

I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm a GM who'll go out of his way to not kill a party outright if there is any chance they can get away but at the same time they're screwed right now. I'd try to figure out a way to at least throw the bone in their general direction and hope they see it while fighting like a third monkey trying to get on the Ark and it's startin' to rain.


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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
like a third monkey trying to get on the Ark and it's startin' to rain.

I have never heard this before, and I can already tell that it has enriched my life.


Agreed.

On the GM front, I think I'll probably give them at least a night's rest to recover class abilities & spells (as well as HP). It could reasonably take that long for a systematic search of the city to find them. They will probably hide in the sewers, which will slow the pursuers down slightly.

I did let them know they could flee the city and call the mission a failure if they wanted. It'd derail the campaign and lead to some interesting outcomes in the civil war--I see the two main factions being powerful enough to split the empire in two and settle into decades, if not centuries, of cold (and occasionally hot) war. Not ideal, but better than a TPK.

They seem committed to trying to finish the mission. So they will quickly find all their erstwhile allies have turned on them or vanished. No resupply, troops coming every hour or more often... the pressure will be bad. But that's what they get for getting cocky, I say. The first three encounters were almost a cakewalk and they just decided brute force had to work against an old soldier who'd survived long enough to be a reasonable contender for emperor...


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Andostre wrote:
DungeonmasterCal wrote:
like a third monkey trying to get on the Ark and it's startin' to rain.
I have never heard this before, and I can already tell that it has enriched my life.

I think this might be Monkey Santa's origin story... like he's strapped to the side of the Ark, Cape Fear style...


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Heh, heh, heh...


quibblemuch wrote:

Agreed.

On the GM front, I think I'll probably give them at least a night's rest to recover class abilities & spells (as well as HP). It could reasonably take that long for a systematic search of the city to find them. They will probably hide in the sewers, which will slow the pursuers down slightly.

I did let them know they could flee the city and call the mission a failure if they wanted. It'd derail the campaign and lead to some interesting outcomes in the civil war--I see the two main factions being powerful enough to split the empire in two and settle into decades, if not centuries, of cold (and occasionally hot) war. Not ideal, but better than a TPK.

They seem committed to trying to finish the mission. So they will quickly find all their erstwhile allies have turned on them or vanished. No resupply, troops coming every hour or more often... the pressure will be bad. But that's what they get for getting cocky, I say. The first three encounters were almost a cakewalk and they just decided brute force had to work against an old soldier who'd survived long enough to be a reasonable contender for emperor...

I am very interested in hearing updates on this. The possibility of derailing the campaign leading to unanticipated outcomes in the war would be the kind of thing that most of my players would dive into tooth and nail. They love their political intrigue.


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Well, the problem with this derail is that it is a failure of their main objective--they want Person A to be the sole emperor and if they can't eliminate the rival claimant and the empire splits... well, it's their fault they wind up with only half their goal. Plus, it's just embarrassing. I mean no one talks about Andy the Mediocre, the guy who tried to invade Persia and India and wound up getting as far as Asia Minor before having to return to Macedonia because he got his ass handed to him...


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LOL that's true. But adventurers are plucky l'il devils. They can take some time, regroup, recover, and return to COMPLETELY WRECK YOUR ENTIRE CAMPAIGN WORLD.


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*debeverages*

So true. So, so true…


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reads over student responses

Ah, yes. The Crucible was definitely about John Protractor's infidelity.


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Euclidding me? There was an obvious love triangle!


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Scintillae wrote:

reads over student responses

Ah, yes. The Crucible was definitely about John Protractor's infidelity.

That's an interesting angle.


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Not to be confused with Miller’s later pro-vegan work, The Cruciferousble. Ah, who could forget Reverend Kale…


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She said I love the night
The day is OK and the sun can be fun
But I live to see those rays slip away

-- Goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow


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Fantasy NPC: Lady Yagnes, Heir-Pretender

Her parents sent her to get proof that she should inherit Leshiskovo.

Good luck with that.


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Just got back from Fayetteville (Arkansas, a two and a half hour drive from where I live) where I watched the documentary about the life of Ronnie James Dio, "Dreamers Never Die". I'm tired from the drive but it was so worth it. It was an early birthday present. Dio's music was/is very special to me. I really loved it.


Drejk wrote:

Fantasy NPC: Lady Yagnes, Heir-Pretender

Her parents sent her to get proof that she should inherit Leshiskovo.

Good luck with that.

I just bookmarked her for my new campaign. I think I could adapt her backstory to my setting pretty easily. As always, Drejk, great work!


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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Just got back from Fayetteville (Arkansas, a two and a half hour drive from where I live) where I watched the documentary about the life of Ronnie James Dio, "Dreamers Never Die". I'm tired from the drive but it was so worth it. It was an early birthday present. Dio's music was/is very special to me. I really loved it.

HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY!

\m/ ___ _ \m/
\ ( ͡▀̿ ̿ ͜ʖ ͡▀̿ ̿ ) /

WOOOOO!!!!


LOL Thanks!

Not capitalize on this the until the actual birthday. For instance: There now 23 shopping days left!


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You’ve inspired me to now wish everyone I meet a happy early birthday. It’s got a 99.7% chance of being true AND it’ll confuse the heck out of people!

Quibblemuch: Sowing chaos since AUC 2735(tm)!


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Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Giving away your age there, Quibble. ;-)


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Only if you assume I started sowing chaos at birth. Could be it took me a while to find my calling…


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Stop what you're doing, and tell the people who matter to you that you admire them, respect them, love them. I found out at 1 am that a good friend of mine, the first friend I made when I moved to this city in 1994, passed away a couple of days ago.

It's gonna be a hard day.


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So sorry for your loss, Cal.


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quibblemuch wrote:
So sorry for your loss, Cal.

Thank you, Quibbs. You'd have loved the guy. He was absolutely hilarious with a sometimes dark sense of humor. He'd call me at all hours laughing hysterically at a joke he'd just made up and try it out on me to see if I thought it was funny and not him tooting his own horn...LOL


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Sounds like a great guy. Although it's sad he's gone, I am glad to hear he created good memories for those he left behind.


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Aw, sorry to hear that, Cal.


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Andostre wrote:
Aw, sorry to hear that, Cal.

Thank you. The world is a dimmer place tonight, but we'll keep his light going.


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Fantasy NPC: Pirate Captain Yarrow


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I like the cut of his jib!

I've been in the pirate game myself a time or two. Hard to find a decent crew.


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I just saw in the news that Angela Lansbury passed away at age 96. They said it was natural causes, and that’s what I thought…

Until I remembered her great-nephew and sole heir had claimed to be hunting penguins in the North Pole at the time she died. I realized he had to have been lying about his whereabouts. Once I tugged on that thread, the recent change in her will made more sense—as a forgery. Add in her great-nephew’s tea allergy, the fact that her last beverage had been tea, in a cup he “accidentally” broke before the coroner could arrive, plus the red bumps on his wrist that he claimed were mosquito bites, in October in Maine, and murder became the only logical conclusion.


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So a penguin killed her? That's what I'm getting out of that.

Anyway, penguins are of nature, so that's still "natural causes," maybe.


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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
quibblemuch wrote:
They seem committed to trying to finish the mission. So they will quickly find all their erstwhile allies have turned on them or vanished. No resupply, troops coming every hour or more often... the pressure will be bad. But that's what they get for getting cocky, I say. The first three encounters were almost a cakewalk and they just decided brute force had to work against an old soldier who'd survived long enough to be a reasonable contender for emperor...
I am very interested in hearing updates on this. The possibility of derailing the campaign leading to unanticipated outcomes in the war would be the kind of thing that most of my players would dive into tooth and nail. They love their political intrigue.

Well, they flew up into the dark and took about ten minutes to regroup while the fortress below sprung into high alert. Their target appeared in the courtyard and gave a really stirring speech about the vile assassins his political enemies had sent to kill him, complete with descriptions. The PCs decided it was now or never.

They flew back down to the highest tower. One of them has a magic item that allows him to cast mass suggestion once per day. By luck, this particular group of soldiers had been cut off from the main fray so while they knew SOMETHING was up, they didn't know what. And the suggesting PC was polymorphed to look like the fortress's major domo, so when he suggested that their target was going to be arrested for crimes against the state that they'd uncovered evidence of... 5 out of 6 of the guards failed their Will save and thought "better follow orders and arrest him". The 6th went along because there's nothing more mind-affecting than peer pressure.

Unfortunately, the guards on the floor immediately below disagreed. A battle ensued between the PCs 'helpful' guards and the unenchanted guards, with the PCs doing their bit. That's where we left it, and they have 5 guys still on their side who think the right thing to do is seize their high general for treason.

We'll see how it plays out from here...


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This will only end in tears.


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Fingers crossed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: There's more to GMing this game than psychologically brutalizing your friends, but damned if I know what and double-damned if I care.


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Fantasy NPC: Glit Flitwibble, Scholar of Gremlins.

Because gnomes.


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Love a good gnome. (Not in the alignment sense. No judgment here).

"Quibblemuch" was originally a gnome name. In my first homebrew world (round about the time our own planet was cooling from the Hadean epoch) there were five gnome Families that controlled certain aspects of commerce on the central peninsula ('families' in the Mafia sense). The Quibblemuchs had a lock on magic items, dried meats, and erotic lithographs. I found it hilarious that every time the party wanted to sell their magic items they had to go to the jerky and porn store.

It was a different time.


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A different and wonderful time.


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Fantasy NPC: Ferbel Drumm. A gremlin who will offer advice on gremlins.


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So, I've been writing trivia questions on the board each week as a contest for my classes. I wrote this one's on Friday, went home, had a hectic weekend, and completely forgot about it.

I stepped out of the room a bit before class and came back in as the kids were sitting down. One kid points directly at me and yells, "Vampire!"

I take a stunned moment to wonder what to say to this, then I look at the board: "During their contest, Mary Shelley created Frankenstein and his monster. What creature did John Polidori write about?"

My secret remains safe another day...


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Did you tug at your collar and refuse to make eye contact for a bit?


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Happy St. Crispin's Day!


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I think like I inadvertently pissed off some ancient Mesopotamian water deity. Like I was at a museum and I bumped into her statue or something. So far this month our water main had failed and needed to be replaced, while doing that, they severed a outdoor line, and just this morning the entire bottom of the water heater dropped out, flooding all that delightful hot water I was planning on showering with onto the garage floor.

Anyone know an exorcist or have any familiarity with ancient Mesopotamian water deity pacification rituals? Because I'm pretty sure there's more where that came from...

*shakes tiny fist; curses futilely*


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The first Mesopotamian deity that pops into my mind is Pazuzu and if you've seen "The Exorcist" things are gonna get worse. Just a heads up.


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Heads 'up'? I see what you did there... (¬_¬)


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Oh, and the water troubles get more exciting. This is, admittedly, the single most first-world problem I've ever had to face, but a small plastic doohickey inside my fridge's ice maker broke and now ice randomly shoots out of the slot, leaving small puddles of water all over the kitchen.

We are definitely into poltergeist territory here...


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quibblemuch wrote:

Oh, and the water troubles get more exciting. This is, admittedly, the single most first-world problem I've ever had to face, but a small plastic doohickey inside my fridge's ice maker broke and now ice randomly shoots out of the slot, leaving small puddles of water all over the kitchen.

We are definitely into poltergeist territory here...

You were deprived of hot water, you are attacked with ice... I am sensing a pattern here.


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I'm sure it's not related to that old woman flying around in the mortar that I ran over in my car... is it?

BABA YAGA!


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Winter came for House Quib.

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