A Few Outstanding Issues from Session 108
– Alessandro Bertolucci: How much are you willing to tell Aldus Runnelbrook? He is inquisitive and will be curious about the source of your knowledge (which in turn would lead to questions about what the party was doing in Xen’Khel). As a sage, he is always hungry for more knowledge and will offer spells as inducement to Edan.
– WickedWayz !: One quick clarification since no one asked last night about the library key. Sthorm informed you ahead of time that one of the librarians in the Temple of Merendur had a Dog Froth addiction and would hand over the key when asked. The fellow did this, promising that you would be undisturbed for at least an hour.
– Everyone in the Party: Edan has six more days of training, so the party will be in Midmark for a bit. In the interests of speeding things up next time, are there particular things you want to do (or sell) during that time? People you want to speak with? Etc.? Let me know and we can probably knock some of that stuff out with a quick summary.
I have a couple of things I want to do in the mean time:
1) Cast Animal Friendship on Starchie, and spend some time using Speak with Animals to get to know him better. Use the ‘trick’ part of AF to try and teach him how to fight as a flanker. (Ie, fight only in support of party members).
2) Find a merchant who will sell me a bunch of bone-shards/teeth.
3) Find a tanner/armoursmith who can craft studded leather armour utilising the bone instead of metal. I would like two sets, one made for Canis, one custom-made for Starchie.
4) Purchase a Fancy Backpack.
5) Sell all the mundane weaponry and armour the party gathered from the Dervishes forces. (Essentially just a bunch of swords, mail and bows iirc)
(Most of this providing Canis gets a share of the money of course.)
I want to verify i the statue is of our former companion affected by a basilisk. If so, I want him safe from being an ornament until he can be freed.
I want to sell as much as we can to lighten the load. We need to keep gear for new additions to the party. (Buy fancy backpacks for everyone.
I want to take the book to the devilfish and be done. Trickery just gets complicated, and always bites us in the butt. We need to take care of the crazy woman, she knows too much. How to do that without upsetting the devil fish is a problem.
We need to hire some more troops.
We need to buy a map of all the islands to help us figure out where all the cool places are.
We need to get after Grell ASAP.
Isn’t my whole campaign world cool? 🙁
John Carlson Yes, it is very cool. Why the sad face? I missed a clue….
Sorry — just giving you a tough time for saying the party needed a map to find the cool places.
John Carlson Ah, gotcha, different degrees of cool.
What I meant was all the dangerous places with all the powerful loot we think we need…. 😉
i told you to throw her in the ink pit!
Chuq interferes with Cannis, explaining Starchie’s role in the party is purely ceremonial as he is in old age. His inclusion out in the field is solely so that he can smell more of this world before his end. Now, if you want to get serious, here are his like minded plans :
1. Birds – we need more chicken bait, night/silent fliers (owls or bats), birds of prey and/or messenger pigeons.
2. Guards – more dogs for night/sentry. Chuq doesn’t feel our battle plans should include canines and or big cats unless to counter threats of the same.
3. Spies – rats, mice, ferrets, tropical small lizards like gecko’s to scout urban and dungeon locals.
4. Diversions – tropical parrots trained to speak gnoll/kobold/goblin/whatever in order to distract/attract/confuse opponents.
5. Marine – porpoise, tuna or shark to scout/listen/transport when at sea. Something innocuous that hopefully devilfish won’t suspect but fast enough to keep up with a ship under full sail. Better yet, isn’t there a giant eel or barracuda in the MM?
6. Mounts – can’t always wait for Thorfus’ short shanks to keep up and until Cannis can change into a cheetah, we need horses/ponies when overland.
Old age? Starchie? That pooch has the life of luxury! xD
I’m still getting him the armour though. Just in case.
But sure, if Chuq is gonna be difficult, I did want to look at adding to the menagerie. So I’ll be looking for:
1) Another dog. If I can get a tiger/panther/etc, that’d be awesome, but a dog is cool. Heck! A bear if I can would be great. (A third set of armour would also be requisitioned). I’ll train this animal for the aforementioned role.
2) Two birds. One chicken, one pigeon/dove/falcon. For general aerial surveillance, taking over from Socrates.
Antony Nicklin:
1. Another dog would be easy to find in Midmark; panthers and other large cats are not out of the question (I will determine the relative chance of finding those); bears are not common and will not be for sale.
2. All the birds listed could be purchased in one of the Midmark markets.
Antony Nicklin:
1. I will provide the sale value of the mundane weapons & armor in another post (I don’t think anyone objects to getting rid of them).
2. Let me think a bit on the bone armor issue — it’s not a question of possibility, but rather time and cost for such an order.
3. Fancy backpacks are available in Midmark, so that’s not a problem.
Follow Me, And Die!:
1. The statue, Devil Fish, and Grell issues cannot really be handled through posts or summaries; at least two of them are what I expected the focus of next session to be.
2. As I told Antony, I will post the sale value of the extra mundane equipment the party is carrying around (mostly from the pirates).
3. Are you going to advertise for hirelings (i.e., spend money on postings and at taverns)? Ask specific people for recommendations?
4. The map issue is a borderline case and depends on what kind of information you want on the map. For instance, one marking known imperial forts would be easy to find at the Paper Bazaar; a map to a hidden fort that hasn’t been picked clean already would have to be hunted down in-game.
{face palm} Why don’t we add a few acrobats and bards and call our selves “Thofus Ironhand’s Flying Circus” or “Cirque de XenKel”? 😉
As for Aldus, I’ll tell him that I suspected much of this while I was studying and often locked horns with my peers and teachers at the university. But it only began becoming more than a theory while exploring dwarven ruins deep in the jungle, meeting the Starchie boys and of course – Kalgunn (I don’t mention where I found him exactly other than within the ruins). If he presses – I’ll ask Thorfus and Chuck how far I should go.
I’ll give some thought to managerie, Chuq will likely purchase a few. If we have a week, couldn’t Cannis get a suit of wooden splint?
Alessandro Bertolucci:
1. Aldus will immediately ask if those ruins were Xen’Khel, mentioning that Desric Threehorn sent the Starchie Boyz there with some kind of key (and that Desric’s death was both a shame and highly suspicious). He will also express surprise that such a thing could even be possible given how long would-be treasure hunters have been scouring that place … and, of course, as a respectable scholar, Aldus is going to want to hear more evidence supporting your claims since they are rather outside the mainstream of magical theory.
2. Aldus will also suggest that, perhaps when your training is complete, you bring Kalgunn for examination. He has some experience with sapient weapons and might be able to determine if the sword is lying about its abilities.
Rahm Benisaeko:
1. Yes, I would think about what animals make sense as permanent fixtures in the party. The sea creatures, for instance, are rather severely limited in where they can travel.
2. Wooden splint is not something available in Midmark (or Curabel, as far as you know). It would be a foreign concept to the characters.
Cool. Well, Canis is not against exploring Midmark (ignoring any urchins of course).
If I can, a big cat would be awesome! Sure I’ll need to visit the rich area or something, but with his Druid skills Canis should be able to train it up just fine. (And I want to armour it, naturally 😛 )
I’ll purchase a pigeon at whatever price you say. I can grab a chicken and cages at book prices?
Antony Nicklin: 10% markup on chicken & cages; you can make a reaction roll on Roll20 to haggle, though. Let me think about pigeon prices.
For non-magical bows and arrows, we might want to keep a few quivers, just in case. If we get in a sea battle, we may need plenty of missile weapons/ammunition.
We could leave Starchy as a guard dog for the house.
Since Starchy is Finklemur’s dog, and going by the name of Starchy Boyz is problematic, and how we want to achieve a lower profile….