blargney the second
blargney the minute's son
Nondetection or (depending on your table's interpretation) mind blank could block see invisible, especially if the divination has a low caster level.
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Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Hey everyone,
A few things.
First, in real life, the game is almost over. I'd say between 3 and 5 sessions remain, depending on how things go, and then the story will be complete.
Second, just as an FYI, the Story Hour now lags behind the game by 33 sessions, or just about 2 years of real time. So there's plenty more story from a reader's point of view.
Third, the rate of updates is likely to stay slow for the next couple of months, at least. I have a number of other projects, including writing projects, that ought to take precedence over this one. I'll keep chipping away slowly, and once the game actually ends, I can cannibalize some of the time spent on game-prep for story-hour writing instead.
Finally, I still promise that I won't stop writing until the entire story is told. (StevenAC, there's no way I could leave it unfinished after all of your work on the .pdf!) Now, there may be some plot threads that don't get tied up nicely, but many (most?) will, to greater or lesser degrees, and I hope you (and my players!) find it all satisfactory.
Oh, and while I'm here, have an update.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 333
Downward Spiral
Though the storm has eased somewhat, it is still lashing the side of the boat with wind-driven needles of rain as Lyle steers Burning Sail into the small harbor of Elkin’s Bay. The place is hardly a bustling center of trade; the village is almost a token presence, its buildings clustered on a hill overlooking the bay. Only two small boats are parked alongside the dingy and peeling pier. A few dwarves, hunched and hooded in the rain, mill about on shore. One is tugging a large net full of fish, but he stops and regards the Company’s boat with suspicion once the unseen servants start to tie it down.
“How long do ya’ think you’ll be stayin’ here?” asks Mad Captain Lyle.
Dranko wipes some water from his eyes. “We don’t know. If we get sucked into another plane of existence, it could be a while. If not, maybe a week or two. Wanna go home? We can do that for you, if you want.”
“In your magic boat?” asks Lyle.
“Well, with magic,” says Dranko. “Different magic.”
They explain about teleporting, and once Lyle is convinced it’s safe, he assents. “The sooner you send me back, the sooner I can start braggin’ about our voyage!”
In less than a minute, Lyle has been whisked back to Tal Hae. Dranko folds up the boat, which causes the nearby dwarf to drop his net and stare in surprise.
“We didn’t want to take up valuable space in the harbor,” Dranko explains. “Say, can I buy one of your mackerel?”
The dwarf hardly knows what to say. “I… you… I mean, sure, I guess. Which one?”
“That one. And that one, too.”
Dranko gives the dwarf two silver pieces for two of the fish.
“If you don’t mind my saying,” says the dwarf, “you’re an odd-looking lot. We don’t see many visitors ‘round here.”
“I can see why,” says Kibi. “It’s hard sailing to get to this place.”
The dwarf nods. “You must be in a great hurry, to have tried the approach in a storm!”
“Yeah,” says Ernie, looking nervously at the water.
“Ernie, what’s the matter?” Dranko asks.
“I can’t swim,” Ernie admits.
“You can’t?”
“I don’t need to swim. I have word of recall.”
“So, you fall in a pond, and teleport back to your temple?”
“Yondalla wants me dry.”
They make small talk with the dwarf, whose name is Dellin, as they all make their way up the hill to the town. They take shelter from the rain in a small tavern called the Sleeping Fish; the five dwarves already waiting out the storm there stop in mid conversation and stare unabashedly as the Company walks in. Their suspicions are mollified when Kibi offers to pay for all of their drinks.
The party sits at a large table with Dellin, and while Aravis starts drawing a picture of Cencerra, Dranko keeps chatting up their new friend. When Aravis has finished, Dranko takes the drawing and shows it to the dwarf.
“This woman came by about a year and a half ago. Have you seen her, or know where she is? She was here with a bunch of other people, who were also not dwarves, and they never came home. We think something might have happened to her.”
Dellin looks thoughtful. “She wasn’t a peasant, was she?”
“Why?” Dranko is immediately focused. “What happened to the peasant?”
“And how many were there?” asks Grey Wolf.
“Two,” says Dellin. “I’ve been here about a year, and those were the only strangers I’ve seen come through this way. They sailed here like you, though not in a magical boat.”
“There would have been four of them,” says Morningstar.
Dellin shakes his head at the picture of Cencerra. “Nah, just the two. They were looking for some gateway, and we figured it was at the bottom of the Downward Spiral. Came about a year ago, not long after I arrived.”
“What?” Grey Wolf exclaims.
“Never been down there myself, of course,” continues Dellin. “But the Downward Spiral is like a folded over fissure. Tonnig knows the history better than I do. Like I said, I haven’t been in Elkin’s Bay very long. Moved here from Wissing. But the locals here say that there’s a holy place, or something, down at the bottom of the Downward Spiral. We’re not supposed to go trespassing, so I don’t.”
“Has anyone else gone to visit it recently?”
“Yeah,” says another dwarf, who has drifted over to listen in on the odd conversation. “The smith. Heckern. He didn’t come back, though. Neither did the two peasants, come to think of it.”
Dellin introduces the new dwarf as Chennik, a carpenter. “True,” Dellin says, nodding. “Though it’s possible they all came back up, and left some other way, not coming through Elkin’s Bay.”
“Were the peasants wearing red armor?” Dranko asks.
“No,” says Dellin, looking a bit annoyed. “They were… peasants. A man and a woman. If they had been wearing armor, I would have called them something else. I remember one was tall and one was short. Don’t remember which was which, though. Humans all look the same to me.”
“Those two ragamuffins?” says Chennik. “Friends of yours? Surprised they had any friends. Rude, they were.”
“No, those weren’t out friends,” says Dranko. “You say they came by a year ago? Our friends would have come by at least a year earlier.”
Chennik looks at Aravis’s sketch of Cencerra. “Hey, she looks familiar. And yeah, there was a group of folk came to Elkin’s Bay around that time. Dellin, you weren’t here yet.” He motions to a dwarven woman behind the bar. “Hey Carba, come over here!”
The woman stands up and stomps over; Chennik shows her Aravis’s sketch. “Remember her?”
“Yeah, of course,” says Carba. “I think her name was Sarah. Didn’t stay long.”
“How many were there?” asks Ernie.
“Three or four, maybe? They barely stopped in to say hello. Same as the peasants later on. They all wanted to know about the gate at the bottom of the Downward Spiral. Now, I don’t know about any gate, but I told ‘em all the same thing. Don’t go. But it’s not my job to stop ‘em. I just serve ‘em drinks.”
“You said the place was holy,” says Kibi. “To Moradin?”
“I dunno,” says Dellin. “No one talks about it much. I think it’s bad luck or something.”
Chennik nods and shrugs. “That’s the story. They say that some centuries ago, divine beings created a shrine down there, and since then, it’s been generally understood to leave the place alone.”
Morningstar raises an eyebrow. “Do you know WHICH divine beings?”
“Dunno,” says Carba. “But not dwarvish.”
So, it looks like there have been three outings to this “Downward Spiral” in the last couple of years: first Cencerra & Co., then the two peasants, and then the local smith Heckern. None returned. An investigation is most certainly in order!
/*/
Dranko gets to chatting with Chennik for a few minutes. “What can you tell me about Karthian Oil?” he asks innocently.
Chennik laughs. “We use it for mining operations. Completely legitimate. If sometimes a barrel of it gets smuggled to the mainland and used for nefarious purpose, that’s hardly my business.”
Dranko smiles back. “The first time I head of Karth, is when someone tried to explode me with a barrel of your oil.”
“Is that what happened to your face? Heh, heh! No, just kidding. Though you’ll find that we’re friendlier to strangers here on the coast. They’re less trusting of outsiders as you go inland.”
“Why is that?” asks Dranko.
“History! You do know that in the old days, we were slaughtered and enslaved by mainlanders, right? Ever since then, we’ve tried to limit out interactions with the rest of Charagan. And we kind of like it that way. But if you want to visit the big city, Yen Hae is only about 100 miles from here.”
Chennik takes a long pull at his tankard. “Let me give you some advice. You seem like nice people. Don’t go down there, to the Spiral. The peasants didn’t come back. And your friend Sara didn’t come back. Heck, even Heckern didn’t come back, and Moradin knows what possessed HIM to go down there. Hell, I’ve seen him warn young kids away from the place. But then one day, he just up and left for it himself.”
“Are there any belongings of his still around?” Dranko asks.
“Sure, in his smithy. We’ve made sure the place stays untouched, in case he comes back. Good dwarf, he was. But that was about half a year ago.”
After a few more minutes of finishing up drinks and small talk, the Company heads out into the rainy night to search Heckern’s smithy for clues. Dellin goes with them, to explain to any passersby why mainland strangers are nosing about the place. The dwarf says that no new smith has taken over Heckern’s work in the past six months; metal goods are purchased from inland peddlers.
“Pity Heckern never took any apprentices,” Dellin sighs.
Morningstar goes in first; the door creaks conspicuously as she steps inside and immediately she blankets the place with thought captures. Mostly she picks up ordinary smithing-type thoughts, and the only odd thought is one she picks up in the loft where Heckern slept. The thought is of the smith thinking, with no preamble: Well, time to go. She’s reminded a bit of the mind-controlled commoners of Seablade Point, some years back.
The rest of the party come in afterward to poke around. Flicker and Dranko, the most observant and thorough at this sort of work, conclude that Heckern did pack before he left, in what looks like a mild hurry. There’s a discoloration on the wall where a sword must have been hanging, but there’s no sign of the sword. And to Dranko’s disappointment, there’s no paperwork or other evidence of why the smith decided to leave.
Aravis decides to bring out bigger, magical guns. He casts vision, naming “Heckern the Smith” as his subject. His sight clouds, and a simple scene enters his mind. Heckern is there, in his smithy, pounding on a glowing horseshoe. He’s thickly built, even for a dwarf, and a long braided beard is tucked into his belt. Aravis hears the distinctive sound of the door creaking open, though Heckern doesn’t seem to notice it as he hammers away. Then, suddenly, he stops, for several seconds, staring into space, hammer limp in his hand. Then, as if nothing odd has occurred, he continues with his work, regaining his exact rhythm on the anvil.
The vision fades, and Aravis recounts it for the others. There’s a collective groan; the entire party reaches the same conclusion within seconds.
“Farazil,” says Drano.
“Oh, Goddess,” says Ernie, cringing. “Not again…”
But even if they’re right, and King Farazil possessed Heckern and marched his body to the Downward Spiral, there’s little they can do about it tonight. They open up the Lucent Tower on a bare patch of grass nearby and pile inside for the night. But before anyone goes to sleep, Morningstar decides to do a bit of scouting in Ava Dormo. She drops into a trance and sends her dream-self racing inland, ten miles in as many minutes, to the strange fissure that is the Downward Spiral.
It’s like nothing else she has seen, geologically-speaking. It’s like a hole, or a very wide pit, with a path that snakes down into it. The rock of the walls juts out and folds over upon itself in many places, so that if Morningstar were solid, she’d be winding her slow way down through a tight vertical labyrinth, one that is often walkable but sometimes not. At the bottom, some three hundred feet below ground level, the Spiral ends in a large open cave. Even were it noontime, this place would be completely dark.
In the center of the cave is a free-standing gartine arch. There are words carved into the natural stone above the center of the arch, but these are in a language foreign to Morningstar. She doesn’t even recognize the characters. But that’s no real impediment to translation; with the ability to freely move her consciousness back and forth between the Ava Dormo and the waking world, she draws the carved glyphs for Grey Wolf, one character at a time. Grey Wolf just happens to have cast permanent comprehend languages on himself, and so reads the sign aloud to the others.
Once eternal, sleeping fast.
Rest for those whose die is cast.
Mortals should not dare to tread,
Where sleeping lie the mighty dead.
Aravis makes the connection immediately.
“Naslund,” he says. For the benefit of the others, he retells one of his visions from the Crosser’s Maze from two months earlier.
Your dream is a vision, clear and cold. You have discovered a vast and lifeless city, and there are tombs here, underground crypts not meant for mortal remains. Through the Maze you have arrived, but you are not meant to be here. Gods fought, and Gods died, and here are Gods interred.
“They called it Naslund, the Great Necropolis,” says the voice of King Vhadish XXIII, who stands nearby. “But who will tend it, with its Caretakers gone?”
Then he adds: “Hoo boy. I guess we’re going in.”
Dranko gulps. “I feel so out of my depth. I want thugs. I feel good about smacking down thugs, but this…”
There’s a clear feeling of trepidation among the Company, but also one of inescapable destiny. Not a one of them doubts that they will soon be paying a visit to the forbidden Necropolis of the Gods.
…to be continued…
A few things.
First, in real life, the game is almost over. I'd say between 3 and 5 sessions remain, depending on how things go, and then the story will be complete.
Second, just as an FYI, the Story Hour now lags behind the game by 33 sessions, or just about 2 years of real time. So there's plenty more story from a reader's point of view.
Third, the rate of updates is likely to stay slow for the next couple of months, at least. I have a number of other projects, including writing projects, that ought to take precedence over this one. I'll keep chipping away slowly, and once the game actually ends, I can cannibalize some of the time spent on game-prep for story-hour writing instead.
Finally, I still promise that I won't stop writing until the entire story is told. (StevenAC, there's no way I could leave it unfinished after all of your work on the .pdf!) Now, there may be some plot threads that don't get tied up nicely, but many (most?) will, to greater or lesser degrees, and I hope you (and my players!) find it all satisfactory.
Oh, and while I'm here, have an update.
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 333
Downward Spiral
Though the storm has eased somewhat, it is still lashing the side of the boat with wind-driven needles of rain as Lyle steers Burning Sail into the small harbor of Elkin’s Bay. The place is hardly a bustling center of trade; the village is almost a token presence, its buildings clustered on a hill overlooking the bay. Only two small boats are parked alongside the dingy and peeling pier. A few dwarves, hunched and hooded in the rain, mill about on shore. One is tugging a large net full of fish, but he stops and regards the Company’s boat with suspicion once the unseen servants start to tie it down.
“How long do ya’ think you’ll be stayin’ here?” asks Mad Captain Lyle.
Dranko wipes some water from his eyes. “We don’t know. If we get sucked into another plane of existence, it could be a while. If not, maybe a week or two. Wanna go home? We can do that for you, if you want.”
“In your magic boat?” asks Lyle.
“Well, with magic,” says Dranko. “Different magic.”
They explain about teleporting, and once Lyle is convinced it’s safe, he assents. “The sooner you send me back, the sooner I can start braggin’ about our voyage!”
In less than a minute, Lyle has been whisked back to Tal Hae. Dranko folds up the boat, which causes the nearby dwarf to drop his net and stare in surprise.
“We didn’t want to take up valuable space in the harbor,” Dranko explains. “Say, can I buy one of your mackerel?”
The dwarf hardly knows what to say. “I… you… I mean, sure, I guess. Which one?”
“That one. And that one, too.”
Dranko gives the dwarf two silver pieces for two of the fish.
“If you don’t mind my saying,” says the dwarf, “you’re an odd-looking lot. We don’t see many visitors ‘round here.”
“I can see why,” says Kibi. “It’s hard sailing to get to this place.”
The dwarf nods. “You must be in a great hurry, to have tried the approach in a storm!”
“Yeah,” says Ernie, looking nervously at the water.
“Ernie, what’s the matter?” Dranko asks.
“I can’t swim,” Ernie admits.
“You can’t?”
“I don’t need to swim. I have word of recall.”
“So, you fall in a pond, and teleport back to your temple?”
“Yondalla wants me dry.”
They make small talk with the dwarf, whose name is Dellin, as they all make their way up the hill to the town. They take shelter from the rain in a small tavern called the Sleeping Fish; the five dwarves already waiting out the storm there stop in mid conversation and stare unabashedly as the Company walks in. Their suspicions are mollified when Kibi offers to pay for all of their drinks.
The party sits at a large table with Dellin, and while Aravis starts drawing a picture of Cencerra, Dranko keeps chatting up their new friend. When Aravis has finished, Dranko takes the drawing and shows it to the dwarf.
“This woman came by about a year and a half ago. Have you seen her, or know where she is? She was here with a bunch of other people, who were also not dwarves, and they never came home. We think something might have happened to her.”
Dellin looks thoughtful. “She wasn’t a peasant, was she?”
“Why?” Dranko is immediately focused. “What happened to the peasant?”
“And how many were there?” asks Grey Wolf.
“Two,” says Dellin. “I’ve been here about a year, and those were the only strangers I’ve seen come through this way. They sailed here like you, though not in a magical boat.”
“There would have been four of them,” says Morningstar.
Dellin shakes his head at the picture of Cencerra. “Nah, just the two. They were looking for some gateway, and we figured it was at the bottom of the Downward Spiral. Came about a year ago, not long after I arrived.”
“What?” Grey Wolf exclaims.
“Never been down there myself, of course,” continues Dellin. “But the Downward Spiral is like a folded over fissure. Tonnig knows the history better than I do. Like I said, I haven’t been in Elkin’s Bay very long. Moved here from Wissing. But the locals here say that there’s a holy place, or something, down at the bottom of the Downward Spiral. We’re not supposed to go trespassing, so I don’t.”
“Has anyone else gone to visit it recently?”
“Yeah,” says another dwarf, who has drifted over to listen in on the odd conversation. “The smith. Heckern. He didn’t come back, though. Neither did the two peasants, come to think of it.”
Dellin introduces the new dwarf as Chennik, a carpenter. “True,” Dellin says, nodding. “Though it’s possible they all came back up, and left some other way, not coming through Elkin’s Bay.”
“Were the peasants wearing red armor?” Dranko asks.
“No,” says Dellin, looking a bit annoyed. “They were… peasants. A man and a woman. If they had been wearing armor, I would have called them something else. I remember one was tall and one was short. Don’t remember which was which, though. Humans all look the same to me.”
“Those two ragamuffins?” says Chennik. “Friends of yours? Surprised they had any friends. Rude, they were.”
“No, those weren’t out friends,” says Dranko. “You say they came by a year ago? Our friends would have come by at least a year earlier.”
Chennik looks at Aravis’s sketch of Cencerra. “Hey, she looks familiar. And yeah, there was a group of folk came to Elkin’s Bay around that time. Dellin, you weren’t here yet.” He motions to a dwarven woman behind the bar. “Hey Carba, come over here!”
The woman stands up and stomps over; Chennik shows her Aravis’s sketch. “Remember her?”
“Yeah, of course,” says Carba. “I think her name was Sarah. Didn’t stay long.”
“How many were there?” asks Ernie.
“Three or four, maybe? They barely stopped in to say hello. Same as the peasants later on. They all wanted to know about the gate at the bottom of the Downward Spiral. Now, I don’t know about any gate, but I told ‘em all the same thing. Don’t go. But it’s not my job to stop ‘em. I just serve ‘em drinks.”
“You said the place was holy,” says Kibi. “To Moradin?”
“I dunno,” says Dellin. “No one talks about it much. I think it’s bad luck or something.”
Chennik nods and shrugs. “That’s the story. They say that some centuries ago, divine beings created a shrine down there, and since then, it’s been generally understood to leave the place alone.”
Morningstar raises an eyebrow. “Do you know WHICH divine beings?”
“Dunno,” says Carba. “But not dwarvish.”
So, it looks like there have been three outings to this “Downward Spiral” in the last couple of years: first Cencerra & Co., then the two peasants, and then the local smith Heckern. None returned. An investigation is most certainly in order!
/*/
Dranko gets to chatting with Chennik for a few minutes. “What can you tell me about Karthian Oil?” he asks innocently.
Chennik laughs. “We use it for mining operations. Completely legitimate. If sometimes a barrel of it gets smuggled to the mainland and used for nefarious purpose, that’s hardly my business.”
Dranko smiles back. “The first time I head of Karth, is when someone tried to explode me with a barrel of your oil.”
“Is that what happened to your face? Heh, heh! No, just kidding. Though you’ll find that we’re friendlier to strangers here on the coast. They’re less trusting of outsiders as you go inland.”
“Why is that?” asks Dranko.
“History! You do know that in the old days, we were slaughtered and enslaved by mainlanders, right? Ever since then, we’ve tried to limit out interactions with the rest of Charagan. And we kind of like it that way. But if you want to visit the big city, Yen Hae is only about 100 miles from here.”
Chennik takes a long pull at his tankard. “Let me give you some advice. You seem like nice people. Don’t go down there, to the Spiral. The peasants didn’t come back. And your friend Sara didn’t come back. Heck, even Heckern didn’t come back, and Moradin knows what possessed HIM to go down there. Hell, I’ve seen him warn young kids away from the place. But then one day, he just up and left for it himself.”
“Are there any belongings of his still around?” Dranko asks.
“Sure, in his smithy. We’ve made sure the place stays untouched, in case he comes back. Good dwarf, he was. But that was about half a year ago.”
After a few more minutes of finishing up drinks and small talk, the Company heads out into the rainy night to search Heckern’s smithy for clues. Dellin goes with them, to explain to any passersby why mainland strangers are nosing about the place. The dwarf says that no new smith has taken over Heckern’s work in the past six months; metal goods are purchased from inland peddlers.
“Pity Heckern never took any apprentices,” Dellin sighs.
Morningstar goes in first; the door creaks conspicuously as she steps inside and immediately she blankets the place with thought captures. Mostly she picks up ordinary smithing-type thoughts, and the only odd thought is one she picks up in the loft where Heckern slept. The thought is of the smith thinking, with no preamble: Well, time to go. She’s reminded a bit of the mind-controlled commoners of Seablade Point, some years back.
The rest of the party come in afterward to poke around. Flicker and Dranko, the most observant and thorough at this sort of work, conclude that Heckern did pack before he left, in what looks like a mild hurry. There’s a discoloration on the wall where a sword must have been hanging, but there’s no sign of the sword. And to Dranko’s disappointment, there’s no paperwork or other evidence of why the smith decided to leave.
Aravis decides to bring out bigger, magical guns. He casts vision, naming “Heckern the Smith” as his subject. His sight clouds, and a simple scene enters his mind. Heckern is there, in his smithy, pounding on a glowing horseshoe. He’s thickly built, even for a dwarf, and a long braided beard is tucked into his belt. Aravis hears the distinctive sound of the door creaking open, though Heckern doesn’t seem to notice it as he hammers away. Then, suddenly, he stops, for several seconds, staring into space, hammer limp in his hand. Then, as if nothing odd has occurred, he continues with his work, regaining his exact rhythm on the anvil.
The vision fades, and Aravis recounts it for the others. There’s a collective groan; the entire party reaches the same conclusion within seconds.
“Farazil,” says Drano.
“Oh, Goddess,” says Ernie, cringing. “Not again…”
But even if they’re right, and King Farazil possessed Heckern and marched his body to the Downward Spiral, there’s little they can do about it tonight. They open up the Lucent Tower on a bare patch of grass nearby and pile inside for the night. But before anyone goes to sleep, Morningstar decides to do a bit of scouting in Ava Dormo. She drops into a trance and sends her dream-self racing inland, ten miles in as many minutes, to the strange fissure that is the Downward Spiral.
It’s like nothing else she has seen, geologically-speaking. It’s like a hole, or a very wide pit, with a path that snakes down into it. The rock of the walls juts out and folds over upon itself in many places, so that if Morningstar were solid, she’d be winding her slow way down through a tight vertical labyrinth, one that is often walkable but sometimes not. At the bottom, some three hundred feet below ground level, the Spiral ends in a large open cave. Even were it noontime, this place would be completely dark.
In the center of the cave is a free-standing gartine arch. There are words carved into the natural stone above the center of the arch, but these are in a language foreign to Morningstar. She doesn’t even recognize the characters. But that’s no real impediment to translation; with the ability to freely move her consciousness back and forth between the Ava Dormo and the waking world, she draws the carved glyphs for Grey Wolf, one character at a time. Grey Wolf just happens to have cast permanent comprehend languages on himself, and so reads the sign aloud to the others.
Once eternal, sleeping fast.
Rest for those whose die is cast.
Mortals should not dare to tread,
Where sleeping lie the mighty dead.
Aravis makes the connection immediately.
“Naslund,” he says. For the benefit of the others, he retells one of his visions from the Crosser’s Maze from two months earlier.
Your dream is a vision, clear and cold. You have discovered a vast and lifeless city, and there are tombs here, underground crypts not meant for mortal remains. Through the Maze you have arrived, but you are not meant to be here. Gods fought, and Gods died, and here are Gods interred.
“They called it Naslund, the Great Necropolis,” says the voice of King Vhadish XXIII, who stands nearby. “But who will tend it, with its Caretakers gone?”
Then he adds: “Hoo boy. I guess we’re going in.”
Dranko gulps. “I feel so out of my depth. I want thugs. I feel good about smacking down thugs, but this…”
There’s a clear feeling of trepidation among the Company, but also one of inescapable destiny. Not a one of them doubts that they will soon be paying a visit to the forbidden Necropolis of the Gods.
…to be continued…
Last edited:
carborundum
Adventurer
Hoo boy!
That was a sweet piece of buildup, Sagiro!
I'm so torn between saying "Take your time, it's your story, your free time..." and yelling "More!"
Fantastic. Thank you!
That was a sweet piece of buildup, Sagiro!
I'm so torn between saying "Take your time, it's your story, your free time..." and yelling "More!"
Fantastic. Thank you!
Joshua Randall
Legend
Re: Captain Lyle's Wild Ride, for future reference, you get less seasick abovedecks (and facing the bow) than below.
Of course, that does increase your risk of being flung overboard. Hmm. Maybe seasick is better.
Of course, that does increase your risk of being flung overboard. Hmm. Maybe seasick is better.
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Exactly. Ernie and Kibi weren't worried so much about sickness. Ernie wears full plate and Kibi, being a dwarf, is much less buoyant than a human. Both would sink like rocks if they went over the side.
Ok time to de-lurk for a second...
Just wondering, Sagiro how do you play out your characters figuring out the clues you leave them. For example that the arch leads to Naslund. Do you just put out the clue and leave it to the players to figure out (if so they must have a huge amount of info written down talking about this game) or do you give them some sort of clues/roll to lead them in the right direction to make the connection?
I'm asking because in my game I've dropped lots of hints, but I'm clearly not being obvious enough because the players normally just hmmm that's odd and give up before they make the connection...
Anyway as always I'm amazed at the story you all are telling, and can't wait to read the next chapter...
Just wondering, Sagiro how do you play out your characters figuring out the clues you leave them. For example that the arch leads to Naslund. Do you just put out the clue and leave it to the players to figure out (if so they must have a huge amount of info written down talking about this game) or do you give them some sort of clues/roll to lead them in the right direction to make the connection?
I'm asking because in my game I've dropped lots of hints, but I'm clearly not being obvious enough because the players normally just hmmm that's odd and give up before they make the connection...
Anyway as always I'm amazed at the story you all are telling, and can't wait to read the next chapter...
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Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
In the case of the inscription above the arch, that's all I gave them. My players figured it out in less than five seconds, but they've been wondering about the Necropolis off and on since Aravis first had his vision about it.
Generally, I don't need to give them extra nudges about plot clues, though occasionally, especially when we're talking about something that happened years and years ago in real time, I'll remind them about something that would certainly occur to the characters, but which may have slipped out of the players' heads.
I don't have to do that very often, because my players are extremely sharp. Also, every once in a while they spend an entire evening just reviewing all the extant plot threads and trying to piece things together. ALSO, they keep a written "to do" list of every major goal they hope to achieve. (Mostly, this is a list of bad guys they want to kill.) So, despite the complexity of the plot and the long times involved, my players manage to keep most of it in their heads pretty well.
Waylander the Slayer
Explorer
Does this mean that you are done GMing in the short term once this campaign is done?
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
In the short term, yes.
Somehow I'll have to fill my time with work projects, board games, finishing up this story hour, reading books, composing music, participating in Piratecat
s campaign, and taking care of the house and kids. Something tells me I won't be bored.
Longer term, I'll probably start up a 4E campaign eventually, but I'd guess that's one to two years away.
