Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="CPaladin" data-source="post: 8626836" data-attributes="member: 7030144"><p>[Session 109, cont'd]</p><p>Kit gets a message that a small band of dwarves is heading in towards us, and a large group of bandits has gathered to waylay them.</p><p></p><p>They ask Grandmaster Farsensor if he can scry them. There are 5 dwarves, dressed magnificently, carrying a gold casket (lined in lead).</p><p></p><p>There are about 200 normal looking humans, lurking in their path, in a way that looks ominous. They’re not professionally armed, but they’re armed. No insignia.</p><p></p><p>They decide to send a voller to pick up the dwarves, and then send Lord Brightspan with some troops who are well trained but not combat experienced to get a little experience and to smash up the bandits and take some prisoners to interrogate.</p><p></p><p>The dwarves insist that they give this directly to a member of the royal council. “It’s been a long trip. We had to fight bandits off twice—I almost wondered if someone told them what we were carrying.</p><p></p><p>“The bandits seemed to know what route we were taking. They hit us twice! There used to be seven of us.</p><p></p><p>“Well, we got the order, from your chief craftsman probably, a couple of months ago. We can’t deliver 130 ounces of orichalcum—we don’t have that much in reserve! So we brought the 10 ounces we had, and sought to negotiate a price for the rest. The offer wasn’t nearly sufficient—it costs too much to mine and refine to make an agreement at that price. We had sold 6 ounces over the course of the sainted late Archduchess’s reign. These 10 ounces we give as a gift to the Ecumenical Council. To produce another 130 ounces… in less than 10 years… it would require stopping all our other projects.</p><p></p><p>"If we focused the entire kingdom on orichalcum, we could probably produce 130 ounces in 2 years time, with no more than the loss of 20 lives."</p><p></p><p>"Are there other sources of orichalcum ore?"</p><p></p><p>"There’s a small vein in the Iron Hills on Khamista. No other sources on Drucien have ever been found.</p><p></p><p>"Do you understand the mining of orichalcum? The ore itself is rare, but then it must be specially smelted. When you smelt the ore, to remove the orichalcum, there’s always the risk of explosion. That’s because the orichalcum in its pure state interacts badly with other things in its ore, until it’s fully refined and purified—then it’s safe except in encounter with pure chaos. It takes about 100 tons of ore to smelt pure orichalcum. And then to forge it into anything specific, that requires a grandmaster gemsmith. We’ve always produced a small amount of orichalcum for its use against the enemy. But our primary industry is mithril. We have customers that we’ve developed over millennia for our mithril. And the price he quoted—suggesting 10,000 silver per ounce—I can’t do it.</p><p></p><p>"We’ve crunched the numbers. If we did it as the captain suggests—safely, in 5 years, perhaps 4, still delivering mithril—at that rate we could reasonably take 40,000 silver per ounce. We would be delivering mithril only in the raw form, because our master smelters and forgers and above would only be working on orichalcum."</p><p></p><p>Kit notes the need to guard against the enemy striking against them. Scrying or the like.</p><p></p><p>“I was wondering if we had rot in the kitchen.” He meant it metaphorically. The Council suspects seen-unseen or the like.</p><p></p><p>"There were a surprising number of explosions and accidents when they smelted the last two. We buried 4 of our young ones.</p><p></p><p>“Years ago, we fought a war in the tunnels against those who could take on our seemings but not our memories. We haven’t done that test in years. 290 years or so ago, but we stopped doing the test of blood after about 100 years. They cost us hundreds of dwarves the last time. If they’re back in numbers, we have a great problem. I’ll take your team back with us, and I’ll tell the priests.” He seems tired all of a sudden.</p><p></p><p>The Council talks about making protective jewelry. He suggests mostly mithril jewelry, with a small inset of orichalcum. For weapons, flanges on arrowheads or the like are best—melee weapons would be too dangerous.</p><p></p><p>He also reports a fairly noxious embassy from the temple of Sytry for the last 2 or 3 years. Apparently trying to engage in proselytization, but perhaps otherwise. They worry about whether the Sytryites may be infiltrators.</p><p></p><p>(The Council allocates some of the orichalcum to the team they’re sending into Masque to close the gate.)</p><p>* * *</p><p>The Council goes to the memorial dinner for the Princess Aufaulgautharim. Lord Davion hosts, and any of even vaguely Noldar blood attend, plus a smattering of their human friends, plus us. Lord Davion toasts her, and salutes her returning (which he can do with this group), and shares his memories. The young Noldar Lord shares his memories of the moon ritual. They pass out small glasses of a very potent wine. All those of any Noldar heritage drink down the glasses, perhaps an ounce. Alistair drinks his down, but Kit and Dame Brionna each basically take a ceremonial sip. Alistair experiences, in an incredibly short period of time, her life. Alistair gets a 16 on a Con/Wis check to see how he handles this. He gets a new skill: Common Noldar, 2 ranks. He also has a great realization about her life: She did some terrible things, but also some incredibly generous things. The Eldar are simply above things—they don’t do harm unless by error, they try to do some good, but mostly just stay above things. The Noldar are more like humans—they do terrible harm, but also quite good things.</p><p></p><p>The humans with the young Noldar lord are now psionically entwined with him, and were before this. So they were protected from this.</p><p>[End session 109]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CPaladin, post: 8626836, member: 7030144"] [Session 109, cont'd] Kit gets a message that a small band of dwarves is heading in towards us, and a large group of bandits has gathered to waylay them. They ask Grandmaster Farsensor if he can scry them. There are 5 dwarves, dressed magnificently, carrying a gold casket (lined in lead). There are about 200 normal looking humans, lurking in their path, in a way that looks ominous. They’re not professionally armed, but they’re armed. No insignia. They decide to send a voller to pick up the dwarves, and then send Lord Brightspan with some troops who are well trained but not combat experienced to get a little experience and to smash up the bandits and take some prisoners to interrogate. The dwarves insist that they give this directly to a member of the royal council. “It’s been a long trip. We had to fight bandits off twice—I almost wondered if someone told them what we were carrying. “The bandits seemed to know what route we were taking. They hit us twice! There used to be seven of us. “Well, we got the order, from your chief craftsman probably, a couple of months ago. We can’t deliver 130 ounces of orichalcum—we don’t have that much in reserve! So we brought the 10 ounces we had, and sought to negotiate a price for the rest. The offer wasn’t nearly sufficient—it costs too much to mine and refine to make an agreement at that price. We had sold 6 ounces over the course of the sainted late Archduchess’s reign. These 10 ounces we give as a gift to the Ecumenical Council. To produce another 130 ounces… in less than 10 years… it would require stopping all our other projects. "If we focused the entire kingdom on orichalcum, we could probably produce 130 ounces in 2 years time, with no more than the loss of 20 lives." "Are there other sources of orichalcum ore?" "There’s a small vein in the Iron Hills on Khamista. No other sources on Drucien have ever been found. "Do you understand the mining of orichalcum? The ore itself is rare, but then it must be specially smelted. When you smelt the ore, to remove the orichalcum, there’s always the risk of explosion. That’s because the orichalcum in its pure state interacts badly with other things in its ore, until it’s fully refined and purified—then it’s safe except in encounter with pure chaos. It takes about 100 tons of ore to smelt pure orichalcum. And then to forge it into anything specific, that requires a grandmaster gemsmith. We’ve always produced a small amount of orichalcum for its use against the enemy. But our primary industry is mithril. We have customers that we’ve developed over millennia for our mithril. And the price he quoted—suggesting 10,000 silver per ounce—I can’t do it. "We’ve crunched the numbers. If we did it as the captain suggests—safely, in 5 years, perhaps 4, still delivering mithril—at that rate we could reasonably take 40,000 silver per ounce. We would be delivering mithril only in the raw form, because our master smelters and forgers and above would only be working on orichalcum." Kit notes the need to guard against the enemy striking against them. Scrying or the like. “I was wondering if we had rot in the kitchen.” He meant it metaphorically. The Council suspects seen-unseen or the like. "There were a surprising number of explosions and accidents when they smelted the last two. We buried 4 of our young ones. “Years ago, we fought a war in the tunnels against those who could take on our seemings but not our memories. We haven’t done that test in years. 290 years or so ago, but we stopped doing the test of blood after about 100 years. They cost us hundreds of dwarves the last time. If they’re back in numbers, we have a great problem. I’ll take your team back with us, and I’ll tell the priests.” He seems tired all of a sudden. The Council talks about making protective jewelry. He suggests mostly mithril jewelry, with a small inset of orichalcum. For weapons, flanges on arrowheads or the like are best—melee weapons would be too dangerous. He also reports a fairly noxious embassy from the temple of Sytry for the last 2 or 3 years. Apparently trying to engage in proselytization, but perhaps otherwise. They worry about whether the Sytryites may be infiltrators. (The Council allocates some of the orichalcum to the team they’re sending into Masque to close the gate.) * * * The Council goes to the memorial dinner for the Princess Aufaulgautharim. Lord Davion hosts, and any of even vaguely Noldar blood attend, plus a smattering of their human friends, plus us. Lord Davion toasts her, and salutes her returning (which he can do with this group), and shares his memories. The young Noldar Lord shares his memories of the moon ritual. They pass out small glasses of a very potent wine. All those of any Noldar heritage drink down the glasses, perhaps an ounce. Alistair drinks his down, but Kit and Dame Brionna each basically take a ceremonial sip. Alistair experiences, in an incredibly short period of time, her life. Alistair gets a 16 on a Con/Wis check to see how he handles this. He gets a new skill: Common Noldar, 2 ranks. He also has a great realization about her life: She did some terrible things, but also some incredibly generous things. The Eldar are simply above things—they don’t do harm unless by error, they try to do some good, but mostly just stay above things. The Noldar are more like humans—they do terrible harm, but also quite good things. The humans with the young Noldar lord are now psionically entwined with him, and were before this. So they were protected from this. [End session 109] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
Top