(IC) DND 3.5 Enter Planescape

[OneCrappy DM]

Luke Cinder

Sticking to the main thoroughfares is the best way to move through the Hive. The side alleys twist like a razorvine, hiding things you’d much rather see coming from three streets away. Best not to let the Hive surprise you; it has a habit of doing that only once. Out here, the air is thick with the stink of too many bodies and too few honest intentions.
You’ve got all manner of denizens drifting through the muck:
Fortune tellers who read omens; Cagestruck bodies who wandered in through the wrong Door and haven’t stopped panicking since; Locals who’ve lived here long enough to be half-feral, moving in packs for safety. Then there are the plane touched swaggering about like they own the place, their tempers as short as their knives; Madmen muttering philosophy to the shadows; and the occasional dustman dragging a half-dead body to the Mortuary because business is business.
Every one of them knows something about someone, but none of them talk for free and even when they do, you can’t trust a word. Still, you already know where your mark holes up. What you need now is information and in the Hive, the only way to get that is to sift through its people just like they sift through its refuse, never sure which scrap will cut you and which will pay off.

Spoiler: Required Rolls

You may roll up to twice on a gather information; each roll is accompanied by a d4+1 hours required for the search. If you decide to roll twice word may get around of your questioning.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Spoiler: Mr. Black (mini-sheet)

Mr. Black Perception: 4 Sense Motive: 2 Search: 5	AC: 14; FF: 13; Touch: 11	Spell Slots" 0: [X] [] [] [] [] 1st: [] [] [] []
HP: 8 Init: 1	Fort: 2 Ref: 1 Will: 2	Buffs - none-

---

Mr. Black stays calm, running options through his mind as the best way to deal with this person.

Is he a threat?

They're obviously in some kind of slum. Mr. Black is used to slums.

He relaxes so as not to look like a threat. He raises his arms up,

"Listen, mate, you gots me mixed up with some other...biter..."

Trying hard to use the local lingo. It's obviously Common Tongue so even magic won't be able to translate it. He just needs to learn the dialect. Fast.

"You look like hell, yerself. How you gonna get to your lathly house like that? You'll stumble into some gutter an' get your throat cut. Then it'll be them,"

He points to the robed men across the way,

Listen, mate, look at me! Here with ain't nothin' to do. Might just as well get'cha home first, before you... earn me that page."

He's not sure if any of the stuff he said made sense but he offers his hand out as a truce.

---

Spoiler: OOC ROLLS

Okay!

I think Lathly is a swear word?
Not sure what Earn a Page means but I think it means to beat me up.
biter? just an insult?
Not sure what Styx is...other than he's an Aasimar and maybe that's an insult?
Edit: Rube...like a bumpkin? Naive?

Anyways, I'm trying for a diplomacy check here:
The guy is hammered and I'm making a guess that he's about to walk home. We're in dangerous slums so walking home alone drunk is a dangerous thing that anyone in the slum would know is a death wish (or inviting yourself to be mugged). So I'm offering to help him make sure he gets home.

diplomacy: 1D20+5 = [17]+5 = 22
Long term plan is to have a 'safe' place for the night and mine this guy for information.

 

[OneCrappy DM]

Mr. Black
The aasimar blinks at you, his eyes trying, and failing, to track. Confusion ripples across his face. He sways on his feet and each time you finish a sentence his fist dips toward the ground. You can almost hear the gears in his mind grinding away, chewing on your speech and spitting out fragments that don’t quite fit. He tries a spit out a full sentence.

“Backring Prime, ye shou— hic—”

Before he can finish, a clawed hand settles on his shoulder. A half-fiend steps in beside him, his skin giving off the faintest smell of brimstone cut with the sour tang of cheap tavern beer. His presence steadies the aasimar, who relaxes into a kind of indifference.

“Bar that you’re jangled up, alright,” the fiend drawls, giving the aasimar a reassuring pat before turning his sharp, ember eyes to you.
“Sorry about that. I gave him a bit of abyssal razorwine, and this bubbler can’t hold it. He's just looking for a fight, but you seemed to slow him down alright. Name’s Mordikai.” He grins, showing a hint of fangs. “And you sound as cagestruck as any prime fresh out the door.”

The aasimar mumbles something unintelligible, feathers ruffled and posture slumped, but it’s clear the fiend’s presence is the only thing keeping him from pitching face first into the street. The two seem mismatched at a glance, yet there’s an ease between them an odd, companionship forged somewhere between alcohol, bad decisions, and shared misadventures.

 

[Neurotic]

Luke Cinder

Every one of them knows something about someone, but none of them talk for free and even when they do, you can’t trust a word. Still, you already know where your mark holes up. What you need now is information and in the Hive, the only way to get that is to sift through its people just like they sift through its refuse, never sure which scrap will cut you and which will pay off.

Spoiler: Rolls

Not a great start
neurotic: D4 + 1;D20 + 3#lukecindergatherinfo → 5; 10(4 + 1);(7 + 3)#Luke Cinder Gather Info

Luke spends some time carousing around, paying a drink or information here and there, but it seems everyone knows about the guy, but no one knows anything of value. Or maybe he took one too many and missed the clues.

Nothing for it, time to meet the guy.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Spoiler: Mr. Black (mini-sheet)

Mr. Black Perception: 4 Sense Motive: 2 Search: 5	AC: 14; FF: 13; Touch: 11	Spell Slots" 0: [X] [] [] [] [] 1st: [] [] [] []
HP: 8 Init: 1	Fort: 2 Ref: 1 Will: 2	Buffs -Detect Magic??

---

“Bar that you’re jangled up, alright,” the fiend drawls, giving the aasimar a reassuring pat before turning his sharp, ember eyes to you.
“Sorry about that. I gave him a bit of abyssal razorwine, and this bubbler can’t hold it. He's just looking for a fight, but you seemed to slow him down alright. Name’s Mordikai.” He grins, showing a hint of fangs. “And you sound as cagestruck as any prime fresh out the door.”

"Yeah, well...I'm somethin' alright."

The sight of the two look like an angel and devil on someone's shoulder but the devil's outright won the moral debate and the angel just quit and pulled a stool up to the bar.

"I guess someone thought it'd be funny to deal me a bad hand. I'm...."

Looking back, he didn't know why he did it. Maybe it was this strange place that had put him off guard but instead of giving his name - or any name - his codename tumbled out of his mouth, "...Mr. Black"

"I'd be much obliged if you gave this resourceful Prime a proper tour of the sights."

While Mr. Black's "dungeon-wear" didn't suit the city, it conveyed a clear message: he was a man who took risks and had talents.

He had no idea what connections this Mordikai had or what the half-fiend would ask in return for a seemingly mundane favour. This was how he'd gotten himself entangled with the gangs of the Free City.

Except now, he was making a deal with a, literal, devil.

---

Spoiler: OOC ROLLS

PS: is my detect magic up?
If you need a concentration, I fail (I got an 8). If not, I'm curious what Mr. Black sees.

 

[Steve Gorak]

Bimble

The archway was designed with a wood shape spell and strengthened with Ironwood enchantments. It remains alive, still connected to the great oak from which the entire grove was born. Every tree around you is one of its saplings. Along a well trodden path, your eye catches something unusual. An acorn resting on an amber colored fall leaf. Both are out of place for it's a couple of days before the spring equinox, yet you recognize the sign instantly. Baervan Wildwanderer, the patron deity of your circle, leaves such tokens only with purpose. The path it lies on is the inner sanctum courtyard at the heart of the great oak grove.

Bimble

Bimble's heart races as he sees the acorn. How could this be? Am I worthy? He says talking to himself, in disbelief. He incants to summon the power of nature and dismounts Roa. He carefully takes the leaf and acorn, making sure he doesn't touch the acorn - it could be sacred. He then inspects it carefully and then walks the path to the courtyard.

OOC: Cast detect magic, he will conentrate for the full minute

 

[OneCrappy DM]

Bimble

You sweep your gaze across the forest, looking at the magical auras in view. Neither the acorn nor the amber leaf carries so much as a flicker of power, mundane, honest things despite their strange placement. The archway gives off a fixed transmutation aura. Unmistakably the strength of a permanent ironwood spell.
Even so, caution guides your hands. You pinch the acorn using the amber leaf rather than bare skin. The leaf bends softly, as though it had surrendered its place on the branch only heartbeats ago. The acorn itself is full-bodied in color and smooth.
The moment you cross the threshold, a violent bloom of conjuration crashes around you. Sound folds inward. Light stretches thin. Your vision drowns as though you’ve stepped through a spell mid-casting. When the glare dies the conjuration’s aura gutters out. Your vision steadies, you stand in a place utterly alien. Petrified tree limbs coil above you, twisted across cramped alleyways to form archways and an ossified canopy. Stone leaves, impossibly detailed, jut from the mortar of walled buildings. A bleak, heavy atmosphere settles across your shoulders, unfamiliar and thick with the taste of smoke.

 

[OneCrappy DM]

Mr. Black

The drunken aasimar staggers off, his radiant heritage only makes his wobbling worse. He plows into a stack of pipes, curses at them as if they were the ones at fault, and resumes his hunt for something, anything, to argue with. The half fiend watches with a long suffering expression only a creature used to chaos could muster. For now, he’s merely keeping watch.
“It may take a tic or two,” the fiend drawls, “but if you can scrounge up a mimir, that ought to speed things along.”
“AYE! BUBBLER!” the aasimar suddenly bellows, pointing one unsteady finger at a robed figure trying very hard to blend into the background. “You… you gleamin’ pip—hic!” The sod in drab grey stiffens like a statue, eyes darting for an escape route. The half-fiend groans into his palm. “Blood needs a leash,” he mutters, half to himself, half to the sky that no one in Sigil ever sees. He watches the aasimar begin harassing his newest target and shakes his head with equal parts resignation and annoyance. Before turning to leave, he tosses a final line over his shoulder “Go find yourself a proper kip to rest. And if you lose anything” his grin creeps back, “check the Market. It’s probably for sale.”

 

[OneCrappy DM]

Luke Cinders
It takes the better part of five hours trudging through Sigil’s wards, leaning on tavern stools, bribing touts, dodging berks, and greasing palms before you finally scrape together enough chant on the man to make sense of him. The Cage never gives up its secrets cleanly, everyone’s got a different tale, and most of them contradict each other just out of spite. Still, with enough patience and jink, the picture starts to take shape.

Spoiler: For Luke Cinder's Eyes Only

The Good:
A few cutters paint him as a halfway decent blood of a sort. They say he keeps a small business at the crooked sword, a semi legit tout operation helping clueless primes and down on their luck locals get work, find a safe kip, or make useful connections. His price? Usually a task he needs done, an errand, a delivery, a bit of information fetched from a shady corner. “Fair trade,” one barkeep shrugs, wiping down a mug with a rag that only spreads the grime around. "Could do worse around these parts."
The Bad:
Others say he’s a cheat. A manipulator who sends the gullible and desperate on fool’s errands, dangerous ones, just to keep his own hands clean. He’ll smile, nod, promise you the multiverse then leave you holding the razorvine when the trouble comes due. “He’ll peel ya quick as a fiend at tax time,” a rat eyed tiefling hisses. “Take advantage o’ any poor sod what trusts him.”
The Ugly:
Word is he’s a Signer, a member of the Sign of One. Believes he’s the center of his own reality, that everything in existence spins around him because he imagines it so. The kind of person who thinks every coincidence is fate, every success is destiny, and every failure is someone else’s fault. “Careful with that type,” an old gnome warns you, her voice low. “They’re dangerous without even trying to be.”

From all the scraps of chant you gather, the truth probably sits somewhere in the tangled middle. Not a saint, not a fiend, not a madman. Just another hustler with a philosophy, a reputation, and a knack for survival. But one thing is certain he’s got work and bodies willing to take it will find him more than ready to deal.