Good night guys, see you tomorrow with spelunking in floating stones.
Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
-
- Tags
- pathfinder open voting
Slowly catching up, so nothing really to say except I'm loving the story, and @DragonParadox you are a real rad lad in the best meaning of the term
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
The would be very helpful of Lina's crazy mother.
If so, she practically gift-wrapped Ansefu for us. 🎁
- Location
- Argentina
I mean, she is crazy, but she is not stupid. She wants us for legitimacy and wants her daughter to rule and be on good terms with her
Now, given how she doesn't get a lot of things, I expect Absefu to be crippled or something
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Or Charmed, brainwashed, pod person'd, brain-infested...
Crazy Fey lady has too many options. Then again, she could do nothing to him and simply have dupes and minions insinuate that he is no longer trustworthy due to his long captivity and whatever may have been done in that time. Lina might not even be able to turn authority over to him if the populace doesn't accept him back.
I apologize if this has already been floated, but I would like to propose/support the idea of an underground hall in Wayfarer's Rest for our Troll Friend to come hang out in.
Outside of that, I do think that the sorta shady floating thing is 60% on the up and up? I am doubtful it's a trap, but that same reasoning is why I have it set to forever 30% thinking it's a trap.
The last 10% involves it polymorphism whoever touches it into a goat or some such. Magic is weird.
Outside of that, I do think that the sorta shady floating thing is 60% on the up and up? I am doubtful it's a trap, but that same reasoning is why I have it set to forever 30% thinking it's a trap.
The last 10% involves it polymorphism whoever touches it into a goat or some such. Magic is weird.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I'm also a fan of building down when we get the opportunity and funds to upgrade Wayfarer's Respite. I'm not sure of how high the water table is or what the soil is like, considering how close the keep is in relation to the shore, but if possible it should be relatively cheap to add some underground spaces for storage, training, additional quarters for guards and guests, etc.
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I want to prioritize making an infirmary. Our luck with poison/disease wont stay good forever (especially if one of our warriors gets afflicted)and and we might earn some money/goodwill if we offer some magical/alchemical healing during downtime.
- Location
- Germany
[X] Goldfish
@DragonParadox, editing for the last update Arc 14 Post 60: Weighting Peril:
Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
"So far we have all been lucky, but luck without caution is like a wild bull with no yoke," Zaia presses. "Let us not walk into the dark when there is no need..."
It is that which persuaded you when Antonio's arguments had not ironically enough, for you well recalled that not all of you had been lucky, of the sailors who died as much from fear of the Passage as of the malice in their hearts, of those who fell against pirates and fell sorcery and of a simple cairn of stone where the grass grows long and fragrant by the sea where lies Tam of Oakbridge under foreign earth and strange sky. What lesson did you take from that day? That you should have been more cautious, that you should have never been on that path in the dark facing spirits and warriors of far off lands?
"If we don't know what did this and why then it may come upon us again in ambush striking in its own time and not in ours."
Some who had been looking on with greed suddenly seem less interested in the strange stone and others whose eyes had been dark with worry give grim nods. All of you had seen enough ambushes on land and sea to know what might come of it. Thus you make ready with lanterns spun of pale light and pebbles from the shore, with sturdy rope and hooks to catch the soft and chalky stone handed to you by an only somewhat grumbling Mog.
"If you break a leg down there I ain't coming in after you..." he giggles, gaze sliding on Durendal. "Her I'll come after though."
"Tell the little creature it will take more than longing words," the voice of the blade emerges with subtle threat, though for the life of you you cannot help but smile a little.
"What?" Antonio asks bemused as he checks the knots with practiced fingers.
"It sounded a little like my sword expects to be courted by Mog if he wants her..." you answer, keeping your voice low, at least until a feeling of vague agreement comes over you from the warming hilt. This time you can't help but laugh outright.
"And you said the ship was strange," the captain snorted. "I'll have to come with you just to be sure you don't break your neck and leave me with that."
"Would it be the strangest thing you've seen?" you ask as you tighten your belt and make sure that you have those healing philters to hand. If you need them down there you will damn well need them quick.
"I wonder if we can tow all this back to harbor?" Esha asks suddenly. "It floats and does not seem that much larger than the ship. Let the Anwa peer into its secrets and take the risk of gathering its treasures then split them with it. You heard the princess, she could not give you gold for she had none, but if she did she would pay for our aid. Blood she has and those willing to spend it in her name."
No sooner had she spoken the word the stone starts to roll from side to side, bringing the cleft perilously close to the waves as though some unseen hand were threatening to drown it. This was meant for you, you realize, one way or the other.
Who goes down into the strange stone?
[] Write in (people have to be lowered one at a time on ropes but there is no upper limit on how many you can send.)
OOC: This was a bit awkward because I had to slide some information in here that I missed yesterday, but my initial plan of making it a dream sequence did not work with you guys actually going exploring and not to bed.
And a question regarding editing, sometimes I notice not applied editing suggestions, due to lack of time and/or opportunity on your part I presume, and in most such cases I bring it up to your attention again later; should I continue doing it, or should I drop it to not annoy you? Or, if it's in fact a question of free time, should I perhaps do that on weekends when you probably have more of it?
Weighting Peril
Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
"So far we have all been lucky, but luck without caution is like a wild bull with no yoke," Zaia presses. "Let us not walk into the dark when there is no need..."
It is that which persuaded you when Antonio's arguments had not ironically enough, for you well recalled that not all of you had been lucky, of the sailors who died as much from fear of the Passage as of the malice in their hearts, of those who fell against pirates and fell sorcery and of a simple cairn of stone where the grass grows long and fragrant by the sea where lies Tam of Oakbridge under foreign earth and strange sky. What lesson did you take from that day? That you should have been more cautious, that you should have never been on that path in the dark facing spirits and warriors of far off lands?
"If we don't know what did this and why then it may come upon us again in ambush striking in its own time and not in ours."
Some who had been looking on with greed suddenly seem less interested in the strange stone and others whose eyes had been dark with worry give grim nods. All of you had seen enough ambushes on land and sea to know what might come of it. Thus you make ready with lanterns spun of pale light and pebbles from the shore, with sturdy rope and hooks to catch the soft and chalky stone handed to you by an only somewhat grumbling Mog.
"If you break a leg down there I ain't coming in after you..." he giggles, gaze sliding on Durendal. "Her I'll come after though."
"Tell the little creature it will take more than longing words," the voice of the blade emerges with subtle threat, though for the life of you you cannot help but smile a little.
"What?" Antonio asks bemused as he checks the knots with practiced fingers.
"It sounded a little like my sword expects to be courted by Mog if he wants her..." you answer, keeping your voice low, at least until a feeling of vague agreement comes over you from the warming hilt. This time you can't help but laugh outright.
"And you said the ship was strange," the captain snorted. "I'll have to come with you just to be sure you don't break your neck and leave me with that."
"Would it be the strangest thing you've seen?" you ask as you tighten your belt and make sure that you have those healing philters to hand. If you need them down there you will damn well need them quick.
"I wonder if we can tow all this back to harbor?" Esha asks suddenly. "It floats and does not seem that much larger than the ship. Let the Anwa peer into its secrets and take the risk of gathering its treasures then split them with it. You heard the princess, she could not give you gold for she had none, but if she did she would pay for our aid. Blood she has and those willing to spend it in her name."
No sooner had she spoken the word the stone starts to roll from side to side, bringing the cleft perilously close to the waves as though some unseen hand were threatening to drown it. This was meant for you, you realize, one way or the other.
Who goes down into the strange stone?
[] Write in (people have to be lowered one at a time on ropes but there is no upper limit on how many you can send.)
OOC: This was a bit awkward because I had to slide some information in here that I missed yesterday, but my initial plan of making it a dream sequence did not work with you guys actually going exploring and not to bed.
And a question regarding editing, sometimes I notice not applied editing suggestions, due to lack of time and/or opportunity on your part I presume, and in most such cases I bring it up to your attention again later; should I continue doing it, or should I drop it to not annoy you? Or, if it's in fact a question of free time, should I perhaps do that on weekends when you probably have more of it?
If I ever miss the edits, it is because I misclick the post button when I am busy or just forget to put them in when I get to a proper PC, sorry about that.
Nothing to be sorry about, you are in no way obligated to do anything regarding my suggestions. I will then raise them again if I notice something like that.
On that note, editing for Arc 14 Post 57: The Rougher Edge from before:
The Rougher Edge
Day of Rule, 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
The fire burns low in the cluttered shop as every gadget, every gear casts shadows in the fading light and in that darkness there is a light, not ruby red but blue like, bright and searing in the eye. It moves with the sound of hissing and moving pistons that would have been alien before your visit to the city of the Little Folk. Now it is merely unnerving... and then it is a touch more than that. The being that steps out to meet you with the clump of too heavy boots is as much black iron as flesh and the part of him that is flesh is stitched together like a child's doll, though no child would bear such a countenance without bursting into tears. It... he cracks his neck with the sound of metal scraping metal.
"So that's to be my fate then, for daring to dream of iron and not just brass and bronze?" Before you can reply to the complaint, for Ro does not seem of a mind to do so, he waves a gloved hand upon an arm of iron. "Oh, never you mind, I'm happy to go instead of drone-buzzing about fixing what was lost. No doubt it would come out as my fault in the end."
"Pleased to meet a fellow student of the world," Zaia says extending a hand, very deliberately bending his knees so that he would reach lower without seeming to try too hard.
"Hmm... an alchemist then, pleased to be making your acquaintance," the strange being speaks a little faster, as others of his breed you have met. "At least you are one to be trying to make new things, too many mortals have their heads screwed on the wrong way around, looking over their shoulders at the glorious ancestors. Feh... if they are so glorious why are they dead? I'm Mog by the way, Mog the Ironsmith."
His master, or you suppose now former master, coughs in clear doubt at the proclamation, though Mog does not seem to care, taking the old man's hand in his and then stomping out the door... where he almost gets kicked into the ground by Megin after he tries to ride on her. To be fair he is carrying bags almost larger than he is and clanking with metal that pretty much have to be carried by a horse if you are to make good time...
"Not all those who walk on four..." you break off, recalling Megin herself. "Not all those who walk on more than two legs are beasts."
"Yeah, yeah," Mog waves the matter off, picking non-existent dust off the leather of his right glove. "So, who is going to carry this?" he lifts up the bags with wry strength not wholly his own.
"What do you need that for?" Esha ask carefully.
"My own work," the little gremlin speaks slowly as if addressing a child. "Now..." Unfortunately for him you will never find out now what as something inside one of the bags flashes with the same cracking blue light as his eye lashes out and strikes Tom in the chest, shrouding him in a veil of its power.
"Fuck!" Tom slurs the curse as he forces his lips to move.
"Numbing power, how fascinating," Esha's tone is now as sharp as the gremlin smith's, as one speaking of a particularly clever toy.
"Is there a problem?" you ask worry and anger in your voice as in your mind. The damn thing had hit Tom.
"None that you won't find worse in a thousand other places," Mog scoffs even as Esha shakes her head with a smile.
"I suspect our new companion thinks my way of using power without proxy or mechanism is primitive and wasteful. I would counter that I never unintentionally hit someone with a numbing spell."
At that Mog clicks his teeth so violently together you are half concerned that he bit his tongue off. "Let's just do the binding and be off."
What do you do?
[] Bind the gremlin into service and move on
[] Try to smooth things over
-[] Write in how
[] Set down the law
-[] Write in how
[] Write in
OOC: Meet Mog the Imjarvi Gremlin smith. For the record, Roland does not know anything about the types of gremlin so it's not in the update, but Esha rolled high enough to know what manner of being he is.
Vote closed.
Arc 14 Post 61: The Hidden Way
The Hidden Way
Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)
"The underside is strange..." Swift Pebble sends, "It is smooth as though it had been worn down by silt and silt swirls all around it still, a current that comes from nowhere and goes, just to that rock. Like magic?" the last she says more as a question than an answer for even after all this time she is not sure what is and is not magic, especially around Zaia and his works.
"Well then I hope the insides answer more questions than the outsides," Antonio says, passing with a clasp of the hand the odd ethereal sense of his own thoughts and of something far deeper, like a shadow just out of sight. "I've found it is usually so with things that come out of the sea."
"I'll see if I can gut a rock then..." you say, more glibly then you mean as with rope and lantern you dive down the long dark of the crevice.
It would perhaps have made better sense to send Swift Pebble down here once more, but it is an uneasy thing and rightly so to lead without leading to not take the chance of the unknown yourself.
The walls are wet and reek of brine and rotting seaweed, still draped like ragged curtains across the shaft, but as soon as your eyes adapt to the light you can see the solid surface underneath, a pale stone contrasting with the darker pumice. Thus you soon land with a surprisingly soft thump in a pocket of air between the two layers of stone followed a moment later by Swift Pebble and then Wanderer and Esha last of all.
The only reason the sorceress isn't holding her nose is that she had to hold on to the rope, passing some of the slime off her hands, though at least she doesn't have to stoop through the narrow way most of the time at least. Thankfully the floor curves downward at a steeper angle than the roof, making it more easy as you move along.
Just as you finally manage to straighten your head you hear out of the dark a sing-song voice speaking a riddle in the tongue of the Anwa:
Dark on the bottom white on top
That's the sea, but if you swap?
What's white at bottom dark on top
Answer now thwap, thwap
That's the sea, but if you swap?
What's white at bottom dark on top
Answer now thwap, thwap
The last do not sound words at all, but like a sort of wet thumping sound that makes you wonder uneasily what else besides worms has died down here.
Something glitters ahead in the pale light of Inge's conjuring. "Is that a knife?" Esha asks. She gets it close, but not quite right, it is a spear tip, though instead of the five inches that were common to the weapons of the Anwa this one was almost ten. Even more strangely it's point is jagged, it's edges serrated meant to pierce flesh and stay lodged in, a cruel thing.
What do you do?
[] Keep walking though the hollow
[] Try to answer the riddle
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: Sorry this was so late guys, I had an inconvenient power outage.
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- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
is the answer a shark?
Good night guys.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
We would be using something with her Light cantrip cast on it, but Inge didn't come with us.
I was thinking maybe an orca?
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Great white shark teeth are serrated. And I cant think of any malicious being associated with orcas , but Sahaugin are associated with sharks. I kinda wish Inge or Zaia with their Knowledge:Nature/Local were here....
@DragonParadox It's a long shot but can Wanderer identify the tooth with Knowledge:Nature/Survival? Or can Esha with her skills?
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I hope we don't have to deal with sharkpeople, too. 🦈
[X] Try to answer the riddle
-[X] A shark
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Goldfish
- Location
- Pilipinas
I think the answer is Sky since the first part of the riddle talks about the Sea
[X] Try to answer the riddle
-[x] Sky
Here's the riddle again:
Dark on the bottom white on top - That's the sea
but if you swap?
What's white at bottom dark on top - if its daytime and bright hence its "white" but the further you go up in the sky the darker it gets. Also the opposite of sea is either land or sky
Edit 2: the spear tip is also unrelated to the riddle.
[X] Try to answer the riddle
-[x] Sky
Here's the riddle again:
Dark on the bottom white on top - That's the sea
but if you swap?
What's white at bottom dark on top - if its daytime and bright hence its "white" but the further you go up in the sky the darker it gets. Also the opposite of sea is either land or sky
Edit 2: the spear tip is also unrelated to the riddle.
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I already rolled for the others and they did not get it unfortunately.
If the spear tip looks like it's meant to stay jagged in, it may be a harpoon, so maybe it points to the answer of some sort of whale or other sea creature.
I don't see any particular connection to the sharks, the spear tip is not described as being a tooth or tooth-like. And while shark teeth can be serrated, the serration is not large-scale, it's used for cutting up prey's flesh, not for lodging the teeth firmly in the flesh so that they will stay in. Wikipedia says the gripping is done with long needle-like teeth.
@DragonParadox, if apparently Inge is with us, does she recognize the speartip as something which can be used for harpooning? Does she have thoughts on the riddle? Though, Antonio's Mindlink allows for two-way communication, can Antonio relay the riddle and speartip image/description to those not with us, in particular Zaia and Inge if she is not with us, and then tell us back their guesses?
For now, I think
[X] Try to answer the riddle
-[X] Many of the sea creatures, in particular, whales.
Though maybe it's a hint that the situation is somehow connected to the Formless, we heard of the harpoons and whale hunts when we investigated Onogu Iranea's death, the parallel was that the Formless hunt worthy prey as Anwa hunt whales as a test of manhood, so maybe we are being told that right now it's a hunt for us and/or Marcella as a worthy prey?
Besides just being a worth prey, I think we disrupted some of their plans on Lirman, with Lina, and maybe with the Knikut near Gibraltar?
I don't see any particular connection to the sharks, the spear tip is not described as being a tooth or tooth-like. And while shark teeth can be serrated, the serration is not large-scale, it's used for cutting up prey's flesh, not for lodging the teeth firmly in the flesh so that they will stay in. Wikipedia says the gripping is done with long needle-like teeth.
@DragonParadox, if apparently Inge is with us, does she recognize the speartip as something which can be used for harpooning? Does she have thoughts on the riddle? Though, Antonio's Mindlink allows for two-way communication, can Antonio relay the riddle and speartip image/description to those not with us, in particular Zaia and Inge if she is not with us, and then tell us back their guesses?
For now, I think
[X] Try to answer the riddle
-[X] Many of the sea creatures, in particular, whales.
Though maybe it's a hint that the situation is somehow connected to the Formless, we heard of the harpoons and whale hunts when we investigated Onogu Iranea's death, the parallel was that the Formless hunt worthy prey as Anwa hunt whales as a test of manhood, so maybe we are being told that right now it's a hunt for us and/or Marcella as a worthy prey?
Besides just being a worth prey, I think we disrupted some of their plans on Lirman, with Lina, and maybe with the Knikut near Gibraltar?
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That spear-tip definitely looks like something that would be used for hunting, although it has been scaled up and it is made of metal which would seem extravagant to the Anwa.