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Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

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@DragonParadox, sorry to ping you in the middle of the writing probably, but the vote is a little out of date, I changed things slightly since you ran the tally, the difference is the following addition if it's relevant:

-[] Continue sailing to Apuku, with Inge attempting to locate the Formless by talking to the sealife and using Eagle Eye several times a day, including any applicable help from herself, such as Guidance, Fortune Hex, Guiding Spirit, and Zaia, such as Magian Wine, Heightened Awareness and Human Potential (Zaia can temporary change his 2nd level loadout to Focused Scrutiny, Human potential for that if needed). Roland, Silver, Zaia, Antonio and Swift Pebble will help her Perception with Aid Another if possible.

The edit was before you closed the vote, obviously, I'm not trying to change it after the fact.

Adhoc vote count started by myrix on Jun 25, 2022 at 2:15 PM, finished with 40 posts and 5 votes.
  • [X] Doing what we can
    -[X] Continue sailing to Apuku, with Inge attempting to locate the Formless by talking to the sealife and using Eagle Eye several times a day, including any applicable help from herself, such as Guidance, Fortune Hex, Guiding Spirit, and Zaia, such as Magian Wine, Heightened Awareness and Human Potential (Zaia can temporary change his 2nd level loadout to Focused Scrutiny, Human potential for that if needed). Roland, Silver, Zaia, Antonio and Swift Pebble will help her Perception with Aid Another if possible.
    -[X] Antonio will also try to check with Marcella if she can point us to anything like that false fish we encountered at Gibraltar.
    -[X] If we'll locale it, attempt to peacefully approach it and have Roland and Esha try to parley with it.
    --[X] Roland will try to initiate the parley using diplomacy with help from Zaia's Focused Scrutiny, Esha's Aid Another and Inge's Fortune Hex and Guidance if applicable.
    --[X] Esha will try to deflect culpability from us to either the Great Worm or the Oceanid or both, whatever seems best, using her Aspect of Innocence, with help from Roland's Aid Another and Inge's Fortune Hex and Guidance if applicable.
    --[X] If it feels right, try to appeal to its sense of superiority by presenting ourselves as know-nothings who do things we do because we don't know better.
    --[X] If the deflection of culpability is not enough, Roland will try to reach an agreement with it, perhaps finding something that it might want, such as some way of giving it feelings, sensations, experiences it might want?
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Arc 15 Post 3: Missing a Stitch
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    • Missing a Stitch ​

    Tenth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

    By the next day most of the crew and all of the soldiers of the Fellowship had noticed the lack of birds as well as Ripper's newfound perch, so there isn't much sense in trying to hide what Inge is looking for. Perhaps on another ship at some other time they would have taken the threat of a many-shaped horror hunting them poorly, but those who sail abroad the Marcella instead take it... you are not sure if in 'good spirits' is quite the right way to put it, but it's in some kind of spirits.

    "If you offer to patch the sails Giano I'll know something's eaten your bones and wearing your face," you hear one fellow say, only for the other to reply: "Might also mean you fucked it up more than usual more's the pity and the sin in the eyes of Sant'Omobono..." The patron saint of tailors according to Antonio, though in spite of his own insouciant manner you cannot help but notice that he has been waking later and later these past three days.

    Knowing the captain for a man who knows his drinks and holds them well in both the gullet and the barrel you prod at the edges of things. No man likes to be told that he is crawling into a bottle at the sight of too much blood and battle, much less from one many years younger, but the last thing any of you need is for the captain to be more than the usual amount of bleary-eyed

    "Not drinking, that'd be too normal for me these days..." he trails off. "Dreaming."

    Leaning a little closer, for you had the good sense to have the conversation out of earshot of any of the others you prompt: "Dreaming of what?"

    "Shapes without shape and colors without hue. I think the old girl is trying to tell me something, but she doesn't have the words. Can't rightly say I can tell what it is this way either, but I wake up needing to puke in the middle of the night like I'm some seasick bilge brat and not a captain twenty years and more at sea."

    "Have you tried directing the dreams?" you ask, recalling your own ethereal sojourn into the lands of the south.

    "Easier for a blind man on a treadwheel to mark where the stones aught to go, but I thank you for the advice and for not calling me mad in the bargain..."

    "Mad?" you laugh "Did you or did you not speak in my thoughts not a few days ago? Beside that skill what is a dream that shows more than it aught? They'd call you a wizard if we ever made it home..."

    For a long moment neither of you speak, as you contemplate the word that had just lipped past your lips, the fact that you would never make it 'home' at all. There had developed something of an unspoken rule among the Fellowship, be they warriors or sailors not to speak of what had been lost that day more than a year ago now.

    "You know Marcella might know something of the way back, we picked her up... well not her body, but the mind and the soul in Between the Worlds. "

    "Why are you..." you pause as though unsure of your next words, in truth you let the matter hang so Antonio can 'misunderstand' if he does not want to talk about it.

    "Thinking about it?" your friend shakes his head, then shakes it come more than an unwelcome bit of hair flies into his eyes. There aren't many barbers at sea, or in a war. "Demons, spirits, great hulking beasts as big as the ship, they all have to come out of some hole. I was just wandering what if the way back is down one of them?"

    "Would you want to go to hell for the chance to come out in England?" The smile comes easier than you expected. "As a Norman of good breeding I would not recommend the bargain."

    ***​

    In the end the only mark of your unwanted follower over these last few days and been missing gulls, cut fishing lines and torn nets, certainly not friendly, but not that you would call a blood feud either. With the island again in sight you join the young king at the prow of the ship and hope to see him to his throne if not the hall he had first greeted you in long ago...

    "Ah it will be good to see my people again and take the seat that is rightfully mine." He stretches after a long and restful sleep, his smile bright to greet the day.

    The one thing you did not expect is the touch of Swift Pebble's mind on yours and 'hear' without voice. "Inge says she's found the shapeshifter.'

    "Where...?"

    "Standing right next to you,"     comes the chilling answer

    What do you do?

    [] Confront the shapeshifter
    -[] Write in how

    [] Play along while the others search for the real Ansefu, see if you can learn its goals

    [] Write in

    OOC: Inge was looking down from the crow's nest with all her magic active and she saw something odd about how 'Ansefu' moved so she turned on her detect magic, low and behold polymorph magic on the person beside you.
     
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    • Tentatively, we should not force the situation until we are ready, and then I think it would be better to try diplomacy, the thing still can just Dimension Door at will, or just jump overboard and then Dimension Door. I'm not aware of any way we can prevent it from doing that.

    Something like that, with part copied from my previous vote:

    [X] Play along while the others search for the real Ansefu, see if you can learn its goals
    -[X] When there are no more things to learn or when the charade is up, confront it with diplomacy.
    -[X] See if we can reach an agreement that's favourable to both it and our group, perhaps finding something that it might want, such as some way of giving it feelings, sensations, experiences it might want? Perhaps it might want to play some kind of game with us?
     
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    Mad guess: Ansefu asked Formless about this himself, because he does not seem himself "worthly" to rool. He wants to stay abroad Marcella, join the Felloship and redeem his "sins" in the upcoming battles.

    It's probably wrong, but it would be magnificent if it is right.
     
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    @DragonParadox, the Formless got pretty beat up escaping from us. How much damage did we inflict before it got away?

    Naunets don't have any special healing abilities, and in the past five days the absolute most it could have recovered is 45 HP, and that's only if it got a full rest each night (hiding as a rat in the cargo hold or something, I assume?). There's a good chance it still hasn't recovered from our last encounter.
     
    Goldfish said:
    @DragonParadox, the Formless got pretty beat up escaping from us. How much damage did we inflict before it got away?

    Naunets don't have any special healing abilities, and in the past five days the absolute most it could have recovered is 45 HP, and that's only if it got a full rest each night (hiding as a rat in the cargo hold or something, I assume?). There's a good chance it still hasn't recovered from our last encounter.
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    Roland cannot see HP damage numbers in others, but he would be able to eyeball this much, it was more than a third and less than half of its HP.
     
    Goldfish said:
    @DragonParadox, the Formless got pretty beat up escaping from us. How much damage did we inflict before it got away?

    Naunets don't have any special healing abilities, and in the past five days the absolute most it could have recovered is 45 HP, and that's only if it got a full rest each night (hiding as a rat in the cargo hold or something, I assume?). There's a good chance it still hasn't recovered from our last encounter.
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    It's Protean, it has this:
    Change Shape (Su): A protean's form is not fixed. Once per day as a standard action, a protean may change shape into any Small, Medium, or Large animal, elemental , giant , humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant , or vermin. A protean can resume its true form as a free action, and when it does so, it gains the effects of a heal spell (CL equal to the protean's HD).
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    We can't count on it having any less than full HP, it might have not done the heal just because it's chaotic, but it might have too.
     
    myrix said:
    It's Protean, it has this:

    We can't count on it having any less than full HP, it might have not done the heal just because it's chaotic, but it might have too.
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    I forgot Proteans get their own special version of Change Shape.

    Yeah, it'll definitely be at full HP. On the plus side, it's used its 1/Day Change Shape to take on Ansefu's form, so we don't have to worry about it pulling a fast one on us again, at least not in the short term.

    @DragonParadox, do Naunets retain their ability to use Dimension Door at will in this setting or is it limited to a certain number of times per day?
     
    Goldfish said:
    I forgot Proteans get their own special version of Change Shape.

    Yeah, it'll definitely be at full HP. On the plus side, it's used its 1/Day Change Shape to take on Ansefu's form, so we don't have to worry about it pulling a fast one on us again, at least not in the short term.

    @DragonParadox, do Naunets retain their ability to use Dimension Door at will in this setting or is it limited to a certain number of times per day?
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    They get it three times per day, at will dim door generally does not exist in this setting as that is just higher level teleport with extra steps
     
    It might seem like we have a chance to catch it even if it flees, 3 x 680 ft is not so much, but I would caution against it, it can easily revert to its true form with fly and swim and just hide in the depths of the sea or the sky. And we will be back to square one with it stalking us.

    And we might have a fair chance at diplomacy because it doesn't seem too angry with us:
    DragonParadox said:
    In the end the only mark of your unwanted follower over these last few days and been missing gulls, cut fishing lines and torn nets, certainly not friendly, but not that you would call a blood feud either.
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    @myrix, I took your plan and made some modifications. Then, before I knew it, it became...this.

    I agree that social combat is the way to go, if possible, but we need to prepare for a violent outcome. Also, I don't want to immediately leap to offering it anything beyond a possibly shared sense camaraderie over being caught up in the plots of the Fey.

    [X] Play along while the others search for the real Ansefu.
    -[X] Try to determine if it really means to impersonate Ansefu by asking leading questions and gauging its reactions. Ask any other fitting questions which might provide insights its mindset and attitude towards us without making it obvious that we are aware of its nature.
    -[X] Finally, when there are no more things to learn or when the charade is up, ask it if it wouldn't be more comfortable in its true form after positioning ourselves to avoid a sudden physical attack if it tries to make one.
    --[X] Before doing this, we'll try to surreptitiously get people into position to attack if it becomes necessary; i.e. Inge within Snowball range, Zaia nearby and able to use bombs (only after drinking a Targeted Bomb Admixture extract, of course), Wanderer will be nearby but out of sight, etc. Mages will have buffed each other and Swift Pebble, Marcella will have been alerted, etc. Esha will use her Swift Actions each round to maintain a Soul Ward on Roland.
    -[X] Assuming violence doesn't immediately erupt, try to continue conversing with the Formless. In this case, Esha will make her way nearby so she can participate in the conversation. Esha will already be using Zaia's Focused Scrutiny extract as there is no reasonable way for Roland to have imbibed it beforehand.
    --[X] Roland and Esha will attempt to use a mix of diplomacy and bluffing (enhanced by her Innocence ability), using Aid Another on one another as the situation allows, to try to convince the Formless that we need not be its enemies. We were merely pawns in the plots of others, victims of circumstance who saw no viable alternative once we unknowingly but quite literally stepped into the belly of the beast, whether the plots be the games of a capricious Oceanid whole stole Ansefu in the first place or the tests of whatever sort of monster the "Great Worm" ended up being. We do not wish to be enemies with anybody, though it seems we are fated to be enemies with at least Daemons and perhaps the Dragons if whispers of them stirring from their long slumber are true; with the Formless we do not need to be enemies.
    ---[X] If, after everything is said and done, it looks like negotiations are going unfavorably to us and the thing will continue stalking us and messing with us, or if it wouldn't even talk to us, consider trying to reach a deal with it by finding something that it might want as recompense.
     
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    BTW the bit with the blind person on the crane, that is another gruesome bit of actual history, cranes of that type were very unsafe and very obviously unsafe because they were made by eye without exact measurements so a lot of blind people were used because they did not have much choice and they did not realize just how unsafe the stuff was.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    BTW the bit with the blind person on the crane, that is another gruesome bit of actual history, cranes of that type were very unsafe and very obviously unsafe because they were made by eye without exact measurements so a lot of blind people were used because they did not have much choice and they did not realize just how unsafe the stuff was.
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    Well that's disturbing. :o

    Then again, back in ye olde medieval times, what prospects did a poor blind person have beyond charity?
     
    [X] Goldfish

    @Goldfish, could you add to the last point that some of the culpability is on the Great Worm too, we wouldn't have fought the naunets if it hasn't forced us into that particular activity for it's task of might?

    It was asked to put us to tasks,
    DragonParadox said:
    "Three tasks I was asked to put to you: one of mind, one of might and one of will. You failed one, but should you pass through the others then you shall have that twice stolen..."
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    but presumably the choice of the particularities of the task was its.

    Also, do we know for a fact that it was the Oceanid that tasked it with returning Ansefu to us? The Great Worm was given that task, but we didn't get any confirmation that it was her. Perhaps don't state it as such, just as our supposition? She is not so important for the situation, the naunet might even not know of her role in this, from its point of view we fought it because Great Worm tasked us with it.

    And the Ansefu was described as twice stolen,
    DragonParadox said:
    then you shall have that twice stolen..."
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    maybe the Formless stole him from the Oceanid and decided to return him to us to fuck with Oceanid's plans? In that case it might be better just to give her a cursory mention, and not the main chunk of the culpability.
     
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    myrix said:
    [X] Goldfish

    @Goldfish, could you add to the last point that some of the culpability is on the Great Worm too, we wouldn't have fought the naunets if it hasn't forced us into that particular activity for it's task of might?

    It was asked to put us to tasks,

    but presumably the choice of the particularities of the task was its.

    Also, do we know for a fact that it was the Oceanid that tasked it with returning Ansefu to us? The Great Worm was given that task, but we didn't get any confirmation that it was her. Perhaps don't state it as such, just as our supposition? She is not so important for the situation, the naunet might even not know of her role in this, from its point of view we fought it because Great Worm tasked us with it.

    And the Ansefu was described as twice stolen,

    maybe the Formless stole him from the Oceanid and decided to return him to us to fuck with Oceanid's plans? In that case it might be better just to give her a cursory mention, and not the main chunk of the culpability.
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    I reworded most of the last section of my plan. How does it look now?

    --[] Roland and Esha will attempt to use a mix of diplomacy and bluffing (enhanced by her Innocence ability), using Aid Another on one another as the situation allows, to try to convince the Formless that we need not be its enemies. We were merely pawns in the plots of others, victims of circumstance who saw no viable alternative once we unknowingly but quite literally stepped into the belly of the beast. Time after time we have found ourselves involved in this sort of business, whether it's the games of a capricious Oceanid or the tests of whatever sort of monster the "Great Worm" ended up being, and if not them, we stumble from one Daemon-provoked crisis to another, each time barely averting disaster. We have too many enemies as it stands, especially the aforementioned Daemons, and now there is credible information that the Dragons may be waking up, or that someone or something is trying to rouse them from their slumber. The last thing we need at this point is to become enemies with the Formless as well.
     
    Goldfish said:
    I reworded most of the last section of my plan. How does it look now?
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    Perhaps we should seem less like we are bemoaning our fate, and be more to the point? Also less disclosing non-relevant info, like this?

    --[] Roland and Esha will attempt to use a mix of diplomacy and bluffing (enhanced by her Innocence ability), using Aid Another on one another as the situation allows, to try to convince the Formless that we need not be its enemies. We were merely pawns in the plots of others, victims of circumstance who saw no viable alternative once we unknowingly but quite literally stepped into the belly of the beast, whether the plots be the games of a capricious Oceanid whole stole Ansefu in the first place or the tests of whatever sort of monster the "Great Worm" ended up being. We do not wish to be enemies with anybody, though it seems we are fated to be enemies with at least daemons and perhaps the dragons; with the Formless we do not need to be enemies.

    Also I still think it might be good to try to offer it something if we have no way to come to an accord otherwise. Don't do it if you feel it superfluous, but I would add something along the lines of:

    --[] If the negotiations for it to stop messing with us are not going successfully, try to reach a deal with it by finding something that it might want, such as some way of giving it feelings, sensations, experiences it might want? Or perhaps it might want to play some kind of game with us?

    ---

    @DragonParadox, sorry for the wall of text and feel free to ignore it, just wanted to express myself.

    I now wish you have given us a more detailed description of the battlefield before we formulated the plan to fight the naunets, the only description you've given beforehand was "The room you are in for lack of a better word is just barely high enough for Roland to stand in and it is about 30-35 ft long.", which turned out not to be the case for the eventual battlefield, and now it's quite probable that Ansefu is as dead as Onogu Iranea, and I feel we failed this important thing when we didn't have to.

    I even had the thought while reviewing the plan if we need more men to stop the naunets from running away just in case, and then thought that nah, the space is too tight, don't need to worry about that.

    Not trying to put the blame on anybody, obviously we should have planned better, asked you for details more and then put the men near the exit regardless, and obviously you were very busy the whole week. You are doing this amazing thing, putting an update every day for this gem of a quest with all of its worldbuilding and characters, and that even in a mechanically complex system, can't wish for anything more. Just feeling down.
     
    myrix said:
    @DragonParadox, sorry for the wall of text and feel free to ignore it, just wanted to express myself.

    I now wish you have given us a more detailed description of the battlefield before we formulated the plan to fight the naunets, the only description you've given beforehand was "The room you are in for lack of a better word is just barely high enough for Roland to stand in and it is about 30-35 ft long.", which turned out not to be the case for the eventual battlefield, and now it's quite probable that Ansefu is as dead as Onogu Iranea, and I feel we failed this important thing when we didn't have to.

    I even had the thought while reviewing the plan if we need more men to stop the naunets from running away just in case, and then thought that nah, the space is too tight, don't need to worry about that.

    Not trying to put the blame on anybody, obviously we should have planned better, asked you for details more and then put the men near the exit regardless, and obviously you were very busy the whole week. You are doing this amazing thing, putting an update every day for this gem of a quest with all of its worldbuilding and characters, and that even in a mechanically complex system, can't wish for anything more. Just feeling down.
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    Yeah I did kind of rush into that battle and did not give enough time to the battlefield. I will say this much though, just because some Formless killed someone does not mean this Formless has killed aboard your ship, so far the most it has killed is gulls and its broken lines that you know.
     
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