- A lot of the more long-term effects, like creating undead or summoning/binding outsiders or plane shifting or, hell, even Wish and Resurrection... aren't spells any more. They're rituals, and as such can be learned and used by anyone, even non-spellcasters, and depend on the use of skill checks.
Your background is that of a Bookkeeper, before you went and started trying to commune with the denizens of other planes and maybe do a bit of cheeky necromancy on the side.
Valka's character sheet is on the front page, but will be linked here for convenience:
"Valka," you say slowly, painfully, forcing yourself to speak, "I am… I was a book-keeper. Accounts, inventories, census data, that sort of thing."
"Ah, an educated miss," Sil nods encouragingly, smiling at you with his gap-toothed mouth, "What'd you do to end up here, then? Bit of fraud, fudge the numbers too much? Must have been a big score to get you sent to Branderscar…"
"Witchcraft," you say bleakly, and the smile drops from the old sailor's face as if struck. Not an uncommon reaction, that one.
You remember it all so clearly. The joy in being part of your community, the satisfaction every time someone judged you worthy of learning more of your heritage. The growing suspicion as elders fell silent and outsiders frowned reprovingly. The growing outrage as you realised just how much of your history, your culture, was hidden away from the younger generations by the dictates of the Church, condemned as unbefitting for loyal subjects of the King.
The hunger for more, the resolution to act. The painful anxiety as you sought out those who knew of such things, the greed with which you held your forbidden books. The exhilaration as your studies bore fruit, as your whispers were answered in the dark places of the night, as the dead and the foreign answered your call and told you all that you wanted to know and more. And then… the horror as you were discovered. The desperation, as you ran. The crushing, all consuming sense of loss as the witch hunters tore the secrets from your arms and burned them in a pile in the street.
(Dark eyes pin you to the spot. A harsh tongue pronounces judgement.
"May Mitra have mercy on your wretched, damned soul, for we shall not.")
"Well, now, how about that?" A voice from one of the adjourning cells cuts through your gloom, the refined tones of an aristocrat as alien to this place as the sun beneath the earth, "I've never met an actual witch before. Is it as exciting as the stories make it sound?"
You scowl, tugging at your chains, but it is no use. You have a bit of room to move around, but not nearly enough to look into the cell next to yours, nor to reach the gate that stands between you and freedom. You can see into the cell across from yours, where a bald human kneels as if at prayer, eyes closed and head bowed, but he doesn't stir.
"It wasn't a game," you scowl, shaking your head and sitting back down, the chains holding your arms awkwardly out in front of you, "and I don't regret it."
"Really? Well, if you insist," the highborn in the neighbouring cell sounds almost bored, though that might just be their (her?) accent. "Don't expect me to join you in such defiance, though. I most certainly regret mine."
Before you can reply, the sound of a door slamming open echoes through the cell block, followed by the trooping of booted feet on stone. A small band of guards, led by the same sergeant who branded you but minutes ago, stop outside the door of your cell… but they are not here for you.
"Alright, Sil, time's up," the Sergeant says with an unpleasant smile, watching as his minions unlock the door and step into the cell, "Hope you've done your prayers."
"What?" the old human opposite you blinks in shock, shrinking back from the guards in fright, "No, it - you told me it was tomorrow! Blackerly, you bastard, you told me-"
"Plans change," Sergeant Blackerly says with a shrug, his beady eyes barely blinking as he watches the guards unlock the old man from his chains and drag him to his feet, "Turns out the magistrate got waylaid, so we're doing it now. Come on, let's get it over with."
Sil curses, begs, reasons with them as best he can, but it is hopeless. The old sailor is manhandled out of the cell and then out of the prison level entirely, and you know with an iron certainty you will not be seeing him again. You sit there, in silence, for a bit, staring at the locked door to your cell and the corridor that you will be dragged down when your time comes, three days hence. The punishment for witchcraft is death by burning… will they do it here? Build a pyre in the castle courtyard? You've heard the kind ones strangle their victims first, but…
"What did you do?" you say abruptly, forcing the thoughts from your head, "To end up here. That thing you said you regret."
"Mm?" The languorous voice replies, "Oh, murder. Well, duelling unto death, which is a bit worse, at least according to our righteous liege. Bastard."
You blink, briefly thrown by that. Duelling has never been a dwarven custom, but you know it remains popular in wider society, and you've heard of more than one duel which ended in death without the perpetrator going to prison, much less being executed over it. You suppose there must be a nuance there that you're missing.
"And… what about the others?" It is still easier to ask the questions than think about the future, and what it doubtless contains.
"Oh, they're nothing special," the noblewoman sighs, "The bald fellow over there was a priest, I think, one of the martial orders, until he got caught stealing holy relics. There's an orc down the hall who got done for banditry, but let's be honest, it's because his skin is the wrong colour. Oh, and the ogre, of course. He eats people."
"...the what?" Again you stand, moving as far towards the door as your chains will let you, peering down the length of the corridor. You can't see anything in the cells to either side, but at the very end of the row there is a single large enclosure separate from the rest, and in there you can see something massively and vaguely humanoid sprawled out like a slumbering horse.
"Don't bother trying to talk to him - they keep him drugged," your neighbour adds with a faintly amused tone, "Good thing, too. I saw him reach through those bars and pull a man's arm clean off, the one day they forgot. Absolutely horrible mess."
You sit back down, chewing your lip as your thoughts race. An ogre… something like that would probably be strong enough to force open the castle gates, if you could get the drugs out of its system and convince it to try. The others here all sound like killers of one kind or another, so if you could find a way to get out of these cells, you might be able to win free. It's not much of a plan, but it is still something.
"If he doesn't talk, how do you know what he did?" You venture after a moment, trying to solve the first missing piece in your puzzle.
"Oh, the guards were kind enough to tell me," your neighbour snorts, chains jangling as she shifts in place, "Everyone thought His Majesty would have a change of heart and issue a pardon - we're family, you know, if distantly. My stay here was very comfortable, near the start. Clean clothes, proper food, daily walks around the courtyard… they changed their minds by week three, though. Guess they realised what a stickler for the rules he really is."
You nod, adding that little detail to the puzzle. If the woman in the cell next to you is nobility, and high enough to call the King a relative, then she must know people with the power and wealth to shelter you. Not forever, you think, but enough to get out of the country or perhaps start over under a new identity. It's a tenuous possibility, made all the more so by her supposed relatives' inability to get her out of here already, but it is something to work with. As is the fact of her relative freedom until recently - perhaps she knows more that might be of use…
Article:
Choose a total of TWO questions to ask your nobleborn neighbour about Branderscar, its security and its potential weaknesses. She will answer you accurately and in full, but will not know anything else worth sharing.
[ ] Write in
(Minor stuff like 'what is your name' etc will not use one of these questions, and will be incorporated into the next update anyway)
My intent is that you have your cantrip spells available (these will be listed as part of the sheet later). All of your proper spell slots were expended during your capture and subsequent (failed) escape attempts.
Hmm. Given how nicely the guards treated her, I could imagine that she might know all of the guards, which will be useful in assessing their number and if any of them are of particular notes, or maybe on her walks in the courtyard she could have seen any structural weaknesses or other flaws in the physical security of the prison. But there might be better questions to ask....
Asking questions related to our strengths strikes me as wise. Stoneworks? Structural weaknesses?
edit:
We have an eye watering three craft skills, religion, diplomacy, and dwarf lore.
If we had tools I would give us good odds of busting up anything we can get our hands on. Hm...
@Maugan Ra im sorry to ask this again but... any of our crafts relevant to our possible escape attempt?
I know we are probably voting on them at a later date but. : / Mmm.
If there are any particularly religiously minded people in the prison we might be able to combine that with diplomacy to covince them to give us... something.
Asking questions related to our strengths strikes me as wise. Stoneworks? Structural weaknesses?
edit:
We have an eye watering three craft skills, religion, diplomacy, and dwarf lore.
If we had tools I would give us good odds of busting up anything we can get our hands on. Hm...
@Maugan Ra im sorry to ask this again but... any of our crafts relevant to our possible escape attempt?
I know we are probably voting on them at a later date but. : / Mmm.
If there are any particularly religiously minded people in the prison we might be able to combine that with diplomacy to covince them to give us... something.
Quick update - I have found an easy way to export the character sheet into a stat block, which I have put up as an image under the "winning vote" spoiler and also on the front page, for those who are interested in such things.
I think a question honing in on the character of the guards is the right idea- because it definitely seems there's a lot of partiality and lackadaisical adherence to the actual schedules and protocols and everything going on- surprising Sil with an execution without his proper midnight vigil and last meal and everything, forgetting the ogre's pacifying drugs, being initially generous to the noblewoman. Its perhaps inevitable being such a fearsome and dismal dungeon with the turnkeys and gaolers here almost as condemned as the inmates themselves to such bleak monotony, but it's still absolutely a potential fatal flaw in our prison.
-[X] How is the garrison disposed, who's cruel, who's handsy, who's lazy, which squads haze the others, and so on?
-[X] How does the warden organize things and the fortress operate, who gets access to the outside and who gets the worst shifts and grunt work?
-[X] How is the garrison disposed, who's cruel, who's handsy, who's lazy, which squads haze the others, and so on?
-[X] How does the warden organize things and the fortress operate, who gets access to the outside and who gets the worst shifts and grunt work?
