One of those friends is a goblin whom she had to explain why cannibalism is bad to, another is the kind of mage she is pretty sure defected from the service of an evil god out of unbridled ambition, a third an oracle with dreams that lead him to prisons filled with demons on the moon and the most down to earth is a lizard-man who collects demon skulls. You know, perfectly normal people.
third an oracle with dreams that lead him to prisons filled with demons on the moon and the most down to earth is a lizard-man who collects demon skulls
Can't help but notice a natural synergy there. I bet one can make a fortune selling demon skulls from the moon, and it seems like a renewable resourse. Sounds like an honest living to me, not much different from farming. XP farming, but still.
I am a bit bothered by advocating secrecy in the winning vote, because Ustalav is far both in physical and narrative distance. We have two arcs scheduled before we even consider going there: the Claes Redoubt looting run, and the Jernashall cleaning duty. Both look like massive undertakings, and that's without counting opportunities that will open up in Taldor's second biggest city. I was hoping we could start looking into Mina's deal well before it happens, and we might want every little bit for that.
I'll just have to hope that what we get back would be enough to kickstart that plotline.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Oct 6, 2024 at 5:21 AM, finished with 15 posts and 6 votes.
[X] Mend bridges if that's what you want, but consign no important questions to paper that will pass through who knows how many hands before it gets to its destination -[X] We can always visit the monastery in the future if she wants to ask more sensitive questions of the Sisters there without fear of strangers learning her secrets.
[x] Give account of what has become of you to shush the doubters' voices, mend bridges with those you wish to, and ask what you want to know, for without questions there are few answers to be had.
"Mend bridges if that's what you want, but consign no important questions to parchment that will pass through who knows how many hands before it gets to its destination," you answer after a moment. "Asking deeper questions is best done in person." And inside a circle warded and runed with lead, you do not add aloud, though mayhap she can read it on your face.
"I guess you are right. We can just go in person, and we have the means for it..." she sights. "It's strange, when it's just us in the middle of the wilderness, wolves just beyond light's reach, I don't have any trouble thinking up a plan or putting it in practice. A pile of dead man's coin? Sure, I'll scoop it up right beside Cob. But thinking about how rich we are now, rich enough to where the whims take us in any season by water or road, that's what noble folk do."
"A noble is just one with land sworn to a larger noble. Wouldn't you buy some with gold if you wanted to?" you ask, genuinely curious.
The chance to elucidate a mystery for someone else cures Mina of her worries, at least for now, as you receive a lecture on the shape, size, and especially color of the strange beast known as the nobility in Ustalav and the lands of the Inner Sea in general. The answer to your very simple question turns out to be very complicated.
In the old Taldan Empire one could not buy land, but if a commoner brought new acres under the plow or pacified the forests then they could raise new banners over them. That was one of the major draws of the Armies of Exploration, to stake claims large and small. In far more mercantile-minded Cheliax, after the Even-Tongued Conquest, it became far more acceptable for the heiress of an impoverished house to marry down, even so far as moneyed traders of manufacturers. Her children might be looked at in askance by her peers, but not very grandchildren, the scent of trade washed away by generations of 'finer blood'.
"They actually use that term?" you ask, dryly amused and thinking of Breolia. "To he honest, I'd be more careful that one with a taste for blood would take that literally."
"I think they have more things to worry about in Cheliax these days to be honest..." She goes on to explain that House Thrune had taken for itself the old privilege of the Chelish Kings to parcel out noble titles from royal land and they used it much more liberally after the civil war, spreading out the lands of traitors. In that the Thrice Damned House was not so out of tune with the rest of the world. It is generally understood that a skilled enough general or other martial servant of the crown might find themselves ennobled to serve as their liege's sowrd and shield, one assumes on the logic that if the dangerous armed men don't get land they might take it. Galt had gone the other way, obsessed with long lineages, a dozen generations deep... and then the Galtan nobility stopped existing besides exiles in ragged silks. In Ustalav the privileges of the nobility are balanced against the power of the merchants and townsfolk, at least in theory. The counties went one way, the Palatinates the other...
"How did you learn so much about nobles and their ways?" you interject in the middle of an account on Isgeran blood feuds and how they differ from Taldan and Chelixian customs.
"First I ran out of religious tomes to read, then travel guides, then atlases, then books of magical theory, then almanacs, and books of manners." She gives a rueful smile. "If I knew I'd be spending this much time in the woods I would have paid more attention to the herbariums."
"Ah, look on the bright side, you still know more than me," you console her, a smile pulling at the corners of your mouth.
She laughs, her own smile lingering at least a little as she gets down to writing.
***
3rd of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
The wind blows cold through dry reeds and over low islands where white-winged birds fly. As you had done each week since setting out on the water, you fall silent and listen to the silence with quill in hand, with parchment ready to read what fate had in store for the Dancing Slurk and her escort. This time only silence comes, as if you had tried to grasp smoke and gotten nothing but fingers stained with soot, an omen lost. Might be there's trouble on the horizon, maybe not, you'll tell the others to prepare.
I think that is the first time Kori's Divination has failed so far. It was bound to happen eventually, since the power only has a 90% success rate.
Of course that doesn't mean something will happen, just that he didn't learn anything from the attempt, good or bad. Doesn't hurt to be careful, though.
[X] Use magic so that everyone can be awake at all times
-[X] Kori and Sirim will each use Shadow Enchantment to cast Keep Watch spells. Between the two of them, they can affect up to 7 people if they each cast it once. After using the effect on the full party, that leaves 2 uses available. We'll offer to use it on Leontas and Urgor, or additional watchmen if they decline.
I think that is the first time Kori's Divination has failed so far. It was bound to happen eventually, since the power only has a 90% success rate.
Of course that doesn't mean something will happen, just that he didn't learn anything from the attempt, good or bad. Doesn't hurt to be careful, though.
[X] Use magic so that everyone can be awake at all times
-[X] Kori and Sirim will each use Shadow Enchantment to cast Keep Watch spells. Between the two of them, they can affect up to 7 people if they each cast it once. After using the effect on the full party, that leaves 2 uses available. We'll offer to use it on Leontas and Urgor, or additional watchmen if they decline.
Not the most interesting vote granted but I did need to know who was awake. Vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Oct 7, 2024 at 3:16 AM, finished with 5 posts and 3 votes.
[X] Use magic so that everyone can be awake at all times -[X] Kori and Sirim will each use Shadow Enchantment to cast Keep Watch spells. Between the two of them, they can affect up to 7 people if they each cast it once. After using the effect on the full party, that leaves 2 uses available. We'll offer to use it on Leontas and Urgor, or additional watchmen if they decline.
The moon is almost full, but as the hours of the night wear on your find yourself focusing more on the black chill of the shore, the slight gleam of warmth in the water. Fog rolls in thick and heavy from the north, and even the dwarves and Gorok are squinting through the curtain of while. What it must be like for Leontas and the others you don't even want to imagine, much less the Taldans now following in the wake of the Dancing Slurk. 'Surely the wizards in the magic boat know what they are doing,' they must be thinking. No one tells them your cook is the only man aboard who'd ever sailed a ship, and never on brown water, but it had seemed wiser to press on than to stop in the shadow of the gloomy woods. It's not far to Ranger's Crossing, a decently sized settlement making their living off trapping and fishing, and more to the point, safe from most faerie meddling by old vows and stout walls.
"A boat! There's a boat in the water!" you hear Cob call out from the lookout's perch, causing the horses who still retain their usual stature to stamp and neigh fretfully, and the men to react not much better. All the other traffic on the Selen had been large boats, Taldan, Andoran, even gnomish or elven, few would dare these waters in a medium-sized boat, and certainly not in a small one.
Peering ahead you see it has a long straight keel and sweeping prow open to the elements, and mayhap to other eyes seeming empty. But there is heat there, embers of life at least, though fading fast.
"Mina, up here! She need a healer!"
The passenger is in much worse condition than the boat, dressed in the rough woolens of a sailor over a quilted vest that's probably the only thing that saved her life. The woman sports the greying hair and calloused hands of an experienced riverwoman almost come to a grizzly end from the blood seeping over the edges of rough bandages that she looks to have put on herself. But it's not blood loss nor yet wound rot that almost did her in.
"Poison," Mina proclaims grimy. "A poisoned weapon. They either left her adrift intentionally, knowing the poison would kill her..."
"Or they had more important things to worry about, like whatever ship she came from," you finish, cursing again the voice of fate fallen silent.
At Gorok's request, Sirim had signaled to the Taldans to slow and send an officer aboard to speak with. Unsurprisingly, Sir Pisca makes the jump, the rest of the River Guard would rather stay off the strange vessel with even stranger passengers.
He takes one look at the patient and proclaims her to have been the victim of river pirates. There's been talk of some plying these waters when the fog is out, pulling their boat on the shore to hide it from passing patrols, some say, others that they hide behind false flags of legitimate trading concerns, and still other rumors hold that those flags were sourced legitimately, piracy just another layer to the feuds of noble houses that control Cassomir's trade.
What do you do?
[] Use an antitoxin to wake the sailor and hear her story then continue into the night
It only lasts for a minute per CL but Kori can cast this on himself if we think we're approaching danger, and an Invisible Sirim can fly at 60 feet and can detect minds up to a... range? So he can go scout out numbers if we get lucky and avoid ambush:
This bulbous bottle is crafted of smoked glass and causes any liquid contained within to take on a significantly darker cast and twinkle with motes of beautiful white light. A <i>vial of efficacious medicine </i>can hold a single dose of an alchemical remedy, such as antitoxin or antiplague...
aonprd.com
[X] Use an antitoxin to wake the sailor and hear her story then continue into the night
-[X] Use the Vial of Efficacious Medicine to give a +2 (enhancement bonus) to the sailor's roll.
I'm guessing that Ranger's Crossing got hit by pirates.
@BeepSmile, you beat me to adding the Vial to the mix, so I'm yoinking it. That'll increase the saving throw bonus from the Antitoxin and provide additional healing if the woman needs it.
As for dealing the the fog, Ashen Path is the better option, IMO. Affects multiple people and lasts much longer.
[X] Use an antitoxin to wake the sailor and hear her story then continue into the night
-[X] Use the Vial of Efficacious Medicine to give a +2 (enhancement bonus) to the sailor's roll after Mina casts Hermean Potential on her.
-[X] Sirim uses Wild Arcana to cast Ashen Path, splitting the duration between Cob and Gorok.
River pirates! Less badass than sea pirates, but still pirates! Classic enemies, lol.
[X] Goldfish
@Goldfish sure that Ashen Path will help? It says 'magical' effects, and the fog appears to be natural. Also, doesn't give ability to see in dark very well, so kinda wasted on members of group who don't have darkvision and such, especially since duration is divided up the more people it effects.
Should maybe have ships snuff out all light sources and sneak through fog? See about bypassing or maybe even getting drop on pirates if they are in the middle of looting their current prize?
River pirates! Less badass than sea pirates, but still pirates! Classic enemies, lol.
[X] Goldfish
@Goldfish sure that Ashen Path will help? It says 'magical' effects, and the fog appears to be natural. Also, doesn't give ability to see in dark very well, so kinda wasted on members of group who don't have darkvision and such, especially since duration is divided up the more people it effects.
Should maybe have ships snuff out all light sources and sneak through fog? See about bypassing or maybe even getting drop on pirates if they are in the middle of looting their current prize?
-[X] Sirim uses Wild Arcana to cast Ashen Path, granting the effect to himself, the rest of the party, Sir Prisca, Leontas, and Urgor. If it needs to be renewed before we encounter whatever poisoned the woman, Kori will use Inspired Spell to cast the spell next time.
The duration is divided by the number of targets, so it'd be better to cast it on a spotter first, and only recast it on multiple targets after finding something.
By the way, aren't we travelling downriver (that is, in the direction the river flows)? The place where the woman got attacked may be well behind us.
The duration is divided by the number of targets, so it'd be better to cast it on a spotter first, and only recast it on multiple targets after finding something.
By the way, aren't we travelling downriver (that is, in the direction the river flows)? The place where the woman got attacked may be well behind us.
Good point. I've updated my plan for Sirim to split the duration between Gorok and Cob. That's 40 minutes each, and they have the highest Perception among the party.
As for the woman in the boat, I doubt she came from behind us. It's more likely that we caught up with her as she tried to make her way upstream. Her boat probably got snagged on something once she lost consciousness and the river current wasn't strong enough to dislodge it.
I'm guessing that Ranger's Crossing got hit by pirates.
@BeepSmile, you beat me to adding the Vial to the mix, so I'm yoinking it. That'll increase the saving throw bonus from the Antitoxin and provide additional healing if the woman needs it.
As for dealing the the fog, Ashen Path is the better option, IMO. Affects multiple people and lasts much longer.
[X] Use an antitoxin to wake the sailor and hear her story then continue into the night
-[X] Use the Vial of Efficacious Medicine to give a +2 (enhancement bonus) to the sailor's roll.
-[X] Sirim uses Wild Arcana to cast Ashen Path, splitting the duration between Cob and Gorok.
A much better spell for our needs here, though notably, Ashen Path has a limit of 60 feet, while Mistsight makes no mention of how far one can see through mist.
I still want to get scrolls of Mistsight for Gorok at least, and maybe Kori, since it's a personal spell. Though the existence of Ashen Path massively decreases Mistsight's relative utility.
Should we add conditionals for if we come across foes, like casting Ashen Path on the whole Party + NPC leaders (and maybe a second on NPC archers), or do you think we'll have time to have vote for battle prep (assuming we aren't ambushed)?
For the sake of not having a bad roll mess up our chances of this woman making the poison save DC, do you think a Hermean Potential would be worthwhile? (Just checked, Fortune needs the target to choose to use it before they roll, so it can't help the sailor with her save.)
(I know I have a bias to spending resources to hedge against bad rolls compared to your bias of preserving resources for later encounters/not risking having them expire because we used them too early).
(Non-replenishing resources are of course of infinite value, and each use of that Dispel Wand/healing potion is a heartbreak.
What if we need that one Cure Light Wounds later? [Context: Gorok is literally at -3 hp and we have 30 potions of CLW stockpiled])
A much better spell for out needs here, though notably, Ashen Path has a limit of 60 feet, while Mistsight makes no mention of how far one can see through mist.
I still want to get scrolls of Mistsight for Gorok at least, and maybe Kori, since it's a personal spell. Though the existence of Ashen Path massively decreases Mistsight's relative utility.
Should we add conditionals for if we come across foes, like casting Ashen Path on the whole Party + NPC leaders (and maybe a second on NPC archers), or do you think we'll have time to have vote for battle prep (assuming we aren't ambushed)?
For the sake of not having a bad roll mess up our chances of this woman making the poison save DC, do you think a Hermean Potential would be worthwhile? (Just checked, Fortune needs the target to choose to use it before they roll, so it can't help the sailor with her save.)
(I know I have a bias to spending resources to hedge against bad rolls compared to your bias of preservering resources for later encounters/not risking having them expire because we used them too early).
(Non-replenishing resources are of course of infinite value, and each use of that Dispell wand/healing potion is a heartbreak.
What if we need that one Cure Light Wounds later? [Context: Gorok is literally at -3 hp and we have 30 potions of CLW stockpiled])
I think that @Massgamer has a good point. If this is a natural fog, then Ashen Path might not have any effect? I'm feel that our characters would know the spell's specifics IC, maybe.
@DragonParadox does "In addition, the creature can see through magical obscuring effects caused by dense ash, smoke, fog, or similar concealment up to a distance of 60 feet," mean that Ashen Path is useless for seeing through natural fog?
Even if it is @Goldfish, I think we should keep the spell as it in your plan, so that we can check if the fog's magical, and if the spell proves to be otherwise useless, then maybe add in lines about "Kori is ready to cast Mistsight (CL 8 via Inspires Spell, 1min/level) if we look to be coming up to an ambush place. Also Sirim can fly about (regular Invisibility from Kori) with his mindsense"
Also something something occasional Detect Magic?
----
Edit: Idea: If the sailor can tell us approx about how long it was from dawn that it was that she was attacked, then we can vaguely know how long ago that the attack happened.
Then we can guess (admittedly large) ranges for how far away the attack could have possibly occurred based on the speed of the river. That might be useful in general, but also for Mina Communing With Birds via Inspired Spell (She uses Fortune on herself for the Animal Handling Check Nope, Animal Handling is a Trained skill, so Mina can't attempt it.
Maybe if she can cast Commune with Birds, and Gorok attempts to provide the Animal Handling check to keep the Bird happy/calm?
Crystal Staff:
Description: Seemingly carved and polished from a single piece of blue-green crystal, the same color as the ghost's vessel, this staff answers to neither your hand nor Mina's
Ability: ???
Even if it is @Goldfish, I think we should keep the spell as it in your plan, so that we can check if the fog's magical, and if the spell proves to be otherwise useless, then maybe add in lines about "Kori is ready to cast Mistsight (CL 8 via Inspires Spell, 1min/level) if we look to be coming up to an ambush place. Also Sirim can fly about (regular Invisibility from Kori) with his mindsense"
Also something something occasional Detect Magic?
We can cast Mist Sight if necessary, but that will be a last resort to burn Mythic power for such a short duration single person spell. Ashen Path might not work, but if it does it will work very well, so I'm fine with keeping that even if the fog is natural. The long duration helps a lot, too.
Unfortunately, Sirim's Telepathy doesn't allow him to detect minds. That's a separate ability called Thoughtsense.
