I guess the Dhampir doesn't have any prepared spells ready, @DragonParadox? Or did the bag keep her from casting? Or did she just not have anything helpful for her situation prepared?
I guess the Dhampir doesn't have any prepared spells ready, @DragonParadox? Or did the bag keep her from casting? Or did she just not have anything helpful for her situation prepared?
Assuming the Dhampir has spells in her grimoire that can help us swap with her father, we need to retrieve it and give her enough time to study it to prepare them. If we get it back, but provoke the Vetela to attack three minutes later, that won't help our situation at all.
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
Well Dracula is one of my favorite books and I really like the vampire as a thematic construct and exploration of humanity . You know how they say that superheroes are a modern day mythology? Well it seems to me that vampires are a sort of thematic bridge, they are a very old almost universal human fear that has been given a lot of modern re-imaginings. The novel that has been most adapted for the screen is Dracula for a reason. It is just one of those monsters that feels both ancient and ever-resent at the same time.
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
Getting access to a prepared spellcaster with presumably some form of anti-vampire magic is essential here; and Roland has pretty good diplomacy and sense motive. I trust that he can do better at ferretting out the grimoire than he would facing the vampire in open combat unprepared.
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
Sheet's on the front page, that said you did not take any actual points in bluff. all you have is the bonus from the Archetype and the raw charisma, that gets you to +5 which is not a terrible bonus. it is let's say apprentice in a craft, or gifted amateur in a skill. You are not very good at bluff, but you are not terrible at it either
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
I hope we can leave the subtelties of this to Antonio.
So is the Dhampir a Wizard? Or some other kind of arcane prepared caster? The Vetala seems like a Witch (or Shaman) with that comment of him being able to use hexcraft.
[X] Subtly, try to recover the book with as little sign as you can and pretend that Esha still sleeps in the enchanted bindings in the hopes of catching the vampire as he tries to whittle your company down
Thirty Fourth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascending) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
Much do you learn of the Velate from Eshe and a little from Inge, in whispered conversation by the cold glow of the with light as Antonio, summoned in haste from the Marcella goes among his men to by cunning tongue and keen eye find the grimoire that was taken from the dark spirit's daughter. They are are spirits of the charnel ground who dwell willingly among the ash and the ruin of man. Unbound by even by the sands of time they seek knowledge or sensation at some times with the obsession of the deathless, and at others with the flighty manner of children. As they have already suffered ,to their minds, the ultimate blasphemy there is no need to bow their heads to any law of god and man.
"To them nothing is forbidden and all is permitted, thus one of the drinkers of life might show kindness to travelers willing to share an interesting tale, they might even deign to guard a village from raiders and the beasts of the red sands, but when all is tallied they must feed and their fickle temper is turned just as easily to darker obsessions. This is no lesser dead ripping dried flesh from old bones and breaking them for marrow. They... he can be charming and he can lie with a skill few mortal men can can match. Do not heed Ayushman's words for there is much stolen wisdom in them and all of it used ill."
Zaia leans in closer, as tough he can gather some special virtue from catching her every breath. He looks to your eye almost like a man in love save for the fact that his eye is not upon the lovely face or entrancing eyes of she who speaks it but upon his precious parchment as he scribbles away. The letters from his stylus emerge straight and even like soldiers in some host of knowledge marching from living voice into the pages of history. He mutters something in his own tongue and though you do not know the words you guess from the tone that it is some regret at not being able to speak to the monster and from him also draw the lore of the ages.
It occurs to you then that he might seek to apprentice himself to Esha, to learn what secrets might be in that book... if that is you find it. Once the sun is well clear of the horizon and the peril of the night is passed you try to aid Antonio in seeking the thing, mostly among your own men, Tom you tell the truth outright and to the others you drop hints of the dangers that come with claiming unknown tomes on this of all ships. Yet no matter how many lines you lay no one is biting. You think, you hope that means it was not any of your men who claimed the tome, but if so there is little to do but wait for Antonio. If his search had been a fruitless Esha explains that he possesses naught but the least of magics and you have spent long enough around Inge to know that there is little place for those in battles.
Still over the hours that pass you learn more of the young sorceress than the power of her magic, you learn that she dislikes salt cod with a passion and only eats her hardtack dipped in tea and not the stew most eat it with, you learn that she has less trouble standing up in choppy seas than you do and she does not seem to mind the rain that has been dogging the Fortuna for so long. Indeed the first smile you see upon her face is greeting the rain. Most of all you learn that she is easy to talk to. Though you share little of home and nothing of how you came to these waters she seems sympathetic of your troubled dealings with the fey and impressed at the account of your victory in the melee at the Festival of Olweje. Somehow you even find yourself recounting the manner in which you had almost been trussed up like a goose, only to be cut loose and triumph in the end.
"Found it," there is a sound of metal striking wood as Antonio returns. "The son of a whore will not be hiding things from me anytime soon," he adds pushing a tome across to Esha with only a small measure of his usual flourish . To your surprise it is not the red of copper, but covered in a green patina broken only by the polished sliver of the wholly unfamiliar lettering.
As she runs her fingers over the plates in the matter of a craftsmen reunited with a oft used tool or a warrior with a favored weapon. "Of all my magics but one can harm my father to any significant messure for the dead know neither fear nor entrancement. I must be close enough to touch... and freeze the ice in his veins. But then that would not be so very hard, given that I am to be the bait for this hook "
Night approaches, how do you draw out and slay the vampire?
[] Write in
OOC: I left this open ended because between alchemy, magic and the placement of your archers there is a lot of stuff to decide. In terms of battlefield the Fortune is like a viking Snekkja. Not yet edited.
"Of all my magics but one can harm my father to any significant messure for the dead know neither fear nor entrancement. I must be close enough to touch... and freeze the ice in his veins. But then that would not be so very hard, given that I am to be the bait for this hook "
Actually, we probably don't want her using Chill Touch on her father. It won't damage him, and if it successfully panics him enough to flee, that will just cause him to jump overboard. Then he'll be able to continue harassing us.
Better that she had her Disrupt Undead cantrip. It's ranged, offers no saving throw, and Vetela don't have Spell Resistance. His Touch AC probably won't be too high, either, so she might hit more often than not.
It won't inflict much damage, but every little bit helps.
Enough to replace her sails twice over... the trouble is I can't make heads or tails of the formulas online for calculating sail area because you know me and math.
Enough to replace her sails twice over... the trouble is I can't make heads or tails of the formulas on line for calculating sail area because you know me and math.
It occurs to me that actually fighting the Vetala might not really be necessary. Not traditional combat, anyway.
This dude was a spellcaster of some sort prior to becoming Undead, so it's unlikely he had exceptional physical stats. The attribute bonuses from the Vetala template are nice, but not really enough to turn him into some sort of superhuman powerhouse. He might be slightly superior to Roland in that regard, but if so it's not a large gap. Could actually have a lower STR and DEX, if they were his dump stats.
He lacks the traditional Vampire ability to assume Gaseous Form, plus his claw attack, while dangerous to fleshy targets, isn't all that impressive in the grand scheme of things. I've learned a lot from Mythbusters over the years, and one of those thing is that the canvas used for ship's sails is really fucking tough and does not cut easily at all.
Fighting is fun and all, but I would happily drop a couple layers of sails on this asshole, then have a bunch of people dog pile into him, physically restrain him, then while properly subdued, everyone uses his head for target practice. Between Roland wailing on it with his sword, plus Inge and the Dhampir's spells, they could have him dormant in no time, then Inge can prepare a proper sea burial.
Well having looked it up the main mast of the Marcella is about 170 ft which means the biggest sail on her is about 55 ft square and well square. You also two have smaller sails available, for the sake of me not looking into old nautical manuals too long we'll call them 30 square ft each. You have two sets in total so two large sails and four small ones.
