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

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A_Somebody said:
Wait so the Sister joined the Daemons? Ouf guess Oceaneids decided they were getting someone back
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No, the Formless aren't Daemons, they're a separate faction of Proteans (with completely different background and origins than normal Proteans) that generally lives somewhere in the ocean. Those we know of also seem to be real assholes, at least from the limited interactions we've had with them in their stolen human guises.

That Lina would choose to go with them doesn't say good things about her, or about what she feared her life might be like among the Oceanids.
 
[X] Get some rest, after the storm you could use all the sleep you can get (If not taken will roll a DC 15 fortitude check not to become Fatigued)

[X] Get to know this Negu face to face
 
[X] Get some rest, after the storm you could use all the sleep you can get (If not taken will roll a DC 15 fortitude check not to become Fatigued)

[X] Get to know this Negu face to face
 
[X] Get some rest, after the storm you could use all the sleep you can get (If not taken will roll a DC 15 fortitude check not to become Fatigued)

[X] Get to know this Negu face to face
 
[X] Get some rest, after the storm you could use all the sleep you can get (If not taken will roll a DC 15 fortitude check not to become Fatigued)

[X] Get to know this Negu face to face
 
One thing you guys might want to consider is that you will get the chance to talk to Negu later, he will likely have time to learn more about you as well though , but some of the other actions are more time limited, like walking around the village as well you will not be in the village soon enough, really it depends on how you want to get your information.

Whatever you choose it is worth keeping in mind that you have a decently high sense motive which is what you use to investigate things in a social setting.
 
It's a strange feeling when GM hints that you are doing something wrong... but I still think that meeting with Negu is important and urgent. And later we'll have another options of actions.
 
Arhin said:
It's a strange feeling when GM hints that you are doing something wrong... but I still think that meeting with Negu is important and urgent. And later we'll have another options of actions.
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Same. Hopefully we won't miss too much by not scoping out the village ASAP, but we've heard too much shit about Negu to delay this, IMO.
 
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Arc 12 Post 33: As Night and Day
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    • As Night and Day ​

    Second Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

    Sleep proves to be an illusive quarry, its twisting paths filled with half memories. At times you see dark shapes, corpses strewn on the damp earth, their faces turned from you, strange and yet horrifically familiar, then as you turn away you feel the grasp of clammy hands, dead limbs rising to pull your down into their fate. The sword at your side is not there and in its place only the steel you had come into this world with, Durendal's name echoes strangely in your mind, once more a tale that had caught a child's fancy and no more the blade of fire you have borne.

    Who do you think you are to presume the name?

    Roland de Verley, knight of Normandy, heir and lord of my House, though little remains to me that I shall defend, you answer back as though into swirling waters or storm wracked skies.

    The ground shifts beneath your feet and you are again upon the storm tossed deck of the Marcella as she was last night, the shouts of the sailors faded to nothing, even the rumble of thunder faded to a muted rumble. As you reach to give what aid you can your hands pass though the rope and your words wither on your lips. A dread feeling comes upon you then that you are dead and this is your purgatory, that since that first storm none of this had been true, only the wrath of God for your sins that you had been too blind to see.

    Had you not doubted the goodness of god and the word of his Church? Thus you are cast out from its embrace into this darling place, thus you are damned.

    You are damned.

    Something within you breaks, but it is not your hope, rather it is the strange logic of the dream that strains against itself. That you might deserve this fate you can accept, but your men, the whole of the Fellowship of Saint Nicholas damned because you have been damned? No, that you will not bear, you will not accept.

    As the faces of your men float out of the deep caverns of memory the darkness of the false storm seems to fade, to part like a tattered curtain with the first breeze of dawn. There is a bitter taste on your tongue and a foul odor in your nostrils, like something that had washed up on the shore only to rot in the sun and the rain.

    You damned them.

    As a wraith behind your own eyes you float, explaining to Hugh Why he aught not seek to sway his Sacha to other worship, but instead seek to understand her, yet now hearing them again the words have the ring of heresy not good sense. By what right do you to presume to speak on such matters, to judge what the soul can bear and cannot. Are you a priest, a prophet to know that you do not walk among those already accursed by god? What is fair working and what is foul?

    I can but trust my eyes which God has given me and the judgement that he too has endowed all of his children. The words pass slowly though the mind as though some great snake sought to strangle your thoughts, but as soon as they are out a weight is lifted from your chest and the veil from your eyes torn.

    Above you is the ceiling of the sleeping chamber you had been given, simple wooden beams folding up thatch and leaves as it he common making of Anwa huts, but on those beams there is a hunched figure as mannish form but coiled with its arms and legs beneath it one beside the other like some twisted spider. It is watching you....

    Who are you? it asks again, the hateful voice in your dreams that had not been your own, never your own, you realize.

    A man doing his best.

    The thing hisses at you, like an angry cat and like putrid air passing out of a corpse and then it seems to blur into the shadows and is gone. As you gain control of your limbs, as you jump out of bed and reach for the handle, the candle to set to the embers in the hearth you see that there had been nothing there at all, just a dream, a nightmare born of too many ills along the journey surely.

    ***​

    Third Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

    On the next morning you take the chance to bathe and shave with a steady hand, feet planted on ground that does not move and then you go out to meet with Negu, lord of this village. Much to your surprise you hear the man would be happy to see you, the servant claims that he had been looking forward to meeting a warrior as skilled as you and from a land he had not heard of beside. I am not sure what I was expecting, but it was not this, you admit to yourself as you sit down on the light reed and lacquer chair that seems at first too spindly to hold your weight only to prove startlingly comfortable face to face with a man whose curling hair and beard are so finely groomed as to make you feel scruffy, yet who offers a wry smile as though in inviting a jest of some kind.

    "Ah, fine morn sir Roland I hope you have slept well under my roof. We do not oft have so many guests at once but of such dark times are friendships new and lasting made. I hope that is where we are headed."

    "Alas we are headed to war," you reply, not sure what to make of the man but reasoning that it is safe enough to speak of common struggle. "Yet for all the peril of it we have no choice but to seek it and glad I am to see that there are some on the island of Korman who would take up the cause and banish the darkness from its midst. I had feared when I left the capital last year that we would find naught but foes and puppets of the Anjo Oru."

    "Ah, you wonder if I serve the thing that wears the flesh of my lord like a sack of skin over its blackened bones..." he laughs then, the sound oddly carefree, as though he had made some light jape over wine. "Not to worry, I did not sail so far and slay so many foes to be snared in my own home like a fox in the borrow smoked. They made war on the stones and the giants, upon the trees also to judge from the black smoke that hangs now over the west of the island, but I have known there was an ill thing there long since and that the princess would return. I did not think she would do so with the armies of Lirman and absent its king, though I am glad for the first as I am saddened by the last."

    As far as you can tell every word Negu speaks is genuine, his gaze is open and forthright without being naïve, but that is nothing beside the surprise of his next words. "If it is not too bold of me to ask have you need of arms or armor, supplies or provisions?" After a moment he adds. "I too have been a sword for hire in the wars of others and I know that much of what a lord might take for granted a soldier of fortune is not so fortunate with and yet to ask in so many words is oft a blow to pride that others are wont to discount, so behold I have asked that you do not have to?"

    What do you reply?

    [] Accept the offer, no reason to make enemies and like all after a long sea journey the Fellowship has need of fresh food

    [] Refuse the offer, you do not trust the man's smile, not with the dark reputation he bears

    [] Write in

    OOC: Since I know you will ask, Roland does not know if the dream was more than a dream because he has no applicable skills he cannot tell night terror from visitation and as far a Esha and Inge go, there isn't enough to go on second hand to make a judgement either.
     
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    • Yeah, I don't trust him, but that could be because I'm para-, er, cautious?

    That said, Negu could be an all right dude with an undeserved reputation. Probably not, given our track record, but that doesn't mean we need to burn any bridges just yet.

    [X] Refuse, but graciously.
    -[X] Our own men are well armed and armored, and our provisions are more than adequate, but the same may not be true for others among the battered fleet. We have not had an opportunity to learn whether or not the storm waters fouled the rations of our allies or swept away other important supplies. If this is the case, Negu's offer could earn him gratitude among the army and prevent any unfortunate incidents of hungry men helping themselves to Korman's bounty without permission.
     
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    [X] Accept the offer, no reason to make enemies and like all after a long sea journey the Fellowship has need of fresh food
     
    [X] Accept the offer, no reason to make enemies and like all after a long sea journey the Fellowship has need of fresh food
     
    [X] Accept the offer, no reason to make enemies and like all after a long sea journey the Fellowship has need of fresh food
     
    And here we are again at the end of the day... you know that part where I promised that I would not get distracted... turns out that is harder that anticipated

    Vote closed
     
    Arc 12 Post 34: To Sea or Shore
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    • To Sea or Shore ​

    Third Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

    The men are glad for fresh cooked food again and as fortune would have it the locals are even friendly according to Tom, and not just with the sorts of smiles that most well armed strangers can expect. If anything they might be a little too friendly, you think, doing your best to avoid the gaze of a girl whose three strand auburn braids mark her as a maiden among her folk, though she seems intent on not being one for much longer. The other thing folk do in the company of well armed strangers of course, but that does not mean you wish to be the quarry this evening.

    Over the morning and into the heat of the noonday sun those ships in need of repair had been raised up onto the shore as a rough circular camp sprang up around the walls of Orinyiya, thin streams of smoke into the pale sky as the whiskers of a hunting beast preparing for the next lunge. Alas that this beast is weary yet and heartsick.

    Birds in the air had spotted no sign of the enemy so Ohun had sent scouts to the scrublands to the west, all the way to the base of the mountain that hid away the west of the island if they could manage it had been his orders, but they had been slow to return out of the scrub land and so as the army grows restless you are called again to counsel, the company of lords now counting one more smiling face, though he does not smile long as the day wears on:

    "Obari can't have missed this fleet, he is strange as you say, wicked with the touch of the anjo oru, but not head rotten with it, not the least, if the king's men do not come soon that means he has another plan for us, maybe rally the other lords and come at us from the sea and the land at once, maybe draw back to the capital and see if we step into the noose..." At the grumbling from Torag and one of his captains he adds: "Hard to take the Thousand Caves with so few men, raid the city maybe, but take and hold no. We need to rally the island, stone behind bronze..." Which is to say arm the farmers and the fishers and drive them behind the host of 'bronze armed' Lirman warriors.

    "Won't their lords have something to say about that?" Antonio asks worriedly, though you suspect more at the prospect of leaving his ship to march in land than at the threat of battle.

    "Not in Apagiga and Igigoolu where the giants come, those are queen's men and now they have the chance to meet her." So saying Negu drapes a hand over Aina's shoulders, something she seems to endure more than wish for.

    "The more time we give the bastards the more of a chance they will have to rally the island," Pogu says wearily. "We have two villages we might be able to draw more warriors from, they have the rest of the island."

    "How much is a giant worth to us in battle?" you interject. The one you had met had certainly seemed formidable enough, but your mind was on other matters then.

    "The strength of then men and the fury to set a hundred to flight and if the Neverborn show their foul hand again we might need the aid all the more." From the tone of his words it was clear that Ohun was on the way to being convinced.

    "Why fight them on the land at all?" Lady Akuto sniffs. "We could take the ships and sail about the island, sending fishers in flight and the foe's warships to the bottom were we find them. So the rat will have to leave his den if he wants to be king of aught but ash and the mocking laughter of the Kormani."

    "To do the most harm to his pride we would have to scatter, the wolf does not hunt gathered together like the herd of elk," Pogu answers her doubtfully. "Their ships could fall on us yet and not all the ships are in as fair shape as they were when they left port..." And there could be another storm, the words hang unspoken in every look Ohun gets.

    What do you argue for

    [] A campaign on land trying to gather support from the southeast of the island

    [] A raid on the coasts, make the enemy bleed

    [] Write in

    OOC: And done, barely again. Hopefully this will see some discussion overnight. I'll answer any questions in the morning.
     
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