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

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This should also serve as a decent warning to Inge and our men that we are not alone here.

[X] Call out to the being spying on you
-[X] "Are you a friend or foe"?
 
[X] Call out to the being spying on you
-[X] "Are you a friend or foe"?

I am curious: how many HP does Silver have?
 
Gonna need some more votes, y'all, for when DP's feeling up to writing.
 
[X] Try to surreptitiously draw Inge's attention to it to see if she knows what it might be
 
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Arc 2 Post 31: A Burden Unseen
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    • A Burden Unseen​

    The Twenty Fifth of Elnu-hamba [Elnu Descendent] Year 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

    "Are you friend or foe?" you call out into the buffeting winds and rustling leaves. The others turn their heads to look, but only Nico seems to catch the figure and he reaches for his bow.

    Eyes like bright orange lanterns stare back at you for a long frozen moment. "I do not know yet, that is for you to decide mortal man, you and all your company." So saying the creature half jumps half glides onto a lower branch, closer to the conjured light.

    Truth be told you would rather if it had not done so. Where all the other spirits you had met thus far had been fair though perilous in guise, this one looked like nothing so much as some unholy conjoining of man and bat, with skin ash grey and black as flaking charcoal, as though it had passed through the flames of Hell.

    "Hold!" you call, seeing the point of Nico's arrow bob up and down like a silver star in the night, then to the spirit you add, "And what decision is that?"

    "On whether you will return my skulls to me," he hisses between too sharp teeth. "One who steals from the thief may be lauded as just or he may be just another thief. Which then, are you?"

    "Look... the belt," Inge's voice low and sharp wavers slightly, caught between fright and revulsion.

    For a moment you do not know what she means, but then you look at what the spirit wears around its waist, a crude belt wrought of some bramble, but on that belt is the last thing you had expected to see. You had found Irieje, or rather her head, dead eyes staring at nothing, horned helm still on her brow.

    "Chaneque, soul thieves," the girl continues, speaking as quickly and as quietly as she can. "They can bind the souls of men in the skulls of their prey. Once they have your soul they can make you do anything."

    The water spirit's words come back to you: 'Slay the invaders from the south, the men of Inaurna, and recover from them the skulls of my fallen kin of bright wing which they have stolen and defiled.' He had never actually said the invaders had killed any of their kin, or themselves defiled the graves, he has simply allowed you to deduce that from 'stolen and defiled'. Whether Ukuhamba wanted the skulls to cleanse them or for some other purpose it is clear that he and his are no friends of this macabre demon-kin. But then why hadn't it attacked the imperials if it had been shadowing them as it did you?

    And that is when you recall the box, you had assumed it was meant to ward against the eye the fey you had met, but they had known precisely where the southerners had made camp so it would seem feeble protection. What if instead it had been meant to guard against the sight of the true 'owner' of the skulls?

    Your skin is crawling at the thought of souls being bound like that, being made into something that could be bought or sold, traded like a prime cut of meat at market. Yet you do not for a moment doubt that this is what you have in the sack, tied off with a plain noose.

    "Well?" the bat winged thing asks again, voice rising to a pitch so sharp it is almost painful. "What shall it be mortal, our gratitude or our wrath."

    Somehow you do not think it is speaking of itself, but as though a king. How many more of these things are there out here? You had only spotted one, but without Silver's timely unease you might not have seen it at all. How many of these things can you afford to fight, with one man tied into the saddle, another only just half healed? How many more spells can Inge cast?

    She seems to guess your thought or part of it at least, you feel her give a small nod against your chest, though you dare not take your eyes off the bat thing least it decides to take back what it counts to be its own.

    What do you do?

    [] Fight to protect the skulls and whatever souls they might hold

    [] Flee and hope that your horses are swifter until you can make it to the stones and hopefully the aid of the fey there

    [] Relent and hand over the skulls

    [] Write in

    OOC: You guys did not quite make the safest choices, but then there was a lot of guesswork in there so it's not unexpected. Also yes, there exists in Pathfinder all of one CR 1 mythic creature. I was kind of shocked when I found them, but by then if I had used them in ASWAH Viserys would have used them for a hood ornament for the Moonchaser. So I put them in a file called 'monsters for later' and guess what, it's later. One of the fun parts about making my own world is that I get to integrate things like the 3 HD pixie hunter who has the power to steal souls and dominate the bodies of its victims.
     
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    • Hmmm, who's up for screwing over Ukuhamba?

    Unless these guys are worse.
     
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    That's not great.
    We are not faster.

    We might win a fight against one or two, but the chance we all make our willsaves against Fear or soulstealing is worse than a coinflip.
     
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    @DragonParadox
    The Chaneque doesn't seem to be fully defined, it has a Fear aura but no description what level of fear it inflicts (link goes to the generic explanation of Fear.
    Same for the SLA, which might be the Level 4 spell Fear, or maybe something slightly less party-killing.

    Could you define those?
     
    Artemis1992 said:
    @DragonParadox
    The Chaneque doesn't seem to be fully defined, it has a Fear aura but no description what level of fear it inflicts (link goes to the generic explanation of Fear.
    Same for the SLA, which might be the Level 4 spell Fear, or maybe something slightly less party-killing.

    Could you define those?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Nothing that strong, both work like the level 1 spell cause fear. And yes those spells are in fact far too similarly named.

    Artemis1992 said:
    That's just not true.
    Horses have 50ft movement, the Fey can fly (fly!!!) at 60ft.

    It is not only faster but also much better in difficult terrain.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Ah for some reason I thought it said 30... yeah that is way too powerful for a CR one creature. House rule it is, they can only go 30 ft, the same speed as a human on foot. There is no earthly reason why they would need to go 60 ft/round
     
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    Okay, if the Fear effect is not the full cone of "fuck you and your low willsaves, run until you break your neck" then we might have a chance.

    @Goldfish
    Not sure if this can work, but if Inge casts her Obscuring Mist, we should be safe from ranged attacks (their most dangerous options, particularly the soulsteal).
    If the fey go into melee, we can show'em to fear our steel as much as any cold iron.

    Of course, if they just wait out Inge's cloud we are in the same position as before, just with one spell less. But that's what god created the taunting for, aye?
    If these wannabe predators are afraid to fight us in the fog they'll never hear the end of it.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Nothing that strong, both work like the level 1 spell cause fear. And yes those spells are in fact far too similarly named.

    Ah for some reason I thought it said 30... yeah that is way too powerful for a CR one creature. House rule it is, they can only go 30 ft, the same speed as a human on foot. There is no earthly reason why they would need to go 60 ft/round
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Whew, okay, that helps. Those things are already ridiculous for their CR, but to have a 3/day Fear SLA on top of everything else, that would be kinda nuts.
    Artemis1992 said:
    Okay, if the Fear effect is not the full cone of "fuck you and your low willsaves, run until you break your neck" then we might have a chance.

    @Goldfish
    Not sure if this can work, but if Inge casts her Obscuring Mist, we should be safe from ranged attacks (their most dangerous options, particularly the soulsteal).
    If the fey go into melee, we can show'em to fear our steel as much as any cold iron.

    Of course, if they just wait out Inge's cloud we are in the same position as before, just with one spell less. But that's what god created the taunting for, aye?
    If these wannabe predators are afraid to fight us in the fog they'll never hear the end of it.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    That's echoes my thoughts as well. I'm not even sure if trying to give them the skulls is really viable. These things are nasty little bastards.

    The problem is that, at best, Inge has four 1st level spell slots remaining. If she uses them all to keep us blanketed in mist, that isn't much time. The Fey could just wait is out, since it's not like we can move very quickly while shrouded in the mist.

    @DragonParadox, by any chance, could we use the skulls we have now to command the Fey whose souls they contain?
     
    Anyone got an angle to get these little soulhunters to engage into a disadvantageous fight?

    We have good diplo, with a nice write-in we can propably manage to get them into melee.
     
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