That is certainly something you can try, though Kori is not sure how likely it is to work, he and his friends did not exactly introduce themselves on good terms alas.
Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Fantasy
-
- Tags
- pathfinder
That is certainly something you can try, though Kori is not sure how likely it is to work, he and his friends did not exactly introduce themselves on good terms alas.
- Location
- Argentina
How about this:
We lie and fake interest in what it does, growing mushrooms, asking about how to tend them, geigning ignorance and basically making him feel important.
We make him come down here, and afrer he explains us, we offer him a meal and share stories. He will like us afterwards, or at least we will be able to book it to the surface.
We lie and fake interest in what it does, growing mushrooms, asking about how to tend them, geigning ignorance and basically making him feel important.
We make him come down here, and afrer he explains us, we offer him a meal and share stories. He will like us afterwards, or at least we will be able to book it to the surface.
- Location
- Argentina
[X] Act like the silver tongued bastard that you are
-[X] General strategy: Redirect blame on Gorok, empathize with the mushroom man, get him talking about what he does, and get him interested in us.
-[X] Argue with Gorok in a language the mushroom man clearly doesn't understand. Just sound like we are berating him.
--[X] Turn to the mushroom man and argue in a way that empathizes with him: "I am sorry. My friend can't know the difference between dry and fresh lichen here, thought that he could safely cut it, and now has gotten you all angry over this. I guess that some idiot often strolls here to break your garden, right? By the way, I am Akorian, and we are a group of explorers and aventurers"
--[X] Try to get him to explain about what he does. Get him talking, then talk about good compost, and what is useful and what is not, and see if we can offer him a taste of what we got. If he agrees we simply make a stop to eat out with him. Explain how our idea is to travel often through a secure tunnel to the surface, and that it is a bitch to look for other tunnels, what with all the dark and disconsiderate things down here. Yet, if we come often, we can drop by some compost every time we come, and we might even take off some wild animal bothering his mushrooms.
There, we got a good read on him, so we gotta pull his levers. He likes his mushrooms, and he is lonely. Also blaming Gorok as an escapegoat, because that redirects his anger towards him and cleans Akorian's slate.
-[X] General strategy: Redirect blame on Gorok, empathize with the mushroom man, get him talking about what he does, and get him interested in us.
-[X] Argue with Gorok in a language the mushroom man clearly doesn't understand. Just sound like we are berating him.
--[X] Turn to the mushroom man and argue in a way that empathizes with him: "I am sorry. My friend can't know the difference between dry and fresh lichen here, thought that he could safely cut it, and now has gotten you all angry over this. I guess that some idiot often strolls here to break your garden, right? By the way, I am Akorian, and we are a group of explorers and aventurers"
--[X] Try to get him to explain about what he does. Get him talking, then talk about good compost, and what is useful and what is not, and see if we can offer him a taste of what we got. If he agrees we simply make a stop to eat out with him. Explain how our idea is to travel often through a secure tunnel to the surface, and that it is a bitch to look for other tunnels, what with all the dark and disconsiderate things down here. Yet, if we come often, we can drop by some compost every time we come, and we might even take off some wild animal bothering his mushrooms.
There, we got a good read on him, so we gotta pull his levers. He likes his mushrooms, and he is lonely. Also blaming Gorok as an escapegoat, because that redirects his anger towards him and cleans Akorian's slate.
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
What are the goals of the current plans?
There is a lot on how we want to do things, and precious little on what we want to do.
never when the time is right maybe?
There is a lot on how we want to do things, and precious little on what we want to do.
Do we want to put some distance between us and the leshy, and then probably possibly return
And the point of the act is... what? Get a companion?
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Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
I just want to bypass the Leshy without conflict or lingering ill will. If we weren't unsure of how long it would take to resupply, or when we'll even have the opportunity again, I would just vote to leave some of our food with the Leshy.
We're certain to return this way at some point in the future, though, so it shouldn't be too difficult to bring it some food later on.
Hmm... not a lot of votes. Is something unclear?
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Just lack of agreement on how to handle the situation.
- Location
- Texas
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Goldfish
- Location
- Germany
[X] Just leg it to the surface
I know Leshi are cute, but sometimes you have to accept that diplomacy has failed and pick fight or flight instead.
I know Leshi are cute, but sometimes you have to accept that diplomacy has failed and pick fight or flight instead.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
And lying about our return (which we ourselves are unsure of) does not engender ill will?
Do you mean you want to bypass the leshy without starting an outright fight?
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Lichen Leshy don't have Sense Motive as a skill, so lying isn't likely to be detected, not when you consider Kori's Bluff skill.
And my lie isn't about returning, but about being on an important, time-sensitive mission for Cauldron. We will definitely be returning at some point, possibly even fairly soon. We have too many Darklands plot threads to leave dangling, after all, and Cauldron is still the only friendly community we currently know of.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
We don't know that. If I am not mistaken, even players were divided on when to return: after completing Gorok's quest, or after getting a couple more levels under our belt, or just sometime when the stars align, which to me sounds "after several plot arcs". And even then we don't know if we'll be returning this way.
Anyway, if I am reading this right, then our choices amount to the following.
1) Just leave. Likely to result in conflict, but it's not of our making, so whatever.
2) Lie to leave peacefully.
2a) Explain our circumstances to leshy and then try to leave peacefully. Unlikely to work differently from 1.
3) Offer compensation at the cost of supplies (ruled out)
4) Offer compensation at the cost of time (wasn't voted last turn, uncertain chances of success)
5) Offer company in a less restrictive way than leshy proposed.
Of these, I still lean towards (4) -- but then, it lost fair and square -- and inclined to (2) so long as Kori treats it likewise, a lie to leave peaceably.
I can be persuaded to a mix of (4) and (5). Since (4) involves spending time anyway, it can be spent in leshy's company, addressing the core issue of the request and hopefully reducing the demands.
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Vote closed.
Arc 3 Post 9: Emptiness Above
Emptiness Above
Season of Rushing Waters
"We are on a mission from Cauldron, our time in the Burnlands will be short as it is good, master." The lie is halfway past your lips before you had even settled on how to tell it. If there is one thing you had learned over the years it's that lies come more easily than truth. While you have no inherent desire to lie to this strange fungus-mankin, you also have no impulse to fight it. Words are surely less weighty than stones. Mina looks at first startled then she catches on and starts to translate the ragged scrap of a story you are weaving together in the moment. The four of you are after all very important people, how often does one see Burnlanders coming from below? How often does he seem Burnlanders not in chains in Nar Voth?
As you get into it you wonder if he is about to mention the orc-blood brothers or whoever was smuggling through the old mine, but no all he recalls is Gorok who had come here alone and so you quickly explain that you are envoys, traders to his tribe from the settlements deeper down. Thus after assuring him that no you are not trading the 'special mushrooms', a category which even Mina's strange quirk was not able to translate properly, the guardian finally retreats and the four of you with Warty splashing along resume your passage upwards
Akorian Bluff: 1d20 +12 +1 (Guidance) = 31 (Success)
Akorian gains 400 XP
And up... and up and up. The air moves strangely through the hall, whistling over stones up ahead and it is filled bewildering scents, though it is hard to pay attention to one's ears or nose when eyes are so tested. The light ahead is like staring into a far off fire...
Or like something in a dream half-forgotten.
If a fire was that bright you would certainly not be heading towards it, the thing is sure to have devoured all the good air.
"Is that normal?" you manage to ask.
"Ya, that is sun, biiiig sky-fire that warms bellies after eats," Cob says eagerly.
Warty gives a rare doubtful warble at his enthusiasm, or maybe he has the same impulse to avoid lights that make his eyes water. For your part, drawing your cloak close and checking on your weapons is all you can do. It's to help Gorok, you remind yourself, but that is not quite the whole of it. There's a part of you, small but getting louder, that wants to see the world you had only heard about from your companion's stories, the world which all the tales of the People agree your ancestors had left behind.
Teeth gritted and stomach pacified with some trail spread you scramble up the final steps and find yourself in the middle of...
Green, the color is everywhere, for a moment it is all you can register among the alien shapes. There's a soft wiggling carpet of what you first take to be colonies of worms growing from the muddy ground that sucks at your boots. 'Grass,' you hear Mina call it, and you get a vague sense that it is a kind of mushroom. The tangled twisting, many-limned things that reach out into the distance until they are lost in the haze of humid air... 'trees'
"Everything's alive," the words come unbidden, your own voice strange when all it has to collide with are trees and water. You look up and among the living bridges and archways you see... a blue ceiling? Alas, that comforting thought only lasts as long as the buzz of the unseen diadem takes to awaken, there is nothing there, nothing but wisps of water vapor and howling winds until the air itself runs out and all that remains is a black void, more deadly than the depths of Orv. And through that void dance stones of dreadful omen, against the light of a lair sun.
Akorian Lore: 1d20 +6 = 25 (Success?)
"Kori! Kori are you OK?" you hear Mia's voice as though down a long tunnel, you feel her magic, a warm touch upon your mind, but you can't... you just can't. It's cold, so cold, you can barely feel your hands and feet...
Akorian Will save: 1d20 +3 +1 (Guidance) = 5 (Critical Failure)
Abruptly the feeling is replaced by the feeling of water on your skin, water rushing through your ears and muddy water in your eyes. "Wh... what happened?" you sputter.
"You were spirit-ridden, not good spirit," Gorok answers softly as he helps you up, his scaled arm as solid as a rock. "Not good spirit. Water helps wash away that which should not be."
I do not feel possessed, which is a horrifying thought to have, but it feels true at least in the silence of your own head. "It was a memory, not mine and not a good one. Probably best it stay forgotten for now."
"Maybe we should only travel at night for now," Mina says worriedly as she pushes a lock of sodden hair out of her face. "When the sun is not in the sky,"
"Sorry for... splashing you," you get out awkwardly. As though it's not bad enough that I'm half blind, now I have fits looking up. Cautiously you throw a look up there. Still hurts your eyes, but no weird half visions. As she waves off your concern you hear music in the distance. "What's that?"
The answer is 'birds', those being flying feathered bats, or maybe feathered winged lizards, that live among the 'trees'. Stumbling from stranger into stranger territory, literally this time, you ask how far the trees go for. Days, tens of days travel in every direction.
Questions uncounted come to mind, but which are first?
[] How do you not get lost up here with no walls to mark passage on?
[] There is so much water, so much food here. Why haven't Burnlanders just grown so many as to overwhelm all of Nar Voth and beyond?
[] In Nar Voth the more life is present the worst the predators get. What... what's the worst thing up here?
[] Write in
OOC: Damn your rolls were swing-y again. Still, you managed the bluff so no combat, which is important.
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
What's that memory? Is it from the lore we acquired, something from our class, or something else entirely?
[x] In Nar Voth the more life is present the worst the predators get. What... what's the worst thing up here?
Keep the knowledge practical. What to be wary of?
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Ah, I love it, @DragonParadox. So much new stuff for Kori to see and be confused by.
Worms? Nope, that is grass.
Blue ceiling? Nope, that's the sky.
Looks like the memories he inherited from his Azlanti ancestors might have come with a dash of PTSD, and maybe some existential dread aimed toward the Dominion of the Black?
Also, DP, was it intentional to for Kori to think "against the light of a lair sun", or was lair a typo? That's a scary prospect if intentional.
[X] In Nar Voth the more life is present the worst the predators get. What... what's the worst thing up here?
Worms? Nope, that is grass.
Blue ceiling? Nope, that's the sky.
Whew, that was a serious Lore check. What would have happened if Kori rolled a Nat 20 on that one?
Looks like the memories he inherited from his Azlanti ancestors might have come with a dash of PTSD, and maybe some existential dread aimed toward the Dominion of the Black?
Also, DP, was it intentional to for Kori to think "against the light of a lair sun", or was lair a typo? That's a scary prospect if intentional.
[X] In Nar Voth the more life is present the worst the predators get. What... what's the worst thing up here?
Akorian does not know, all he remembers is feeling cold and thinking that the sun was a liar. He could not focus though whatever it was... maybe it will come again, or something close to it.
Liar sun is intentional as I said above. As for what would happen if you rolled a 20... well maybe you should keep poking at celestial things to find out
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Ah, but you see this time you have an actual guide who is not a child mystic.
