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Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

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I don't know if they'll be useful or not, but it seemed like a good idea to have Gorok prepare an Aquatic Cavalry spell. With it, a 2nd level Pearl of Power, and the Extend Spell rod, he could Summon four Hippocampi for up to 8 hours. That could give us great underwater mobility if we needed it in a pinch, or more likely allow Iruxi combatants and hunters to provide escorts, Sneak up on attackers, etc.

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[X] I'm on a Boat!

I have no problem with skeleton crew.

What I do have a slight problem with, is that our decision to be stealthy cost us the chance to loot the vampire.
But I guess that's fair, in order not to have Hellknights after us for now.
 
Goldfish said:
I don't understand the moral objections, if the Iruxi were willing to allow their ancestors to help. These are basically mindless Undead robots programmed to act as sailors.
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Iruxi values are different from that of a warmblood.

From the Five Things Almost Everyone Knows About Undead:
The following are a few facts that are considered common knowledge among civilized peoples.
3. Undead are invariably evil, as are the means to create such beings.
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Now, of course there are exceptions to the rules, but that's why they are exceptions, and those are rules. I am leaning more towards Sirim's end of the spectrum when it comes to the utility of magic; even a spell written by a skinstealer demon on human leather may serve a decent purpose, but there is a common view of such things and we have an Ustalavian with us, so I'd try to do without... mostly.

The iruxi gave us an explicit permission to have their ancestors crew the ship and help resettle their bones, so I have less of an objection to that. Still, it would have a bad look in the eyes of almost eveyone we meet. Not that I am opposed to looking shady either.
 
DragonParadox said:
No, you just get the ship, the weapons are not conceptually part of that makes a ship a ship.
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How many of the Iruxi have bows or other ranged weapons? What about melee combatants?

I'm hoping we can avoid any serious random encounters at sea, or not so random as things might go, but since when have we been that lucky. :V
 
We are the ship's heaviest weapons. Every time two ships met in combat, their weapons did absolutely nothing to affect the encounter. Which I can only attribute to DP not wanting to get into ship repairs and other micromanagement issues, because otherwise I would expect cannons to be effective against crew and hull if not the party itself.

But we disarmed Chelish pirates by putting a Fire Elemental on their ship and Taldan pirates by putting a Wind Wall between us, so maybe they just didn't have a chance to shine.

Goldfish said:
How many of the Iruxi have bows or other ranged weapons? What about melee combatants?
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In mass combat as we observed it, ship crew rolls as a blob of such-and-such HP that deals such-and-such damage. The numbers are relevant only inasmuch as they add to HP and damage.

Sometimes actors are allowed individual actions, like the sailors who revived the Taldan mage (forgot her name) over and over again, and it seemingly not costing the rest of the crew an action. Not sure if there is a drawback to that, but I recall both times the actors died, so maybe the crew-blob trades HP for actions? I am curious about the rules to simulate the behavior of the masses.
 
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Goldfish said:
1. I don't mind removing them from the plan for now, though. I've updated it to have Mina use two Unseen Crew scrolls for now. Just a heads up, though, we will only have one of those remaining and they're only going to last 11 days. We will probably need to use Skeleton Crew along with our last Unseen Crew scrolls before we reach Cassomir.

2. Death Knell is even less objectionable than Skeleton Crew, IMO. It's not like we're sacrificing puppies for fun, but killing something that would have been hunted for food anyway, which the Iruxi can then go on to eat.
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1. I wasn't even thinking about the Iruxi. I was thinking about Mina. The vast majority of her life has been spent in a land where the undead are The Big Problem. She's not going to want to animate the dead, or have anyone else do so (without very very good reason).

Also I think - well I have the vibe that some necromantic spells, like animating the dead tends to cause magi-environmental damage? Or creates the potential for magi-environmental damage.
(At least physical) animate dead spells are powered by unbinding the negative energy in corpses and using that to provide motive force (see the Engine that we're having looked at, it caused nightmares when in use due to the release of negative energy into the environment.
Animate dead spells feel like they would do that but a great deal slower.

2. I'm on the fence about this, because it depends on how the spell works in-setting. To me it's a metaphysical question. Does casting Dethknell cause magi-environmental damage similar to animating dead? It's providing the caster literal power from a corpse.
Does using the dead body as use injury to an animal's "spirit"? [I'm not emotioally invested in the well being of an animal's spirit, but party members might be.

If both of those questions are "no" then Death Knell is amazing and I love it.
----
Anyway, since running out of crew duration is a concern, are there any big cites on the way to Cassiomer that we have two or three party members fly over to and purchase another Unseen Crew scroll from?
---
Anyway, for Pepper's leading, and everyone to get + 5 to Sailor (Profession)(Int) checks for 90 Minutes, would it be worth someone casting a Tears to Wine with a mythic point?
 
BeepSmile said:
Anyway, since running out of crew duration is a concern, are there any big cites on the way to Cassiomer that we have two or three party members fly over to and purchase another Unseen Crew scroll from?
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Not counting those in Cheliax, which we should probably avoid? Augustana and Almas, which we should also probably avoid, if for different reasons.
BeepSmile said:
Anyway, for Pepper's leading, and everyone to get + 5 to Sailor (Profession)(Int) checks for 90 Minutes, would it be worth someone casting a Tears to Wine with a mythic point?
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Profession skills can't be used untrained, so the only one who would benefit from it would be Pepper and anyone else who happens to have the skill.

@DragonParadox, with 11 days at sea, would that be enough time for Pepper to teach any of the Iruxi the Profession (Sailor) skill, if they're willing and able to learn? It's a background skill and at least some of the lower level Iruxi could have leveled up recently, perhaps even during the exodus from Cheliax. Even one rank would enough to make a difference, once class skill bonuses and a Tears to Wine buff is applied.
 
Goldfish said:
@DragonParadox, with 11 days at sea, would that be enough time for Pepper to teach any of the Iruxi the Profession (Sailor) skill, if they're willing and able to learn? It's a background skill and at least some of the lower level Iruxi could have leveled up recently, perhaps even during the exodus from Cheliax. Even one rank would enough to make a difference, once class skill bonuses and a Tears to Wine buff is applied.
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He could give it a try.
 
Not sure if I buy into the magi-environmental damage. So what, casting positive energy spells does the reverse? What conclusions does that lead to?

Any medicine is also a deadly poison; quantity is what makes the difference. If necromantic spells are cast on a regular basis and massive scale, it will warp the environment; we have the Mana Wastes for an example of what an excess of magic can do to the land. If it's a spell or two, the effect is so negligible as to not be worth mentioning.

As for Mina, while she is one of my favorites in the party I wouldn't treat her with velvet gloves. Her cultural distaste towards the use of undead is noted and taken into account. Yet I don't think she would have a case against a culture that permits their members to be of use to the living even in death. Iruxi eat their dead with their kills, and she knows better than to tell them otherwise regardless of whether she would take part in their customs.
DragonParadox said:
Much to your relief, and Mina's too, the chief remains pleased with the outcome of the raid even once he has had time to count his losses. All those who had fallen had been elders of the tribe, and while their wisdom would be missed they had died a warrior's death and now the young would have the chance to feast upon their flesh one last time, mixed in with the flesh of their fallen foes.

Gorok seems almost uneasy to share in that... morsel, not so much because he finds fault with the customs of his tribe, but because he knows you and Mina might. She remains tight lipped though, whether out of sympathy for your scaled friend or because she dare not open her mouth while the pot is on the flame you neither know nor seek to.
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So if the iruxi do not object to their ancestors' help, she would not either.
 
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It's a bit early to assume too much because there is no telling what will come up once we're at sea, but a very rough distance calculation between our current approximate position and Cassomir, without hugging the coast too closely, looks to be about 1,100 miles.

A typical sailing ship, like the one Sirim is going to Summon, will have an average daily speed of 48 miles, or 2 MPH. If Sirim uses Wild Arcana to cast two Tail Current spells per day (9 hours each), that will be a 22% increase in speed for 18 hours each day, and Mina's Tail Wind spell will increase its speed by 25% each day. With those combined effects, we should average 75 miles per day. That works out to about 15 days of travel.

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The the typical longship is 50% faster than a sailing ship, and they need half the number of crew (10 rather than 20) but also requires 40 rowers. With the same spells buffing it, the longship could average about 105 miles per day, making the trip in about 11 days.

The longship option does get us to Cassomir faster and without needing to worry about training Iruxi to be sailors if we don't want to use a Skeleton Crew spell to supplement our Unseen Crew. It's inferior in all other ways that matter, though, from cargo space to room to move to protection offered to passengers. The sailing ship will also handle bad weather much better if we run into any Winter storms.

I would prefer to stick with the sailing ship, but will switch over to the longship if y'all prefer?
 
Goldfish said:
The sailing ship will also handle bad weather much better if we run into any Winter storms.
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What are the relevant characteristics here?

I think I am leaning towards making the vessel that can best weather storms and other adversarial effects, as that should be the primary concern of any sailor venturing out into the sea.

I would also remind you that I wanted to make a stop in Claes on the way to Cassomir, if only to be able to insta-travel there at a later date.
 
Nevill said:
What are the relevant characteristics here?

I think I am leaning towards making the vessel that can best weather storms and other adversarial effects, as that should be the primary concern of any sailor venturing out into the sea.

I would also remind you that I wanted to make a stop in Claes on the way to Cassomir, if only to be able to insta-travel there at a later date.
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The ship itself is going to last 22 to 24 days unless we recast the spell to extend the duration, which would need the same prep work that's in my current plan, so we should have time to stop in Claes, though I would rather do that after we get the Iruxi to their new home.

The links in my previous post are to the types of ship the Summon Ship spell can create. Each link provides a couple different examples, but the most detailed and relevant are the ones from the Skulls & Shackles book. That's basically the definitive sourcebook for ocean travel on Golarion.

The biggest difference between the ship types, besides speed, is that the sailing ship is much sturdier than the longship (1620 HP vs 675 HP) which should translate to being less vulnerable to crippling damage from monsters, pirates, weather, etc., and the sailing ship has two or three decks (DP's choice, I guess) while the longship only has the one. This also means the sailing ship is much roomier in general, with triple the cargo capacity.

Passengers on the sailing ship can stay inside during storms, fighting, etc., without easily becoming collateral damage. The longship only has the single deck, so everyone is going to be exposed to the environment and other dangers throughout the trip.
 
Goldfish said:
The biggest difference between the ship types, besides speed, is that the sailing ship is much sturdier than the longship (1620 HP vs 675 HP) which should translate to being less vulnerable to crippling damage from monsters, pirates, weather, etc.
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I recall Gavhaul 1HK an enemy ship without going through its HP, just by overcoming its hardness instead. I also recall the inn/barge where we apprehended Saenar having a much lower capacity for damage despite being a building.

Perhaps different rules are in effect when it is determined whether the ship is sunk?
 
Nevill said:
I recall Gavhaul 1HK an enemy ship without going through its HP, just by overcoming its hardness instead. I also recall the inn/barge where we apprehended Saenar having a much lower capacity for damage despite being a building.

Perhaps different rules are in effect when it is determined whether the ship is sunk?
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The more HP the better. What Gavhaul did was to use a psionic power that created a wall of sonic energy for the ship to pass through, which ignores object Hardness. The HP still had to be removed, though. Wood normally has Hardness 5. For the power to have had such a damaging effect, the ship couldn't have been very sturdy to begin with.

It's going to be very rare to encounter something like that again, and there are no magical equivalents that I'm aware of. Damaging spells that could ruin it, sure, but no sonic death walls.

The barge the Drow were using was old and decrepit, IIRC, which would translate to less HP. In that case, it wasn't so much that the barge was outright damaged, but that an Obsidian Flow spell was cast on the inside of the bottom floor, so a significant chunk of the hull became fractured glass rather than solid wood.
 
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Nevill said:
Not sure if I buy into the magi-environmental damage. So what, casting positive energy spells does the reverse? What conclusions does that lead to?
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Casting negative energy spells itself doesn't cause damage, you can cast as many inflict spells as you want and while that might kill people it's not going to do any long term harm. The issue arise when you bind that negative energy to a corpse and you tell it to fetch you your tea. Negative energy isn't meant to sustain things which makes black necromancy, the process of actually animating and controlling the undead deeply unnatural, as opposed to things like speak with dead or detect undead which most societies consider 'white' Necromancy.

It does thus follow that there exists out there a form of positive energy shaping for the purpose of destroying things that are not undead, say by making them live too fast, too strongly and wither away, which would be just as unnatural and corrosive to the fabric of the material world

Vote closed
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jan 30, 2025 at 10:21 AM, finished with 29 posts and 4 votes.
  • [X] I'm on a Boat!
    [X] I'm on a Boat!
    -[X] Preparations made on the final morning of travel before reaching the sea:
    --[X] Mina prepares two Rune of Rule spells in place of her Invisibility spells and a Trade Wind spell in place of Glitterdust. She will go ahead and place a Rune of Rule spell on herself before setting out for the day. She adjust Pepper's Evolution points as she sleeps the night before, granting him the Skilled power twice, gaining a +8 bonus to the Profession (Sailor) and Perception skills.
    --[X] Sirim prepares a Make Whole spell in place of Blur, Carry Companion in place of Fox's Cunning, Deathwine in place of Magic Circle Against Evil, and Summon Ship in place of Greater Invisibility and one of his Shadow Conjuration spells.
    --[X] Gorok prepares Read Weather in place of Acid Maw, Allfood in place of Lead Blades,
    --[X] Kori uses Inspired Spell to cast a Death Knell spell into Mina's Ring of Spell Storing and a Calculated Luck spell into Cob's.
    -[X] Summoning the Ship; after finding a suitable place to disembark:
    --[X] Sirim will cast Marionette Possession on Gorok, then Mina will place a Rune of Rule spell on Sirim, along with casting Hermean Potential on him and using her Fortune Hex if necessary.
    ---[X] He will then use one of our Greater False Vision scrolls on Anippe in conjunction with the Generosity effect from Rune of Rule to increase its duration to 15 hours. The illusion will make it appear that she is in a random forest one might find anywhere in southern Avistan, surrounded by armed mercenaries.
    ---[X] He then casts Deathwine on one of our Cure Serious Wounds potions, followed by using the Ring of Spell Storing to cast Death Knell. After casting Death Knell, he sacrifices the previously captured animal to increase his caster level by +1.
    --[X] Kori drinks the Deathwine potion to increase his Necromancy caster level by +3, then uses Inspired Spell to cast Sharesister on Sirim to increase his caster level by +2, up to 10th level.
    --[X] Before he begins to cast Summon Ship, Sirim uses Calculated Luck from the other Ring of Spell Storing. If one of the 3d8 dice rolled is an 8, he will use it to increase his Conjuration caster level by +1, up to 11th. He will then cast Summon Ship using a dose of Darkwood as an Alchemical Power component to increase the caster level by +1, to either 11th or 12th level, in order to Summon a Sailing Ship. He uses one of our Extend Magic gems to double the ship's duration to 22 or 24 days.
    --[X] Mina casts Hermean Potential on herself, and uses her Fortune Hex if necessary, along with the Generosity effect from Rune of Rule as she casts one of our Unseen Crew spells at 11th caster level, creating 11 Unseen Sailors for 11 days. She then casts another Rune of Rule on herself after recovering the spell using her 2nd level Pearl of Power on and repeats this process with another Unseen Crew spell. They will serve as the main crew of the Summoned ship.
    -[X] Once the ship disembarks, Mina will cast Trade Wind and Sirim will use Wild Arcana to cast Tail Current, the spells acting together to speed our journey and provide constant wind for the sails, while Pepper serves as captain.
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DragonParadox said:
Casting negative energy spells itself doesn't cause damage, you can cast as many inflict spells as you want and while that might kill people it's not going to do any long term harm. The issue arise when you bind that negative energy to a corpse and you tell it to fetch you your tea. Negative energy isn't meant to sustain things which makes black necromancy, the process of actually animating and controlling the undead deeply unnatural, as opposed to things like speak with dead or detect undead which most societies consider 'white' Necromancy.
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Just to confirm I understand how you've decided the metaphysics work: putting aside the kneejerk emotional reaction the people of Mina's homeland have to the necromancy school, then is this the actual (magical) physical issue that causes the actual problems they face?
[I'm putting aside the anti-arcanist social prejudices for this]

The thing I want to check with you, since our characters should have a mage's understanding of why animating the dead is bad, is: does Death Knell cause any issues like serving tea (oh my!) would?

My read of your post is that it wouldn't, but I want to be sure rather than have that niggling concern in the future.
...Same question for Deathwine, while I'm asking.
 
BeepSmile said:
Just to confirm I understand how you've decided the metaphysics work: putting aside the kneejerk emotional reaction the people of Mina's homeland have to the necromancy school, then is this the actual (magical) physical issue that causes the actual problems they face?
[I'm putting aside the anti-arcanist social prejudices for this]

The thing I want to check with you, since our characters should have a mage's understanding of why animating the dead is bad, is: does Death Knell cause any issues like serving tea (oh my!) would?

My read of your post is that it wouldn't, but I want to be sure rather than have that niggling concern in the future.
...Same question for Deathwine, while I'm asking.
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Yes, if you raise too many zombies eventually the village graveyard will start walking on its own, which to a certain kind of necromancer is seen as a plus, but to everyone else it is a reason to get pitchforks

No, the test for it is very simple 'does this spell produce a long term necrotic entity', if the answer is no you're fine. Some places might look at you in askance if you are took good at white necromancy since they know those are the same skills you would use to raise an army of the dead, but on its own the spells are harmless.
 
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This ship obviously can't be a Dancing Slurk, those are special and will one day revolutionize shipbuilding throughout the Inner Sea, but she'll still need a name.

Maybe the Tipsy Slurk?
 
Wait.

Wouldn't the vampire have had trinkets on his body during the fight, to increase his chances of success/reduce the odds of things going poorly for him if Sirim did something tricky?
Goldfish said:
This ship obviously can't be a Dancing Slurk, those are special and will one day revolutionize shipbuilding throughout the Inner Sea, but she'll still need a name.

Maybe the Tipsy Slurk?
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The Temporary Slurk? Since the ship is limited to 22 or 24 days.

Bit late now, but the ship is vulnerable to being dispelled.
We should have had people gather big branches to have near them and cling to if the ship vanishes, so they have a life raft to cling to while we open out the portable boat.
 
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DragonParadox said:
No, the test for it is very simple 'does this spell produce a long term necrotic entity'
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How long term are we talking? Does a spell like 'shadow projection' count?

I am trying to understand what 'deeply unnatural' means in the context of magic. It's not very natural in itself, but apparently there are things that collide with the laws of metaphysics harder than others and thus have greater potential to cause damage?
 
BeepSmile said:
Wait.

Wouldn't the vampire have had trinkets on his body during the fight, to increase his chances of success/reduce the odds of things going poorly for him if Sirim did something tricky?
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He probably did have some decent loot. Missing out on that was worth not getting into a conflict with one or more Hellknight orders or possibly further complicating our departure from Cheliax.
BeepSmile said:
The Temporary Slurk? Since the ship is limited to 22 or 24 days.

Bit late now, but the ship is vulnerable to being dispelled.
We should have had people gather big branches to have near them and cling to if the ship vanishes, so they have a life raft to cling to while we open out the portable boat.
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Yeah, the possibility of being Dispelled is an unfortunate and unavoidable vulnerability in this whole scheme. That said, it's not obviously a magical ship so no one's knee jerk reaction should be to attempt to Dispel it. It's also got a caster level of 11 or 12, meaning it has a better than even chance of resisting any attempts to Dispel it.

If someone does try to use Detect Magic on it they will need to be within 60 feet to have a chance of noticing the aura of Conjuration magic.

In most cases we should know enemies are coming well before they get that close. We can always cast a large area Conjuration spell on it to mask the ship's aura, like having Mina drop an Ash Storm on it Counterspelling is an option, too.
Nevill said:
How long term are we talking? Does a spell like 'shadow projection' count?

I am trying to understand what 'deeply unnatural' means in the context of magic. It's not very natural in itself, but apparently there are things that collide with the laws of metaphysics harder than others and thus have greater potential to cause damage?
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I would assume anything that isn't permanent, or near enough to it, would be okay. Creating Undead isn't temporary, they'll persist until destroyed, while a Shadow Projection spell has a finite duration.
 
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