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Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

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Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jul 15, 2023 at 6:17 AM, finished with 17 posts and 5 votes.
  • [X] Use Mina's Disguise Self to mimic the appearance of the captured cook. She will call out for help from those on the other side of the barred door as she appears to struggle to wrestle Cob into submission.
    -[X] Gorok, Kori, Pepper, and Warty will be waiting just out of sight to ambush the first responders.
    -[X] Everyone will both have Guidance and Resistance cantrips cast on them for a +1 bonus to a skill or attack check, and on a saving throw, if necessary. Mina will also cast Hermean Potential on herself to allow her to reroll a failed check. Mina and Cob will also carry some tags that have been thoroughly drenched in lesser Xulgath...essence, for that authentic aroma.
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Arc 2 Post 28: A Witch in Reptile's Skin
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    • A Witch in Reptile's Skin ​

    Season of Rushing Waters

    Mina does not quite walk right for a xulgath, holding her head too still rather than twitching it up and down occasionally to keep an eye out for burrowing threats or cloakers and stranglers above, and she does not seem to have much of an idea what to do with her illusory tail. Gorok tries to advise her on the matter, but he makes it clear that his suggestions are no more good than learning to speak drow is in speaking to duergar, for the scaled folk their tails speak to everything from their origin to their mood to how well fed they are. Alas. her affinity to language does not stretch that far so she will have to contend herself with not moving her tail too much.

    On the other hand one might almost suspect Gorok of having his own magic speech, beast-speech, or at least slurk-speech. The iruxi somehow manages to get the tusked amphibian to understand the need to be careful and quiet as you move up to the ruined kitchen. Quiet Warty is indeed on soft, sticky pads, he hides by ducking his head behind an overturned stone table just as you and Gorok find your own nooks out of sight of the door.

    Gorok Animal Handling: 1d20 +4 = 24 (Critical Success) -> Warty does not have to roll Stealth due to how well he follows instructions

    "Come here, Bat-Ear Sneak-Thing!" Mina shouts as she seems to struggle with a seemingly terrified Cob... well either that or he is trying to make like a fish, trying to wiggle itself out of the fisherman's hand and back into the lake. Not that it matters that much, the vision slit is narrow and the guards are more likely to judge by what they hear.

    After a few moments you hear the telltale signs of claws scratching on stone then the clank of bars shifting and a trio of guards looking not much different from the cooks you have defeated other than the color of their scales and the fact that they have proper spears as well as heavy chitin shields. Raw chitin thank the warding dark, not fine plates as tough as dwarf shield that the drow sometimes sell at exorbitant prices, but still more than enough to make trouble for Gorok and for you if you were minded to use a knife, which you are not.

    Mina's lie: 1d20 +1 +1 (Guidance) = 13 vs Xulgath Sense Motive: 1d20 = 11

    The faces of the guards are not as mobile as those of caligini, goblin or burnlander, but still you read the enormous surprise and growing fear when they see you and Gorok rush out weapons at the ready, but pointed at the wrong things.

    What do you do?

    [] Command Warty to attack (Costs a standard action from Gorok to let him at it)

    [] Fight them as you did the cooks (Chance of the chief being alerted by the commotion)

    [] Rush past them and then use their own door to lock them out as you deal with the Blackscale Sshesh (Due to surprise the enemy does not get Attacks of Opportunity; Sshesh also surprised, but you leave enemies at your back)

    [] Write in

    OOC: A bit short, but you guys have more options here than I am comfortable taking in your name, especially as surprise would be very valuable against the chief but so would a speedy escape afterwards.
     
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    • DragonParadox said:
    On the other hand one might almost suspect Gorok of having his own magic speech, beast-speech, or at least slurk-speech. The iruxi somehow manages to get the tusked amphibian to understand the need to be careful and quiet as you move up to the ruined kitchen. Quiet Warty is indeed on soft, sticky pads, he hides by ducking his head behind an overturned stone table
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    Awwwwww, Warty is so cute for a huge sabre-tusked murder frog!

    I am leaning towards rushing and using the free round to take on the chieftain. We can do a fuckton of damage on the first round, so we might even be able to save the use of the Fire Elemental for later.
     
    I think we need to go for some shock and awe right now. We could take the three guards, but not quietly and probably not quickly or cleanly enough to be in a good position to move on the Xulgath without it being alerted to an attack.

    If we rush through the door now, we can go straight for the Xulgath to remove it from the threat equation ASAP. This needs to happen before it has a chance to use its Suggestion SLA or any other powers it might possess on us. Once that is dealt with, we can either turn out attention back to the guards we picked out behind us or whatever other threat needs immediate attention.

    The best way to deal with Sshesh is to sic the Fire Elemental on him. He can't fuck with its mind, which is his main threat, but even ignoring that he's still a tough and dangerous melee fighter.

    [X] Rush past them and then use their own door to lock them out as you deal with the Blackscale Sshesh (Due to surprise the enemy does not get Attacks of Opportunity; Sshesh also surprised, but you leave enemies at your back)
    -[X] As soon as we identify Sshesh, Cob will use the Gem of Foe's Pyre to Summon a Large Fire Elemental to attack him.
    -[X] If there are no other does present, Kori will target Sshesh with his crossbow, Gorok will do the same with a stonebow, and Mina will use her Slumber Hex against him, all remaining as far from the Xulgath as possible. If there are other enemies, the group will prioritise those nearest them and Gorok will order Warty to attack as he deems necessary.


    @DragonParadox, the Gem of Foe's Pyre needs to be added to our inventory on the front page.

    [] Gem of Foe's Pyre: Pried from the work of ancient dwarf artisanship this gem once had the power to summon a large fire elemental to protect the hold in which it had been forged. Through crude enchantments best left unmentioned the gemstone can still summon this protector, but filled with loss and rage. The elemental may only attack one target against which it is directed on conjuring which it must be allowed to consume utterly or else it will turn on the summoner with its full ferocity until destroyed. If it is instead destroyed it returns to the stone quiescent (1/day)
     
    Arhin said:
    I think that it's better save than sorry. Yes, Elemental would be nery useful in the future, but boss of the arc is an appropriate target too.
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    Wholeheartedly agree with this. The Elemental is a powerful tool at our level and a nice bit of insurance against nasty surprises, but we shouldn't make the mistake of not using it for fear of needing it later. It can be used daily, so we don't need to worry about wasting it, and it fills in for our party's middling combat capacity.
     
    [X] Goldfish

    Time to make them feel the burn! :D

    Also, Warty earned himself a nice meal after this.
     
    Arc 2 Post 29: Fate of the Unborn
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    • Fate of the Unborn ​

    Season of Rushing Waters

    As the bewildered guards charge through the four of you spring into action, not upon them, though you have little doubt battle would favor you. You are not here to carve out one scale at a time. Cut off the head of the snake in one blow and the body will wither. The thought carries you past the door, accentuated with the thud of its closing and the clang of the bar fitting into place. The storeroom is filled with many of the same things one might find in the kitchen, if in a form more fit for storage than consumption: sacks of gristle meal, heavier on the fat and lighter on the bone meal and fungus dust than you are used to, creeper-stalks not get split for the sugary core so they would last longer, dead bats, gutted and played winged then salted whole, though the salts smell a bit too much of brimstone for your taste, gnarled roller roots still in the form that gives them their name and ability to go down windy tunnels to catch root in new soil.

    All this you see in passing down into the egg room. Here, for the first time there is some semblance of light, and not the smoky torches or even worm-oil lanterns you had expected. Small even crystals of a make far finer than anything you had seen in these caved had been hammered into walls adorned with sharp-edged pictograms of xulgath life, harvesting fungus, raiding, hunting lizard, bat and many legged thing. They give ooff a burnt orange light and a harsh dry heat that you assume is proper for such eggs

    Gorok stops dead and looks around in confusion, tail lasing at the air. "Sstrange.... eggs too warm, not wet enough. Why?"

    "Maybe it's different for the Xulgath?" Mina offers, stopping to catch her breath, reaching out to lean on you for just a moment.

    "Perhapsss.."

    The hiss seems to catch on a life of its own twisting and curling though the air, an unseen presence summoned by your trespass. "Ware guardian!" you call, looking around hither and yon, but there is nothing in the room but eggs gleaming in the orange light, set row upon row on shelves of stone.

    Rather than lessen as you speak the hissing echo only grows, unfolding in complexion until it is language, xulgath tongue, echoing from the stone. At the back of the room a pair of lights burn brighter, like fire, like baleful eyes.

    "There is something in here, it is asking us if we are enemies of Sshesh," Mina translates, sounding as perturbed as you are.

    "Does it want us ta be?" Cob asks reasonably. "'S it like 'old lizard good' or 'old lizard bad'?"

    "I don't know, it's some kind of ghost." There's fear in those words, strong but worn smooth as river stone, as your own people might speak of the madness of the derro or the cruelty of the drow.

    You are as surprised by Gorok's next words as any of the others are. "Spirit of tribe, scale of soul, we hunt the one who drove you from your place of honor and bound you to this place. Who is taking the future of your people from you."

    Akorian Wisdom: 1d20 = 9 (Failure)
    Gorok Wisdom: 1d20 +2 =     15 (Success)

    There is a moment's watchful silence as the air grows warmer and warmer then in a voice that is the rattling of shell against shell the spirit speak again. Gorok it seems had guessed aright about the nature of the presence and at the fact that She who Lurks Above has no love of this usurper from ages past, but she had been bound here for...

    "It's to make the baby troglodytes smarter, this stuff it is scavenged from the old ruins. Sshesh is trying to hatch more like him. It is offering to help us if we break it free... We should free it."

    At this it is Gorok's time to be silent and you know well why. Another ally against the Blackscale would be of great use certainly, but it would come at the cost of condemning the unborn xulgath to an existence as limited as that of their fallen kin. Enemies they might be now, but in ages past they had been peers to of the iruxi, trading partners, more than just raiders making meat of their neighbors.

    What does Akorian think should be done?

    [] Free the spirit, you are going to need all the help you can get

    [] Leave the spirit in place, you can deal with the chief on your own

    [] Say nothing, let Gorok decide

    [] Write in

    OOC: To break out the spirit you just have to pry the crystals out of the wall.
     
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    • Personally think we should leave it be, but this is up to Gorok.

    [X] Let Gorok decide, but let him know that we support leaving the spirit in place if that is what he chooses
     
    Massgamer said:
    Personally think we should leave it be, but this is up to Gorok.

    [X] Let Gorok decide, but let him know that we support leaving the spirit in place if that is what he chooses
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    Yeah, this works for me, too. Personally, I would prefer to free it, both for whatever assistance it might be able to provide and to prevent a new generation of true Xulgath from being born. Given their natural inclinations and powers, the new Xulgath would be a scourge on the local communities, especially Cauldron.

    But this missions involved Gorok's personal quest and he was the one who figured out what was going on. I think there is also a better chance of him getting the knowledge he wants if we have the tribe's spirit on our side.

    [X] Say nothing, let Gorok decide
     
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    I am not sure what this lizard dilemma is about. I don't know nearly enough about xulgath.

    The spirit guardian is bound here... to make the eggs hatch better xulgath? Define better. Where does the improvement come from?
    DragonParadox said:
    Upon awaking the elder Xulgath took control of the tribe though mental dominion and cruelty both. He had forced the old chief to drive needled though his eyes and throw himself onto a pyre upon which the first blades of steel were forged. He had even peeled off the scaled hide to make grips.
    [...]
    Caravans were ambushed, raids were begun and upon the flames of the Scourge prisoners were set to burn with eggs laid out all around them. Sshesh is breeding more of his ilk.

    The raids Cauldron is suffering of late are simply the result of the latest and largest brood of such xulgath reaching the age to be blooded, though they had been blooded rather more than their progenitor intended, for the dwellers on these shores have long held out against even raids from the deeper caverns, a bastion too tough for even steel armed slavers to hold out against.
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    This is what Sshesh does. Would 'more of his ilk' do more of the same?
    DragonParadox said:
    She who Lurks Above has no love of this usurper from ages past, but she had been bound here for...

    "It's to make the baby troglodytes smarter, this stuff it is scavenged from the old ruins."
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    What has been done to the spirit guardian? If it helps the tribe, why wouldn't she want to, even at the cost to herself? I am confused with Gorok saying Sshesh has been taking away the future of her people while also implying that freeing her and undoing his work would not have a positive effect on the same future.
     
    The spirit is for the tribe, but it is not inclined to burn itself to cinders to allow intelligent Xulgath to be born , right now it has been bound and used as fuel to allow more of them to be born.
     
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