Ahhh...you might want to edit your post, Aliana! LOL

In reply to Big Boss (msg # 943):

*laughs*  Autocorrect got me again  (or perhaps it's a Freudian slip?)

LOL Wow. That's a bad auto correct. Alot of times when I spell Nolan, auto correct says no land.

That's also impressive

Need to get a ruling from BB on the Lyre.

The description says it can be used to make buildings. Many (if not most) buildings in fantasy worlds are made of wood. The only criterion given is that be made of "inanimate" matter, meaning non-living, which I believe processed wood qualifies as.  And the list of things that can be built conveniently ends with "or whatever".

As far as supplies go, the ship is mostly intact, the beams have just been broken.  It's not that it needs to be constructed from scratch, just straightened, mended, and re-attached.

Well, since Nolan uses and makes magical items, I'd have to say the boat is a wooden structure. There is nothing said on whether or not it can float or fly. But, I don't think the Lyre will repair any wood that is broken or rotted etc...That would have to be removed by somebody before the new wood could be put back in. Also, the pieces of wood would have to be the same measurements because the Lyre isn't going to change the wood to make things fit/work.

And I disagree.

The description right out of the book is: The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. The effect produced in but 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days.

It says nothing about having to have any supplies on hand or what the landscape has to look like ahead of time. You don't have to clear the trees out of the way before you can use it, you just strum the lyre and the structures are magically constructed on the spot.  I think having something 99% already there would just make it easier.

But that's why we need BB to give a final ruling.

I've read a lot of posts online about this subject and a lot of people agree that the Lyre of Building is kind of broken. But, there is a post I found that I agree with and I will be going with this:


Does the Lyre of Building require the materials to be on hand?

The base spell is fabricate so yes you do need the materials. The other clue is that item uses Transmutation magic, not Evocation or Conjuration which brings things from nothing or elsewhere, repectively. What the Lyre does, is save on labor and a lot of time. An advantage it has over fabricate is that it's not dependent on Craft checks.

So, if there is wood missing, rotted or broken or something else wrong with it structurally, you'll need wood to fix everything....which shouldn't be a problem since it's right next to the forest. Kalliyan might get upset when a tree suddenly starts tearing itself apart and starts forming on the flying ship....Oh, and you'd need to get the ship over to the wood...

And since it's not dependent on Craft Checks, the ship will be considered "Masterworked" if a ship can be labelled that...
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:42, Tue 09 Jan.

BB, what if we were to bring the wood to the ship?

LOL. It's stuck on a rock, Byron! I didn't see the picture in the Game Map area, but I'm sure once BB sees this, he'll put it back up for us.

Yeah, it's a flying ship that crashed on top of a hill in the middle of a river in the middle of a dragon-infested forest. Good luck hiring a workforce for anything less than astronomical wages.  Which is why I want to exploit the lyre as much as we can.

Caution: Pendantry and minor rules lawyering ahead.

Here are my thoughts which BB can agree or disagree with as he sees fit:

While the lyre is based on the Fabricate spell, there are sufficient differences that I don't think we have to be totally constrained by the details of the spell.

The lyre's description is pretty generic.  It just says we can use it to: magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. The effect produced in but 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days.

The Fabricate spell's description is: You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material.

A third spell, Mending, although significantly weaker, is still relevant as to the kind of thing transmutation is capable of. The description includes: Ceramic or wooden objects with multiple breaks can be invisibly rejoined to be as strong as new.

The lyre doesn't say anything about needing raw materials, but I agree that it's a reasonable requirement.

But there's no indication anywhere that I can find that would imply that we have to have pre-crafted components. To build a stone building you just need to have a supply of stone, you don't need pre-cut quarried blocks with buckets of mortar standing by.

Likewise, to repair the ship we just need to provide heaps of wood, we don't need it to be pre-cut and shaped into the perfect curves by master craftsmen. The transmutative properties of the magic are responsible for turning the raw materials into the finished product.

I did assume the lyre would be able to repair cracked or broken timber, provided it was still in place since it's just moving it around and magically binding it back together using Transmutation as per the Mending spell. But I agree that rotted or missing timbers would need to be replaced by the raw wood (quantity TBD) hauled in from the forest.

But in the grand scheme, hauling sufficient wood shouldn't be a big deal, especially if Nolan supplies a golem and/or we make use of the Apparatus of Kwalish (The Iron Crab).

-- Building scaffolding/support beams to keep the ship from rolling off the hill, once its hull is fixed, should also be possible.  In fact, it should probably be done first.  Yeah, more wood required.

On a completely separate issue, at some point in the future, we still need to take the crab over anyway to search the bottom of the river.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:39, Tue 09 Jan.

Agreed. You don't need to fabricate anything. The Lyre does that for you. You just need the material in hand.

As for the ship itself, all of you have heard stories of magical flying ships, so it would be safe to assume the ship could hover above the ground to repair the gaping hole in the hull...if you get the thing to move.

Looking for the picture now. Fixing it where it currently stands will be highly difficult.

Game Map 4 has been updated.

The ship is considered a Galley for descriptive purposes, but it was made to fly.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:20, Tue 09 Jan.

That appears to be the chicken and egg question.

Can we get the ship to hover so we can repair it?

Or do we need to repair it in order to get it to hover?

That's the Million Gold Piece question.

We need Nolan to finish his research on the 'making it fly' portion of the problem.  How we approach repairing her greatly depends on whatever answers he can find.  A while ago (long long ago is more correct) he surmised that if we could fix the hull, the magic would just start up again automatically.  I don't know if he still feels the same now.  But it's possible all we'll need is some bracing to keep her from tumbling until we get the outside fixed.  We can then take our time with the internals.

Naturally, I'll be in charge of the repairs, with Amara doing all the real work with the lyre.

What's annoying is that even if we had all the answers, this is still going to take a little while.  Amara can only use the lyre for 1 hour (2 applications) before she has to start making perform checks. And once she fails a check, everything stops for a week.  So, if she tests it out in town first, that reduces the work we can do on the ship. I don't know what her perform checks are like, but I do know how much the dice roller hates me.

And I can feel everyone's desire to go kick some slaver ass.  I hate taking any more time either.  But I do think this is a critical step in the plan, and that we could be facing a disaster without it.  I just wish we could move faster.

Nolan, I think the ball is in your court.

I have a decent perform check...

Would it be possible to essentially form a "slide" out of the mountain that the ship is stuck on to get it close to ground level where we can work on?

A slide would be a good "non-technical" first use of the lyre - and getting it to a more manageable place to work on would be valuable...

That sounds good to me.  We just need some kind of cradle to keep the ship from rolling over and sliding into the river as the hull is fixed.

I don't see why the lyre couldn't do that.  The question is how many days of effort for 100 people would that take?

I think the first thing we should do, however, is to go over and examine the helm of the ship and see if we can't figure out how to make it work.  Until now I assumed it was unflyable because why would the owner have abandoned it if it could still fly?

I don't "think" we've done that yet.

The other question that just occurred to me is: what is the requirement to use the lyre in the first place?  Could we just hand it off from person to person, each getting 2 uses out of it before (assuming a failed perform check) having to wait a week to use it again?  I don't see anything in the description about having to spend time attuning it.

Wasn't there a group of Goblins or something down at the river? I wouldn't make it easy for them to get access to the ship.

I don't recall goblins there... maybe...

Agreed - let's check out the helm first.

I've always read the lyre as working once a week - not that it needed attuned, but that it wouldn't work more than once.

But that's a good question that needs GM determination - because now that you say that, I can absolutely see it being read that way...

I read posts about that as well and all of them agree that it can only be used once a week. PERIOD. If you want to build more stuff, buy another Lyre.

And yes, there is a tribe of Goblins that "hunts" the river that hides in a fortified cave against the cliffside. Myarra tried to intimidate them, but they ran away and one of them peed itself when Myarra held him up in the air.

The description is written oddly. Which is why I probably phrased it weirdly.

You can use it once per week (meaning you can't pass it around -- transient illiteracy on my part I guess).  Each half-hour of playing does the work of 100 people working for 3 days, which is 1 person working for just under a year. And we get two of those uses guaranteed each week, plus more if the perform check is made.  I'm reasonably sure 2 people working for just under a year could get a lot of work done.

The first thing to do is to check out the helm and see if we can get it to fly. If we can, we can start the repairs and fly it back to Daak to complete it.  If it won't fly, we can start building a shelf/cradle/whatever and see how things go.

The only way to find out is to start trying things.



First I tried to very nicely hire them to do some cleaning.  The intimidation came later.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:36, Thu 11 Jan.

If I understood the description correctly, the Lyre can be played once a week unless you're successful on a perform check. Why don't we ask our Troll friend Maestro if he would play it, if we're worried about time?

Are we good with the rules on the Lyre?

It's pushing 6pm...you still have at least 2 hours before it gets dark, if you all wanted to visit the ship.

Amara has a +13 to Perform strings - She should be able to make it continue for a while, depending, of course, on the dice roller :)

Step 1) Check out the ship again.
Step 2) Make a plan.
Step 3) Gather all the wood we think we're going to need +10%
Step 4) Use the lyre.