I'm okay with taking it easy for a bit

The important thing to take away from the posts in Elturel is that it does not appear that the Centauri are dealing with Lord Dhelt.  Or, if they are, he does not seem to be taking them seriously.  These people are a serious threat to us because they inhabit positions of real authority.  We can't simply kill them with impunity, no matter how much I wish we could.  We can kill the bounty hunters they send after us, although we really need to try to run them off first, but things are going to get increasingly more dangerous until we take out that damn mine.  Then we need to deal with Amara's family. I'm hoping simple slaughter will be possible there.

I know we have preparations we need to do first, but it's getting more grating by the day.  A couple more days to get the ship ready (deck-based weapons and netting in the hold to keep the ex-slaves safe) and then we really need to strike.

From what I got from the Elturel post was I think Lord Dhelt didn't know the Centauri's were even in the city. From what Aliana saw, it looked like they might have picked up this new Centauri from the docks with how happy they were to see him, which tells me one huge thing: They can't Teleport.

I think we should hurry up with the preparations on the ship, so we can go to the mine. We should buy a bunch of food, medical supplies and other stuff for helping out these poor refugees and then take them to Elturel as planned. I don't remember if I said it or another party member, but I think we should inform the dwarves of the mine, so they can take it over, or else we'll be doing this same thing a year from now, if not less.

OK, do you guys just want to focus on getting the ship fixed and not looking for any trouble? I can then write an update for the time it takes for the ship to be finished and outfitted with the gear.

The Ballista will have to be bought at a different town, unless you have Amos build you one, which will take at least 2 weeks. Also the plank fitted for the ship will take another couple days, unless you plan on carrying all the refugees on deck yourself, which will be a huge chore.

Nolan and Amara can go back to the Tower and Scry for the rest of this day and unless Aliana has another Teleport, she'll have to get a room at an Inn with Byron until she has the power again the next day.

Is everyone OK with this?

That works for me.    If i use a turning attempt to power my spells, I can Teleport us back today

Sounds good to me

Me as well.

Out of Character, Lord Dhelt is a Level 17 Paladin and leader of the Hellriders! So, I would be surprised if he couldn't see Vernon. *Laughs*

Looks shocked.  I NEVER look for trouble.

A few thoughts ...

The limiting factor right now is how much more scrying needs to be done before we feel ready to go.  I'm trying to keep the time needed to outfit the ship as short as possible, but if we have to wait another week for the scrying, we can fit in more details.

I think just getting some henchmen/hirelings (or whatever the term is now) and equipping them with crossbows is probably the way to go. If we can mount some simple shields along the edge so they can use them for cover, that would be great as well. Even barrel lids should provide at least a +1 to AC against ranged weapons. Going with Roen's thoughts, maybe we can get some dwarves (I leave the diplomacy to the others) to sign on. They help defend the ship and we give them the mine once we kill the dragon.

Ballista are great weapons, but they're really slow to load and operate and, depending on the rules used, require professionals, so any of those would have to be 'nice to have if we have the time'.  We've already exposed ourselves in Soubar ... not that we had any choice, but I'd prefer not to give the Centauri any more chances to find out about us.

Furthermore, the ship is for getting away, not for fighting.  If things get bad outside the mine, the ship should simply lift up a few hundred feet and wait until we can clean up the mess below.

We do need some kind of movable gangplank/walkway.  We could get away with hanging cargo netting over the side, but I don't want to make a bunch of injured refugees climb ropes. I'll need to talk to Timber and see what he can do.

Other than that we'll need cargo netting inside for people to hold on to, and mattresses (or a lot of straw) for cushioning the floor.

We should probably pick up a few cure potions/remove disease/restoration scrolls for those that are the worst off, but we should be able to do most of the healing once we get to the city.

And on a completely different thought ... we should get a scroll of Magic Aura to use on Byron's Disruption sword. An undead dragon might be able to sense what the sword is and it would be a good idea to hide its capabilities.

Byron is perfectly ok with staying overnight.

In reply to Nolan (msg # 83):

Out of character,  is there a game mechanic here, or just "DM's choice "?

Big NPC's like Lord Dhelt is taken right out of the book. It was totally unintentional on my part to use Elturel and that Elturel is a very important place in the FRGS. So whatever happens in the books with that place will eventually happen in this game. I use the FRSG and look up each town to see if they have any important NPC's and then I use them. If they don't, I make up something.

As for him being able to see Vernon, I roll a 1d00% and anyone who got 3% or lower could see Vernon. So far, it's only been 3 people: Amara, Lord Dhelt and the Dwarven Crypt Keeper.

2 Barrels (For water filled with Magic Decanter)--4 Gold
100 Bedrolls--10 Gold
10 Buckets--5 Gold
5 nets--20 Gold
(2) 10' ladders--1 Silver
(10) 50' Hemp Ropes--10 Gold
(100) Clay Mugs--2 Gold
(100) “Portions” of Poor meal which include bread, potatoes and Apples--10 Gold
Hay to cover the lower decks--2 Gold

Total: 63 Gold 1 Silver

This is what Amara and Nolan bought while in town. I'll edit the list if there was anything else you wanted to add.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:52, Mon 25 Mar.

I was looking over our treasure list and we have a couple scrolls with healing spells on them. Do we want to purchase more for the refugees? Amara and I could have done that as well while we were shopping for the general equipment.

I recently purchased a wand of CSW as well.

OK, that's a lot of healing you can do. Updating again since Aliana can Teleport again.

And I used the extra time and materials while using the lyre to make shields - how many did I make? 100?

Let's get 3 meals for each (300 meals) - I think we're going to need to feed them more than once.

Let's add:
* 1 Wand Cure Light Wounds
* 100 spears - so that they can each have a spear and shield for defense
* 5 lbs soap
* Beans (cheap protein)

Remember that getting the folks from the mines to Eltural will only take a couple of hours. And once there we can heal and feed them with a lot less drama. Not that we shouldn't have some stuff pre-arranged, just that a city should be better equipt then we could be. So as long as we can stabilize folks and keep them alive, that should be enough. We can heal them of whatever ails them once we're safe on the ground. Lord Dhelt and the temples of Eltural should lift a bit of the load. They're supposed to be Good aligned after all.  Nothing says 'serving the public good' like, you know, serving the public good.

I think we should skip the beans because that means making a fire and I wouldn't attempt that on the ship. Also, I'm not comfortable with arming them at all. That's just asking for a Mutiny. And let them wash themselves in the river at Elturel. We just don't have the facilities onboard the ship. And lastly, I think BB said you could only play the Lyre 1x a week per job? So, fixing the ship was the job.

Yeah, I said 1 project because the rules about the lyre go into a "Grey Area" that I didn't want to deal with. I read a bunch of stories/posts about people trying to abuse the powers of the instruments, so I made it "one project" per performance per week. I still haven't made up my mind yet if it can be performed by one person, then give it to another after who have the same performance abilities. To me, that's leaning towards the "Abuse" of the lyre.

Hm. Interesting. My reading is that it can continue to be used, provided the materials were there. So I wouldn't think shields would be a big deal to add to the ship repair job. Now I agree that handing it around would be cheat-y, but if you say one thing, you start to get a bit absurd. So then just one shield? No one would use it that way. They'd always use it for big, fancy things...

As far as mutiny -  They aren't going to immediately mutiny after we rescue them. We need them armed in case one of the soldiers get on board. We can't have a slaughter.

I can see your point on beans - but this is a time when people are used to keeping care of fires - they had fires on normal ships, even though they were the most dangerous of things to get out of hand. Or we could simmer them while we are flying there, put out the fires, and have the beans ready when the people get on board.

If I've magics left, I can Create Food. It's not exciting cuisine, but it's probably better than mine slave dining options

It's not my call about the ship. It's Myarra's, but I vote against arming the refugees and making a fire to cook. If they've survived escaping with us and on board the ship, they can survive another couple hours eating carrots and potatoes and drinking fresh water until we get to Elturel where they can cook all they want at the campsite next to the river. As for arming them, if they pick up weapons in the caves, then so be it. They have a right to defend themselves. I just don't think we should do it because we don't know any of these people.

The Lyre is BB's department, but with us discussing the description of the Lyre, it winds up being part of all those stories he was talking about with people arguing this and that and I don't want it to go there. The Lyre repairing the Mariasha was HUGE, but asking for more on top of that? I'm not going there.

I'm with Nolan on the use of the lyre. BB gets to dictate its capabilities. Yes, I have a few quibbles, you all know me too well to think it could be otherwise. But they're not important. Getting the Mariasha repaired in such a short time was already near-miraculous.

I think that arming the prisoners is a bad idea. We have no idea if any of them have scores to settle with each other or who might be thinking they can use the situation to get back on the Centauri's side, or foment a mutiny to steal the ship for themselves.  The last is unlikely, but I put nothing past a DM who thinks he can make a situation more amusing.

I just think adding armed unknowns to the mix is asking for unnecessary trouble. It's only a couple of hours to Elturel. Let's just concentrate on getting them there and let Lord Dhelt deal with sorting them out.

Likewise, open flames on wooden ships should only be allowed under very tightly controlled conditions.

So, let's keep it as simple as we can. Nets and padding for safety in the hold, water and rations (or magically created food) for the short time of the flight.

But we absolutely should have a wand of cure light wounds to make sure the badly injured are stabilized until we get them to the clerics. Maybe a couple cure disease spells or even restoration scrolls just in case. If we don't need them this time, we'll just use them on ourselves on a later adventure.

My more pressing concern is hiring some guards. We, as the adventurers, should be in the mines, killing dracoliches and cult members. We don't have enough people to assault the mines and guard the ship at the same time. BB said we could get a couple of the old party members (whose players have left) to help out and we should be able to hire a few trustworthy hirelings, or even just get a few hunters from Daak to help us out.

As long as the ship stays up in the air when not actively loading (and one of us should be escorting the prisoners out as large groups), it should be safe enough. We just need to do our due diligence.

Plus, we really need to start studying the map Amara and Nolan are making and planning how to actually get the prisoners out and kill all the cult members ... or encourage them to run far far away.

Perhaps we can convince Rufus and Lorrik to help on board as well? We could also ask Gunther to help with trying to find an alternate way inside the mines?