For all your out of character discussions.
This message was last updated by the GM at 19:35, Sat 02 Oct 2021.

While I won't announce who got in until the deadline on Thursday, I'll be letting people who's RTJ didn't make the cut know as quickly as possible.  So if you've submitted an application and haven't heard from me yet, that means you're still in the running.

Anyone who's been rejected, (or people who haven't been rejected but have another idea they like) can send in a second RTJ if they want to.

So far there's been a lack of "support" classes, like cleric, bard, etc.  Choosing interesting characters is going to take precedence over having a classically balanced party, but I figured it was worth mentioning.  EDIT:  Once everyone's been accepted, there will a chance to change class before the game starts.  So for now, just apply with what you think fits your concept best.  If we wind up with a wonky party comp, I'm sure we can figure it out.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:58, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

Okay, we are good to go!  The final party composition is:

Fala Lucalla, a widowed fighter, back from the Mendevian Crusade with her daughter.
Felix Axcici, An investigator from Lepidstadt university with a troubled family history.
Maritine LeGrasse, An investigator from Lepidstadt university with a troubled family history.
Kara Sweetwater, A Dhampir sorceress, and the shame of her well-heeled Lepidstadt family.
Liviana Preda, A travelling shaman with ties to the university of Caliphas.
Vrenna Charthagnion, A barrister from Cheliax, and literal devil's advocate. (cleric or Bard)

Feel free to introduce yourself, talk about builds, whether to take teamwork feats, etc.  Anyone who wishes to change their class now that they know the rest of the party comp is free to do so, though not required.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:29, Thu 07 Oct 2021.

Hello! I will be playing Fala Lucalla, a Single Mother of thirteen-year-old daughter formerly from Mendev now living in Lepidstadt with in-laws. Her husband is deceased, killed by demons from World Wound. She worships Mrtyu the Psychopomp Usher of War, Poetry, and Trauma.

She will be a greatsword-wielding fighter aiming for levels in Mortal Usher prestige Class.

Looking forward to be playing with you guys!
This message was last edited by the player at 21:30, Thu 07 Oct 2021.

Greetings everyone.

Liviana is a native of Ustalav. The daughter of a medicine woman she has been learning magic since a young age. She's recently been studying in Caliphas but has come to offer aid.

Mechanically Liviana is a shaman with the lore spirit. I also have the witch doctor archetype so I'll have the ability to channel energy. In battle I'll mostly be healing and casting spells from the backline.

Hello everyone. Looks like Maritine LeGrasse and I came up with a similar idea. It looks like we can use another front liner so let me see what I can come up without changing my background too much.

In reply to Felix Axcici (msg # 6):

Look at us, university bros.

I do have a second concept I can fall back on if you'd prefer to be the inspector over the front-liner (with GMs permission and approval) otherwise we can work out some backstory and history and see if we can make ourselves a little different and unique

I'll definitely be going with cleric. Vrenna is a half-devil Chelaxian noblewoman who "happened to be in town", and felt that "justice must, above all, be done." Asmodean Advocate, so she's dangerous in any social situation and still has plenty of clericking for the rest of it. She's not really a normal tiefling—none of that lifetime as an outcast to drag her down.

That's okay, Kara brings all the lifetime-as-an-outcast chops we need! As a dhampir in Ustalav, she was the shame of her family, particularly when they had even tried purification rituals over and over to ensure that their child would be born human, and not as a spawn of evil. She also brings a surprising amount of healing to the table.

I held back from proposing a dhampir healer haha

It's perfect. I should also just let everyone know now that Vrenna is over seven feet tall with prominent everything so uh if we want to blend in with the populace at any point I'll need to give disguise some attention.

Also, I'm visiting the boyfriend I don't see much of, until the 14th, so I'll mostly be on my phone. It's a slower medium. Pls bear with
This message was last edited by the player at 02:26, Fri 08 Oct 2021.

In reply to Vrenna Charthagnion (msg # 10):

I do not think my Masterwork Backbag is big enough to hide you, but Fala would be more friendly and/or sympathetic towards tieflings due to growing up in Mendev where they are plentiful. That could be a potential connection if that's something you're interested in.

Of course! Connections are great! And Vrenna hates demons.

@Felix and Maritine: I wouldn't worry too much about the thematic similarities between your two characters.  Your backstories are different enough to not be a problem, I just gave you the same description because I thought it would be funny.

@Vrenna: Thanks for letting us know.  The game will probably be starting before the 14th, but you won't need a full character sheet for the introductory scenes.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:59, Fri 08 Oct 2021.

Since it looks like we can use another front liner, I will go with a Magus.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:49, Sat 09 Oct 2021.

We can still be frat buddies Felix, just different program graduates! ;)

Since it's unlikely I'll be swapping, Maritine will be an investigator, and I'm tossing up on wether she should go with the Inspired Blade dip to make her a little more stabbier or full investigator, archetype pending.

She's a Lepidstadt native though and will have the accent and mannerisms, and depending on cases might have crossed paths with a few folks here if we're looking to mix backstories.

Vrenna's social skills will be reliably high, Sense Notice included, if that matters to your plans. Her domain stuff mostly enhances her own spying abilities.

TKB-Tappa Kega Brew!

Depends on what you want out of your build. I was originally thinking of an Empiricist for my Investigator archetype.

In reply to Felix Axcici (msg # 17):

I was leaning into the Lepidstadt Inspector archetype for flavor but you lose more than you gain, and I'm feeling that I might just have to bite the bullet and go with the Inspired Blade Dip into either Empiricist or Lamplighter, dependent on GM approval.

And I like TGB a lot more than TPK ;P

Alright, done a little work and while Maritine isn't a great face she should make up for that by being a useful INT based support character - skills, alchemy, UMD (always UMD) and a little combat flexibility and with flavor ties to boot.

We can play off her more logical INT against Vrenna's CHA, see what kind of shenanigans we get up to ;)

lololol 10 CHA. For Vrenna, bluff and diplomacy are wisdom skills.

Ah, a fellow 10 CHA player ;)

Well, in that case, we can compare trait shenanigans then!

I on the other hand am a charisma character! Took a trait to get diplomacy in class, too, so Kara has the full suite of communication types. I figure in order to have survived as a dhampir in Ustalav she's got to be fairly used to fast talking her way out of situations.

:-*




I need to look at items.

I wonder how many of us are from Ustalav overall?

Also, GM question, are we able to take a drawback for an additional trait? I'm almost finished putting Maritine together and figured I'd look for a thematic drawback in case we can take one.

Belial, we're all socialites

Sorry, no drawbacks.

In reply to Whispering Tyrant (msg # 26):

Thats fair, just wanted to check. At least I don't have to suffer their ill effects.

I do not think Fala is much of a socialite with 10 Wis, 9 Cha, and 8 Int.

But I think you guys will be enough to compensate for my lack of social skills x)

Speak for yourself, Felix is not one for social interactions, having a face only a Daemon would love.

Always a bad idea. Also, oof.

Livi will have mostly wisdom based skills like perception, survival, heal, etc. I'll also have most of the knowledge skills to some degree since I use my Wis modifier for Int skills.

We'll get Felix a mask or something to help keep the torch-wielding mob off him.

From the sounds of it, we're gonna have a lot of redundant skill coverage, which will be handy should the RNG be out to get us at any point

Finalizing my sheet, its mostly shopping thats gonna take up the bulk of my time - GM when do you need the sheets to be finished by?

I was thinking we'd start the IC thread either tomorrow or the next day, but since it's mostly going to be character introductions and talking to the Judge we won't need character sheets right away.

Let's set October 17 as a deadline for having your sheets done.

Not a problem.

Hey! Sorry, School ended up being busier than I expected before time off. I will have a post up tomorrow :)

I believe my character sheet is done if Tyrant wants to double check things.

I'm still going through the text layout for that one, but the linked Myth-Weavers sheet is pretty well done.

A Mythweaver's sheet is fine if the textbox one doesn't work for you.  I'll take a closer look at your sheets tomorrow, but at a glance they both look okay.

I've been considering adding a houserule that Clerics can choose which type of energy they channel at character creation, regardless of their alignment.  I never really liked that the rules effectively penalize evil clerics by forcing them to take negative version of channel energy, especially when most evil gods don't have any focus on the undead.

Would this be okay with everyone?

I like factional alignment over cosmological anyway, so yes from me.  But I'm also the one that would affect most directly.  But also do you folks want more healing or more non-selective damage?  But also it's not much either way and she'd probably be using it for AC.


And on that note, I think I still have a feat slot free if anybody wants to talk Teamwork.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:20, Tue 19 Oct 2021.

In reply to Whispering Tyrant (msg # 39):

I have seen this being used in the past and I approve of it. Being forced to channel negative energy really hinders clerics of evil deities and party as a whole.

It's what you get for being EVIL~1!

I have no problem with it since it's not gamebreaking and feels like something clerics should be able to do anyway regardless of alignment.

Works for me.

I'll need everyone's character sheets finalized before we leave the judge's house.  Gear, skill points, prepared spells, etc.  If you want to do any last minute tweaks to your sheet, do it now.  I'm reasonably lenient about letting people "retrain" during level ups, but for now I need everyone locked in.

Were Vrenna and Fala going to break off from the party to visit Vrenna's townhouse?  If so, I'll make a new thread for that.  I interpreted Vrenna's "I won't arrive behind" to mean she changed her mind about splitting up, but I could be mistaken.

AFK this weekend.

That's right. If no one else has preparations to make she'd rather go in empty-handed than miss her surprise opportunity. In that note, I'm writing!

Notice for everyone, windstorms knocked out power where I am so Maritine is going to be a touch quiet while things get sorted and I save my phone battery.

Post attempt soon!

@Maritine:

Yeah, there might be better uses for your phone battery in a blackout, I GUESS.

@Everyone:

As far as travel goes, someone with a 20 ft move speed can travel 2 miles per hour overland comfortably, or 4 at a hustle.  You can hustle the first hour with no consequences, but every hour after that deals 1 point of nonlethal damage more than the hour before it.  You're also fatigued until the nonlethal damage is healed.  That makes it a four hour trip to Morast, or two if you're willing to deal with a few points of damage.

Over these short distances I'm going to say that hiring horses won't save you much time: The amount of time spent finding a livery that will let you rent horses on short notice, getting horses ready, etc would outweigh the time saved by riding there.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:18, Fri 29 Oct 2021.

Vrenna keeps one stabled, on the other hand...

Right, encumbrance is a thing. I was basing my estimates off of 30 ft movement which could get 6 miles in an hour.

Also to clarify is Morast 8 miles or kilometers away? The summary lists the distance in "km" which I assumed was kilometers.

My mistake, that should have been miles.

I notice that everyone is logging in pretty regularly, but not necessarily posting.  Obviously, it takes a lot less time and effort to look at a page then it does to actually write something.

But if you feel like your character would just be sitting back and watching others speak, say so.  If you're not feeling particularly eloquent or inspired, just a short placeholder post keeps people from waiting on you, and helps the game keep flowing smoothly.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:08, Mon 01 Nov 2021.

If there's anything I could do to help spotlight another character, I'd love to.

In reply to Whispering Tyrant (msg # 53):

Will do.

In reply to Vrenna Charthagnion (msg # 54):

So I think splitting up is valid IC considering the time constraints. My biggest reason to vouch against it is for OOC reasons. If the investigation at Morsat takes months of posting and you wrap up the interview in a week then you might get stuck in limbo. Not saying it will happen but that's my concern. Obviously if everyone is okay with that I'm fine splitting up.

Oh, Vrenna will find something to do.  :D
It also doesn't have to be a 5-1 split.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:29, Mon 01 Nov 2021.

I think it might not be a good idea to split the party, unless we can duplicate all the skills with two groups of three. If we spend a few minutes with the Beast, we might have a few more clues to go with, like measuring his footprint to see if it matches.

Apologies to everyone, I didn't intend to be gone that long but Real Life is unfortunately like that sometimes.

Catching up and posting.

Would any of my alchemical creations stack with Vrenna's spells? I have Heightened Awareness ready to go and can prep Tears to Wine, it's just a question of what does and doesn't stack in terms of buffs.

There are no bonuses in ears of the city, so no stacking to worry about!  The SRD entry is at https://aonprd.com/SpellDispla...rs%20of%20the%20City.


As I read that, anything you do that adjusts your Perception check for those rounds is fine.

Correct, both heightened awareness and tears to wine would boost the perception checks involved in Ears of the City.

EDIT:  It seems like the question of splitting the party is currently up in the air.  Vrenna is in favor of splitting up to cover more ground, with one group heading to Morast while the other runs down leads in the city.  Meanwhile Felix holds to the conventional wisdom of "never split the party".  Where does everyone else stand on the issue?

I will say that there are a number of things to do on both fronts, so I'm not that worried about people getting stuck in limbo while they wait for the others to catch up.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:56, Tue 02 Nov 2021.

Blow it up, Sherlock. :D

I am fine with splitting the party.

I'm neutral. If we split the party at the very least someone with good negotiation skills needs to be included with both groups. I don't think we're going to get far with these interviews without someone that's good with either persuasion or intimidation, Livi has neither.

Well, one of the things I'm OOC trying to avoid is all six of us bombarding an NPC with questions in rounds.  FWIW, Vrenna's social skills are disgustingly good, and beyond that she's mostly here to trick you all into following Hell's plans support other characters' actions.  Like now.

Alright, my internet is being dumb and I've dropped a post, so trying again - I've got heightened awareness and eyes of the city, am I rolling or able to take 10?

You can take 10.

I'm fine with splitting at this point if it comes to that.

So that's three for splitting the party, one against, and one neutral.  While you can split up as you see fit, here is some party info that might be relevant:

-Vrenna and Kara are the most persuasive.
-Maritine and Liviana are the most perceptive.
-Fala and Felix are the most lethal.

If we split up I'll volunteer go with the "visit Morsat" group. Having a source of healing will allow us to hustle more for travel times.

Vrenna, I am sorry, I do not understand the comment. I do not see a mention of who was going where when I looked over the posts once again.

Oh I'm not troubled!  :)  The topic came up because Vrenna said she would be a bad choice to go to the village, and should talk to the accused and take care of local things instead.  Felix said she should go to the village.  At this point I really only care that we move on from this decision point before we stall.

I have been quite sick for the past week. I am trying to catch up, though! Sorry about that.

Aww.  I hope it breaks soon!

I might have jumped the gun on posting the next threads.  Take as long as you need to finish your conversations in the courthouse, then move on to the location thread your character is heading to.  I'll need everyone to pick where they're going before I move the separate threads along.

Also, I noticed Felix suggesting heading to the Karb Isle Sanctuary to speak with the doctor's assistant.  To clarify, the Sanctuary was burnt to the ground during the Beast's alleged attack, and Karl now lives in Lepidstadt.

I just... never felt like we settled groups, and I've been really hesitant to be as presumptuous OOC as Vrenna is IC.

Based off of Tyrant's message it's suggested we split up into groups of 3.

Vrenna and Felix have both vouched that they want to be in team "stay here". Kara and I have already posted in the swamps thread.

If we want teams of 3 that breaks out to:

Team Travel:
-Kara
-Liviana
-Fala

Team Stay:
-Vrenna
-Maritine
-Felix

The only ones who are unknown at this point are Fala and Maritine so if they'd prefer a different grouping they are free to say so.

Fala does not mind, but based on Vrenna and Fala's background, Vrenna might?

Vrenna has whatever opinion she has.  I'm not even evaluating it, because I fervently do not want to lean on anybody's decision today.  Please.

Maritine will stay with Vrenna since she's curious about the Beast and they've already pulled together some useful information through combined tricks and should have similar success with talking to the Beast.

It should help get the ball rolling a bit more and hopefully start tying some of our clues together.

Awesome. Post asap. And let's send Vrenna's familiar along to observe, even if it's out of range of anything else.

You around?

I'm going to give Fala and Maritine a few more days to show up before I remove them from the game, but they haven't even logged on in about 10 days.  It looks like we might have lost a few players to the usual attrition.

Fortunately, I held on to a couple of RTJs that I really liked, but couldn't quite fit into the party, and they were still interested.  Meet:

Harald Goldtooth, an apprentice Scaled Fist monk.
and
Wyra Whitemane, a paladin in service to Ragathiel, the Empyreal Lord of vengeance.

Here's the new guy!  I look forward to punching things what get in our way.

Scaled Fist Monk and native of Ustalav, Harald Goldtooth.  At your service.

Well, my sheet is done.  Pretty sure anyway.  I'll be bringing a really strong arm and some good looks to the party.  Now I just need to integrate into the ongoing threads.

Yeah, is anyone else coming with Vrenna and Felix, before I trundle on?

Wrya said she's busy this week, so she'll be slower to get started.  Harald was planning to meet the Morast crew on site.

All right. I'm on planes for a few more hours. After that

With Thanksgiving ramping up here in the US, might just want to put it on the back burner for the rest of the week and see if we can get running on Saturday or Sunday.

I don't see how me not posting helps?

I as thinking of the new ones joining in.

I'm trying to figure a good method for inserting myself into the Morast thread now; just waiting on Tyrant's input.  I imagine Wyra will likely make an entrance in the Beast thread.  Suppose we'll see how everything works out.

Wyra said that her availability would be pretty low for the next week, so it could be a little while until she's ready to go.  With Harald, we're just sorting out a few last details until he's ready to jump into the action.  Either way, I think we can keep moving as fast or as slow as we would otherwise, and make the relevant introductions whenever we're ready.

It doesn't matter. I won't be recovered from this awful trip home for a couple days. :\

Sorry for the delay, life got hectic around Thanksgiving. A bit late but welcome to the game to Harald and Wyra.

Nobody asks for chaos for the holidays, but everyone seems to get it anyway.

Thanks for the welcome!
This message was last edited by the player at 06:07, Tue 30 Nov 2021.

My posting might be slow for a few days, work is unusually busy.  I should have time to get back in the game starting sunday or monday.

Cool  :)
Don't give more than you get.

Work, n
Nastiest four letter word in the English language.

Wait
He was with us?

Fuck

I mentioned at the start of the thread that Kaple went down with you to let you in the dungeon.  Given how much respect she has for the man, it seems reasonable that Vrenna just forgot he was still there.

It does. She's just going to be mortified.

On the plus side, seems like you won some points with Sergeant Dun.

Finding an alchemist's extract says a lot more than finding a potion might.

I'm better at climbing than searching so I'm fine with climbing up to that nest.  Should check it.  With your +16(!) Livi, we probably don't need to invest the time for taking a 20 in refining our search if you just want to give a once-over to the search areas.

Hey folks.  I had a short emergency keep me away for a couple days, and now this weekend was already going to be busy.  I'll reply as soon as I can.

Knock Knock!

Feels like Kara wants to know if she can add the face to her collection after we're done with it.

I'm assuming that we've moved into combat rounds, but I just wanted to confirm before I did anything.  Also, is the ground under the nest I've climbed up into considered soft ground or mud?  This is important if I decide to jump down, since it determines if I take damage or not.

Based on the area, I'm assuming its mud.

Sorry for not responding earlier.  Yes it's combat rounds, and yes the ground is soft enough to take no damage with a DC 15 acrobatics check (meaning you stay on your feet, too.)

Work continues to be hectic.  I'll still try to post when I get some free time, but I might be a bit slow to respond until the new year.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:33, Tue 21 Dec 2021.

I wouldn't expect things to be anything but hectic this time of year.

Glad to hear I did my actions correctly though, since I was making assumptions at the time.

I realize it's a little unclear what counts as cover for the island fight, and I apologize for any confusion.  In general, I'll be pretty generous with giving you cover as long as there's any part of a tree in your square.  The exception this round is Harald, who specifically mentioned leaving cover to bait an attack.

I'm not complaining; sometimes the dice go against you regardless of how much you stack the odds.  I wasn't expecting to be in cover for that round either.

Though the note says you still have me carrying the dwarf body.  I dropped that fellow back in square L9.

Right, I forgot to update the statuses when I copied the statblock.  Is fixed now.

@Vrenna:  I should mention that the "away team" is in Morast, the site of the first murders, not Hergstag where the children died.

Assuming Felix and Vrenna are done with the interview (if you're not, just let me know and I'll backtrack,) I guess it's a matter of picking your next target.  The three obvious choices are the Torvald sisters (witnesses to the Hergstag killings), Karl Eisen (witness to the Karb Isle arson), and Dr Crowl/the university.  All are in Lepidstadt.

Oh god, I've been such a dunce haha
Whatever. She's flustered by the slip. It happens to the best of us. And Vrenna's going to push for Croyl as soon as I steal some time to post.

Had a storm knock out power and internet for me, sorry to say.  Suppose that's what I get for living in the woods in the middle of nowhere.  Back online now, and going to get in an update tonight.

@Harald: Dang.  A bad time to be with no power, if your winter weather's anything like we've been getting where I live.

I can't believe how well that manticore is rolling.  Dodging Kara's flaming spheres is basically a coin toss, and it's made it five times in a row.

Also: In melee, the trees aren't going to provide effective cover.  Moving through squares with trees counts as difficult terrain for the large manticore, however.  Meaning it moves at half speed and can't take a five-foot step.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:21, Thu 06 Jan 2022.

Yeah, Kara is getting a little irritated with it consistently dodging all her stuff. Solution: more fireballs! (Just kidding, she does have some spell diversity.)

The worst part is that throwing those flaming spheres at it was absolutely the right move.  With average rolls, it would be almost dead by now.

Also, I should mention that Kara's in melee range of the manticore.  She can easily take a 5' step to avoid provoking an AoO from spellcasting, and I'll let you edit one into your turn if you want.  Of course, you could also roll to cast defensively or just take the hit, if for some reason you want to stay in melee range.

Eh, I'm accustomed to it.  Get storms here every winter.  Heating is firewood and furnace, water is from a well.  I'm good.

How are we handling Attacks of Opportunity?  If it tries to stand from Prone it's going to draw one from everybody in melee range.

Generally, you'll be rolling attacks of opportunity on your turn, and if the AoOs kill or stun the enemy, we'll retcon it's actions.  It's not perfect, but I think it's better than pausing the game to resolve the AoO's as a separate turn.

On the subject of pausing the game: I'll try to post the results of important saves mid-turn, like with the grease and the stunning fist.  I'm debating with myself whether that should reset the "72 hours to post in combat" rule or not.  On the one hand, it might make a single round take a long time to resolve if everyone is waiting to see the results of the last player's actions.  On the other hand, knowing whether an enemy is stunned or whatever can have a big impact on your own turn.  Thoughts?
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:16, Sun 09 Jan 2022.

How I've handled AoOs here in RPoL has been to roll the attack as GM while handling the enemy turn.  Then include it as part of the action sequence.  Interrupting abilities like that are always a chore, but the smoothest implementation of AoOs in I've found was to roll them on the player's behalf.

For the result of saves, it could be simpler to post the results in a quick Out of Character post rather than putting it into the game thread.  One thing I've seen done was to post a short stat block for the monster which includes its defenses and saves.  Then the players can know immediately if their attacks hit, and roll saves themselves to know whether the creature failed or not.  Drawback here being that the players have to be told the AC and saves of the thing, removing a bit of tension from the battle.

Posting saves and letting the players roll to see if their spell lands makes a lot of sense.  It takes away some of the mystery, but I'm already doing it with AC.  Besides, I think a lot of people look up the monsters they're fighting anyways (it's a bad habit of mine, I'll admit.)

Auto-AoO's might be a bit more complicated, depending on the character.  It can involve decisions like whether to use power attack or stunning fist, whether to do a combat maneuver instead, saving their AoO for a different opportunity, etc.  I suppose we could just make the rule that you have to specifically mention how you're handling any AoOs beforehand, or it defaults to a regular attack?
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:21, Sun 09 Jan 2022.

@Vrenna and Felix:

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for.  Judging by Vrenna's mention of a spiritualist, I'm guessing you might be looking for someone to cast the occult spell Object Reading?  Vrenna got a very high roll on knowledge(local), so I'll say you can find someone like that if you want.

Hiring him will cost 100 gold, though, a significant markup due to the rarity of occult casters, the fact that he'll have to come with you across town, and the general uniqueness of the situation.

If you had something else in mind, just let me know.  I don't think there's any arcane or divine spells that can do what you want.

  Oh, yes, that's actually perfect.  I knew it was something psychic, but I couldn't actually find it.  And I wanted to stay open to the chance that hiring a tracker is more appropriate to the situation.  Right now she has a plausible motivation and a large portion of the means clarified.  But she doesn't have a suspect, only a place they have surely been.

Just to check: you're planning to find and hire Rotte now?

I guess so!
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 16:56, Wed 26 Jan 2022.

Things seem mostly wrapped up at the Morast side of things, too, and given how high I rolled for the time to locate Rotte, Liviana and the others would be able to make it back before they found him.

Should we bring the party back together, or is there anything the away team wants to do while they're there?

Lazlo seems to be avoiding some questions that I would prefer the answer to but I don't think that's mandatory. Livi doesn't have the expertise to push him into revealing it. I'm good with Morsat group heading back.

Is there already a reason Harald will continue to work with us? Livi can ask if she needs to.

This game has definitely slowed down a little bit.  A lot of that is my fault: I certainly haven't been holding up to the "four posts per week" schedule I set when I made the game.  But we've also lost a lot of people, and posting has gotten a lot more sporadic for some of us.  I'm not judging obviously, I've probably been the worst offender in terms of unreliable posting.

I'm going to skip ahead a bit, and reunite the party, but first I'd like to see how everyone's feeling about the game.  First and foremost: who all's still here and interested in the game?  Secondly, is there anything you think I could do to improve the game?  I don't often run play-by-post games like this, and I've mostly been playing by ear.  Is there anything you think I could be doing better?

I'm still interested in the game.

As someone guilty of posting sporadically I will try to post more consistently.

Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions. It's a very common phenomenon in play-by-post games to lose people and for the game to sometimes slow down. I think you've done a fine job so far as a DM.

Sorry Liviana, looks like you're the only one who wants to keep going.  I'm officially shutting the game down.

I'm not entirely sure what went wrong with this game, it feels like something just didn't *click* the way it needs to in order for a game like this to work.  Part of it might have been the investigation theme of the campaign, part of it might have been splitting the party so early.  Who knows.  I've got some ideas on how to change things up next time I run a game on here, when and if I try again.

In that case best of luck on your future games whether they be on here or elsewhere.

Sorry to see it go. I can see that players have been logging in but no posts. I will have to say that there has not been a reply from my post from last week.

Will you have to? Really? What positive effect does that lead to?