And, new OOC thread is open for replies; feel free to use it as needed.

Ahh, fresh thread.

Mmhm. And I finally managed to sort out my tokens.

I think that was a bit of a haul. Of course, I'm not sure any of it besides the headband is of use, but there we go.

Regarding the granted class feature: I get one use of the ability I claim, right? I don't get it for the whole day?
This message was last edited by the player at 04:46, Thu 25 Aug 2022.

Question: Ay's told us the donation booth is a 100% random pull from all tokens (except the consort ones), right?  There's no element of choice or chance to complete a set?

Also, Diata-- Woo!  Now we're just missing beehive for advanced contests!  Apparently the book contest had Clover?  So not much pressure to get into the card games?
We also just need a Bridle for the card house games (look out for a chance to wager or trade for that while we're in the card hall), and a helmet for the animal contests (which September would be decent at-- and which might well have a beehive-related thing).

As a matter of fact, if I just post this at the top of the thread and keep it updated...
If anyone knows something not on here, please tell me!


There are twelve combinations in all; we know of seven-ish.

~~~Suit (access the temple)
Heart: 0
Coin: 1
Club: 0
Sword: 1
~~~"The Elemental Collection" (subsection of the chapel)
Tree: 9
River: 3
Flame: 12
Mountain: 2
Ingot: 7
~~~Horoscope (Advanced Competitions)
Ram: 5
Hammer: 4
Leaf: 5
Crab: 6
Claw: 4
Beehive: 4
Feather: 1
Snake: 7
Flag: 11
Clover: 25
Cup: 5
Teardrop: 1
~~~Tarot (Card House Entrance)
Bell: 4
Book: 12
Scarf: 6
Glove: 6
Crown: 3
Cross: 2
Dice: 6
Bridle: 3
Paw: 7
Staff: 6
Wheel: 16
Axe: 5
Rope: 2
Skull: 5
Hourglass: 5
Whip: 5
Tower: 7
Star: 5
Sun: 5
Moon: 8
Trumpet: 7
Cloud: 5
~~~Zodiac (HAll of mirrors in adv competition area)
Hoof: 2
Horn: 4
Tail: 7
Turtle: 4
Web: 3
Carrot: 4
Egg: 4
String: 10
Bone: 5
Gem: 4
Fork: 5
Banana: 3
~~~Flower: Greenhouse/Alchemical contest Access (any five)
Rose: 8
Lily: 8
Iris: 5
Magnolia: 5
Ivy: 8
~~~Ability (Animal Contests, animal prize)
Lemon: 5
Spear: 8
Helmet: 3
Eye: 6
Vortex: 9
Boot: 3
~~~Sin (Fighting pit in advanced area)
Ladder: 3
Arrow: 5
Mirror: 5
Fist: 6
Chain: 5
Balloon: 5
Blanket: 4
~~~Hero (item crafting access/prize)
Shield: 6
Bag: 6
Flask: 7
Thunderbolt: 4
Apple: 2
Bullseye: 7
Ant: 2
~~~Virtue (chapel for religious-based competitions)
Lamp: 2
Bread: 4
Grapes: 3
Anchor: 2
~~~Equipment (Card Shop Store Access)
Hat: 4
Glasses: 3
Pendant: 5
Cloak: 1
Vest: 4
Belt: 5
Quiver: 3
Chest: 5
Skirt: 4
Gauntlet: 3
Corset: 4
Shoes: 4
Map: 6
Ring: 6
Knife: 3
~~~ We don't know IC about...
Winged Scarab: 0
This message was last edited by the player at 07:28, Wed 21 Sept 2022.

No, it did not; Clover is 19, and I noted before Diata went to rolling that any 19 she rolled would be converted to a Book. I suppose it's an understandable mistake though.


It's boot, like the one that goes on a foot.


You get it for however many times a character of the level you picked would be able to use it. So, for example, if you pick Channel Energy from the Cleric class, you can use it a number of times per day equal to 3 + your CHA mod. You can only use the headband once per day.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:56, Thu 25 Aug 2022.

Whoops. I thought I'd caught all of those but I appear to have missed one.

As you noted, I had a hundred tokens to file. :)

To clarify here, you could pick a level 2 Paladin's Divine Grace ability, which adds their CHA bonus to all saves, right? And the DC would be 22?

In reply to Iona de Orasaigh (msg # 7):

The DC (Knowledge Religion in this case) would be 24 (20 + LVx2), but yes, you are correct.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:42, Thu 25 Aug 2022.

Correct. And that would add my CHA bonus to my saves. Which is...+0. :)

I'll do my absolute best not to cheese this wonderful gift.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:45, Thu 25 Aug 2022.

In reply to Diata Yuari (msg # 9):

I can see why the item went to you ;)

I mean, there's technically no reason why Diata couldn't let another member of the team use the item - she's just the best suited for it because she has the best Knowledge bonuses.

Whoops. Edited.

In my defense, they're both ik-ky. :)

Hi all!

Since it's been two days since my last post in the main thread, I'm a bit surprised at the lack of activity. Is there something any of you need from me that's keeping you from posting? I thought I left enough hooks for everybody, but if that's not the case, just let me know what you need me to do, and I'll provide it.

I hope everything's going fine for everybody; if not, let me know (in PM if preferred) so I can adjust my expectations, and reduce my nagging. Otherwise, I hope I'll be getting some answers from you all soon, and I'll look forward to more posts from you all! ^_^

Some volunteer work in politics has been heavy lately...and today was my birthday.

So yeah, I'll post before Diata goes head-down for a bit. She has an excuse to be taking a break from the adventure and losing valuable active time :)

Politics are always heavy, even when they (pretend they) aren't :P

Happy birthday Diata!

Same here, happy birthday from me as well! ^_^

Diata does has a good excuse to be less active than everybody else, I agree - hence why I'd like an answer from the rest of the team, as well. :)

Sorry, I've been having computer issues - my personal computer is refusing to charge, and posting on my phone or work computer is a lot more annoying.

Apologies, once more. As soonn as I tried to return I managed to get COVID :(

Welcome to our new player, Nar! I'm Banner, a halfling invested with the spirit of a dwarven band of mercenaries.

Attempting to catch up with IC today and tomorrow

We're happy to have you back, Banner - I hope you'll enjoy the opportunities the current situation presents, and look forward to what you can contribute to the ongoing plans! ^_^

Rather than think things through and simply Take 20, I went an rolled Perform (and failed); would you accept a retry, or a retry with a Take 20? Asking ahead of writing up - clearly happy with either ruling, just rusty on the mechanics and gaming it seems!!

I mean, taking 20 would still require you to go through a multitude of tales until you reach a proper one, so it's not overly different from just rolling - unless you happen to have a special ability which lets you treat a roll as a 20 (of the sort Argos showed in his discussion with Diata), in which case you can use it regardless of having rolled already.

If you don't have such an ability, you can go ahead and show Banner being unable to come up with a properly epic tale with a tree as its protagonist.

Thanks for confirming, will write up!

Is this the point where i remind everyone that this means that ability damage, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, poisoned, sickened, and stunned are on the table since i can heal those? :P

You're not present at the competition though, and the judge will demand any effect imposed is reversed before handing over the prize. Also, the healer can deal with some of those effects, although not all of them.

I have a modest selection of condition inflicting abilities, but they're all short duration (typically rounds/level), so that shouldn't be a problem.

The more worrying thing is making sure my attacks don't kill weak creatures even if I am doing non-lethal.

That's indeed the intent - part of making a small army of CR 3 creature something approaching a challenge for a level 15 character.

Is Verik not able to reach back and understand the materials?

In reply to Verik (msg # 27):

The ability reads the past of an object, so no, it can't go back to before the item was forged. It can determine what the item was forged from, however, so in this case there's multiple combinations of wood, gum, glass, metal, gravel, and similar non-organic (except for wood and plant product, and a slight bit of bone and ivory) materials of various stripes.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:18, Wed 07 Sept 2022.

By object reading or by his magical senses, can he tell whether she created a mind when she made the statue, and that's what's suffering?

It is possible - animating magic (such as Bestow Life) is Enhancement, and the statues do have Enhancement aura, but that could just as well be something used to reinforce the structural solidity of the compound, or something. So, if that was the case, you can't prove it in a manner that would be 100% persuasive to an expert. Your current abilities don't give you the means to be sure about it, one way or the other.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:52, Wed 07 Sept 2022.

But I am sure they're not actual people.

I mean, what counts an actual people? You're pretty sure they were initially items, yes, but if your supposition that they are items to which Hylena granted awareness just so that she could enjoy their terror as she turned them to stone is correct... is the difference really meaningful?

Food for thoughts, I guess. If the question was "the statues were actually crafted from the material provided by the contest organizers, even if it's possible that she bestowed life on them once she'd crafted the items", then yes, you're sure the statues were not living creatures before the materials they're composed of made its way to Hylena's hands.

New tokens:
09:52, Today: Halasik rolled 801 using 15d100 with rolls of 67,15,88,46,85,40,18,43,46,76,97,30,53,65,32.  tokens 4.

09:52, Today: Halasik rolled 906 using 20d100 with rolls of 1,34,50,22,47,37,83,74,40,54,4,92,48,32,70,4,12,71,77,54.  tokens 3.

09:51, Today: Halasik rolled 1032 using 20d100 with rolls of 38,79,66,79,83,31,87,61,25,61,70,26,60,75,46,51,40,18,31,5.  tokens 2.

09:51, Today: Halasik rolled 838 using 20d100 with rolls of 51,1,45,99,64,41,83,25,15,7,42,46,4,36,58,97,24,5,62,33.  tokens 1.

09:53, Today: Halasik rolled 273 using 4d100 with rolls of 59,92,87,35.  rerolls.


That should be:
2 Tree
  Flame
  Leaf
2 Beehive
2 Flag
  Bell
  Scarf
2 Glove
  Crown
  Paw
2 Staff
2 Wheel
  Axe
  Rope
  Skull
  Hourglass
  Whip
  Tower
3 Sun
  Moon
  Trumpet
  Cloud
  Horn
4 Tail
  Turtle
  Web
  Egg
  String
  Gem
2 Fork
  Iris
  Magnolia
  Ivy
2 Lemon
  Spear
  Eye
  Vortex
  Boot
  Ladder
2 Fist
  Chain
  Shield
  Bag
  Flask
  Thunderbolt
2 Bullseye
3 Grapes
  Hat
2 Pendant
  Cloak
2 Chest
2 Map
  Knife
  Belt
This message was last edited by the player at 15:27, Thu 08 Sept 2022.

In reply to September (msg # 4):

Referring to the list September put in #4, I have added in:
Beehive, web, egg, iris, magnolia, grapes, cloak, chest.
Still missing: Heart, Club, Scarab, Clover (these are all special in some way), plus:
Bridle, Banana, helmet, glasses, vest, gauntlet.

We now have the complete set of Greenhouse/Alchemical contests, and one other unknown area.

I believe you only rerolled four times, when you should have rerolled five, so you're missing one token. You also got 2 Strings, while you only noted down one. Also, at the end, it's 2 Chest (not three), 2 Maps, and a Knife - you have them listed one by one there for some reason.

Also, have you included the tokens Nàr brought along in your count, and the two Banner just earned?
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:53, Thu 08 Sept 2022.

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 35):

Thanks for the re-rolls, I mis-counted them. Reroll added an extra belt.

The duplicate rows were also mistakes, correcting now.


I did not take into account Banner or Nar's tokens, I just compared what I added to what September had listed in msg #4 on this thread.

There's a misconception that Verik can create a mind-bridge - because earlier I was referring to something someone else could do and it came across like Verik was doing it - but in fact he can only mentally communicate with other Munavri (absent some other effect).

Ah, ok! I will update my Buffs thread entry and post, thanks

So, since Banner wants to go to the greenhouse, and Verik hasn't objected, and you do happen to have all five flower tokens, even if you only obtained them recently due to Halasik's last success, I'm going to rule that you distributed the tokens among the team and as a result, by lucky coincidence, the necessary flower tokens are with Verik. That way I can have them be at the greenhouse without problem.

I'm giving everybody ten or so hours to raise objections to the idea if you disagree with me running things this way. I feel like it's the best way to push things forward.

I'm ok with it.

That said, I think I'm also just about done with my current situation, so I could finish up talking with the aeon and then go join Verik and Banner?

That works perfectly fine with me. Banner, Verik, any objections to being joined by Halasik in checking over the greenhouse?

Also, just FYI, my family and I are going on vacation this week. Shouldn't significantly alter my posting rate, but might be a tad on the less frequent side.

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 41):

Fine by me!

In reply to Halasik (msg # 36):

Updated all of this into the list in post 4.  What's this about Banner earning tokens, though?

In reply to September (msg # 44):

In msg #59, the Azata provide a consulation prize of iris and magnolia tokens

Ah, thanks.  I'm so used to seeing the tokens described in OOC color that I missed that.

In reply to September (msg # 46):

That's my fault - I normally do it that way for clarity, but in Banner's post, I forgot. I apologize for that, I've had a few very intense weeks recently. :P

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 47):

Oh, that was not a criticism-- I'm the last person to have standing about real life becoming busy/stressful, and you do much more!

In reply to September (msg # 48):

Maybe in game, but I suspect my real-life stress is at much lower levels than most people here. And so you have my thanks for being understanding. :)

Also, since you were editing the list of tokens, I suspect the new information you got is probably worth adding in, since it means you now know what nearly every combination is supposed to be.

And, in a meager effort to present myself as cleverer than I am, I'll ask everybody what they think the combinations were inspired by, now that the names are known, and why I picked the symbols I did; it'll be amusing to read everybody's takes on my silliness! ^_^
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:31, Thu 15 Sept 2022.

Going to leave some for the others, but the Hero combination is from the Avengers :P

suits are obviously the suits of a standard deck of cards
Elements from the asian five elements (wood, water, fire, earth, metal)
Tarot I'm pretty sure are the major arcana from a tarot deck
Horoscope and Zodiac confuse me. The standard modern zodiac constellations don't perfectly line up with either one. Aries could be either Ram/Hoof, Taurus makes more sense for Horn than Hammer, Gemini doesn't seem to be leaf or tail, Cancer is a crab, Leo doesn't work for either beehive or web, etc. Even if they aren't in order, I'm still not seeing a perfect alignment for either grouping.
Ability combination, based on the name, I'm guessing means the six stats. Boot would be dex, Eye wis, Helmet Int, Spear str (maybe?), but not sure which of lemon and vortex are Cha and Con.
Again given the name, I'm guessing the sin combination could be the seven deadly sins.
Blanket is Sloth, Fist is Wrath, Mirror is Pride, not sure of the rest.

Hero combination I concede Iona's brilliant deduction, not sure I would have come up with it on my own, but yeah, definitely right.

Virtue I got nothing.

Equipment is misc. adventuring gear? No ten foot pole though.

Rolling tokens and I'm confused - the token list above only has 54 entries but we're rolling a d100 (less the rerolls)?

I'll give you the full list, Verik; there's indeed 100 tokens in total.

In reply to Verik (msg # 52):

The best place to look is message 4 of this thread; there's a full list that I try to update when anyone finds tokens or token information.

In reply to September (msg # 54):

Speaking of which, Verik just won the poison-tasting competition and earned two hundred tokens from it, so you'll have a lot of stuff to add to the list soon enough, September.

Is there even any token left for you to earn, outside the heart, club, clover and scarab?

Banana, Bridle, Helmet, Glasses, and Vest, though I was going to have September pick those up from the gambling.

Oh!  Related note-- we have the full set of card game hall tokens now, but does September need to track down everyone else before playing to get the tokens from them?  I haven't been tracking who's carrying what.

I'm willing to waive that and allow that you "just happen" to have distributed the tokens among your team so that everybody has the tokens at hand that they need, with you having those necessary to engage in the card games and Halasik, Banner and Verik having those needed to access the greenhouse. So, you can assume that September has what you need him to have.

Not gonna deny I'm pretty pleased with myself, here is my token haul.  And I didn't even need to be resurrected!

Bold for ones I didn't get, italic for ones I didn't get but we can randomly.

1 Heart 0
2 Coin 0
3 Club 0
4 Sword 0
5 Tree 5
6 River 1
7 Flame 2
8 Mountain 1
9 Ingot 4
10 Ram 4
11 Hammer 2
12 Leaf 2
13 Crab 3
14 Claw 3
15 Beehive 2
16 Feather 0
17 Snake 3
18 Flag 3
19 Clover 0
20 Cup 2
21 Teardrop 0
22 Bell 2
23 Book 2
24 Scarf 0
25 Glove 3
26 Crown 1
27 Cross 0
28 Dice 3
29 Bridle 1
30 Paw 3
31 Staff 3
32 Wheel 1
33 Axe 3
34 Rope 0
35 Skull 2
36 Hourglass 1
37 Whip 3
38 Tower 4
39 Star 4
40 Sun 1
41 Moon 4
42 Trumpet 2
43 Cloud 1
44 Hoof 0
45 Horn 1
46 Tail 2
47 Turtle 2
48 Web 2
49 Carrot 3
50 Egg 3
51 String 1
52 Bone 4
53 Gem 2
54 Fork 2
55 Banana 1
56 Rose 2
57 Lily 0
58 Iris 3
59 Magnolia 3
60 Ivy 3
61 Lemon 2
62 Spear 2
63 Helmet 1
64 Eye 3
65 Vortex 6
66 Boot 0
67 Ladder 1
68 Arrow 4
69 Mirror 4
70 Fist 3
71 Chain 3
72 Balloon 3
73 Blanket 3
74 Shield 1
75 Bag 3
76 Flask 5
77 Thunderbolt 1
78 Apple 1
79 Bullseye 1
80 Ant 2
81 Lamp 1
82 Bread 3
83 Grapes 0
84 Anchor 1
85 Hat 1
86 Glasses 1
87 Pendant 3
88 Cloak 0
89 Vest 2
90 Belt 3
91 Quiver 2
92 Chest 3
93 Skirt 2
94 Gauntlet 1
95 Corset 2
96 Shoes 2
97 Map 3
98 Ring 5
99 Knife 1
100 Winged 0

Sorry it looks like that, didn't have the patience or know-how to make a table.

Alright, updated.

I am travelling, and will probably not be able to post for the next ~2 days (I might be able to get in a quick post from my cell phone, but probably nothing more than that until Monday or Tuesday).

Noted, and thank you for letting us know, Halasik.

As well, since it seems that nobody else will be trying their hand at it, I'll explain the meaning of the symbols on the token, for my own amusement if nothing else.

As Halasik correctly identified, the first four are based on the four suits, sort of; you might have noticed that, while Clubs and Hearts match the french set, I also have Swords and Coins, which are actually two of the suits in the italian/tarot set. I did that mostly because I didn't want to give preference to one of the two type of card suits over the other, and also because, this way, I got to make both the Heart and the Sword tokens unique and special, which I really wanted to do.

The elemental set is indeed based on the five oriental elements, as Halasik also correctly identified. I knew I wanted an elemental set for the particular thing this combination allows access to, and given I had 100 slots to fill, going for the set that has one extra element felt like the superior choice.

Next, the Horoscope combination is based on the western horoscope signs; of course, while some of these match easily (Ram is the Ram, Crab for the Cancer, Claw for Lion, and Cup for Aquarium), other uses a bit of lateral logic. The Teardrop is for the Fishes, on the basis of the "a teardrop in the ocean" saying having that kind of connotation, and me not wanting any symbol that was an actual animal, and fishes not really having an iconic animal part the way claws are for Lions or hooves are for Horses. The feather is for Libra, in reference to the Egyptian practice of "weighting the heart on the scales", which seemed appropriate when you're working for an Egyptian deity. The Snake is poisonous, like the Scorpion, and also is one of only two animals who has a symbol to itself, but it doesn't actually represent itself; I just like the idea that the snake is so duplicitous that even its symbol is meant to trick.

That leaves the hammer for Taurus, the leaf for Gemini, the beehive for Virgo, the flag for the Sagittarii and the clover for the Capricorn. To be honest, I really didn't have a good idea for Gemini and Virgo; for Taurus and Sagittarii, the big symbols for them (horns and bows and arrows) I had already booked elsewhere. So I sort of improvised - the Sagittarii is sort of like cavalry, so it can be considered to carry the flag, and for Virgo, I went by opposition, with the queen bee being the most direct contrast to all the ideas virginity is meant to represent that I could think of on the spur of the moment. The Gemini are based on the whole Castor and Pollux myth, so I went for the image of the laurel crown, then realized that would generate confusion with the normal crown that was already a symbol, so I simplified it to just a leaf. That left me with having no real way to symbolize a bull; I also wanted to have the hammer as a symbol, and I eventually just decided that replacing it with the thunderbolt in the Hero collection and moving it to the Horoscope was the best solution.

The Capricorn got the clover because that's something goats would eat, and also because that's my sign and I wanted it to stand for luck, which the four-leaf clover does. :)

The Tarot combination is, as once again Halasik guessed, based on the Tarot deck's major Arcana: I think most of the references there are pretty easy to catch, but if anybody is confused, I can answer that.

The Zodiac collection is based on the Chinese Zodiak, since I didn't want to represent only one of the two. So, we have hoof for the Horse, horn for the Ox, tail for the Rat (which doubles up as a Final Fantasy reference), carrot for the Rabbit, banana for the Monkey, bone for the Dog, gem for the Dragon, egg for the Chicken (since the egg definitely came first), string for the Tiger because tigers are big cats (specifically noted to resemble the spring balls cats are known to play with), and fork for the Pig (because of the wordplay, obviously). We're left with the goat and the snake, and since I replaced an arachnid in the western set with the snake, it felt appropriate to replace the snake here with another arachnid, the spider, which the web symbolizes. It also continues to make the whole snake thing even more confusing.

And since the Goat is the equivalent of the Capricorn, I replaced it with my favorite animal, the Turtle - the only other animal, aside from the snake, to break the "no animal symbols" rule. Because I just liked that.

The five flowers set is actually a personal in-joke. In another game I ran, I had five magical daggers and associated them with these five flowers; this is referencing that.

As correctly identified, the Ability set is referencing the ability score; Constitution is meant to be represented by the Lemon because of it being not an easy thing to eat whole, and Votex is Charisma because it attracts things toward itself.

For the seven sins, Ladder is actually the one meant to represent Pride, as it is used to put yourself higher than other people; the mirror is meant to represent Lust, because that one is all about actually gratifying yourself instead of your partner, in my reading of the sin. The balloon stands for Gluttony, the arrow is for Envy, and the chains are for Greed - the gold chains that binds you to hell, as it were.

The Hero set is indeed about the avengers; most of those are obvious, but I'll note that the flask is Hulk, the bag is Iron Man, and the apple is Black Widow. I had the web and the apple in each other place at one point, but then decided it'd be funnier the other way around.

The four virtues are Charity, Honesty, Prudence and Hope; the lamp is for prudence, the grapes are for honesty, the bread for charity, and the anchor for hope. They are my four favorites of the seven cardinal virtues; I didn't think the other three were worth presenting, due to my personal preference on which thing are and are not, in fact, virtues. I didn't expect anybody to figure this one out either, this was just for myself.

As for the equipment: it's the thirteen magic item slots, plus weapons and slotless items (which are represented by the dagger and map, respectively); I'll leave it up to you to identify how the rest match to the various slots, it shouldn't be too hard.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:34, Sat 17 Sept 2022.

Aiming to post a it later today

I believe we've been meeting up hourly-- that's what we discussed at the start of the day, at least.

Also, does the Emporium have a posted list of prices and offerings, or is it more of an "ask for what you want, we'll quote you a price" situation?  We do have that set as well.

Note that the emporium allows for trading, of item for item. It doesn't take normal coins because nobody in town has any use for those. And the correct approach is indeed to show up and ask if they have something that you want, and then offer something in exchange.

Ohhhh.  I'd somehow missed that the tokens were turned in at the booth -next- to the emporium.  Whoops!

That's fine. The booth does work with you looking for something there and they asking a number of tokens in return. It's not uncommon for people to get something from the booth and then trade it over to the emporium, even.

Oh, we can dip into 3.5?  There's a lot of stuff in there that I don't necessarily want enemies to have access to (a lot of permanent +4s), but how about the Dispelling Cord (slotless, +2 to a dispel check 5/day)?

Also, does anyone not use their neck item slot?
Actually, should probably have September ask that at the huddle.  But you can still answer OOC.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:53, Tue 20 Sept 2022.

In reply to September (msg # 67):

That doesn't seem too bad of an effect; +2 to MSB for Dispelling purposes only is of a pair with Spell Penetration, I would think. So, consider it to have about the same price (including for the trade emporium), and expect me to make it take up a proper item slot, probably wrist or hand (it'd be either a glove or a vambrace).

Fair enough.  September would obviously prefer wrist, since his "hand" slot is full.

Wait, if you're comparing it to spell penetration, does that mean it'll be an "always on" bonus?

In reply to September (msg # 69):

Not exactly. Spell Penetration is less applicable than Dispelling, as you are surely aware; there's builds that get by with no need to ever face Spell Resistance at all, whereas Dispelling is an emergency measure.

However, I would let the item have a number of charges, we'll say 5 since that's what the item has normally, and in addition to refilling by sleeping, 1 SP can be spent to refill three charges. That seems fair to me, but if you disagree, I will hear your argument.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 23:25, Tue 20 Sept 2022.

Oh, no, that's more than fair already-- I'd originally assumed it would work like the base item (5 charges/day), but then I formed a different impression from the discussion of the feat and wanted to clarify.

The majority of Verik's slots are open, if it matters.

I've been thinking about rings.  Do they have any of the following?

Ring of Eloquence (and a fairly abusive rules interpretation)

Ring of Inner Fortitude (any level)

Ring of the Sophisticate-- except no skill bonuses and no vancian casting and attuned to villages/settlements rather than just taverns... so basically a "ring of finding nearby towns"

I'll need you to elaborate on this.

The ring says that it grants the ability to "speak and understand" certain languages, even if you're in a form that can't normally speak them.  If you squint, it grants the power of speech.

I think I would just rule that you gain the benefit to your telepatic speech, not that you become capable of talking. Besides, surely there's plenty of magical item that grants speak?

In any case, I would consider the Ring of Eloquence to be worth 14 Clover tokens, while the Ring of Inner Fortitude would be obtainable for 35 tokens (minor), 85 tokens (major) and 135 (greater)... I'm pretty sure you're already nearly out of tokens, and can't really afford any of these, can you?

As for the third ring, that seems entirely too convenient an item, so I think I won't make that available to you; I apologize for the inconvenience.

Surprisingly few, especially that do it permanently and cheaply, actually.

And yes, this is mostly me looking at empty slots and brainstorming; we're down to 25 tokens, but considering the payout for one game, that seems very fixable.

In reply to September (msg # 77):

That is, indeed, how gambling halls work; you just need that one more win... ;D

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 78):

But this isn't a gambling hall!  The festival does not have a gambling hall-- ask anyone!  What are you insinuating?

Just checking-- is anyone waiting on anything from me, or are we all just listening to Iona right now?

Ah sorry, it seems i am the cause of the delay. I'll try to get a reply in tomorrow, feel free to nudge if it happens again ^^;

I've been going back through the thread and can't find something certain one way or the other.  GM, if we know-- can the cards or symbols be forged, faked, projected, etc?  In other words, once that divine aura is revealed, is there any way to make someone think you're handing them a card when you aren't, or did Khepri tell us that was right out?

The divine power of a divine mark is impossible to fake, primarily because the only way to project such a strong divine presence is by having that amount of divine power present. Like heat from a fire, you need the fire to be present for the heat to exist - if the fire is removed, then the heat disperses. The same here.

Also remember that the pass cards themselves are impossible to damage or leave signs upon, other than by activating a divine mark on them, so any forgery would be as easily recognized as attempting to destroy it. There would be no real way to make a convincingly fake one, although I suppose a forgery that would appear like one at a first look could be possible. Not one marked with divine power though, as I mentioned above, the quality and most importantly quantity of power that each mark contains is too high to be mistaken for something else.

In the interests of expediency, I'm all for handling the team-building in OOC.

September is bad at stealth; as he mentioned originally, he thought others would do better.  If he is on the team, his plan would be to lay a storm on the building, making vision impossible beyond 5' and hearing impossible at any range, and possibly making it impossible for the other contestants to enter the building at all.  This would apply only to the opposing team.  Tremorsense he could defeat by flying; scent he'd have to hope the  harsh weather conditions prevented.  Basically he'd "hide" by not being within their perception range.

It's not the best plan because it makes rather a mess in an area where locals will be.  He can keep lightning from hitting anyone, but he'd still need to ask them carefully before the fight what types of weather they can handle without sustaining injury... and how sturdy the furnishings are.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:13, Thu 29 Sept 2022.

Halasik has a +24 to stealth, and gains an additional +5 bonus if there is mist, smoke, or fog, and can fly to avoid tremorsense, but can't avoid any other magical senses.

So he's decent, but not amazing at this competition.

Hmm, actually I might have a way of dealing with scent, but it's a bit questionable:
The scent rules (here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamem...-abilities#TOC-Scent) say that Water, particularly running water, can ruin a trail. I can make a target (myself included) wet by hitting them with a drowning blast (I'd undercast it to avoid doing much damage, then deliberately fail my save). The rules question is then how effective is that at defeating scent?

Another possibility is we could try to acquire something with a strong scent (maybe see if there's a perfume making contest nearby that we can acquire samples from) and spend our minute spraying it around everywhere before hiding.

Oh, running water ruins a scent trail?  So torrential rain would shut it down hard, then?

I don't know why I'm surprised about verisimilitude, but I am.

In reply to September (msg # 87):

Pathfinder is actually surprisingly good at verisimilitude for a fantasy game, yeah. :)

Water does interfere with scent, for air-breathing creatures. It doesn't for water-breathing creatures who have it, like sharks. Keep also in mind that the scent user is a druid; that's how scent comes into play. Which isn't to say that a torrential downpour wouldn't be a good idea, just that a prepared opponent might have ways to work around it.

Iona's strength is not in combat, quite the opposite, but she is quite capable outside of it. Chief among which her resurrection, and there is some protection in that 1/day she does not die when she is killed, but she has some tricks up her sleeve such as hijacking the enemy's SPs to use as her own.

But yeah, only 32 AC so any fighter worth their salt will have no problem hitting her. I think her main form of defense may be that she can drain HP with her attacks too, but at 1d6 SP stolen plus fatigued (Fort negates both) plus 15 (0r 30 with an SP) no-save Bleed damage per person hit in a ranged touch close range cone, anyone with half a brain will be trying to focus her down or end up burning through their resources FAST.

Right.  So it's been quiet.  Banner, Halasik, September, Verik all offered to hide-and-seek. Supervisor said there were five, but I couldn't find the fifth post.  The offers are...

Halasik (Stealth +24/29, flying)
September (Stealth -No, flying, storms)
Verik (Stealth DC 23 for forgetfulness?, floating feet)

So Banner, how do you fit into that challenge?  And other person whose post my mind is apparently skipping over, what'll you do?

Stealth +27, then Will DC 23 forgetfulness.

He also can Hide in Plain Sight but probably doesn't matter.

I was under the impression that Iona agreed to join, and then retired when I said there were five people, so I saw no need to further comment on the matter.

Oh no, Iona simply stated she had no skill in Stealth so she'd be a poor choice of teammate, given that the discussion was about that. She'll find some competitions of her own, don't worry :)

In reply to September (msg # 90):

Banner has a base +27 to Stealth, better in dim light and the Darkness sphere; he could potentially use his War totems and banners to provide teamwork feats to help companions. He might have a few other tricks up his sleeves too - such as one of his companions being flying and incorporeal whom he could possess

Another option would be to simply possess the house, or an item of furniture

The rules on Incorporeal state that "Nonvisual senses, such as scent and blindsight, are either ineffective or only partly effective with regard to incorporeal creatures."
(emphasis added)

So depending on how the GM rules, that would cover us for scent. So we've got Banner, Halasik, Verik, and September I guess?

Anyone else want to throw their hat in? Nar said they're an elven archer, that would probably have pretty good stealth checks, yes?

Remember, if they find any one of us we lose.  Does Banner have the ability to make us all incorporeal?  If not, it'll only cover him for scent.

I have this little thing, Iona has said she doesn't mind borrowing her gear to others.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic...r-z/shroud-spectral/

Sorry, that was a typo in the first draft of the post - they need to find all of you, for you to lose. I believe I corrected that very quickly though; I'm honestly amazed you managed to spot that mistake. :)

However, they're working together on the search, so just one of them succeeding is enough for them to win, and if two people have bonuses that apply to different situation, such that enemy A can find, let's say Halasik and September, while enemy B has bonus that fail against that but helps with finding Banner and Verik, that's still a loss.

Really, it's hide and seek, if one of you gets found out that person has been found out, the only difference is that there are four people searching instead of one.


Given Nar hasn't logged in since September 6, I'd rather keep the team you've formed now, especially since each of you already showed you have something to contribute to the effort.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:51, Sat 01 Oct 2022.

Ready to go play!

Also: if Banner possessed the house then I think he would know where the seekers are all the time and if Iona is close enough he could share that with everyone else

I get alerts when a new post shows up, and there are many periods of the day where I read them promptly (even if there's not time to respond).  The flipside is that I often don't see edited versions of posts, since there's no new message indicator for them.


Anyways, how would Banner possessing the house work?  Does them seeing the house count, or would they need to somehow realize he's there?

I didn't actually respond to that because I was checking over the matter, and... I don't think Banner actually can possess the house. His size limit for possessing an item is Gargantuan, and according to Sphere's example size table, that's about the size of a catapult - which is big, but I'm not sure it's as big as a 50 ft x 50 ft house... I'm not fully certain, however. Especially because the Huge example is a wagon, and the Colossal example is a ship, and a house would be between the two, and there's a lot of different catapult variants. So I was checking to see what the larger size of catapults were, to get a sense for dimensions.

So, at the moment, pending confirmation, I'm saying that Banner can't possess the house. If I were to decide that he can in the end, they'd need to realize that an entity is possessing the house, which can be detected (Banner himself can give you a list of the way in which he is detectable when possessing people and/or things), although it's not exactly a simple task, in itself. Also, if I allowed him to possess the house, that'd likely translate to something like helping you all with finding cover and granting circumstance bonuses to rolls, or similar benefits.

According to the Pathfinder table:


So at first sight it looks like a 50 x 50 ft. house is indeed Gargantuan?
This message was last edited by the player at 23:28, Sat 01 Oct 2022.

For the sake of fun, let’s assume Banner isn’t possessing the house

Yeah, I think we'll go with the house being too big to possess. Sorry Banner, and thank you for being understanding.


...no, it doesn't, not from that table; if anything, the fact that a Gargantuan creature takes up a 20 ft space pretty solidly suggests that Gargantuan is half the size needed here. The building is also about 50 ft tall, since it's a five floors building, so that's a 50 ft cube.

No worries, at all! It seems a bit too much like cheating and steals away the opportunity for some non-combat narrative tension too much :)

Ah right, missed that.

Looking at volume, 50 x 50 / 64 is just a little below 40, which is more than 20, so a house would indeed be Colossal.

Wondering though, if the goal is to go into the house and not be found by the opposing team, could anyone do something that makes it impossible for the seekers to actually enter the house? Like turning the doors and windows into solid wall?

As long as it can be done in a minute, and keep in mind the searchers have five minutes, and might actually know the house better than you do, on account of how they are running the competition, so they might have countermeasures for that sort of trick.

Great, so if anyone could animate the house with the hiders in it so it will run away from the seekers, i'd say we've got a pretty good shot at this :P

So, to make sure before I push things forward, is the current plant for the hide-and-seek competition finalized, or not?

Believe so: Banner will be casting one of his totems to provide the Stealth Synergy and Bonded Mind teamwork feats, then hiding - potentially possessing a sling bullet

That'd give you a benefit for size, and if you could find a way to make the item you were hiding in make sense to be placed in the house, a circumstance bonus as well.

Speaking of which, Verik's sharing of the old tree experience will give Banner a bonus (insight, in this case) to that test of coming up with a tree ballad. So, if he later wants to do that for his own enjoyment, it might be easier to succeed. :)

Basically ready, yes-- September has a couple of questions he wants to ask the organizers, but that's it.

Question for you, though, Supervisor-- are you handling Stealth Synergy strictly as written or houseruling it in any way?

I don't believe that Pathfinder retained the synergy rules from 3.5, so going by the book, there's no Stealth synergy I need to make any rule about, that I can find.

That being said, if you want it/need something from it, tell me what, and I'll see if I think it's worth allowing or not.

The feat-- https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDis...me=Stealth%20Synergy

...ok, I'm not sure how I missed that when Banner specifically stated he was granting it to everyone. I blame tiredness.

Not sure what sort of house rule you would want me to apply to it? The feat seems pretty straightforward; so long as you're within line of sight of an ally who also has the feat, you can use their dice roll instead of yours, if it's better.

The only thing I can imagine any houseruling about would be the "line of sight" element being applicable to other forms of perception, which I would say can with caveats - it must be something that allows for perceiving the entirety of the ally's body positioning, so normal hearing wouldn't work, but echolocation would. Same for any other sense - if you can justify that it's a sense that gives you awareness of body positioning, then it can be considered "sight" for the "line of sight" ruling.

Stealth can be selective, you can use Stealth on an enemy without affecting an ally, but that's just normal stealth rules.

Unless you wanted to ask about some other facet of the feat which I'm not seeing?
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:48, Mon 03 Oct 2022.

The wording is... problematic.  "You all take the highest roll and add all your modifiers to Stealth" can very easily be read as "Take the highest die rolled by any party member, then add to that roll the Stealth modifiers of all participants, using that result as the Stealth value of all participants."  I think you're reading it differently, though, based on your last post, which is why I wanted to clarify this before we used the feat.

I’m presuming that Bonded Mind wouldn’t count as perception of others ;)

You're presuming correctly, Banner - Bonded Mind tells you where they are, but not their precise body positioning, which is what's needed for Stealth Sinergy.

And September, you would be correct that I'm not taking the severely overpowered interpretation you speak of, but rather the sensible one. I can understand your point that the feat is written badly, but it's pretty clear that somebody forgot to put the world "individual", "personal" or some other synonym in there. I imagine a feat that had the intention to say "sum together the modifiers to stealth of every person with this feat that is within line of sight, and then add them to the best dice roll out of all of those made by every one of them" would have said that with the words I just used; when text is ambiguous, I find it safer to take the interpretation that is more reasonable.

Still, you did well to ask, since making sure you know what the rules are is your duty as a player and providing clarity on the matter and answering player's questions is my duty as a GM. :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:14, Mon 03 Oct 2022.

Oh, I agree that your version is vastly more balanced and reasonable-- it's just also a house rule that involves adding a word to the feat, rather than applying what's actually written there.  Changing feats is something that only the GM can do.

In reply to September (msg # 120):

I'd argue it's a matter of interpretation, but I still appreciate you bringing the matter up.

Out of curiosity, have you found many GM willing to go with the "add everybody's Stealth modifiers together" interpretation of it?

I've never used the feat before.  Teamwork feats are on my list of things to try when the right game comes up.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:08, Tue 04 Oct 2022.

Feel free to suggest options; Banner's banners totems provides for two teamwork feats when activated

A lot of them seem like you'd need to build the party around them-- butterfly's sting, for instance, or most of the flanking feats.

Bonded Mind would be nice to have for communication in case Iona isn't around.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:22, Tue 04 Oct 2022.

Outflank and paired opportunist actually work pretty well if you have a bunch of melee people even if they aren't specifically built around it. Obviously even better if you have crit-fishing builds, but not needed.

Shake it off is pretty consistently good, if boring, and gets better with bigger parties since there's just more bodies around to give bonuses.

Sorry to jump into the challenge, but Verik needed to control the pacing (needs the Archons to be present when he hides).

The GM may want me to re-roll, but the Almighty Dice Roller RNG is having none of it. :-)

As reminder if they break out tremorsense, everyone in the party with the mantle has a fly speed while the wind is up.

Thanks, I’m hoping a slingshot ain’t going to trigger tremors!

Is there a reason to go on for multiple rounds?

We have to win three rounds I think

In reply to Banner (msg # 132):

Technically is best two out of three, but winning three would give you more tokens - not that you need to, but that does means there's a reason to play, and Verik in particular would lose a lot of his powers if he loses on purpose; that's against his code of conduct, he always needs to put 100% in any challenge he takes part in.

oh, I see.  Do we all need to go out and back in?

Since it looks like we're splitting up-- are we splitting up the telepathic links to September, Verik, Halasik, and Banner?  Iona wasn't around for the division, and I have a hunch Cube is the most likely to not wander off alone.

In reply to September (msg # 135):

Believe so, for now

Sounds good.

Yeah, Iona will likely be walking around as well so if anyone steps in range they can let me know if messages need to be passed and she'd do it.

Aiming to post tomorrow, apologies, travelling

For the record, Verik isn't particularly planning on fighting Banner, as he has two other opponents. But he's doing nonlethal damage so if Banner wants to spar it's cool.

Sorry if he's stealing Banner's spot, I didn't realize that was the intent.  But you can't put a fight challenge in front of Verik and expect him not to jump in.  :P

I was assuming it would be a handwavey thing that lasted for hours rather than a battle we played out, but fine with either
This message was last edited by the player at 16:09, Wed 19 Oct 2022.

I mean, we probably could handwave it - none of the enemies is going to pose a threat to either of you two - but as I said, Banner mentioned wanting to get a bit of practice with the system and this seemed like the most straightforward way to do that.

And as I said, it's perfectly fine for you not to fight each other, that's why there's multiple opponents in a free-for-all. If Banner decides he'd rather not fight you, Verik, then we can handwave your fights while running him through his own in full. Flexibility is the name of the game here, after all! ^_^

Let’s start with the NPCs and then see if I can spar with Verik; happy to take to a private thread rather than slow things down

Question: Is $1200/month a "normal" rent, based on September's experiences of prices?  I'm afraid the conversion to dollars isn't very transparent for me (I know cost of living varies a LOT between places and times).

Yeha, it's more or less normal for somebody of the lower classes who isn't living in a house they own. Although renting is generally rare, as it only tends to crop up in areas that lack unclaimed land for people to build their own houses in.

Which currency would make the comparison more easy to understand for you? I thought it was pretty straightforward.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:11, Sat 29 Oct 2022.

Oh, it's not a matter of a particular currency.  It's more "1200/month would be almost twice the rent where I live now, but I know in NYC the rent is more like 2100/month and this guy's getting a very good deal," etc, so I couldn't tell if the man was being skinned alive or treated generously.

I'm fine with chilling while others have the spotlight, just want to make sure I'm not missing something where I should be posting but am not.  I lost the thread when Banner started wrestling - is that happening in the 4-way brawl?

Yes - I'm assuming you're facing off other opponents but we're not describing it because you'd win easily anyway and you say you didn't want to go through that yourself. Did I misunderstand what you meant?

nope, that's right.  I just wanted to make sure.

I’m presuming we’re waiting to wrap these ones up but please shout if you’re waiting on Banner for a post

Indeed, just finishing up the current situation and then moving things onward; I will always speak up if I feel somebody should be posting who isn't. You said you didn't want to fight anything else, Banner, so we're fine on that front.

So...  Kinda quandry.  IC, there's what, six or seven hours to go until the time we agreed to meet and sleep?  So checking out either the arena or the animal competitions would be next.

But OOC, there's a lot of people not in a scene.  Should we just timelapse to tomorrow instead?

Bannnner and Verik need to "have fun", happy to skip over or have folks join us

I would think that skipping over to the morning is the best approach right now, but I'll hear out everybody who has different opinions.

Banner, we can say you were offered several rounds of drinks from the people who saw you beat the minotaur. Also, if you want, you can roll for the tree tale again, this time with an extra +5 Circumstance bonus due to the information Verik gave you about the old tree; succeeding at that competition would also earn you a lot of attention and recognition.

Drinks sounds solid

Bombed on the storytelling, with a nearly worse roll than before:
10:04, Today: Banner rolled 28 using 1d20+26 with rolls of 2.  Perform: Sagas

Ah well, it happens. I suppose telling a story with a tree as the protagonist is really hard, so it makes some IC sense?

Aye, indeed!

Oh, it makes sense OOC-- but IC, we're in a race and are already very behind, and we KNOW that a) the gods can very likely make perma-failable challenges and b) at least one other team believes they can and is trying to burn the bridges behind them.  So IC/mechanically, it makes more sense to not lose even a single minute.  I'm fine with moving to dawn if everyone else is, though.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:30, Sun 13 Nov 2022.

In reply to September (msg # 157):

While the point of not wasting time is well taken, in character it's now already late enough that, if the sun were to set in the place you are at, it would have. Of course, with you only needing to sleep two hours per night, you would indeed have plenty of time, but I think it'd be better to get the team together and have you tackle any remaining exploration you think might be necessary together.

Also, Khepri specifically mentioned that the gods can't make the challenges impossible to go through; they can make the fortress too tough to break, sure, but the challenge need to be able to be resolved by any team, for fairness' sake. And I'm not sure what you mean when you say that some teams might be burning bridges behind themselves?

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 158):

I think it's about semantics, really. You can't make a challenge that's impossible to overcome, sure, but that doesn't mean a team can get infinite attempts. If each individual on a team can only get one shot at passing (part of) a challenge before perma-locking them out of it, then that would technically fulfill the 'impossible to overcome' requirement while making the chance to actually succeed as low as possible.

I think my current plot thread is winding down as well. Did we want to set up a meeting with the Asmodeans for tomorrow, and if so, where and when? They specified "neutral territory" so I guess we could just pick a random spot outside of town.

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 158):

That's better OOC, yes-- just not IC, which was my point.

RE impassable challenges: The Asmodeans were trying to destroy all of several categories of tokens.  IF those are necessary to complete the challenge, that means it's possible to "close off" a challenge to other competitors.  That's what I was talking about (granted, there's an assumption in there).

In reply to September (msg # 161):

Ah, but that's enemy action, not part of the challenge design... although ultimately, I fully agree that it rests on an assumption about the nature of the challenge that hasn't been proved.

And yeah, IC would have different considerations; however, I'm getting the sense that, if I let you all keep doing that, you'll spend a lot more time in town than you need to. Which isn't a problem for me, personally, but I got the impression that most of the team wanted to move forwards with things now.

Given that, Rannar's message will provide a justification for stopping the exploration IC - it will contain a list of what you can obtain from the town's various locations and how, so that your characters won't need to keep exploring because they'll know exactly where they need to go and what they need to do there. That should satisfy the need for having IC reasons to do what's best for the group OOC, I hope?
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:45, Mon 14 Nov 2022.

Iona is fine with moving on, the whole reason she went and did a few challenges was to keep herself occupied since most of the tokens had already been collected.

Going to bring along the Minotaur!

That works for me; he'll be very polite, and mention that the reason you scared him so much in the fight is because your fighting style reminded him of one that a fellow celestial trained a lot of dwarves into, a unit devoted to Khepri, although he personally never met the dwarves themselves, only this angel teacher, who caused him to react nervously to your fighting style.

RE: Different NPC-- September was planning to invite the golden-haired azata who helped him bake a cake.  To him, the music contest did have a prize, but the cooking is something he did for the sheer fun of it (twice).  Would that work?

Sure; any town citizen would do, so if that's your preference, go ahead.

There is the last consort's challenge, the performance based one that we didn't find yet, are we going to move on to doing that as a group?

Yeah, it seems better to me to have you handle the sectioned off part of town as a team together, as it'll make it easier to deal with everything. You also have the meeting with the Asmodeans to attend to, assuming you're interested; if you are, I'll need you to tell me which of the two you'd like to deal with first - the Asmodeans, or the search for the fifth consort.

I thought there was a consort we needed to find before we got into the sectioned-off part, my bad.

Verik will want to look for the consort first, but as a player I have no preference.

There is a total of six consorts.

Consort Number 1 is Jigroun, who is in the temple, apparently. You haven't tried to get into the temple, but if you had, you'd have been told that you need the four suit token to enter. You know that four of the other consorts have these tokens.

Consort Number 2 is Gentharul, who can be found in the greenhouse. He will give you the Heart token if you can prove you've been enjoying yourselves by having the friends you've made vouch so to him on your behalf.

Consort Number 3, Mantesal, is apparently guarding something important, somewhere in town. You know not where, or what. You know this one Consort isn't involved in the matter of the four suit tokens.

Consort Number 4 is Demalerkes, who could be fought in the arena and gave the Sword token to those capable of defeating him. This, you have done.

Consort Number 5 is  Ivernia , and you know they're hiding somewhere in the sectioned section of town, where they're spying competitions to find people who can give a good show. You need to find them and persuade them to hand over the Club token, so that you have the four you need to enter the temple.

Consort Number 6 is Kevryshka, who is acting as a messenger between the other consorts to keep them informed of what's going on in town and inform them of how the various challengers are doing. You've already met her, and she gave you the Coin token for encouraging sportsmanship in competitions.

Does that helps?

I see, thanks.  Ivernia is the one I was thinking of, I didn't realize she was in the sectioned-off part of town, I think I was conflating the temple and the sectioned-off part.

That is handy-- I also didn't realize that Ivernia was in the sectioned-off part (September was hoping his performance would draw her in, actually, which is why he doesn't want to use that as evidence of revelry).

Since I'm sure we talked to each other about the Asmodeans telepathically in the evening, what's everyone said about whether or not to meet them?  September would have been in favor of hearing them out, of course, though highly skeptical.

The Asmodeans apparently also didn't realize that!

Sorry for the long IC post, GM just dropped a bunch of information on me, so I did my best to pass the bulk of it on to you all.

In terms of the Asmodeans, Halasik also votes for meeting with them (with great skepticism).

To quickly answer Halasik's question-- September was going to go look for the consort if music was useful, but since the consort wants physical art, he'd place himself with the mirror group.  He'll hang around for a bit to see if there's a good plan in place to find the consort, though (if not, he'll offer to just ask the locals in this area about it/Gather Information).

So, if I have this right, September, Halasik and Diata are going to the hall of mirrors together, while Verik, Iona and Banner will be exploring the sectioned off part of town, taking in any interesting sights while looking for Ivernia.

I'll give everybody fifteen or so hours to confirm that this is correct, and for Verik, Iona and Banner to give me a Gather Information roll, and then I'll update.

Confirmed for me.



For the meeting, I think we want to suggest just a short bit into the woods - basically just far enough that the meeting is private and unobserved by the locals, but hopefully close enough to town that we don't run into anything.

Okay then, this is me:

23:49, Today: Iona de Orasaigh rolled 36 using 1d20+25 with rolls of 11.  Diplomacy (Gather Information).

With the added sidenote that i can see invisible and ethereal creatures, and have permanent Woodland Stride (as Druid) so i'm not impeded by the forest terrain while moving around. Unless there's magic involved, of course.

18:59, Today: Banner rolled 21 using 1d20+19 with rolls of 2.  Gather Information

Ah, aren't Diata and Iona in separate groups?

EDIT: Though I could have healbuffed everyone before we went our separate ways.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:43, Mon 05 Dec 2022.

They were supposed to be in separate groups, yet. I guess Iona missed the fact that the party split?

Ah sorry, i thought we joined back up after gathering information to share what we've learned. I take it we'd also be out of telepathy range then?

Yeah, you probably would be, unless you want to change your mind and join them in exploring the hall of mirrors.

A little behind, sorry, here's Verik's gather info roll.

12:44, Today: Verik rolled 20 using 1d20+6 with rolls of 14.  Diplomacy (Gather Information).

Banner, Verik, your roll don't give you any more information than Iona's roll already did - which I already presented you in the IC post I made where I described the different interesting places you could check out; you now need to tell me what of the possibilities offered there you want to go after.

There's been very little activity in the last two days.

I suppose I should assume that Diata, Halasik and September are ready to enter the Halls of Mirror? I'm giving it one extra day so that you can finish any preparations you want to make for it, then I'll move you into the building.

Verik, Banner and Iona, what about you three? If you don't tell me which of the options I presented you want to investigate, I can't really post an update where you learn whatever your choice would let you discover.

Well the results of Gather Information are in, so...

Verik, Banner, want to investigate some more contests?

My teammates are going in with 120 temporary HP. You may note that on your sheets!

And another 54 temp HP from me, plus the Blessings that help me resurrect you also come with a +1 bonus to all saves :)

Aiming to post later today, but contests sounds good on the face of it

Plan to post soon.

We had a break in a giant snowstorm the past couple of days and I've been doing stuff before this wave hit.

UPDATE: Between a giant pair of snowstorms and diabetic-related fatigue, I've been too zero to use my brain. Jjust stoppign in to keep everyone in the loop.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:56, Wed 14 Dec 2022.

Does the either save for the hall of mirrors have any descriptors attached (divination, compulsion, etc)?

No, nothing in particular.

Hall of Mirrors group is still waiting on Fort OR Will saves from September and Diata, right?

Yes, that is correct.

In reply to Banner (msg # 190):

Apologies, job hunting has been more consuming then expected

Point of order-- I know you said we were in initiative mode, Supervisor.  Can we hold conversations (for instance, September chiming in to say, yes, there's more than enough wind here to get off the ground, as you've seen me doing all across the island)?  Or would it be better to keep the turn order clear by posting just once on our initiative count?

Well, talking in limited quantities is a free action, so I guess I can allow it, as long as you don't make a full blown conversation over it.

So long as your name's not Vaarsuvius, in other words. XD

GM, I hate you <3 Why did you have to iceblast us just when I'm IRL curled up under a blanket trying to keep warm? ;)

Well first September failed his save and we were hit by a weather effect, similar to his main magic.

Then I moved forward and we were hit by an ice blast similar to what I can do.

Wonder what the mirrors will hit us with from your magic?

I mean, I'd assume absolutely nothing since I have no magic...

but keep an eye out for <spoilers> anyway.

Poor Hawk.  So many blizzards at this carnival!

Query: September's mantle is currently granting Diata 30% concealment.  Does the ranged attack on her have an ability to negate that, or does it need to roll?

Is the concealment still active in the heat?

If it is, then a 30% concealment would mean a hit on a roll of 7 or higher on a d20.

23:14, Today: Supervisor of reality rolled 7 using 1d20 with rolls of 7.  30% concealment.

Seems like it hits anyway.

Actually, I do have 9 uses of spell resistance 25 from my Silver Material Imposition if that helps. Supervisor, can you give me a CL check?

The concealment comes from the level of precipitation, which is 5 (doesn't matter if it's boiling rain, snow, etc).

EDIT: eh, was worth a shot.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:19, Wed 21 Dec 2022.

I can, and here it is.

23:36, Today: Supervisor of reality rolled 26 using 1d20+15 with rolls of 11.  MSB vs Spell Resistance.

Once again, beaten by 1 - you really have horrible luck, Diata.

That being said, I'm pretty sure that you can't activate imposition as immediate actions, and in fact that the silver imposition actually requires substantial (as in, 1 hour) preparation time, so run me by how you would have it available; did I made a rule on this before that I'm not remembering, or am I missing some rule? I must admit that I'm not too used to the Scholar class.

The Silver Imposition amulet isn't an "activate," it's a passive like the Crystalline Focus.

Speaking of the Crystalline Focus,

13:58, Today: Diata Yuari rolled 60 using 1d100 with rolls of 60.  Crystalline Focus alignment.

Okay, so it's still aligned (not that it matters much).

Anyway. Scholar abilities are a grab bag that all work in weird ways. In the case of the Silver Amulet, it was crafted before the beginning of the game (I mentioned it with my equipment purchases) and was therefore at 9/9 until I faced a caster level check. I only need to realign it after it goes to 0, or I have spare time to hack it back to 9 anyway.

Concealment should be affecting me as well, I believe?

Also, did I get anything from my knowledge checks?


Anyone have a suggestion on strategy other than wandering around getting blasted? We could try to destroy them all, but that would take a long time. Anyone else have any other ideas?

Scholar is a tricky class, lots of moving parts. Still, the versatility very much compensates for that, I think. Thanks for clearing that up, Diata, I had in fact missed the details. :)

Halasik, the knowledge rolls didn't give you anything; I think I already mentioned that the entire room, every mirror and surface, is giving off an overwhelming magical signature, with no individual sphere to identify.

I do think you are right about the concealment though.

00:20, Today: Supervisor of reality rolled 11 using 1d20 with rolls of 11.  30% concealment.

Seems like the attack managed to overcome that.

Yes, all of you are benefitting from September's mantle, which is now (now that the storm's picked up) granting 50% concealment and a +5 morale bonus to attack, damage, and Will saves.  It feels good to be alive!


Also, Supervisor, I know that normally you'd post at the end of the round, but I suspect my allies would find it VERY helpful to know the basic results of my actions right away-- do the mirrors shatter at the first blow, appear invincible, launch devastating counterattacks, impose a Luck penalty for seven years, etc?


For the record, given that walking forward might have triggered them, this could be as simple as getting to the other side.  But since the Bearer was directed to attack what attacked Diata earlier, it seemed like an easy way to see what happens if we break the mirrors.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:31, Wed 21 Dec 2022.

Also, someone stop me before I decide to poison the mirrors just to show that I can.

...I kinda want to see that, but would the poison be fast-acting enough?

Yes; alchemy poisons take effect on hit.

Sadly, it's moot; the mirrors almost certainly don't have the HP to stand up to my darts. But I leave you all with the mental image of a mirror throwing up.

Also moot because I'm stunned. See, GM, this is why I try to roll as little as possible and do everything with Skill Mastery. :)
This message was last edited by the player at 00:47, Thu 22 Dec 2022.

Halasik, did you not get the beautiful, ginormous pool of temp HP from Diata and Iona?

Iona isn't with us, and I didn't actually see Diata giving us any temporary HPs, so I don't think so?

I've just been using my own two separate abilities to give myself temporary HPs.

In reply to Halasik (msg # 217):

Yes you did. You even mentioned in your buffs, "120 temp HPs from Diata".

Haha, ok so I did see it, and then it fell out of the leaky bucket I call my brain.

GM: can I decide which temporary HPs are lost first if the rules don't otherwise say?

My nature's carapace HPs are explicitly lost first, but I'd prefer that berserk is lost before Diata's since they refill every round, but the rules don't clarify.

Sorry, I somehow missed that I was supposed to make to-hit rolls a couple of posts ago.  Added them to the relevant post, but for ease of reference here too.


20:40, Today: Verik rolled 32 using 4d20 with rolls of 8,6,7,11.  to-hit rolls, each at +24.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:42, Thu 22 Dec 2022.

In reply to Halasik (msg # 219):

I'm fine with letting you decide the order in which you lose the Temp HP where the rules allow for some leeway.

Also, Diata, I made a mistake with the blast - failing the Fort save leaves you staggered, not stunned. I mixed the two up in my head.

Got it. How long does the condition persist?

...and I just realized that I need to set up a standard list of prepared formulae, too. Oh well.

Staggered for one round, just as the stunned would have lasted. I literally just wrote down the wrong word.

I still have convenient from September's storm, yes?

Concealment you mean? I think you still have it, but I'm not sure if it applies against Darts.

I don't think it does, due to the fact the darts target a line, and roll against you if you're occupying a square that is in that line, and that single one roll applies to each creature on the line. The rules don't say, but unless you have an argument, I'm inclined to say that, since the dart is a trap, it ignores things like concealment.

So... you have a good argument for why it should apply?

Concealment is what I meant, sorry.

I didn't realize that's how the dart works, just saw the attack roll and assumed concealment would apply. No worries.

Everyone does have a 50% miss chance (doesn't call it concealment, though it does stack with the concealment from fog) as long as there's precipitation, which is currently held at a 7 (experienced as 4 by the party).  But...

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 225):
I was tempted to make an argument at first-- I've never heard of something that uses attack rolls and ignores concealment (without, say, the Guided property specifically saying "ignores concealment").  And I'm not 100% convinced that "Mist Form's" miss chance is actually concealment to begin with.

But then I realized-- you normally handle this by saying the same rules apply to everyone, PC and NPC.  So I think this is to our advantage long-term-- we're establishing that Diata's Darts ignore concealment, right?
This message was last edited by the player at 01:31, Sat 24 Dec 2022.

I mean, Trap Wielder feels like something that would obey concealment, but that's just a feeling. I do need to be able to point the line.

Also a note on the noose: How high is the mirror's Craft (traps)? Mine is 15, or 20 with the Attunement.

The mirror borrows your stats, so it's using your save DC as noted on your sheet - I think what you're saying here is that the DC on your sheet is 3 points short?

And yeah, September, if I rule one way for the enemy, I rule the same way for you, absolutely. That said, I do see what you're saying - if mist form is not concealment but rather some form of incorporeality, then it should apply. I misunderstood the nature of the power.

11:29, Today: Supervisor of reality rolled 7 using 1d20 with rolls of 7.  30% miss chance (hit on 7+).

Seems like the attack hits anyway.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:31, Sat 24 Dec 2022.

Actually, I was asking because if it uses my trapcraft, the noose effect immediately applies 5 rounds of suffocation.

Yes, but Noose has a save first, and only applies it if the target fails the save. Or do you have an ability that removes the save?

No, just making an added note to what you said in the thread.

Supervisor,  did you take into account the cold damage September dealt to all the mirrors?

In reply to September (msg # 233):

I fear I might have missed that. Point it out to me, if you could?

Standard: Create Cold 6 in a carefully-drawn region that covers the visible remaining mirrors but does not spill out of the building.  Everything in this circle takes 6 cold damage per round (no save).  If the mirrors count as objects, this damage is doubled, not halved, before applying hardness

Indeed, I missed that! That gives you an extra 12 damage, doesn't it? Which is then reduced to 5 by the mirror's 8 hardness - leaving the mirrors all at 8 HP, and they'll all go down to 3 at the end of next turn. I'll update the math in my post to reflect that.

I think it's interesting how much hardness is increasing the durability of what are, overall, a bunch of unbuffed HP 25 enemies.

Fortunately, the remaining mirrors can't regain martial focus, while I can <3

Can't they? There's a lot of ways to spend a move action to regain Martial Focus, and it's not like the mirrors are using their move action for anything else. How confident are you that none of the three of you has that kind of ability on hand?

I mean that they would have to be active first to take, y'know, actions. :)

I see! That's a very valid point.

Yeah. Expending martial focus is part of a save, regaining it requires you to do something.

Of course, they still have x1 Martial Focus left because I have Great Focus.

I wish I did.  Probably get a lot more done.

Hey, I have a question for everyone. If you're using the Spheres of Power wiki, has it been acting up for you lately? I've been getting "bad gateway" errors.

Working fine for me.

Seems to be working for me at the moment. Maybe the site went down for a bit at some point, and now it's back up?

Yeah, it happens everywhere on occasion, most likely you tried to check the site while their server was rebooting after maintenance.

As an aside, i've been reading the fight with the mirrors and now i'm stuck wondering how a group of Ionas would fare against the PCs :P
This message was last edited by the player at 13:32, Thu 29 Dec 2022.

I've been having various individual pages giving that error off and on for the past few days. Nothing has been down for more than a few hours for me though.

Sorry, I totally missed that Banner was going to be tattooing.  I'm good with that if he doesn't want to find someone else.

I forgot again; Miss chances really trip me up.

01:03, Today: Supervisor of reality rolled 1 using 1d20 with rolls of 1.  Miss chance vs Diata, hit on 11+.

It's a miss! So Diata won't need to roll the Fort save after all.

Banner, how amazing are you at tattooing?  Wondering how much SP I should spend.

Bonus of +13, Verik. Just contemplating what to add, GM

Did Verik smell any beings beyond what he saw?

I think we should do temple first, then Asmodeans.  We don't want them stealing our tokens before we get access.

Definitely!

How long in-game do we have until the meeting with the Asmodeans?

It's in the morning, so it could be as soon as a couple hours, but I left the time unclear in purpose so you could decide if you wanted to go to the temple before the meeting or after. The decision is in terms of which information you will have available on whichever meeting is second as a result of what you learned on whichever meeting is first.

I am also vote for meeting them after going to the temple.

Diata pretty much has to vote temple first.

Fair enough.  Unless we're willing to hide the card somewhere no one on the team is, the Asmodeans will definitely know we've cleared the area, right?

I suppose we could seal it back in the starting area.

How far does this unmistakable aura of divine power reach?  If we put it in that hidden compartment back on our starting island, is that going to make it really easy to find the needle in the haystack our patroness built?

What could be done is the team trying to negotiate with the Asmodeans on the basis of "sorry, Diata flat refused to come, do you still want to talk?" They'd believe that in a heartbeat - though of course they'd try to exact further concessions. And meanwhile Diata's holding the card.

Given that the main justification given was "Halasik wants to talk to this guy," and this guy only agreed to talk to Halasik if the whole team comes, it's almost certain that devotees of the god of loopholes would consider that agreement null and void.

Hm.

Well, as much as Diata would like that, I'll play nice for now :)

Just to check, you all know that the card you have has no marks at this time, right?

We know.

Who's carrying it, btw? I forget.

One of the non-active PC, at the moment, so you can transfer it to the possession of any of the rest of you.

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 262):

Yes, I know, but being an entity of adamant self-confidence I assume that when we go to the temple we'll get the mark from it.

...that's not how that works though? You need to complete the challenge, which you haven't even approached yet. Jigroun will give you the scarab token which you can bring to Mantesal so you can have access to the device that would teleport you to the challenge ground, at which point you'll actually be able to try and obtain the mark (as well as locate the other card that is placed at the area of the challenge). That's way too much stuff to let it happen before you speak with the Asmodeans.

Yeah, I had been confused about that as well, but the information I got from the spymaster which I shared with everyone else cleared it up.
The actual quest challenge is somewhere out in the woods, we don't know where. Everything in town, including the Temple and the Tower, is just to get assistance in finding and accomplishing the quest.

The Temple can get us the Scarab Token, which provides bonuses on the quest and gives access to the Tower. The Tower lets us ask questions of Mantesal, who is the only person on the island who will actually talk about the quest.

Ah, completely forgot that, thanks for the reminder!

I'm interested in the answer to Halasik's question about using the arena for quick getaways myself-- September can already evacuate allies quickly, but he's not always around.

Sorry, I missed that question - I'll update my last post with the details. But the short answer is that yes, it would mostly work.

Do we have time before the meeting to do the tower and Grea5 Quest?

I would say no; the meeting with the Asmodean would be far shorter than that with Mantesal, and I expect that completing Khepri's Challenge in full will take more than a day, and even if you rush it you certainly wouldn't be done with it in the less than two hours you have left before meeting the Asmodeus' team.

Sounds like we could probably meet with Mantesal first though, and then with the Asmodeans before attempting Khepri's challenge (assuming the meeting with the Asmodeans doesn't change our plans).

Probably you could, but considering the Tower were Mantesal is has the teleportation effect, isn't that a needless amount of back-and-forth?

You can do it if you want to, it's just feels inefficient, is all I'm saying.

That makes sense. Talk to the Asmodeans, then rest, and go to Mantesal in the morning fresh and ready to get the token and start the "real" challenge.

...it's still early morning though. As in, in-game you've been up for five hours at the most; it's not even midday yet, as much as there can be a midday in a place that lacks a day-night cycle. You've the whole day to talk with the Asmodeans and then go to Mantesal and then even make a first attempt at the challenge, if you want to; there's no reason to expect the talk with the Asmodeans to take twelve hours to complete.

Oh, I thought it was afternoon or evening. Whoops.

Well either way I think we should talk to the Asmodeans first, then we can start exploring Khepri's challenge. Anyone else disagree?

I've already posted September's thoughts IC.  Asmodeans, then straight to the challenge.  Why waste time on sleep?

So, it seems like a majority of the team is on board to go and talk to the Asmodeans, even though not everybody chimed in. Still, I'd like to confirm that none of you suggested a specific neutral meeting place - is that correct, or am I missing something?

It's fine if you haven't, the Asmodeans have one ready and I'll update with you heading there, I just want to make sure that I didn't accidentally miss or forget somebody making a suggestion of their own on the matter.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:40, Sun 05 Feb 2023.

Oh dear!

I can say September hasn't-- he hasn't really suggested or organized any meetings with the other groups.

It seems like we're in agreement to go straight to the meeting with the Asmodeans. They had asked for a meeting on "neutral ground" and I think I had suggested just outside of town, so that we can't accidentally be overheard by locals talking about the competition and get both teams disqualified.

That's what I though, I was just making sure I didn't miss somebody requesting something else and gave everybody a chance to chime in. I'll post something in no more than eight hours, give or take a few.

Huh.  The offer of a favor brings up something-- I realize that I've been assuming we basically all come from separate worlds.  If it's possible for us to have contact with each other outside of the contest, does that mean we can roll knowledge skills relative to the other contestants if we know who they are?

Not necessarily, if they make a contract in Asmodeus' name he would be the intermediary between the two parties when the favor does get cashed in.

In reply to September (msg # 284):

Not really - you are correct that you, as in, the different members of your team, are all from separate world. You can roll knowledge only for people you share a world with.

However, as you also know, not everybody is from different worlds - Zakhar and Diata come from the same world, for example. As do Argos and Halasik. So there's some potential there.

And of course, as Iona pointed out, the gods oversee all of the different realities, so they could be used as a go-between to have something be done in one worlds be carried out to another - assuming the god in question were to agree, of course.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:55, Wed 15 Feb 2023.

But Khepri has made it very clear that our deals aren't binding on her-- so would our characters IC know/believe that the Asmodeans can't "make good" on their offer of a favor outside the contest?

That's really for you to decide; maybe the Asmodeans are able to make binding deals on behalf of their gods, maybe they aren't. It's a matter of how far you want to trust them. You can also try and bargain for a different thing, if you think what they're offering isn't satisfying; in fact, they likely expect you to.

Ultimately, this is the sort of situation that your characters are facing, so you can react to it however you want, in character. OOC, I can't really do more than provide clarifications on what has been said, not make a judgment call that is really up to you players to make.

True, but Khepri doesn't have Law and Legislation as Domains, so if we can get them to sign in Asmodeus' name, they would be bound to honor that agreement.

September, the "same time" was a typo on my part, not Zakhar - I'll edit it now, but I meant for him to say "half of that time". He was making the point that he's giving you twice the amount of what he asks for on everything else, so he'll do that for the non-aggression too.

If you want to edit and/or change your question as a result of this correction, feel free to do so and let me know once you have.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:45, Mon 20 Feb 2023.

Ah, gotcha.  Normally I'd assume that was the case, but given that we're talking to the champions of the God of Lawyers, I'm being more picky.

Edited post-- one small change early on to acknowledge/appreciate where Z is being very precise, and deleted the four days reference.

Perfectly reasonable to be careful and everything - that's indeed the smartest approach. It's really my fault for missing that I'd made such a glaring mistake in the writing.

September, this is the second time you've mentioned "not wanting to use a card" but what do you mean by that? As far as we were told, there's no difference between the cards - we just need at least 12 to win the game.

We were told that whoever wins, whatever divine power they have on their cards goes to their deity, but using a card with Khepri's mark wouldn't hurt Khepri's alliance, they'd just get their own power returned. As far as I know, there is never a reason why we would "not want to use" a particular card.

I wonder how is it you've come to this conclusion.

As in, people didn't "decide to join" any team, they were handpicked for them, and accepted to be part of them. Where exactly, in that arrangement, did you got the sense that somebody could change their mind mid-way through, drop out of the deal they'd made with their own god, and of their own initiative make a deal with a different god that they can't contact?

Let alone the fact that Khepri did specifically mention that a single living member of a team means that such a team is still in the running. In fact, she specifically said that, if all the members of a team had been killed and you resurrected one, that would bring that team back into the competition, so not even death is considered enough of a reason for somebody to drop from a team.

So... I'm really wondering how you've come to the conclusion that "I changed my mind" would pass muster as a reason to abandon a team, when "death" doesn't. It's a really weird jump to make.

It's not, by the way, just so that everybody else has a ruling on it; the teams were picked by the gods themselves, and not even they can change the team composition mid-tournament.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:26, Thu 23 Feb 2023.

Ah, sorry.

Yeah, the mental reasoning was that their God could give them permission to join a different team if there were too few members remaining to have a reasonable chance of winning, and Khepri to accept the additional member, not that the individual could decide on their own.

It was kind of trying to work around the wording of our team helping Torag's team, by having the people joining us not being considered Torag's team. Want me to edit?

I mean, Iona can keep thinking that, if you want her to. It won't make it true, but she as a character can be wrong. As long as you know OOC that it won't work, what to think on the matter IC is your choice to make, not mine.

Ah okay, it's fine then. I'm fine with Iona being wrong on occasion, she's smart but she isn't Wikipedia :P

In reply to Halasik (msg # 293):

It's my understanding that an unused mark is not "lost" to the original deity, but a used mark is.
So let's just say that each deity creates exactly one mark, and it takes three marks to win.

Team Khepri winning with the marks Khepri, Asmodeus, and Dagon would allow Khepri to create a result with the power of K+A+D.
But Team Khepri winning with the markss Asmodeus, Dagon, and Torag would allow Kephri to unleash the power of K+A+D+T.

"Card we don't want to use" probably should have been "mark that doesn't add anything to our victory."  Or at least that's how it works my head; September is smarter than me and spoke with Khepri directly, so I might be wrong.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:18, Fri 24 Feb 2023.

I'm pretty sure the power comes from the marks, not the cards.

So it doesn't matter who's card it is, it matters which (and how many) marks are on the card.

Fair.  I've using card and mark here interchangeably, given the deal is to trade a card with the mark of Asmodeus (and I'm 100% sure they wouldn't give us an extra mark on the back) for a card with the mark of Khepri/Torag/Shelyn (and we're 100% not giving team Asmodeus a bonus mark).  I'll tweak the last post.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:17, Fri 24 Feb 2023.

In reply to Supervisor of reality (msg # 296):

I mean, there's technically nothing stopping a team member from fighting on another team's side and giving them their de facto allegiance. Aside from the post-contest displeasure of their deity, of course.

In reply to Diata Yuari (msg # 301):

Oh, absolutely; I was just clarifying that, even in such a situation, if that traitorous team mate is then allowed to put the cards into place, then his victory counts for the team he has betrayed.

So... there's been no activity at all these last few days. Is everybody waiting for something from me?

I assumed it was September who'd talk for the group.

Sorry, I think everyone in the party was waiting for someone else to say something new. At least, I was.

Anyways, I decided that Halasik would go ahead and speak out loud.

Ah.  Sorry, I was expecting Halasik to make the proposal, since he was the one who recommended it.  Should I have September speak for the group in these situations going forward?  He has a certain bluntness to him (pleasedon'tkillme), but I've actually had him viewing himself as more junior.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:10, Tue 28 Feb 2023.

Diata doesn't mind speaking for the group, except...uh...in this case.

I made a mistake, I missed that he'd agreed to "end of the competition", thought he was still trying to keep it open-ended if we didn't get their card.  Not sure what to do about that.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:53, Thu 09 Mar 2023.

In reply to Verik (msg # 308):

Just have Verik the character have also missed it until Zakhar repeated himself; nothing wrong with him not hearing something at the beginning, and then changing his mind once he understood the proposal in full.

So I'm inclined to agree to the limited deal of receiving secret information in return for not revealing it to others, but as I said IC, I won't go against the consensus of the party.

What does everyone else say?

I'm not against it, what i did was basically an attempt to get a little more out of the deal, in this case being a lasting non-aggression pact with an Evil team.

Diata will agree to cooperate if the group as a whole overrule her, but otherwise...well.

As Torag's team pointed out, our group is really pretty anarchic. :)

Hail KHAOS!

Sorry I haven't been able to post recently; September will go along with the group on this.

That's three people (and a half, since Iona's vote isn't 100% clear) who are happy going with what the group wants, which, considering the group is made up of six people, will make it mighty difficult to come to a consensus.

While I agree that being very anarchic suit you all as Khepri's team quite well, I think this is one of those cases were you all need to be decisive and give a firm vote to one of the available options; I would have expected everybody to go along with the group's consensus anyway, but we can't have a consensus if nobody actually provides firm votes to build a consensus out of.

Yup, I think the best thing to do is just vote.

I will vote for agreeing to the deal (with the caveat that as the GM said, I will of course go along with group consensus if I'm outvoted).

In favor as well, we've already received the concessions of being able to share the information if we already knew of it, and our secrecy would last until the end of the contest. It's regrettable that they didn't bite for the non-aggression pact, but compared to their initial offer we've negotiated quite a bit extra.

After getting my facts straight, also in favor

Okay. I think we have a consensus in favor, with one dissenter who'll reluctantly follow.

Today or tomorrow I'll deliver the deal ICly for the group, since Diata has to openly agree (since there's no way Zakhar will agree if Diata won't say yes - Asmodeus would punish him for eternity if he fell for that one). Anyone who objects, speak now or forever hold your pieces. :)

Apologies, life continuing to be hectic. Aiming to catch up today and hopefully post :(

Diata:

I must admit your Bluff roll was so high that i, as a player, am not really sure what the loophole was. Mind shedding some light on it? :P

non-speech methods of sharing info?

Oh yeah, there's the telepathy.

The problem is that because i can't see the bluff, i can't have Iona ask about it either. That was the whole point of the bluff after all, so it wouldn't make sense to see through it ICly.

Yeah, I meant "speak" literally. I was also aggressively provoking Zakhar into moving on the deal before his brain caught up with his mouth.

I mean, you could ask if you get a Sense Motive check of 55...
This message was last edited by the player at 23:23, Mon 13 Mar 2023.

Wouldn't make it, a max roll would only end up in the mid-40s for me.

"Only" in the mid-40s, she says...

Hey, it's easier than it sounds: 15 ranks + 5 stat bonus + 3 class bonus is already 23, meaning 43 on a Nat 20.

Then there's gear, and traits, and feats etc., which is how Diata could get to 55 i believe.

Yeah. Of course, Diata is a dedicated face who's stacked multiple levels' worth of stuff on knowledges and social skills. That's a big part of her role on the team; she leaves standing in the line of battle and getting pounded on to her meatier friends. XD

*peeks in*

Is everyone waiting on someone else to post? Or are we all just busy with going outside and enjoying the spring weather?

Where I live, it's alternately snowing and raining - there's been only two days without either in the last week. As I was the last to post, however, I am waiting for you as players to deliver your answer to the NPCs, whichever that one ends up being.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:00, Sun 26 Mar 2023.

Sorry, I was out at a conference all this past week. I thought I'd be able to post in the evenings, but was bone tired and barely logged on.

Anyways, hope nobody minds that I just spoke on behalf of the team, I think we had gotten to a consensus in the OOC thread and wanted to just move things forward.

Somewhat curious question:

If i use Corpse Bomb on someone with an active Blessing, would i still then be able to resurrect them by activating the Blessing? It doesn't say anywhere that it requires an intact corpse.

No, but it does says that it needs a creature as the target. I'm willing to allow a partially damaged body to still count as "a creature", but complete destruction of the body like Corpse Bomb causes would deny that. That's academic though, since Corpse Bomb only works on undead, which can't be affected by resurrection effects anyway.

Actually, they also work on "any corpse capable of being raised as a skeleton or zombie".

What confused me though was this:



So yeah, the corpse would be 'destroyed', but in that state there would still be enough left for Corpse Manipulation to apply since that specifically mentions a destroyed corpse to be a valid target for touching.

I don't have Corpse Manipulation, but that caught my attention.

I believe we're all talking telepathically, so unless they can read our minds we should be good.


Also GM, another question: If the mirror duplicates use spells, do they have their own SP pool (presumably half the size of ours), or do they draw directly from ours, and similarly with other limited use abilities and items? And do they recover HP (and SP and other activated abilities) daily, when re-activated, or never?

It's both. They have half your SP, and when you wake up after deactivating them, any SP spent by the copies is taken out of your reserves. Remember that it's you controlling them, so they're drawing on your power, they just have access to less of it.

That makes sense. Having their own points would probably be pretty exploitable.

They have their own martial focus, right?

My clone can't draw on my SP. I don't have any. :)

The clone of somebody who has martial focus can also use it, yes, just like it can use any other ability of the original person. They just operate at half power.

I think we're just chitchatting on the way to the tower so you could probably say we arrive at some point.  Unless someone is going to come up with a master plan involving fake deaths?  Verik can't be that deceptive, IC, but if him making a suicidal attack is part of other things, that's totally fine.

Though if we apparently die and they don't get a card from us, I'm not sure that will make them move on, they might just decide to attack our stronghold, assuming it will be lightly defended.

In reply to Verik (msg # 339):

That was my plan, yes - I'm letting you discuss your strategic prospects, and when it seems like you've reached a solid plan on what you want to do going forward, I'll update you all arriving to the tower.

I'm about done discussing strategy, ready to move on to the tower.

If everybody else can confirm they're of the same opinion, I'll update the group to have made your way there; just let me know within the next day or so.

Fair warning, this month is looking like I'll have less time than usual to post, so if I might seem less reactive, that would be why.

Move whenever.

Agreed.

Aye

That's four out of six - not an overwhelming majority, but I think it's enough to justify moving forwards. You're still free to keep talking to each other in character, of course, but this way you can also progress your mission if you need to.

I'll have the post up shortly.

It's a bit hazy with players that left and those tagging along as NPCs, but how many people are there in our team right now, assuming all of them are present at Mantesal?

If you count all the characters that don't have a player, the team is nine people strong. Of course, given how little I'm using them, I could easily make any number of those disappear with a snap of my fingers. Why?

Meaning to reference it in my reply, and it'd be weird to get the number wrong is all :)

I thought Iona had a bunch of questions.  I'm all for, "let's just do it!" and dive in.

If she has questions, Mantesal will answer them as soon as they're asked. Happily! Well, not on Mantesal's part, but on mine, I'm always happy to answer questions. :)

Of course, if you want to charge in, that's perfectly fine as well. It's your choice to make! ^_^

Oh no, the 'can we talk privately' was more to get rid of anyone from the Asmodean team trying to listen in. As with all spying, the less people know, the more they want to know.

Iona herself has no questions :P

I'm tempted to ask if a sufficiently-explosive bomb is a key, but I don't think that would be wise. So no questions. :)

It would likely depend on the door in question.

I don't have a problem with people having no questions, but if you plan to have your character just stay there and do nothing, you should say so in character - the story won't progress through OOC messages.