This will be where the more narrative elements of the story are told, both roleplaying and action.
and I have to run, so that's all for now.
Once ashore Kal'Tos will assist will unloading the ship.
After Vallen and Jarla get ashore, he will cast Ant Haul on himself and begin moving all their belongings to Jarla's tent, wherever dry place she decides to pitch it.
Immediately after the last bit is in place, he moves among the survivors to look for sick or injured people to assist.
(Questions: What's the difference between the gameplay and discussion threads? How should my posts differ between the two?)
what supplies are there available in terms of tents, tool, and foodstuffs. What is the racial breakdown of the 80 other NPCs roughly.
@ Ben: The other NPCs are mostly human, with a handful of elves (4) dwarves (2) gnomes (3) halfelves (2) and a half orc. Ben and his contingent represent all of the halflings.
There isn't much besides what you guys have on your character sheets.
@ Garrak: My apologies, but the 100 gp in capital represents goods, labor, influence and magic that can be used to build things according to the downtime rules. If you aren't familiar with these rules, check them out here. I tried to make that clear in the recruitment threads, but apparently not as successfully as I'd thought.
@ Vallen: In general, I'd like to keep the gameplay threads in character. I'll assume that what I see in the gameplay thread is what your character is doing or saying, and what I say in the gameplay thread is the world, the NPCs, etc. The discussion thread should be for talk between players (including myself... remember, I'm playing too)
"Gair, come help! The dwarf fell in the well!" said the suspiciously collie-esque NPC.
would be suitable for the gameplay thread.
Dude, you know your dwarf sucks at don'tfallinthewell checks, quit having him play over there.
would be more appropriate for discussion.
No I understood that. This falls under the goods portion. The lab thing is flavor.
Edit: I see now. Probably should have mentioned it being goods.
lol
OK Garrak ... you scared me for a second. Goods to build a lab with it is.
Thanks it makes sense now seeing the other posts as well!
Question: How specific do you want us to be with our goods? For instance, I specified Vallen brought a box of steel ingots with him. While it's 5 goods I'm not building a house out of them. Would those not represent goods then, because nothing can be built of them? There are also different types of steel used for different tasks, but I don't know if that matters to you either.
Edit: Also, Vallen brought along an anvil. Probably not a lot of anvils out there.
Yeah, this presents a bit of a problem with goods. I'm not super sure how those work with being used for a purpose?
I think goods (and labor and influence) are an abstraction. So, you could use the steel (5 goods) melted down and reformed as framing for a house, if you wanted, or as raw materials for a blacksmith shop, or trade it for an equal amount (5 goods) of hay for stables, or wood for a palisade, or furniture for your bedroom. The crunch is "5 goods" and the fluff is whatever you want to make of it. You'll need more than just the 5 goods to build a team or building however (you'll need labor and influence in some amount in most instances, and magic additionally in others as well).
As an example, Cueta has 5 goods of construction supplies, let's say timber and nails (the exact "what" doesn't really matter, beyond fluff reasons). I'm going to use them to build a bedroom, but first I'm going to need to obtain 3 more goods and 7 labor and spend 20 days (or have a team spend 20 days) building my bedroom. Once I've built my bedroom I can add a bath on if I want (but I'll need to obtain 3 goods, 1 influence and 2 labor and spend 8 days in construction phase), or an artisan's workshop, or I can fill my bedroom with a team of courtesans, or whatever else.
Thanks for explaining. The mechanics of the system itself make sense, I'm just curious how specific Nerk is going to be on materials/ability to construct things.
2nd Question: What is the date (Golarian calender) of landfall?
Three questions for Nerk:
Our starting xp is at 1,000 because we're level 2, correct? Level 3 will be achieved at 3,000xp like normal?
How long will the +2 diplomacy buff blast with the settlers for the elk feast?
Did Vallen discovery anything about Deeshka's illness with his heal check of 13? Will he be able to treat her?
Bonus question for everyone!
Does anyone else have problems connecting to the forums sometimes? Often I will attempt to access the website and the connection will time out. Only this website, doesn't matter where I am.
Vallen, I'm considering the NPC level as a freebie. It's a tough situation, and I wanted to give everyone a power bump. So, think of yourself not as second level, but as first level plus. You start with 0xp and you'll gain your next level at 1000 xp.
This website is down a lot, and it seems to time out pretty viciously when editing profiles. On the other hand, I started writing my last post in the gameplay thread last night, so.... YMMV
The + to diplomacy will last until people start getting hungry.
You are unable to diagnose Deeshka's illness with a 13, but you can try again tomorrow to treat the symptoms, a high fever and nausea so far.
Wow, 2nd level at 1000xp. So we're going even quicker than the fast exp track?
Thank you Nerk! I'll have Vallen prepare Diagnose Disease in the morning and begin treating her. Off to class for now, looking forward to reading your gameplay post.
(Also I keep having weird typos today. Stop it me!)
Pardon me ... 2000 ... Vallen faked me out.
Landfall was Gozran 2.
Haha oops sorry. I forgot it was 2,000 xp.
@ Gair - dude, if you keep rolling 18s on your dip checks, we'll have no choice but to make you king! Nice!
I know right! Seems we're destined to put together a decent armed resistance!
Excellent work with the npcs everyone, you've done a fine job getting support together and some great rp to boot! Also fantastic rolls Gair. I want to point out that Vallen isn't assisting because it isn't in his character; I'm not trying to be lazy or anything. He'll be doing his own thing unless someone gives him a little push, or something happens.
I'm a bit on edge at what, if anything, is going to happen tonight...
Edit/Aside: I love it when a GM asks someone to roll a perception check and everyone freaks out haha.
I am wondering who is going to get jumped and by what. If I'd had any indication that something was going to happen in the night I wouldn't have written that big posts about the morning.
We are camped on the ant nest aren't we? that would suck and it would make all the PC look like morons.
I have never had this happen before so I am going to ask what do we do if a PC dies?
We are camped on the ant nest aren't we? that would suck and it would make all the PC look like morons.
That's... a terrifying thought!
Somehow I feel like we would have noticed holes big enough for giant ants to use.
But no one really looked
Ants typically follow each others trails, especially if they're laying down pheromones that indicate food is nearby. The ants are probably going to be back. Additionally, when an ant dies violently it releases a large amount of pheromones that attracts other ants to the location. The logic there being if something killed the ant, it must have food worth protecting. This is why if you have ants, you should not crush them but instead wipe them away with a wet cloth.
ANYWAY. I was thinking this when we beat the crap out of the ants. Of course our characters don't know this, but Nerk might, and I've been worried ever since...
Ants typically follow each others trails, especially if they're laying down pheromones that indicate food is nearby. The ants are probably going to be back. Additionally, when an ant dies violently it releases a large amount of pheromones that attracts other ants to the location. The logic there being if something killed the ant, it must have food worth protecting. This is why if you have ants, you should not crush them but instead wipe them away with a wet cloth.
ANYWAY. I was thinking this when we beat the crap out of the ants. Of course our characters don't know this, but Nerk might, and I've been worried ever since...
OK, now I'm EVEN MORE TERRIFIED! Thanks, Vallen :)
I knew about the trails, Vallen, not about the big bang. That's why I had the ant with the crippled legs following the trail of the any with the crippled sniffer. Because they do tend to go on random without a trail to follow.
If a PC dies, you roll a new one. Several of the other ships were lost in the storm, fate unknown, so there can be other survivors. If you snuff it, I'll PM a summary of what happened to you since you set off from Absalom.
I'm almost ashamed to say that the ants were just a random encounter.
There is no nest.
Trust me.
PS @ Ben: Just try not to let you or Edmund get killed tonight, and there's no harm done.
@ Everyone. I apologize for the confusion.
Because there is going to be no confusion on the first day of a colonization that has gone off the rails before you even reach the new land.
@ Everyone. I apologize for the confusion.
No need to apologize! I'm enjoying myself - immensely!
So you are saying I shouldn't let high lord fancy pants snuff it?
I'm saying that your conversation with him has already happened. If you want to let him snuff it, you'll have to do it on day 2, or 3 or ... ad infinitum.
Night one passed uneventfully.
I'm almost ashamed to say that the ants were just a random encounter. There is no nest. Trust me.
I'll trust you and not go ant hunting! You could have taken credit and I would have worshiped you for your intimate knowledge of entomology.
Also, so glad we decided to throw that feast, it saved the bacon with Cueta's diplomacy roll to get the boat! Excellent work.
Nerk you are a tease and I would call you other names but they aren't nice. You go hinting at some impending doom "depending who survives the night" and then the night passes uneventfully.
Indeed...the cruelty it immeasurable :P
I never meant to suggest it would be an eventful doom.
And yes, I've been called those other names, most of them are accurate.
Could you describe the area where Edmund is attempting to set up camp? Is it far enough back from the beach? Only a mile to the spring isn't so bad if there aren't any real problems I guess...
It's the area where you first landed, just where the dunes give way low meadows of scrub and bracken. It's an open landscape, and surrounded by brackish marshes and ponds, streams and the forest reaching towards the shore.
The obvious downside is the distance from fresh water. The obvious up side is that it's not forested, and will be much easier to plant.
A mile isn't so bad, though you don't plant inside the village anyway so that's kind of a mute point.
You said they've already started on the work here? They can't be very far can they? It's at most ah hour after dawn, I'm surprised they've finished eating.
What do you guys think? All things considered I'm fine with settling in here.
They started digging some holes, that's about as far as they've gotten.
The issue concerning me is the brackish marshes, also farmland a mile from the village shouldn't be an issue.
Maybe have Vallen express his concerns over the potential health problems associated with brackish water? We already have sick people and none of us have any immunity to local diseases. Also clearing the land will give us wood for buildings and the palisade, hauling wood without carts a mile will suck. But in the end I have no serious issues with moving back to the landing site.
flooding, disease, its a mile to fresh water which means every bit of water you drink has to be carried a mile by someone. I can see farming the area but I don't know about building the town there.
Well I did what I could. If it's insufficient I leave it to you guys.
I strongly caution against trying to split our group however...
There's no reason we have to move to where the Thayers are setting up. We can start our own settlement near the spring. (Which we should name by the way. Newspring? Or something.) As long as everyone gets fed and no one is dying, what's the difference? There can be two settlements. We could even trade with them and foster a sort of settlement fraternity. They can be the port, our settlement can have wood, fresh water, etc. Might get started on the farming later, but there is plenty to eat around right now.
Also, thinking about other settlements, if a significant number of people (25+) survived the wreck of the Harpy they probably started their own settlement, adding another group into the mix.
As long as we supply our people with what they need and are happy, they should stay with us.
Safety in numbers and not duplicating work are 2 good reasons that everyone should stay in one settlement for now. We really cannot afford to lose a good chunk of people to disease or an attack right now and 1 mile is too far if something goes bump in the night.
I'm with the dwarf...uh, the second one :P
Just to play devil's advocate, if one settlement gets wiped out, there's always another one, if there are two to begin with. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other. They both have pluses and minuses. If we move to Thayerport, probably the biggest downside is that we are going to surrender some of authority, in the eyes of the public ("What? You made us move up here and now you're making us move back, just a day later? My ma's sick - are you enjoying watching her hobble around carrying all our earthly possesions? Those Thayers seem to have a plan and are sticking to it.")
If we stick with two settlements, Cueta probably will spend some time in Thayerport, to keep an eye on happenings there - she's still not sold on the Thayers' intentions.
Step one, being a mile away means pretty much any calamity other than a random meteor strike would wipe out both settlements anyway.
Thus far we've not really moved anyone anywhere. We simply invited them to join in our kill and stay the night for protection.
I don't really see what authority we'd be giving up. What authority do we supposedly have? It's been a day and we want for a walk. I was actually going to mention this earlier, some of us seem to be acting as though the Thayer's are making a play to undermine our authority. Who said we had any to begin with? That seems kind of like the same entitlement we're accusing the Thayers of, no?
I'd say we should stay together. The sooner we have the location issue sorted out the better. Making two settlements just forces people to pick sides. The Thayer's have their areas of expertise. I think we're better off working to convince everyone that we + the Thayers are people who can be relied upon.
Of course that's just one kellid's opinion...
I agree we want the Thayers to work with us. But they seem very good at spinning such attempts to not do exactly what they want as an attack against them personally.
I still think a council that includes one of them, several of us and someone else (perhaps one of the elves?) is the way to go. We try to avoid issues by working together but preventing any one person from taking over and messing things up.
I don't really see what authority we'd be giving up. What authority do we supposedly have? It's been a day and we want for a walk. I was actually going to mention this earlier, some of us seem to be acting as though the Thayer's are making a play to undermine our authority. Who said we had any to begin with? That seems kind of like the same entitlement we're accusing the Thayers of, no?
I think this is an interesting point, and I see the logic of a lot of it. I do, however, think we have authority. We've provided people with food and medical care. We've led them to fresh water and given them a little celebration, even if it was a small one and featured a menu of ant. It has been a day and we've taken positive steps to improve the lives of people under our care. People will see this and interpret as deferral to the Thayers, especially after the argument at the feast. And people are tired and afraid and we will appear to be incapable of executing a plan. The Thayers have dug holes for a palisade. Good for them. They've formulated a plan and are sticking to it.
We are acting entitled to a rulership that we haven't earned, for sure. I think this comes in some part from being the PCs, some from our characters, and some from the rules, as written (Ruler slot must be a PC - I know we're looking at doing something different, but ooc I'm operating under the assumption that one of us has to be a ruler).
Here's my in-character justification for my coolness towards Thayerport: Cueta doesn't hold any stock in leadership that comes from fear or anger, and that first impression of Edmund was a strongly negative one. She's been pleasantly surprised since, but is still hanging around because she has doubts. She is loathe to see him in a position of power, until she is convinced that his intentions are good.
As for the mile difference - a lot can happen in a mile. To say that both camps would get wiped because of pretty much everything is a bit of a stretch, in my opinion. It is not a good enough reason to not merge, though.