Welcome to the New World. This campaign will be used primarily for the nuts and bolts of downtime, exploration and discovery, and so on. In addition to your hard work developing your colony, there will be various minor events and encounters here. Anything that will take more than a few rolls to play out will happen in the Golden Pegasus thread. There will probably be times when we need to pause this thread to let the other catch up, but unless that's announced, consider that one day real time is equal to a day in this thread.
As the campaign goes on, we'll see how this works and adjust accordingly.
Exploration:
At this point, you know almost nothing about this continent. Even the hex that you're in is considered unexplored and unsettled. This increases the frequency of encounters a lot. Just saying. You might like it like that.
Downtime:
Like it or not, each of you has 100 gp worth of capital to start building with. It can be goods that you brought with you on the ship, it can be labor that your friends and allies are willing to lend you, it can be influence that you have earned, or magic that you've hoarded during the voyage. It could also be something you discover on landing. The WHY of it is up to you.
Use these to create teams (there are 100 people here, after all) or rooms (you'll want rooms because they turn into buildings when you stick them together) to generate more capital. Using these buildings and teams to generate GP will not give you actual coins, but the value of the coins. Until you guys set up a mint or something.
Kingdom Building: This is a long way down the road, as you'll need to explore and prepare the site for settlement, which takes time, as well as lay out a few build points at 1000gp/BP. Yes, I've decided to coddle you like baby kittens and reduce the cost of a BP for a small kingdom (UC page 205). Still, it's a lot of cash in the circumstances.
I'm sure that's not everything, but it's a start.
Oh. The population of your little land:
The six of you.
Your friends and family:
Gwenydd Sandlock Female Halfling weaver/seamstress - wife of Ben Sandlock
Sira Female Halfling (3 year old)-Ben's Daughter
Walton Sandlock Male Halfling Fisherman/Sailor- Ben's younger brother
Shalla Female Halfling - Walton's Wife
Jos Male Halfling (5 year old)- one of Walton's twin boys.
Jak Male Halfling (5 year old)-the other twin
Bern Hearthseeker Gair's son At 16, Bern is newly a man and freshly blooded as a warrior.
Jarla Silverclasp - Vallen's sister
Deeshka, elderly halfling woman -a mother-figure for Cueta. She is currently sick and injured.
Horn'Tos is Kal'Tos' younger brother. He has recently become a journeyman smith and is eager to explore the world.
Sorala Tharn - Garrak's research partner and wife, a female half elf historian and linguist
80 as yet unnamed NPCs. Most of these are commoners, with a sprinkling of warriors and experts. They will be your fodder for building teams, and as you interact, many of them will eventually be identified as individuals.
Also:
Edmund Thayer - A haughty young Taldan Aristocrat
Sandra Thayer - His even haughtier younger sister
Ingwe Obuti - A grotesquely obese Mwangi half-orc adept
Cueta and Ben, in particular, have lost a lot of their NPCs. There is an excellent chance that they were on board the Harpy - the last of the other ships, that wrecked on the rocks some hours before the Lillend found safe harbor.
Kal'Tos checking in.
I would say our priorities right now are:
1. Secure a camp for our people.
2. Check the wreckage of the Harpy for survivors and additional supplies.
3. Explore the nearby area for a more permanent village site and to remove any extremely dangerous animals.
The first 2 can probably be accomplished concurrently with the PCs heading back to the ship, perhaps leaving one behind to organize the initial camp.
I second Kal'Tos's ideas.
I believe first priority is checking the Harpy for survivors and supplies, lest they get eaten by beasts on the shore.
Once this is done, we should send out scouts (our rangers? Parties of 3, each lead by a ranger?) to explore for a settlement site. Perhaps a bit past the shore towards the hills, into the drier forest.
I like the idea of someone staying behind to organize the camp. Anyone with strong leadership skills that might make people listen?
I am here. Definately need a secure camp. I have a wife and little one to worry about. Not sure if this is the best spot for a permanent settlement but it will do for something temporary.
So how do we know each other?. Those that sailed with the Laughing Lillend will know Ben and his family fairly well because they were running the galley. What about those that came over after the Kraken attack?
The wreck of the Harpy will be high on Ben's list he had family and friends on board and would like to know thier fate.
Ben's 100 downtime gp are 3 goods, and 2 labor
So Ben, you can stay behind to keep the temporary camp in order while the rest of us search for survivors and extra supplies?
I agree with the plan of action. I don't know if DM Nerk wants us to know each other yet or not.
My priorities:
1) Get a safe place set up for my friend Deeshka and then (metagaming here) meet the PCs, if we have not yet;
2) Check the Harpy for survivors
3) Get an inventory of who is in our group of settlers, what skills and needs they have
4) Scout nearby area and look for any potential threats to our survival.
All of this could be switched around as needed by everyone else.
@Vallen - I have OK Dip, Bluff and Sense Motive skills (+5 across the board). If no one else wants to, I'll try and get people organized, but would like to get to the Harpy first.
Oh yeah - and thanks for the acceptance, DM Nerk! I'm really looking forward to this game!
Everyone, what roles are you interested in filling as we go forward? I suppose this is nothing we need to figure out right away, but it would probably help me from stepping on anyone's toes.
DM Nerk, I assume that the usual kingdom building rules apply (especially that we have to have a ruler)?
For ease of reference:
- Ruler - highest ranking in the kingdom, needed to claim hexes, create farms, build roads, purchase settlement districts. Adds Cha mod to one kingdom attribute (economy, loyalty or stability).
- Consort - spouse of the ruler, represents ruler when ruler can't act. half cha mod to loyalty.
- Councilor - liaison between citizenry and other kingdom leaders. Cha or Wis mod to loyalty
- General - highest military leader. Cha or Str to Stability.
- Grand Diplomat - in charge of foreign policy. Cha or Int mod to Stability.
- Heir - ruler's progeny or significant advisor. Half Cha mod to Loyalty.
- High Priest - tends to religious needs and growth. Cha or Wis to Stability.
- Magister - guides higher learning and magic. Cha or Int mod to economy.
- Marshal - secures kingdom's borders and makes sure laws are enforced. Dex or Wis mod to economy.
- Royal Enforcer - punishes criminals, works with citizenry on legal issues, works with Marshal to apprehend criminals. Dex or Str to Loyalty.
- Spymaster - spies on other kingdoms and observes criminal underbelly of kingdom. Dex or Int mod to one attribute / turn.
- Treasurer - monitors state of kingdom's treasury and monitors businesses for fair play, taxes. Int or Wis mod to economy.
- Viceroy - ruler of colony or vassal state. Half Wis or Int to economy.
- Warden - enforcing laws in larger settlements, ensures safety of kingdom leaders.
Cueta could go towards councilor, general, grand diplomat, marshal, spymaster, treasurer, or warden. She could do ruler as well but it would take a while to get there - she doesn't view herself as a leader but rather a lieutenant.
Kal'Tos would be suited for either high priest or treasurer.
Ben's ambition is to build a place where halflings can really have a place and not be an after thought to the larger peoples civilization. Positions he would tend toward are Ruler, Councilor, Spymaster, and treasure.
From the map it looks to me like the wreck of the Harpy would be at least a day or two away by foot. with hexes being 12 miles across it is at least 30 miles by land from the landing.
Alright, I'll try to order my thoughts here :
- I think it's safe to assume we can know any of our current companions we want. After weeks on a ship, both becalmed and under assault, you tend to develop a rapport with those around you.
In this case I think I'd know Ben for sure and likely Ceuta as well, having traveled on the Lillend.
- I believe Ben is correct, getting to the wreck of the Harpy might be a challenge in and of itself. We should see if the Lillend will leave us a small boat we might use to travel the far safer waters of the bay and get out to the wreck easier?
- I'm not certain we actually need to leave one of our number with the camp when we depart. Our family and friends should be able to hold it down if we simply leave some instructions initially.
- I feel like taking our first day to explore the area immediately around out landing might be the best course. Finding survivors at the Harpy is a possible but uncertain while leaving the area unexplored presents a certain danger to those we know have made it safely.
- Gair would likely make a good Marshal or General
My initial assumption was that you would have all been on the Lillend from Absalom, and would have had the voyage to get acquainted. Some of your stories involved being on other ships that didn't make it and boarding the Lillend midway across the ocean, but you'd still have had a few days.
Let's assume that you've had the chance to meet, recognize one another as exceptional individuals, and talk a bit. Perhaps you could each offer a paragraph or two of what you'd have told the others? You could just refer to each other's profiles, of course, but some things may be secret.
Gair would seek to hide nothing of his purpose or past. My profile should provide anything you guys might wish to know.
I'm good with us all being acquainted, makes things far easier going forward.
So yes, how are the other settlers set up for initial supplies? have they tents and basic camp supplies?
Gair, the majority of the other NPCs pretty much have nothing other than a couple of tools and weapons. So much had to be jettisoned when the Golden Pegasus went down, to make room for survivors. The capital you have been given really represents everything that could be spared while still leaving the Lillend a fighting chance of making it back to Absalom. The three that I named do have some supplies.
Cueta, yes, the usual kingdom building rules apply, but again, founding a kingdom is a ways away.
Kal'Tos would have introduced himself to people as a priest of Abadar. He probably would have mentioned that he is here to help his brother make a new life in these strange lands.
Kal'Tos probably would have spent much of the voyage with his brother and speaking to the other cleric, Vallen on matters of faith.
the majority of the other NPCs pretty much have nothing other than a couple of tools and weapons. So much had to be jettisoned when the Golden Pegasus went down, to make room for survivors. The capital you have been given really represents everything that could be spared while still leaving the Lillend a fighting chance of making it back to Absalom. The three that I named do have some supplies.
Well that makes it interesting. since the NPCs don't have anything that makes salvaging what we can from the Harpy that much more important. Also I am thinking no matter who we leave in charge our haughty Taldan arristo's are gonna try to grab power.
I only asked how we would know each other because some people had backstories placing them on other ships.
Ben would have been open about his purposes for making the journey. I think he and Gair would have found common ground in that they had a similar purpose. Finding new homes for their people. As for the others good food brings people closer and no one does good food like halflings.
the majority of the other NPCs pretty much have nothing other than a couple of tools and weapons. So much had to be jettisoned when the Golden Pegasus went down, to make room for survivors. The capital you have been given really represents everything that could be spared while still leaving the Lillend a fighting chance of making it back to Absalom. The three that I named do have some supplies.Well that makes it interesting. since the NPCs don't have anything that makes salvaging what we can from the Harpy that much more important. Also I am thinking no matter who we leave in charge our haughty Taldan arristo's are gonna try to grab power.
I only asked how we would know each other because some people had backstories placing them on other ships.
Ben would have been open about his purposes for making the journey. I think he and Gair would have found common ground in that they had a similar purpose. Finding new homes for their people. As for the others good food brings people closer and no one does good food like halflings.
This is why I say the ship is one of our top priorities and why one person should stay behind to organize things. That person can get the warriors organized and begin scouting out a mile or 2 and getting a temporary camp established.
Ben: you should change to Profession: Cook if you're going to play the halfling card.
I agree that the ship is first priority - time may be short if there are any injured survivors.
DM Nerk, I have a question about Ingwe Obuti. Cueta would have talked with him on the Lillend - what is his personality? Does he seem trustworthy?
On the Lillend, Cueta would not hold much back, since she originally, until Deeshka's injuries made her decide to take their chances on the beach, intended to work her way back on the Lillend. The one thing that she would not mention is that she and Deeshka are escaped slaves - if pressed for details, she would lie and say that they purchased their freedom.
Ok, so couple questions :
Is the crew of the Lillend able to spare us one of their longboats so we might search the wreckage of the Harpy?
Secondly, I'm a little unsure of how to make use of the settlers. You mentioned using them to build teams. Do we need to pay for those teams or can we simply appropriate them to get our start? If we need to pay for them, then what are they others doing initially?
It seems like, aside from the 3 NPC's you mentioned there isn't any organization amongst the other survivors. Should we be doing the work of organizing say a group to fish the river, a group to search the beach, a group to collect firewood, ect. Or are they mostly going to be able to handle that sort of stuff on their own?
I guess my question is, are we organizing everything or simply the big stuff like construction projects and exploration?
Cueta, Ingwe seems a decent enough sort, despite being vain and pompous and full of his own importance. He claims to know a great many things, and he loves to talk, but you have noticed that he seems to have no idea what he's talking about.
Gair:
Teams, you need to pay for. The ones that you organize into teams will be working for you. The others will be working with one another in one way or another. Most will probably be dividing their time between trying to find food and create some kind of shelter. You may or may not be able to influence them to some degree.
As for the longboat, I'd say that the captain is friendly. How long did you want the longboat for?
Am I the only one who cannot get the map to load?
You have to sign in for the map to load but otherwise it works for me Kal'Tos.
Nerk, sounds good. We'd want the longboat for as long as it takes to row out to where the Harpy wrecked and search for survivors and salvage. How fast can we travel by boat and where is the Harpy located? Near the mouth of the bay?
Everyone else, what resources do we have available and what would be our first priority as far as buildings or teams?
Gair has 2 Goods and 3 Labor available.
It works now.
Kal'Tos and his brother brought 5 goods worth of stuff for establishing a smithy.
Gair: the Harpy wrecked several hours before you turned into the bay. You could attempt a Knowledge: Geography DC 12 or Nature 15 roll to try to guess where. It was in the midst of a storm, after all.
How long it would take you to row back along the coast to reach the spot? You would guess 2-4 days, barring incident?
Alright, that settles that then. It's not a matter of looking for survivors but one of collecting salvage sometime in future.
The Lillend is staying another week to effect repairs before heading back yes? Do they have any plans to look for the wreck?
Does exactly what the goods were originally earmarked for matter now Nerk?
Edit : With what we've learned I'd say our first priority should be to explore our present hex, identify dangers and locate a good site to set up camp. Any objections?
Vallen would have had at least these other interactions with the pcs:
To everyone, his outfit makes it obvious he's a priest at least.
Kal'Tos- As he indicated, the two would have spent quite some time together discussing their faiths and debating doctine. Vallen would be curious why a dwarf would follow Abadar, when the dwarves were created by Torag. He does not press the issue however, just sees it as odd. On the subject of stonemasonry Kal'Tos probably couldn't get him to stop talking. The two should have a healthy respect for each other.
Garrak- Vallen would have definitely mistaken Garrak as both a deck-hand and a full-blood orc at some point. This exchange would likely have been confusing on Vallen's part, and he would offer a half-hearted, suspicious apology. Doubtful they spoke again.
Cueta- Vallen went into brief shock after witnessing the destruction of the Golden Pegasus, having never witnessed such death before. It is unlikely he socialized much during that time- he may have seen Cueta, but did not approach her. Likely soon to meet her formally, because he's going to look for sick or injured people to help.
Gair- Similar to Cueta, it is doubtful either of them spoke on the ship, being in grief.
Ben Sandlock- Ben and Vallen would have met and spoken much due to frequent trips to the kitchen, both for food and to supply fresh water to the ship via Create Water. If anything were to spoil, he would have prayed to Torag to cleanse it via Purify food and drink. Vallen will be acquainted with his family, and likely spent time playing with Ben's daughter and the twins, telling them stories about HighHelm and drawing them pictures on his chalkboard.
It seems the wreckage is a bit out of reach for now. We can get a group together and explore the hex. Additionally, Vallen (or his sister..) would likely make a good treasurer. Torag is a dwarven diety, and not 100% suitable to a mixed population, unless they worshiped hard work and smithing.
With his focus on Community Torag isn't actually all that bad a choice for a non-dwarf's deity. After all, half of his clerics are human these days :P
I think a good question to ask at this point would be, do any of you not want to come on a scouting mission and instead stay behind with the settlers?
As far as spending resources, the key to independent society is self sufficiency. I say we conscript some of these settlers as craftspeople or laborers and set them to harvesting lumber as soon we we know where we are setting up shop.
I'm not sure how one would set up a lumber mill of sorts though. The rulesets seem to leave that sort of resource collection up to the kingdom building rules. From what I understand without a building you can't use a team to gather resources, yes? Or could we set a team of laborers or craftsmen to gathering lumber and have them make a capital check the same as we would ourselves? In that case would each member of the team make a check or would they make one check together? Would we need to hire a manager? If so, are there even any qualified people among the settlers and exactly how do we figure their wages if money isn't really a thing at the moment? We'll need to spend some time on gathering things to trade first, yes?
The more I look at this the more I'm unsure exactly how we'd go about setting up something like lumber harvesting from scratch under the downtime rules, think you could help me out Nerk?
As I understand the downtime rules, you can have a team without a building. To have a team or a building however, you need to spend capital. To earn capital, you need to spend time (and gold). So, first we need to make checks to earn gold, or find the gold another way. To make the checks, we should probably talk to the aristocrats about what they need and then charge them for it. Or find some gold somewhere, in the more traditional adventuring sense, and then use it to earn capital with a skill check, or outright buy the capital (at twice the gold cost).
I don't think you need a manager (iirc), as long as you spend x amount of time managing a team or building yourself. So to simplify things probably a bit, if I understand the rules:
1) Find gold (adventure) or earn it with skill checks (10% of a skill check, so a craft(carpentry) check of 15 earns 1.5 gp).
2) Spend gold at the bought rate or at the earned rate (which is half the bought rate) with a skill check to gain capital.
3) Spend capital on a building(s) or team(s).
4) Profit (from buildings or teams, in terms of more gold and/or capital, depending on the building/team type.
Probably good buildings to first build would be houses. Good teams, lumberjacks, carpenters, guards, farmers, fishers, hunters.
I'd say houses are actually somewhat down the list, tents inside a row of steaks or a palisade wall should hold out till we have the production to set aside for actual dwellings.
Yeah, I know you don't technically need managers but I think there's a lot we PC's might be doing other than playing lumberjack, at least for the first little bit.
Could our NPC's work in such a role?
Oh and lastly, I was wondering how we are going to handle EXP in this campaign?
I'm down with scouting - I'm going to get my character there (talking with everyone in the narrative thread) asap.
As far as roles down the line go, we have:
ruler: Ben,
councilor: Ben, Cueta
Spymaster: Ben, Cueta
Treasurer: Ben,Vallen, Kal'Tos, Cueta
Marshal: Gair, Cueta
General: Gair, Cueta
High Priest: Kal'Tos
Grand Diplomat: Cueta
Regarding the other PCs: Cueta would be impressed with Gair's fighting on the Golden Pegasus.
She would have met with Ben and his people and discussed Deeshka with them, as Cueta has a lot of experience working alonside halflings in Cheliax (and appreciates them greatly as a people).
As mentioned above, she'd know of the others by now, and will be meeting them formally soon...
So it would seem priorities then are find a permanent location, build a wooden wall, then search for the wreckage of the ship. Does that initial plan work for everyone?
With his focus on Community Torag isn't actually all that bad a choice for a non-dwarf's deity. After all, half of his clerics are human these days :P
Good point! Forgot about the community bit.
Did someone say building? Let me at that wooden palisade. We're going to head up the river yes?
Fair warning, it's going to take a few days to get this all running smoothly. There are a lot of systems that I'm using for the first time, and a lot of questions, and a lot of little kinks that have to get worked out. It's going to be a lot of fun, but I just want to pre-appreciate your patience.
@ Cueta: The way I read the downtime rules, when you earn capital, you still have to pay for it (half price, compared to just buying it outright), but once you have it, you don't pay to use it. So you don't need gold to use the capital that you have from character creation, unless the room or team you're building requires gold.
re Teams and buildings:
Combining Rooms and Teams: This system allows you to construct a building that has no workers, create an organization that has no base of operations, or combine the two to make a fully staffed building or an organization with a headquarters. For example, if you build a Temple and recruit Acolytes in that settlement, you can have the Acolytes work at your temple. If the Temple has a place for the Acolytes to sleep, they can even live there. If you later want the Acolytes to go somewhere else or disperse, you still have the Temple and can use it for whatever purpose you see fit.
As far as lumbermills and so on, I'm not going to be too nitpicky about that sort of thing. Somebody has an axe, you can cut wood. You can build the things that you want to build, as long as you can build them mechanically. If your goods are steel ingots, and you want to build a wooden fence, you just traded your steel ingots to that guy who's been doing nothing but cutting fenceposts since you landed.
Food: is a concern that I haven't really addressed yet. While the Lillend is making repairs, everyone can eat without worrying about it. In a week, when they leave, you're on your own. The way I figure it, of everyone who's not working on something else (teams engaged in producing capital, etc), about half will be actively foraging. Half might seem like a pretty low number considering the option is starvation, but when you read accounts of early colonies, it's amazing how many people starved to death in the midst of plenty because they couldn't be bothered to get food. This number can be increased by making a diplomacy, bluff or intimidate check by any PCs in the base camp that day, by 1 forager per 5 points on your check. The colony as a whole will make two d20 survival rolls, at +2 for every person actively foraging, with the usual results (every two points over 10=one person fed for the day). However, for every day the same hex is foraged in, there will be a cumulative -1 penalty on these rolls, as the good stuff is picked over.
Farms: A lot more people have profession: farmer than survival. Getting them to start farming before they have a roof over their head will be tricky, but once they feel secure, they'll start planting and tilling as best they can under the circumstances.
Most all of this is just the way I see it working, trying to balance simplicity and real danger. I welcome your thoughts, questions, comments. I'm sure there's a lot I haven't thought of.
Not to worry, this is a big undertaking so I'm more than willing to cut some slack when it comes to hammering out the details!
That's half the reason I wanted to start by exploring, it gives us stuff to do while we sort out how all this is going to work.
You had mentioned earlier during recruitment that gathering resources here was going to be more efficient in terms of value, generally because under our circumstances, everything is more valuable at the start. This only applies to crafting yes?
It looks like we had best use out starting capital wisely as gaining more will be very slow going early on unless we find can find some treasure exploring.
Oh I was still curious, are our NPC's able to function as managers of a sort? If I got some laborers with my capital would Bern be able to set them to work harvesting lumber?
For that matter, can we bring out NPC's with us scouting? I'm just trying to get a feel for how we might make us of them?
I assume that if we have PCs leading the foraging or going hunting that we will increase the chances of success in feeding people.
As for getting stuff done, once we have a palisade up, we should probably get one large building built, for now it can shelter women and children and later be used as a headquarters. A multi-story watchtower should probably be fairly high on the list. I would say for now we want about 50/50 split between establishing our base and gathering food. people with people with actual weapons training should be divided between groups for now.
@ Gair: XP is going to be pretty standard. You'll get standard experience for encounters dealt with*, for exploration and for various things in kingdom building, as recommended in the relevant sections of UC. At this point, I'm going to see how that works. I thought about story awards for building your colony up, but survival is its own reward. Also, all your buildings generate events, which generate encounters, which leads to xp.
*I've always preferred dealt with to defeated. You shouldn't get xp for murdering unarmed commoners, but on the flip side of the coin, you shouldn't be penalized for not fighting a dangerous encounter. I tend to assign partial to full xp for that kind of encounter, depending on the amount of risk and how well things are roleplayed.
Thank you for explaining things Nerk. Take your time working out the systems.
For Day One it appears we're going to explore the hex, or go upriver. This would put us out of contact with the rest of the settlers, and prevent further downtime activity yes? We seem to be leaving for scouting immediately, no time to form teams either?
Sounds good to me. On the topic of organizing the settlers, attaching the armed men to different parties, and the like. That stuff can be attained by making checks to help organize the camp, yes? We don't need to say spend resources to conscript the armed men as guards first? Though that would of course be more effective once we have the resources to do it?
@Vallen, while I suppose we could wait to start teams now, I think that can wait till tomorrow once we have some idea where we're setting up. Use day one to get our bearings, no?
@ Cueta: The way I read the downtime rules, when you earn capital, you still have to pay for it (half price, compared to just buying it outright), but once you have it, you don't pay to use it. So you don't need gold to use the capital that you have from character creation, unless the room or team you're building requires gold.
Thanks, DM Nerk. That is my understanding too, unless you want to outright buy a building or team, in which you pay gold? I suppose that is not really an option for us yet, however. So it is basically, 1) earn or find money to add to skill checks to create capital and then 2) spend capital to build teams and buildings.
One thing I think we should do after establishing our base of operations is make the salvage of the Harpy priority #2. It was common practice in the Mississippi Valley to break up flatboats when they reached New Orleans from places north, and turn those boats into housing, etc. There could be a lot of good salvage material on the Harpy.
In addition, we only have one week from the onset of our exploring to use the longboat. If the Harpy is 2 - 4 days away, that is 1 or 2 trips out to the Harpy while we have use of the longboat. I think if we spend days 1 and maybe 2 exploring, and build a raft on day 3 (I would think this wouldn't take much longer with a good craft roll, but I'm travelling for work at the moment so don't have all of my books with me, and am not sure if this could be done or not), we still may get two full trips for salvage, if the Harpy is two days away, and increase our salvaged materials substantially. In addition to building supplies, there may be weapons, food, medicine, and survivors. Either way, we probably have 5 or 6 days max to maximize our salvaging before we lose our longboat.
@ Cueta: The way I read the downtime rules, when you earn capital, you still have to pay for it (half price, compared to just buying it outright), but once you have it, you don't pay to use it. So you don't need gold to use the capital that you have from character creation, unless the room or team you're building requires gold.
Thanks, DM Nerk. That is my understanding too, unless you want to outright buy a building or team, in which you pay gold? I suppose that is not really an option for us yet, however. So it is basically, 1) earn or find money to add to skill checks to create capital and then 2) spend capital to build teams and buildings.
One thing I think we should do after establishing our base of operations is make the salvage of the Harpy priority #2. It was common practice in the Mississippi Valley to break up flatboats when they reached New Orleans from places north, and turn those boats into housing, etc. There could be a lot of good salvage material on the Harpy.
In addition, we only have one week from the onset of our exploring to use the longboat. If the Harpy is 2 - 4 days away, that is 1 or 2 trips out to the Harpy while we have use of the longboat. I think if we spend days 1 and maybe 2 exploring, and build a raft on day 3 (I would think this wouldn't take much longer with a good craft roll, but I'm travelling for work at the moment so don't have all of my books with me, and am not sure if this could be done or not), we still may get two full trips for salvage, if the Harpy is two days away, and increase our salvaged materials substantially. In addition to building supplies, there may be weapons, food, medicine, and survivors. Either way, we probably have 5 or 6 days max to maximize our salvaging before we lose our longboat.
Once we get everyone to the base location we can leave PCS to start on the palisade while we head to the wreck. To me our best bet would be to take the longboat there then transport the supplies to shore and figure out how we are going to get them back after. If we get lucky we may even salvage additional longboats.
I think if we spend days 1 and maybe 2 exploring, and build a raft on day 3
I second this. Salvaging the Harpy should happen after we explore the landing hex and get all of the settlers to a relatively safe place. Vallen and one or two others stay behind with the settlers while three or four others go to salvage. Vallen can begin making woodcutting tools and shovels (blacksmithing, maybe there is a charcoal maker in this lot so he doesn't have to cold forge) and planning the palisades (architecture/engineering).
Someone else should direct hunting/gathering, and another potential farming spots.
I think if we spend days 1 and maybe 2 exploring, and build a raft on day 3I second this. Salvaging the Harpy should happen after we explore the landing hex and get all of the settlers to a relatively safe place. Vallen and one or two others stay behind with the settlers while three or four others go to salvage. Vallen can begin making woodcutting tools and shovels (blacksmithing, maybe there is a charcoal maker in this lot so he doesn't have to cold forge) and planning the palisades (architecture/engineering).
Someone else should direct hunting/gathering, and another potential farming spots.
Talk to Horn'Tos he is a blacksmith and should be willing to help, he also has 5 goods worth of stuff for establishing a smithy.
Once we get everyone to the base location we can leave PCS to start on the palisade while we head to the wreck. To me our best bet would be to take the longboat there then transport...
Kal'Tos that is a great point. If there is shore nearby (and there seems to be), we could dump everything we can on land. Much better than making one or two round trips to the campsite!
@DM Nerk, I'm off to deal with a couple of work things, and should be able to check in later tonight. If things with the exploration get rolling, please feel free to roll for me.
The wreck of the Harpy could have a long boat on it. The ship broke up on the rocks but if it didn't break into too many peices then the longboat may still be in its place. Also some of the food and other goods the Harpy was carrying (like tents) could still be there.
I just had a thought. Nerk, which of my other NPCs might have been on the Harpy. They are all family and friends so knowing they were there and might be hurt or dead would be something Ben would be worrying about. Unless they were on the ships that were lost to the Kraken and were picked up afterwards. Though in this case Ben still would have made an effort to find out if they were saved.
Excellent, making the Harpy our next priority was my thinking as well. That's why I've been so interested in having NPC's managing some of the initial team building and harvesting!
I'm not actually certain if Nerk meant 2-4 days as a round trip or one-way? Hopefully round trip though.
I think it's an excellent idea to simply move as much of the supplies as possible to the shore so that we might collect them later. With luck we'll find a seaworthy longboat of our own as well!
Though I have to say, while he sees the importance of the trip, Gair is not especially eager to be back on the water.
So by the exploration rules, exploring a forest hex takes 3 days as the dwarf walks. Are we able to split the hex into 3rds? Start by taking today and explore the 3rd we landed in?
While we're just setting out.
Since we're already moving at 20ft, do we want to cut it to 15 instead?
This would allow Ceuta, Kal'Tos and myself to actively forage while we go. I'd say that between the three of us we should be able to make it back to camp with a half decent amount of food. Garak is also trained in survival, no? We'll still cover about 25 square miles, say 3 to either side of out landing point and 4 into the forest?
Any objections?
Ben also has a rank is survival and could help with foraging.