As You Command OOC

[MrAbdiel]

I think at least a breif little downtime is in order. If they're going to take off and not bother us, I can issue some 'orders' to the court and introduce my cohort?

[MrAbdiel]

Can't sleep, might as well post!

My soon-to-be cohort, Aiyenaira.

Spoiler: Quick AI Generated Concept Art

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Cliff notes: She's a Sorcerer/Shugenja/Mystic Theurge. I'm focusing her on 'kingdom building' bolstering the food and water supply and, with her Lyre of Building, dramatically accelerating our constructive power for arrivals, for repairing the castle, and for establishing that saltpetre mine.

She's a creepy cult woman whom I hope, later, to be performing sacrifices in the basement for item crafting XP.

[MrAbdiel]

Forgot to put this in the last post:

Spoiler: OOC: What's Going On

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Aiyenaira is using her Lyre of Building.

The lyre is also useful with respect to building. Once a week its strings can be strummed so as to produce chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. The effect produced in but 30 minutes of playing is equal to the work of 100 humans laboring for three days. Each hour after the first, a character playing the lyre must make a DC 18 Perform (string instruments) check. If it fails, she must stop and cannot play the lyre again for this purpose until a week has passed.

She's using the limited materials available to make dug-out houses for the recent arrivals (and anyone else who comes to her while she's playing, whom she can reasonably reach to help.)

Given that every hour of play is equal to 600 man-days of work, it's extremely efficient. If she finishes the simple dwellings for people - and maybe an underground shrine, a couple of cisterns communal space, and a small in-ground amphitheatre with drainage so it doesn't become a pond when it rains - She'll head back to the wharf and use the materials available to create a higher quality, more orderly dock for ships rather than the slipshod and decrepit one I've been picturing.

I expect that the limiting factor for this first week will be resources. If all that gets sorted out, she'll wander the island for a bit, levelling out ground for small batch farming near the houses and connecting the settlements with packed earth roads.

In case it takes more than an hour, DC18: StringInstrumentPerform - (1d20+15)[28]

[Dusk Raven]

I am, as ever, singularly impressed with the utility and power of magic items in D&D 3.5. This is the kind of thing that isn't directly useful in combat, but in terms of convenience - and options opened to one with creativity - it's insane.

[MrAbdiel]

I am, as ever, singularly impressed with the utility and power of magic items in D&D 3.5. This is the kind of thing that isn't directly useful in combat, but in terms of convenience - and options opened to one with creativity - it's insane.

No joke! And I've always wanted to use the Lyre of Building; and this is the perfect campaign for it.

I do intend to try not to provoke the wrath of the DM, so I maximize the limitations as far as they can be read into the description since that seems fair to me.

E.g., the item very generously says that it produces chords that magically construct buildings, mines, tunnels, ditches, or whatever. That's a very big whatever. One can build many things on that whatever. Ships come to mind, but I think the conservative approach is to notice that the examples listed are the kinds of things that one could establish without a Craft skill, and Craft: Shipwright does exist. So perhaps drydocks could be built for ships; if we're well resourced enough, maybe we could bang out our own Venetian Armory and start pumping out warships on assembly line. But not yet!

Second limitation I self-impose is that it's reasonable to expect more complex constructions expect some form of mastery and direction, so I made sure to max her Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering. If we bring her with us one day to rapidly build a bridge across a raging river, I don't want it folding under our army because she has a child's understanding of construction!

And finally, the big one for our island, is resources. The item description seems to suggest what it supplies is the labor, but not the materiel; and the amount of labor that 600 men could produce in a day being marshalled in an hour demands a massive stockpile of building materials. As of now, I don't think we have a quarry on this little island, and I think we're likely to strip it bare of lumber if we go crazy. We might need to establish allies and start trading, depending on how much JBE wants to handle that kind of stuff.

I'm hoping we'll be able to find some marine clay on the island and build some clay pits. (historically marine clay has had issues as a construction material without certain admixtures, but we just got an alchemist so hooray). Then we can start having people making and baking clay bricks and people can have brick houses and infrastructure. We can probably repair much of the castle with just what's there in it, but it'll need a bunch of hardwoods, stone, and iron for sure.

Also, by her next level, she'll be able to cast Plant Growth to boost our crop yield. And presently, she can take 20 on her Sense Element rolls to determine the composition of earth and water within 25 feet of her, so she's going to be doing some ground surveys looking for clay and quarriable stone!

JBE, I think we might have talked about it a long time ago, but did you want to use something like the 3.0 kingdom building supplement, or just eyeball it as we go?

[MrAbdiel]

Fooling around with Bing! image creator and I'm looking forward to the Manga version of our adventure though I think I will prefer the original campaign. :)

Spoiler: Lol. Lmao even.

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AI art creators struggle really badly when you get past one or two figures. They do fine with "dark paladin in black spiked armor" but struggle when you say "full face porcelain mask" because they forget who you told them to put it on, and then suddenly Maiabel is a little elf chibi wearing a covid mask for some reason, or it's added random new characters I didn't ask for. But still!

Also I am sure the 'Japanese' text is gibberish. Probably like if you asked a native speaker to write "Dark Miracle" then blindfolding him and spun him around a few times.

[Darius Vibrtrar]

Ngl, that looks amazing. I am thoroughly impressed

[Waistcoatwill]

What an amazing nation-building minion!

[Waistcoatwill]

How gentle does Lamorak want them to be? Cyoher has some nasty spells available for interrogating people.

[MrAbdiel]

He trusts Cypher completely for such a purpose. Use your best judgement.

[MrAbdiel]

He trusts Cypher completely for such a purpose. Use your best judgement.

On reflection, only caveat being, if possible, leave something for the others to ask! Maybe hold off on casting “Scoop Brain” until Maiabel and Sharkan have satisfied their efforts.

[Waistcoatwill]

Mind poison is the opening gambit, just to lower defences and make the interrogatee feel awful. 2d10 wisdom damage. I'll let them have a crack first, I imagine he's done it at least once before.

[Dusk Raven]

As far as those pictures go, I think my favorites are the first and last, as they seem to have the most "all-round" accuracy, not getting anyone too wrong. Lamorak looks particularly badass in the last one - though in the first one, it's actually sort of surprising to see him look like a normal anime protagonist.

Also, clearly the extra characters are people we just haven't met yet!

Meanwhile, Maiabel's player needs to stop being what Maiabel herself is not - lazy.

EDIT: Maiabel can find out the magic properties of magic weapons and armor, as it turns out - Swordsage feature. Otherwise, my contribution to the interrogation will have to involve me finding a divine spell that will help - and I guarantee that Maiabel wouldn't have prepared it that morning, so that'll have to wait until the next day.

[Waistcoatwill]

Sorry I'm being quote slow, trapped in a cycle of one child getting ill and giving it to the other. Blooming nurseries, disgusting places!

[Waistcoatwill]

Don't worry about giving us every details of her life story, hopes, dreams dark secrets, gut that is what Cypher is going for. He attempts to cross reference everything she says and trip her up on multiple occasions.

[MrAbdiel]

As far as those pictures go, I think my favorites are the first and last, as they seem to have the most "all-round" accuracy, not getting anyone too wrong. Lamorak looks particularly badass in the last one - though in the first one, it's actually sort of surprising to see him look like a normal anime protagonist.

Also, clearly the extra characters are people we just haven't met yet!

Meanwhile, Maiabel's player needs to stop being what Maiabel herself is not - lazy.

EDIT: Maiabel can find out the magic properties of magic weapons and armor, as it turns out - Swordsage feature. Otherwise, my contribution to the interrogation will have to involve me finding a divine spell that will help - and I guarantee that Maiabel wouldn't have prepared it that morning, so that'll have to wait until the next day.

Yeah, he looks like a protagonist in the first one, and an end-game antagonist in the last one! It would be a very dark Shonen series indeed. Although... Having one 'animal' character, too, is pretty par for the course in the genre. Maybe I need to write this up as a netflix original pitch... Hah!

I kind of feel bad for the AI trying to understand what I meant by Maiabel as a "maid/assassin", and to randomly satisfy my requirement for her to be wearing a mask. If we get to level 20 some day, I'll commission a genuine group portrait from an artist with a carbon based brain!

Sorry I'm being quote slow, trapped in a cycle of one child getting ill and giving it to the other. Blooming nurseries, disgusting places!

No worries mate, that's just how it is. The ol' contagion carousel.

Don't worry about giving us every details of her life story, hopes, dreams dark secrets, gut that is what Cypher is going for. He attempts to cross reference everything she says and trip her up on multiple occasions.

Hah, well, I'll give you a bunch. But spoiler: I am not planning on betraying myself with the actions of my cohort, so Cypher will learn at least that much! :D

(1d20+5)[25] save against the mind reading, for the sake of completion.

Edit: Steel Trap Mind! Ahahaha.. cinematic. She'd have passed even if you did scoop her brain!

Edit Edit: Passed the Insidious Insight check in my roller thread too, just trying not to clutter up the thread. An 18 on the dice!

[MrAbdiel]

You know, I didn't realize Sha'ir was a class. It's from dragon, and it serves me better than Sorcerer (slightly). Since she hasn't really done anything, do you mind, JBE, if I quickly rebuild Aiyenaira as a Sha'ir/Shugenja Mystic Theurge? It's really just swapping out the one level of sorcerer, losing the ability to cast sorcerer spells at will, and gaining the ability to cast a broader set of spells with out-of-combat wait times.

[Waistcoatwill]

Bah! That's why he would normally use mind poison first, but 2d10 wisdom damage would be pretty inconvenient for her to take.

[Dusk Raven]

I feel like I should post, but Maiabel doesn't have much judgement to make at the moment.

[MrAbdiel]

No worries, Dusk Raven; Maiabel seems the kind to judiciously reserve judgement. That scene seems to be just about done, for now.

Also:

Checking in that I am still here! Distracted by WoW for a bit, but juggling.

JBE, any thoughts in my question above ^ visavis Sha'ir?

[Waistcoatwill]

Good idea to check in, I'm still here too!

[Darius Vibrtrar]

Meow. Meow meow. Meow.

[MrAbdiel]

Update: I'm also here still. I somehow wound up making myself the Discord Admin for the RP community of a WoW server and I allowed that to consume my attention for a while but I'm still here.

I guess it's time to start thinking about our next move. Our rescued people settling in, and we have an unspecified amount of time until the elves respond with some kind of attack for our temerity to rebuke them and take their sailin' slaves.

I think we might need to expand our effectiveness as a combat team. I'm thinking we need to get our hands on a few armor augment Crystals of Aquatic Action. The best ones are 3000 a pop, which remove all combat penalties and give water breathing, but the medium ones are 1000 and give you a swim speed. I see a lot of fighting in water in our future - fighting coral golems under ship hulls for example - so getting some big long term solution to engaging in that environment might be worth an adventure even if it's just a cash run.

Maybe we can heist a treasure galleon for a boost of cashish?

[Waistcoatwill]

That sounds good, we don't want to annoy the pirates though Reaching out to them might be another good next step.

[JbeJ275]

If you want quick cash there are three options at hand

1: The dwarf holds of the Eastern Coast send convoys of precious and worked metals by ship to the beastclans, returned by slow payment in food througout the year. Seizing it all in one would be a mighty bounty.
2: The lost cities of the ancient empire were scattered in a great cataclysm, but the artefacts they hold are valuble. Occasionally, sites rise temporarily above the water level, though they tend to sink back down just as soon.
3: The elves themselves have their own mines for precious spellcasting compments, you could double down on offending them and take their own tools. Though outside the city them make less use of golems as guardians and more use of savage monsters warped by and tamed with magic.

[Dusk Raven]

Hmm... option 2 means we don't offend anyone. Are these lost cities defended, or is the ocean going to be our biggest threat? If the latter, then between Cypher and Maiabel, we should have enough spells to ensure that even the ocean won't hinder us too much. The tricky part, of course, is finding one of these cities once it emerges - and possibly dealing with others who have come to plunder it as well.

Other than that, option 3 seems like a good second, especially since it antagonizes the people we've already antagonized. Speaking of which, do you think the elves have figured out it was us who pulled that prison break?

[Darius Vibrtrar]

If we can create a surplus of food, we can steal the business for the dwarves. And then we have a steady gold for food trade coming in.

[JbeJ275]

If we can create a surplus of food, we can steal the business for the dwarves. And then we have a steady gold for food trade coming in.

To be fair, it’s not just surplus. The beastclans are an entire kingdom on some of the best grazing and grain growing land on the continent. If you can compare with their export capacity than this dwarf trade is not your top priority.

[JbeJ275]

Hmm... option 2 means we don't offend anyone. Are these lost cities defended, or is the ocean going to be our biggest threat? If the latter, then between Cypher and Maiabel, we should have enough spells to ensure that even the ocean won't hinder us too much. The tricky part, of course, is finding one of these cities once it emerges - and possibly dealing with others who have come to plunder it as well.

Other than that, option 3 seems like a good second, especially since it antagonizes the people we've already antagonized. Speaking of which, do you think the elves have figured out it was us who pulled that prison break?

The twisted magic of the old empire can create some pretty nasty effects when left to moulder for a while, including warping local creatures. That and other looters will likely be your biggest concern.

[Waistcoatwill]

Love option 2, Cypher's knowledge shenanigans may help find one.

As much as Cypher would enjoy thwarting the beast clans, the dwarfs seen like a poor enemy to make so soon. So option 3 would be my backup option. The lack of golems would be nice.