Editing Fifty/text


Have a look at the big map. As you can see Kiera is almost directly north. Plain sailing across open sea where there the only likley encounter (once clear of the Savage Sea) would be a storm. 



You know that Kiera is a bustling metropolis --the largest in this world--built on several tiers with the palaces, etc on top. Two 'poor' tiers are already underwater. New docks have been established that bustle with trade. Iron ships from the Cloaker mines, timber  from the east of the island, produce from every corner of Caribdus. 



As you cross the ocean to Kiera, do you develop a plan as to how you will present yourself at the docks? Without a Super you will have to pay extorniate -30%-tarrifs on imports, but at least these will be the 




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A friend and I were looking at some art produced by Erol Otus, in particular this pic: 

We thought about running a D&D-ish game that evoked the art’s  mood (exotic, wacky, humorous, alien) more than our usual generic Tolkio-medieval settings. We figured some simple but strong setting/system  choices might help conjure the feel. We arrived at:  
*Names: humorous, high fantasy, over the top like Zargoth, Torlak-Ka, Meera the Green Wizard, etc.
*Dangerous gameplay: low-level Pathfinder level 1-6 trajectory 
*patron mechanic borrowed from Traveller; party is offered work by dubious patrons like wizards, merchants often with a dubious purpose and a propensity to double cross. Purpose to elicit some dark humour
*Culture setting: Ancient (Mesopotamia? Eqypt?)  as well as med Europe vibe. We thought—caste system founded by a LN rather than LG Law Giver. Satirically rigid society (pompous Priest class, self-serving Wizards, etc).
*Physical setting like Anatolia: sunbaked cities but also howling forests, steppe and bone-chilling cold uplands. Extra moons , long day/ night lengths for an alien feel. 
*An otherwise typical adventure premise: characters  are free Wanderer caste mercs in search of their fortune. Parties fill the wide gap between scare Holy caste warriors, and inept Farmer caste  militia. Hired by patrons to destroy ghoul and Deep One cults, steppe gnolls, ogres, minotaurs. 
*Classes that tie into the  aforementioned six Castes: “Holy” caste clerics at the top;  "Experts" like wizards , scribes next down; most adventurers belonging to a fairly overlooked "Wanderer" caste that gives them the right to wander the land 


Anyone interested in this  slightly alt setting wrapping an otherwise pretty standard pathfinder type game?   Looking for good posts, pretty regular (daily ? can negotiate ) post rate, good communication . Esp. willingness to  make an  effort with the setting  ( e.g. using currency names, avoiding ‘inappropriate’ class labels like  ‘Bard’ or ‘Paladin’ when IC). 
Oh-usual housekeeping rules too.  Players keep track of own hps, spells, money. Post character info on-site (when ready) not with off-site link. Record name, AC, hps at post head.  Use ooc blocks when IC.

More setting notes  (if you are interested): 

More on the classes:

*The world has six Castes: 
**“Holy” Priests, itinerant ‘Judges’ [=bad-ass wandering Clerics]
**“Expert” scribes, wizards [=Wizards], some highly skilled trades
**“Farmer”  landed farmers  
**“Wanderer” Magicians [=Bards], slayers [=licensed Fighters, Rangers, Rogues] , Ghoul-Hunters [rascal Clerics], merchants, sailors 
**“Drudge” labourers, urban rabble 
**“Outlaw” Bandits, convicts [=Rogue], heterodox wisefolk [=Druids, Witches, etc]


Judges:  [=Clerics]  well -meaning but harsh, itinerant dispensers of stern justice. Possibly chariot-borne? Wear fearsome helms, shields  and hammers. 

Wizards [=Wizards] self-serving, shrewd magic-peddlers belonging to rival guilds, sell expensive scrolls and potions 

Magicians: [=Bard] reskinned bard class-street magicians, storytellers, etc 

Slayers: [Fighter, Ranger] mercenaries dealing with low level threats 

Ghoul-hunter: [Cleric] paid scoundrels using religious scrolls, paraphernalia for profit rather than virtue.  

Witches: [Druids, sorcerers, etc] underground users of the Old magic- 

Players could pick archetypes to build these; avoid using class names where these don’t fit 

Other classes possible, obv. Typical parties have Slayers and Ghoul-Hunters, hired usually by a Wizard but possibly a Judge. Unscrupulous parties carry Outlaw members

Enemies: ghouls are the most common type of undead, steppe-dwelling gnolls, minotuars, lammasu, dragons

Gear: OTT high fantasy winged helmets, long beards, robes. Add to intimidate and persuade rolls.  

Currency: iron bolts instead of gps. 

Fiction points: awarded for humorous or evocative gameplay 

Bronze age gear: wooden cups,copper and bronze utensils . Chariots rather than horses. 

Weapons and armour : full range available but most found will be lameller armour, spears, kukri-like crescent daggers

Races: humans, maybe non-Tolkien races like goblins or reskinned others. 


Patron system from traveller e.d wizard hires party to recover a magic item from dangerous ruin. 1- wizard is a ghoul agent seeks to trap party 2. Wizard mistaken that item is present 3. Ruins more dangerous than claimed  4. Ruins have additional 5. Quest exactly as claimed 6. An easy quest - another party has cleared the ghouls but not the item. 







*Priests-law makers and ceremony performers: above the law
*Judges-clerics on chariots , elect a Judge King
*retainers -temple guards, judge servants, scribes, officials
*guilders- artisans, wizards, slayers and merchants
*farmers: form the bulk of the army 
*drudges, have guaranteed rights, some might be entertainers, thugs or landlords
*Wards-pows, convicts

*Outlaws, below the castes


*Ziggurats, obelises inscribed with the laws and castes
*turkey-sun baked coasts, chilly mountains, forested uplands, steppe
*three day nights, 
*ghouls, live in dungeons 


*Taverns are Grapes of Bacchus, Golden Lute, The Monkape
*the o has three kieran bodyguards -gladiators. Same stats but all three wild cards with one trick
*has palace, temple of the elements, country house, 
* goes to the arena, has his own box.
*goes to symposia, visits other nobles to dine

* could be killed on the street
*could invite him to see the goods- ignt send an agent first to check
*could catch him in public place eg the temple or stadium
*could raid one of these places 
*wears a ward-sign of Chrmos, reduces wounds but two


Tressa will advise pretending to be colonists who were given the AES gear by Ugaks. Want some poe for the stuff.

Offers all her magic items:


Must reserve some items in case the assassination fails. But will give TWO of the following: 

*Cap of the Five Oceans. Gives a ship's captain a +1 on boating rolls.
*Symposium Cup. Once only (per owner?) wine drunk from it increases Smarts /CK/Science, etc by 2 die for an hour
*Blade of the Champion Gladiator. Increases fighting by one die when used. 
*Lens of Daedaelus: a telescope that allows amazing magnification and has other unknown minor affects
*Flask of Roc Blood: allows flying for 1 hour. Has three drafts.
*Indulgency of Athena: reading the prayer gives the owner a free permanent Edge. Scroll crumbles of course.





Everything stands in the RAW account regardng the causes of Caribdus' drowning, BUT only as the version believed by the majority of Caribdeans. The truth: 
*Years earlier, bored members of Caribdus' Council of Arch-Elementalists began magical experiments to view other worlds, especially Earth as the closest to Caribdus in the Tree of Worlds. The Oracle of Xanthos was the leader of the experimenters.   
*seeing the beginnings of science beyond their own, the jealous Council planned to 'gate' in lost (therefore magically 'spare') Earth mariners USING A TUNNEL THAT LINKED THE WORLDS' OCEANS VIA THE PLANE OF WATER 
*They opened the gate in Ograpog Bay, in view of the capital's folk so as to surprise and impress them 
*The gate opened, the tunnel collapsed, water exploded in from the Plane of Water, drowning Ograpog. Terrified earth mariners arrived one by one through the drowned gate, dubbing it "the Devils Cross". Many died in the whirling Flotsam Sea
*the Council covered up, scapegoating three sisters who had been drowned in Ograpog Bay at nearly the same time.The Oracle, twisted survivors' confused memories: the three daughters of the victorious War Archon had learned Ugak Black Magic, killed their father, cursed Ograpog and later risen as giants. In reality their only crime had been to perform a forbidden ugak dance to protest Ograpog's cruel slaughter on Torath Ka 
*Someone--perhaps the ancient octopons-- called on the inter-dimensional Furies/ Erinyes to wreak vengeance on the destroyers. The trio appeared to sea-going Ograpogans as the Sea Hags, the Ugaks as the Flyers, the Octopons as the Sea Queens, etc. 
*To try to eliminate their pursuers, the cunning Oracle persuaded the Ograpogan fleet to attack the Sea Hags. The hags, freshly summoned and powerful, scattered the fleet and pursued Council survivors across Caribdus in their various guises. As their power waned, the Furies summoned the ghost of BB to help in the hunt 
*Now only two Council members survive: Tressa and the Oracle. Tressa is innocent , having opposed the gate experiment. But if the guilty Oracle dies, the gate --which is keyed to the summoners' life force--will slowly close. 
*Even though her death is unnecessary, Tressa blames herself for permitting the experiment and plans to drink poison once the Quest is completed. 




strange  tree marks 
a  standing stone  radiating dread

a boneyard, site of a cannibal atrocity
valuble item disappears (lose item) 
a ghost village-shadowy forms visible in huts (unlucky) 
 
shadow(s) glimpsed following the party (unwelocme presence) 
item reappears  (cursed iteM0
disorientation-whihc way forward (party loses time)
bickering with the party              (bad blood between ywo party emmebrs)
shadow enters a party memeber              (gains Possessed Hindrance)
Richard sees something terrible in his magic botle 
return impossibly to village (-disappear)  

unnerving sounds emanating from the forest 
website d20pirates.blogspot.com/2011/02/sloop-deck-plan.html


Your searcher finds 100 Poe or roll on the following. A. Otice with a raise allows you to roll a second d6 as a hero die:



1-cursed item: appealing find (sailor’s locket, named tankard or hat) reduces the ship’s FP by 1.

2-grim find. Skull, nasty corpse or zonbi rat ; roll Spirit or be unnerved for the rest of the day

3- bauble: scrimshaw animal, ship in a bottle, or lude drawing 

4- handy item: good hammock, coat, pistol or other humble mundane item worth double normal price

5- expensive item: fine compass, cutlass, medicine chest or telescope (max 500 poe)

6- treasure: locked (TN6) small chest containing 1d6* 1d6 hundred poe of jewels, jewellery, coins

I am aware this is a bonanza in terms of bennies, but let’s keep them coming where they are due(you’ll lose extra bennies when you refresh anyway). 
A benny to one-eye for the partisan account of his life as a Blackbeard crewman, wisely avoiding mention of his old captain’s name
Two bennies to chabas for the gruesome seafood find (how did a scurrilous get onto an Earth ship-perhaps he boarded it to investigate) and the comedy lecture 
Two bennies to Jose for the compass detail and the good use of his gambling skill
Benny to Mitch for including actual media

There is a skiff running out of a flooded ravine , once a twisting highland valley now partly covered sea.  Farmers along there call it wTerfall Creek. A skiff, working as spies for the Kierans, operates from there. They nip into the creek whenever approached, following its twists inland until only their skiff can manage the shallow water.
The Teroso is faster than any local ships so can pursue her, putting off a dinghy if possible to capture them in their hidden base.
They use a wave-rider, though there are no Doreens sighted.


..........


How about a PbP-friendly system for ship combat that lets us get in lots of ship fights rather than turning them into grueling rules fests.I suggest we stick to early versions of the rules where vehicles are treated like combatants.

So we know a combat round between two human combatants goes like this. Each rolls fighting on their card. If an attacker's fighting roll exceeds the opponent's Parry they roll damage. If the damage exceeds the opponent#s Toughness they are shaken or taken a wound. 

By direct analogy, for ship combat each captain rolls boating (for fighting) on their card. If an attacker's boating roll exceeds the enemy ship's MANeuverability (for Parry; sloops get MAN 6) they roll damage (for a standard rig like the Tesoro, 2d6). If the damage exceeds the opponent's RESilience (for Toughness; sloops get RES 5) they are Disadvantaged (=Shaken) or take a wound. 

Each round characters other than the captain can Support with boating, climbing or shoting, etc.  roll to try to add +1 to his boating roll. Up to the usual +4 cap for Support. To balance things out for ships with no WCs on board, we'll always given them a +1 'fair's fair' +1 edge. 

We can try it out wth a srap against a sloop and see if it's too edge (but wouldn't edgy be good) or easy with the Support rolls. 

Each ship in a fight will have RESilience(=toughness)  and MANeuverability (=Parry). The Tesoro has RES 5 and MAN 6 like most sloops. 

Ship's attack with the captain's boating skill. Damage done is based on the weaponry aboard. A standard set-up like the Tesoro's does 1d6 ship damage. 

Each round characters other than the captain can decide either to make a boating roll to try to add +1 to his boating roll, or make a shooting roll to add an additional 1d6 to damage should it hit.  
 
Ships can be shaken ("disadvantaged")by attacks where the enemy crew is literally shaken by a cannonade or the captain has to manuevre to resist further damage.  

Ships have 3 wounds then go to the bottom.

...
So. You have told me much that I needed to hear. The Octopons are active in many places. I was lead to believe that they are the transformed remains of drowned Masaquani. The evil drowned. But more and more I find myself wondering who they really are.”


Mention
Water barrel
Fruit

“This is what the Questors have learned. This world was drowned when three sisters, daughters of an Ograpogan general, were sentenced to death for murdering their father. They were tied to stakes so as to be drowned in the incoming tide. Their curse was  that Caribdus would be drowned as they were drowned. Those three daughters became the Hags, the Devils of this world. ”

“The power they used was wicked Ugak black magic. The strongest kind, Joko Mek, the religion of the Ugak tribes who dwell on the northern shores of Torath Ka.  The very people their father’s phalanxes had recently subdued in the Third Jungle War. It was the vengeance of the Ugak witchdoctors that the general’s own daughters would turn on him, wielding the everlasting magic he had sought to crush.”

I needed to learn the daughter’s names. After many adventures, the Questors brought me this. It s the account of the execution I have just described to you.  It includes the daughters names as well as that if a fourth innocent daughter the wicked ones murdered. Read it please but do not say their names out loud.”

[ooc] a densely written summary of the trail written in difficult to parse formal legalese. make a CK to makes sense of it - the details are too fulsome, compared to the accounts above and below on the page which seem to miss some data. Binding has been restitched.[/ooc]
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-bassim speaks with some pride of his direct ancestor, who won favour under the banner of the Caliph in the old wars. He expounds the feats of this warrior at some length.
-He tells also of the family that descended from the brave ghazi. How through the same zeal his descendants established a wealthy village, dealing honourably with their neighbours to maintain their family’s name.
-They admit that they have been pursuing the monster. Is it not their duty to do such? But to their shame they cannot catch him. For the beast can change form. Not only from hyena to jackal, but also to fox and crow. In this last form the creature has always managed to effect an escape.
-Yet the family has a means of catching BH, and now deliberate about how to use it. The largest
-Wazo and Mother Cave come up with some suggestions to avoid head on conflict with the monstrous giants.
--sneak into the cave lair in Second Day, while the gronks  rest, though one at least may keep an eye on the main entrance . The plan would suit a stealthy party.
--abandon the mission and leave the district; there are hundreds of other cities and patrons after all
--recruit goatherds from Wazo’s clan, use them as massed slingers to assist in the battle
--apart from its main entrance, the gronk’s cave lair can also be accessed via a warren of passages that riddle the hill  below. Brave the trogs, ghouls or whatever and perhaps catch the gronks resting
-- recover the remains of a Wanderer slayer known to carry arrow(s?) of slaying. He disappeared on nearish Moon Hill after slaying a harpy there. The arrow(s) would slay gronks, too.
--adopt a combination of these plans
-Get Common for free.
-Celestial:  ecclesiastical lingo of prayers and invocations, sacred  Lammasu, ki-rin. Tablets of Law in this
-High Talk: verbose dialect used by most high caste (Holy, Skilled) folk
-Common : dialect used by Farmer, Wanderer, Drudge caste folk. No written form- Common only speakers are illiterate.
-Wanderer Cant: like hobo code, a cant and  system of gate, tree, etc. codes
-Scribe Code: hexadecimal tablet inscription code permitting intense packing of data for admin, communication and other purposes.
-Secret speech: used by druids , witches et al. Has a runic written form. Used also by dryads, nymphs, hags, etc.
-...
-Hill Speech
-Oceanic: trade language, needed by traders in coastal cities communicating with ocean cultures
-Steppe
-Gnollish
-....
-Ancient: pre-Fall language found in ruin inscriptions, still spoken by monsters like manticores, dragons, djinn, greater ghouls
-Dead speech: slurred, backmasked low talk, used by ghouls, lesser undead and necromancers
-Dagonic: Deep One lingo
-Zogolog: alien langauge spoken only by Green Star wizards
 Have a look at the big map. As you can see Kiera is almost directly north. Plain sailing across open sea where there the only likley encounter (once clear of the Savage Sea) would be a storm.