OOC A Tide of Discussion: the d20 ToF OOC thread

I never liked her.



She wasn't right. In the head.

 

Incidentally, I also rather like Mazarun's move, mainly because it fits with what a "liberal" drow might well do in these circumstances. Skadi's a priestess, therefore from Mazarun's viewpoint she could probably be expected to be somewhat cold to the death of a hobgoblin and see to the safety of another priestess first. Therefore Mazarun would basically pass over in silence (Wittgenstein, Ramza) the fact she didn't look at the head or -- due to Skadi's own stoicism -- he may not have noticed that she's keeping her guilt tightly buttoned at the moment.

Also, Cass, don't be surprised at one-round awesomeness from this group. The fact you're out there blasting away with four spells per round in cheery violation of the makers' somewhat naive expectations of casters is one of the mage's biggest strengths, and now that you've locked onto how to use that Rod of Quicken I expect I'll be seeing it in future instalments.

 

So anyway, gang, with that victory you're basically free for the rest of the day, and indeed free all round. This means we're now headed down the barrel towards your efforts to confront the Red Hand head on, i.e. by trying to impede their progress and so on in the manner we discussed earlier, ahead of a possible battle at Brindol's walls.

Obviously I don't want this to take another six months or so to get through, so how do you guys feel about a sped-up sort of interlude on your efforts? Would you like to at least control one significant fight during this period? I do like Xan's idea expressed a while back that we might go with me giving you the roundup of what your efforts achieved and you guys write a sort-of interlude for yourselves after that? Any preferences, gang?

 

*sneaks back in*

I am really sorry for just randomly disappearing, guys. It won't happen again. I've just had an incredibly busy month - but anyway - I'll be up to speed shortly! I see the last thing that happened was some kind of snitfit at the cathedral?

 

Pretty much, yeah. Glabrezu happened, tore the hell out of the cathedral, killed Ulwai, generally ruined things...

And then we happened to the glabrezu, decisively.

 

Glabrezi, not glabrezu.

Good to see you back, Xan - I was getting a little worried there

 

Is it glabrezi?

(Then close the glawindow!)

 

*gigglesnort*

Welcome back, Xani~

I'm happy to go with what everyone else decides, re: moving forward with the campaign. I'm just currently basking in the fact that we're now heroes in the eyes of the populace.

 

and Evelios will go around saying that a Harper just saved their butts the next time he enters a bar there

 

Sounds good to me too.

... I'm still trying to catch up, though. Iiiii never got around to replying to Cragg, right?

 

No, but if you like we can let that one go under the bridge by summary on a couple of dice rolls if you want...

 

Sure. What am I rolling?

 

Let's call it two Diplomacy rolls - one to get Cragg to take you to Rillor Paln, the second to see whether Corrath gets out with an agreement by the thieves' guild to assist (not to mention whether Corrath gets to leave the Laughing Manticore Inn with her throat in one piece)

 

Okay here we go:

36 & 29

(oh look a 20!)

edit - Also I'm happy to do this the "you tell me what happened and I write it up" sort of way, if that works? At this point it'll be flashback-y, I suppose, unless they show up at the chapel.

 

Well, hopefully you all saw this coming.

 

LOL!

 

Lol.

The bagpipes, Zanaek now has a headache. You know he doesn't like them for the fact that it's right in his ear. Me, personally? I love em. I better darn well love em considering the Scottish blood in me.

 

*giggling madly* Oh god, I only got up five minutes ago and I'm now tired out from laughing. This is why I love Evelios.

 

Celebrate as you wish, guys -- this is sort of the end of this "part" of the adventure, so have fun between your characters, and don't be worried about something jumping out of the woodwork to kill you at least for a couple of days

Meanwhile, let's get back to how we handle the "speedup" period. Remember these were the "missions" the Company decided to sign up for:

• Going to the Thieves Guild for assistance.
• The Company interdicting the Red Hand on its way to Brindol, bloodying its nose somehow.
• Checking to see if Durin Shieldbreaker made it to the Hammerfist Holds to obtain the Shining Axes' aid.
• Escorting or somehow assisting the foraging parties west of Brindol that are trying to gather in a harvest ahead of the coming storm
• General training of the garrison.

The first thing to cover is this: strong as the Company is, it's still only eight people -- against an entire army. I will grant you that your party can pull out immense damage numbers in a given round -- what in Star Fleet Battles I think is sometimes called an "alpha strike" or "going nova" in more common parlance. Fair enough that you could probably buff your ACs and saves high enough to force hobgoblin regulars in the Hand to fish for critical hits, but when you're facing several dozen attack rolls per character per round statistics says that eventually some will get through -- each one that gets through doing at least double the damage that a normal melee attack would. William's Teleport spells and Scrying allow you to be very competent hit-and-run combatants, certainly, but after a couple of days of those sorts of shenanigans you could expect the Hand's spellcasters to start making precautions against that sort of thing, whether it be Detect Scrying cast in large numbers or other protective options. The point being: the Company isn't going to be able to wear down the entire Red Hand by attrition or reduce it to a point where it'll break up of itself. (The Ghostlord, ironically enough, could have -- he had access to the spell Blizzardfrom Frostburn which has no effect on undead whatsoever but can bury an army of the Red Hand's size in snow in 12 rounds or under, leaving more or less only the dragons to contend with.) One way or the other, the Company will figure out even on recon missions that, good as it is, it won't be able to prevent the Red Hand getting to Brindol. The sheer numbers are just too great. It'll be apparent that it was insanity to even consider not holding the wall: a wall levels a ten-to-one disadvantage, and by the look of it the garrison of Brindol is outnumbered by those odds if not more. The Company might slow it down by a few days, perhaps, which will give Brindol a little more time to get ready, but not stop it.

What the party can do, though, is a measure of what it's been doing thus far: try and chew away at the Red Hand's resolve by hitting its crucial resources as far as it can. So that being said, here's how I see the Company's missions play out over the next few weeks...

Going to the Thieves Guild for assistance.
Success here, down to Corrath alone. Happens on 23 Mirtul, i.e. same day the Defence Council met and the same day Mazarun returns Kasovilar's body to the Tiri Kitor. Corrath meets with Rillor Paln and manages to negotiate the Black Knives' assistance in the defence of Brindol. This'll mostly come down to the Black Knives agreeing patriotically not to rip off Brindol of the resources being used to defend the city, although acontingent of the Black Knives' best duellists and archers join the fight, too. Exactly why Rillor Paln should agree to defend the city is entirely open to Xan's writing skills bearing in mind Rillor (as you'd have seen) is something of a sociopath who likes to inflict pain on people. Happy for Xan to write all of Rillor's lines here.

Company interdicting the Red Hand on its way to Brindol, bloodying its nose somehow.
A big scalp here, on 8 Kythorn, 22 days before the Red Hand reaches Brindol. In essence, the Company manages to assassinate none other than Wyrmlord Kharn -- the seven-foot-tall, powerfully-built hobgoblin you last saw murdering poor old Avarthel the Druid from Drellin's Ferry. How they do it is like so: the Company engages in some very careful scouting work by Zanaek and William (in Scrying), Ariel by aerial recon, and Corrath and Mazarun by a couple of seriously cloak-and-dagger spying missions into the Red Hand's own camp. The Red Hand's most vulnerable moment is as it passes through Nimon Gap, a break in the hills where the Nimon Stream pours through.

When the majority of the Red Hand and its better forces have crossed the river (more about that in a bit), the Company zeroes in on Wyrmlord Kharn sleeping in his tent, teleports in with William, and Corrath and Mazarun pull out a single-round knifing in Kharn's bed while the other partymembers hold the perimeter. (If you guys think the clerics or other folk would have a problem with this -- well, roleplay it out in flashback! Or maybe the clerics don't even come along ... ) As the Red Hand's camp rallies to the alarm, William manages to teleport the gang out ... well, except for Mazarun and Ariel, who're caught separated from the main group and have to get clear in their own ways: Ariel by flying as fast as her wings will carry her and dodging arrows (not to mention a certain red dragon), Mazarun by a combination of Dimension Door-ing and calling on his latent abilities as a drow and as half-fey. Ragnar, I'll fiat, has to be appealed to very strongly not to risk his fool butt trying to protect the two elves, and gets teleported out with the rest of the gang.

(Remember, gang, this doesn't have to be RP'ed out, and no number-rolling is required so long as that's the rough course taken. You can flashback to it or whatever, but that's my feeling for how it played out.) Also - does this mean Wyrmlord Kharn is dead?
Yes.




Checking to see if Durin Shieldbreaker made it to the Hammerfist Holds to obtain the Shining Axes' aid.
Yup, no dramas here. No unfriendlies encountered; the Company (or whoever went on this side errand) tracks down the Shining Axes and redirects them along a safer route to Brindol; they arrive, two hundred singing dwarves with big stuff to hit people with, on 30 Mirtul, a good 30 days before the Red Hand reaches the city. Durin Shieldbreaker's obviously with them, so if you feel like a scene or two with him ...

Escorting or somehow assisting the foraging parties west of Brindol that are trying to gather in a harvest ahead of the coming storm
Here, too, the Company was of help: it managed to see off a couple of worg raiding parties that caught up with the westmost elements of the foraging parties - brought down a chimaera at one point - and about as much forage has been gathered in as could be expected. For the chimaera I'd say it's Ragnar who smashed this one's head right into the ground, having had Fly cast on him by William.

General training of the garrison.
Rather than force you to numbers, I'll assign some bonuses here - more about that when the time comes. In essence, you're all well-known to the garrison by now and you've all given pointers of one kind or another to them (colour choices so as to better clash, in Evelios's case ... ), so feel free to make up stuff here as you will.


Upshot: so where to from here?
Basically, here's the plan: a few more days, maybe a week or so RL, for people to chew over the above. There's obviously a lot there to go through, so take your time. Ask me questions, object to stuff if you think it's out of character, talk it over here. Once I think we're more or less set, I'll fast forward us to, well, close on if not the day of the battle with some contributions from NPCs and ... who knows, others.
And then we'll be down into it. The Battle of Brindol, what you've been building up to for (in some cases) five years or so. Needless to say there'll be a fair bit of battle rolling to do, so I'd encourage people to be on deck and providing their actions promptly so we don't wind up in the normal slow motion gaming. It's going to be hard to replicate the frantic risk-of-dying-horribly atmosphere of a battlefield, but I'd like to try.

Also, if anyone's got a better idea for how we might attend to this, let me know. There's a lot of offscreen awesomeness I've planned into here, but absent another two years of RPing I just can't see a way to efficiently get all this done, and I know all of us want to reach the finish line.

Over to you for your comments, approval, etc. I'll accept 'liking' of this post for assent without comment, if that'll make things easier for the time-poor amongst us.

 

Saint: can I also assume (following the interview with Rillor) that Corrath knows Rillor is hooking up with Lady Kaal?

I'm headcanon-ing that she doesn't know it going in, as she's unlikely to mention the guy's name to Evelios and Evelios is also unlikely to mention it to her.

 

Yes, you can.

 

Ooooooooooo!

Why do I suddenly feel my alignment sliding..? lol.
I like..I like...


*must think about this now...*
Oh..Zaaaanek!

 

Huh wha?

Sorry if Im missing somehing, I havent slept in 24 hours and cant seem to find sleep. So yeah... things are going over my head right now.

 

My only issue is the idea of William having to leave Mazarun during the Wyrmlord assassination, but I'll talk it out with Rilwen if I can to see how we'll manage it without IC repercussions.