Rashemen - OOC

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We're headed to the fortress of the Half-Demon, or so I think, that Rotku mentioned in the introduction, unless there is some other fortress we don't know about nearby. I thought maybe you could make contact with our group when we come out onto the forest road by the ravine, however you want to play it.

Okay, I guess that fortress is to the west, maybe Sepp was just wrong in his directions.

 

Great! The three of us are off to invade a very ominious fort. Hope we pick up a few others along the way.

Hey, maybe it is a different fortress, sort of a warm up to the real thing. Mayber they are only little demons. Maybe I'm rambling.

[ June 27, 2005, 06:12: Message edited by: Nakia Nightshadow ]

 

Questions:
1) Should I post what my character is thinking or doing behind his back - or should I only post things that are visible to the other characters?

2) What is Rotku's actual role in all this?

 

Rotku started the thread but got busy elsewhere himself. We seem to be on our own. Guess we just try to follow the guide lines he set up.

I'm trying to post things that should be obvious to the others. ie: Nakia thinks the food is terrible and makes a face or pushes it away.

There may be times it is necessary to post what you are thinking. That's a judgement call.

 

So does that mean we have to introduce our own monsters and make up the story as we go along, as opposed to Rotku acting as "DM" and telling us what we encounter?

Also, what sort of "level" are you all? I know we're not sticking to pure D&D stats but just trying to guage the approximate power level of this party. For example, Atten would be about a level 4-5 Druid (not quite mastering proper wildshapes, pretty average BAB and HP, a few useful spells).

 

Since I'm using my Nakia character she is pretty high level rogue. I lost IWDII games when my old computer died. The only record I have of her is at level 14. Her assassin skills would be slightly lower.

Rotku seems to have left us pretty much on our own. The only 'story line' seems to be that this fort we are headed to is the center of some sort of evil. Nasty place.

Don't think I've ever posted Nakia's age. Seems that halflings live longer than human's but the lenght seems to vary. I place her at about 23-25 human years. She has been adventuring about 7 years.

 

Hmm, Nakia is miles more powerful than Atten then. He'd better watch himself.

 

Only in Rogue and assassin skills. No magic. She may be slightly stronger and a lot more dexterous. She had dex of 18 in IWDII.

I originally intended a different character but just did not have the time to do the necessary research and she seemed to fit with Sepp. He needs a big...er...older sister.

Side note for anyone not familiar Nakia---she created herself. My control over her is limited.

 

Since it seems that we're on our own, let me share some background information on Sepp that I'd sent to Rotku in the beginning so he could guide things along accordingly. It's probably best if we all know it now so we can collectively figure out what should happen. Here's what I sent to Rotku:

There is a lot about my character that the character doesn't know, but of course I know.

Sepp is a young halfling who grew up with his family in a secluded valley a few days away from Iceborn. They herded goats, collected lichens, moss, berries, and a few tubers, and grew mushrooms in the caves they lived in. His parents and older brother and sister taught him everything he needed to survive. They lived a completely isolated life, although sometimes his brother and sister and he would spy on the big people who passed through the area.

Recently, after returning from a lichen collecting trip with his dog, Black, he returned to a cave smoking in ruins. He found the body of his father, who he had only ever known as, "Pa", and his mother, also only known as "Ma", and his sister Drell, smoldering in the cave. It seemed that they had burned up from the inside out, as had the goats and chickens they kept.

He got his Pa's special bag and filled it with goat cheese, dried goat meat, and some burning rocks, then began to feel a burning inside himself. He burped and smoke came out. Black did too and they decided to get out of there. He placed a few rocks in a special pattern by the cave as a message to his brother, Gesed, who had been out with some of the goats, indicating that he would go to Iceborn for now. He arrived there after a few days journey, thus beginning my first post.

That's what the character, Sepp, knows.

Here's the back story that he doesn't know.

His father's real name is Hesel Blackfoot. He must have come from a halfling village in the vicinity of Baldur's Gate, but his first memory is of being bought as a slave with his brother Charley by a thieves guild in Baldur's Gate. As they grew up he and Charley became quite the little thieves and their reputation grew with them.

One time they were sent to steal some super important artifact from a temple of bad dudes. The bad guys were also holding a pretty halfling high-druidess, Anatha Heathertop, and planning to sacrifice her in a ritual involving the artifact to invoke some major demon or something. One thing lead to another and it ended up with Charley with an axe through his face, Hesel and Anatha in love, the artifact in Hesel's bag of holding, and a cult of badasses on their trail.

Anatha reincarnated Charley, who came back as a black dog. They thought it would be good to get out of Baldur's Gate, so they headed north. Eventually they found a secluded valley a few days from Iceborn. Anatha used the power of the artifact to conceal it from most people. They made a home in a cave and got some goats, living on goat cheese and meat, cave mushrooms, lichens, moss, berries and tubers. Eventually they had a family.

They wanted to keep their children protected from all the evils Hesel had experienced in the city, so they kept them totally isolated from all outsiders.

They hid the artifact deep in a branch of the cave they lived in. Hesel also kept a stash of items in the bottom of the bag of holding, including his thieves tools, some halfling sized elven chainmail, a rope of climbing, a magic short sword and dagger, and 500 gp. Sepp hasn't discovered this yet. He just thinks it's Pa's special bag that they use when they go get burning rocks (coal). Sepp is a level 1 ranger, level 1 druid, but doesn't realize it. He just thinks that everyone knows how to do those skills, as everyone he knows, his family, does.


What I'm thinking now is that the evil creatures who have Gesed in the fort think that Gesed knows the location of the artifact that they have somehow traced to Sepp's family. They are torturing him to get the information, but of course he does not know of the artifacts existence, much less location.

I have as yet been purposefully vague as to the exact nature of the bad dudes, because I didn't know the approximate level of our party. If Gesed was just being held by orcs, Jex would walk in there and it would be over in fifteen minutes, if it was a gang of Balors, we'd all be dead, unless maybe a Gandalf comes along.

How do we want to proceed with monsters and such?

 

Very nice, Scott. Jex appears to be our most experienced character so I imagine he will become our 'leader' rather reluctantly. He also seems calm and sensible which Nakia needs. She is no fool but sometimes gets into things a wiser head would hesitate with. Jex is also our only melee fighter.

A little recap here.

1) A 4th level druid with some healing spells.
2) A young halfling with some magic abilities.
3) A little older halfling rogue/fighter around level 14.
4) A half-elf (drow) fighter level unknow but after 30 yrs he should be pretty good.
5) A very wide dwarf peddler coming on the scene.

6) Sepps's Mother who can take over his body and was/is a high-druidess. To me that has great potential. Watch out Atten or you may find yourself gathering nuts for the rest of your short life.

Now me thinks that these "monsters" must be intelligent beings since want to use the artifact. They could be humans aligned with the dark side or a mixture. There are bound to be magic users. Various d&d levels, tough enough to make it interesting. Can't reload here and editing would be tricky and confusing.

 

Yeah Jex is a high level fighter. I made him up on the spot so I wouldn't be sure of what level, lets just say that he's been on the road for 30 years and has seen alot of the realms.

 

Yeah, just need some way to keep things balanced and make sure that everyone isn't too powerful.

 

I've just posted a character, is she okay? Not very high level cleric, can only just cast lvl 5 spells.

 

Not sure whose permission you are asking. Rotku has been busy elsewhere. I read your post and don't see why she wouldn't fit with our mis-matched party. As Harbourboy said our problem is going to be trying to balance our foes to our varied levels but I think we'll manage.

 

What are everyone's ideas as fas as how to implement potential encounters and fighting?

One idea I have is that we could create a new SP account or two with names like: Rashemen monsters, Fellowship of the Serpent, The Darkness, etc. that we all have the password to, so that we can post what the opposition is doing. Or if there is someone who has been following the adventure so far, but hasn't felt they had a good character to participate with, they could take on the DM part.

As far as to the specifics of what we need to do now, here are a few possibilities.

1. Gesed is being held by the Fellowship of the Serpent in the Fortress of the Half-Demon. We need to infiltrate and rescue him.

Obviously that would be a very dangerous mission, depending on if the Half-Demon is at home or not.

2. Members of the Fellowship of the Serpent have taken Gesed out of the Fortress, and are trying to get him to show them the location of the Earth's Heart, or the Blackfoot family's valley.

That way we could avoid having to infiltrate the fortress, and could just encounter/ambush them in the open/forest/night etc.

3. Once Gesed is rescued, how much of a job do we want to have finding the Earth's Heart and putting it back in the earth?

I've got a few ideas as to where Anatha might have hidden it, with varying amounts of work for us to find it.

 

I like # 2...which would also leave the fortress for a later adventure. But let's not get too specific or the adventure loses it's spontanaity. Scot, imo you are doing fine as DM of the moment.

Maybe we could have a story summary thread with elements of what the opposition is doing.

Any thoughts on this, fellow adventurers?

 

If we already know what's going to happen with the story then there's no point in carrying on. In the absence of a DM, make it up as we go along, I say. If you're going to start telling us what's going to happen in this thread then I'll stop reading here as I don't want any spoilers!

 

Sorry Harbourboy, I didn't want to spoil things, just see where everyone wanted to go with it.

 

Who is this Fellowship of the Serpent person?

 

That's me, Scot, Sepp's player, posting as our opposition. With Rotku out of action, it seemed like we needed some control of the 'monsters'.

If that's not what we want as a group, I can easily delete the post. Either way is fine with me.