Dungeon Master Forum

I meant too close to the dead bodies in the room - it's not a very big room and I'm pretty sure that even if someone is blocking her view, the horrendous stink of burnt corpse wil reach her. Hey, maybe they could chuck the bodies down that pit . Nah, that wouldn't cure the stench straight away would it, and anyway, I dunno whether any of the group would fancy handling a corpse. And I'm not sure quite how murafu are with just unceremoniously dumping dead bodies down pits. Then again, as described in that earlier conversation with Haynuus, they say that the spirit of a person has gone from the body as soon as they die and that the body then is just basically an empty shell and of no use. If a murafu died among other murafu, they'd probably move the body somewhere it could rot away/be eaten without causing an icky smell around the settlement.
Once they're about to step through the teleporter, Ameena will make sure she's not causing any problems for whomever it is who's carrying her (she suggested Westian in that last post just because he's offered, but of course she knows Haynuus, and Aurek's been alright with her so I don't think she'd have any objections to either of them instead...hey, maybe the half-orc smell would help if the herbs didn't fully do the trick ) and that they're not putting pressure on her still-poisoned leg. Then she'll shove her nose in that herb pouch and scrunch her eyes shut, and not open them again till she's told to. Of course, she'll cover this in an IC explanation before they go through. Just make sure she gets put down away from all the death stuff. I'm guessing all the others either have bunged up noses or don't mind this smell, 'cause even with their more "crap" (compared to a murafu) senses of smell, I'm sure it'd pong just a bit. Mainly the smell of the flambéed Arbrut, but I wonder if blood makes a smell if you spray enough of it around. Ick, anyway. And eww, they're all gonna be leaving bloody (literally) footprints everywhere aren't they, lol. I should've had Ameena notice that. Well, I suppose she won't leave any herself, but I meant she'd notice those of the others.
Ah well, blood and ick everywhere, who knows what's coming up next! Well, the DM, obviously. But I meant it rhetorically, of course . Hopefully something a bit less nasty-horrible will happen. Hey, maybe there'll be a riddle room or something, yaay .

Then job 1 is Ameena insisting the party choose a route to go, isn't it, awau from the bodies

And the last riddle room I set up, you went and got captured and pulled passed. I'm done making riddle rooms for you lot. You get pits :p

Anyone in armour like Farel and Aurek won;'t be able to smell much but metally bloody sweatiness and their nose will probabyl shut down, and Haynuus has probably smelt worse.

Well, if I was ever worried that you guys would take combat and the results for grants once you got flask to insta-heal, I think Ameena's RP will do the trick

If you like Haynuus can arrive and pile corpses up in a dark/down wind corner somewhere.

And yes. Haynuus smells bad (to you). If you've never met a real Aborigine you won't know how strong the smell is - it's a cultural thing!

Hehe, I think Ameena already made it pretty clear where she doesn't want to be - I'm sure whomever's carrying her will have the sense to not plonk her anywhere near the scene of the carnage . She hasn't seen beyond that first room past the teleporter - she would have noticed both doorways but has no idea what's beyond them since she barely stepped away from the teleporter the whole time.
Funny, you mention my RP...I never actually really planned for her to turn out this way. She's just sort of...evolved that way as we've gone on, I suppose, based on what I decided the Murafu are like. When it comes to stuff like this (violence/killing, etc), she's sort of like a young child, not really understanding why it happens and terrified of it at the same time. In some ways she's younger than any of the rest of the group (and not just chronologically, which of course she is), even though technically she'd be older than Haynuus if they were all on the same aging scale. Actually, technically, she turns twelve-and-a-half today .
And I imagine that however bad Haynuus smells, at least it's better than icky dead bodies .

Working a little bit late, so update when I get home.

Ameena can tell you what it said anyway :p

At your request...

Falkor: Rolled 1d20 and got 5

OB, I dont' know if you realised the right hand way through the door has the bodies piled up, blood from Thinpas and blood from Helm further along? I know Westian doens't, I just wanted to make sure it was a deliberate character choice

Right, so I think everyone's sorta ready to decide. A shame LB has been down alot aswell as money, but really lots of cool character beats tend to come around action, instead of while standing around. And usually players find a way to talk no matter the situations

Anyway, as Haynuus says you can always loot the bodies if you wish, or call last rites over them, etc. And certainly you can try and heal up where you are (the junction of the ways with lots of dead bodies around).


Also, I'll try to get back into the mode of a post a day from me summarising/moving on. I think it's kinda held up and everyone's done that, but I just want to officially say it's back to happening

I have edited my IC post because I thought the same thing as Ian, I thought that the original path was blocked by that pit.

I'll try to also put together a better of map of the other side, and put the two side by side. Stupid win 7 doing weird things to my paint shop pro!

beowuuf wrote:OB, I dont' know if you realised the right hand way through the door has the bodies piled up, blood from Thinpas and blood from Helm further along? I know Westian doens't, I just wanted to make sure it was a deliberate character choice

I knew about the bodies dumped there, but forgot about the blood of Helm further down. Maybe if we go around the corner on the map? How far down did Helm go?

Or, could we send some scouts down the corridor to the left to see if there is anywhere safe? Ameena or Helm would presumably be best at that.

Helm didn't get as far as the corner, he got just to the end there (4 squares) Technically 4 /12 since his move was 15 feet There's a torch left there, but if you carry on round the corner you will be going out of sight of the party into Unknown Territory. Feel free to do that

You could suggest Ameena checks out the corridor to the left, it's a decent length to the T-junction that Farel and Aurek arrived at.

IF you want to outline actions as general as that - ie people check out one or more sections while your spellcasters rest ion the main room - we can do that and shift the time on by 10 or 20 minutes (or aslong as it takes for them to meet....nevermind...)

As long as it takes us to meet what? I need to know...is it a grue?

Ok, I think I will go down the corridor a bit, and Ameena and I can have a quick look around to find somewhere a bit distant from the bloody corpses!

You are eaten alive.... might have been

Ok, if you lot are goign that way, I'll update for what you see

Here's the map (some people might not be where I think - ie Aurekl and Falkor):


As Aurek or Farel could tell you, there are no real interesting points in the corridor, aside fm torch sconces every so often (no torches in them)

The corridor bends downwards for a while then goes left again. Feel free to roll perception those down the corridor

Oh, wait, you guys are going left? Lol, I'll get a map done after my food

*handwave* ignore the above map....

Edit: Ok, ignored my chips burning to redo the map...done!

Oh man I'm confused now.

I assumed we'd all go together, and heading towards the prison cells was a bad idea as more guards may appear... And that was left wasn't it?! Oh well, Haynuus will just follow Westian I suppose. Best try to keep the group together.

Just whip a torch out of Haynuus' backpack if someone eventually wanders off in another direction though!

Ok, basically Farel is offering to explore the right hand corridor, and needs no rest. Though I think he would have an unvoiced curiosity about Ameena now, given the reference to getting away from the battlefield.

Falkor, Helm and Haynuus could probably benefit from rest RP wise. And of course if you guys burn 5 - 10 minutes then Westian can start providing some serious healing, and keep that up every 10 - 15 minutes until everyone is (combat fitness wise at least) healthy.

Farel and Aurek will no doubt detail the route they took. Basically it's jsut a long corridor left (with a small southward kink) to a t -junction, then a shorter corridor up to the mini-library come cell.

Falkor would be able to guess that there should be a long-ish corridor goign to the right, through three doors, leading to the opening of the tomb of the firestaff. His knowledge (dungeoneering) roll.

Ameena is physically back to normal, twinge in leg aside that will abait in a minute or two. So that depends on her mood whether she would offer to act as a scout. Helm might offer to act as a scout depending on the support he would receive. Falkor might be accepted (some diplomacy might be needed there to way his distraust against the fact Falkor can take out armoured soldiers with magic) or else one of the warriros - Aurek, Westian or Haynuus- could offer to go with him.


I think some general planning is needed her in OOC rather than IC discussion. You can keep adding IC ocmments, but it feels like I need a player decision that I can summarise as a DM, and let you carry on with the next part of the story.

Speaking of which, you guys still need to figure out your goals after the rest. Farel, Helm and Ameena sound as if they want to leave - though two different options have been given (go back through the teleporter and right, or go right throgh the door)

And poor Westian sounds like he has Aurek and Haynuus awaiitng his lead - is Westian looking for Deephold, the Grey Lord, or a way out? Or is he looking ot protect the group he has now?

Similarly, is Falkor looking to escape, look for the mage on his own terms, look for Fex, take advantage of the potential to scrounge some secrets, or protect the group?

Gimme some answers people, and let's move you on to the next puzzle/encouner/puzzle that's an encounter/pit trap

I think any rest can also be assumed to have un-documented discussions on anything individual PCs know - so anything posted in the IC thread I think can be entered into the PC hivemind

ian_scho wrote:Oh man I'm confused now.

I assumed we'd all go together, and heading towards the prison cells was a bad idea as more guards may appear... And that was left wasn't it?! Oh well, Haynuus will just follow Westian I suppose. Best try to keep the group together.

Just whip a torch out of Haynuus' backpack if someone eventually wanders off in another direction though!

Lol, sorry, it is all confusing

Yeah, left is back to the library come prison cells (why cells in library?) and also has an unexplored corridor.

However, Farel can point out that if the soldiers have not been alerted, that area might stay soldier free for many hours until the next food round was needed. Farel would point out the guards have been disorganied, and it wasn't always the same soldiers that came to meet him - sometimes it was guards that taunted him about the mage, other times soldiers taunting him about a priest. However, two are not going to report back to wherever they were going to.


I think....thiiiiiiink.... that all things being equal, you guys should just decide to go back to the cell where Aurek and Farel were. You might lose Farel to him scouting the right door for a while, but otherwise everyone else might be persuuaded to go.

Let me know!

Ameena would want to head right, since that's where a possible exit has been mentioned. She wouldn't want to go left for a couple of reasons, Firstly, it's been mentioned that guards might be heading that way at some point soon. Second, it's been described as a "cell" or similar, a place where people are locked up - yeah, rats don't mind small spaces, but they tend to prefer spaces they can get out of. And what about the guards who were there? Aurek himself told Ameena that he killed one of them - by what means and where did they stash the remains?
Ameena, however, will only have thought as far as "One way leads to the exit, therefore I want to go there and not to the way they said guards might be going". So far. Aside from that she just wants some downtime to sit and talk and snuggle with someone, most likely Helm of course. Just to sort of wind down and try to get herself back together again in a place that's not covered in blood and doesn't smell of barbequed dead people .
Of course, she can't really communicate any of this right now, and she knows that if she opens her eyes she'll just freak out again - she's gathered from Haynuus's comment that some bodies have been chucked somewhere down the corridor (or whatever he said), but that needn't necessarily mean all the bodies and anyway she'll know there'll be blood all over the place too.
As for scouting, under normal circumstances she wouldn't have any objection - after all, it's goign ahead and sniffing at stuff that hasn't been sniffed at yet, basically. But right now she's not really in any kind of mood for that kind of thing...

Remember the right corridor has a blood patch at the start and at the first bend, so they'll have to basically go into the unknown to be away from that. And no one knows if there is a resting area that way.

The party is free to split if they want, in this case I'd just run two threads in this forum.


Anyway, roll perception if Ameena's actually going to listen to what's around her.

Falkor feels more loyalty with Westian and Haynuus (and Ameena of course) - so he will follow Westian. Of course he would prefer rest and a chance to get upto full strength but will go regardless... I think Falkor would prefer to explore more -= he is inquisitive and given some of the comments from the theif he is curious to find out more, if we get to an exit I think Falkor will most likely find hinself unable to leave with soo many questions un-answered!

Excellent

Westian wants to find Deephold. Even though he was almost wetting himself with fear in the dungeon, his fear of shame (i.e. going back to his superiors empty handed) is far greater. So as long as he has someone with him, he will continue to search and try and find out what is going on.

There are lots of things I want to do IC - talk to Helm about Deephold, and ask Aurek and Haynuus about their memories since they are starting to fit into his backstory. Also talk to Aurek and Falkor about runes. I just have not had time for that yet. I suppose that is a good sign, there is so much going on that I have to pick and choose the most urgent parts to deal with first.

If Farel is scouting out the right hand side passage I will probably head over there with Ameena. As long as he is ahead we will get an advance warning of anything nasty coming down.

Ameena can't do anything but listen right now. I imagine she'll find it easier to hear stuff since her other senses are more or less out of action right now, so she's only really got her hearing to focus on. Still, let's see a Perception roll for you and see if my d20 decides to be nice. Since I'm not rolling to try and stop myself from dying, it should be okay, I think . Yup, see...Perception roll = 24 (17+7) .

OK. Going right behind the knight sounds good then. Haynuus will pick up any torches in the room if he hasn't already done so!

I don't mind about a party order - although we're all pretty beat up!

Ameena wrote:Aurek himself told Ameena that he killed one of them - by what means and where did they stash the remains?

@Ameena: Obviously, you saw this before I made my edit (as stated above). And thus, Ameena would actually be unaware of any such thing now.

Once again, I'm sorry that my posting has been lax over the last few days... I've actually been told I have pneumonia, so yeah.... bugger

Oh okay, no I didn't notice an edit...I just recall that when he'd been explaining to Ameena about where he got the armour from that he said he'd "had" to kill one of the guards, and that I think Farel knocked his out or something. Can't remember exactly but I do remember him saying he killed one. If you changed it since then I'll have to go back and have a look at some point...

Lord_BoNes wrote:I've actually been told I have pneumonia, so yeah.... bugger

Ouch...hope you are getting better!

So, I post about going down the corridor after Farel, and then we have a rest?

Sounds good to me!