Carousing and inter-session page for the-needle-and-the-damage-done
Rusty Buckles
Drunken carousing; Glantri 4, save 16 = 600 xp and a funny story about how people don't want to get too close suddenly…
Rusty hooks up with two new drinking palls Mungo Pipestab and Fred "The Nose" Hamwich, both active members of the growing Glantrian Burrow Boxing league. Rusty hits many of the most raucous dives in the low quarter and watches as his buddies point out the finer points of watching halflings beat the hair out of each other on large square tables, ringed by shouting patrons. The growing fad of Burrow Boxing is on the rise in Glantri because the smaller fighting rings are easier to fit into existing drinking venues. He loses 600 gp on drunken wagering and tipping the full-size wenches but picks up 600xp by watching some vicious displays of halfling fisticuffs.
Wintergreen
The eccentrically charming elf woos the not-quite-widowed Alzenia Hazart with wine and jewelry. Already pleased by Wintergreen's courtship, Alzenia proves amenable to further flirtation on his part. (He rolls a 6, spending 900gp and earning 900xp. His saving throw is a 16: success!)
Wintergreen provides that polite elvish version of romantic leading-on that aristocratic aging matrons really go for and the hawk-eyed Alzenia is quite susceptible too.
Over the fine sweet spirits and expensive candy-box-prism jelwelry that he plies her with in the tilting Hazart gazebo, they watch the passing gentry and make snide comments about lineage. The oldest house-goblin of House Hazart, Lickswad, is in attendance and strumming romantic etudes on the Glantian dulcimer. An almost forgotten regional instrument that is practically unknown outside of well-bred Glantrian circles. Wintergreen spends 900gp on diabetic wine and knacky jewelry and gains 900xp from listening to Alzenia's catty knowledge of local history.
William of Silence
The smirking, caddish William of Silence swears he'll buy everyone a beer on the way back, even the demi-humans. He strikes off to sell the squirming sack of red caps he has tied into two large bags, saying he knows some people who know people. He certainly isn't going to sell these to any johnny-on-the-street. Let's get in front of some mages.
Will reverse carouses to sell the evil fey in Glantri City. His Charisma adjustment, if valid to this concern, gives him a +1 to a savings or result roll.
William takes the burlap sack containing the four crusty red stocking caps and begins to discretely inquire around the more seedy looking magical suppliers in Glantri City. He quickly learns that Red Cap hats are quite dangerous and will bring their owners back from the black of feyness as soon as one drop of blood is soaked into the fabric. They are a highly controlled substance in all of Glantri and are generally burned immediately once they are discovered or their former wearers are defeated.
Behind one bare-shelved magical component shop William finally finds a crowd of wilted looking men in a black cloaks. One of them quickly thrusts a bag of un-minted gold coins in his hand in return for the hats and dashes off quickly down the street. A deal has been done.
Later in the week, at a bar, William hears of a massacre at a local noble's house. Five servants, and three princelings with their throats slashed to ribbons. In the manor was discovered shattered jars of blood and little rough boot prints of gore running all up and down the walls.
The city watch are asking about a man fitting Williams of Silence's description.
William has a small sack of 750 gold coins that bear no mint and is wanted for questioning by the Glantrian authorities.
Snickwick
Inspired by his success with the "candle bolt", Snickwick resolves to research a delivery vehicle for more flammable stuff. Snickwick will design and build a special "phial shot", essentially a quarrel with a phial of oil (or even holy water or hot sauce or paint, etc) built into the shaft. Upon impact, the phial will break, dousing the target.
I no longer understand how carousing works, but I want to do this, I would assume it's similar to magic user research, just applying snickwick's "Gnomish Engineer" special ability. Snickwick has a +1 to intelligence which may apply.
Snickwick purchases a variety of crossbow bolts from local fletchers, allong with finely flammable oil, glass vials of various shapes, and some spidery brass-work from his trusted mechanical supplier. He goes about construction of several prototype bolts, some that are brass and hallow, some that have a glass bulb on the business end and some with oil-filled wax beads tethered to the tail of the bolt. Indeed most of his research time and money goes towards testing at a private targeting range, where the quiver-men take turns moving his cotton dummies out to the range and brings them back for his inspection of oil-saturation after a successful hit. After much trial and error, Snickwick finds a design that has perfect flight characteristics and is able to thoroughly douse a target. It is a long glass vial of oil, sealed with wax, cradled by a brass frame in the shape of a fat cross-bow bolt. The spiraling brass-work keeps the vial intact on launch but collapses on impact, shattering glass and spraying oil with a faint popping noise. The bolt only miss-fired one or twice during testing, shooting oil backwards at the gnomes chest.
Snick wick spent 500gp to successfully research the Oil-Sot crossbow bolt:
Oil-Shot Crossbow Bolt
Fire a special oil-filled bolt from your crossbow. Does half damage to a target and douses the target in oil. No splash damage. Oil must be lit by other means. Critical fumble douses PC in oil. The Oil-Shot can only be used by Gnomes who have researched how it works.
Pritchard Hood
In the morning as he lays healing from minor wounds, Pritchard Hood is startled by a knock at his door. He doesn't answer, as is his wont, merely waiting for this unwanted presence to go away. When he finally rouses himself he opens the door to find a brand new hat laying before his door. It's exactly the same as his old one, though cleaner and free of green slime. Pinned inside is a note that reads only "I thought you might require this if you're staying in Glantri." Hood's eyes narrow and he clutches the hat white-knuckled in both hands. Then he throws on his cloak and goes out to the nearest tavern, intending to wash away his troubles with a torrent of ale.
Pritchard will perform an old-fashioned carouse. He has 2345 gp to spend, and his saving throw is 15 (Spells, right?).
Pritchard stalks into the nearest drinking establishment that he finds not too far away from the College Of Magic. The cramped gold leaf sign announcing Rathwood's Confectionary And Spiritshouse is in front of an overly-ornate storefront on a street with other wizardly business that cater to the College's students, staff, and professors. The front of the business is devoted to long candle-lit glass cases that contain candies, sweets, pastries, smokes, and beverages of a distinctly alien and possibly sinister nature. Deeply cowled servers man the counter, wrapping up the confections for a procession of unhinged-looking and mysterious patrons. Small brass locks seal some of the candy boxes and some of the beverages are decanted into flickering glasses.
Situated in the back area are many comfy leather chairs and some furtive looking characters imbibing shots, sipping tall purple beers, and eating cakes that chime quietly when you run a fork through them. Pritchard orders the most normal-sounding ale off of the menu from the cowled server, but gradually begins to sample more of the exotic fare as the night wears on. Each time the waiter takes another order, he warns Pritchard about possibly hazardous conditions and combinations of the items being served. Mr. Rathwood apparently has suffered a lot of heat from the Glantri authorities for past activities, and wants to keep patrons from dying immediately on the premises. Pritchard notices that many of the menu items are marked "take-out only". The stated reason the Rathwood's is still open is that he serves the best Jinn Torte in town, a Glantrian dessert served when a wizardling graduates.
Pritchard spends 1050gp on a vastly expensive course of magically psychotropic sweets and drinks for the evening but gains near total omniscient hearing of all the dark, aristocratic, and magical gossip going on in the bar that night earning him 1050xp.
Royce Le'Royale
Royce heads to the Working Quarter of Glantri city. A crowded, laboring section filled with over-taxed Journeymen. One shop on the alleyway known as '37' is a blacksmith and stable. Within is a stall with a clockwork horse. Royce shows the fraternal hand-sign as he enters the shop. Enters directly into the stable and puts some weight onto a pitchfork that appears to be resting in the hay.
Soft, well oiled gears and counter-weights are quickly employed. The horses legs gently fold up underneath it, bringing too the the facsimile of a hay strewn stable floor. Below, the dim light at the end of a stone stairwell. From the outside, all that is seen is the upper portion of the mechanical horse champing and braying as normal.
Down into the lair of Hoghammond the Pinch, fence for the Gutter Dwarves. Royce goes into detail about the native struggle of the Gutter Dwarves to find the ancient document granting them property below Glantri city. Hoghammond waves him away with tired and predisposed gestures.
Royce is trying to be emphatic of the hellish horrors below the Library and how there may be more than smoke to the legends. The two quarrel, and neither is better for it. Ultimately, Hoghammond purchases the pass from Royce but their relations are strained."
Royce fences Dwhoha's library pass to Hoghammond for 75gp but has fallen into disfavor with the old gutter dwarf by wasting his time on fanciful dreams of a lost heritage. He must make good with Hoghammond to fence goods again in Glantri City.
I have posted a possibly revised total of loot and experience in the session summary of 66. Let me know of any discrepancies. There was a lot of beer towards the end.
Also in my master plan to turn the Glantri game into a children picture-book, I have posted all the relevant images in the summary as well.
Full resolution images can be emailed upon request.
I am putting in a reverse carouse to sell off the red caps; will look to pretend to share the gold and then conveniently forget about it.
I have William Silence hanging on to the Potion of Undead Ward. I figure he is my B-team guy for the time being. The Sun Globe should be in someone's possession; he could also carry this, it really doesn't matter.
Incidentally, no one has Passager at the moment. Just saying. It is currently un-possessed in the Malinbois lodge.
Pritchard did fine work critting twice at the end of the shadow fight. huzzah!
More dwarfing confusion:
*Saving Throws: Dabbler (per Thief) vs Dwarf: Poison 13/8; Wand 14/9; Stone 13/10; Breath 16/13; Spells 15/12. Taking the Dwarf stats drops me heavily here. Happy to do so but wanted to highlight it before i did so because it's significant.
—*Taking hp per Thief class and not per Dwarf hd. Aside from the conflict above, could a plea be made to take the Dwarf hd for zero level starting and progress per the class at "x" hd (i think it's a d4 or d6).
*There are native Dwarven characteristics that i'm curious if they would stack or supplant the low level thieving abilities: eg. Dwarves can Detect Traps on a 2/6 roll (33%) and the Thief gets a 10% chance at 1st (or 10+ on 2d6).
*My Con score sort of sucks which would rule my character out of being a Dwarf. I imagine that taking it as a "special ability" sort of bandaids the pre-req for that?—
Sorry if my "special purpose" in Dwarfery creates a load of unforeseen issues in the above.
- Is it possible for me to burn 2 Ability points to raise 1 in the primary Stat? And if so, what's the primary stat for Dabbler (Dex, Int) ?
- i'm not sure i understand yet spell specifics in this system. Am i locked into my 1st level spell or can i find a mentor and train into a substitute spell? Are additional spells all randomized too?
-i'll hold off on a character portrait until i've maybe lived through a few sessions first. :)
- Greengoat, can i carouse to sell Rohan Dwohas' Library pass on the blackmarket?
- finally, do you guys recommend finding a bx edition of dnd online via something like ebay or is there another addition that people like that's available new?
thanks,
e. (one of us)
Hey Eric (yeah, you), you may actually be in better shape than you think - the "racial" kits end up getting a pretty robust set of abilities, compared to some older abilities which give only simple single mechanic.
Lower saves are actually better -so you get a pretty sweet bump from going dwarf - it's the best save set out there ;)
I'll defer to the DM on the rest of these. While I would happily opine - it holds little value. In general, you just need to keep in mind that special abilities are just that - a bit of extra flavor and crunch to make your guy unique. We need to be a bit chary of devaluing the racial classes as built into the game.
You can memorize as many spells as time and money can afford you. You get to pick a freebie (if you have the scrolls/notes) or roll at random when you level up, but you can always buy/borrow/find the materials to pursue spell-research. Carousing can also be put towards this, so you actually gain xp for the effort (that said, you also risk failure, gaining neither progress nor xp, but spending the gold!).
I'd suggest putting that request here, Eric M usually handles most of the carousing
A good pdf is hard to find, and the books relatively common.
ah! got it. dunno how i read that wrong.
i get that, which is why i feel a bit dickish about trying to resolve the questions. i'm basically hacking a system i'm not used to and it's a bit of a mess. I'm happy i get to play the character concept the rest of it is really just accounting.
I'm confused. I though i was in that thread?
Thanks for the good feedbacks, Lord Bodacious.
Gah! I'm a dork. Don't sweat pushing the special power, it's kind of a hobby around here. Samurai is still pissed because he couldn't make Silent Bill an Umber Hulk.
You can lower certain stats to raise a prerequisite according to the rules on page B6 of the red book. The one difference, I believe, is you can only lower abilities in increments of 2; i.e. you cannot take one each from two different stats.
Here is the Mule Abides post on the thief-dabbler PC. It looks like the prime ability is both Intelligence and Dexterity, so I think you can raise either.
And… I have only thought about an umber hulk player, but that's only because I keep rolling fighters. I'm not a power gamer, I'm just awesome.
Bril. and thanks for the rehook on the Dabbler page, Naked Samurai.
That's not a house rule, it's a strict reading of the rule you cite. (I just double-checked.)
I think getting that on top of your other dwarfy stuff would be a bit much for a special ability.
Let's say that instead of getting both abilities, you simply get a +1 to your thiefy Detect Traps roll.
Sure, why not? (Maybe there's some connection between his dabbling in magic and his un-dwarfly sickliness…)