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Carousing Rules Summary
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Ookla The Mok
Ookla would like to find someone who can both repair the one boot of elvenkind destroyed by Maldoor's dagger and, if necessary for his use, shrink the pair. I don't know which of the following would be best: Drum Coggo, Bell Tower, Stronghold of the First Principals/Ninth Mengril, or perhaps there is an elvish craftsperson in The Dreaming City? Maybe it's the same guy who makes all their water pipes? His charisma is 13, and he has special insight into the nature of consciousness, etc.
Ookla consults the Ninth Menegril, who advises that for elven workmanship it is best to stick with his own kind. This worthy's thoughts are shielded from Thirster, but Ookla's insight into consciousness suggests that the Menegril's attitude is as racist as that would sound.
Ookla spends 200 gp to get Celerion to take him to the Dreaming City of the Lotuskeepers, where he earns as many XP interacting with stoned elves to find a theurge of Myfanwy who is said to be able to work with such items. She introduces herself as Fanni Irene: a young woman, pretty enough of face but far too vapid to be attractive. "Yes, I can both repair and reduce," she chirps. "Just one sec and I'll get to it!" Unfortunately, after she has fortified herself with the black lotus, her demeanor abruptly changes: her face goes blank, she begins swaying from side to side as if swimming upstream, gently flapping her outstretched arms. "OOKLA IS THAT YOU?" she says in a strange, hoarse voice. "YOU MUST COME TO THE ASTRAL PLANE TO SPEAK WITH ME, THINGS ARE TOO STRANGE HERE." Fanni Irene collapses, and when she wakes she goes hurrying back to the black lotus, eager to forget whatever just happened and unwilling to speak with Ookla further. (Ookla's insight failed him with Fanni, and his carousing roll was utterly unsuccessful.)
As a non-carousal event Ookla would also like to do whatever he can to best preserve the two giant hearts he collected from the Hill Giant Thane, Naglskoltyr, and his presumed mistress, Hrymner, and would make any necessary purchases (jars, etc.) he might require to do so.
As a ranger it is well within Ookla's competence to preserve giant hearts in ways such as beef jerky, taxidermy animals, or shrunken heads. Things like organs in jars of preservative or severed fingers chilling on a bed of ice waiting to be reattached would require further assistance.
Tobias the Awkward
Tobias will throw his efforts into completing his monkey butler spell. He will do this as a carousal and put 2,000 gp toward it. IIRC his partial success at the table carousal gave him a bonus to this next attempt.
Tobias visits the Ninth Menegril's library, spends 1,800 gp buying access to his workbench and notes, and makes happy progress (earning as many XP). His carousing roll is entirely successful, but the completion of the spell eludes him; you will have a 80% chance of success next week.
Question- since I hear that The 1,000 Witcheries of Spectre Slaying has been successfully researched, do we know what it does, or is it a case where a M-U just needs to memorize it and cast it at the table to see what it does?
This remains to be hashed out.
Maldoor Thrice-Born
Maldoor's resurrection is rocky. Although he senses forces helping him struggle, the journey through the afterlife is tumultuous. When he eventually opens his eyes to the light of Smuggler's Run, things seem wreathed in shadow; he is blinded (-4 to all attack rolls, no line of sight for spells, movement reduced to 1/4 normal, -2 to surprise rolls) in full daylight, but can See Invisible as the spell once per day. His recovery will take an extra five days, meaning he will be out of action for three sessions.
Martain of Thracia
Martain's journey back to life is similarly fraught. He senses three powers in the darkness beyond existence: the hand of the giant stone Buddha, reaching out for him; a furious manevolence struggling to drag him away into the dark; and an old woman, curled up like a foetus, riding in his slip-stream and whispering to him in a raspy voice. When he is flesh again, the relief of having a body once more is quickly replaced by an awareness of its drawbacks: a furious itching on Martain's left arm. He scratches it, and finds a raised lump the size of a baby's fingertip. Touching it, he hears a familiar raspy voice in his mind. "I am Raohoah, your faithful servant," it says. "To demonstrate my usefulness and dedicatio, please allow me to turn the next water you drink to wine…"
Ivan the Terrible
Cast into the darkness beyond life by the giantess's sudden blade, Ivan is blissfully unaware of the passage to Smuggler's Run. However, although his restored flesh seems normal to the others gathered on Buddha's Hand, Ivan feels that the right arm of this new body does not truly belong to him. When he imagines reaching for something with his right hand, there is a lag as if some other being is deciding whether or not to complete the action. In combat, when Ivan rolls a natural 1 for an attack, there is a chance his arm will direct the attack at some other target.
Sans Sobriquet
Sans would like to carouse with the smiths of Belltower a second time; he seeks to use his new contacts to find someone who can make a well-crafted suit of personalized plate mail. The goal is to either make plate that is either quieter or less cumbersome than usual. Sans is aware he is laughably un-charismatic, so he appeals to whoever will attempt to make the armor: he will help brainstorm new ideas (since he is bright), and will help with the work (being tough, he can pump the bellows for hours), and of course pay generously no matter the outcome.
[117] 11-05-20 09:14:42 EDT San Sobriquet carouse for special armor; Tavis add +1 or +2 bonus for bright or tough, as you see fit 2d6 6 + 4 = 10
Neither brightness nor toughness is required: the blacksmith, a young half-orc named Lovrenco, is happy to help out a member of the Grey Company who will prominently display his craftsmanship. Lovrenco accepts 200 gp in payment, and does indeed contribute his best work. You earn as many XP: as he works, Lovrenco says "So you know Lotur, eh? The Savior of Belltower throws a great party! Not stuck up at all, he ain't."
Xeno
Xeno will start researching the spell found in Tizun Thane's collection, The Lordly Charm of the Wise Returners. He is a M-U with intelligence of 13, and will do his research in the best place he can find (Caswyn's Vicarage is his default location, but if there is some better place - Zekon's, etc. - he will go there instead).
[118] 11-05-20 09:16:00 EDT Xeno carouse for spell research; Tavis please add +1 or +2 bonus for bright or extra bright (INT=13?) as you see fit. 2d6 5 + 5 = 10
The Vicarage is a great place for spell research due to the lordly virtues of the Beast Mistress's vine. Xeno uses up his allotment of the vine's products for the next 22 weeks; in other words, he invests 2,200 gp into the spell, spends this much, and earns this many XP. Do I recall that we said that you didn't have to roll the usual % to successfully complete these spells from Tizun Thane's books?
Yes - as I recall, the spells are complete, but difficult to understand. We carouse with those spells to understand them, as opposed to the iterative original research required for an unknown spell.
Chrystos
Chrystos would like to carouse for his eyes back, he will go up and ask for help from whoever is the highest level magic user or cleric that the grey company is on good terms with.
Patriarch Zekon says that, although it is doctrinally somewhat suspect, the same spell which normally brings a dead body back to life can also be used to re-create the integrity of a living body. The drawbacks are the same as with raise dead: you will usually be out of commission for 2 weeks, and there is a chance of spiritual mishaps. However, since the process is less arduous than actually being raised from the dead, there is no chance you will fail to survive adversity and have your soul pass irrevocably to the other side.
This wouldn't be a carousing move, and you could have done it immediately following your last session so that these two weeks could have been during sessions you missed anyway, right? If you don't want to try this, you could also carouse to see if the Ninth Menegril, Ashur Ram the necromancer, a cleric of Myfanwy, etc. could help you out with something more experimental - although the spiritual mishaps can get pretty wacky as well.
Okay lets retcon this and say i did this at the end of last session(is that the correct use retcon?). I would then like to carouse with the NInth Minegral and get the magic back in my eyes! If possible attempting to make them stronger wouldn't hurt.
Cool, so you visited Zekon at the first possible opportunity; the good news is that you recover faster than normal, so that you do have time to visit Limbo! The bad news is that you now seem to be seeing two places at once: Zekon's stronghold and Buddha's Hand. You quickly get it sorted out: the eyes that are here in Zekon's pad do what you want them to pretty quickly, the ones in Buddha's Hand don't and are in fact closed most of the time! (Maldoor, Ivan, and Martain see that Chrystos has joined them, and is lying around dozing and being bored by a beetle just like they are.)
On to Limbo. You spend 400 gp visiting the Ninth Menegril. You are partially successful: he thinks that he can repair your eyes. However, he says that due to the circumstances he thinks it's best if you first pop out the new eyes and put in the old, disenchanted ones. Then he should be able to re-enchant them. What do you think?
Let the hill giant's treasure be converted to carousing!
Please note new maps attached to the last session summary, showing the ground floor and basement of the hill giant castle from Session 35.
No - 'cause I never finalized a description for what the spell does. Since there are several characters who can cast it now, lets make a point of figuring it out on Saturday.
I think next time I would like you to use a different set of dice for my carousing rolls. I cannot recall the last time Ookla had a remotely successful carousal! Well, at least it sounds as though she was too stoned to get around to damaging the boots. Perhaps my next carousal should revolve around trying to find another group of elves.
The Hamete dice server does our carousing rolls; I encourage folks to use it to roll their own 2d6 for success and post this along with the plan to carouse. Or you can roll your own dice at home too, I trust y'all.
I would be interested to see more about the elves. There is at least one other tribe of elves that, like the lotus eaters, was created in the Sandbox's PbP phase - check pages tagged with acid - or you could tell us about one previously unknown.
Is the sort of assistance that has to be caroused for and cannot be simply purchased? I'm not interested in preserving them perfectly for use in the future as part of magical incantation or some-such. I'm really only interested in preserving them in much the same way that they might have been preserved in accordance with certain burial rituals, like say, those of the ancient Egyptians. Surely someone in one of the towns Ookla still feels comfortable walking into might be able to provide such canopic containers?
Also, you'll recollect that I caroused last session to get some leverage over Thirster in re encounters with the undead. You wrote that he also gained a small number of points to use against me, though you left it up to me to decide when he would use them. In spite of my best efforts, I've been unable to come up with anything better than "If Ookla is about to choose a blueberry muffin and Thirster thinks he should be watching his weight, he'll use the points to try to make him opt for bran." Any chance you could come up with a few suggestions? I would also welcome suggestions, real or comedic, from the group. Please bear in mind that in spite of myself I'm not actually trying to come up with something that sounds like a handicap but is in reality a boon.
I think a ranger's taxidermy is enough like the basic process of mummification that you could make a creditable stab at it outside carousing, and you could find basic supplies (jars, dessicants, instruments, etc) without a problem. A priest might have specific expertise about burial rituals, but that'd be best handled via carousing or at the table; Zekon is the main friendly cleric at this point and he might look askance at this.
I will gladly have Thirster use his points at times I think are appropriate, which is not to say that suggestions are unwelcome (either now or during play).
Chris, how many sessions did you miss? You can carouse after sessions in which you didn't play, but recuperating from /raise dead/ costs you two carouses as well as two missed sessions; you can't carouse while getting your soul used to your new body.
I missed two sessions :(