Perhaps we can get a list of those who plan on being in attendance this coming Saturday at the 20-sided store.
| Name | Character Name(s) | Preferred Action |
|---|---|---|
| Tavis | Duh. | Killing PCs |
| David | Ookla the Mok | Fighting giants |
| Thaddeus | Xeno or Sans | ? |
| IO | John Ho Tep | ? |
| Jedo | Tobias | ? |
| Eric G | Jarri if giants, Snaedis if not | Fighting giants |
| Jason | To be rolled | Enjoying old-school new-PC mortality |
Also, please comment below to discuss what we might try to accomplish this session.
IO Sez
Back to the Hill Giants?
You receive a contact here: the woman who waved from the tower when you flew over in Celerion's sky-chariot. Celerion brings you word that, a few days later, she flagged him down in the nearest town to which he does normally travel and asked him to bring you this message: "I am a member of a group of adventurers dedicated to the overthrow of the giants. They have placed their yoke on many nearby towns; if you help liberate these holdings, you stand to gain both property and rents when order is restored. If you seek more immediate wealth, the giants extract tribute from the people and haul it to their masters on Mt. Rugneirheim; we could help you learn when these tribute caravans depart."
This woman identifies herself as Ratanna, and her group of adventurers as the Dark Star Guardians. She helps put names and context to the map you saw and sketchily copied in the throne room of the Hill Giant's Steading in the town of Pest's Landing:
Circled towns are occupied by giants who extract tribute. Uncircled towns may be shaken down for tribute occassionally but are not occupied. Single lines indicate roads, double lines rivers. Jagged lines are mountainous trails suited for a giant's tread, hard for humans to navigate.
Ratanna says that Pest's Landing has long been ruled by giants, and that perhaps this is why the frost giants chose to occupy nearby Mt. Rugneirheim in preparation for their assault on the Stronghold of First Principles. With the support of the frost giants and their fire giant allies, and that of a frost-breathing dragon they appear to have enslaved or otherwise controlled, the hill giants of Pest's Landing were able to conquer much of the surrounding territory. Goblins have been brought in to serve the giants in most towns; Pest's Landing is an exception, as the humans there have been oppressed long enough to do the jobs goblins do elsewhere. Unlike goblins, humans have enough of a history of successfully murdering giants that they are not allowed in the Steading of Pest's Landing; conditions differ from place to place, with some giants allowing both goblins and human slaves in their living quarters, others only goblins.
Conqurered lands are forced to produce food to supply the giant army and treasure to fill its coffers. Caravans pass between all the towns in this network bearing trade of one kind or another. Those most likely to be guarded by giants carry food & war supplies and/or treasure. Food goes various places - the fire giants tend to be stationed in the low mountains and require supply, some of the towns have mines but not enough farms to feed the giant garrisons - but much of the food and all of the treasure heads to Mt. Rugneirheim.
Ratanna says that Pest's Landing is under a state of high alert. Reprisals against the human populace have been brutal, and both the killings and the effect on public opinion has endangered the members of the Dark Star Guardians who are staying in town incognito. She is aware of another band of adventurers in town; each of them believes the other was infiltrated by the giantess spymaster, and both alternately blames the other for having killed her and the thane and takes credit for the deed themselves. (Ratanna is not proud of this, but neither is she protected against ESP; if it is brought up she is embarrassed and defensive, insisting that the Guardians have done many heroic deeds, are devoted to liberating the people opporessed by the giants, and war forces strange bedfellows.) Because of the turmoil in Pest's Landing, which is the point of convergence for tribute caravans from all the giant-occupied towns, the guards on caravans on the mountain trails from here to Mt. Rugneirheim have been heavily fortified. These caravans will contain the highest density of treasure and be easier to intercept because of the single route Ratanna believes they travel along. However, she thinks it is too risky to try to hit one of these until the heat dies down, and pledges the scrying assistance of one of the Dark Star Guardian's magic-users to help you pick out treasure caravans in the more diffuse networks beyond Pest's Landing where security has not been enhanced.
If not that, the Necromancer Ashur Ram.
You have a contact here as well: at noon, a shadow as of a robed human appears on the wall which claims to represent the Necromancer. "Greetings, friends!" it says. "It has come to my attention that you may be in the market for enchanted items. I am prepared to offer substantially better pricing than other suppliers you may have been dealing with." Strangely, at the same time as this boldly outlined, dark black shadow appears, an anti-shadow materializes; a wavering, misty, colored image of a tormented-looking, bearded young human man in threadbare robes, standing in the place where one would stand to cast the shadow on the wall. The mouth of this image moves differently from the booming voice of the dark shadow: leaning closely, you hear it whispering: "You could steal these items even more cheaply; my master leaves them in poorly-guarded chests in the dungeons beneath his tower, thereby to propitiate certain gods of tombs and treasures." The dark shadow seems completely unaware of this eidolon.
Except (O Tavis) what is required for us to recover our slain from Smuggler's Run?
They will be able to pass through the portal you established there, as soon as they complete the two-week recovery period from their ordeal. In their brief lucid periods, they find that an enormous, pedantic beetle is, when not nursing them back to health, assembling a diorama of the region with seeds to mark caravans, conical leaves for strongholds, pebbles for troops, and raindrops for wagonloads of gems. When they are awake, this beetle lectures Maldoor, Martain, and Ivan about the movements of cargoes and payments represented by this diagram in a dry monotone that quickly puts them back to sleep.
(And sorry, but WHY are we not just having a thread for this? I beat the drum again: wrong solution!!)
The page needs to have the code (double open brackets)module Comments hideForm="true"(doubleclosebrackets) inserted. One can copy this from other pages when setting it up. I added it now.
I find the whole "nursed by a giant beetle" thing intriguing. Once any of those being so nursed have returned to the fold I look forward to hearing more about this and asking Ontussa many questions.
Ookla would most like to continue to go after the giants.
Nice use of "eidolon." Very nice.
Jarri has been chomping at the bit to fight giants since Day 1. He and his dwarven buddy he met in Limbo have experience wrestling giants, and four dwarves can fit across a 10 foot corridor to form a shield wall. If the party decides to hit the giants, a dwarven strikeforce (with a possible all-Stonebeard [dwarven defense specialist] front line) might be an option to hire/recruit.
Hitting tribute caravans sounds very enticing; getting a pay day while hurting the giants outside of their stronghold sounds like win to me. If we can mess around with creating terrain/weather/logistics mismatches for them, even better. These are massive creatures, these giants, with big beasts of burden and bigger ration needs for caravan travel. There seems to be a lot there that can be exploited.
Also, Jason is one of the players in my 4e game is interested in sitting in on Saturday.
Sure, the more the merrier!
Page updated. Personally I am liking the wiki page organization - easier for me to update and put answers in one place, nice to be able to go from one carousing page to the previous one to see what people did last time. (The format for the headers I use to do that can also be copied from an existing one and updated with new linkiness.) Not to say something else couldn't be better, but I think page + comment thread is better than thread alone.
Oops Jason can't make it this time. But perhaps next session.
I had to leave early due to GF pressure, but I hope it was a successful outing. Did you find any tiny giraffes?
My verdict on the 20-Sided Store is that it's further away than Cafe 28 for me, it feels more cramped, and when the summer really gets blazing it'll be hot as hell. On the other hand, I am happy to support small local businesses, and will go if that's where sessions are held.
We raided three caravans with no losses — essentially we were able to control the terrain and present overwhelming force at a distance. The total GP yield would have been around 10K, but we had problems hauling everything out of enemy territory. We killed scads of goblins, orcs, and ogres, along with a one hill giant and a pragmatic fisherman. We also defeated a father and son pair of verbeeg (deformed giant types) shepherds. I will let another tell that sorry tale. And a couple of other things?
Ookla was conversing with a badger while we scouted an ambush site. The badger's memory was failing him on a point, so he consulted his wife, who Ookla's ESP revealed to be a shapechanged druidess who had forgotten her human self. She was a refugee from the giant takeover. She recovered herself in our presence and we made friends. We ended up leaving a lot of loot stashed with her, and ultimately decided to essentially spend that loot in helping her reestablish her sacred grove, which is now a safe oasis in giant territory, and a training site for anyone who wants go all druidy.
So not a great yield of treasure or XP, but
a) we came, we saw, we fucked up some caravans
b) we discovered that there is some kind of rebellious stuff going on between the giants and their humanoid minions which we might exploit
c) we established a potentially powerful ally and safe haven in her grove (you get the xp for gold you bring there!)
My verdict on 20-Sided Store: It is a longer ride for me, and it does not have a big table. I did really really like going to a different zone to game, just for the change, and there was a whole lot of good food and drink around, the people on the street are a lot better looking than C28's zone of dismal, the proprietors and other customers seem really cool, the $3 fee for all day gaming was nothing, and I could actually hear everybody MUCH more clearly, because no Gaga and the table was cozy enough and the room small enough. Witht he front and back door open, there was a breeze blowing through the store that made it quite comfortable. I dunno what would happen in summer. It's not a big enough space to develop the epic stink of Neutral Ground. For this monthly game, I guess I'd rather go out there than C28.
Sounds like we did ok after I left. Can't wait to hear more details.
As far as the space: it's just as easy for me to get to. It has a remarkably familiar feel to the kind of place I played in back in the day. It also gets +1 for neighborhood and +1 for people. I would happily play there again.
I wonder if we can set up some sort of regular line of communication with the 'underground', I am curious to know what the affect on their general moral (if any) our raids had.
I can see the back room of the d20 store getting pretty hot in August, but according to Tavis Cafe 28 gets pretty sweltering in the summer too. Better food options around d20, and tis about the same distance for me either way. They should fix up that back yard area, and put some tables out there too.