BishGada, I agree there are lots of possible paths here for Tulbas. He may succumb to evil, now that he's surrounded by it. Or he may decide to fight against it and completely shift to good. Or remain neutral despite it all. I'm interested to see how you use these recent events to develop him.
And it's high praise indeed that a game I'm running managed to invoke an actual emotional response in a player!
mgbevan, I keep very close tabs on players actions and motivations. I don't know why, I just find it interesting to watch and measure how they develop.
And yeah, that's a good point. With Raetmal gone, the only mageware shop in the city is now run by Magnus. If anyone wants to buy, sell or trade magical goods or train in sorcery, looks like you'll have to deal with him, at least for now.
Haahque, there is actually only one CN god, if you can believe. Sirrion, the god of flame, passion and creativity. Haahqae does have some points with him so far.
Okay, I'll have the innkeeper start charging him each night for the room. You have a good point, though. Time moves fairly slowly so far, so a couple of coins a night is probably not going to break the bank for Haahqae, especially when he keeps getting these big payouts from adventuring.
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I've put up the XP and as you can see, we have a lot of level ups. Everyone except Kendra managed to reach 5,000 XP, which is the goal I had set for completing Arc 1. She's a few hundred short, because of her near death. Hopefully we can get here caught up with the others soon. (We need to hit 40,000 XP to end Arc 2!)
Unfortunately, Invisible Castle is down again. This makes it difficult to roll for new HP. So I'll leave it to you. We can wait and see if Castle comes back up before we resume play in a few days, and you can roll then. Or you can take a gamble and let me roll for you.
Haahque, your character now has the ability to use Find Familiar. In my games, I use it as a class ability, not a spell. But it works just like the spell, so if you are interested in conjuring a familiar, I'd recommend reading over the spell description. Having a familiar is not required, though. (If he performs the ritual in the city, I can only imagine what he'd get. A stray cat? Oh, a mouse? He is a mouse burglar, after all.) Your character also gets 30 thief skill points to distribute as you please, although you cannot put more than 15 into any one skill and you cannot put any points into Read Languages yet. In addition, because you are a mouse burglar, you get 5 extra points that you may put into one of the following skills: Open Locks, Move Silently or Find/Remove Traps. These 5 points cannot be split up, you have to put them all in one of those three skills.
mgbevan, Gregeddin now has access to the second level of sorcery. You'll need to find someone with access to that level of magic to train him in a new spell. Tulbas might be one option, as he just accessed that level himself. Ismene is another, but remember she only knows Illusion spells, so if you want to know something else, she's out. Then, of course, there's Magnus. You could also just do without for now, until you can get your hands on an enemy spellbook or scroll (assuming Haahqae doesn't beat you to it and stash it away, never telling anyone
). You also get 15 thief skill points that you may distribute as you like to any of your thief scores.
BishGada, Tulbas now has access to the second level of sorcery, as well. In fact, one more level and he'll be ready to head to Wayreth and take his Test! As Magnus is now your master, you may learn one 2nd level spell for free, no roll needed, from him. However, it must be either Enchantment/Charm, Evocation or Necromancy, as Magnus believes the other schools are 'a waste of time.' (Note, you can still learn spells from other schools from him over time, but you'll have to roll normally for them.)
Some of you got some new proficiencies. Kendra and Gregeddin got a WP and NWP each and Tulbas got a NWP. Normally, at the end of an arc, we skip forward a year and say you learned your new skills during this time. We're not skipping a year, though, just a few days. So...we'll cheat a bit. Whichever proficiencies you want, we'll say your character has been training in them, off-camera, for awhile now. And you finally mastered them recently.
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With all that taken care of, here are the events of Autumn Harvest 22, Day 2 of the occupation).
Haahqae regains 1 HP. Under Arulia's care, Kendra regains 2 HP.
Verminaard packs up and readies to move on. He leaves a bozak draconian called Tethys in charge. Tethys is the Flight Marshal of the 1st Red Flight of the Red Dragon Army. He and the 1st Red Flight remain behind to occupy the city, while the rest of the army heads east. The 1st Red Flight consists of over 5500 units, including three red dragons (one of which being Tethys' mount). Most of them are draconian or goblinoid--strangely, Verminaard doesn't seem to have many humans in high positions in his army.
Tethys divides up the city, placing a different brigade in charge of different sections. Tethys himself moves into the mayor's former mansion, in the noble district of the city. There are four brigades in the 1st Red Flight, the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th. Tethys places the 9th in charge of the noble district and the 10th in charge of the merchant district (these are both draconian brigades). The 11th and 12th (both goblinoid ones), are placed in charge of the harbor district, the farmer district and manning the gates. With the refugees mostly shipped off, and the massive manpower now patrolling the streets, crime is completely wiped out.
Tethys makes a few declarations to further see the city's order is maintained. First, no citizen is allowed to carry weapons in public. Second, a strict curfew is put into place--no citizen is to be out after Last Watch (8 PM) without special permission. Third, all religions are banned save the worship of the Dragon Queen, Takhisis.
Finally, Tethys claims that tomorrow the shops will reopen and the city will resume business as normal. Although one wonders how normal things will ever be again.
Haahqae agrees to pay the innkeeper of the Steel Tankard 5 silver a night. This will cover his room and two meals a day. (I've removed 5 SP from his inventory). With the refugees gone, the place is pretty empty now. Most of the inns have emptied out, in fact. There aren't many travelers, but the bar does fill up with draconians at night who are off-duty. Apparently, they quite like to drink (and sometimes brawl).
Gregeddin goes to give the bad news to Mateo's parents today. They are a poor couple, and he was their own child. His father works at the docks, but isn't making much coin, and they both relied heavily on the money Mateo made at the Masked Dragon. Afterward, he runs into the kender, Pen. Pen tells him what happened to Kendra and Darga, and also a rather fantastical tale of an old god carrying the dead dwarf into the heavens. Gregeddin tries to visit Kendra, but is turned away by her husband, who believes she nearly died because of him and his 'adventuring buddies.' He then goes to the mageware shop to tell Tulbas, and learns that Magnus is now running the place and Raetmal is dead. Finally, he heads to the inn to fill in Haahqae on all of this, and keep him company while he recovers.
Arulia visits Kendra to help speed up her recovery. Until the shops reopen tomorrow, she is the only one working now, so what little money she can earn will help her family eat tonight. Norris fusses about, getting in the way until she manages to politely but firmly convince him he is in the way, and he leaves her alone after that. At one point, someone visits and she hears Norris shouting at them, then slamming the door. When Arulia is done, Norris pays her and asks that she returns tomorrow.
At this point, I assume Tulbas is still somewhat in shock about his uncle's death. Gregeddin comes to visit and tells him that Darga is also dead and Kendra is in a coma. He also tells Tulbas about the betrayal of Raena and Burzan, and Mateo's death. Tulbas, in turn, tells Gregeddin about Magnus killing Raetmal and taking over the shop. After the bard leaves, Magnus tells Tulbas that he has 'moped' enough and tomorrow they will begin his training for his upcoming Test.
These are the events of the second day. If you feel I got anything wrong about your character, let me know and I'll fix it. I thought I'd have Gregeddin visit Mateo today and Zoya tomorrow. When the shops reopen, it will be possible to buy, sell and trade again, so let me know if you have anything in mind.
Tomorrow, I'll update more.
