[OOC] Strange Maps

[Solitaire64]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Oh! Sorry, I hadn't read this and had already written a brief post to start the scene. Had I thought that there was someone else planning to post I would have waited! Hopefully this doesn't complicate matters too much, I'm sure the captain didn't expect the insect to actually know how to behave properly.

Don't sweat it, this sort of thing is inevitable in PBP games

[Yoshimi]

@Solitaire Is "the raven" in your post Snap Kick? I was confused on that point. Should I post my own helping action or were you economizing?

[Mindsiege]

@Yoshimi:
That would be his imp familiar.

[Yoshimi]

Ok gotcha.

[Mindsiege]

@delpinator:
I have a few questions about the current situation of things:
1) Do I understand correctly that our party has a clear destination to sail towards?
2) How much gold does Cha-kra have to part with?
3) Your last post mentioned a sea hag. What's up with that, do we know where that information comes from, how it's involved?
4) I gather we're possibly up against two pirates that are involved with the location that the maps could lead us to, Blackbeard and the blue-eyed captain. Is that correct? Was Cha-kra able to deduce that this blue-eyed captain and the magician that acted on Blackbeard's island are the same person?
5) Is there anything further we were able to understand about the target of our quest? Right now I don't understand what we would be preparing for. Cha-kra isn't one to do much research in situation, but only because he doesn't understand what he's supposed to look out for. I think the only information aside from there being an island are that on the way lies a reptilian port city, a mountain of some sort and a temple to some sort of deity. Do any of these speak to Cha-kra as dangerous in a way that he'd know to prepare for?

[delpinator]

1 there is a vague destination though it might require some exploration.

2. It was 50 gold to travel. The destination is longer than the last and more dangerous but confor has a face you can trust.

3 you can certainly roll to see if you know. You could also ask the captain though he might be busy.

4 they are separate and it was said that they talked to each other. Blue eye seems to be in higher rank than blackbeard.

5 you've heard rumors but it's an unexplored map. There seems to be potential for combat. A dragon on a mountain, reptilian civilians could be a social encounter. Something about possibly being turned to stone or stone people. Merfolk or humanoids of the sea pulling people in. A sea hag of some kind. You are potentially racing other pirates to explore the map.

[Mindsiege]

3) I would roll, but only if Cha-kra has a reason to be thinking about sea hags to begin with. The same with asking the captain about her.

4) To confirm what I just understood from your reply, Blackbeard has a magician in his crew who talked to the blue-eyed captain? Is that what our prisoner told us?

5) Very cool! Let me think a little about how Cha-kra would react to that knowledge. Can we stall the departure of the Red Lady a little and do some more information gathering or item acquisition in the city?

[delpinator]

1 it was mentioned but it's up to you to investigate further.
4. The prisoner mentioned blue eye and blackbeard had talked.
5 I'd say you have a couple hours of prep time before the ship leaves.

[Mindsiege]

3) Ah okay, I must have missed that, that's why I was confused.
4) Could our prisoner identify who had created the magic runes?
5) Grande! I will see what Cha-kra will do with my next post.

[secretID]

While Arrogaio continues to metaphorically charge ahead, if anyone suggests a little research trip, he does have the Far Traveler feature that gives access to scholars, so he'll be able to help that way.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

As a DM, I usually don't actually charge a payment required by the mission, but if we're tracking it, let's remember to get that back to Cha-kra when we split loot. He seems like the type who will speak up if the others "forget," no?

I was going to ask the party about this. In fact, less than forgetting about collecting the others' part of the bill, he doesn't believe that anybody would ever go out of their way to do anything to get the job done if he doesn't do it. Also, his relationship with gold is fairly infantile. Since Westhaven has begun stipending his living costs, he basically doesn't know what to do with his gold. He has never owned a magic item before and the idea of saving gold to specifically reinforce himself through magical equipment hasn't really occurred to him yet. But as a player, bleeding the possibility of owning an item on Cha-kra eventually hurts a little, so even if he doesn't ask for it, I wouldn't mind if anybody decides to pitch in. So far Cha-kra has been getting by on a pittance.

@edit:
The way I'm playing Cha-kra right now, he's having a fair bit of misunderstandings about the challenges that adventuring entails and that his current approach of treating it as mere hunting is very lacking. There are a lot of concepts involved that he simply doesn't understand and for various reasons he has never had anybody to learn about these things from. If you ever wonder how Cha-kra can be as clueless as he is when he has a main stat INT, consider how most knowledge comes from actively learning things and then how antisocial Cha-kra is acting and how much he's underestimating the power of book knowledge. Finally, although Thri-kreen come with a lot of instinctual knowledge and mature a lot faster than your typical humanoids, consider that Cha-kra's age is still in the single digits. I haven't mentioned it OOC before, but if you ever wonder about Cha-kra's suboptimal decision-making, consider that he's trying things outside of his depth and how he has fairly little life experience.

[secretID]

It makes me wonder about CK's motivation. If it really is just about food, I would think there would be much easier ways to eat.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

It makes me wonder about CK's motivation. If it really is just about food, I would think there would be much easier ways to eat.

I'm not sure how much I should take away from that mystery yet. I'm hoping to explore it as part of the story. Suffice to say, it's not about food.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by delpinator

Cha-kra approaches the captain followed by confor and snap kick. You convince the captain to have him take you aboard. He goes to accept the gold from cha-kra. Seems we've got ourselves a good adventure. yeah? Be prepared for monsters of the deep and the sea hag. Ready men were to head out prepare the sails and rigging.

FYI, I reread this post and now realized where my confusion stems from. The second part of that post was supposed to be dialog from Rockabasher, correct?

One last question, because I'm still confused over the testimony from the prisoner that we got. Cha-kra knows that somebody capable of magic was at Blackbeard's hideout when we went there for his bounty. Was Cha-kra able to learn anything about this magician's identity? Previously, I might have mistakenly believed that Blackbeard's magician and the blue-eyed captain have been explained to be the same person.

[delpinator]

While some of the magic was there when they found it. The reason they hid the boat there. Blue eyes seems to know some tricks.