Post Journals / Story / Notes / adventure talk here (June 2015)

Today seemed rather uneventful. I made my usual rounds across town to check in with my network of informants. I didn't see my favorite little street urchin today. Was hoping to give him some of the meat pies the lovely Mrs. Teva made me. She likes to thank me for my help, and that last odd job was no different. Then the drunkard Boden had some news he wouldn't spill without another pint of ale in his belly. He's a bit loathsome, but he's useful. The guild was rather quiet today, so I made my way towards the port, perched up on a rooftop, and spent some time devising a better way to access my most used picks. I'm pleased with the results. (Drawn by yours truly.) Just as I was finishing up, I noticed a rather run down ship pull into the harbor. I wonder what story it has to tell and if there's anything valuable on board. I might gather intel and see what there is to learn... * * * Aaand the RL fruits of Mora's lock pick fiddling... I put together some dynamic macros (DM approved) to help those with thieving abilities. I even made ones for attacks. They're dynamic in that they pull from the character sheet tables, so changes to your attributes and abilities only need to happen on the character sheet, not the macro. Because let's face it, why change data in two places when you don't have to? Same for the attack macros below. Lockpick Macro /me slides a lockpick into the mechanism /r d100 Success on [[@{Mora(Jennifer)|olb}@{Mora(Jennifer)|olr}@{Mora(Jennifer)|old}@{Mora(Jennifer)|ola}@{Mora(Jennifer)|oll}]]% or less Traps Macro /me attempts to ?{Find or Remove?|find} a trap /r d100 Success on [[@{Mora(Jennifer)|rtb}@{Mora(Jennifer)|rtr}@{Mora(Jennifer)|rtd}@{Mora(Jennifer)|rta}@{Mora(Jennifer)|rtl}]]% or less Attack Macro (with Dagger) /me swiftly swipes at ?{Enemy|foe} with her dagger To Hit, I'm... /roll d20@{Mora(Jennifer)|thaco}+?{Modifier|0} If it connects, deal [[1d3]] damage. Attack Macro (with Crossbow) /me lets loose a bolt at ?{Enemy|foe} with her crossbow /roll d20@{Mora(Jennifer)|thaco}@{Mora(Jennifer)|dexmissile}+?{Modifier|0} If it hits, deal [[1d4]] damage Simply replace Mora(Jennifer) with the contents in your Character Sheet's Name field, and change the die to fit your weapons. I'm happy to create ones for other abilities if anyone is wanting. A note about the attack macros, since we use a modified THAC0 system, you need to add a place to store that variable. It's simple. Just go to your Character Sheet > Attributes & Abilities > click '+' next to Attributes at the top. In the name field, put thaco (all lower case) and the value (e.g. +2 ). Also, if you have a Strength Modifier (unlike Mora), then add this bit of code @{Mora(Jennifer)|strbonus} right before or after @{Mora(Jennifer)|thaco} —it's similar to the dexmissile variable you see in the Crossbow macro. Also, If you do not have these dex or str bonuses, simply remove those lines. Not sure that they work properly otherwise! Gold, let me know if there's a good repository for saving these kinds of macros and things for players to reference.

I added another archive, BTW. Can anyone check if this opens all right for you? <a href="https://www.mediafire.com/folder/z430wb5p9phiz/TSR" rel="nofollow">https://www.mediafire.com/folder/z430wb5p9phiz/TSR</a>

Holy Crap, Larry, that is a lot of stuff. Yes, opens fine, thanks for sharing.

Cheers Gray! I just sent Gold a draft of Horukh's background. I sure hope he'll find friends with you all. :) Jennifer, that is amazing. You have a MEATY BRAIN. You have such a big brain it would feed FIVE zombies.

Damn, I was hoping to not be so zombie-desirable. Does that mean if I became a zombie, I would require five times the sustenance? Sounds like I pulled the short straw on that one... In any case, I'm strongly considering creating 2e (and perhaps 1e) roll templates as well. Should be a very fun project! Yes, the archive opens up—thanks Larry!

Working on a character portrait and character sheet tonight. Odds are high that I am going in several wrong directions, but what the heck. You know what a plan is, right? A plan gives you something to deviate from. :)

@Jennifer: Do you have to have a premium membership with Roll20 to work on those? I looked into it as well, and it seems easy enough, but I can't find any way to 'upload' (start using) the templates. From what I understood, only the person that makes the character sheets can do this, and it seems I am not allowed to do so. But in any case, if you need any help with the templates, let me know. My real life job at the moment is front end web application development, so I'm quite familiar with all web development techniques.

JOURNAL FOR JUNE 22 SESSION – STILL ON THE SEA GHOST, FIGHTING SEA ZOMBIES Strange discoveries in what is known as the ‘bilges’ of the ship: not only sand (an ingenious solution to the problem of balancing the ship!), but something altogether darker – and indeed smellier: the undead corpses of sailors, which arose and attacked us when Torvald tried to open a chest. We were surrounded, and the usual chaos unfolded, albeit mitigated by Oceanus’ ingenious deployment of a line to corral some of the fiends. Beartram came flying down from above in his bear form, and bit off one of the creatures’ heads. Airen and I fought back to back, marshaling various magics. Kaz invoked the power of his god to turn some of them away, and Torvald and Sandoval worked with Oceanus to keep the creatures at bay, while also despatching several with axe and bow. I was able to trap several within a web, and then knock most of those remaining out with a spell I have never used before, which stunned them with a rainbow of coruscating colors. A most satisfying combat all in all. In the chest we discovered the remains of what seems to have been the original captain of the ship, along with a magic brooch of protection containing pictures of his family. We have taken this for now, but hope to return it if we can. [@ Gold -- I have to get XP for last week's journal too -- I can't remember what I'm supposed to do, sorry -- Can you remind me, thx]

Translation: Entered the bilge - Midden heaps - Foul water - Rats and vermin everywhere Found a large chest - Curiously hidden - Alluring - Captivating - Curse my Dwarven greed! Bird notices something - A corpse! - Hidden within garbage pile - Ignored warnings of caution No physical traps found on chest - Attempted to open it - Suddenly music echoes through hold Fifteen men - Dead man's chest - By Moridan's Hammer! - The dead rise! - Foul rotting creatures Overpowering stench - Poisoning cloud - Many succumb - Resisted! - Seen & smelled worse Lengthy battle ensues - Almost overwhelmed - Quick thinking and spells save the day - Skeleton within chest Cursed! (Torvlad scrawled a few notes in the margin of his journal: "Skeleton belongs to slain owner of ship. Murdered unjustly. Spirit haunted chest. Wanted revenge against pirates responsible. Party has seen that justice has been served...") (Brief sketch of the monster Torvlad encountered in the bilge... Followed by the comment, " I hate gods damned zombies! Next time remove the head...")

What every little dwarf aspires to be... War beard for the win!

Hans said: @Jennifer: Do you have to have a premium membership with Roll20 to work on those? I looked into it as well, and it seems easy enough, but I can't find any way to 'upload' (start using) the templates. From what I understood, only the person that makes the character sheets can do this, and it seems I am not allowed to do so. Nice, I'm a real-life web and interactive media designer myself. I think collaborating would be wonderful. I suspected a certain membership might be required and am prepared to upgrade my account. Haven't done too much digging yet, but looks like that's a good place to start. Gold may have an answer to uploading templates since he's using it here. The 2e sheet is on Github, so I'm assuming we can upload that to a test campaign and tweak it as we want.

Larry -- I'm answering messages and game prep, I have your latest character concept write-up email set aside and I hope to read and approve that between now & game start time. If I'm not fully ready to bring your PC 'under our wing' so to speak yet, then would you still kindly be willing to play as-last-week in the role of a party ally, henchman, friend or NPC? I am certainly working towards bringing your new original character into the game, with a mind to introduce the PC at next week's session if not today's. I understand that your Bio includes some connections to Portlandio docks and for that reason, today may be appropriate, however at the current moment I'm not familiar enough with your Char Sheet yet to say it's approved and ready to bring into the game play. Over the next couple hours I may be able to progress on this and email back. Warbeard -- hilarious. Torvald . Jennifer, Hans -- yes, ideally you want to pay for Mentor role for the month(s) when you are Testing-Writing templates or character sheets code. You can go month-to-month and only need it during any months of testing. Then you can let the subscription expire/cancel. The way the Roll Templates work, I believe the CSS piggybacks on the selected flavor of Character Sheet, in this case we use the 2e Character Sheet. Therefore if you are developing a 2e Roll Template, it would be attached to 2e Character Sheet in github. First contact and work in collaboration with other coders particularly the 2 who already authored/contributed to the 2e character sheet. I'm sure they would welcome the help with developing-attaching the 2e Roll Template on the existing sheet. It doesn't seem to have a custom Roll Template for 2e as of yet. And so, there is an opportunity there to become a contributor to the system, and we would be using your code in our game, but everyone who plays 2e in Roll20 would be able to benefit from your code too. Journal XP: work on writing your-own XP line in the chat, with the XP number to be given from Gold, and DM will approve the line of XP before you add it on your Character Edit Bio. Journal XP is owed for past week ( Gray, Torvald, Chris , June 19). Journal XP now for this week so far owed to Chris with original digital mashup airbender pics, Jennifer G with hand-drawn thieves tool picture, Gray for text thoughts, Torvald with dwarf run and sea zombie pics, Larry for text with the requested owl in water story.)\ How we are doing Journal XP: Gray said [@ Gold -- I have to get XP for last week's journal too -- I can't remember what I'm supposed to do, sorry -- Can you remind me, thx] . No problem. We'll do it in the chat-room, so remember to mention it if you're in-game today. If not we can do it over messages or forum is fine too. The idea is you propose your own Journal XP Line, and I will give you the NUMBER for the XP. The number is based on your PC Level and the Contents of your Journal objectively speaking (Text only, Text with multimedia like a picture from Google, or Text with multimedia that you created yourself), so just be sure to tell me your current Level and write-out what kind of pictures, if any). Format is like, +XXX XP (CharName for June 19 Journal about ____________________________________ including pictures of ____________ . ) You write your own line, leave XXX for the number, and tell me what Level PC so I can respond with the number XXX. Once I approve the written line and number, then you can add it on your Character Edit Bio & Save in-game table. Game Time coming in 2 hours from now!

Sandoval's Tales A shift of balance Kaz informed us he will not be joining us on further adventures.Instead, he intends on heading to the Greek Church in Portlandio to study ancient languages and religion. I told him he would be missed and good luck. It's not a coincidence the undead appeared hours after. What caused this sudden shift in balance? I spent last night in the open air so I could spend my reverie with the Moon Goddess. She came to me again, just as I had expected. Her messages often trouble me at first, but I always end up feeling strangely comforted. As if she is telling me everything will be alright, she is in control and I will do what is expected of me. When Sehanine disappeared, Lathander appeared. I go out to the prow of the ship. I look down for a second, recalling how Kaz hung the captain there. A sad smile surfaces on my face. I close my eyes, and let out a long, tired sigh... I grab the gold ring from my bag. It's the best resemblance of Lathander's symbol that I have. I toss it into the ocean. Next, I take the short sword from its sheat. It is the best resemblance of Kaz' strength and courage that I have. I toss it into the ocean. I ask the Morninglord to assist Kaz on his journeys, to keep him safe from harm and to grant him wisdom. I ask him to accept my offering. And like I did for Sehanine last night, I throw one of the Drowned One's corpses in the sea, to prove the Morninglord that I will continue Kaz' job and put any undead I come across to rest. Safe travels, my friend. May our paths cross again.

Catching up on past Journal XP: This was mostly already discussed / awarded in the chat room. If some Journals are still unaccounted, remind me. Use the usual template and write your proposed Journal XP and I will confirm the amount of the XP number and approve it. Kryikh journal, still need to be awarded for recent past weeks. +620 XP (Airen for June 16 Journal about searching the SEA GHOST and discovering Oceanus the Sea Elf including custom picture(s) "Sandoval the crossdressing master of disguise.") +620 XP (Airen for June 23 Journal about the 15 drowned ones and a dead man's chest and .... a flying pirate? including custom picture(s) "Down With the Captain" and "Frog-shark...Bear-shark?!?.") +620 XP (June 23rd Mora's Journal, Mora played with her lockpicks, hand-drawing included, and included Macros!) +550 XP (Sandoval for June 23 Journal about saying goodbye to Kaz the Minotaur and the undead encounter including Google pictures of Lathander's symbol) +550 XP (Torvald June 16th journal - Clearing the Pirate Ship - Used dwarf runes & graphics) +550 XP (Torvald June 23rd journal - Dead Man's Chest - Used dwarf runes + graphics) +300 XP (Larry for June 19 Journal about an owl in water) @ Larry NOTE: Please Re-use and cross-post your Character Portrait (original illustration) as a Picture in your upcoming next Journal, so that you can earn some Journal XP for the illustration. Background Story does not get an XP award, backstory is a general requirement/opportunity of character development for this game. Opening Window for Journals of June 30 session, the last Journal week of this month's thread before I start July thread to cover next session. All present Players from this session may write a Journal. We finally got the 2 New PC's introduced ( Horukh , and Mora ), integrated to the gameplay, if not formally declared as Party Members as of yet. Since the session was entirely Towny -- you may write about your Relationships and interests in the town, or about the Events of the session. Write a Journal telling us something new about your character's thoughts from the latest turn-of-events, or type your questions & strategies for the upcoming adventures. Feel free to make your Journal about the Town of Portlandio, or about the choices facing the party. Compare the Pros and Cons of your hooks like: Following the 2x pirate treasure maps (West of town on the cliffs, and another on an island far out in the bay), going into the Lizard King's 250-square-miles of cold swamp to the East of Town, follow the human researcher who wants to find Orc Relics in an old fort on the coast to the Southeast direction, or going to meet the Half Elf Aunty Ota Sura in the forested hills to the Northeast. Come to a Consensus of where we should go next. I'm thinking swamps but leaving room for party strategizing. Martin as a NPC / Co-GM'er, you don't need to write a Journal. If you have some time to prepare for next week, talk with me on the side about some of the party adversaries and Neutral NPC's who can be fleshed-out with your participation.

Journal Notes 6/30 Session The remaining pirates kept to their word. They got us close enough to Portlandio to be towed in before abandoning ship and parting ways. Hopefully they will have listened to Jaxon and taken on a new path within the church - unlikely. Once in the port it was amazing how many people jumped in line with their hands open - demanding a cut of the goods. First we had to cough up almost all of our gold just to get towed in! I can only imagine the exorbitant costs of operating a large ship on a consistent basis! The local militants then claimed half of the weapons on board for themselves for "strategic military purposes". At this point I was just so exhausted that I didn't care. I just wanted to hand over the ship, eat a good meal, and sleep..... for at least 14 hours. After the militants took their share the lady sheriff and her deputies demanded a 10% tax on the ship and anything we had in our possession. Her and Torvald did not get along in the slightest. Unable and unwilling to front the 10% tax I suggested that they retrieve a representative from the trading company who contracted us to return the vessel. The representative paid the sheriff the necessary taxes and offered us a hefty bag of gold as our reward. We probably would have taken the bag and been on our way; however, we were boarded by another kenku, Horukh, I believe was his name. He seemed rather wealthy and was particularly knowledgeable on dealings regarding ships and the ports. He helped us negotiate a better rate and we ended up receiving 3 large bags of gold for our troubles. What does one do with so much wealth? I am sure Torvald will have no problem spending it. Even though our transaction with the trading company was complete for now, and they had paid the taxes for the ship and its contents the man-handed lady sheriff still demanded a 10% tax on our personal belongings. I found this to be a bit absurd. Not wanting to deal with this nonsense anymore I leaped off the Sea Skimmer once more in to the port and headed over to Mave's to see if he had any special requests. It seemed that he had just received a big shipment of supplies and would be fine for a while. After catching up with Mave I headed to the Merry Mermaid Inn figuring the first thing Torvald would do after being handed three giant bags of gold would be to go and spend it all on ale and whiskey. Sure enough there he was, drunker than ever, accompanied by the rest of the crew and the fancy bird. The band was playing such a lovely tune - I was overcome by the need to join in - so I whipped out the accordion that I have been carrying around for so long. It was only my second time playing it so I thought I would sound pretty horrible, but everyone seemed to be smiling and enjoying me playing it. Maybe I am just a natural? Who would have thought? After finishing a few songs I sat down and joined the others at the table. It seems that the party was torn on what to do next. Torvald - in his drunken stupor - seems to have forgotten about the immediate threat of the sharkmen - all he kept talking about was killing orcs. Perhaps after he has had time to sober up he will come to his senses and help convince the party to investigate the lizard king and their impending conflicts with the sharkmen.

Jennifer G. said: Gold, let me know if there's a good repository for saving these kinds of macros and things for players to reference. Nothing great, the places for sharing Macros are limited. Posting here in the forum is good and seems to work if people follow-up and copy it into your macros. One idea I just thought of, if I create a character named Macro-Share-NPC in the campaign, then you could put the macros as Abilities under Attributes & Abilities. I could give permission for this NPC to every Player and anyone could view, roll, or copy-paste from that character, onto their own char. IDEA. I like how you showed me about adding the "thaco" Attribute on your own, and making it +2 or whatever the value should be. That's clutch for the way we play, this campaign specifically. Macros that are useful to the general public -- can be added to Wiki Docs pages. For example there's a Roll20 Wiki page for Pathfinder macros, and another for "Old School RPG" macros. We could add on OSR, or we could create a Macros For 2E wiki page. Of course, the catch is --- most games don't use the special thaco we use. So their macros are different, and perhaps some are happy with the 2e character sheet's built-in macros. So i think that you are asking mainly about sharing the macros with our group of players, not necessarily the Public for this, so I guess for now the best place is the campaign forum. @ Jennifer Feel free to create a new thread in our campaign forum, Title: Useful Macros for our Adventures. That might work better than keeping the post buried in the June Journals, when we want to find this again for later reference. Thank you for your work on the macros & teaching others & Roll Templates also if you continue with that route too.

Chris your Photoshop skills are amazing! It's cool to have seen you improve so much from your first few posts.

Sandoval's Tales Doing the Deed We made our way to Portlandio, which is a load off my mind. Now I can check on the smith, see what he has for me. But first things first; we need to get rid of this ship! As was to be expected, half of Portlandio was trying to take a cut. Officials even tried taxing our personal possessions! I offered to share an arrow in a place of their choice, but they decided against it. Too bad. The most annoying bird I ever saw made things even worse, or so it seemed. This Kenku struck me as very odd, being all skinny and ash-coloured. Apparently, he is somewhat of an important figure though. Or at least, he seems to think so himself. He ended up helpful enough, making a case for us in the barter for the ship's deed. We ended up selling, for not too bad a price. I must say my initial assessment of this 'Count Hork', in hindsight, was a bit short-sighted. He proved to be a useful, and even somewhat enjoyable companion. It's a relief that this bird actually speaks the common tongue. Maybe he can help me understand Kryikh better. All the official business tired me. So I decided to stroll around town and pay the Blacksmith a visit. I'm itching to finish my moonbow. I should ask Mitel about his progress with the symbol of the night goddess. Next on the agenda: getting Mort and the Count together, see if they can introduce me to Thoma. I will try to win his trust, see where that leads me. But after that? Will my companions support my plans or go their own way?

Translation: As I feared - Docked ship in port - Beset by officials Bureacrats - Corrupt guards - Stuffy Militiaman All wanted a cut - Money to cross their hands - Bribes for services rendered No better than thieving Kobolds - Weaklings - All worthy of disdain Sheriff deputy worst - Insulted greatly - Treated as liar - A scoundrel! Obviously crooked - Greedy bitch - Should have take her head Haggled with shipping company - Attempted to lowball the reward - New birdman aristocrat helped Grateful for assistance - Took the gold - Damn their problems... (Torvald was very upset, almost down right enraged by the Sheriff deputy's treatment. A dwarf's word is his bond. Impugning that is a great personal offense. One worthy of bloodshed. Her wanting to search his person just added insult to injury.) (Torvlad was greatly pleased with the amount of coin haggled out of the Southern Seas representative. He feels grateful to Horukh for his assistance in this matter.)

Torvald has seen the future... Adventurer Lawyer for hire! (It's a growth industry...)

MUCH sharper version is here : <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/view/ng6mh4p2dpiqvk4/HorukhSharper.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.mediafire.com/view/ng6mh4p2dpiqvk4/HorukhSharper.jpg</a> JOURNAL “Contentious” Corientius, my opposite number in the Coastliner Maritime Border Treaty, looked no happier whether he was arguing a subsection, or soused on wine, or, I presume, he had piles the size of thorn bushes. If a scowl could be a human, Corientius would be it. The scribes were as weary of him as I was, so we all looked to the windows with relief when the shouts rang through the bay. Even as the tow biremes left their moorings, a runner came to us, to tell us: The Sea Ghost was coming in to port. Work at the shipyards ground to a halt, even on the Broadcutter. People of all races and trades came out to witness the event; it was true. The lost merchant ship, infamous as a pirate raider after it was taken, was being brought back to its home port. No one knew who commanded it now, but by the look of it they were lucky to be alive. The mainmast was split and sails torn, rigging tangled and railings wrecked. The tow vessels cast off of the hulk quickly, and let its momentum bring it in to scrape and collide with the dock. Three whistles caught the attention of a chaircab’s pullers and I was taken through the crowds directly to the gangway. The vessel listed to port, and offbeam by a few degrees. Instantly I wanted to see more. I could learn much from seeing its years of abuse up close, and find ways that its structure might have suffered. I thanked my bearers and properly overpaid them, and strode up the gangway as if I owned it. The usual officials were there, and with them, their usual greed. Those on deck were a wild collection of creatures, all well-armed and any of them looked to be ready for a scrap. I didn’t need a map to tell that if I did not step in and smooth the way, this vessel could be in contention for months at least. I insinuated myself into the center of it all, of course. I won’t say that the vultures were circling, for vultures are honorable birds and very pleasant company, really. Vultures have little interest in graft, unlike the dock officials and sheriffry. So I maneuvered. Set up, draw in, query, sidestep, query, riposte, sacrificial offer, feign indecision, counter-offer; I knew this dance. I set its beat, and guided the locals to its end with everything but a bow for applause. The adventuring group---by now there was no doubt it was such---were led off the vessel after a fat finders-fee negotiation, and brought to a hero’s celebration. A beautiful local human lady even sat in to record their stories, while I made sure the good drinks kept flowing. I watched how the group members reacted to each other and to the environment. It was a spectacularly disparate crew, but they knew each others’ movements and anticipated each others’ needs. In fact this was not a crew, but rather, a team. Maybe something more. Plans unfolded in my mind. I could learn much from them.

Catching up on the past Journal XP I'll copy the Journal XP from the chats to here. I'll check and make sure everyone got their XP, Larry I need to check and see, I'll give you the Journal XP for last week if it hasn't be awarded yet. Editing this. Look for New Thread for Opening Window for Journals of July 7 session The party convenes in the town of Portlandio, drinks and celebrates in the Merry Mermaid Inn. The PC's formed a strategy & reasoning for exploring into the Near Swamp next, hoping to find out more about the Lizard King, and about the conniving Lizardman Vessik. Starting a new thread for the new month LINK: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2160047/post-jou" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2160047/post-jou</a>...

Hilarious picture already. I gotta see that in more of a full-screen size. Roll20 kind of compacted it for the forum. Email the larger size, Chris , and I'll bring it into the game table to pop next week. Look for new July Journals Thread I messed up, I'm going to open a fresh new thread for JULY Journals. We've moved to a new month of gaming. <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2160047/post-jou" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2160047/post-jou</a>... Chris , plan to move your picture & text over to the July thread. I'll start it up soon.

Woops didn't even think of the thread for next month haha