The Long Road: IC

[foproy]

bolo will live up to what he said, and will tell some tales to the camp at night, or as they will hear them.

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1d20+6=20

[Fiendbasher]

Cold. It seemed to Vashkar that he had indeed found the place that winter comes from... and as the long nights wore on, he wondered more and more if this leg of his journey would prove to be a rewarding one, or simply another trial to be endured. Most of his active hours were spent in preparation for the possibility of a raid... the activity helped to keep him warm, and kept his mind sharp. The good news is the flat landscape would make it difficult for anyone to approach, by land or sea, without being spotted. Vashkar made regular scouting flights by day and by night... with the aid of Grandmother's magic he was able to fly long and high without having to be as concerned over damage to his vulnerable wing membranes as he might have been otherwise. Whenever he could, he collaborated with the others on how to make the landscape more defensible, despite a lack of resources that makes this task particularly challenging. He spent a large part of his free time tending fire, and warming himself by it. Occasionally he would sing... for lack of a better word... and it's not that the sound was unpleasant, but it was unusual to say the least. It was as if he had two voices. He began with a deep, thrumming tone that almost seemed to resonate from his chest, and then a second cadence joined in... this one high and fluting, seeming to originate high in his throat, or perhaps even his nasal chamber. The sounds complemented and counterpointed each other, blending into a haunting melody obviously designed expressly for the draku's voice.

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To try to set up defenses -- Tactics: 1d20+4=14 + AD: 1d4.open(4)=9 23 total. 4 AD remaining.
This could be used as an assistance roll if someone here is better at this sort of thing or can actually get the village to actively participate. There isn't much in the way of resources to say, build a watch tower (if one doesn't already exist)... but maybe he could use his fire breath to melt the ice into hazardous shapes or we could scavenge some things out of the destroyed hunting camp we found on the way in (if the villagers wouldn't object, that is).

Impress: 1d20+5=19
If any of the villagers dare approach him in a non threatening manner, he won't be averse to engaging in conversation. He will also trade for oil and meat if possible using his 10s income if applicable. He can use his disguise charm to do so if necessary. He will try to acquire at least 5 more pints of oil (which is probably a valuable but available resource here). I assume his 'income' could be considered a share of the trade goods we brought, but ignore anything that doesn't apply; I don't have much experience with downtime or FC in general so I make mistakes.  

[Antilles]

Kaze spends his days doing odd jobs in the caravan and helping anyone who asks, but every day, when the weather and temperature is at its mildest, he finds someplace sheltered from the wind and perform his exercises without the heavy coat on. It's an exceedingly cold experience, and he needs to rest in front of the fire for a while afterwards to ward off frostbite, but the chance to finally get to do his full set of exercises is too good to pass up on for him. It also quickly becomes a favorite for the children watching the caravan, the crazy man with the colorful and strange tattoos who takes off almost all his clothes to run around jumping, punching and kicking, among other acrobatic feats. The only exception comes the day that the child from the initial meeting is among the watchers. Kaze waves the kid closer, and when the kid comes as close as he feels comfortable, Kaze fetches his quarter staff and presents it to the kid. "This staff is carved from a mighty tree that grew in an even mightier forest far to the south, and has seen many different villages in many different lands on my travels. You can use it as a walking staff, at this Kaze walks back and forth a couple of times, holding his staff like a walking staff, "knock someone upside the head," Kaze smacks an imaginary foe with an overhead swing, "or, if you're cold, you can use it start a fire. It's up to you." After that, he returns to his exercises as if nothing had happened.

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I don't really see Kaze doing much downtime checks that would result in coin, so I'm going to go for reputation, even though it results in 0 gained.
1d20+6=17
I dunno if that thing with the kid and the staff should have any effect, and if so what it should be.

[Jigger]

Grandmother mutters and shuffles for the first night, complaining in Goblin.

Although she'd rather be hocking fake potions and trade goods, but by morning is unable to accept letting this camp sit with such a piss poor defense, and she starts organizing and plotting a defensive strategy, with Vash.

She makes suggestions to the elders and young men at first, but resorts to using the teamsters from the caravan if necessary.

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Tactics 20+9 to Assist Vash.
1d20+9=21

Impress 20+5 (To try to get some cooperation if necessary)
1d20+5=17

[LordKruelos]

Kieri Vane

http://www.crafty-games.com/index.php?q=content/kieri-vane

True to her habit, Kieri spends the days wandering in and out of the small village, slipping easily into a pack of children or among a knot of elders, learning the tribe's music and performance idioms, acting almost the inquisitive child herself. Quick with a song, a question, or a smile, Kieri is less conspicuous when the topic of digging comes up.

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Investigate +7
Roll 10
--
17

What have we learned about the local geography?
Do we have a map that covers a day or more's journey in every direction?
Who are the bad things in the local stories?

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Blend +5
Roll 18
--
23

She likely blends in easily -- an attractive, laughing, friendly woman is rarely unwelcome when she acts just as at home pitching in with the house tasks of the village, wandering with the children, etc.

[Catodon]

Scene 1: The lure of the north

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everyone except Kieri,
it’ll take a little while longer to compile the information and maybe draw and scan a map

Bolo soon realise that language presents a major barrier to his attempts. It seems the only person with even a samttering of the Trade tongue is old Tenloowaq the friend of the ‘Jarl’ Aytenserk. If Bolo cannot befriend the old man his attempts to befriend the rest of the village will be over before they start.
Vashkar and Grandmother look over the villages defences, it does not take long there are none to speak of. Even the armed adults are hunters not warriors. On the sea side of the villages the land slopes gently into the ice giving good access to or from the water. As they wanders about making their observations  they notice that every few days a hunting party returns from the frozen sea pulling a sled ladened with seals or fish and kayaks. The small ocean going boats are fast and maneuverable perhaps they could be used to weaken the raiders before they even make landfall. Vashkar’s ability to fly would help there too. The hunters could do better with javelins than the harpoons they currently hold. A stockpile of something to drop from the sky would be good too. Most pressing however is the need for some kind of defensive wall. If even a short wall is desired gathering enough stones and piling them up would take time. Best get started before the winter gets even colder. The people of the village seem content to let the strangers do all the work for their defence.
Word of Kaze’s displays barely begin to spread during the week, a few schildren can occasionally be seen preering at him from behind the hide huts but with so many odd strangers around the tattooed elf must take only a share of their attention. Still, he does manage to make brief contact with the child who was part of the welcome party.

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Resolve roll for Tenloowaq to resist Bolo’s influence.
Tenloowaq +11 Resolve
1d20+11=13
Bolo beats the old man by 7. Attitude is raised to 3 while still disinterested in the group, Bolo senses the old man is beginning to warm.
The little halfling does however manage to facinate the local children who sing and dance around him at night. Play is a common language of all folk.
1d20+0=12
The children of the village have disposition 11 to your group, they are generally friendly.

Since she rolled lower, Grandmother is taken as aiding Vashkar raising the dragon-man’s Tactics check to 24. This roll represents a weeks worth of building up the wall and making plans. To represent the advantages of this if the raiders come from the sea you gain a bit of low wall to hide behind and the benefits of an Outmaneuver against one opponent (say the raider ship’s captain) if they can’t beat the roll of 24.

Kaze gains zero reputation.

more to come soon...

[Catodon]

Kieri’s attempts to learn something about the land and its people. From the journey here she knows seas are covered in ice, and the coast consists of rolling deserts of snow. In the ports of the Nordvolk rumours hold that the few inhabitants of these lands are savages and monsters favoured by the harsh gods of winter. You have recently discovered that the ‘savages’ have a wealth of furs and ivory. This has draw Nordvolk raiders, people who are most likely responsible for the smashed and abandoned villages. The absence of any survivors at these sites might indicate the raiders are slavers or that someone or something carried away the dead.
Since arriving in the village Kieri has learned a little more but the language barrier and the ice people’s disinterest in the caravan has slowed understanding. It is obvious that this village is larger than most others. This is probably because of a nearby seal colony somewhere out of sight within a couple of days travel.
The people here seem mostly human but their eyes look like globes of ice hinting at something supernatural in their heritage, perhaps the rumour of the favour of Winter Gods are true. The ice people obviously have no experience with proper warfare. It is likely that their hunters are able to deal with the few threats they usually encounter. They have no access to wood or metal, all their belongings are gleaned from the local environment. The ice people have no crops nor beasts, not even dogs. Maintenance, hunting, gathering, crafting, and raising children requires almost constant work if the village is to survive, everyone even the very young and the very old work long hours. It looks like they are laying down stores for the harsh winter.
THe village is on a slight rise and only 20’ from the frozen sea. Of the local terrian you have travelled North for many days following the coast. The terrain to the south and as far North as the horizon in a meadrering frozen coast and rolling treeless plains covered in snow and occasional grey boulders. There is the ruins of a village a day to the south. There is a seal colony somewhere to the northwest about a day’s travel over the ice.  From Vashkar’s flights you know there is a glacier about three days travel to the north. The glacier emerges from a range of black mountains running east-west to calve into the sea.
 

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Kieri with the language barrier you have to rely mostly on observation, this raises DC’s by 5. With 17 you only gather what can be easily observed. I’ll see about sketching and scanning a map with the above information on it.
 

Scene 2:
A young woman comes running to fetch you in the small hours of dawn. She takes whoever will come to the hunter who first met you as you approached the village. He is covered in blood and suffers from a nasty blow to the head. Nearby is the home of Aytenserk, ‘Jarl’ of the village. The hide and bone wall of the longhall has been torn apart and the ‘Jarl’ lies dead in a pool of frozen gore.  The hunter Aglaktoe tells the following tale, Tenloowaq tears streaming from his eyes translates: Something terrible came through the darkness. I turned to fight but the thing was so tall it blocked out the moon! I was about to strike when it swung a massive club at my head. The next thing I know I was lying in the snow here and…'Jarl' Aytenserk was dead.” The Jarl’s is a bloody mess. Long claw marks cover his body,  and it appears the death blow was delivered to his throat.  A quick search of the rest of the longhall reveals the Jarl’s daughter, Pitsiark, is missing—her bed violently overturned and furs strewn about the floor.
In the nearby snow are massive barefoot tracks—the feet at least a foot and a half long. Farther out the tracks vanish—a fierce snow is setting in and covering them quickly. “You go, fight…we gift seal, ivory, furs” begs the aged Tenloowaq.

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note new scene and the game is afoot!

[Mister Andersen]

Cunningly inserted downtime flashhback! It's home to a multitude of unique life forms, all highly adapted to cope with the extreme conditions. Although the temperatures here are only just above freezing there is an abundance of colourful species usually associated with much warmer waters. Alongside the dark greens of the kelp there are deep red soft corals that filter feed on the nutrient-rich water, and bright pink anemones that catch small animals that float by in the moving water. There are even crabs scurrying across the sea floor. A startlingly beautiful sight that shows there is far more to the frozen North than just snow, ice and barren landscapes. None of that catches Hakoda's attention. He's too busy trying not to drown. An admirable goal, but one made all the harder to achieve by both the splint holding his savaged leg together, and the dead weight of the sled he's tethered to. At least the all consuming cold has stopped the pain. But he's not noticing that, either. The entirety of his world is Aglaktoe's hand clutching at his from atop the ice as he tries to keep Hakoda from disappearing beneath the surface. But, slick with ice and beset by muscles increasingly loosing their power, that grip has slid from elbow to wrist to fingers with terrifying speed. And then the hand is gone, and the murky blue claims him. As his capacity for lucidity dwindle, he is comforted by the fact that at least the bear upon whose carcass he is strapped did not claim him. A hunter taken by his prey is weak. At least it is the Mother Ocean that claims me; there is no shame to succumbing to something so vast. The roar of his blood and the hammering heart that drives it deafens him. His chest begins to burn as his body eeks the last few precious ergs of life from his last breath. And then he sees her. The spirit of the Mother Ocean, dark and strong and terrifying as she ought to be, reaching out to take her warrior son... * * * Killishandra is filled with a sense of gratification as the hunter convulses and vomits water so that he might suck in a lungful of the bitterly cold but life-giving air. She's aware of the ice that clings to both of their bodies as the ocean water saturating them starts to freeze, despite the heat of her exertions to force the hunter to start breathing again and the haphazard shelter provided by the others clustered around her. Others looking at her with the strange mixture of awe and uncertainty based on an over reliance on restorative magic over medical science. One of the other hunters steps forward, knife raised. Clad as she is only in the soft leathers she'd been wearing when the alarm had been raised about the sled falling through the ice, she tenses in brief anticipation of attack, then relaxes as he instead starts to cut the rescued man's clothes free. Of course. Try to get him dry. They wrap him in a hide, then make no fuss when she simply steps forward and bundles him up in her arms and starts back at a run towards the fires of the village. * * * The next day is an... interesting experience. The mix of awe and uncertainty has replaced the usual uncomfortable standoffishness to which Killishandra has previously been subject. She may be the daughter of a monster, somehow more terrifying than the obviously inhuman dragonman she travels with, but her saving of the hunter's life coupled with what their interpretor awkwardly explained as the man's religious attestation to the village shaman seems to have convinced them that she is their monster. A couple of the bolder souls brave her dour disposition to ask how she worked her miracle. What follows is a haltingly translated class in resuscitation, a good deal of it conducted thrugh charcoal drawings on animal hide. (click to show/hide) So yeah, that downtime roll was 20 + 8 (medicine) + 1 (interest: medicine) for 29. Dropping an AD on that threat nets me 2 rep (1 + 50% rounded up), which pretty much sounds right for effectively bringing some dude back from the dead using esoteric medical science out of a Xena episode. To that end, I think I feel justified picking up a rank of Heroic renown.

[Fiendbasher]

One of the sights that greeted the young woman as she ran into the camp was Vashkar, cloak off, huddled over a low-burning fire with his wings spread partly around it, soaking up heat after a patrolling flight. He had just been about to relinquish his spot to the snow that was beginning to fall as she arrived. The spines of his crest prickled upward, and his ovoid pupils narrowed slightly as he watched her hurried pleas and gestures to any who would listen. He folded his wings and rose to his feet. Snatching his cloak from the ground, he threw it on, and he followed. Vashkar had never walked through the village undisguised before... as the icy eyes of the villagers fell upon him, he ignored them. Upon reaching Aglaktoe the hunter, he silently crouches before the injured man and listens to his tale... the mask of his draconian visage impassive save for the slight rise and fall of his crest as he takes in the account and the details of the scene. Now he had to wonder if some of the people that had watched him come into the village might have thought he was responsible for the attack; he was, after all, a tall and clawed creature... but one look at the foot-long tracks left at the scene shows that they are very different from the ones left by the draku's long taloned toes.

Getting up, he leaves his polearm leaning against the wall of the longhall. He examines the torn hide wall, bringing one of the tattered edges to his snout and sniffing it. Dropping to all fours to examine the tracks, his shoulderblades swiveling to accommodate a quadrupedal stance that seems as natural to him as his bipedal one, he then pads about the scene with a caution to avoid disturbing it as much as he can, occasionally tilting his horned head nearly against the floor to examine the ground up close.

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Survival (Tracking): 1d20+5=18 I'll pitch an AD at this if there's enough trail left that we can try to follow it. But mainly Vash is trying to glean any info he can about the creature... looking for hairs, scents, etc. If you think it's worthwhile to spend an AD to follow it I'll let you do the roll for me.

Knowledge check (Folk anatomy): 1d20+5=7 Vashkar has never encountered such a creature, or at least he can't recognize it by the shape of its feet.

[Catodon]

In the now.
Aglaktoe's features compose themselves when he spies Killishandra he points at her "you no go" he makes it a command. His eyes are white, unreadable, but the rest of his tear wet features mix anguish with seriousness.

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very nice piece of writing Andersen. Will consider appropreate awards. right now in a hurry to get to work but just wanted to get the above in before someone moved us forward

[Mister Andersen]

Even though the man is clearly dead, Killishandra still kneels by the body to check for any faint hint of life that might have been preserved by the cold -- and to get a better idea of what had attacked him. But there is nothing to be done; the blow to the chief's throat is so deep and the blood loss from it so great that she thinks she can make out the curve of a vertebra beneath the ice already formed in the wound cavity. Aglaktoe's directive takes her by surprise, even though at that very moment she'd been debating whether or not she should give in to the honeyed possibility of inevitable violence at the end of the hunt. Her companion is hungry. She favours him with an expression that is half quizical, half expectant 'I'm a doctor, damn it! Not a miracle worker'. (click to show/hide) Knowledge check: 1d20 +2 (Int mod) +7 (interests)=26 Throw in another +2 for synergy from Investigate/Medicine/Search/Survival as appropriate for an appropriately nerdy 28.

[LordKruelos]

Kieri seems to have slipped through the growing crowd to the site, an already common occurrence, hoping to catch a look of the approach, the size of the attacker, whatever can be seen.



I'd like to either support or be supported by on the Investigate check
Roll 18
Investigate +7
25 result

[foproy]

bolo stands back and lets the rest of the group do their thing.

[Jigger]

"Try not to let him die, while you poke around... Oops too late. Well maybe you'll save the next one.", Grandmother chortles happily to herself, as she drags out her bag of bones. "Ok, move aside deary. He's not going to get anymore dead, and talented people need to work.", despite her callous, Grandmother gives Killishandra plenty of room to work while sets up her own lays an old clothe on the ground while she prepares to caste the bones. The bones crackle and clack in grandmothers hands, as she takes on a long far away look. "Gor-Kesh So Rukput Ouun pu'k tu' o so rutk, ut ouun sot tu'k o so r'und. O pot ouu, ouu umt pukdunt. N''um du ouun 'ov' 'rud ok uk''." she chants in sing song goblin. (click to show/hide) Gor Kesh, My Husband Your bones dance in my hands, and your mind dances in my heart. I bind you, you old bastard. Reveal to your wife what is unseen.

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Insight
MP: 1 Casting: 1min Duration: Instant Range: Self
Effect: One Hint
Spell Casting 1d20+9 DC:16
1d20+9=23

 

[Antilles]

Kaze walks over with the rest of the group, and silently surveys the scene. When the old man informs them of the missing girl, he nods once and informs the group "I will help." When Vashkar moves over he falls in step, to help look for any trace that might remain, though his unfamiliarity with snow is a considerable hindrance to him.

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Untrained Cooperative Survival/Tracking check, aiming to help Vashkar with tracking who/whatever's behind this.
1d20+5=10
Sadly, falls a bit short. 5 short is a bit too large a gap to spend an AD on... unless I can scrounge a synergy bonus from one my skills (Acrobatics, Athletics, Blend, Notice, Resolve, Sense Motive or Sneak) in which case I'll spend an AD and hope for a 3.