LOST TRAILS OOC

[ewancummins]

No problem. Post when you please. It's a game, not a chore.
This may help:

Raen has been studying the magic items the party found in the dragon's hoard, for days now, and really has little notion of what the others were up to.
He does know some of them fought robbers last night.
And now Kat has warned him the Watch is here at the group's lodgings. She took off, so it might mean trouble...

Would he slip out or hang around to answer questions?

Raen is not in Chapter 19, the Happy Halfling. He literally slept through that stuff.

[ewancummins]

The scene for Raen is a single post, Chapter 20, first page.

[ewancummins]

Keeping it moving based on PM, phone, OOC and IC....


diplo Alain

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gather info Alain

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[ewancummins]

Kat cannot take 20 on the forgery, as per the rules. there are potentially serious consequences for failure.

So...

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[ewancummins]

K-Dawg

will


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[ewancummins]

bluff

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[ewancummins]

sense motive

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[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Whoops, I took too long thinking Klokulf's response over:

VIEW CONTENT:

"She and the others likely have no interest in going where we are walking," Klokulf begins.

"Unless . . . Yûlash"

If the party retraces its steps back through the portal under Yûlash, we will be just across the Dragon Reach from Raven's Bluff. We just need to figure out how to get a boat in Harrowdale.

[ewancummins]

Okay, here we are at the end of the month.


No word from any of the missing players.
The pandemic and lockdowns have upended schedules and altered other circumstances for a lot of people. And sometimes players just get bored. I certainly hope everybody is okay.


I've moved ahead with the notes and intent you guys gave me.

The chapter ends here.

Does the campaign? This arc, yes. I will open a Lost Trails Epilogues thread for you to each do one long or short post of your own, describing what happens with your PC over the winter.
You can ask me questions here or by PM if you like.

Everybody add 1000 xp to your total.

Save and update your sheets, please. Even if we don't continue these characters' adventurers right away, you will quite probably get to play them again.

[ewancummins]

Whoops, I took too long thinking Klokulf's response over:

VIEW CONTENT:

"She and the others likely have no interest in going where we are walking," Klokulf begins.

"Unless . . . Yûlash"

If the party retraces its steps back through the portal under Yûlash, we will be just across the Dragon Reach from Raven's Bluff. We just need to figure out how to get a boat in Harrowdale.

I'll backfeed this.

[ewancummins]

As I noted upthread, this is the wrap-up for this story arc.



Now I think we ought to have a group talk.

I'm obviously removing Benn and Sir Clive from play (although if their players ever return to the forums and we are playing a game in this continuity, we can get them back--I have not dropped rocks on them).

We should take a good look at the active PCs' goals and their compatibility with one another.
Do you guys think this group would continue to adventure together or would the PCs tend to go their own ways, at least for now?

I am writing up notes for a choice of games. If you guys who have the time and interest , I will run. Or somebody else can take a turn, if you like that.

[kintire]

Thanks Ewan, for the great game so far!

I do have the time and interest to carry on, and would very much like to. I am enjoying playing Kat, and would like to carry on doing so, but if you want to run another game I am of course up for that too.

I do think, though, that we have a bit of a goal compatibility issue between Kat and Klokulf. She would happily adventure with Raen and Alain again, but not voluntarily with Klokulf. She doesn't know the full scope of what he's been up to, but she has concluded he set the group up in Phlan, and their general philosophies have been obviously incompatible for some time. She wouldn't adventure with him except under duress.

That said, while Kat dislikes Klokulf, the player think he's a very interesting character, so I am happy for Kat to be put under duress. She is at heart a survivor, and has learnt the hard way that you don't survive by defying the powerful, so she is reasonably easy to intimidate. If, for example, Klokulf decides she is too useful and/or knows too much to be left wandering the realms and tells his associate he does want her back, Feyd could intercept her and make it clear her best interest lie with Klokulf. That would change the dynamic between the characters, of course, but that might be fun RP. Or she could drift into fighting Klokulf's group, fail and get bailed out by Klokulf meaning she owes him big, which does mean a lot to her, or she could be captured by his group and placed in his service under similar warnings.

Essentially, there is a compatibility problem, but I think we can work around it.

Kat does now have little to no interest in getting back home. She has far more prospects here than she ever did in Richmulot, and she has no one there she is that close to. If given her own choice she will move into a life of adventuring, probably including robbing the rich and giving (a good proportion of) it to the poor.

[ewancummins]

"We just wanted the world to have order."

Those alien buggy dudes from that Godzilla movie

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Yes, this has been a blast, and I am certainly willing to continue playing.

Since the legal issue in Phlan slowed his momentum to reach Raven's Bluff, Klokulf has had the time to doubt whether he really should return to the Falskverden this quickly. He knows that attempting to bring the truth of Bane back to the Church of the Lawgiver is likely to get him killed for heresy. If he wants to effect change, he would do better remain in this world, closer to the Black Lord, then go home when he has more power and a better plan.

If what remains of the group stays fairly cohesive, he would still be willing to assist in reaching the portal, but immediately he thinks fleeing Phlan for Zhentil Keep is in his best interest. Before he goes, he will try to gauge interest in using the Yûlash portal to shortcut the journey to Raven's Bluff, since he sees that as perhaps the last reason for all of our paths to align.

That said, while Kat dislikes Klokulf, the player think he's a very interesting character, so I am happy for Kat to be put under duress.

Why, thank you for that assessment!
Along a similar vein to your suggestions, if Kat were to get a bit too close to Zhentil Keep and Klokulf found her in the dungeons, he might arrange a conditional release out of residual respect.

From Klokulf's perspective, he has only felt a strong clash with Raen. Initially, there was his heathen wizardry, but as Klokulf's religious perspective shifts, that complaint loses its validity. Klokulf took particular offense at Raen's impugnment of the Lawgiver in front of Governor Samus. Had those complaints been entirely in private, he would harbor no resentment, but he truly doesn't like being made to look bad. He sees it as damage to his entire professional methodology.

Even so, Klokulf's other guiding principle is pragmatism. He will continue to interact and work with Raen to mutual benefit, and he recognizes that they have always fought on the same side. He will honor that history.

Klokulf is probably the weak link with regard to continued cooperation. He was already morally inharmonious with the others, and now he serves none but Bane.

[alhoon]

No problem. Post when you please. It's a game, not a chore.
This may help:

Raen has been studying the magic items the party found in the dragon's hoard, for days now, and really has little notion of what the others were up to.
He does know some of them fought robbers last night.
And now Kat has warned him the Watch is here at the group's lodgings. She took off, so it might mean trouble...

Would he slip out or hang around to answer questions?

Raen is not in Chapter 19, the Happy Halfling. He literally slept through that stuff.

All true but... I want to follow the story even when Raen is not in all of it.
Regardless, with slaves in the party he is less willing to work with the others, compared to looking at magic items, true.


About the news of the fight, and the stealing and all: Raen, not knowing anything, would ask Kat stuff, when she returns.
EDIT: IF she ever returns.

And while I have no problems with Klokuff, Raen certainly does. There was a reason for that clash.

Raen has no problem to work with Kat, but he doesn't want to return to Ravenloft.
Alhoon the player has no problems getting another character with Benn in Ravenloft or continue to play in the FR.
It is just that Raen doesn't want to go back to the mists. That's the only "red line" I see as a player. Either Raen stays in the FR and travels south to do his thing and we continue in Ravenloft, or I can keep Raen in the FR.