AAR: We'll need a bigger Ship!

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Aegharan
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Joined:Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:58 pm
AAR: We'll need a bigger Ship!

Post by Aegharan » Sat May 19, 2018 3:49 am

Mission: We'll need a bigger Ship!
GM: Aeggy
Date: 2018-05-19
Difficulty and circle rating: Circle 7 Medium

Player Rewards:
Ceadda 13,000 Legend, 1,700 Silver, 3 TIPs
Gronk 13,000 Legend, 1,700 Silver, 3 TIPs
Nista 13,000 Legend, 1,700 Silver, 3 TIPs
Romari 13,000 Legend, 1,700 Silver, 3 TIPs
Thane 13,000 Legend, 1,700 Silver, 3 TIPs

Downtime Actions Available:
Forge Weapon Step 9 (Rank 1) (Gronk)
Alchemy 7 (Booster Potion, Kelia’s Antidote, Kelix Poultice) (Romari)
Item History 15 (Rank 4) (Romari)
Research 28 (Rank 6) (Throal library 20sp) (Romari)
Alchemy 4 (Booster Potion, Kelia's Antidote, Kelix' Poultice, Last Chance Salve (Nista)


Note: A Route by River has been established to V'Strimon and Syrtis

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: AAR: We'll need a bigger Ship!

Post by ChrisDDickey » Sat May 19, 2018 9:56 pm

From the journal of Thane Cawdor.

Gronk has been talking about a rumor that merchant interests are encouraging T'Skrang to have their Riverboats reestablish their historical trade routes, specifically they would like to setup a Trade Route through Syrtis and V'Strimon. At first I assumed we were going along strictly as muscle, but certain things were said that confused me into thinking that we would be exercising a leadership role in this, which I could not see. After all it seemed like business between dwarf merchants and T'Skrang matriarchs. In the end our role turned out to be both muscle, and unofficial representatives of the interested parties.

We went down to Borgin's rest, and were informed that Captain Kenshan was expecting us. While traveling, Cpt Kenshan asked us to maintain a 24 hour watch. I tried to organize a watch were we scheduled our sleep shifts to stagger, and where we all were alert except for the 8 hours a day when we were scheduled to sleep. I figured since we did not need to setup camp, nor cook our own meals, nor were we doing anything more strenuous than being alert, we could all be alert whenever we were not actively sleeping or doing our morning karma rituals. I am not certain why, but some of the others objected to this, and we ended up with a schedule where two of us were on high alert, and the others were off, not in armor, not chain casting, etc. for almost 14 hours a day each.

The ship headed downriver. Previously the ship had never gone further then Telips, and after that first time refused to go within 2 hours sail of it. This time we sailed past it at high noon, and were many miles beyond it as evening approached. As evening approached, we Gronk and I were on watch and spotted 8 or so Saural These frog like lizard critters spit acid. We have fought them before, and I am very happy to have my new armor which shrugs off the acid much better than my old leather armor used to! I got spat at several times, and bit as well, and each time the armor shrugged it off. It took a while, but eventually all hte Saurai were slain or driven off.

Two days later we arrived at V'Strimon, where after a brief stop, we proceeded to Syrtis. We took our time feeling our way up and charting the previously uncharted river, but it it took us less than two weeks to make the run (coming back it would only take a bit more than 2 days). We arrived at the start of the Shuvakko spring festival. The people (many of them very merry with wine), decided that there should be a contest between champions of Syrtis, and of Throal! We adepts agreed to represent Throal in this friendly competition. We were told there would be A battle of Strength A battle of Dexterity A battle of Agility A battle of Wits, and a battle of Knowledge. We tried to get a bit more detail about the "battles", for example we specifically asked the difference between the battle of Dexterity, and the battle of Agility, but they were playing their cards close to their chests and not giving us any clues. We discussed it among ourselves and each picked a contest to champion.

The first to volunteer was Romari, He cast his Evolved Consciousness spell upon himself and prepared to display his knowledge. Unfortunately it turned out topic was wine connoisseurship. The contestants were expected to drink a large selection of wine (and beer), and at the conclusion rank the wines. Unfortunately Romari did not know that the first rule of mass wine tasting is to spit it out after tasting, and he became dead drunk before the actual ranking was begun. To be fair to Romari, the other contestant did not spit it out ether, but I suspect that he had a very highly ranked Iron Constitution. I am sure I could have done better than Romari in this test, but my Iron Constitution rank was probably not enough to drink that much myself. And if I had actually been awake to actually rank the wines i am sure I would have made a proper hash of that. In any case, the other contestant drank all the beverages, and ranked them after Romari slipped beneath the table.

I had volunteered for the test of Strength. This turned out to be a Caber Toss verses an Obsidiman, for which I was not actually a bad choice. I am actually as strong as some Obsidimen (though not as strong as the strongest of Obsidimen). Plus, while I am a lowland Troll, and Caber Tossing is more of a highland sport, I was not unfamiliar with the technique. You don't usually see many Obsidimen throwing trees around for fun. Also, I am Talented in throwing things. The specific rules of this contest was that each contestant would prepare his own Caber, of a weight equal to the contestant. Both my Wilderness survival skill and my Wood Carving skill helped me pick an appropriate log. Then each contestant would have one attempt at throwing each of the two Cabers. The betting in the crowd was heavily against me, as they all thought that I would be unable to even lift, let alone throw the Obsidimans Caber. But I was actually feeling OK about that part, since once again, I have beaten some Obsidimen at arm wrestling. Yes, he was going to be throwing a Caber of his body weight, and one of a bit more than half his body weight, while I would be attempting Cabers of my own body weight, and almost double my own body weight. But in terms of carrying capacity, we would both be attempting throws of about double, and triple or quadruple our carrying capacity.

Obviously this whole contest a battle of wits to find loopholes in the rules. Them describing a test of constitution as a battle of knowledge, and a test of throwing skill as a test of strength. So I was looking for an edge myself. I thought that if I threw my Caber in the river, it would float away very far, miles farther than he could throw it on land. If the Obsidiman also thought to throw his caber in the river, I could swim out and retrieve his, thus being able to make my 2nd throw, but I knew that he would have been unable to swim out and retrieve mine, and would then have to forfeit his 2nd throw. Unfortunately, the fair grounds were too far from the river for that to be practicable,and I was forbidden from carrying the caber there. In the end, it came down to throwing skill and luck. We could both lift both cabers. I did a respectable first throw, but my opponent did slightly better. On the 2nd throw, he was using my much lighter caber, and he over-rotated it. Instead of flipping up and over, so that it tumbled forward, he threw it such that struck the ground wrong, and bounced backwards. I had only to heave his much heavier caber a few yards to score a decisive victory.

Ceadda attempted the battle of Dexterity, which turned out to be throwing 3 rocks at cans. I could have again used my throwing weapons skills. Gronk could have used his mystic aim. Ceadda had no applicable talents and was defeated. For the battle of Agility, Gronk needed to climb a tree. He was not allowed to use his climbing kit, but was able to activate his magic boots climbing ability. His opponent was halfway to the top before Gronk fell from a height of only 2 yards. Again a decisive defeat. Nista attempted the battle of Wits. She was told to Impress the crowd. She ended up using Frighten upon her opponent, but while that impressed her opponent, it did not impress the crowd. On the other hand her frightened opponent also did a pathetic performance, so she narrowly lost a judges decision.

So in the end, we champions of Throal lost the contest 4 to 1.

Traveling back to Borgins Rest, the ship was attacked by 5 or 6 Gargoyles, which was a very tough fight.

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BattleChad
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Re: AAR: We'll need a bigger Ship!

Post by BattleChad » Mon May 21, 2018 5:28 am

The Great Library of Throal thanks Thane for his contribution.

Journal Reward: 650 Legend Points and 425 Silver

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etherial
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Re: AAR: We'll need a bigger Ship!

Post by etherial » Tue Jul 24, 2018 8:02 pm

From the journal of Gronk Longtusk

1 Mawag, 1423 T.H.
After months of planning, I am finally setting out to establish trade with V'Strimon and Syrtis. This will hopefully cut Sosonopa off from spreading their Doppler infection further and providing economic means against them as well. The townsfolk's blind loyalty to Ivon has proved far more intractable than his Horror Powers.

3 Mawag
Onboard the X'Egirathla II, we set up a 24 hour watch to protect the ship as she traveled down under-charted waters. A small pack of Saurals made a nuisance of themselves but we were able to repel them.

5 Mawag
We made a brief stop in V'Strimon to reaffirm our plans for opening fair trade and take on representatives from Her Excellency V'Strimon.

19 Mawag
We have made a serious matter of charting the course as we head Upriver. One small misstep could beach the ship on our return. Still, it has been exhausting work keeping eye and ear out for trouble, and it is with much pleasure that we arrive at Syrtis, the Cliff City of Lalai Gorge.

19 Mawag (continued)
We have apparently arrived just in time for something called a Shuvakko Festival. Personally, I think the Syrtans just made it up since the V'Strimon T'Skrang mentioned nothing of it on the way up, but T'Skrang do have a tendency of leaving out details just to throw you, so maybe it is real. The Festival featured several "battles": A battle of Strength, A battle of Dexterity, A battle of Agility, A battle of Wits, and a battle of Knowledge.

Romari volunteered for the battle of Knowledge, thinking his Wizardry would aid him, but the Knowledge in question turned out to be wine, and he was a terrible sommeliel and also had quite the useless liver.

Thane participated in the battle of Strength, which was a Thrown Weapons competition, throwing hafts of trees. His opponent was an Obsidiman who beat him in the first round but had a critical fumble in the second round, allowing Thane to win handily.

Ceadda was Named champion in the battle of Dexterity, which was once again a Thrown Weapons competition, this time for precision instead of Strength and Distance. He was defeated, but not as soundly as I in the battle of Agility, which turned out to be a Climbing competition. With my Climbing Kit disallowed, I got off to a bad start and bungled the first leg, getting thoroughly left in the dust by my opponent.

Nista remained to participate in the battle of Wits, which was a competition to impress the audience. She tried using her Frighten spell to cow her opponent, which succeeded, but the Judges ruled against her.

We lost 4 of the 5 competitions, but were greeted warmly as visitors (T'Skrang at least are gracious hosts and good winners, even when they stack the deck against you) and we succeeded in our aims.

PCs:
Ceadda, male Human Warrior
Gronk Longtusk, male Ork Archer/Liberator
Pethrytholilanista, female Elf Nethermancer
Romari Savre, male Elf Wizard
Thane Cawdor, male Troll Sky Raider

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BattleChad
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Re: AAR: We'll need a bigger Ship!

Post by BattleChad » Mon Jul 30, 2018 2:25 am

The Great Library of Throal thanks Gronk for his contribution.

Journal Reward: 650 Legend Points and 425 Silver

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