Second Overdue Notice - Out of Character Discussions - Book Return
These are the Out of Character discussions as Branwyn organized how to return her library book to Hell.
Significant Dates:
- 21-5-1267 TGR 345 SKR - Last of Diplomatic Entanglements, Ask Sam for the book, Aug 11 17
- 6-7-1267 TGR 345 SKR - Last day of Leg B of A River Runs Through It, leave Dryads Lair without the book, 2018 01 12
- 15-7-351 SKR - Start of Cosmological Quandaries
- 20-11-357 SKR - Start of Searching for Alexandria
Note: I am aware that Iggwilv is not a unique name to this story arc. I am purposely not doing outside research on that, and what is here on this page is in-game knowledge only, which is what our characters would know.
BOB – how much more information can Branwyn get from her own local sources or is this it at the moment?
Illporn
- Librarian at Royal Library, people call him Ill
- Became friendlier at the end of our stay when we invited him over for a seance
The Book in Question – Fiendomicon of Iggwilv
- The book was part of the Princess Dassani's Magical Library collection at the Royal Library
- Book is made of brass
- Was chained until Branwyn broke them
- When the book opened a dark red light came out and settled upon Branwyn’s chest and then faded out
- Kenna knew it is the mark of a demon, so it knows how to find its prey when it goes hunting
- Lowest level spell is 4th level priest spell, Abjure
- This spell can send an extraplanar creature back to its own plane of existence. The spell fails against entities of demigod status or greater, but their servants or minions can be abjured. If the creature has a specific (proper) name, it must be known and used. Any magic resistance of the subject must be overcome, or the spell fails. The priest has a 50% chance of success (a roll of 11 or better on 1d20). The roll is adjusted by the difference in level or Hit Dice between the caster and the creature being abjured; the number needed is decreased if the priest has more Hit Dice and increased if the creature has more Hit Dice.
- If the spell is successful, the creature is instantly hurled back to its own plane. The affected creature must survive a system shock check. If the creature does not have a Constitution score, the required roll is 70% + 2%/Hit Die or level. The caster has no control over where in the creature's plane the abjured creature arrives. If the attempt fails, the priest must gain another level before another attempt can be made on that particular creature.
- The spell requires the priest's holy symbol, holy water, and some material inimical to the creature.
- Book also has 7th and 8th level mage spells all dealing with binding and controlling demons and devils (Branwyn is at 6th level spells)
The Fiendomicon of Iggwilv in Relation to Hell
- Two Guardians
- One that guards the location of the book
- The other attacks until the book is surrendered back
- Branwyn will continue to be attacked until the book is returned to the first guardian or you kill the second guardian (source: Jennevive)
- Iggwilv is a name from Eastern lands (Jennevive)
Red Scrolls
- Real non-magical scrolls, parchments, and/or maps can be replaced with red-ribboned scrolls that unleash monsters of various sorts when opened
- Creatures unleashed so far
- Hellhounds
- Fire Elemental
- Imp with a strength zapping magical rod
- Phillipe (former attaché) believed the scrolls that changed were the ones that Branwyn did not want to see (doing her a favor in an odd way?)
- Jennevive thought this was the type of work of demons; however, the effects of the scrolls are from the Hells
Jennevive’s Theories and Advice
- A demon has been sent to hell for a reason and he is trying to get out. He needs his book that is here in the Royal Library in Dryads Lair
- We will need to find the reason he is in Hell
- Where in Hell he is
- And how or if we should return his book
- I would like to know what happens when he gets his book back, before giving it to him
- I am not sure he knows where the book is or who has it
- Because he doesn’t know the person marked is human, these red scrolls might be welcome advances to a Devil, gifts so to speak
- I would venture to guess that Wolfspack, a large independent city is the place to research
- Note: At the time of this conversation, the group was stationed in Dryads Lair for Ambassador duty while a civil war raged in Drillian. It was not convenient nor possible to up and go to Wolfspack
- Demons and Devils are not free to just come and go to this Plane. They must be invited. (So how did a demon spell book get to Dryads Lair?)
Ideas – Throwing Them Out There in No Particular Order – Feel Free to Add
- Crystal ball Yulotte? (Think he may be dead, but worth a shot)
- Branwyn has NWP - Lower Planes Knowledge - not sure it would be useful until we know what level of hell we're going to
- Draft Jennevive for Hell Trip (evil priestess of chaos – this is right up her alley)
- Speak more with Fives in Rivers Bend
- Teleport to Wolfspack – will be a fun(?) research based teleport roll with no intimate familiarity bonus
- Teleport to Princess Maya and Namsut in Hiyal. Namsut knows planes better than we do and it is an Eastern City. Easier teleport since Branwyn has been there. Akilah and Youtargim lived there so they will have local knowledge. Better option than Wolfspack?
2/20/23 Carissa
Just some small, minor NOT PLANNING questions for Lisa:
- Is Branwyn planning to just pop into the library, grab book, and pop back out? Is she going to return to the Manor OR jump straight to Loosend?
- Do you want to be teleporting that many people then? Because they all gotta be grabbing each other to jump back out with you.
- Can some characters enter the library normally? Like ...is there a front door? Or exit normally?
I wasn't here for the first library visit so I'm hazy on setting and all, but there were questions on which characters were going, and I wasn't sure if they all needed to teleport. If there is a way to just ...walk there then Raelynn can do that rather than teleport. Wasn't Howard going to do that to find the book or something? Sorry, I just realized I'm confused is all.
2/20/23 Lisa
We have to back to the Manor afterwards to take Jennevive back home. Otherwise the main group will have to take her back with them the slow way …
I really wasn’t planning for this to be a huge group thing or really a huge thing at all. Yes, probably the more people that teleport into the library, the bigger of a ruckus we will be making.
The Royal Library isn’t open to the public so isn’t something we could walk into without an invite. The teleport was supposed to skip all that red tape.
Part of what I don’t like about planning is spoiling everything I have in my head to BOB. But this is what I had planned. When BOB said we needed to go to the library and get the book, I said okay, this should be simple. We can do this at the beginning of the night while we're waiting for people to log in. I was surprised so many people even wanted to go.
Bran was going to explain who she is and her connection to this book. If Ilporn the old librarian is there, great, he’ll remember. If not, she can explain that she was the Ambassador, she and her apprentices transcribed many of the books of magic in Princess Dassani’s collection, one happened to have given her a demon mark, etc. Can we see the book? If so, great. If not, more pressure, see below.
Once we have it in reach, we can discuss taking it. Bran has Otto’s Silver Tongue spell that basically makes her communicate like she has 19 CHA. Half truths have a 75% chance of being undetected and outright lies are 50%. This book doesn’t belong to the Royal Family or Princess Dassani. We don’t know where she got it, but the Royal Library only has it on an Inter Library Loan. And the lending library in hell wants it back. Discuss hellhounds and demon gifts, etc. Seriously, the only thing this book is doing is taking up room in the closed stacks. When was the last time anyone looked at it? Or if they would ever let anyone open that book in the future knowing what they know? Do they have any idea what would happen to the other books in this library if a librarian ever opened this book? If they let us take it, great.
If not, Bran brought a red scroll so she can show the librarian the severity of the situation. Hopefully we won’t have to open it, but she is prepared to use it as a last resort.
The goal is to get the librarian to allow us to take it. I don’t really want to do a snatch and run so that the authorities are called and we have, as Talwin feared, a “diplomatic incident.” In my head, this wasn’t going to take a lot of game time, just something to get out of the way so we could say we have the book when we are ready to go to hell.
What would be the nice bigger encounter would be the trip to RiversBend to recruit Fives. That would be TMO’s new character, Branwyn, N’laea, Jennevive and Licornah if Lorie really wants to keep her character out of the Mist. I wasn’t sure if I was getting that right last Friday but she is more than welcome to come back with the teleporters.
If anyone has other ideas, think my idea has gaping holes in it, etc. please let me know. BOB told me we needed to do this many months ago and so my thoughts have just been sitting in the back of my head for that long.
2/21/2023 Carissa
Thank you. That does clear up my confusion. Sorry I didn't know how to ask without still leaving BOB in the dark as to your plan!
So between Branwyn's previous history and her spell, and with Craigh tagging along, I'm for dropping Raelynn. She's good for charming and persuasion, but I think your two can handle that without making it a cumbersome trip. N'laea is still available for any potential fighting situation, but if I read correctly last week, I don't think she brought any armor or weapons with her (except the quiver for ID). Maybe she has a dagger, too? But it does make her a bit more useless than I originally expected. She does not have any NWP (or the personality) to be helpful, I don't think.
I don't mind either way if she goes as she's really there to meet Fives. Just made sense story-wise to offer help with the library (maybe they planned it just in case no one survived the trip to Dryads Lair?). If we want this quick and not complicated, I'm offering whatever may be helpful, but my feelings will not be hurt at all if I'm not involved. :)
As for Fives, I did have a thought. We're in Dryads Lair for seven months now. It's been ...four weeks or some squishy time? I'm sure BOB and TMO could also toss in some story reason for him to go there (maybe to track down Howard because he needs money, I dunno). Just a thought mostly for BOB if we want more people around for that should-be bigger encounter.
And last thought is, as Eagle Inn story happened before Lorie, I don't know if geography is fully understood here and how, if she wants to completely avoid the Mist in full, she'd have to teleport back and would also therefore miss the time we take to walk back from Loosend to home. But that's a minor thing to clear up for the moment.
But we could always leave Jennevive behind...
2-22-23 TMO
I actually goofed somewhat by putting Fives in Loosend - I got confused and thought we were at our destination. :) And there's nothing keeping Fives in Loosend if he needs to come to Dryads Lair. The sheer forced coincidence of it is what bugs me, but I doubt anybody but me really cares. :D
Which is the bigger city, btw, Loosend or Dryads Lair? Also, given how much trouble we got into on the trip between the two, I can't imagine there are very many regular passages between the two cities. Regular trade would require all those threats to be killed off to protect the helpless merchants.
BOB 2-22
Fives is in Rivers Bend. That is where the group met him. It is an appropriate place for him to end up, a big city, independent with lots of coming and going.
For size of cities the group knows about by visiting or hearing about:
- Terraguard City (largest city known to the western world)
- Terrabrink - Tiberius mentioned before
- Dryads Lair - several visits / Ten thousand people?
- Rivers Bend - several visits / Five thousand people?
- Loosend - several visits / Two thousand people?
So Yes to Branwyn and company visiting the library, getting the book, and disappearing to Rivers Bend to find Fives.
If Lorie likes what Lisa suggested Licornah, Branwyn, Jennevive, N'laea(?) can make that teleport from Dryads Lair to Rivers Bend. The remaining people can CLICK off the time until they reach Loosend to sell the Buttercup.
Then we roleplay out the walk back to Dragon Fen? At this point I think the group understands traveling and encounters so we can just do any particular encounter the group wants on the way back home and not take up 4 or 5 sessions for the trip.
2/23/23 Carissa
I may be late tomorrow so that might force myself out of the potential library visit anyways.
Yes, any can do what they want, but it's nice to make sure it's clearer than mud what that entails is all, especially if it might mean no character (or at least their main one) for a few sessions and to be potentially bored again. Just saying, we haven't kept to your usual scheduling guesses since switching to FG so saying it won't take 4-5 sessions is... probably optimistic considering it took one full session for a single night of rust monsters.
And I hope that question mark is for the whole group and not just N'laea because THAT should definitely be clearer than mud at this point that she is going to Rivers Bend and back home to continue training.
2/23/23 Lemon
Dang, so many twos and threes in that date!
But ok, I was following everything until BOB's post. I have questions. So... if Licornah legitimately wants to stay out of the mist, she will have to teleport to the inn, which will cause Lorie to have nothing to do until the rest of the group gets back the long way? Am I reading that correctly?
And I'm confused about the encounters. We're just supposed to magically know what encounters we want? Are we just following up on stuff we passed by last time or?
TL;DR - NOTHING MAKES SENSE
BOB - 2/23
The idea for "encounters the group wants" is 1 - things you wanted to follow up on from the previous trip and 2 - If there is something that the group wants to encounter I can arrange that. Or we click back to Dragon Fen from Loosend.
Yes to anyone choosing where their characters are with each of the two/three party splits.
