Say it with Flowers - Out of Character Discussions
Not that I woke up in a cold sweat, but as I was relaxing this morning I suddenly remembered our characters did not check for leaches as most if not all were in the swamp river. That might be an uncomfortable discussion with my new trainer.
John
John, I'm so sorry you will not be in to conclude things this Friday. You are the serious Maze Master. Like a heat seeking (tulip seeking?) missile, you entered the courtyard and led us straight to the tulips without one wrong turn. Amazing!
I promise to try my best not to let Branwyn kill anybody else at Castle Hunchback. And yes, please tell us what you want us to do. I know what I would do, but if instead, you want to loot the castle, stealing everything we can carry and run, well, I suppose we could do that for you if you insisted. Just let us know. :)
Lisa
And yes - I was kidding. Branwyn did not just kill a thief to turn around and steal things herself.
John if you will not be in then we should do some of this here on the In Character thread.
The choices are to A - get the bulbs back and B - what is Hoffman going to do with them afterwards. Do you punish the hunchback? Will you take what from him? Will he get all three of the valuable bulbs back and then give three back to Johan? Do you keep one to give to the hermit? Do you ask for one as a reward? Do you bother with the rest of the keep or just deal with the hunchback and then leave?
This has all taken place over one long day/night so once you get finished at the keep and then show up at Johan's in the morning you will all need to head to the inn and crash. Foto has been there sleeping so he will have full spells at least when you get to that point.
It looks like we will only have Lisa, TMO and perhaps Devin this upcoming week. So the more people can discuss here the better.
BOB
You don't have to wait for me. Next Friday is a travel night, so I will not be in. I was concerned everyone would be upset as I was skipping by all the doors, I did not know about the maze but Hoffman was inspired. He's not much of a talker and I missed a lot of the plot so not much for him to say.
John
Actually John they stopped after making sure they had the right bad guy and that the two they "let" leave were clean. The one mage did admit to "that set of bulbs we stole last night. Those over there we stole two weeks ago". The mage in the red cloak is a pile of meat scraps.
I was amazed at how the night went. Early on John makes the comment, "we always go right first". Then he proceeds to ignore lots of doors, heads into the Maze and takes the first left. Then makes it through the maze with zero wrong turns, getting to the center without hitting a single trap. Lisa and TMO both commented on it; both were sure they would have hit at least a few dead ends.
We pick up with Hoffman able to talk with the hunchback as he is coming out of the hold person spell with all the exits blocked.
BOB
I have to ask. Did anyone use the line "these are not the bulbs you are looking for"?
John
well i found out when i will finaly be able to be back inand its wont be until the 15th of nov since theres going to be no game on the 8th. between being exhausted from work which caused me to get sick, and volunteering to help at the haunted house here in town every fri-sat in oct and the first weekend in nov my days are packed. on the plus side i do get to learn some fun new things for the fire department such as train derailments and new car technology.
The maid had a stutter, she was a bit nervous also but she stuttered on every sentence that did not involve "the master".
Yes some of the things that the staff said is wrong or is a strange interpretation of the facts.
As Lisa pointed out: overturned dirt from the flower robbery becomes the smell of undead
You are starting at the Inn in the evening with a chance at getting rumors, etc. I fully expect that you will be able to determine which Manor to go confront about this theft early on in the night.
Then the assault on the manor house.
BOB
Shur tried to figure that out while we were talking to her and couldn't ever get a decent answer. She was too frightened to give straight responses to anything.
how did the maid see a shadow with fangs on the wall? theres now way short of taking the teeth out of your mouth that you could tell that, unless of course the fangs were the size of a saber-tooth tigers.
Guy
Recap of session:
- Liana (Cook) was up early, smelled 'the undead', Zared called out the first alarm for the fire, and she found a torn piece of red cloak in the garden.
- Cheney (Butler) woke to the calls of fire (by the Zared), made sure everyone else was awake, Lord is the one who found the theft, checking on his flowers to make sure they were safe, saw a halfling in the shadows by the stable while they were fighting the fire.
- Spere (Groundsman), normally awake all night, keeping varmints away from the flowers. Knocked out by dart with sleeping poison on it. Tossed the dart away. Woke up during the fire, heard horses. Has said that you could dig up 400 bulbs in an hour if you weren't too careful, but 2 hours to do it right.
- Olga (Maid), saw huge shadow with fangs on the wall,
- Zared (Stableboy), current suspect #1, hired two months ago by Spere after prior stableboy died falling off a horse. May have been able to read, seems to have not been well liked. Called first alarm for fire, took off after damaging our saddles so we couldn't give chase.
- Ilero found a dart in the stables, and it appears to be a match for the one found in the woods, sized for a halfling to use, and has what appears to be a sleep poison on the tip.
I'm not sure we need to track the carriage. The carriage is much faster than we are and had too big a head start for us to catch it anyway. Here are some things that TMO and I were talking about at the end of last Friday night.
There was a silver crest on the carriage and then the beaver pops up and says "Aspen." Perhaps the crest is a silver tree? We can ask Petr if he can identify the crest or Branwyn can try a local history prof roll. If we know the family that did this, we can just go there and not track the carriage. Lord Johann might also know the crest as well if we go back to his house.
We also noticed some timeline issues that were a bit odd and led us to think this was a two-step job. 403 bulbs were taken. All individually planted so they had to be all individually dug up and packed. We didn't see bulbs scattered around in haste. They were all dug up and stored in sacks and taken away. This process had to have taken some time. And no one heard or saw anything?
The neighbor said he heard a halfling's voice in the night and a sack of 100 bulbs were found in his shed. The leprechaun saw a halfling get into a carriage. Again, at night and not in the morning when the fire was set.
It seems like the bulb stealing operation occurred the night before and then someone else set the blaze the following morning - perhaps a mage for hire given the fireball description of the thing. Someone on the staff probably knows something. Bob said there were 4 people no one talked to and we probably need to talk to the stable hand again.
John makes a good point that since the 3 rare bulbs have a distinctive look to them, I don't see why that couldn't be cause to know that they were stolen in case anyone claims they are theirs. Other than I suppose you could have a coincidence where two separate people were trying to breed the same kind of tulip, but what are the odds of that? Whoever did this is rich and can afford to toss aside at least a hundred of gps worth of bulbs. And would probably have a high standing name that would make people very careful of throwing out thievery accusations unless they had very real proof. Which is probably what this guy is counting on.
Just some thoughts to ponder.
Lisa 9-23
This Friday is Mini-TMO's birthday, so I won't be able to join in the session. We can do as much of the RP needing Shur or Ilero beforehand you need.
TMO
No the decision is not final John. The road is poorly maintained in this part of the Barony. You are not near the swamps at all at this point. You are actually closer to the Central Mountains and are in the breadbasket of the northern heart of Drillian.
BOB
I was not sure if the decision is final that we have no hope of tracking the carriage but this is the time for all his charts for weather and such. How well is this road maintained? how dry can it really be this close to the swamps? is this just how the module is designed to go, because this is not my kind of adventure. I also question, it seems like Petr knows or can acknowledge the bulbs were stolen and what they look like, but if someone else turns them in, they are the owners. Maybe it"s part of the mystery.
John
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I hope everyone likes the path that this adventure has taken now. TMO posted already in the In Character thread I only tweaked the formatting a bit.
You have two groups of characters. Those back at the Inn (and have been for 20-30 minutes so far) to ask around for rumors etc. Yes the people there have heard about the fire from other travelers and your group as well. Then there is the group out at the roadside where the carriage was last seen. You can go back to the manor house to interview the servants or what ever you desire.
Of course I am sure others will have some comments when they read what they missed from the various whispered conversations etc.
BOB
John,
Yes there are some things on the site about your destination. Once you have someone with local history you can feel free to use all that info there.
I do think I made a mistake of putting the hermit icon on the edge of the map too early. I think that lead to the confusion about why the giants were running away when they saw Hoffman waving his axes around.
I do not feel we should run our characters with player knowledge. After Friday, I knew there was information on our goal on the site. I have not looked at a map but the history re-enforces we are looking for a plant.
John
Quick correction on the number of skiffs you have. You started with 5 and have now lost one to the bullywugs. You will have to reasign all of the goods you were carrying on the now lost one to the other four.
BOB
Just like how characters can disagree and fight without players fighting, so can players lead without their characters being the leader. I appreciate the group effort for my character. As an amazing coincidence I will not be traveling to the condo Friday as we will already be up there, someone might want to text me in case we are having too much fun without you.
Johm
TMO - I posted in IC because I didn't remember seeing anything about you fixing Shurkural's bastard sword. If you had already fixed it and I missed it - sorry for the IC post. I also don't know off the top of my head what weapons Shurkural's proficient at but we should make sure she has a good close range weapon before you hit the swamps. Just wanted to toss that out there and make sure she was set to go.
Lisa - 7-2-13
