Goodman Games

Name: Gran
Has Devil's Thorn scratched into the palm of her hand.
0-level Occupation: Ostler
Wizard 1 (Cultist)

Strength: 13 (+1)
Agility: 14 (+1)
Stamina: 5 (-2) She's as old as the hills. What did you expect?
Personality: 14 (+1)
Intelligence: 16 (+2)
Luck: 14-1=13 current (+1)

AC: 11; HP: 3; Weapon: Bow +1 (1d6+1)
Speed: 30; Init: +1; Ref: +2; Fort: -2; Will: +2

Spells Known: None.
Spell being studied: Ekim's mask.

Equipment: bridle, small hammer, knife +1 attack(1d4+1 dmg), charcoal, more torches, 50' rope, three flasks of oil,
a lantern, a small sack of salt, a frying pan.
Funds: 1sp 75cp
Lucky sign: Hawkeye: Missile fire damage rolls +1
Languages: Common, Undercommon, Chaotic Language, Gnome, Pixie.

Wizard 1: hp 1d4 (4-2=2hp this time); Attack +1, Crit: 1d6, Action d20; known spells: 6; max spell level 1

notes: -2 on hp per level. Now corrected.
"cleric who confronts them, is captured, has her walking stick broken, and her holy symbol thrown down the well. In the end, she is sacrificed by being tied to a pole as a scarecrow, at the top of the corn field.

Twenty years back, a young cleric of the Sovereign, Shuyr Rilla by name, took it upon herself to rid the Shudder Mountains of that dark coven. Armed only with her hawthorne walking stick and her holy symbol, she went to Sour Spring Hollow."

"The quiet murmur of flowing water echoes in the limestone cave below. A pool of clear water fills most of the cavern, flowing out of the space through a narrow point to the east end. A raised, irregular patch of stone is littered with dried branches and other debris, seemingly washed here by floods and long-ago rains."

OOC: Fire, check the narrow point in the east end down there before you come up pls?
OOC: Oooo, I actually get to choose something. Hmmmm......any permanent effect ones available? Toughness maybe?

Guang wrote:Spell being studied: Ekim's mask. Mercurial: Thunder and lightning pinpoint your location.

Roll Mercurial after learning the spell. Your Luck may be different then.

Raven_Crowking wrote:

Guang wrote:Spell being studied: Ekim's mask. Mercurial: Thunder and lightning pinpoint your location.

Roll Mercurial after learning the spell. Your Luck may be different then.

eh, I was afraid of that. I edited the post to change it. So, 2 questions on the process: I rolled a 96, plus 10% for luck. Is that +10 or +9.6? Also, a result of 106 counts as 00, right?

Guang wrote:I rolled a 96, plus 10% for luck. Is that +10 or +9.6?

+10.

Guang wrote:Also, a result of 106 counts as 00, right?

Right!

OOC: Waiting to see what fire finds when he checks the narrow spot at the east end......or if he decides not to check it, I'll go down and check it.....

Checking around under the water for another ten minutes reveals nothing.

OOC: Ah, ok.
OOC: Fire, help? We have the items we were trying to get, but I have no idea what to do now. What do you think?

OOC: well, first let's get me the heck out of here. Then we'll have a look at... the graveyard!!!

Amalthia climbs back up with what strength is left her, glad to be out of those depths as soon as she can be, given the loss of her dear friend Sir Cudsworth.

OOC: Sounds like a plan. Not sure if we are to re-enact the history of the dear departed famous cleric or what. Grab a corpse and perform an exorcism or something.

Okay, so Amalthia is out of the well.

Off to the graveyard we go then!

Very well. You are not accosted walking to the graveyard, although the air seems eerily expectant. An ominous cawing croak comes from the piney woods north of the clearing, and a flock of dark birds rises from the tiered cornfield to the west, flying on silent wings towards the sound, as if in response.

The graveyard is very much as it was before. A number of chiseled stones and rotted planks indicate a burying ground. Wait....is that a corn husk doll on one of the markers? Another at the base of the same appears strangely reminiscent of a goat....

Gran sorrowfully takes the Nan-shaped cornhusk doll. She hands the goat one to Amalthea, doing her best to comfort her.
OOC: Following your lead, Fire.

Fire?

OOC: I'm back! Sorry for the delay!

IC: Amalthia stows the goat, knowing magic to be a strange force that could help return these lost ones to life.

Amalthia scans the markers for symbols, words, anything to help them.

"What are we hoping to find here? We have the staff, the symbol. Can we put this thing back together?"

"yes, yes, put it back together" Gran says distractedly as she starts reading nearby grave markers

Please explain how you are going to put the broken staff back together.

A number of chiseled stones and rotting posts protrude from the dry soil and rank grass here. The ground is uneven with several oblong depressions in the earth indicating the presence of ancient graves. An inspection of the grave markers shows most to be long-dead Hobb kin. One of the markers - a wooden post - is marked with the Devil's Thorn.

Is there anything else of interest on the one marked with the devil's thorn?

OOC: Gran passes a roll of duct tape to Amalthea.

Just the sign of the Devil's Thorn. The marker seems to be very old.

ooc: Amalthea uses the duct tape to put the staff back together. Done!




IC: "Hmmm.... devil's thorrrrnnnnnn..." Amalthia thinks, looks at the staff pieces, then the wooden marker. "Gran, you think this marker is important? It has the devil's thorn, like that cabin. Maybe the phantoms can't come inside the graveyard. They came out of the ground in the middle of the common, killed someone, then floated back under ground full of blood. Maybe they can't enter their own graves. That said, they're undead and hunger for the blood of the living. Maybe we can stay here and study the clues we've collected, see if we can figure out how to put the staff back together, kill that cabin, maybe free the souls of our friends?"

She leans on a headstone, thinking.

"Seriously, though, there wasn't a passage at the bottom of the well, was there? No cave leading to the *real* source of our troubles? Unless I didn't see it, that means everything is up here, on the surface. If we can get out of this mess, we need to use what we've got *here*. We took the door off the cabin, so I'm guessing that place isn't safe. The well had the symbol, but no answers. We've got a tarot deck, a diary, the staff pieces, and a holy symbol. As far as I can tell, the Hobs were witches, a cleric showed up, the staff was broken, the holy symbol thrown down the well... But what's the curse we're meant to break? I mean... other than fighting the giant-living-cabin, should we crawl through the hole in the floor those rats came through? What else is there for us to do?"

The elven musician is perplexed. She looks over the diary and the tarot deck, hoping she or Gran can spot something to help them escape this mess.

There are the four cabins, the yard, the well, the graveyard, the cornfield, and the woods.

If there is something else, you do not know it.

The sun still hangs motionless in the yellow sky.

OOC: Wow, you're actually going to let me get away with having duct tape?!? Let me go back and read past the first sentence now.
Edit: ah, I guess its not together yet. Probably a good thing

IC: "We've been through the hole in the floor. Unless that living cabin is hiding something, the only thing I can think of is this" kicking the thorn marker for emphasis. "Maybe we should dig it up. Too bad we lost the shovel somewhere along the way"

ooc: We haven't entered the cornfield. Only Murphoi entered the woods, and promptly died by himself (with zero description, I might add, thus making his player believe it was essentially suicide).

Does the diary have information we can read? If the graveyard is a relative safe zone, we need info. Otherwise, the cornfield is the next unknown. I don't think we can beat the cabin without numbers or weapons.

IC: Amalthia shakes her head. "The door didn't save Luc, and scribing the devil's thorn didn't help anyone else. It needs a ritual to activate the spell, or else we erase the protection of the mark. Until we know more, we need to stay put. Maybe make a break for the corn field?"

No answers seem likely to fall from the sky.