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1. I actully enjoy the small talk we have with random villagers, innkeppers, store owners etc, then with the important people in town.
2. Ehm i guess if they are forgettable we have not seen them as important so not quite sure how to answer it :D, tho i personally do not like the people that are cursing alot.
3. I loved that we took so much time off in jarsville to do roleplaying. I am not a fan of the pointless fights, but i guess it also shines trough with how i created my character.
4. I hope it is the witches whom are using the war to start taking back what they think is theres.
5. Same as above i belive/hope the witches are on the move, and i do not mean the weak ass witches we first met.
6. We are gonna get some money for our information being released, then we will go to the west. Get rid of the mirror and then find a way to profit from the war.
7. As said before i love the time spend talking with people both NPC's but also between us players.
8. You probly forgot a lot but have no idea what 
9. I will leave the language thing for the people who speaks it better then i do :D
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Also remember this is the first time i have ever played any form of tabletop DnD/RPG game
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I typed this up a while back, I just wanted to see someone else respond before posting it, since I already feel like I leave some input with the the recaps. Simberto has already seen and responded to some of it.
Which NPC did you like the most so far?
Arinidena, probably followed by Beatrice. Somewhere on the list there’s definitely a place for the miller too. I like the wizards, the guard captain in Calonia, and I like the horse dealer even if Brickadin doesn’t. That poor misguided man. I’m not sure why, but I like Patron Kareem as well, maybe just because he listened to us and at least tried to help with the curse and I was kind of scared at the time. Going back further I liked whoever was running that bordello for John Strange in Jarlesville. I liked the Nightinggale too. On Arinidena, I love the fact that you played him in a way where Barin now doesn't want to have anything to do with him. That makes me giggle. It's also an awesome magical item to carry around. I'm constantly suspicious that he's up to something, but at the same time I feel like he could possibly be a resource from time to time. With a lack of better terms I've gotten the impression that he's basically "chaotic neutral" if we go by how I understand DnD allignments, and that he can be both with us and against us, probably at the same time. Out of character I want to keep the mirror around forever!
I like that Beatrice has some "sass" to her, and it's great that she has joined us. I hope no one thinks I'm grumpy out of character about anything to do with her, I think her whole story has been awesome. Maybe Ragosion thinks differently, role playing that first night must have been a bit taxing, but you did really great. 
Which important NPC was the most forgettable?
It's always hard to remember names, but I think I have images in my mind of everyone I consider important. We've been travelling around so much too that we haven't really found out who is an important NPC in the long run. I think the other guys had more to do with the angels during a week when I wasn't around, so maybe the angels. They were very important for a while, then not, and now they are again.
Which part of the story did you like the most/the least?
I love it when things spawn organically, or when things seem to spawn organically I guess I should say. We react to something from you, you react to our play, we throw it between us for a little bit and then throw something back at you.
I've loved most of it. The whole thing you introduced at the get go was good, with not knowing who to side with between Thalassa and Javar, but then we got scared we'd get blamed for the death of the ambassador and haven't really dared exploring it again. I think if we did that whole thing over again we might have taken the ambassador under our wing, told him someone wants him dead, wants a war, and then we would have tried to make peace. Maybe.
The curse was great in a way, now that it's over I can say it's interesting to be motivated by only the whip rather than the carrot every once in a while, it's just important that those quests don't become too difficult. But it turned out fine, even if it was a bit stressful. It's tricky though to figure out something about magic/religion stuff when we don't really know the limits of what is possible, how stuff works in this world, etc. I'm not sure if we came at it in the right way in the end, or if you changed stuff around to suit how we played it. I mean I wasn’t sure if the shadows were related, if the amulet was related, or what was related to what. When you started typing to me separately about the things I saw I was wondering if that was because I had taken the alertness edge right before that. The notion of catching shadows in a magical pot took me by surprise as well.
Maybe the bit where we were looking for the killer of the Archon was a bit frustrating, because it didn't really feel like we were getting anywhere. I mean I've had a lot of suspicions about it, but I don't know if we were ever on the right path to finding proof one way or another. If we had tried harder to get involved with the angels, or to find out how they are maybe things would have been easier to figure out. If they are beings of pure good like I initially imagined, that’s a whole different thing from them plotting and scheming to kill each other over power positions, which it seemed like at a later stage. Or someone was at least. I think. Yeah, it was probably the angel next in line or in a good position to get in power, who doesn’t like Thalassa and the peace treaty they had going, which was going to be renewed, who killed the ambassador and the archon to get into power and at the same time basically declare war, to fight again and get rid of any obligations they have to Thalassa.
What do you think is going on with Calonia?
In order of likelyhood in my mind right now: I think it's the Thalassans cutting off supply lines with magic tricks. That or it's Arinidena that is somehow just causing mayhem around us everywhere we go, or the kraken cult is back. It should be someone who is extremely powerful though, so that makes me think it’s Thalassa. And it makes sense. Just very suspicious that it happens right as we get there…
What was the shadowthing?
I think it was the soul, or part of the soul of “the witch”. I’m not sure if that means a higher being, like the god of the witches that is everliving like the statue said, or specifically three witches that were turned into a stone statue 500 years ago. Probably the god thing, and that the shadow thing was a part of its essence, which had been put into the amulet somehow by ancient witches with the help of their god or whatever, and the amulet was the battery or component that made the statue walk and talk and throw rocks at us. When I wrote the recap for that week I was apparently sure I smashed the amulet, but I also seem to remember that Barin put it in the pot at some point. Now I’m not sure when the shadowthing came out, but I’m pretty sure it came from the amulet somehow.
What do you think is going to happen next?
Who knows. Maybe the Thalassans show up with an army outside of Jarlesville in the next few days and we’ll be drafted into Javar’s army where we get a special mission and Ragosion can earn the right to a magic license just by completing it. Maybe Arinidena caused the Calonian trouble and it’s gone by the time the angels investigate. Then they’ll demand an explanation, and we’ll have to introduce them to Arinidena, which could lead to anything. Maybe John Strange and the Collector sends assassins after us inside the inner city. Maybe it’s been the Marrakeshians or some other country all along, who has been stirring up trouble between Thalassa and Javar to conquer them both while they’re already fighting, and a fish monster large enough to swallow cities shows up east of Calonia while they’re nice and tranquil.
Maybe Philipp will suddenly insist on us going off to help him do penance, at which point we just leave everything behind and go to the nearest shrine of Veritas where he can power pray to seek divine guidance.
Subjectively, what part of the game do you like the most?
The role playing part is great, between your NPCs and our PCs and among just the PCs as well. Definitely not saying I don’t want to kick some ass in combat at least once a session, Brickadin was kind of made for combat after all, but the kind of conversations and situations that spawn because our characters think differently are great.
Zanros’ influence on the group when he’s around is very interesting, since we all seem to adapt a bit and go more evil than otherwise, the body burning debate that happened this week because of Philipp’s priestly duties or morals as opposed to Brickadin’s greed, Barin’s reluctance to speak to Arinidena and to go medieval mode on the horse dealer, but with a willingness to go pretty far to save his own skin in a pinch… Ragosion’s new motivations now that he has to think of Beatrice, his pickiness with the color of his robe because of back story, my struggle with greed and vengeance vs honorable dwarf warrior and all the other things that have happened.
Anything else i forgot?
I can’t think of anything in particular, but I look forward to playing each week, and I’m having tons of fun doing this. Thanks so much for GMing, you’re awesome.
Language: English is not my native language, are there any really annoying things i do that i should get rid off?
You’re fine. Only era/Barin would have any real right to complain here since everyone else is the same way. The first quest giver we met was named Than, but I wrote it down as San which I found amusing when I discovered it. I don’t think you can help it though, being German and all.
I’ll ask you to type out names sometimes, since I can’t get that from context, but otherwise I’m not having any trouble. Half of the time when I miss something it’s also because of mics and skype.
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On May 14 2013 06:05 Wedde wrote:
4. I hope it is the witches whom are using the war to start taking back what they think is theres.
Oh damn, I hadn't even considered that. Pls no. No more curses. ;_;
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Thanks a lot for all the feedback.
One thing i want to make sure you know is that while a lot of people react annoyed when talking to Philipp, there is nothing more to it. The NPCs get annoyed, but I as a DM do not. I just wanted to make that perfectly clear.
Also, i did not "change" anything regarding the shadow beast, however, i had to improvise a bit because your approach was not exactly what i had anticipated and then i had to find out what exactly that means. But that is not a bad thing. Generally, i don't change the story to accomodate for you. If you had not found a way to deal with the curse, you would have turned to stone. Maybe some guy in 500 years would have found you as faces in a cave. In general, someone might appear and give you a hint, or something like that, but the whole relation between shadows, souls, curses, and witches did not change from what i planned it to be, and would not do that. What i mean to say with that is that you don't have the power to influence the past through failure in the present.
On a sidenote, it would have been very interesting to see what happens if you had all eaten at Arinidenas feast.
Magic itself in this world is meant to be mysterious. You as players don't really understand how it works, but the same is true for your characters, so that works out just fine. Even the average mage does not really understand magic, he just knows how to manipulate some things to get some results he wants to. The best way i can describe it is that they work on the level of some 15th century alchemist, who might have some formulas that work, and a theory behind it all that is partially correct, partially shows the right results for the wrong reasons, and partially just pure superstition, compared to modern chemistry and physics. There might be people who know more, but you have not yet met them. So i find it fair that magic is really mysterious and hard to understand for you as players, because your characters have the same problem.
I have a logic explaining how magic stuff works, but i doubt i could really explain it even if i wanted too, it probably only makes sense in my head.
That is actually something that is often very weird if a system detail rules for magic users up to basically halfgods, because that usually means that tends to take all the mystery out of it.
One important thing i will take out of this is that i will make some more detailed backstories for some random guys you meet on the street/in shops etc. It works kind of OK with those i make up on the spot, but i think there is definitively something to be gained here if i have a better plan for some guys. Especially considering that there is now a significantly non-zero chance of you guys randomly falling in love with that person. (Fun Fact: Beatrice actually had a backstory before you did that, so it was incredibly lucky that you got her instead of some random other person on the street)
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i do hope that if you other guys get to annoyed that you just wack me on the head or leave me in a well without any clothes on.
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That is strangely specific.
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Which NPC did you like the most so far?
I like Arinidena even though Barin hates him. Frederico and Carlo the Hat were also pretty good. We haven't spent a lot of time with many npc yet, besides beatrice. Im not sure how I feel about her yet.
Which important NPC was the most forgettable?
I guess maybe the miller, but I don't know how important he was.
Which part of the story did you like the most/the least?
I really liked the beginning of the campaign with Than wanting us to kill a necromancer, I also really like the murder mystery in Jarlsville. I feel like these two things are related to each other. Maybe Than is the mastermind behind starting the war? I want to solve these mysteries but we didn't get very far the last time we tried. The time we spent in the fey forest was also pretty fun, especially the plates. I don't think I disliked any part of the campaign so far. Maybe ragosian talking to beatrice was dull because it took a while.
What do you think is going on with Calonia?
Either the thalassians are behind it and they are getting ready to attack Colonia/Jarlsville. Maybe the people who were behind starting the war(Than/Angle killer guy) want a certain side to win and are helping the Thalassians. The hobo who lives in the shack east of colonia is actually a wizard, he gets made fun of by the townsfolk because his dream is to be a powerful wizard. He somehow figured out how to cast a spell and this is his payback.
What was the shadowthing?
Maybe some sort of cursed amulet that the witches also fell prey too since they were turned into stone. I remember it being hard to take the amulet off when I put it on. Or some type of witch remnants that were stored in the amulet, like their soul.
What do you think is going to happen next? We will manage to somehow get kicked out of every inn in town and then philip will piss off an angel and get us thrown out of the city. I hope we can find some more information about who killed the Angel, and maybe stop the war. If not we can go return this mirror to the forest, maybe get some more gold plates.
Subjectively, what part of the game do you like the most?
I think I like a game thats pretty balanced with both combat and RP. I also like puzzles and solving things.
Language: English is not my native language, are there any really annoying things i do that i should get rid off?
Your English is fine. The only thing is what brickadin mentioned I remember writing down San instead of Than as well. Writing out the names would be helpful.
Great write up btw
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Yes, i will try to think about writing names in chat, that can be useful and helps keeping us on the same page.
Also that "th/s" problem is a German thing as far as i know. I hear it in my head as a "th", but then my tongue betrays me and it becomes an "s" half the time. It is something i actively try to work on, but my tongue is a filthy traitor and does not obey my commands.
And yes, that Beatrice/Ragosion thing was problematic, i noticed that. It was pretty important, but it was also a very long 1on1 that left the rest of you out, and i could not even jump between you and him because nothing else was happening. The same thing happened when Barin and Brickadin got nearly eaten by wolves and basically did the whole witch investigation while the rest of the party was asleep in Old Johns Shack. But i can't really think of a simple solution for this. I generally try to avoid planning stuff in a way that gets you split up like that, but sometimes things just happen, like some random wolves which i mostly put there to demonstrate that it is dangerous to camp in the woods without even a fire, and which weren't supposed to do any real damage nearly killing the dwarves.
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as long as the encounter is as entertaining as a mage trying to seduce an old lady then for the love of Veritas have more 1 on 1 time
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Just a reminder, we will be playing today at 16:00 CEST, in 6 hours. It would be nice if Ragosion could tell me what he decided to take as his levelup, since i might need to do some thinking depending on what it is (values for allies/familiar)
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I am gonna go with summon "ally" for my level up.
Regarding the form/element: The shadow-thing was in my head pretty long and pretty deep, so when I finally got control over myself, I was able to capture a bit of it, which I´m now able to summon. Only if that is ok with you of course, because it´s
incorporeal nature might cause some problems.
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Sorry, i kind of have some plans regarding the Shadowthing, and i have don't think this would work. Though, maybe... I need to think about it for a moment.
If i can't make it work, would you be happy with a lower fire elemental instead?
Edit: Actually, it should work. Now i only need to get the stats for it. Preliminary version which i might change if i notice that it is completely broken or not good enough:
Spell: Summon Living Shadow
Cost 4
Duration 3(1/R)
Range - Smarts
A part of your shadow comes alive, and accumulates other shadows in the surroundings to form a living mass of shadows. Does not work if there are no shadows in the vicinity. The Shadowbeast is an Extra, not a Wildcard.
Shadowbeast:
Agi D6
Sma D4
Spirit D6
Str D8
Vigor D8
Pace 5, Parry 6, Toughness 8
Skills: Stealth D10, Notice D6, Fighting D6, Witchcraft D8
Special:
Immaterial: Can not be harmed by nonmagical attacks. Does not interfere with material objects in general.
Mindlink: May form connections to sentient creatures minds, but is not strong enough to actually influence them. Communication.
Spellcaster: Can cast a Shadow Bolt (2d6 damage)
Weakness (Light): Concentrated sources of light may repulse parts of the shadow, harming the beast.
Weakness (Earth): Can not pass through earthen materials.
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What problem? Time to invest in some good workers! 
Oh, and Barin needs to stop leaving himself open for certain jokes...
Recap!
As our throats were parched, and we didn’t have anything in particular to do while waiting for Narael to get back from Calonia, we asked around among the guards and military for somewhere to drink within the inner city. Albert’s shack was not a bad place, unless you take into account the rate at which Ragosion was losing money gambling. After a while, Harry came looking for us, and told us Narael was back.
The angel told us there were thousands of ghouls in Calonia, and he had apparently been shot at, as his wing was a bloody mess. We didn’t have any more information to give him, so the way in which the Thalassans managed to get those war ghouls over there remains a mystery. He did give us 100 gold for what we had managed to provide him though, gold which Ragosion quickly stashed away somewhere in his robes before anyone could stop him. I don’t know what’s worse, Ragosion’s gambling, Beatrice’s shopping, or Philipp’s bounty burning, but I’m going to have to be quicker to grab these rewards in the future I think. In the end we did get to split the money up before they had spent it all, but I didn’t get to take the coin Philipp owes me this time.
We were now free to leave the inner city, and as we bought ourselves some equipment around town, a suspicious looking fellow from the Collector told us he wanted to speak to us. His boss said he had some shady work for us, and wanted us to steal something for him. As he was very secretive about it and wouldn’t give us many clues of who we would be stealing it from, we were very hesitant to accept. Although the gold would have been very welcome, I think we’ve sullied our good name enough by dealing with these types already, that to accept something like that with so little information, it would have to be a very good offer indeed. The rest of the party seemed to agree, so instead we headed out to complete the quest of Arinidena, as we had meant to do for quite a while now. On our way out of town, the Nightinggale told us John Strange is no longer looking to torture and kill us. As a token of good will we told her what we knew about the Collector's plans.
What ensued was a lot of traveling. We met a few scouts from the J’var army, lead by Orsin. He wouldn’t give much detail, but warned us about going further, and said that Couriel’s port was not a good place to be right now. Later on Ragosion and I saw someone in the forest watching us, but they wouldn’t respond to simple shouting. As we camped out in another abandoned inn, we saw signs of him again, but did not manage to find anything other than tracks when we all went to look. Philipp revealed some unexpected tracking skills and Ragosion revealed some magic shadow summoning he had picked up. We found out the onlooker had a dead raven and a bow though, so we suspected that it was probably a Thalassian scout.
As we travelled on the next day, Barin managed to identify a road block manned by war ghouls and Thalassans from an incredible distance away. We had a vague idea to deal with this by masquerading as traders, but that was all abandoned, along with our carriage, at the first sign of actual danger. We backtracked a bit and then headed off road through the forest to the south west, still towards Thalassa. On our way I managed to spot a raven circling, and following us, and sadly enough, this one didn’t respond to shouting either.
As we were sleeping one night our camp was approached by a squad of Thalassans. Philipp tried to convince their leader with the truth while Barin and I approached from different sides, stealthier than a lone goblin in a dwarven hall. As they didn’t turn violent right away, we decided not to slay them all and stepped forward instead. The leader was not at all convinced by our story, even with the mirror in hand. With him being too good for gold, we were running out of options fast. Then Beatrice stepped forward to save our hides. Apparently she knew this man through her late husband, and pretty much left us with gaping mouths as the Thalassans rode off, and we were free to journey on.
We soon came upon the mighty river Siron, which marks the border between Thalassa and J’var, but is too wide to cross easily. Following along south, we eventually saw some civilian Thalassans in small fishing boats. They were too dumb to be of any real assistance, and about as rude as the people of Couriel’s port. Eventually we at least found one with a big enough boat where we could hire him to ferry us over. This one, named Rodissbell, was equally rude and wouldn’t stop talking about big ants and small dwarves.
On the other side of Siron, we spent a night in a small village, and talked to their priest Tovarius to learn some things about Thalassa and their people. Ants mine their metals, and dwarves are apparently unheard of, at least in these rural parts. The priests do all the preparing of the dead, and as you deliver them bodies, you get some of them back as servants. The souls go to live on in glory forever with their goddess, but apparently not to rest. A foreign concept to us northerners, and Barin and Philipp especially took offense to this. I might have enquired about it partly to ruffle their feathers a bit, but I could see the use of one of those things, even if they do still send shivers down my spine. We were actually served by one of them during our stay at the village, this being the altar boy of the chapel, and Barin, as his habit dictates, tried yet again to smash an innocent boy with his mace. At least this time the boy was dead already, and he also missed his shot.
Not far from this village, we found a forest where we could set Arinidena loose, and as our bargain had finally been met, we managed to get out of his new forest as well.
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Those wizards weren't innocent! and neither are dead zombie servents.
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Thanks once again for the writeup, put it in the OP.
Next gaming time will be on Sunday, 26th, at 16:00 CEST.
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Would you guys mind giving me a rough idea of what you are planning to do next? A big problem last session was that i kind of expected you to go for The Collectors job offer (In retrospect i honestly have no idea why i would think that), and then had to improvise the whole rest of the session.
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Destroy all Thelasians so they cant revive the dead!!
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Lol, yeah I felt a bit guilty about declining, but if he won't tell us what we're getting into and won't pay us up front, he can take his shady business elsewhere!
But let's discuss plans then. Sorry Philipp, but I'm not feeling the same zeal as you regarding the Thalassians. I won't go risking my hide doing J'vari sabotage or assassinations for nothing. Any more sabotage at least. You could say planting Arinidena there is pretty much sabotage, so we've already struck one blow against them. Actually, if we got back to Jarlesville, proved to them that we are not spies, and offered the angels our services as saboteurs, that might be something. As northerners we have a better chance of getting in than any J'vari. Maybe they'll pay us to blow up a bridge, plant holy water of justice in some necromancer temple or plant a teleportation device the angels can use, or something similar.
We also have a few loose ends we could look into. How do the rest of you feel about these?
1. We were supposed to visit Beatrice's relative who lives close to the border. Not high on my list of priorities, but you guys might have a craving for the rural life style again, even if there is no wedding that we know of. ^^
2. Help Philipp complete his penance, whatever that might mean. I really kind of want to do this, but it requires some initiative from Philipp. Maybe you can think of a few different scenarios and run them by Simberto? Maybe just pray for a message, which could be conveniantly answered with a quest of some kind? A Pilgrimage? Don't know why I'm saying this, but a certain number of undead put to rest and buried in the name of Veritas? A certain number of sermons to non believers? I don't know.
3. Go looking for Than, the guy who wanted us to take care of the envoy on day 1, to get our 60 gold and maybe some extra. Might need some way of traveling safely through contested areas though, so we can ask around about him there. This could be something we do as an aside as we travel back to Jarlesville too, if we decide to do that.
Those are the ones I can think of, but there are probably more. I'm open to traveling to the trade cities or the north as well.
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EPT
