AAR: [3M] Not Expecting That (2022-03-26@22:00 GMT)

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Serespar
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Joined:Fri May 18, 2018 3:53 pm
AAR: [3M] Not Expecting That (2022-03-26@22:00 GMT)

Post by Serespar » Mon Feb 21, 2022 7:31 pm

Difficulty: 3M
Schedule: Saturday March 26, 2022
22:00 GMT / 6:00 PM Eastern / 5:00 PM Central / 3:00 PM Pacific
Player: Nyxallah Praetor (predajey/pub)
GM: Drew

Image

[Click link, then download to listen to Nyx's "asking" Vinnie to help find her a trainer]

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ahx3lxsbajdg1V3_RBETFPLqTn_T


Rumor Post:
http://fasagames.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 529#p19529


Disclaimer:
Nyx has requested what in essence boils down to making contact with an organized crime group and asking them for a favor, payment being a favor in return. This may lead to a darker type of story than many PCs may be completely comfortable with for their characters (though the crime drama genre certainly has its fans). Player role play discretion prior to agreeing to help Nyx is suggested. YMMV.
Last edited by Serespar on Mon Mar 21, 2022 5:08 am, edited 2 times in total.

kickmurder
Posts:20
Joined:Tue Nov 30, 2021 12:21 am

Re: LFG (3M): Not Expecting That [Schedule TBD]

Post by kickmurder » Wed Feb 23, 2022 5:07 am

Name: Vargo
Dwarf Weaponsmith from Hustane in Throal
Last Played: 2022-2-2
Circle: ECR 3, Circle 3
Discipline: Dwarf Weaponsmith
Downtime: Forge Weapon 13 (Rank 4)
Downtime: Item History 10 (Rank 3)
Quote: "Mother always says "A hard working Dwarf beats a talented Dwarf if the talented Dwarf doesn't work hard." Or something like that. She says a lot of things."

**I've been able to play many of the last sessions, will bow out of this one if there are too many people so as to give others a chance to play!**

sigfriedmcwild
Posts:335
Joined:Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:59 am

Re: LFG (3M): Not Expecting That [Schedule TBD]

Post by sigfriedmcwild » Mon Mar 21, 2022 4:36 am

Name: Teyo
Last played on: 2022-02-15
ECR: 3 (6050lp)
Discipline: Swordmaster 3
Quote/Unique: The truth is out there
Notable Abilities: Being aggravating
Downtime: None

Sharkforce
Posts:527
Joined:Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:39 am

Re: LFG (3M): Not Expecting That [Saturday March 26, 2022 at 22:00 GMT]

Post by Sharkforce » Mon Mar 21, 2022 9:53 pm

Name: Garak
Date of Last Game Played: Feb 21
Circle: 4
Discipline: Archer 4
Unique: Failure is not an option - it is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.
Downtime: Nope.

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etherial
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Location:Berlin, Massachusetts
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Re: LFG (3M): Not Expecting That [Saturday March 26, 2022 at 22:00 GMT]

Post by etherial » Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:52 pm

Name: Erúriel
Last Game Played:2022-02-21
Effective Circle: 3
Discipline: Cavalier
Quote/Unique: Ride like the wind
Notable Abilities: Navigation, Tracking, Wilderness Survival
Downtime:

predajey
Posts:344
Joined:Mon Jun 15, 2020 9:27 am

Re: LFG (3M): Not Expecting That [Saturday March 26, 2022 at 22:00 GMT]

Post by predajey » Sat Mar 26, 2022 6:25 pm

Name: Nyxallah Praetor
Image
Date of Last Game Played: Feb 13
ECR: 3
Discipline: Seeker (Circle 3)
Notable Abilities: "Murder-hands" and "Murder-feet"
Downtime:
Research: ESR 13 (Step 6 PER + Rank 3 Research + Step 4 Karma)

Serespar
Posts:215
Joined:Fri May 18, 2018 3:53 pm

AAR: Not Expecting That [Saturday March 26, 2022 at 22:00 GMT]

Post by Serespar » Sun Mar 27, 2022 3:51 am

Was a fun table with Eruriel, Nyx, Garak and Teyo mixing it up during a local theif's guild turf war. [ We missed ya Vargo! ]

The party traveled to Sosanopa then agreed to do a little favor for Burner's Bulls at the Butcher's Block. They guarded the new fence in town - Post - from a rival guild trying to muscle into town, Bravka's Skeorx. The Bull's protect-the-neighborhood yakuza style approach won over the Skeorx's bloodthirsty tactics, and the party chose to help the Bulls push the Skeorx back out of town.

In the process, the PCs learned of a "Matriarch" apparently behind both the ruthless beastmaster in Monster Most Fowl and Bravka's Skeorx. They also heard rumors of sabotage up river near Lake Vors and the House Maratha stronghold, as well as increased bandit activity north of Throal and south of Sosanopa on the via Triolvi.

...

Standard rewards for ECL: 1400 LP, 275 SP, 3 TIPs, standard downtime for time since last played. (Plus journal as applicable)
Alt Rewards: Half price healing aids and half price skills training in abilities the grateful thief's guild would reasonably be able to provide, including versatility training.

Downtime: Research: ESR 13 (Step 6 PER + Rank 3 Research + Step 4 Karma) [Nyx]

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etherial
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Location:Berlin, Massachusetts
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Re: LFG (3M): Not Expecting That [Saturday March 26, 2022 at 22:00 GMT]

Post by etherial » Sun Mar 27, 2022 8:03 pm

Being the Third of Riag, in the 1429th year of the Dwarf Kingdom of Throal,
My Dearest Sister:

My acquaintance Nyx has gathered together a group to travel to Sosonopa to partake of their local Fight Club. The local townsfolk have a superstition about mentioning it aloud, and so we must be discreet.

In our travels northward, we met a caravan heading to Throal who had had an unfortunate run-in with some bandits. Teyo was able to get them to retell their story and Garak identified the arrows as having been made in the Ork Scorcher tradition. Scorchers, however, tend to strike on horseback and in coordination, and these folks did neither. Curious.

Once in town, we availed ourselves of the local food market. Spicyz was a local greasy spoon with a diverse menu, including a balsamic vinaigrette from Wyrm Wood that I'd only ever heard of - not tasted before. The front of house, Lafayette, was immediately smitten with me and gave me an extra piece of the fried river fish. I flirted with Lafayette a bit and got him to give me the location of The Door, the only entrance to the Fight Club. He agreed to meet me at my Inn and go with me when he got off shift in the middle of the night.

Nyx wasn't willing to wait until night and tried to bluster her way into the Burner's Den and managed to insult the door guard instead of giving him the password. The hallway was trapped and we were pelted with shrapnel. Once she agreed to wait for Lafayette, we went back to our Inn to nurse our wounds.

Teyo rode with me in my cloak as Lafayette and I went on our "date". Honestly, I had gone into this with no romantic intentions, but Lafayette was very sweet and a perfect gentleman. We gambled a little on the combats in the pit and drank a few drinks. Lafayette was very familiar with the gang running protection in this part of town and gave me everything we needed to proceed, which Teyo conveniently relayed to Nyx. She met -- and managed to not offend -- the Burner and successfully negotiated favors. We were to provide extra protection to their new Fence Post, who had come under threat from a new gang in town.

Being the Fourth of Riag, I continue my letter:

We arrayed ourselves in protection of the Fence Post. Bellerephon and I camped out in a lean-to in the alley, ready to leap into action and control the space. Garak was camped in a hunting blind on the roof. Nyx and Teyo were taking turns serving as body man for the Fence. The place was rigged with a safety catch that controlled the traps - release the catch and suddenly the building was a death trap for anyone who didn't know where all the traps were.

I awoke to the sound of smashing glass and the bluish light of an alcohol fire. I quickly beat the fire out while taking in my surroundings. Several sneak-thieves were trying to burn down the neighborhood and assassinate Post in the chaos. Garak was taking them out one by one from his hiding spot, but they were numerous. One took a fall from the roof and his glass jar of alcohol fell from his hand, threatening the entire alley. Nyx dove for it and caught it just in time.

One of the thieves had armored their cloak and dove through a window to dart Post. He bragged about us not being able to find the alchemist in time and Post had started to turn pale instead of his usual green. The attack turned into a rout and two of the thieves turned to run. I chased after one on horseback but he escaped onto a rooftop. I leapt up off my steed and caught the gutter, but he was gone. The fire he had set, however, remained. We were able to control the blaze and interrogate one of the thieves, after the other committed suicide using a Blood Charm he'd installed in his teeth. We removed the survivor's teeth -- and the enchanted tattoo he had on his shoulder. A pity to waste such a work of art, but he left us no choice.

Being the Sixth of Riag, I conclude my letter:

It seems the new gang in town were known as Bravka's Skeorx. Burner's Bulls hired us on to help them out with some of the Skeorx' lower Circle minions and I'm glad they did. They had holed up in a little fort in town with poisoned glass shards embedded in the top of the palisade. The entrance out front had an obvious pit trap and no obvious control lever. And inside, we saw bleeding three Orks: Lafayette and his parents. Spurred into action, I asked Bellerephon to kick in the palisade and he obliged me. Teyo flew over the wall as windlings do, and Garak and Nyx went through the hole. Another round of kicking and Bellerephon and I were through as well. Psychopaths though they are, they were unprepared for a breach and those that didn't go down ran.

We revived the Spicyz Crew and celebrated with the rest of the the neighborhood that the new interlopers had been eradicated. Lafayette was particularly grateful for the rescue and is now thoroughly in love with me. And I must say, I am grateful for his attentions.

Sharkforce
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Re: LFG (3M): Not Expecting That [Saturday March 26, 2022 at 22:00 GMT]

Post by Sharkforce » Sun Mar 27, 2022 9:11 pm

The Journal of Garak of Irondelve, Part 8: Not Expecting That

Have to say, I was not expecting to be afforded the opportunity of mixing business and pleasure this time around. Nyx was looking for some special training in getting past an enemy's defenses to hit them right in the vitals, and went to a gang that was known locally in Sosanopa for running an underground fighting/gambling ring. In addition to myself, she brought along Teyo and Eruriel.

I'm normally not a huge fan of working for gangs, but this one seems relatively decent, or at least greatly superior to the group that wanted to replace them which favoured arson, torture, murder, kidnapping and the like. Of course, I'm not so sure the gang we worked with hasn't done the same, but at the least it seems like they weren't doing it currently, and it's probably still better to end the gang war than perpetrate it.

Conveniently, the gang we were hired to fight is related to the psychotic murderer who was tormenting Pavar's Hill, which means that I feel a whole lot better about putting holes into them as they are quite likely legitimately the worst sort of Namegiver and probably actually are worse than our temporary allies (again, not that I assume they're really the most wonderful people out there, but at least they seemed to be on their best behaviour and cared enough to act like they weren't criminals the entire time).

I suppose I should start from the beginning. The trip to Sosanopa was normal up until we came across a caravan (which to me looked more like a refugee group or something) which looked like it had been attacked by Ork scorchers, or at least, someone who wanted to be scorchers, or wanted someone else to think they were scorchers, based on the arrows. Might've been related to the gang war, our hosts had weapons that looked similar if you didn't look too closely.

Getting into the arena proved difficult, as Nyx's intel on the password was wildly wrong and she just insulted the bouncer and got everyone else stuck in a trap (I was much quicker to react, and avoided the trap... learning about traps has certainly paid off this time). We got in later, mostly with the help of a local that had fallen for Eruriel, who apparently has no filter between her brain and mouth when it comes to double entendres.

Teyo managed to accomplish what I thought was a near impossibility, gaining an audience with the gang leader before Nyx managed to offend someone important and start a brawl. Was honestly expecting everything to go much more poorly. We were asked to protect the gang's recently-acquired fence who had previously been targeted. Seemed paranoid, but oddly not paranoid enough as the traps he had were not enough to stop anyone.

One of the attackers went through the window and perfectly blocked every dart on the way in, clearing the way for the next, according to what I hear from the others. I had a bad line of sight on the door, as I was in a blind on the rooftops clearing other gang members from the rooftops. I hear one of the attackers got a poison dart into our target, but Eruriel had an antidote and we ran off or killed our attackers before they could finish the job. Also managed to keep them from starting any major fires (they tried to burn down the shop as well as random neighbouring houses, probably planning to blame out hosts.

That didn't work out too well for them, since we had captured a couple of them and could show their gang tattoos to the locals... before cutting them off of them entirely. One of the captives managed to break something with their teeth and poison themselves. The other captive was not so lucky, as Nyx performed non-voluntary non-precision dental surgery to remove all teeth. I'd feel bad for their treatment if they weren't murderers and arsonists. Anyways, our hosts managed to get some useful information out of the captive, and gave us an assignment to hit the stockyards which had been set up as a stronghold for our enemies.

Somehow or other they must've known we were coming as they had nailed some local citizens to the side of the buildings inside, dug a spiked pit at the entrance to the stockyards, and placed broken glass on the top of the fence which seemed oddly more solid than I would have expected for a place that holds livestock. There were also a lot of torches in key locations. We opted to ignore the obvious routes and had Belepheron (Eruriel's horse) kick a hole into the wall for us, and were able to take out most of our targets (one of them ran off, but knowing his boss gets her jollies out of torture I feel like he might have been better off staying than reporting failure) while also rescuing the civilians.

So that's the good news. The bad news is that everyone who was in any way involved in the death of the crazy murderer elf is a target for her crazy murderer elf kin, and there's at least two more of them; the sister (who got away... for now) and the mother (who I have only heard the name of... our hosts graciously shared this information). I'm thinking it may be time to go tie up a loose end that knows too much for his own good. Truthfully I think that he should look forward to a visit from me. I don't intend to keep him alive for long, which I think is more than the others who are looking for him can say. Someone like him is bound to have a bounty on him in half a dozen places too, so I'll have my pick of who to hand him off to.

predajey
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Re: AAR: [3M] Not Expecting That (2022-03-26@22:00 GMT)

Post by predajey » Fri Apr 01, 2022 11:55 pm

Hidden in the third story of the Great Library is a volume of what appears to be a conspiracy. When asked about it, the scribes detail that the Great Library paid way too much for it, and even had to go through relatively unsavory channels to obtain it, compared to other entries. Intrigue sets over you as you dive into a story of ulterior motive, written by one who goes by Nyxallah Praetor.

I haven't really seen a lot of people who'd Lachelle would be interested in, so I tracked down a good decent contact and convinced him to expose me to the criminal underground. The best place to put myself would seem to be Sosanopa. I'm fairly certain that the whole of Barsaive understand that I do not belong anywhere near anything criminal in any way. I did see a few underhanded tactics that Lachelle would be interested in. Primarily the use of traps, extortion, devious plans, nothing honorable in any way except for the concept of trade. I and my team performed a service for the locals, and they in turn performed a favor for me. While I don't approve of underhanded fighting tactics, Troy has always said that if you fight fair, you're not trying hard enough. After everything was over, I learned a very valuable skill that involved taking advantage of unaware opponents and striking them where they least expect it.

Along the way was Teyo, who'd follow Ruby. I believe he was a swordmaster. Respectable, wary around me in every instance, and quite brave when his patience runs out. Then there was Garak, who seemed most familiar with our new environment. A spot on archer, and one that Emma would endure to follow. He had a keen eye for things that I would never see if my life depended on it. We also had Eruriel again, so I got to continue my report to Dia about her. A bit less useful in close quarters, but quite apt when it came to opening doors where doors didn't exist.

Our mission involved the protection of a small neighborhood, with a priority on protecting a fence (quite the strange title for a merchant). While the villagers slept, I did what I could to keep fires under control while the rest of the team dealt with the belligerents. We later were sent to ambush a few of their leadership, which was done particularly backwards, as we were ambushed instead. Regardless, and with fairly hefty injuries, we were able to deal with the slew of snipers and cadre of cutpurses.

I don't think this team trusts me at all, after this mission. I've made more than my share of mistakes. I spoke the wrong things to the wrong people, endangered my team, and led us to certain danger. I'll have to take a backseat in future endeavors and learn how to properly lead in these new lands.

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