Habololy Forum

I would like to add the caveat to my vote that I am assuming my (original) character gets out of jail to participate...

Artur is a 5'3" human Monk.  While he may be on the shorter side he is toned and compact.  He wears a sleeveless linen traveling robe, open in the front and slit to the hips on both sides.  Underneath the robe you can see a well made vest over what appear to be almost translucent wrappings of some sort.  The wrappings cover what you can see of his chest and appear to wind down his arms.  You can see that he wears bracers on both arms and fingerless gloves on both hands.  You can occasionally glimpse the glint of metallic rings, one on the middle finger of each hand.  Hanging from his neck you can see an amulet with the symbol of Tyrogatore etched onto both sides.  He wears a sturdy but well made pair of fighting pants held up with a rope belt.  The pants are tucked into the tops of well made supple boots.  He also wears a wide brimmed hat that he rarely removes, even when sleeping.

We made our way to Meldreage over the course of the month following our last adventure.  Near the outskirts we were taken to a nondescript tuft of high Yellowian grass that turned out to be a secret entrance to an underground tunnel.  The Winged among us grumbled about having to go underground but we were assured that the trip would be less than a mile in length so we followed our guide into the tunnels. The tunnel opened into a larger chamber where we were met by a Dwarf.  This Dwarf worked for the Maximillian family and told us that our arrival was earlier than anticipated and that we would have to rest in this chamber for a day wile everything was organized.  We were provided food and wine and rested for the evening.  The following day the same Dwarf (Vos?) led us through more tunnels to an underground complex.  There were other people in this complex, common folk, but the same sort you would find in a town.  Elliott used his magic to clean everyone up after their month long trek so that we were presentable and we were led to what appeared to be a conference room on one of the levels of the underground complex.  Once in the conference room, the dwarf attempted to negotiate with us to have us "remove" the "spies" of the Legion of Democrats (that's what we are calling them.  Everyone else is trying to call them a cult, but Breach tells them to not use that word because they are not a religious organization attempting to supplant or replace Deities on the Council). 

R'lain starts talking and everything goes downhill from there.  The Dwarf tries to get us to agree to "remove" the Demo-Krat spies, we (through R'lain) ask for more proof that the Celestial Bureaucracy is really tied to the demo-krats somehow and we aren't just being used as a disposable bludgeon for the Maximillian's political rivals.  R'lain quickly irritates the dwarf to the point where the dwarf leaves.
Several minutes later another individual enters the conference room, Sir Pierre.  Sir Pierre talks with us and even offers a small chest full of gold for "removing" the "Spies".  After much talking, Sir Pierre comes to the realization that we are not an elite mercenary force that can eliminate his problems and that we have an agenda of our own.  The ACTUAL mercenaries among us understood what was being asked and offered and had no problem with it, the rest of us were more hesitant.

After much more talking by R'lain we agreed to only go to the town the Evangelist's were coming from and see if there were indeed ties to the Celestial Bureaucracy.  We made it to the town only getting moderately lost on the 5 mile trek.  Once we made it to the town the bulk of us had a really nice pancake brunch at a halfling buffet eatery where they charged by how much they thought you could eat.  Once brunch was done, we made a circuit of the town and found a shrine to Tyrogatore.  Breach met with the Cleric of the shrine and sparred with him.  Breach won the match and we continued our circuit of the town.  We tried to get info about the Demo-Krats from the Cleric and he offered to introduce us to them because it would be the polite thing to do.  We respectfully declined but he kept insisting.  Breach decided to ask him to spar again to prevent him from alerting the demo-krats to our presence/questioning.  The rest of us made our way to the demo-krat meetinghouse.  Sss'sss and Chasker hid and the rest of us made our way normally.  At the entrance we were met by an individual who asked why we were there (i forget his name, but it will become irrelevant as you will see in a moment).  We show him the a pamphlet we obtained from Sir Pierre that proselytizes the demo-krat teachings and the man brought us into the meeting house and proceeded to avow to us the joyous wonders and the correctness of the demo-krat way.  As we were listening and the speaker was just getting into his groove, Sss'sss attacked him from out of the shadows gravely wounding him.  Of those of us in attendance, Horatio, R'lain, Jade, and Kess, only Kess joined in the murderous bloodbath.  Elliott interposed himself between Ssss'sss and the demo-krat speaker and Ssss'sss stabbed him.  Elliott tried to use his spells to diffuse the situation, only managing to put Kess to sleep.  Jade dragged Kess out of the meeting house and attempted to slap her to wakefullness.  R'lain healed the speaker as we tried, unsuccessfully, to talk Ssss'sss down.  A guard also arrived to assist the defense of the speaker.  Luckily the rest of the town had been drawn to the fight between Breach and the cleric of Tyrogatore so no more guards arrived.  The speaker tumbled out of harms way and thanked Elliott for attempting to save him and retreated out of the meetinghouse getting slashed at by Ssss'sss agiain who  drew more blood.  The speaker made it out of the meetinghouse where he immediately ran into Kess's knives.  Ssss'sss charged the speaker and slashed him one last time and flew off.  The speaker went down for the count.  Kess cheered the victory over a foe, Horatio walked away from the craziness, R'lain apologized to the dying speaker stating he thought his ideas were terrible but didn't think he should die for having them.  Jade kicked the dying man in the head while he was on the ground and then followed Kess away from the meetinghouse.  Elliott, still bloody from Ssss'ssss's blow, cast detect magic and saw lingering auras around the podium area where the speaker had been talking.  Once he finished his inspection, Elliott made his way out of the meetinghouse and ran into another guard, who by this time had been alerted by the initial guards calls for help.  Elliott was briefly questioned, but not detained as the guards went to assist the fallen speaker.

Horatio could be heard talking to himself about spending several hours trying to avoid this exact situation only to end up there at the end anyway.

So - we benefited the Kami.

This wasn't something we ment to do.  At least we didn't know we where doing it.  We where only asked stop the Oni from coming to Habololy.  So we did that, Which is good.  However this aligns with what Marius asked us to do.  Which is bad.  We do have some Celestrial Buerocracy powers on Habololy.  Which we probably pissed off.  Which is bad.  So.. this feels bad in general.

You forgot the we learned that Marius is still manipulating people and information at some of the highest levels, which is bad, but also good.  I mean it's bad that he's manipulating things behind the scenes, but good that we learned of it.  So it is bad that it's good.  No, wait.  It's good that it's bad that it's good.  Or is it bad that it's bad that it's good? 

Well, we found a lot, but only took 4 lenses, a cape, a jaw wand, and metal jaws back as the things we could carry.  We otherwise find rings ( belts for us ) 2 sets of armos, a beholder stool, crystals, and a large monicle.

The metal Jaws and the cape were evil and were fed to the Spell Forge

I should note that while the voyage is reasonably comfortable and safe, the island temple is populated by evangelical clerics of Lakius, most of which are young.

Falcon requests a place out of the way where he can work.  Crafting takes up most of his time during the day.  After the first few weeks the smell around his workplace should be enough to ward off all but the most foolhardy of Lakiusian Missionaries.

If I knew you were going to cry me a river, we could've sailed away from our troubles long ago...

You might be mocking, but sailing won't help.  Or at least it didn't before.  With that lead lined chest, we might be able to get away for a little while.  In any case we have to stop using the basket as our 'Get out of trouble' card constantly. I think we should ask Nathan if he can ask his patron if we can mask or hide the basket's presence better using an anti-magic field or something. 

Falcon sits down on the beach and pulls some equipment out of a large sack and begins working on what look like arrows of some kind.

Does a wizard have to have the spell prepared in order to cast it as a ritual?

For example, Gnickel wants to cast Tiny Hut at the end of a day of adventuring so the group has a more comfortable place to rest at night. Does he have to spend an hour exchanging his prepared Lightning Bolt to memorize Tiny Hut, then cast TIny Hut as a ritual (taking 30 min), then spend another hour to swap Tiny Hut back to Lightning Bolt?

Not sure if we addressed this. I envisioned rituals to be more like a wizard reading directly from a spell book, so I’d vote that it does not need to be prepared in a traditional sense as long as the caster is in possession of a written version of the spell.

Should also consider adding a focus cost to ritual spells in addition to any other material costs. That would be for things like arcanic tools, exotic materials, etc that are necessary to turn a normal spell into a ritual. Maybe call it a kit that costs 100*(spell level)² gc.

I like this idea.  Something akin to to an alchemist's kit for Ritual Spellcasters