alexandraerin

Today is sunny and calm and the forecast for tonight is more of the same, so there shouldn't be any interference with tonight's D&D session. Last week was seriously freaky weather... it was clouded over, but the sky wasn't very dark, and yet the rain was pretty torrential. It was light enough out and the wind was blowing hard enough that I could look outside and watch the sheets of falling water moving horizontally faster than they were falling vertically. I'd just got done lashing my parents' pontoon boat back to the dock for the second time, after the last wind storm had snapped one of its lines. I feel pretty lucky at having grabbed some newer rope that was a lot longer. Because I didn't exactly bring home a lot of merit badges for knot-tying, I'd ended up looping the excess rope around several different points, which I think helped keep it in place. The next day my mother (who is in Florida while I'm watching her house) emailed me to ask how the weather was because she'd heard on the news that the midwest was being lashed with storms spawned by the remnants of a hurricane.

Aaaanyway, game's on for tonight... players, please make sure you upload your level 2 character over the old one on iplay4e. We're going to act like the level up occurred during the downtime before you started exploring the city, so your HP, etc. are all full.

In This Scene: Harlan, Janus, Dunbar, Spectre, Lady Scarlet, and Carrog.

The Situation: Harlan, having cleverly forced the dimensional marauder to cough up the cockatrice with an improvised herbal preparation and an assist from Lady Scarlet, is determined to make the poultice for young Jared in accordance with Janus's instructions. Needing a stable environment and access to heat, water, and alcohol... and some place far away from Magistrate Wallace until they're able to produce the actual cure... the group has decided to return to the inn where they first met each other.

What Happens:

The front door has been repaired, more or less... it's on its hinges but hanging open, with a crude rope fixture replacing the now-busted latch. The inn appears a bit busier than it was when you first arrived: there is more than one horse tied up outside, along with a few carts... from the sounds of loud conversation, drinking, and merrymaking coming through the door, it sounds like the Festival of Renewal has spilled over inside the inn. As you step inside the inn, you feel an odd sense of vibration. Those of you who are carrying the green crystals go several steps inside before you realize the crystals are gone... it's not like they've vanished out of your hands... you're simply not carrying them. Though you remember holding them, it feels as though you never were... you also remember walking in empty-handed.

The same man is behind the bar. He and the barmaid have been joined by a pair of half-elven youths, obviously siblings, and the four of them seem to be seeing to the custom of the crowd quite handily. The ground floor of the high-ceilinged taproom is still not quite fully occupied.

What now?

Harlan will need to make a Heal check to prepare the poultice. Depending on how well that goes, he may require the assistance of others with skills in Heal and Nature, or other skills if people get creative. It's not an instantaneous process, though, so either way there is some time to be killed. You can converse with each other, talk to the tavern staff, talk to the bar patrons (I realize I haven't described anyone in detail, so you can be general: someone who looks local, someone who looks like a traveler, anyone in earshot, etc.), etc. If you're curious about anything, this could be a good time to inquire.

If you make a skill roll, please use our regular die roller link and put the skill and roll in the subject line of your comment.

Edit: Okay, at three hours to go until game time I'm going to be taking a little nap, so we'll be suspending this for now.

Okay, I had planned on posting the transcript first, but the room where my desktop computer is located is too hot for me to be hanging out in during sunlit hours today so I'm doing this one first.

This is the character rewards wishlist post for the Inn Campaign. I'm tagging this "player action required" because it's semi-important, but it is actually optional... nobody has to post here, and there's no deadline. Feel free to come back and add comments to this post later, as ideas occur to you, as your character levels/evolves, etc. While I'm not going to be giving out level-inappropriate rewards, you can put ideas for higher level items on here... if you don't have any particular preference for the here and now but there's something you know you'll want later, you can list it now.

For those without much 4E experience/; wishlists are a time-saving and player-pleasing tool for DMs. If there are particular magic items that you feel would suit your character (either in the sense of "If I just had a +1 to x, I could do y." sense or an "I think I'd look really cool with a Halberd of Looking Really Cool."), drop a comment to let me know. You can be as specific (an actual named item that has defined stats) or general ("A magic axe.","Something that will make me hit better.","Something to make my Invoker more Invokery.", etc.) as you care to be.

Alternate rewards are also possible if you'd rather not rely on magical gear, or you're attached to your character's current gear. This campaign is going to have plenty of opportunities for exposure to otherworldly energy, so I'm planning on using spontaneous enchantment of existing stuff as an alternative to always finding magic items, anyway. If you'd prefer to go that route, or have the idea that one of your character's items is already "special" and just needs to be unlocked/mastered, please let me know so I can work it into the story.

I'm also open to using boons and grandmaster training, but see the caveat below.

Caveats:

I'll take wishlist items on board as suggestions, but this isn't a shopping list. The mere fact that you've added a level-appropriate item to this post does not mean it's going to turn up under a rock next session. In some cases I may have things you list here show up as an incentive to complete a challenge rather than having it drop into the game as a reward after you've done so.

I can't think of anything except unique items (item sets, the "Legend of Drizzt" icons that they put in Dragon, etc.) that I'd veto outright, though.

On the subject of "unique", please don't pitch a specific custom item or boon/training at me. I will say no, and I'll feel bad about saying no, and because I said "please don't", I'll blame you for it. :P This is a large group. My level of personal familiarity within the group varies wildly, as it includes people I love, people I know, people I respect, and people I barely even know. This makes approving/disapproving other people's homebrewed stuff really awkward, so I'm just saying no outright.

I know there isn't a list of boons and grandmaster training types like there is for magic items, so while the "no homebrew" rule applies, what it really means is that you're leaving things up to me. If you'd rather have your character receive special training than special gear, say so, and feel free to specify the type/area of training. Just please don't write up specific powers you'd like to have, because again, I'll have to say no. If you're open to the idea of being given custom boons/training that I feel fits your character, please say so as well. Because boons and grandmaster training are custom and we might have different ideas of what is level/character appropriate, I'm not going to give these out to anybody who doesn't explicitly signal that they'd be open to it... I'll stick to magic items in that case, since we have an impartial ruling on those.

Entirely unconventional rewards that don't fit the item/boon/training model will also be considered, but please don't try to use that as an end-run around the "no homebrew" thing. "How about if my character gains the ability to _______" is basically asking for a boon without calling it one.