Post-Jorgenfist Travel/Plans Thread

[Tahlvin]

Starting this thread so we can finalize our plans for when we leave Jorgenfist. Who's going where, how are they going, etc. Discuss away!

Updated 8/20 to add the poll.

[Tahlvin]

I know Dothan wanted to teleport back to Sandpoint or Magnimar, so she could have some time to work on her wings while some of the rest of us travel overland. Dwyn wants to travel overland, at least part of the way, because she doesn't want to abandon her horse. Where did we end up leaving the horses and wagon? Was that at Galduria, after which we traveled by boat up the lake and river until we came close to the Storval Stairs? If so, the trip may go a lot faster if we teleport from Jorgenfist to to Galduria, and then just need to ride from Galduria to Sandpoint.

If we're splitting the party, with some going shopping/magic item building, and others traveling, then Elthor is fine going with the party that's traveling. He does want to get some magic items, but he'd be fine having Kay pick up those items for him, if she's going with the group that's shopping. Or he could wait until he gets back. He needs to restock on arrows, especially some bane arrows and slaying arrows, if possible. He had 160 regular arrows when he left for Jorgenfist, plus about 100 other types of arrows (various magical, cold iron, etc.), and he's down to only about 60 regular arrows and about half his other arrows.

[Bluedevyl]

Unless I'm greatly mistaken, we know the following things:

1. The harpy that got away flew straight north, in the direction of the Kodar Mountains.
2. The ogres, when they left, headed towards Hook Mountain.

As we're technically responsible, I would be in favor of doing a recon visit to Fort Rannick just to determine if the ogres broke anything on their way. I wouldnt be crazy about them having reinhabited the Hook after we cleared it out.

I'm not concerned about the harpies at the moment. Let's just remember that for later.

Anna is fine either walking, flying, riding, or teleporting out. Whatever the group decides is the best way to travel, that's what she'll do.

[Zen]

"Work on her wings" that's what the kids are calling visiting your girlfriend nowadays... LOL!

Kay is definitely in favor of the quicker trip back, but she also needs to work on some skill retraining in order to switch over to Arcane Trickster. (She could take her next level as Rogue and get one of the levels of Escape artist and only need to retrain one level... I think... But then I'd be putting off advancing magically.... In any event, travelling overland she could work on retraining that Escape Artist skill... with a little assistance

[Tahlvin]

My one concern is about splitting the party and going vastly different directions. It's a long way from Sandpoint to Fort Rannick. And the pace that things have been happening, it won't be long until the next problem from these Runelords rears its ugly head. I'm not fond of half the party going off to Fort Rannick and half going to Sandpoint, and then the two groups being weeks apart if something bad happens in one or the other location. And if we go to Fort Rannick, we still need to make a detour, either on the way there or the way back, to get the horses and wagons.

It might go easier if we wait to pick up the horses and wagon until later. Instead, we head to Fort Rannick; Dothan and some of the party can teleport directly to Fort Rannick while others travel overland (or by lake/river), stopping by Hook Mountain on the way, then regroup at Fort Rannick before proceeding to Sandpoint. Again, Dothan and others could teleport to Sandpoint while others travel overland/by river. By Dothan teleporting, she'll get there instantly and have extra, undisturbed time to work on her wings.

Or we forget about Fort Rannick for now and just go directly back to Sandpoint and Magnimar for some R&R/shopping, then figure out how to get the horses/wagon back, check on Fort Rannick, etc.

[bralbovsky]

Ok, let's establish three parameters, one constant (which I think will be unfortunately shortened by the harpy) which is how long are we planning to carve out for travel, work, training, study. A month seems a reasonable max. Lots can happen in a month, but in this time period, a month is sort of nothing.

What does everyone have as a goal: a visit, retraining, item purchase or creation

Destinations

We can grid these and either, not split the party so much. Split the party and keep a teleporter with each fragment, accept that we'll run separately for a while.

I know we have a huge job of liquidating and transporting the assets so we can get down to upgrading gear. I hate to set people up for labor they're unwilling to do. A day or two of group focus on that would be worth it, I feel.
I know we have concerns about ogres, and Hal would absolutely sign up to ride with Dwyn to see that they're not causing mischief. That would put us in the vicinity of Rannick. Where we could set up a teleport rendezvous (big assumptions about when and whether we make it). We should make a strategic decison about whether travel from here on will be overland or magically, and invest accordingly. (Time vs cash)

Hal has an upgrade list, so he's willing to go to magnimar. Otherwise he has no family, s.o. or attachments, so no visiting. I'd have to look again at skills to see if it's worth retraining. Following ogres would probably top his list. Travel time to Rannick?

[Zen]

[Kay, in character, trying to be thoughtful and organized.]

"As far as I know, Anna is our only teleport capable spellcaster, no?

As for all these other options, I have a few thoughts:

1) I would suggest communicating with Fort Rannick via Sending on a regular basis, letting them know that there are Ogres who were in league with the Giants who attacked Sandpoint en-route to Hook Mountain but NOT to intercede. Let them know that we will set up a regular scheduled communication routine via this method (Sending) and for them to watch for any aggressive actions by the Ogres but and, obviously, defend the fort or the town if they attack, but not to move against them at Hook Mountain, as this particular group has disbanded from the hostile army gathering at Jorgenfist voluntarily and is not currently considered a major threat.

2) The more I think about it, I think we should all just go back with the horses. They are our horses and our responsibility and, in general..." She looks down, glances at Eldthor out of the corner of her eye, then at Dothan and Illian, then Dwyn. "I don't feel comfortable splitting the party... the family... I'm sorry, but..." a tear forms in the corner of her eye. "I don't think it's safe with what we learned in the library... and... I'm sorry... I'm a bit scared right now. I need you guys around... All of you. I'm just afraid that these Runelords know about us now thanks to taking down Mokmurian and they might be looking for us." She gets a slightly panicked look in her eyes. "You aren't wearing that medallion anymore, right Uncle Il?"

All pretense of looking thoughtful are gone. She hasn't looked this lost since... well... shortly after the last time she nearly died...

[OOC: I do think that splitting the party is a bad idea at this point. The threats we face are too much for a partial group to handle.]

[Eliahad]

Illian has two main goals, one of which has an "a" part and a "b" part.

1) a) Enchant his blades with the "Agile" trait, which will allow him to apply his dexterity modifier to any damage he does.

b) get as many dexterity and AC boosting items as he can get his hands on. Amulets of Natural Armor and a Belt of Dexterity +4 comes immediately to mind.

2) Go to Riddleport and investigate this as a possible location of one of these towers that stood on the borders of the old whatever the hell it was. Based off a hunch he has from the Big M's map. If he's wrong, he's wrong, but at least we'll cross off a possibility from the list.

[edit: I'll respond to Kai a bit later.]

[Zen]

[Tahlvin]

Another thing brought up in the other thread that needs to be taken into account for travel purposes: we have two dragon corpses. They're small dragons, certainly, but we have to transport them. I'm not sure if Anna would be able to teleport those corpses to Magnimar for sale, or if they have to go overland. And if they have to go overland, how do we get them from Jorgenfist to where we left the horses and wagon?

Of course, one option is that we leave some of the loot here at Jorgenfist and wait to bring it back later. But that runs the risk that someone else comes along and takes it from us. Plus, we don't get to use that loot to purchase us some goodies.

I'm personally in favor of a teleport approach, for purposes of speed. I say we go to Magnimar first, to offload loot and make our purchases, then head to Sandpoint overland. Since we're limited on how many can teleport per day, and we have to teleport back and forth, we send half the party one day, then the dragon corpses, if possible, then the other half of the party (who could optionally go directly to Sandpoint rather than Magnimar). The half that goes to Magnimar on day 1 then has almost 48 hours to sell loot and buy new equipment, almost 24 hours to sell/process the dragon corpses, then are joined by the other half of the party for the trip back to Sandpoint, or meets the other half of the party in Sandpoint. Dothan could stay in the second half of the party, which would give her some quiet time in the library at Jorgenfist to either do research or work on her wings.

As for the horses and wagon, we pick those up later.

That's my suggested course of action. I know there's all sorts of suggestions about side trips to Fort Rannick, Riddleport, Hook Mountain, etc. I'd like that, but I think we first need to check in at Sandpoint, so they know there's no giant invasion heading their way. We can use Sending to contact Fort Rannick and make sure things are okay, something we should have been doing this whole time anyways.

[Mike]

Here's my selfish desires here.

1) We need to cash in and upgrade. We are sitting on more loot than ever before, and it is going to take some time and effort to make this happen. In character, this is hugely important, because our opposition keeps getting bigger and scarier the deeper we go.

2) I want to sit down in one place and finish my goddam wings. I started these things like a month and two levels ago and I'm technically not even halfway done. I know that it's my own fault for not just buying a wand or something, but I want them so bad! If I teleport ahead and potentially miss out on a session of action, I'll have something like five days of work left by the time everyone else shows up. Reasonably, I think we might actually see a week of downtime after travel and I can be done. If I travel overland, I have 16 days of work left when we get there. Unlikely I will get that time.

Selfish? Absolutely. But I'm willing to compromise the rest of the party for this. Plus, once these are done, I have nothing else to make for Dothan, so she can start Crafting wondrous items for everyone else.

Everything else is gravy. Rannick, Riddleport, more research, ogres, harpies, whatever. However we want to do this is fine with me. Building on what others have said, I think the key is Sending. If we do decide to split the party much, then we figure out where Anna's safe teleport locations are then have all factions of the party touch base daily with Sendings. We plot out our courses as carefully as possible, and if there is trouble or someone fails to check in, we know the closest teleport location to send help. Y'know... unless Anna's the one in trouble.

[Bluedevyl]

Here's my proposal for travel:

Anyone who wants to head back in the vicinity of Galduria to retrieve the horses and wagon can do so. Anna would propose herself and perhaps Sam traveling with this group for safety, teleporting back to Jorgenfist once the overland crew reaches their destination. Dothan and perhaps Kay can stay behind at Jorgenfist to continue research and crafting.

Anna takes Sam, Dothan, and Kay via teleport to Magnimar to sell off gear the next day. Once there, she can teleport back to Fort Rannick to rendezvous with the group traveling overland, as it seems that Rannick is high on their list of priorities.

I'm also of the mindset that Sandpoint should be our goal, at least at first. If we can determine that there's no hurry, Anna would propose a trip to the closest Dwarven stronghold to return the shield that we recovered from Jorgenfist, but perhaps that can be done during the time that the rest of the group travels to Riddleport or other points of interest.

[Mike]

That's pretty solid. If Kay and Dothan stay at the library, then Dothan can continue her work AND we can ask one question per day of the library (maybe two if Pat deems that they're small enough).

[Zen]

[Mike]

I can tie you up as often as you like.

[Bluedevyl]

[Phoebe]

I just wanna get my horse back. Soonish.

Priority two is making sure those ogres aren't threatening Fort Rannick. I'm not clear on our teleporting capabilities - can someone zap there back and forth in a single day for recon? We don't know if the Priest of Erastil in Turtleback Ferry can do a sending back - or anyone else there. So we can send a rapid warning but what good does it do if ogres overrun the Fort? And if they did, how soon could we realistically get everyone out there?

Assuming there is no immediate ogre threat that pulls us east, the next step seems to be settling in Sandpoint for a while. We need time to craft things, research, fix up Kay again, reconnect with the old ancient historian dude there, and maybe take some scouting trips to places like Riddleport in hopes of figuring out what ancient weaponry is laying underfoot. Or undersea? Whose weaponry is it? Who is trying to revive all this ancient stuff, ultimately, and why? What threat might arrive next?

And then there's the ongoing quest to solve Uncle Illian's issues, which might require more time and effort.

Long term, Dwyn still has an idea to move out to the Fort Rannick area for a while, feeling called for religious and personal reasons to help improve the area and defend it. But she wouldn't be unhappy to do the same thing in home base Sandpoint or environs.

Overall, I feel like the one thing the campaign as a whole needs and that we haven't ever had yet is some in-game down time to sort things out and use some of the characters' other skills.

[Tahlvin]

[Zen]

[Tahlvin]

We play on Thursday night (yeah!), so I've added a poll at the top of the thread in the hopes that we can have some sort of direction before Thursday's session starts. I've tried to simplify the options that have been tossed around. If there's an option you really want that's not on the list, let me know and I"ll add it. But keep in mind, the more options we add, the more likely it is that everyone picks their own option and we end up not coming to a consensus.