Next Steps

[Eliahad]

A poll!

[bralbovsky]

Our draft questions for the quill: We get 10.

1. What are the qualifying talismans necessary to safely pass through the occluding field on Mar Massif (sp)?

2. Does each individual crossing the occluding field need to be wearing a ring (talisman)?

3. Is there a method to disable the occluding field?

4. How many rings are there presently within the Tangle?

5. How accurate is the quill's guidance within the occluding field?

5. Where are the active runewells in (damn, I can't even remember the name of this city)

6. How many sihedron rings are resting in treasure caches or graves unguarded? (This could require follow up)

7. What are Gamigan's immunities?

8. Would Gamigan or the dragon (whose name we know?) come to the other's defense?

9. which Runelord is the most important or powerful? (This is one of my meta questions)

10. What was special about the Yeti we killed?

11. How many entrances are there through the occluding field?
12. How many sihedron rings are in the dragon's lair?
13. How many sihedron rings are there in the city?
14. Will we need the sihedron rings to face future runelords?
15. What is the mechanism to dispel Karzoug's personal plane?

I know this is more than 10. Change priority, add ideas, modify...we want to give Darcs some time to run the answers ahead of next session.

[Tahlvin]

That looks good to me.

And don't forget to vote in Dave's poll!

[Eliahad]

There's still a chance to tie it!

[Eliahad]

Hey folks, I'm closing the poll. We'll be going after Gamigan on Thursday.

Everyone should take a look at the quill questions and make sure they are what we want answered. Darcs, when would you like the list finalized by?

[DMDarcs]

[Eliahad]

The name of the city is Xin Shalast.

[DMDarcs]

Am I correct in assuming that we're waiting for tonight for the official answers?

[Eliahad]

I think so. We're going to have a lot of discussion about them. We can do it together.

[bralbovsky]

After a lengthy conversation with the quill, we learned the following: ya, we need sihedron rings or special amulets or buckles. We presently have two rings and three amulets.
There are no active runewells here
Three more rings are in the city. One in the tangle, Gamigan has one. Likely the dragon
There are more than 30 of them behind the occluding field...hopefully not 30 dragons
There are ways to disable the mechanisms of Karzoug, but we have roughly a month
Gamigan is immune to fire and poison, but not electricity (He's immune to something else too)

We ventured to the Tangle for the ring, and after some exploration encountered a nasty lamia thing and two storm giants who were in the thrall of some Matrix plant thing implanted in their necks.
Annie nuked the lamia
K took out one giant, we're still fighting.
They do not seem capable of surrender.

[Zen]

It would be an exaggeration to say that kay took out one of the giants... she got a good hit on it and discovered that it oozed green junk instead of blood, cluing us in on the fact that it isn't precisely a giant anymore... which would probably be why DMDarcs had been making comments about damage without the bane modifier when Eldthor hit them...

[DMDarcs]

[Tahlvin]

So we've defeated Gamigan and retrieved his ring. That leaves one more ring to find within Xin Shalast, and the dragon to take out. So what are our plans for tonight? Confront the dragon and see if he has the last ring? Try to do more recon of the dragon and/or his lair before confronting him? Marching up to Karzoug's throne room and confronting him? Just kidding!

[Tahlvin]

So this gigantic blue dragon is now a gigantic statue. A) I don't want any of Karzoug's goons using stone-to-flesh to turn this thing back to into itself so that we have to face it again in the future, and B) the thing may have been wearing the sihedron ring when it was turned to stone, and I really don't want US to have to turn the thing back to flesh in its current, complete form, in order to retrieve the ring. So once we've looked for its hoard and checked to see if we can find the ring elsewhere in this lair, we need to disassemble this statue beastie, and perhaps turn a few strategic pieces back into flesh in order to retrieve the ring. What's the best way to do that? I could turn into an earth elemental and perhaps break it apart from within? Could Anna use Stone Shape to dismember the statue? Would Disintegrate work? I think just trying to hack away at it with hammers or swords would be too time consuming, and probably pretty loud. Thoughts?

[bralbovsky]

Without any information whatsoever, I'dd suggest stoneshape. As we dismember it, I'm guessing each discrete piece would respond to stone to flesh...
If we have to do it the old fashioned way, decapitation is likely the most efficient
An ancient corpse is likely a huge resource (armor etc, if we live to ever get it to market)

[Tahlvin]

There was a bit of confusion on my part during last night's session regarding the sihedron rings, how many we have and who has them. I think I've figured it out.

We should have 5 rings: from the evil vampire guy we killed for Morgiv, from the yeti chief, from the lamia in the Tangle, from Gamigin, and from the dragon. The holders of the rings should be: Dothan, Kay, Thor, Hal, and Illian.

DMDarcs, does that agree with your understanding of how many rings we have? Does everyone agree about who is currently in possession of the rings?

That means we either need to find a way to find 3 more rings, find 3 substitutes (amulets?), find a way to get us through with just the rings we have (the wolf/goat puzzle, if it works), or split up the party and storm the castle with only 5 of us (definitely not the plan A I would suggest going with), or find a way to dispel the occluding field.

[Mike]

If the amulets work, do we have just 2 of them, leaving us just 1 short in that case?

[Tahlvin]

I thought we had more amulets. I know we lost one when we put it on the white dragon's corpse in an attempt to preserve it while we were in Runeforge, but the corpse (and the amulet) was stolen due to the amount of time we were gone. But I thought we had picked up more amulets along the way, and we wouldn't have sold any we found.

[DMDarcs]

[bralbovsky]

Ok, that means we have one person without either amulet or ring. Five rings, which we know work.
I suggest a scouting party of five, to determine whether this is a barrier, or an atmospheric condition.
If it's a barrier, one could cross back over with the rings and equip the others.
If it's a condition, we might need a sortie, or several, to gather more. We could lie in wait for those crossing the barrier to our side, but that's pretty tricky. If there are supplies or any regular commerce across the barrier that might be less so.
Let's plan the two halves carefully, so the only really vulnerable moment (I hope it's just a moment) is when the messenger brings the rings back to those waiting. We don't know whether any alarms sound when we cross, but I expect we won't surprise them regardless.

Next steps: suggestions for party allocation.

In terrible spaces like this, I would keep Thor and Kay together. Add Ilian to the scouting and two more.
Dwyn or Hal should be split so that there's muscle on both sides.
Depending on what is found, Ilian is a safe choice for the transfer, or the fighter.
That means Thor, Kay, Ilian, Dothan and a fighter go (I just added Dothan to boost their lore/assessment)
Sam, Anna, muscle stay.

The scouting really has only to answer that barrier/atmosphere question; then we can regroup and more serious recon can take place..

Totally spitballing: if we're not going to use the amulets, do we want to offer them to the spider men? Maybe on loan, or in exchange for something?