With Engelhart's second level, he picks up an amateur skill in Heroes. This has two skills associated with it: that the character can recognize heroes on sight; the other is that the character will collect a list of "studied heroes" ~ and while the character can choose the hero to study, I do like to offer a hero for the character to know.
What is a "hero?" I define it as any mythical/fictional figure that could conceivably exist in the 17th century, or any actual living person in the year of my campaign (1650 in this case) who is a recognized person of great importance.
Now, Engelhart can go and research for someone he would like to know. If he wants someone in Scandinavia, I suggest checking out the royal families of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Prince Karl, who will become Karl I of Sweden in 1654 (assuming I don't change history), is 28, has recently just be named as successor to the Swedish throne and could conceivably be hunting in the area of Stavanger right now. That might be the hero that Engelhart knows ~ and I could say easily that they've even met, opening the door to some sort of parley.
But if Engelhart has an alternative name, he should put it forward.
I am sorry. I don't think that I have created any content for the fighter Pandred or the assassin Embla. Please remind me again of your specialties and I'll update the sage page.
So, at the moment, still in the well room, with nothing actually done. So we can start a new page with a whole fresh, empty comments list under it (saves scrolling).
62 comments:
For practical reasons, since I'm gonna go to sleep and you folks will yet have some time ahead of you, particularly Alexis who can then update the post if warranted, I'll go ahead and cast Light on the deepest visible reach of the well's bottom, after shining a lamp directly upon it.
I'll do this on cue with whomever is descending (Embla, if as per the original plan).
I do this to keep things moving and in accordance with the sappers' advice, who seem to regard the passageway as completely untenable. If you lot wish to veto this and direct the spell's casting to the far side of the sloping passageway go right ahead, I'm amenable either way.
I believe at least Valda has some rope we might use. I'll elf the winch after winding the rope on a few rounds.
Damn. We'll figure that tunnel out eventually. Maybe we'd get something out of digging down from above? Release the bad air?
Grr. Alright Em, what's in this well?
I'll wait for Alexis to confirm that the rope is tied before I descend.
Alexis, my specialty is in Sure-Footedness, and I also have an additional specialty in Logistics.
Pandred: Good suggestion. Digging through might be a heavy-handed approach (though we do have sappers on hand), or at least time-consuming, so I thought this up as an inexpensive and effort-light alternative:
- How about we attempt to pierce the threshold with something like a hollowed out trunk, that a "pipeline" can be created that will allow the gas to escape for as long as necessary?
Both approaches risk the fact that the gas can simply be too heavy to be dispersed in such a fashion, of course. What say you?
(I'm still somewhat holding out on the well-site revealing an alternate pathway).
Oh for heaven's sake, Embla. Tie the rope and go down.
There's an argument to be made that your surefootedness ought to allow you to chimney down a hole like this, given that it is made of rough stone. Either way, there's no chance of the rope giving and the sappers can confirm the reliability of the windlass.
I'm more concerned about your intentions with the water, as was suggested, or with what you see when you're down there.
Fact is, there are no doors to be found. Yes, the water is ice cold, just as was expected.
I see examples of overthinking again. There's no reason to think that the threshold is a sort of envelope keeping the bad air in the hallway. Rather, it is a magical effect keeping the bad air OUT of the well room. Moreover, there's no reason to suspect that the bad air is, somehow, reasonably finite. You could dig a hole down from above, only to find that the hole was prepared to vent the bad air for months ~ or even that the bad air did not rise at all, but remained exactly where it was, due to its relative density.
Using words like "pierce" the threshold suggest that it is something you can feel or that it has substance. It doesn't. There is no detectable barrier at all, only a point where the air seems to be good and the air seems to be bad.
Well, in our defense, when you've got an insoluble problem, overthinking is bound to happen.
I've half a mind already to just grab my stuff and descend a few steps.
Let us try something else:
- The root-creatures ignored the lamp-holder, correct?
- The lamp is bound to have been accounted for when the gas-imprisoning threshold was conceived. Maybe they're even planned to be used in conjunction.
- Lothar's torch did not ignite the air upon being thrown this way.
With all this in mind, I'll pick up the lamp from where Lothar deposited it and walk to the point where his torch hit the ground (it lays there even now, possibly smoldering?)
Not possibly smoldering, it was thrown days ago.
How deep does the water in the well go down?
Lothar: you're right, of course!
It got lodged in my skull that your "walk" had been the most recent, not Pandred's.
If someone will pass the bo stick, I'll probe around the well water while clinging to the rope just above the water's surface. With the light, does it appear that the well opens into a larger cistern-like thing or continues straight down for a while?
The root creatures did ignore the lamp-holder. There seems to be no connection to them at all. The lamp seems to have been the trigger to reveal the door.
Lothar is right about the torch.
The well-water goes than Embla can detect, even with a stick, a staff or a spear; but then it would, if the water table were at a certain level (the well is spring fed). The water goes straight down, without any indication of any other detail connected with it. The well appears to be . . . wait for it . . . a well.
Heh heh. Sorry, guys. But the well really is a dead end.
Well then (sorry, couldn't resist...), now that's out of the way, allow me to attempt to recap what we know about the passage.
1) The gas at the entrance of the hallway isn't dense enough to ignite.
2) The gas is not entering the well room due to some supra-natural intervention of some kind.
3) The gas is breathable, but unpleasant, at the entrance of the hallway.
Is all this correct? If so, we should be able to march down at least a little way to see what we can see. I imagine we'll get headaches or see the lanterns burning unusually if the gas begins to concentrate to dangerous levels, leaving us able to retreat well before we reach a point where death swoops in suddenly.
I'll retrieve my sling from where it lays discarded.
Then I'll go and ask for one of the Bullseye lanterns and take a few cautious steps past the threshold.
I can't shake the fact that the presence of a potential fire trap in conjunction with the gas-filled hallway makes for a rather suicidal prospect but going again all the way to Stavanger and leave this like so is too anticlimactic to bear.
That is essentially what you know so far, barring postulations about the future.
[it is really easy to drift into seeking alternative answers when faced with a quandary like this. Suddenly, everything else seems preferable]
(Kicking myself right now for having cast Light into the well instead of here).
(Addendum: kicking myself right now for not having chosen Detect Magic instead of Light).
Okay, Embla has taken an action.
Embla, as you move into the gas, it is immediately evident. You take no damage. Your first impulse is to think, "This isn't too bad," but soon after, once you've taken perhaps five steps, the intensity of gas becomes too much for you. You can't breathe, you bend over feeling as though you must vomit, and without having any control you fall back in an instinctive need to protect yourself. In moments, you're breathing the fresh, clean air of the well room, gasping and coughing.
But again, no damage. In a minute, you feel like you've shaken the effects off.
Engelhart,
The way you worded your post last night, I took it to mean that IF the party wanted the benefits of the light spell, they could have it. I did not take it that you would definitely cast it if they chose to go into the well. As it happens, discovering the nature of the well did not require a light spell, so I'll rule that it wasn't cast.
Oh, sorry, that was Engelhart going past the threshold. My error. Same description.
Hrmm. I ask Bergthora if she knows how one might remove the gas - burning it off seems impractical and highly dangerous, especially since we don't know how much gas is present.
[I wish, I really wish, it was possible to edit your own comments in blogger like it can be done in facebook]
Bergthora will respond, "Without knowing the source, impossible. Gas is something that is avoided or lived with, or we find a mage to deal with it. Expensive. Easier to just build the tunnel somewhere else."
Here's a tangential question, then. The big frog statue we found in the ravine, what direction from the farmhouse did it lay? Is it the same direction that this hallway points?
Yes.
But I will tell you straight up, in no way did that remotely figure in my thoughts prior to your question. It just happens that the slope of the land is generally towards the coast to the west. Thus, a gulley in the area would be certain to be down elevation, as would a passage underground that was sloped.
Hmm.
Given the presence of this magical barrier, preventing the gas from filling this chamber, it seems likely that it is a mechanism intended to protect whatever lies beyond. If this was a complex that saw use beyond that of a tomb, then there might be another barrier on the other side, keeping the gas in the hallway.
However, trying to rush forward under the hypothesis that there is such a second barrier is foolhardy and suicidal.
I ask Bergthora to elaborate - what does she mean by "deal with" and how might a mage solve the problem?
Well, thank you kindly for your consideration, Alexis. I did state that I would wait until a lantern was shone down the well.
TWO-hit wonder!
I'll get someone to hold the lantern into the hallway, then I'll cast the Light spell... hold my breath (I'm a swimmer, got to take that into some consideration) and move a few steps into the hallway, discharging the spell and projecting it as far as I can glimpse.
Try to get us something. This is a hazard that might be crossed by simply running across with nostrils closed... we really must gather more details before we cop to the effort of digging a whole new tunnel.
If you step into the gas to cast your spell, you should expect your concentration to be ruined and the spell lost.
A gust of wind, Embla.
Makes sense. I'll cast it from our side of the threshold, then.
Fair enough.
Is the twine from the previous visit still here? Or does someone have some twine?
I ask Bergthora if she could tell the difference between fire burning with the gas present and fire burning without the gas present. If she can, we could tie the end of the twine around a rock, throw the rock down the hallway while keeping hold of the twine's other end, and then burn the twine, tracking the flame as it consumes it.
I've got 99.5 feet of twine on me (meaning in my pack in the sarcophagus room), and another spool of 100 feet from Aleksandra back at camp.
I think the twine thing should work, but I feel you should have to soak it in at least an ounce of oil before it will light as you want it. Otherwise, it is more likely to burn through at some point and simply split.
[Embla, while I wait on the party's choice of action, I'm going to be working on the sure-footedness rules. You can find some new content on there now, regarding heightened balance. Scrambling next and then I'm going to rewrite the stealth rules).
Alexis, I do have an action declared and pending.
You may have missed it, you might not, just pointing out.
Sorry, Engelhart. Quite right.
You cast the light spell but it reveals little further information, except that the hallway is longer. You would guess its length to be a minimum of 60 feet, now, or 12 combat hexes. The light spell has no shading on the far side, but cuts off abruptly. But the hall is fully lit and bright now.
The walls do seem very rough-hewn, clearly not made with modern tools.
[Alexis, the new Sure-Footedness rules are fantastic. I'm so excited for Parkour!]
Do the walls of this chamber look substantially different from the walls of the passageway?
How far could I hurl the rock+twine? 60' is quite a distance.
[I've finished the amateur rules for sure-footedness, at least for now. Everyone should look at stealth as it can be accomplished by the unskilled as well.
The maximum range for a dagger is 10-12 hexes ~ so you can throw a 1-lb rock 10-12 hexes, depending on your d20 roll.
Could we attach the twine or twine/rock combo to an arrow or bolt?
You could, but then when you wanted it to be taut, so that it could burn along, you'd just pull the bolt or arrow back up the hall.
This is going on a little long so here's what I'm going to say.
Fjall takes a stone, ties a twine along it, throws it a miraculous 65 feet down the hall, so that the stone completely disappears in the darkness. Then he lights the oil soaked twine, which miraculously lights along its entire length, without burning through the twine before discovering that the twine reveals very little. The fire burns a little brighter on the other side of the threshold, but not that much brighter. As far as you can tell from the twine experiment, the gas reaches as far as the light does.
Next?
I'm at a bit of a loss, personally.
We could try the twine thing again, but save Engelhart's Light for after it lands. Maybe set up a knot or something at the end as a visual cue to discharge the spell.
But that means calling it for the evening, and frankly we might learn nothing from the extended spell. This tunnel could go on forever for all we know.
Digging as best I can through the internet, venting the roof (or sides, through horizontal vents) of the tunnel would probably work, or at least it does for methane in coal mines, a problem which seems very similar to our own. It would need to be a large vent though.
This assumes that the properties of this naptha are similar to methane. Obviously the sappers would know best here.
Lothar and company could scout the area for a second point of entry, which for all we know could be tucked underneath the fallen frog statue, or nonexistant.
We could try seeing if the lamp extends the barrier with its bearer. I don't think this is the case, but it is at least possible.
There's the farmhouse to reexamine. But again, I'm having a devil of a time figuring out why the well is in this barrow, protected by golems (who may actually be there to defend the tunnel passage). Why put your, or indeed any, source of water underground in a crypt?
Given that the lamp thing is something which is possible to do NOW, I'm going to go ahead and give it a shot. I'll take and light the lamp, advance towards the barrier, and see if it feels like it's extending with me. I won't risk more than a few steps beyond it however.
Hey as long as I'm just shooting ideas out wildly, we could also check for more doors in the barrow. This one was pretty secret. Maybe there's another somewhere.
The lamp has no apparent effect on anything.
Bergthora will say, "Why IS the well here?"
Since you've updated the Logistics skill...
Does my skill at Dowsing communicate anything particular or unusual about this well?
Other than that, yeah - I am a little at a lost.
Where, in relation to the overworld, is this tunnel? How deep below ground is it?
The tunnel is about 22 feet below ground at the well; where the light spell ends, it is about 29 feet below ground.
It occurs to Embla to climb back down to the water level of the well, which you'll still need the rope, as your scrambling ability only works to 80 degree slopes.
[sorry about the sage abilities, but I do get there eventually]
From the best position you can get into, and a lantern lowered near you for light, here is what you can ell about the water on closer observation:
The well is preternaturally clear of silt, abnormally clear. It looks to be profoundly pure. If it has been here for a thousand years, this seems almost impossible; it would mean that there is no silt drift through the surrounding rock AT ALL.
Which would mean that this well doesn't need to be dug out, perhaps not in ten millennia.
This is as much as you can tell without tasting it.
If it's pure, and probably magic, that's as good a reason as any to chug away. Em, feel free to give it a drink.
Thicky MacThickersons, that's what we are. Fjall brought a pot down, yes? I am now 110% certain the well water is a potion that will allow us to walk through the gas. As soon as Embla returns from the well again, I attach Fjall's pot to the end of the rope, draw up some water and drink it, then I stroll confidently into the gas filled hallway.
Sorry, Pandred, I was typing when you were, appatently. Didn't mean to jump over you like that.
I'll live, as long as you don't deal proximity damage.
You're not a rhinocerous, right?
Lothar has it right. Drink from the well, you feel no effects from the gas.
Simple, nyet?
The solution, simple. Us... Maybe us as well...
As for being a rhinoceros, we'll see how well my pajamas fit tonight.
[There, I've completed the amateur level of Logistics. yay]
Good job, team.
Do we want to press on now, or return on the morrow with a little more hp and maybe another spell or two?
I said I'm good to go, just let me stay back with my crossbow. I don't mind wading into a battle in progress when the need arises, but I'm not feeling up to being the frontman at this precise moment.
10hp is probably enough for another go. Unlikely to be anything but undead or constructs. I probably won't be opening any doors either, ha!
*log on to see how Embla's twined rock scenario has panned out*
*see that it hasn't*
*think "do I even want to go through suggesting drinking the water - the well having already been described as a dead end by the DM -?*
*scroll down some more*
Oh...
Cheerio, then, I can take the point.
I'm good to continue on as well.
I am as well.
Alexis, is my javelin salvageable?
Yes, just pull it free.
In case Alexis is holding for explicit action: I set down the hallway until we enter the pool of light generated by my spell, shield & hammer readied.
I ask that someone shine a light upon the far side of the light-envelope, that we may see where we're going.
I retrieve my javelin and the lantern and follow Engelhardt down the corridor, shining the lantern ahead of us.
Okay, the next post is up. You pass through the affected space of Engelhart's light spell and continue on into the dungeon.
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