Castle Clover: METACHAT

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 2:27 pm

About Rob's last post-- I think somebody other than us is using time-travel and messing with the past of Averiogne, and Rob is just realizing it.

If the destruction and restoration of the capital city is something that is actually canon, that Rob should know about, I will go back and edit/delete my post.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 5:43 pm

Honestly, I was torn between whether or not Rob should know. I chose no. The son of a local noble and an adventurer isn't something I really planned for so things are a bit vague there. Basically, Rob experiences things as a local would, only he's consistently questioning the goings on. Things aren't quite right and he can tell, but he has no idea why. Things like Vyones being the capital and yet not, and the seemingly sudden changes in the inquisition and others.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 5:58 pm

Here is how I am rationalizing it:

So it seems that the timeline keeps shifting around, and things keep changing.

Adventurers know that things are changing, but locals don't notice.

Rob a local, didn't start noticing the changes in the timeline until he joined up with the adventurers and started to spend all his time with them. Now Rob has become unstuck from Averiogne's unstable timeline, and is stuck to the adventurer's stable timeline.

Perhaps he was also more susceptible to this than other locals would be because his father was an adventurer.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 4:03 am

I was wondering, after finishing the item he's working on, could Kalar spend a few days and expend some XP to do the Independent Research thing from the PHB? Was thinking Kalar could pray for the ability to cast these new spells, like maybe one day for each level of the spell. And ((spell level)^2 * 100) for how much xp he would need to expend. Alternatively, instead of just praying, he contacts one of Dispater's agents via lesser planar ally or something similar to do gain the spell.

Specifically, one of these two spells:

Divine Fear
Necromancy [Fear, Mind-Affecting]

Level: Clr 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./level)
Target: 1 living creature per four levels, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. Apart
Duration: 1 round/level or 1 round
Saving Throw: Will partial
Spell Resistance: Yes

The affected creature becomes Frightened. If the subject succeeds on a Will save, it is shaken for 1 round.

Creatures whose alignment is opposed to the caster on one axis take a -2 on their Will save.

Creatures whose alignment is opposed to the caster on both axes take a -2 on their Will save and become Panicked instead of Frightened.

Creatures who have the same alignment as the caster instead receive a +4 bonus on their Will save.

Detect Silver
Divination

Level: Clr 1
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 60 ft.
Area: Cone-shaped emanation
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute/ level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell detects the presence of silver liquid. The amount of information revealed depends on how long the particular area is studied.

1st Round
Presence or absence of silver liquid, whether in free form or applied to a creature/object.

2nd Round
Amount of silver liquid in the area.

3rd Round
The concentration and location of the silver liquid.

Concentration
The concentration of silver liquid is determined by how much of it is either in the area or has been applied to a creature/object.

1 vial: Faint
2-3 vials: Moderate
4-6 vials: Strong
7 vials: Overwhelming

Each round, it is possible to detect the silver liquid in a new area. The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 6:02 am

Win, lose or draw, I'm probably quitting soon. I just don't know where the hell any of this is going, I don't feel like we're getting closer, and I feel like slime is jumpin out of every corner to punish us for stuff we couldn't even possibly know we're doin wrong. Or maybe I'm tired and depressed and I'll feel better later, who knows

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 2:37 pm

Oh wow, didn't know that's how you felt. I may have went too far with this encounter, but I didn't think he was that big of a surprise honestly. He's an agent sent by Azedarc, which after killing a bunch of inquisitors, you should have been expecting something like this.
If you mean the bug-like guys, they didn't exactly jump out at you. They were creeping up on you for days.
But, if that's how you feel, I get it. Sad to see you go... soon

Oh and @BMR:
Divine fear would have to be at least level 5, and I'm thinking that even allowing you to simply research the creation of arcane spells as divine spells is simply out of the question.
Detecting the silver liquid is an interesting request. I'd say knock it up to level 2. Otherwise, I suppose it's fine.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 3:30 pm

Righto then, will have Kalar work on the detect silver one.

Oh, and as for it being an arcane spell, was basing it off of Cause Fear which is a divine spell. Felt it would be in keeping with Dispater's and Kalar's personality, but I'm fine with it if it's a veto.

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 4:26 pm

Oh, I don't even mean this guy so much, but I mean the demon bug things were accumulating.. but why? Was there a chance we could stop 'em? What were they even trying to do? They were built up as this big almost Lovecraftian creeping horror, and the only choices we had were to fight or get out of Dodge. Every indication we had was that if we stayed and fought we'd be killed so we GTFO.. and INSTANTLY are attacked by another dude. And the only reason he didn't kill us all in our sleep was because Stumpy caught him with his pants down.

It's not that I don't think the combat encounters are justified for characters of our level or anything, it's that I don't think we've been given any chance to understand the story of why they're doing what they're doing and I feel like everytime we try to investigate we get punished for dawdlin or sidequestin or something. Like, here's how I remember things going down recently:

There was the Vyones thing, which was urgent and immediately pressing, no time for answers! So we went towards Sephora's tower, and when we were cautious in our progress we were jumped by a million werewolves to force us to hurry up and get there. The past was exciting, but again I didn't feel like we had a great chance to understand the who's and why's.

When we got back to Sephora's tower, we tried to investigate and were ambushed by a million wraiths to force us to do something else. We went back and fought in the big set-piece battle with the Colossus that was awesome.. and got the mirror but not a lot of answers from Gaspard. Is he a bad guy? Are we supposed to be killing everyone we meet? Who knows!

I felt like things were getting back on the rails after the Inquisition betrayed us, even though I would've loved for us to meet Azedarc and get crucified on the tree of woe like some kinda Thulsa Doom megaslime. Am I to understand that the past changed sometime after when Galse and the gang showed up, 'cause Azedarc was sometimes considered a spooky Necromancer from down south, but his town still seemed friendly. Like it was a coinflip: Go north or go south and we chose North, but South didn't seem to be instantly fatal. I'm curious what would've happened had we just gone South to Azedarcs to start with.

And then after the Inquisition betrayed us, we fought the bears which was just a random encounter and okay and we had a second chance to get back on track: A return to the library! So we read up on all kinds of slime, and I do feel like MasterK lost us a bunch of information by not letting Moriamis look at the damn sword.

I imagine the overall plot is a lot like that trap at the end of the castle: 3 of the people can be trusted and must be trusted to complete the mission. And someone is silver and poison and if you trust him you're slimed. Dunno who that 1 is, though.

But, we went to investigate our best lead at the time, which was "Who the slime attacked Vyones?" and the best way to do that was by following the manticore. And apparently we weren't supposed to do that? So we poked around and got Bill and our stuff back. Noticed the walls were closing in, a potentially very bad thing and potentially a big hint! Some other guy showed up and took our stuff and told us where some dragons are. Probably a trap to kill us, in hindsight. But then we stuck around to finish exploring the castle, as we'd found 0 answers as to who attacked Vyones... and a demon bug army shows up to punish us for dawdlin, just like the werewolves, just like the wraiths. Why was Dan at that exact spot? Why are the demons at that exact spot? Why is there NOTHING pertaining to anything up there and why/how the hell did Bill end up there if there's nothing at all relevant?

Unless of course someone lead him there to trap us, but how the slime would they know that we could follow the guy, and how the slime would we know whether or not it was a trap? I digress.

So now Bug Demons have basically taken over the North. I don't figure we'll be able to get to the Green Dragons that Dan told us about now, which is potentially for the better, potentially for the worst. My ultimate complaint is that I don't understand what's going on and I've got google. I don't understand how any of our smart characters like Rob who knows god damn everything are expected to figure anything out, let alone a guy like Voulton. I just feel like the longer we go, the less sense it makes.

Voulton's pretty sure that they need to talk to Azedarc for this to make sense. Sephora might've been lying to them and might not even have been the true Lady Sephora. Moriamis mighta been lying to them. Gaspard and Dan might be lying to them, but for all of their power no one has directly tried to kill them yet, it's all been through proxies or weird coincidences. Bad plans, etc. All that we know about Azedarc we learned from those guys, or guys who heard about him from them. For a guy who hates adventurers, he's sure got a lot of 'em in his employ and we also happen to be adventurers. It's possible we've got the whole thing wrong and Voulton wants a chance to straighten that out. We haven't heard, that I remember, about any Mage Concentration Camps or mass graves or anything.

This most recent encounter is what pisses me off the most about not making sense. I don't care that he's potentially a bad guy and that Voulton's probably making a bad move. But what bothers me is that he didn't kill us in our sleep when we could. He wanted a trial by combat kinda thing, 1 on 1, probably against Voulton. BUT! He acknowledged the possibility of Rob or Rachelle fighting for their own skins. And then he said no one had ever volunteered to go back with him and Voulton volunteered himself, but wanted the others to make their own decisions.

As yet, neither of them has agreed to any wager on their fate. Neither of them has elected Voulton to fight for their freedom. Essentially, no wager has been made. This guy's gone from "Attack me when ready" to "I am attacking you for basically no reason!" and that leaves like two possibilities: Possibility 1 is he's an slimehole and he was gonna kill us all from the start. But if that's the case, why not use the ring and the cloak and do it? Why offer Voulton the first swing and go through all the megaslime with the duel and the deals and what not?

And now that he has attacked Voulton out of the blue, I'm in a bind because he has to defend himself. If I say "I'm not fighting you" he says "Okay, you concede, Rob and Rachelle are deadmeat!" or he just keeps attacking anyway. And now that I'm attacking him, he's in a bind 'cause he's gotta act in self-defense too. I just don't understand what's going on

EDIT: TL;DR: It's not that I think the combat is unfair, it's that I don't feel like we have a chance to understand the underlying story.

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 4:45 pm

Whoa whoa, just reading the latest post in the thread. You're not changing the campaign just 'cause of what I said, are you? I'm not askin for special treatment or nothin and like I said maybe I'll be feelin better about things in a day or two. Might just be the drama llama. Talking about our feelings might make things better and I don't want you changing anything on my account. So if you did change something on my account, let's set things straight before we continue and slime everything up.

EDIT: TL;DR: If the only reason this guy is backing down is to give me and Voulton an easy way to quit, that's not necessary and rewind and do whatever you woulda done. And if not, we'll keep movin forward.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:49 pm

I'm not changing his actions based on what you said out of game. He stopped attacking because Voulton basically didn't really fight back.
He's also actually a very reasonable guy and I personally missed how you basically said that you'd go with him.

To cover more of what you were talking about in your long post there. What I've noticed is that you're all sort of reading meaning into things that either have none, or have very little.
The bears were a random encounter. However, so were the wraiths, werewolves, and even this guy right now. (I set him up not expecting to use him so soon, but I stuck by the roll after he was rolled up as a random encounter)
Basically, random encounters aren't always the most logical things plot wise, and I've tried to work them into the plot most of the time.

The bug-like guys and Dan being at a somewhat nearby location are completely related. They are also not really a punishment as they are a looming foreshadowing of a major problem that has otherwise gone somewhat unnoticed.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:08 am

I would love to have a clue if we are getting close to figuring out how close we are to the endgame.

I think the shifting histories, while interesting, make me frustrated because I don't know if anything I know is still true.

Does Rob now have the chest Voulton took from the wagon? Or did Voulton take it with him?

What was in the chest anyway? Do you have an inventory of it, bmr?

Also, Rob has the Enchiridon of Kurda in his pack, but did all those other cool books get left behind?

I sort of visualized them scattered around the long-house, but I guess we never said.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:30 am

The chest had:

Oil, Magic Weapon ×2
Potion, Aid ×1
Potion, Bear's Endurance ×1
Potion, Blur ×1
Potion, Bull's Strength ×1
Potion, Cat's Grace ×1
Potion, Endure Elements ×2
Potion, Enlarge Person ×1
Potion, Jump ×2
Potion, Keen Edge ×1
Potion, Mage Armor ×2
Potion, Nondetection ×1
Potion, Pass Without Trace x2
Potion, Protection From Energy (Acid) ×1
Potion, Rage ×1
Potion, Remove Blindness/Deafness ×1
Potion, Shield of Faith +2 ×2
Potion, Sunlight ×1
Scroll, Bull's Strength ×2
Scroll, Remove Paralysis ×1
1 topaz
3 rubies
5 emeralds
7 diamonds
Golden Sword
Ornate Golden Chalice
12 magical books

Would also appreciate those clues. Hmm, maybe Kalar should contact Dispater for some answers...

Master K · Post by **Master K** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:41 am

I wonder if Lynda could get in touch with her deity somehow...

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:59 am

Once you get your holy symbol, could be possible to retreat to the woods to pray or something. Not sure if there's a ranger spell that does that though, so would just have to hope your deity answers.

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 5:42 am

I forget if I've already said this, but this is Links Awakening, right? The reason they're so gung-ho against adventurers is because they keep waking up the Wind Fish and resetting history.