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[LordBucket]

Without warning she feels his hand grip her by the neck and force her back against the wall.  The hawkish look from before has returned as he stares at her infuriated, eyelid twitching.  He spits out his words in a furious low whisper occasionally choking up "So you show your true colors, you insufferable bitch!

Cast charm person. He's just assaulted a noble in front of a witness. I am totally entitled to defend myself.

I think having a map will help me keep things straight for myself too.  Hows it look now?

I see what looks like a screenshot from a game, the towns of Donhawice and Kratovil, and the map appears to be cut off on the ride side, with a huge white border on the left.

Here it is with the border removed and shrunk by 50%:



Hmm. Somewhat coherent ramblings of thoughts on the map:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Looks like Narseus is not nearly as unique in its status as a port town as I thought. Also...is top of screen north, or is the upper right north? Also...would be nice to see borders and have a sense of scale. If Lady Radhan was able to travel from Narseus to Radhan in the 4 days by ship that she had...quick google search for medieval boats...4-5 knots, 120 nautical miles/day ~ 140 miles...hmm. Ok, so about 140 miles from Narseus to Dmarra? That's about a quarter the distance to Radhan. That's further than the map visually gives an impression of. Ok. Err...wait...that might not work. If ships travel that fast, that means the nearest library, which was supposed to be ~300 miles away would be only a 2 day travel, and basically the next town over. Is the nearest library in the next town over? From the intro I assumed it would be far enough away that it would be unlikely to come up, but 300 miles might not be as far as I thought it was. What's the scale on this map?

...not really sure which assumptions I can reasonably make from looking at that map. How far from Narseus to Dmarra's castle? How far from Naresus to the border of his lands? It was described as being the lands "to the north and west of Narseus" which I interpreted as "the lands to the north and the lands to the west" rather than just "a city that's northwest of Narseus" which is what the map makes it look like. Where is the frontier? Where is the king's capitol city? What about the elves? Weren't they said to be east of Narseus? Are they on the other side of the ocean?

[mainiac]

It is a screenshot from a game, Battle for Wesnoth map editor.  Seemed like an easy way to cook up a basic map.

Without warning she feels his hand grip her by the neck and force her back against the wall.  The hawkish look from before has returned as he stares at her infuriated, eyelid twitching.  He spits out his words in a furious low whisper occasionally choking up "So you show your true colors, you insufferable bitch!

Cast charm person. He's just assaulted a noble in front of a witness. I am totally entitled to defend myself.

Well you failed your concentration roll but then you had a natural 20 on the grapple roll.  I got to run right now but I suppose that means something along the lines of you kicking him in the balls and charming him while he's distracted.  Feel free to roleplay it out however you want.  You have a minute to interrogate him before the spell ends.

[LordBucket]

failed your concentration roll

No surprise since my skill mod is zero.

You have a minute to interrogate him before the spell ends.

One minute? Spell description says 1 hour per level.

[mainiac]

Ah, I had misread the spell description before.  That might be a little overpowered given this campaign setting.  For now I'm going to say that because your spell interrupted him when he was actively hostile he will attempt a will save every five minutes (with a cumulative +1 bonus each time) unless you can somehow address the source of his aggression before he breaks free.  But I expect that you can do a lot with that much time.

[LordBucket]

I expect that you can do a lot with that much time.

Yeah, honestly I wonder if you shot yourself in the foot having him attack me like that. I've been heavily favoring a diplomatic approach up until now, but this changes things. Here I have the ability to charm the guy at any time, but instead I was in the process of explaining to him that I wasn't even going to try to get him to tell me the things I knew he wasn't telling me, not even through mundane means, and suddenly he puts me in a situation where I'm debating killing him and skipping town. The guy has an army at his disposal and has been brazenly arresting non-humans and mentioned executions earlier. I've assumed I'm relatively off limits since I'm 1) a lady 2) a noble. There should be a massive social stigma attached to even touching me, and on top of that I'm generaly being helpful to his own cause, and even he's pointed out that I'm going out of my way to act within the bounds of law. If he's going to randomly get violent with me despite all that...that's a game changer. It doesn't make sense for me to continue playing nice with him after this, and I'm very tempted to kill him right now simply for my own safety.

I'm going to try a more subtle approach, but by physically attacking a 1) noble 2) lady 3) person who was trying to help him, he just went from "well intentioned guy struggling with something beyond his ability" to "unstable, paranoid wacko with an army at his disposal."

: "Marshal Lorsen! This is extremely improper conduct. I am a lady. You can't just go grabbing me like that, and in front of your maid and a child, no less."

(As I'm speaking, slide my hands down to his waist. As I do, [Search+7] him for keys or a keyring. If I find any, position him such that his maid does not have line of sight and [Sleight of Hand+7] to take them.  If need be I'll probably have time to make a couple attempts, and I can intersperse it with touching his chest, running my fingers across his torso, hugging him, etc. so the physical contact doesn't alert him to the pickpocket attempt. Once I have his key(s), gently push him away and straighten my blouse.)

"I appreciate that you find me attractive, but there is a proper way to go about these things. (Let's see if we can replace anger with embarrassment. He appears to have a strong sense of propriety.) Now, as you said, we have important matters to attend to. Why don't you supervise your men while they destroy that knife? It's really very important that be done. You do want to stop the cultists, don't you? I'll stay here and see if I can learn anything more about the boy. (Brief pause.) In the future, I expect your advances to be more...dignified."

(Look at the maid and sigh.) "Men."

When he leaves, spend about at most a minute trying to glean more information from the boy, then sadly explain to the maid that I don't think I'm likely to learn much from him. Then excuse myself and go up the stairs. Lightly tap the door once with the pommel of my rapier. Pause. Tap twice. Pause. Tap three times. If the Baron isn't a complete idiot he'll realize it's not the Marshal opening the door and won't yell like he did last time.

Go in. Close the door behind me.

"Baron Radhan. It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. I think that I am your ally, though we're about to find out for sure. In case Lorsen didn't bother telling you before his...little accident, your wife and her maid fled to stay with relatives to the north, and Erwin has taken great care to keep your affairs in order during your absence. Your wife and unborn are safe, and there's nothing in the whole world you need to worry about right now except what happens in this room over the next few minutes."

"Incidentally, I'm a wizard, I've had a very bad day, and I can fry your brain if I feel like you're keeping secrets from me."

"It is time for you to tell me everything."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you were tracking experience by actions rather than story arcs, I would totally deserve bonus xp for this.

[mainiac]

Spoiler: "Ramble Back" (click to show/hide)

I find it really funny that I accidentally said the elvish empire is to the east when I meant west.  I figure that people have a bias towards putting elves in the east because we associate orientalism with being less manly manlike and deliberately decided to put the elves in the west because of that.  Then I go and type east by mistake instead :\

You are right about the crystal keep being way too close.  It was meant to be well outside the kingdom.  I guess that goes to show that it's not easy to estimate distances sometimes.

The trip from Narseus to Radhan was 4 days before I went and decided to add that river in.  But that travel time strikes me as a bit optimistic.  You might be able to make the trip in 3 days on a good wind.  But you might get stuck in duldrums and take a week.  I've even had days where it ended up taking me 6 hours to go as many miles.  But yes I've been revising the location of Dmarra and the capital closer in my mind which might have lead to confusion.  It's interesting to see that the capital is actually about as far away as the frontier.  I was thinking this map would be about 250 miles in size so.

I expect that you can do a lot with that much time.

Yeah, honestly I wonder if you shot yourself in the foot having him attack me like that. I've been heavily favoring a diplomatic approach up until now, but this changes things. Here I have the ability to charm the guy at any time, but instead I was in the process of explaining to him that I wasn't even going to try to get him to tell me the things I knew he wasn't telling me, not even through mundane means, and suddenly he puts me in a situation where I'm debating killing him and skipping town. The guy has an army at his disposal and has been brazenly arresting non-humans and mentioned executions earlier. I've assumed I'm relatively off limits since I'm 1) a lady 2) a noble. There should be a massive social stigma attached to even touching me, and on top of that I'm generaly being helpful to his own cause, and even he's pointed out that I'm going out of my way to act within the bounds of law. If he's going to randomly get violent with me despite all that...that's a game changer. It doesn't make sense for me to continue playing nice with him after this, and I'm very tempted to kill him right now simply for my own safety.

Oh no, it's not a foot shot at all.  I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  I can't speak for the marshal though.  Geez, that dude has issues.

: "Marshal Lorsen! This is extremely improper conduct. I am a lady. You can't just go grabbing me like that, and in front of your maid and a child, no less."

He took Aduial out of the kitchen and into the shrine earlier.  The closest other person is the porter, who is hanging out in the hallway near the door of the house.  And because the marshal's anger before was in a soft voice you are actually completely unnoticed.

(As I'm speaking, slide my hands down to his waist. As I do, [Search+7] him for keys or a keyring. If I find any, position him such that his maid does not have line of sight and [Sleight of Hand+7] to take them.  If need be I'll probably have time to make a couple attempts, and I can intersperse it with touching his chest, running my fingers across his torso, hugging him, etc. so the physical contact doesn't alert him to the pickpocket attempt. Once I have his key(s), gently push him away and straighten my blouse.)

((Search = 18+7, succeeds in finding the keyring
Slight of Hand = 6+7, does not succeed in taking it unnoticed, but you take it while he's still in the shock from your waif-fu.))

"I appreciate that you find me attractive, but there is a proper way to go about these things. (Let's see if we can replace anger with embarrassment. He appears to have a strong sense of propriety.) Now, as you said, we have important matters to attend to. Why don't you supervise your men while they destroy that knife? It's really very important that be done. You do want to stop the cultists, don't you? I'll stay here and see if I can learn anything more about the boy. (Brief pause.) In the future, I expect your advances to be more...dignified."

(Look at the maid and sigh.) "Men."

When he leaves, spend about at most a minute trying to glean more information from the boy, then sadly explain to the maid that I don't think I'm likely to learn much from him. Then excuse myself and go up the stairs. Lightly tap the door once with the pommel of my rapier. Pause. Tap twice. Pause. Tap three times. If the Baron isn't a complete idiot he'll realize it's not the Marshal opening the door and won't yell like he did last time.

Go in. Close the door behind me.

"Baron Radhan. It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. I think that I am your ally, though we're about to find out for sure. In case Lorsen didn't bother telling you before his...little accident, your wife and her maid fled to stay with relatives to the north, and Erwin has taken great care to keep your affairs in order during your absence. Your wife and unborn are safe, and there's nothing in the whole world you need to worry about right now except what happens in this room over the next few minutes."

"Incidentally, I'm a wizard, I've had a very bad day, and I can fry your brain if I feel like you're keeping secrets from me."

"It is time for you to tell me everything."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you were tracking experience by actions rather than story arcs, I would totally deserve bonus xp for this.

Dazed and confused the marshal slowly picks up the pieces of the blade and heads for the exit.  The porter greats him and he says he's going out.  Aduial quickly heads upstairs and enters the Barons room.  A large muscular man lounges in a chair staring out the barred window in boredom.  He was apparently so zoned out he didn't even hear the knock.

"How did you-?" He begins but thinks better of it and lets Aduial speak.

"Thank you for this kindness.  But as you said, explanation." the baron's brow furrows as he tries to think how to summarize everything.  "I met this halfling tradesman, this Sayud.  This was after the marshal had started his obsession and the tradesman told me that he had proof that the marshal was wrong and there was no cult among the halflings.  Just a few of them working for a human to rile things up.  They had wanted Sayud, you see but he had refused.  Well I convinced Sayud to become a spy to clear the names of his friends.  The marshal seemed thrilled with what I was done and it seemed that Sayud would soon discover the identity of this human.  But then when Sayud told me that a child was being smuggled the marshal makes Sayud a wanted man.  It made no sense so I tried to intervene and here I am now."
"The marshal, he's not the man he used to be.  He never liked halflings but this is another matter.  He seems to be looking for some family member but the only family he has is his daughter.  She is alive and well in Crystalkeep.  He is obsessed that 'she' is out there, who ever 'she' is.  He has no reasoning though, it's like he doesn't know his own mind.  I think that somebody is... manipulating him somehow with this woman or at least the talk of her.  That's the best I can come up with.  So, are you going to set me free now?"

((Note: if you want to adjust your previous actions because you didn't realize that you and the marshal were alone in the room that would be OK))

[LordBucket]

if you want to adjust your previous actions because you didn't
realize that you and the marshal were alone in the room that would be OK))

No, that's fine. Mostly it just means that the other options I considered weren't options after all.

"I met this halfling tradesman, this Sayud.

: "The glassmaker? I was told he'd been in your employ for some time. That he hated you for being a half-elf, was perpetually rude to you, and that you treated him fondly anyway for reasons unknown."

Crystalkeep.

Speaking of which, a number of major issues are manifesting themselves in regard to the map. Will explain in a separate post.

he had proof that the marshal was wrong and there was no cult among the
halflings.  Just a few of them working for a human to rile things up.

: "So instead of a cult of halfings doing bad things we have a bunch of halflings who are not a cult doing bad things in the employ of a human? And the source of your information that the halfings who are not-a-cult doing bad things instead of a cult doing bad things...is a halfling?"

"Why do you place so much faith in Sayud? Others have pointed out that your relationship with him seems...peculiar."

"And what is this 'proof' he claims to have that the halflings doing bad things for a human weren't also a cult? What human? Who is he? And if the halflings are just his minions, then what reason do we have to believe that the human at the head of all this isn't the one consorting with demons instead of it being the halflings doing so?"

"Your story, even if I accept it face value...doesn't really change anything. These halflings might well not be card carrying members of a cult, yet everything the Marshal suspects could easily still be true. If I were a demonic high priest recruiting halflings to help me summon a demon into this world, I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to make sure they were all converts just so long as they gathered up supplies and kidnapped children when ordered to do so."

a child was being smuggled

: "Smuggled by whom? The story I was given was that Lorsen found the child with the two of you when he arrested you. What exactly were you and Sayad doing with the 'smuggled' child if you and he were not the smugglers?"

"The marshal, he's not the man he used to be.

: "Yes. When I first met him he was zoned out like a mindless zombie. I've suspected the posibility that he's being controlled since I first saw him, but couldn't be sure. The evidence seems to be growing."

are you going to set me free now?"

Let's wait for his answers to the above before I answer this.

[LordBucket]

in regard to the map

 * Which way is north? Up, or up and right?
 * The elven kingdoms were said to be east of the Nossari kingdom. Though not necessarily east of Narseus. Where are they? I'm guessing that the land mass in the upper right extends off the map edge to the right, and the elves are that way?
 * At one point it was mentioned that the Nossari capital was north of count Dmarra's lands. You have Donhawice either west or southwest of Dmarra. It take it we're retconning that because too much was said to be north?
 * Where is Crystalkeep?
 * The map shows no borders. Do for example, "the lands of Count Dmarra" begin where the keep is shown? Or if I walk 2 miles past the Narseus gates am I now walking on land he owns? I had imagined them to be farther apart, but from looking at the map, Narseus looks to be right next door to Count Dmarra's keep. If it's at most 4 days from Narseus to Radhan, I could be at Count Dmarra's keep tomorrow if I wanted.
 * Map really needs a sense of scale.
 * Dmarra's keep is shown pretty much right on the waterfront. We had said that a big part of Narseus's political situation resulted from it being the only port providing access to goods for a significant number of other areas. But you have cities, towns and keeps just about dotting the water. And if it's "no more than 4 days" from Narseus to Radhan, then Narseus to Dmarra is probably about 12 hours and Dmarra to Donworm is no more than 2 days. Why is Narseus so important again?
  * The nearest library is Crystalkeep Library, 300 miles away by water. The implication of that number with some other factors and looking at the map itself is that the entire Nossari kingdom is only a couple hundred miles across. Since CrystalKeep isn't even on the map, Donhawice is presumably much closer than CrystalKeep, and we've pretty well established that there's a library at the capital. So which is the closest library? Donhawice or Crytalkeep? If the library at Donhawice is further away than the 300 miles of the library at CrystalKeep...then Crystalkeep should be within a couple inches of Narseus on the map. It isn't. It seems silly to suggest that CrystalKeep would have been "accidentally" said to be the closest library if library of the king himself at the capital were closer. That would be a difficult library to omit. So...presumably CrystalKeep is closer to Narseus than Donhawice. If so, where is it? And is it within the Nosarri kingdom, or a neighboring kingdom? From the descriptions given, the visible map would seem to be pretty much the whole of Nossari. So...is CrystalKeep just not shown on the map for some reason, or is it not inside the Nosaari kingdom at all? Does that mean there are no libraries in Nossari? What about the capital? I'm going in circles at this point, but no matter how we look at it, there are issues that are difficult to reconcile.
 * For that matter, the relative distance of a library at all has been a significant game premise from the beginning. If the kingdom is only a couple hundred miles across, and the capital is a fraction of that distance away...Lady Radhan was able to travel halfway across the kingdom in just a few days...the capital and its library suddenly are very much closer. Related, if CrystalKeep library, instead of being 300 miles away by land, is now 300 miles away by water...Lady Radhan took no more than 4 days by water to travel from Narseus to Radhan...that "faraway library" at CrystalKeep is basically right next door. In fact, plugging in the "120 nautical miles a day" figure that google gives me for medieval sailing vessels, CrystalKeep is probably even closer to Narseus than Radhan. Is CrystalKeep that town that appears right on the edge of the map near the bottom right? We can easily say that ships in this world travel more slowly...but doing so simply shrinks the size of the kingdom further, and doesn't really solve the problem. Narseus, which used to be "hundreds of miles away from the nearest library...wizards are rare" to "Narseus is sitting in the middle ground between two libraries, both of which are only a couple days travel away, and is the major port in this area, therefore wizards traveling between those two libraries inevitably pass through Narseus on the way."
 * Looking at the general layout of the kingdom, Narseus is kind of in the middle. The orcs apparently live in the wastes on the other side of the mountains shows at the top of the map. How did they get here? Were all the lands from Narseus to that mountain range under the control of orcs 5 years ago? We can get around that by saying that the war was somewhere else, and Lorsen and others moved here in the 5 years since then. But if so...where exactly did the war happen? Where was the contested territory? I had assumed that orcs invaded the human lands, but if so...that would imply that the Radhan town on the map was probably in the possession of orcs not that long ago. Or were the humans invading the territory of the orcs above the map edge? I don't think we've established anything that would contradict either interpretation, but it's a significant question.
 * The northern territory beyond Nossari has been referred to both as "the northern wastes" and "the frontier." But , again...there appears to be a mountain range there. We can say that the wastes are on the other side of the mountains...but where's the frontier? Calling a mountain range a frontier seems a bit odd. Wouldn't it also make invasion, whether orcs invading humans or humans invading orcs...difficult? How exactly did who cross that mountain range with an army? I see two possible interpretations: 1: Humans controlled one side and orcs controlled the other. Then a bunch of humans very humans stupidly crossed the mountains on their own and formed settlements in orcish lands, and  were destroyed. If so, it would probably take a while for the humans on their side to even find out about it. Again, there's a mountain range in the way. And when they did, perhaps they put together and army and sent them over the mountains to try to defend/reclaim that town that had presumably already been destroyed. War ensues. But that scenario not only seems fairly implausible, it also completely eliminates any sympathy we might have had for the humans in the matter. They were seriously stupid. Or, scenario 2: Humans lived on this side, and then one day with no warning orcs started pouring out of the mountains and attacking towns. Humans then gathered their armies and repelled the invaders. That seems more plausible, but it means that Lady Radhan, in order to keep herself and her unborn son safe...decided to go resettle herself in an area that was in the hands of orcs just a few years ago. Which makes her seem suddenly not very smart. Though it does also nicely fit in with the idea that Baron Radhan and Marhsal Lorsen fought together in the war. The Baron's own family was personally under attack, and he was defending/reclaiming family lands. Lorsen was probably a retainer of house Radhan at that time. And after the war, both decided they'd had enough and moved south. It also explains why the crown itself is interested in Baron Radhan's captivity, despite him being such a relatively insignificant noble in terms of land and wealth: He's a war hero.

Petronious
Previously worked as a journeyman wizard.

...whoa. When did you edit that in? That's a major detail for me to just be seeing now for the first time.

[mainiac]

((Kinda pushing the time limit there.  Speaking isn't a free action in this case.))

"I could trust Sayud because he gave me good information.  He tipped me off every time they smeared animal blood or spooked the farmers.  He wanted the whole mess to end, he just didn't trust humans.  Wish I'd listened to him there.  The marshal knew what we were up to."

"The whole cult nonsense was mostly just a smokescreen, kids pulling pranks practically.  Somebody wanted to make it look like there was a cult.  But this human really was planning something big.  He said after one big act their work was done.  That's what the child was for, they cared about him a lot and smuggled him in from far away with a merchant caravan.  Sayud had arranged to guard the child because we wanted to find out what the big plan was.  I only showed up after the arrest.  For the love of the light, we were the ones who told the Marshal where the child was being kept."
Pedros seems discouraged.  "I can't prove my innocence to you, not locked up here.  But can't you see that the marshal is not himself?"

[LordBucket]

Kinda pushing the time limit there.

You said he gets another will check every five minutes. Not the spell fails in five minutes. It's possible I might have the full hour.

are you going to set me free now?"

: "I'm willing to. The question is...do you want to be set free?"

"If you leave now, when the Marshal covers from the enchanting I put him under, he'll come straight here and we'll both be wanted fugitives. The man has an army at his command, the law on his side, and for reasons I've not yet determined, both Mayor Dailgon and the council appear to support his position. The Mayor specifically approved your imprisonment, and told me that he agreed with Larson that nobody was allowed to see you."

"On the other hand, you could stay here, I can drop the key in the hallway and when Lorsen returns to ask whether I was here you can shout in his face that he's not only hallucianting about female relatives but female elves too. Pretend you never saw me, and when he finds his key on the floor he might conclude that I simply left without speaking to you. Of course, I can't gaurantee that. I'm fairly certain he noticed me take his key. But he's also coping with the the confusion from at least one, and possibly two, mind altering spells. Honestly, it could go either way."

"So, up to you, Baron. Shall I leave you here for a gamble while I try to figure out the rest, possibly risking execution at the Marshal's hands?  Or shall I release you now so you can flee the city to join your wife while 100 men at arms hunt for us both?"

[mainiac]

Pedros openly groans at the question.  "I'm a knight, dammit, I shouldn't be mucking around in this namby pamby crap.  That was my mistake... but you are right, lady.  Leave me here and hurry away.  Figure out what the human was planning.  And figure out why the marshal turned on me, this woman he seeks so desperately.  I'll... well I'll be waiting."  Dejected the baron returns to the chair he was sitting in when you arrived and settles down for a long wait.

[LordBucket]

OOC: Yeah...wasn't sure how that was going to play out. If I freed the Baron, pretty much the next thing to do was leave the city and return to house Dmarra.


But, since the Baron wants to stay...

 * Leave, lock the door behind me.
 * Drop the key on the floor in exactly the spot I lifted it from Marshal Lorsen. Hopefully he'll conclude it "fell" rather than "I stole it."
 * Sneak out.
 * Proceed to Meeting with Mayor. Pretend I never saw the baron.

[mainiac]

Well as said before:

Being clearly no longer welcome Aduial departs for the mayor's.  Along the way she checks her appearance in a window and finds that it is not marred.  She soon arrives at the mayors townhouse.  It is a cozy little one story affair but with a simply decadently sized lawn out front surrounded by a stone wall.  The lawn could fit another house easily but is instead filled with garden beds bushes and a few fruit trees.  The gate was left open so Aduial can see in where there is a gardener down on his hands and knees weeding a bed of vegetables.  He talks to his plants excitedly.

[LordBucket]

Along the way she checks her appearance in a window and finds that it is not marred.

Good thing, too. As it is, I'll only probably have to kill him. If he'd scuffled my appearance, then I'd definitely have needed to kill him.

there is a gardener down on his hands and knees weeding a bed of vegetables

: *smiling* "Hello. I am Lady Aduial. I have an appointment to see Mayor Dailgon?"

[mainiac]

The gardener stops his weeding and sits down in the dirt.  He smiles up at the stranger in an absent fashion.  "That sounds nice.  You should probably come in then." he turns back to his vegetables and starts rooting out the weeds again.  "I wonder what she has to say to the mayor then?" he asks of the plants.  He mutters under his breath far too faintly for Aduial to hear.  The gardener is quite old and possibly getting rather senile.  Given his ragged clothing he might be mistaken for a town idiot were it not for his dedication to his task.