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[Starver]

Yep, unless anyone's pointedly staying ashore. (And maybe still yes, even then, if there remains the general tide of wanderlust.)

[randomgenericusername]

Unless you have some specific reason to want to leave unusable remains here--that is, on this specific map--I must repeat that you'll have time for butchering when the group stops for the night.  That was my initial intent with this time system: while traveling, you'll be in some nebulous inbetween place deep within the tunnels, where you can dispose of garbage just fine.

(Any implications there for how the underground works?  Nothing I'd confirm or deny.)

You'll have space enough to handle whatever workstone you collect on your way out.  It'll be resolved via handwave-y inventory juggling and we can move on to the next scene, where I'll end with the workstone in the wheelbarrow.

Any other actions from people?  "All aboard?"

(Butchering the lemmings now would give us extra space to get more workstone. But if everyone is leaving then I guess I'll be forced to leave the ores behind.)

[Sir Knight]

Unless you have some specific reason to want to leave unusable remains here--that is, on this specific map--I must repeat that you'll have time for butchering when the group stops for the night.  That was my initial intent with this time system: while traveling, you'll be in some nebulous inbetween place deep within the tunnels, where you can dispose of garbage just fine.

(Any implications there for how the underground works?  Nothing I'd confirm or deny.)

You'll have space enough to handle whatever workstone you collect on your way out.  It'll be resolved via handwave-y inventory juggling and we can move on to the next scene, where I'll end with the workstone in the wheelbarrow.

Any other actions from people?  "All aboard?"

(Butchering the lemmings now would give us extra space to get more workstone. But if everyone is leaving then I guess I'll be forced to leave the ores behind.)

Spoiler: Speaking of saving space, I'll put all this in here (click to show/hide)

Naw, dude, really, it's cool.  There have been offers of spare space.  I'll just do the handwaving.

I mean, I could say "you get this amount of kg out of the workstone, most of it fits into this one person's inventory, the last piece fits into this other person's, so now I'm gonna narrate that, and then you'll reduce the space in the wheelbarrow when you butcher things overnight, so that frees up some other amount in kg, and then whoever has temporary hold of the workstone puts the stuff into the wheelbarrow, and it's all done."  That's what I'm covering with the handwaving.

I made all these systems to help with the game's structure and avoid stupid stuff happening.  But I've also been watching other forum games: you never, never want people to get bogged down on a mechanic when you could be off having fun.  So when I say that I've got the numbers in my head and they work, well, I could spend several posts confirming all these actions with people and shuffling inventories . . . or I could just do it and we move on.

So if you want to use one splitter wand, then just leave it to me!  "Trust the GM" is a dangerous phrase, but seriously.

[randomgenericusername]

Unless you have some specific reason to want to leave unusable remains here--that is, on this specific map--I must repeat that you'll have time for butchering when the group stops for the night.  That was my initial intent with this time system: while traveling, you'll be in some nebulous inbetween place deep within the tunnels, where you can dispose of garbage just fine.

(Any implications there for how the underground works?  Nothing I'd confirm or deny.)

You'll have space enough to handle whatever workstone you collect on your way out.  It'll be resolved via handwave-y inventory juggling and we can move on to the next scene, where I'll end with the workstone in the wheelbarrow.

Any other actions from people?  "All aboard?"

(Butchering the lemmings now would give us extra space to get more workstone. But if everyone is leaving then I guess I'll be forced to leave the ores behind.)

Spoiler: Speaking of saving space, I'll put all this in here (click to show/hide)

Naw, dude, really, it's cool.  There have been offers of spare space.  I'll just do the handwaving.

I mean, I could say "you get this amount of kg out of the workstone, most of it fits into this one person's inventory, the last piece fits into this other person's, so now I'm gonna narrate that, and then you'll reduce the space in the wheelbarrow when you butcher things overnight, so that frees up some other amount in kg, and then whoever has temporary hold of the workstone puts the stuff into the wheelbarrow, and it's all done."  That's what I'm covering with the handwaving.

I made all these systems to help with the game's structure and avoid stupid stuff happening.  But I've also been watching other forum games: you never, never want people to get bogged down on a mechanic when you could be off having fun.  So when I say that I've got the numbers in my head and they work, well, I could spend several posts confirming all these actions with people and shuffling inventories . . . or I could just do it and we move on.

So if you want to use one splitter wand, then just leave it to me!  "Trust the GM" is a dangerous phrase, but seriously.

Alright. I want to use 2 wands on the workstone and if there is too much workstone and no space for it, I'll just carry it and encumber myself. We can butcher stuff in the way.

[Sir Knight]

A plan!

Okay, I'll be back tomorrow.  This'll give anyone the opportunity to interject if they wish.  I . . . guess that the recent human cadaver brought into this space will just remain in the southwest to greet others arriving from that direction . . . ?

[Sir Knight]

Previous -- Next

Terrific, ready to move.  I will go back to the randomization results I got before . . .

Spoiler: About mapping and travel time and such (click to show/hide)

You may recall I'd picked up the habit starting in this update of doing "double arrows" to identify double-long tunnels and such, so you'd know how long some section of travel was going to be.  Well, for the first thing, you never actually saw the exit on this map to confirm how it was looking today, but that's not too important.

More relevant is that I'm probably gonna drop the habit.  It interacts poorly with the randomization system.  You will encounter empty or boring sections of open caves when the virtual dice say so, and when that happens I'll just keep advancing the time until the next real decision point.  So . . . "double-long tunnels"?  Kinda meaningless in such cases.

Like now, when you are about to discover it takes a whole day until you find something noteworthy.

Spoiler: And . . . (click to show/hide)

. . . I'm not gonna bother posting all today's rolls, but things turned out pretty well for you.

Alyssa has determined that people are mostly ready to leave.  Hmm.  You had been heading westward, but arrived here from the south, and the only exit is north.  Are you getting where you need to go?

As a last point of action, Tohil heads for the workstone deposit to set off a matching duo of BOOM! noises.  Five whole pieces of mined goodness come rattling out!  Recruit someone to carry these as the group moves out and you should be golden . . .

Though this means interrupting Gary and Louis from their mining the slow way.  You had hardly begun, of course; but by fortune, Louis happens to have some opal exposed fully on the surface of the pillar.  You are able to use leverage and extract nice reimbursement for your efforts--"efforts" which include, it would seem, being recruited as a pack mule.

And the group wheels on, leaving behind the strange smell and strange shiny floor-trails and ambiguously-strange former traveling companion.  Bob shall remain forever to greet newcomers to this section of the cave.  Until he doesn't.

Spoiler: Camping overnight (click to show/hide)

Food (standing jellyfish and travel food) +1 HP
Water +1 HP
Bedding (blankets) +1 HP
Warmth (1 kg of glowstone) +1 HP

Total +4 HP

Spoiler: Risk of rot (click to show/hide)

When you reach day 17, afternoon, the rock hydra you killed will reach its 48-hour mark and could begin to rot.  My rules say to roll "for each rottable fraction," but that's not a concern for bones.  So I just wanna check so you know the system . . . and so I can narrate the smell . . .

Freshness table, 48 hours:

1: Fail
2: Fail
3: Fail
4: Succeed
5: Succeed
6: Succeed

Result: 3, Fail!

. . . That means that it goes all smelly.  So you know, if there were raw stuff at risk of losing value for real then I would keep checking as you traveled, changing "Succeed" over to "Fail" one by one each subsequent day until all your precious meats failed (and rotted).

Next up: the raw hide of your standing jellyfish carcass may rot on day 18, morning.

Night arrives in the tunnels and you set up camp.  Meat butchered (carefully) off of the standing jellyfish goes well when cooked via Alyssa's glowstone and skillet, and you share travel food stockpiles.

Tohil also takes the occasion to butcher the ant lemming remains; only the skulls seem to sell, and not all of these carcasses had good skulls anyway.  Having saved space, all the workstone goes into the wheelbarrow.

Come morning, you move on.  The walls of striped shale drift past with the hours, interrupted only by quiet open spaces without signs of life or notable minerals.  Come afternoon, you start to be acutely aware that the gory bones of the rock hydra are giving off an aroma.  Ugh.  Maybe something will happen soon to take your mind off it.

And the tunnel drifts northwest, and then west, and . . .

Day 17, Evening



A small stream breaks through the rock and crosses your path.  That's pleasant, and you can refill John's water keg here--though perhaps you won't need it if you're as close to civilization as you hope.

Doesn't seem to be any active cavereed growing here, but you do spot another sign of life: the body of a strange turkey-sized creature with scales and thin forelimbs.  The experienced among you recognize a scaled turkey, common meat source of the underground.  It's just flopped there at the bottom of the slope up.

Worth stopping, or . . . ?

(I'm not making an animated .gif just so that a water tile and slope tile can alternate as in Dwarf Fortress.  You can figure out that the stream is flowing down slopes, right?)

[Coolrune206]

Gary advances cautiously and peers south, downriver.

[Dustan Hache]

sling at the ready, scout ahead. Be especially wary of wall-tigers.

[randomgenericusername]

"Careful! I see a dead creature ahead! There must a dangerous predator in this area! Prepare for combat!"
Ready my weapon and pay attention to the water and celling. Is there a monster nearby?

[Starver]

Flopped there? No sign of predation, merely... supine inaction?

Take care and try to both closely observe both it and look out for anything odd. (I'll trust to others looking out for monsters, I'll do things like cautiously sniff the air, and examine (but not taste, yet) the water. Until I know more about what kind of foul and fiendish fix may have fiendishly fixed our fowl.)

[ziizo]

inspect the corpse. See if I can discover what killed the turkey.

[Rautherdir]

"Might I suggest not touching or drinking the water until we know what caused the turkey to die?"

Look upstream

[Sir Knight]

sling at the ready, scout ahead. Be especially wary of wall-tigers.

I presume that "ahead," in this case, means "west," and so now we have people going in all cardinal directions.  Excellent.  You shall learn.  You all shall learrrrrrn cough cough hack wheeze . . .

[Sir Knight]

. . . I got distracted.  I'll be back tomorrow.  Whee?

[Sir Knight]

Previous -- Next

Let us begin with the traditional ill-explained

Spoiler: unlabeled observation rolls, shall we? (click to show/hide)

Result: 4, Succeed!
Result: 6, Fail by succeeding!
Result: 6, Fail by succeeding!
Result: 2, Fail!

Immediately suspicious, this is.  Gary peers south.  You see nothing but the continued stream, at least without heading down the slope yourself.  You smell, though . . . something unpleasant, and it's not the rock hydra remains.  Garbage?

Dustan heads west.  The stream is quite shallow, but for safety you jump across it, finding the tunnel winds its way into the depths on the other side.  At a guess Tohil would say there's nothing in the water--this time--considering depth alone.

And so a group of you take the bait and approach the small carcass.  Dwain stays back a pace to examine the environment.  It's kinda bright over here, isn't it?  It's a flickering light, but it's not just coming from your lanterns.  You wonder whether there's some property of this stream to brighten things up.

John looks more closely at the scaled turkey, discovering a hole in the other side of its body where a significant amount of meat has been cut out.  Some powerful razor-toothed creature must have gotten at it!  And then stopped partway through its meal!  For reasons you can't quite piece together because that's not how predation works, what's going on here . . .

At which point observations are cut short by a rumbling noise.

Spoiler: Stone-fall trap vs. John (ziizo) (click to show/hide)

Attack roll: 4, Succeed!
Damage roll (1d6+1): 2+1 = 3!
John, HP: 9/19

Slabs of shale tumble down the slope and collide with John, sending him sprawling and burying the dead animal.  A man jumps down after it!  Every inch of him reads "hostile," except for those that read "bandit" straight out; he looks just as you'd expect for a gang of criminals jumping from the side of the road back on the surface.  Having temporarily incapacitated John, he is now bringing a sword to bear on Dwain!

(In case it's not obvious, the "mysterious light" was just a lantern, now seen in the area above for reasons that are not so much logical as literary.  A better roll would have allowed for proper warning about the ambush.)