“I might have found two of them, they were dead when I found them, looks like gunshots. Did your town send people to follow them and kill them? Or were they killed by someone else?”
The man says they didn't chase them beyond the border of the town. If they're dead in the desert, they're dead by each other's hands or old wounds. Or someone else, of course.
"Gravid.. the ruins a good ways to the northwest, on the other side of the mountains, correct?"
"I'm pretty much okay with bringing back anything, so long as you tell me what it is first. I'll need that to find it and transport it safely."
Going to a place like the ruins of Gravid is basically what I would have done for free, so I'm agreeable, so long as he's paying at least 600 gold up front. That's what I figure I'll need for the trip.. 30 days * 4 gold/day for food, several hundred for excavation gear, 200 for a set of alchemists equipment and a ghost charm. Try to get as much total pay as possible, and try to get intel on what we are bringing back.
Also, try to figure out if this guy is a vampire or something. It isn't a deal-breaker, but I'd like to know what is going on.
Japanese girl with a long black braid and a white and red fitted robe with long gloves. Clothing made of metallic thread. Pointy, somewhat elfish ears. Violet tinted eyes. Very faintly luminous. Missing fingernails on right hand. Heavy lightning scars up right arm, and around the neck, ending at the right temple.
Invoking Empath
Str d6 +1
Speed d8 +1
Endurance d10+2
Knowledge d6+1
Will d10+2
Senses d8 +1
Materials: d12 Ape, d12 Grow, d12 Strengthen, d12 Expand, d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
Location: Lunare
Status: Fine? Burn scars on arms. Missing fingernails on right hand. Slightly enhanced hearing.
Temporary Effects: Suffering from miscast effects on a d12 strengthen (willpower) spell for a duration on a potion.
Items:
Two machine guns! with lots of ammo.
94 mana
200 gold
d8+1 armour: The outfit, and a shield. Weighs as if it were d6.
Shield.
Backpack
Waterskin
Adamant Weave
5kg steel rod
Cable-wrapped metal box of happiness.
Box of painting-golem
Compass
Goggles
Surgical tools
50 feet of rope
Magic Spyglass
~250 gold value of gold and silver ingots and precious gems.
Jade tablets with d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
Notes: Improving physical stats with strengthen, d4->d6 is d6, d6->d8 is d12, d8->d10 is d20 or more.
Mental stats are possible, but harder or more complicated.
[6+1 v 16]
You're not really sure who this man is, or what he is, or anything about him. There's nothing you can see in his manner or appearance to give you a clue. He is a banal enigma.
"The object in question is the core of the city." The man says, handing you the contract and letting you read it. "It is about as tall as a man, spherical, and glows purple. It should be weightless and thus easy to transport; though keeping it hidden during transport would be advisable."
The contract is fairly simple and blunt: it gives the man (referred to as "interlocutor") what amounts to infinite funding which he can then give to you at his discretion. You tell him th equipment You'll need and he OKs it all without comment except for the ghost charm and Alchemist equipment. He asks why you need them.
"How rude. When the police come knocking, you're supposed to open up." Zavi mutters to herself.
Loose the boot knife from its fragile containment. Warning, knife is no longer contained, repeat, knife is no longer contained.
Say, does this knife have any special qualities? d6 is a bit high for a concealed holdout. Might this be some kind of... uncommonly dangerous knife?
Cast an explosion around me (with me as its origin, but not affected by it, with the shockwave going horizontally around me and upwards, but not downwards) strong enough to shatter the walls and send any debris away from myself.
When the dust clears, look for somebody to arrest and interrogate.
Name: Zavirius En-Drani Haver, Painter
Appearance: A girl of unknown but apparently foreign descent. She claims to be the last surviving member of a long-dead ancient race, kept preserved in some kind of magical stasis, but this is likely untrue. Though her skin is a strange shade not normally seen on the continent, and her hair is bleached white with a slight green reflective tint. She is not very tall but stout like a dwarf and startlingly strong.
Mana: 50
Method: Flesh-Inscribed Channel
Materials: Lightweight, Explosion, Toxic
Strength: d10+1
Speed: d6+1
Endurance: d6+2
Knowledge: d8+1
Will: d8+1
Senses: d6+1
Ongoing effects: Permanently immune to nerve gas, Diethyl ether-vision
Inventory:
Normal clothing
Tracker
Boot Knife (d6)
10 Gold
Medium Armor (d6)
Kite Shield (d6)
Long Sword (d6)
Catch Pole
3 Small Bombs
Manacles
Wooden Arm-Guards (d4 armor)
Hemp sack
Paints and brushes
Kukri (d6 weapon)
Square-tip machete
Needlessly ornate painting guardian sword
Jewelry box
You remove the knife from your boot and take a second to look at it. It looks like an ordinary knife, albeit a very sharp and well made one. There is however...something about it. You think it might have some sort of subtle magic on it.
[5v1]-1 mana
You walk to the center of the room and raise both hands up to about a 45 degree angle, pointing up and out. You push a bit of mana out and convert it into a low level shaped explosion, blasting the walls up and away. The room bursts out with a clatter of metal and a dull "WUD", the blast mostly restrained to a shockwave and noise with very little flame or heat. You brush some dust off and step out of the crater where the building used to be, looking for someone to talk to. The welcoming committee seems to be two guys with rifles yelling for you to get down. Hmm.
eclair will stick by Darwin for now. Also while we're shopping, look for someone selling a snazzy hat and/or sunglasses.
I'm afraid you might get the impression I just want a cool hat. But I'm looking for the absolute snazziest hat they've got. The thing has got to ooze panache and moxie. I want a hat that is 110% disco, baby.
Name: Écalir Speedwagon
Appearance: barbarian, think Arnie from Conan the Barbarian
Magic path: Hunting flesh-scroll
Strength: d10+2
Speed: d10+1
Endurance: d8+1
Knowledge: d4
Will: d6+1
Senses: d6+1
Mana: 25
Ongoing effects:None
Magical materialsleft Arm: wood
Right arm: Insect
Stomach: Strong acid
Chest: White Phosphorous
Left buttcheek: Electricity
Right buttcheek: Lightning
left leg: multiply
InventoryMare's Leg: Lever Action, d8, 5/5 magazine, 45 spare bullets.
Quality weapon (Spear): d8
Longsword with glowing runes
Springy metal warpick: d8
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
9 smokebombs
Thaumic flamethrower (5/50 thaum tank, d10 str requirement, armored fuel tank) + extra canisters with compressed gas
Poncho
Sombrero
Fitted armor: d8
Sealer Suit: d4 vs magic
Shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)
Backpack
100 feet of rope
Bandages
Tattoo Kit
199g worth of gems
doctor's bag
Gladiator Badge
Jade tablets (48-number of words)
binoculars
[1+1]
This place has NO fancy hats. None. Not a single dandy fez even. The best you can find is an earth tone bowler hat! Disgusting!
Okido then, buy gimball contraption for 2 gold. Up End to +2, then do a d8 spell on the gimball (retry twice at max).
Spend 10 gold on tools for Ecalir and Darwin, then 10 more on some extra for our workers (we'll just hire a few to help us with the digging).
Also buy 3 gold worth of tarps, paint, and other stuff we can use to camouflage our dig site with (to prevent some yokel from spotting it and claiming it the second we turn our back for a second).
Oh, and while shopping, take a look at the magic compass (the one pointing to artifact pieces) and try to pin down the location of the final 2 pieces in more detail, especially the piece near Alkahest.
Name: Darwin Zeppeli
Appearance: An old medicine man.
Magic path: alchemist gut-reader
Strength: d4
Speed: d6->d8
Endurance: d6->d8
Knowledge: d10
Will: d8
Senses: d10
Mana: 107
2 bottles with 10 thaum each (20 total)
Ongoing effects: None
Magical materialsVacuum!
Reanimate
Sharpen
Viscera
Diamond
Rope
Inventory1 sedated bugman
dissection knife: d4
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
Springy metal halberd: d8
Curved blade: d6
Icepick: d4
gun: d8 [50 rounds left]
9 smokebombs
thaumic bomb (currently empty)
Ecalir's old armor: d8 (in use)
shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)
Sealer Suit: d4 (vs magic)
Alchemist’s Gear
102 gold
5 silver
Octopus core
15 kg black biometal
A glass slab with a topographical map of the kingdom carved into it
a bottle of glowing blue sea water, inside protective box with lock
a glass orb with barely visible lotus inside of it, inside staff assembly.
magic coin
Small book
magic compass + map
book on normal plants and animals
book on magical plants and animals/creatures
handbook on making weapons&armor, including a list of known types
a detailed account of the Artifacter war
map of the old world
good quality book&pen
good history book
series of good maps of area around Alkahest and the volcano
Paradox snail (inside jar) and things to keep them happy and fed, linked to Ecalir
Extra pair of paradox snails
Doctor's bag
set of ingredients (plants, chemicals and the like) for making poisons or antidotes (23 uses left)
High quality backpack
donkey named Yvonne for carrying
Zomboraptor head
Lantern
several hundred feet of rope
climbing crampons
a grappling hook
iron stakes
net made of rope
several vials with imp fat
20 vials
2x Collapsible rod
10 oil flasks
300 feet of really big, thick, strong rope
100 feet of metal chain
box of metal spikes
pair of binoculars
4 boxes of rags
Medium armor: d6 (not in use)
18 days worth of supplies
[4v1] -1 mana
Doneso.
Doneso.
There appears to be one in the city, and one further northeast.
Charge at the tongue slashing at it until it retreats, then resume stabbing the gums until I'm certain that it won't try to crush me with its teeth the moment I attempt to leave the mouth.
Name: Robert Grant
Appearance: A stocky, tall man with black hair.
Magic path: Hunter Sculptor
Strength: d10+1
Speed: d6
Endurance: d8
Knowledge: d8
Will: d8
Senses: d4
Ongoing effects: Cut palm (treated), deep gash in the side (treated)
Mana: 3
Materials:
Shrink
Inventory:
War axe d8
Doctor's Bag
Leather armor d6
Bandages
Backpack
Lantern
223 gold
76 silver
Shield
Sword d6
Crossbow d6
19 crossbow bolts
Helmet d4
Leather gloves
Crowbar
Iron thread
8 lead weights
Harness
200 feet of rope
3 wyrm scales
Rented beetle mount (50 gold deposit)
[3v1]
You hack the tongue with your ax, severing the tip of it and then again, bifurcating it for several feet. Blood pours into the mouth and the beast opens its maw, trying to spit you out.
[6v2]
You ride the tide of blood and flesh, using it to leap out and grab hold of one of the creature's feelers before climbing back up to its face.
[6v3]
You proceed to do a double handed chop right into the thing's left eye and it screams that bone rattling roar again as it starts to squirm and then dive back towards the earth.
Check out the bounty board for especially aggressive evildoers, and go hunting. If none seem murderous/molestery enough to consider killing, visit the patrol boat HQ and sign up for the next raid.
The Ascetic Ghost Shepherd
A thin, wiry guy. Hazel eyes. Black hair. Long fingers.
current status: fine
Stats
6 str
6 spd
10 End
8 Know
10 Will
4 sense
Mana: 68
Materials: Porcelain, Black Flux, Force, Toxin, Weapon, Break
Inventory:
Inhabited by a Spirit - a little shepherdess girl. Likes dolls. Adventurous. (Current request: nothing. She tired)
Scarab ghost - Request: a religious relic that has been buried with the dead for some time)
Catamaran sailboat
Ghost Charm
Doctor's Kit
Lantern, 2x Rope, Backpack, 15 ft collapsible ladder
1 pet carrier
1 pet harness with leash
1 prybar
1 rolling horse toy
1 kitten
shiny orb from the ruins on the lake (light blue glow. 3 mana invested. Additional mana (?) invested from magicoal)
haunted obsidian and wood knife (with cold, light metal box) Cursed, can't release until I kill a sapient. Can control spilled blood as if I had the Blood material
40 gold
You check the board for the worst of the worst.
The worst you find is a child killer but he's apparently on the run so likely not still in town. You check for bad but also still likely around and find a woman who is apparently luring travelers and new workers back to her home and then killing them. There's no name, just a drawing based on eye witnesses. Its somewhat vague, but they outline her "Hunting grounds" so to speak. There are also a variety of other lower level gangsters, robbers, and hooligans.
Okay, first things first, I want to figure out how much of this stuff I can haul back. Benedict has a limited carrying capacity, so I'm guessing I can't just carry everything, so here's all of what I want, in order of priority. I won't be doing anything with them yet, I just want to know what I'm leaving behind before I do any more experiments or anything. Please tell me which object puts me over the weight limit.
1. BOTH robots, or at least both robots' remains.
2. Three machine guns, with four boxes of ammo.
3. The welding system.
4. The weird sword with a slot for something to plug into.
5. The gauntlets for bending metal.
6. A bag of 10 bomblets from the disassembled bomb.
7. The circular saw.
8. A set of the more basic tools for working on small-scale clockwork; basically a toolbox's amount, of whatever Ekrov thinks is most useful for the weight.
9. The rivet gun, with a bunch of rivets if there's any with it.
10. An entire bomb.
11. The Jaws of Life thing.
12. The rest of the MG ammo, and the six broken machine guns.
13. The rest of the tools.
14. A few solid large plates of clockwork, as tall and wide as Ekrov. I presume these would have to be cut out of a larger plate using the cutter, but don't do that yet.
15. Scavenged piece of clockwork; gears, bolts, rivets, springs, sprockets, whatever whole pieces are left around that don't fit into anything. If Benedict is somehow so swole as to carry ALL of that, just grab a few armloads of such junk. I know he's not.
Again, I just need to know which which item would put me over Benedict's carry limit. Or at least make his load so heavy that he'd struggle to fly. I know, I know, he's an animal and that's hard to figure out, especially without knowing precisely how all the objects are carried. I don't think either of us wants me to run systematic tests on how much weight is okay.
After that, I'm going to start alchemizing stuff for thaum. First, just melt whatever scrap is laying around and easily accessible. Then pull out the circular saw and start cutting into larger pieces of the ship's structure that aren't supporting anything or part of any functional system. Probably use the bodyguard dude for that, since Ekrov is weak; promise him extra pay. I... don't have a frame of reference for how much thaum metal pays, but I figure there's a TON of metal here which can be melted, so payout should be pretty good. Since there's way more than can be cut up in a reasonable time frame, spend up to a day on it, and stop if the thaum payout for metal starts to become not worth it by whatever arbitrary standard you feel is appropriate. 
Name: Ekrov Trenian Vyachilad
Description: A noble's son, Ekrov is a boy on the cusp of adulthood, and barely looks it. His hands are soft, his appearance taken care of, and his bones slightly visible under his unmarred skin. He's scrawny, clearly having never done manual labor in his life, and somewhat short--though it's hard to tell whether that's due to age or genetics. His eyes are wide and constantly look around in absentminded wonderment; he's clearly out of his element in this, and gives off a tourist-y impression. He wears a clearly high-quality outfit, but to his credit it looks unusually practical for a noble, subdued brown in color and light aside from thin pieces of light leather in strategic locations, clearly intended more as protection than a fashion statement. He carries a small backpack, and wears a light cloak that's had an absurd number of little pockets clumsily sewn into it.
Magic Path: Alchemist Sculptor
Mana: 1
Magic Words: "Animate"
Stats:
Strength: d6
Speed: d6
Endurance: d6
Knowledge: d12+1
Will: d6
Senses: d12+1
Ongoing Effects: None.
Current Sculpture Materials:
1. Human skull
2. 10 lbs of pure iron
3. a piece of complex machinery; clockwork or similar.
4. a bottle of water collected directly from the a cloud.
5. The blood of someone who has fought off a possession with their own will
Inventory:
Backpack
Lightly armored traveling outfit (enchanted to d6, from d4)
Wooden shield (+1 to armor rolls, most of the time)
Steel stilleto (d4 melee)
Merc Longsword (d6 Melee)
Ornamental spring pistol (d6 ranged) [6/6] (30 spare shots)
Alchemist gear
A decapitated mercenary's skull.
23 gold, 8 silver (Saeko owes him 400 gold... For someone with d12 sense, Ekrov can be pretty gullible.)
Paints, a dish, sands, glitter, water, general scrying supplies.
Pencil + Paper.
Expensive medical supplies.
Sketches of:
Gyrotourbillon's workings
Benedict the Griffon
Detailed but incomplete schematics of clockwork robot people.
TO-DO LIST:
Diagnose Benedict (I'll definitely do this eventually!)
Collect thaum to convert steel into pure iron.
Clockwork wreck stuff:
Fix a robot
Alchemize power pellets
Alchemize scrap clockwork
Collect and deconstruct tools
Collect and deconstruct guns
Collect and deconstruct bombs
Figure out precisely what loot to take, and how much Benedict can carry.
Try to reverse engineer and understand those power pellet crucibles.
Build a helicopter!
I mean, you could just take multiple trips. Not like this stuff is prohibitively far away; just somewhat remote for people who don't have a griffin. In any case, nine is about the limit. You might be able to get to 10 but thats pushing it.
Now as per the thaum here, there's gonna be a lot of variation. Some metals in there are just steel and iron which ain't worth squat, while some are rare alloys and armored sections. As such the amount gained is gonna be very erratic. Lets see, for one day...64 this time. Thats on relative low end, average will be around 100 per day and there is metal for...3 days worth, 2 now.
Author
Topic: Cabal: Wizard Open World Game (Read 365420 times)