Yikes!  I hope he is okay.

Okay, I'm back now. Had to go to the top specialist in Tokyo, but the tumor is benign. Very relieved and all is back to normal now. Sorry for the delays.

In reply to DM Heath (msg # 337):

No worries. You were in my prayers. Thankfully things went well. You don't need to rush back.

That's good news.  Will they treat it with chemo?

No. just monitoring it for growth every 6 months

I hope you are all having a happy and safe Holiday Season!

Sorry for the delays. It has been a long holiday for me and very busy. I hope all of your holidays were great despite the problems in the world right now.

It's all good. I'll be here regardless of how long you need to post, so you don't have to apologize. Real life comes first.

Kahan raised a difficult question regarding what your characters know about psionics. They probably know very little other than rumors. Magic was outlawed as they were growing up, so talk of such things were taboo. Psionics was considered a type of magic emanating from the mind. Those with such abilities were generally considered possessed of evil spirits. They were generally feared, and disinformation is probably as much a part of your understanding as information.

NOTE: I use the 2nd edition Complete Psionics Handbook, but your characters wouldn't know about details.

They might know or believe the following (whether true or not) rumors and beliefs:

PSIONICS:

Psionicists generally are not immune to magic

Psionics may have originally come from a magical or divine creature

Your characters might know a little about the fabled Illithid (Mindflayer) race and their psionic abilities, using Psi forces, and controlling minds and sucking lifeforce, as well as mysterious travel capabilities and great intelligence.

NOTE:
These creatures (dopplegangers) have been experimented on (crosses between dopplegangers, drow elves and other creatures) and do not follow the normal rules as "enhanced" beings immune to magic.

"Immune to magic" in their case does NOT mean:
1) immunity to supernatural attacks
2) immunity to attack bonuses (even by magical weapons)
3) immunity to extraordinary abilities

Magic of spell level 5 and above has a 10% chance per spell level of causing 1/2 damage or 1/2 effect (or none if saving throw made). Magic below that works on critical hits only.

Certain magics (unknown to you at this time) will still be effective.

The upper two doppleganger (Haklara and Islaka) creatures also will remove magic from whatever they pass too close to, but only to certain magical items that are considered "mundane," in other words, items that have the magic as their primary purpose. So it would not affect a magic sword but might affect a wand.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:15, Tue 12 Jan 2021.

Reminder about the items. Remember that the Dopplegangers don't care about the formula what they want is different.

Dopplegangers seek: "What I want is this. You took some things from my companions. I want some of them back. I want the ring with the gold band and opal setting. I want the two vials that appear empty but are marked 'Not Air' on them. And I want the bottle with the lead stopper. They do not belong to you. You lose nothing in giving them to me."

You seek the cure, which includes: 1) lathia berries soaked in Earthsilver, 2) Earthgold, 3) the goblet to make the magical mixture, and 4) the formula. All items except Earthgold are now collected and in the portable hole. The Earthgold seems to be falling from the ceiling into the mouth of the giant, and is surrounded by a pillar of falling lava.

Sorry for further delays. Again, my fault.

FYI, I'm not the metagaming sort, but Borimer's player is out for awhile but wants to rejoin when he can. As such, you will likely "stumble" upon him when his player is ready to join up again.

That's good to hear.  Finding Borimer could be an adventure all to itself!  :)

Sorry again for delays on my part.

Given the delays, just a couple reminders on this area:

1) You need to collect the Earthgold, which is falling in the center of the circular lava waterfall where the giant was trapped.
2) Don't forget all the equipment in the rooms. It appears with the piping and so forth that Haklara was trying to develop a way to collect and preserve Earthgold without it (or himself) being injured by the lava.

life got crazy again. I'm going to try to keep up and keep us on track and moving so you can get out of these darned caves in this lifetime.

Sorry for my delays, everyone. Life and work got super crazy.

I've also felt a sort of lack of enthusiasm from myself and you for this adventure. It has turned into something much larger and longer than I anticipated. There are too many moving parts, and we have players who come and go, and I have been too slow throughout, which is entirely my fault.

I've been thinking about how to breathe life into the campaign once more, so here is where I plan on taking us:

1) We are almost done with this adventure. Just this last BBG and then a slight puzzle to escape the caves. Then we'll see what awaits you outside.

2) The next adventure will be a bit of a departure in style and substance. I want to minimize (for awhile, at least) the dungeon crawl aspect of this. I also want you all to rediscover your characters and level up appropriately.

3) I will also need to figure out how to simplify certain aspects and keep important things highlighted over long periods.

4) The next adventure as I envision it will pit you against Tarimar and fix the terrible magic that has encompassed the land at the Source of Magic. My original thoughts in introducing this was that so we could have all sorts of wild magic and things that normally wouldn't make sense, but it may have gone too far into unbelievability--so we will take a step back.

As I plan it, I'm getting more excited about the next two adventures. But I also want to make sure we move along at a good clip and keep everyone's attention. I also want to try to maximize use of everyone's various skills.

I hope you are still with me and ready to jump forward.

Here we go...

Hey everyone! I'm back from vacation this week and trying to get caught up on work...as well as getting us moving here again. Sorry for delays. I seem to be causing a lot of them lately.

Hi... I hope you can take me in again?

In reply to Shapfren Diditlew (msg # 352):

Well, seeing as you're dead now, that might be hard to swing, but I'm sure Heath can come up with some sort of excuse for you to make a new character.

A fresh start could work. I've been revived how many times already?

I'd be happy to do that. I just need regular posting or at least a check in. I saw you hadn't logged in since December, so I figured that meant you had dropped out.

Not as much dropped out as life happening. I I'm not logging in to this game, it means I'm not logging in to RPol at all.

I promise I'll do my best to not slip out again. Or at least not to do it without warning.

Okay. Just send a PM and we'll figure out how to get you back in.

Hi, does anybody know of a magic bow? I'm not sure where to look for one.

Like this?



Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

Just reporting to remain active.

I hope you all are fine and remain safe.