[WFRP] The Bloody Crown OOC XI

[LeSwordfish]

I can't help but think of

[-Sentinel-]

while in Red Square two of the dwarfs had to wrestle a woman back who tried to run into the fire, screaming something about her daughter.

Oh damn. I was hoping there would only be property damage.

I think LCP is secretly delighted when he gets a chance to guilt-trip us for the consequences of our actions.

Only now do I realize that a Sound spell could have simulated the sound of bells. Then again, I'm not sure spellcasting would have been allowed, given Elsa's helpless condition.

Smoke drifted from the blackened ruins it had left in its wake, a charred scar that stretched across the Old Town from Tower Street to the Street of Sorrows.

Where's that map of Savonne again? I've no idea where those streets are.

A bit of book-keeping: I don't think Elsa picked her staff up again after she dropped it, so that will have been lost in the fire.

Correct. Thankfully it's easy to replace.

I'm assuming Elsa's left arm will be out of commission for a few weeks, like Astoria's arm after it was broken by the Jarl?

[Thragka]

[-Sentinel-]

LCP only, because your inbox is full

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I don't have the Tome of Corruption. Can you please send me a scan or screenshot of that daemon-summoning ritual that the scary bird-things keep pestering Elsa to cast?

I'd rather know what the ritual entails before I spend, like, 300xp on learning it. If the spell ingredients include "the fresh heart of a newborn albino dragon harvested during the thirteenth solar eclipse of the millennium", I may instead take my chances risking the wrath of the bird-things.

I'm assuming it also requires Speak Arcane Language (Daemonic), which I require in any case (that, or Arcane Elf) in order to finish the Master Wizard career.

[LCP]

Where's that map of Savonne again? I've no idea where those streets are.

The map is on the wiki, as always.

Streets names are not marked on the map, they're mostly there for flavour. The fire has burned through most of the old quarantine district, almost up to the city wall. It was stopped before it could spread further north into the Old Town or south into North Market.

I'm assuming Elsa's left arm will be out of commission for a few weeks, like Astoria's arm after it was broken by the Jarl?

Yes, I think so.

[LCP]

Geheimnistag is an intercalary day, so Vorgeheim is over and it’s time for XP!

100 XP to all for surviving another month.
50 XP to everyone for dealing with Dragos and his goons.
50 XP to everyone for the investigation into the jackal murders.
50 XP to everyone except Urgrim for facing down Team Klammenberg.

25 bonus XP to Sieghard and Ludo for securing Sforza's supply line.
25 bonus XP to Sieghard for killing Dragos.
25 bonus XP to Ludo for figuring out Klammenberg's cloaking spell (and general intrepid investigation).
25 bonus XP to Urgrim for his Saga performance.
25 bonus XP to Sieghard, Urgrim and Adelbert for firefighting.

Let me know if there’s anything major I forgot.

[LeSwordfish]

I'm a little surprised that the Klammenberg fight was only 50xp. It's the hardest one we've had so far and we won it, with only one fate point burned. (And one city.)

[RossN]

Adelbert will probably want to check on his rooms on Half Moon Alley and any possessions he had stashed there.

Uh oh. I'm pretty sure besides his clothes, armour and holy symbol that would pretty much be everything.

[Thragka]

I think it would be sensible for Urgrim to learn how to read and write - frankly, in retrospect that's a glaring omission from character creation. Maybe Ludo could help out with that? Otherwise, since he's such a mixed bag, I'll need to think about what direction to take him before I make any other XP purchases.

[LCP]

I was kind of thinking I'd split the XP between the investigation and the fight. You're right though, there's no reason to short-change you guys on that account - call the fight 100.

[-Sentinel-]

I was kind of thinking I'd split the XP between the investigation and the fight. You're right though, there's no reason to short-change you guys on that account - call the fight 100.

Oh cool. I agree with LeSwordfish, that epic battle was definitely worth more than 50.

That's 300 XP for Elsa, bringing her to 437.5 unspent XP. This weird number is due to her lending some of her XP to Morrslieb to buy familiar abilities, and Morrslieb always gaining half as much XP as she does (meaning Morrslieb gets a half-XP when Elsa gets 25 or 75).

Morrslieb now has 312.5 unspent XP.

I will buy the 300xp Voice of Reason for Morrslieb (may re-roll casting rolls that contain Tzeentch's Curse). This could have been a real life saver in the last fight, when Elsa failed her casting roll just as the monster was about to rip her to shreds.

Morrslieb will spend 287.5 of his own XP for this ability, while Elsa will lend him 12.5 XP. Mostly just so I can get rid of those stupid half-XPs.

That leaves Elsa and Morrslieb with 450 and 25 unspent XP, respectively.

[RossN]

Adelbert's on 675 unspent XP now - I've been saving for Anointed Priest which requires an in-game anointing.

[LeSwordfish]

I need to have a proper think about Ludo going into Vampire Hunter. There's some useful combat stuff in there, plus AK (Necromancy), and one of the exits is Targeteer which I was interested in but it puts a hard limit on Ludo's ability to progress in what he's actually already good at - agility/fellowship shenanigans. Plus, even if Ludo dedicated himself to finding Nahorek, i'm not sure he'd particularly be a capital-V capital-H Vampire Hunter.

How much would you want for AK Necromancy if Ludo were to sit down with Hieronymous's books and teach himself it as an elite advance? And how would you feel about rejiggering some of the trappings - perhaps swapping the repeater crossbow for an ordinary crossbow and silver bolts, and the medium armor for light armor and shield?

[LCP]

How much would you want for AK Necromancy if Ludo were to sit down with Hieronymous's books and teach himself it as an elite advance?

Sounds fine to me - perfectly appropriate given IC events (though maybe sitting down with the Morrites might be as good or better). I think the usual 200 XP would do fine.

And how would you feel about rejiggering some of the trappings - perhaps swapping the repeater crossbow for an ordinary crossbow and silver bolts, and the medium armor for light armor and shield?

Again no major objections, this doesn't seem like a career where signalling status is important, and I can see that it doesn't make much IC sense for Ludo to try to tool up to fight a vampire by buying equipment that makes him worse at dodging. The only thing I would say is that the official trappings list does come at a much higher cash price than Ludo's current kit, so while it wouldn't need to be those specific things it'd be nice to see him upgrading his arsenal in some way to represent his newfound commitment to vampire-hunting.

[LeSwordfish]

Fair enough - hypothetically, how would you feel about either a good-quality silver sword or good-quality crossbow? Or Best.

[LCP]

Sounds like the kind of thing, yeah.

Night's Dark Masters has 2 sets of rules for silver weaponry - silver-plated (which wears off after a certain number of uses) and solid silver (never wears off but is not a practical material - -10 penalty to WS/BS when using it and can be broken in a parry).

[LeSwordfish]

I assume crossbow bolts are silver-plated? (And we need to track them more carefully) and a sword could be Silver-Plated - Ludo could just carry two, or get a silver dagger. (Or a pistol crossbow for close combat - would the bolts fit both?)

If you'll excuse me thinking out loud a little, Rapscallion offers Ludo +15 Ag and +10 fel over what he has now, plus Charm increases. All the Agility skills I want - Concealment, Silent Move, Dodge Blow - Vampire Hunter also offers, plus minor increases to WS, BS, WP, and Toughness. There's also not many Career Exits Rapscallion offers that i'm into, and Vampire Hunter can lead to Demagogue or Targeteer.

Okay, I think I might have answered my own question! Ludo has 350xp, and while I might sort out the details later, I reckon the smart thing for now is to buy AK Necromancy, the Fellowship stuff (charm+20, fel +10?), maybe some Agility increases, and go into Vampire Hunter later.

[TheSummoner]

I really hate to ask, but with two of the party sitting at 0, I feel like someone has to. Would defeating the vampire be worth a fate point? The fire stopped us from digging around and getting an idea of what they were up to, but it's pretty reasonable to assume that it and Klammenberg were't going to stop at murdering a few priests. And while they're still alive and out there, our victory will presumably cause a pretty major disruption to them and put a stop to the immediate threat until they've had a chance to recover and regroup. In the grant scheme of things, the vampire (Nahorek?) is a much greater threat than Magog ever was and Cacophrax similarly survived us getting in the way of his plans. I'm not even interested in it for Sieghard's sake, but having Adelbert and now Elsa at 0 FP, it complicates things.

[LCP]

Fate Point totals are meant to go down over time. I don't think just forcing the vampire to retreat out of an open window is in the same class as cutting the head off Magog or sealing Cacophrax in another dimension. There will be no Fate Points today.

@LeSwordfish yes the crossbow bolts are silver-plated.

I'm hanging fire to see if Thragka has anything separate he wants Urgrim to do (or which of the current groups - Udolf escort, Adelbert's house search, Sieghard talking to Irene - he wants to join); let me know when you're ready to move forwards.

The fire stopped us from digging around

Just to point out, sufficiently fire-proof objects do sometimes survive fires.

[LeSwordfish]

I'm not sure how Actually Injured Ludo is. He's at 0 wounds but no criticals, right? And he took Withering Wave damage so I don't have any normal wounds to point to? If I wanted Ludo to get out of bed and go join Sieghard in talking to Irene, is there anything to prevent that?

[LCP]

I think the IC description I would give would be similar to the one I gave for Elsa - Ludo will feel awful, like someone suffering from the world's worst hangover or the after-effects of pneumonia, but he doesn't have any physical damage to his body that would prevent him from getting up and (slowly) moving around. The Shallyans would of course encourage him to stay in bed and drink his broth.

[Thragka]

I'm hanging fire to see if Thragka has anything separate he wants Urgrim to do (or which of the current groups - Udolf escort, Adelbert's house search, Sieghard talking to Irene - he wants to join); let me know when you're ready to move forwards.

Oh, sorry! I'll stick in an IC post now.

edit: re. Read/Write, I presume that that's something which will take some IC time to learn if I invest in it now? I think I'll also buy 1 Attack, and leave 50 XP in the bank.

[LCP]

edit: re. Read/Write, I presume that that's something which will take some IC time to learn if I invest in it now?

Yes I think so.

EDIT:

This weird number is due to her lending some of her XP to Morrslieb to buy familiar abilities

Did I OK this as a house rule? I'm looking at Realms of Sorcery and I'm not seeing any mention of familiars being allowed to dip into their master's XP.

[RossN]

Everything else - his clothes, his books, the furniture - was gone.

Not going to lie, that hurts.

[TheSummoner]

Did I OK this as a house rule? I'm looking at Realms of Sorcery and I'm not seeing any mention of familiars being allowed to dip into their master's XP.

Away from the books, but i think there's a passage about this under the part about familiars and XP gain, saying they can use their own XP, their master's, or any combination of the two to buy advanced.

I'll try to find the page when I get home, but I do remember seeing that.

[-Sentinel-]

Fate Point totals are meant to go down over time. I don't think just forcing the vampire to retreat out of an open window is in the same class as cutting the head off Magog or sealing Cacophrax in another dimension. There will be no Fate Points today.

Fair. I will admit, I was hoping for a Fate Point, but was afraid to ask.

Being at 0 XP will definitely affect my plans for my character, even though this is more of an OOC consideration than an IC one. It may, for example, make me less likely to have Elsa embark upon an arduous path that she cannot walk back from and that would only yield medium-to-long-term benefits. (LCP knows what I'm talking about.)

I think the IC description I would give would be similar to the one I gave for Elsa - Ludo will feel awful, like someone suffering from the world's worst hangover or the after-effects of pneumonia, but he doesn't have any physical damage to his body that would prevent him from getting up and (slowly) moving around. The Shallyans would of course encourage him to stay in bed and drink his broth.

Elsa very much intends not to get out of here just yet.

I'm looking at Realms of Sorcery and I'm not seeing any mention of familiars being allowed to dip into their master's XP.

Page 190, under Familiar Abilities:

Each new familiar ability costs 300 xp, which may be paid by the wizard, the familiar, or both in combination.

I'm usually reluctant to use Elsa's own XP for Morrslieb, as losing Morrslieb would mean losing all the XP that Elsa spent on him. But at this point it seems likely that Morrslieb will outlive Elsa.

Not going to lie, that hurts.

I'm so sorry.

[LCP]

Each new familiar ability costs 300 xp, which may be paid by the wizard, the familiar, or both in combination.

Roger, thanks. I was looking under the stats section.

[Thragka]

And maybe Urgrim, but Elsa doesn't view him as a full-fledged party member yet.

cleaned up after your umgi arse and saved your shoddy city from burning to a crisp in your witchfire but no it's ol' Urgi who can't be trusted with the party's best interests

[-Sentinel-]

cleaned up after your umgi arse and saved your shoddy city from burning to a crisp in your witchfire but no it's ol' Urgi who can't be trusted with the party's best interests

It's not a matter of being useful or not, it's a matter of shared experiences! Cities filled with undead, lost libraries, battles, etc.

Is Ludo leaving Elsa? I guess that means I'm on timeout until the party gathers at the hospital.

[LeSwordfish]

Is Ludo leaving Elsa?

Let me answer that question with a question: would you rather Sieghard explained this to Irene alone?

And yeah, Ludo's gonna self-certify and get out of hospital as soon as possible, if he's not unable to.