Knee Breaker monster campaign 3.5

[~Corvus~]

Thorn chews on an idea as they walk. It speaks it's musings in a low voice; anyone with an attentive ear could hear its thoughts:

It isn't necessary that we avoid violence; rather, the humans have a tendency to dislike it, as it messes with their idea of "society" or something like that. But there are ways to inflict violence without killing too many people...

Dead-ear, I don't like the idea of an arena contact. You should let me mulch them.

[Tjallen]

Dead-Ear shrugs: "Contact important, but bad-slow payer. Not much of a loss if you eat-mulch. May upset their orc-things, would need to find new-better contact. Is hard-tough."

[Doxkid]

"Orcs? I'll pass. I wouldn't mind creating art from a few ogres if they dare challenge me, but mere orcs are far below my standards. Now Hill Giants, on the other hand..." SIN cackles at the prospect.

[Tjallen]

Waving a metal hand at the necromancer, Dead-Ear answers the cackling: "Do not speak-talk like this around the human-things, will bring down guard-danger. Risk guild-contact. Outside, fine, inside bad-wrong."

[MikelaC1]

Orcs in numbers can prove to be a challenge, but ogres and maybe a hill giant are more in our league. Cowdenbeath removes a cloth from his breastplate and start polishing and sharpening his horns.

[Doxkid]

"Merely speaking of my preference for combating interesting creatures will alert the guards? We will need to take action to correct the governing parties in this region later...

There is nothing else that needs my attention here. As long as food, lodging, and enemies are provided I will cooperate with your actions. We should depart immediately; the Orcs, and any Ogres or Hill Giants we find along the way, await us."

Spoiler: OoC @Warhunter

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SIN/Doxkid is Ready to Depart to the next area in the adventure.

Should we do rolls/posts/notes for our journey, or do we just appear at the next location, or...?

[Tjallen]

Continuing to walk, now backwards, with quick steps towards the city holding the arena Dead-Ear looks at his new employees: "Minotaur is right, half-orcs smart enough to have others fight-kill for them, hill giant easy if alone and have time. And is not about preference, is about art-craft with bodies and cackle-laughing like witch. Is taken as admission-truth of guilt. Be away from people-things when do so."

[MikelaC1]

I've been out of Keltor about a month now, thats when the scandal was finally resolved. They didnt give me much other than my freedom, only the arms and armor I had won and a small amount of gold. Not that the gold was much good, every time I would go somewhere to spend it, the reaction was "Help, help, rampaging minotaur, run for your lives." It got tiresome fast, and when I tried to use a human agent to spend the money, he just took it and never came back.

[Tjallen]

Still walking backwards to talk to his brand-new employees (paperwork pending) Dead-Ear looks interested at the minotaur:
"Classic trick-scam, yes-yes, you did not keep his skull-head as warning? If scary-dangerous, go far enough, human-things think adventurer-hero, stop ask-question. But must get paperwork in orden when get to city-place. We find you head-skulls for shoulder-clothes, know of good-fine tailor."

[WarHunter]

Keltor being a ten day journey on foot the monsterous band leaves the meeting place around the fire to start their trek through the night. Being Currently in a Temperate forest and grassland they head north towards the warmer desert region where Keltor lies. Creatures both big and small take notice of their movements, studying their intent either a threat or a treat.

[Tjallen]

Appearing to be a superb hunter, Dead-Ear uses his half-staff half-crossbow amalgamation to shoot at anything tasty looking, and with him being a carrion eater, this category includes almost every single living thing. While he eats several times more than what his size would suggest, the ratling shares freely once he has made sure there is enough for himself.
By way of his mechanical limbs, he manages to keep up the scavenging while keeping up with the traveling party.
Each morning he spends at least an hour tinkering away at metal, leather, and bone scraps. Mostly ending up with useless scrap he reintroduces into a cycle of use and re-use.

Spoiler: Hunting!

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Survival check to keep Dead-Ear and the others fed. DC 10 +2 for each other person to be kept fed. (1d20+17)[28] Dead-Ear will keep scraps of skin and bone for use in his inventions.

[MikelaC1]

Being part bull, Cowdenbeath can survive by grazing on grass. Being part human and bad tempered, he does prefer meat.

[WarHunter]

Dead ear fires a few dozen times into the forest without any warning and gathers his kills which include 2 half cooked opossums, 1 third burnt rabbit, 1 1/5th cooked raccoon mother and 3 crispy kits, 4 burnt squirrels, 2 humans, 1 young deer, and 3 crispy song birds.

[~Corvus~]

Thorn is hardly more picky than Dead-eye, though it's method of hunting are less explosive. It will, however, attempt to kill dangerous plants or beasts before it attempts to harvest the land of humanoids. If worse comes to worse, it will mulch the bones of it's companions' prey.

Spoiler: rolls

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Survival: (1d20+8)[15]
Knowledge Nature: (1d20+16)[19]

[Doxkid]

Unfortunately SIN is not well equipped for either hunting or gathering. As such him main contribution to the party is using his magic to make longer lasting rations by quickly drying and partially curing the food the rest of the party acquires. When he is neither eating nor drying food he quietly explains his magic to the others, occasionally demonstrating on prey that was brought back alive.

Of course he can't use his best tricks on what will soon be his own food, so the real show must wait until he finally gets a proper human-sized Guinea Pig...

[WarHunter]

Thorn catches 3 rabbits, a groundhog, 4 snakes, and a hatchling triceratops

[Tjallen]

Dead-Ear disposes of the human bodies, after eating his fill of course, by simply throwing them to the mulching machine that is Thorn, continuing the treck towards the arena.

[WarHunter]

After 5 days of trekking and hunting the Knee breaker have reached a busy trail of merchant wagons.

[~Corvus~]

Thorn hums with anticipation. It expects this to be a great deal of excitement for the rest of the party. It doesn't say much, but jerk its head to Dead-Ear. Let's go, it indicates.

The Slaad that's manifest near it fades into blue strands that flow and accumulate to blue lenses that appear over its eyes. Its feet, too, begin to accumulate the same light as nearly-transparent azure bands become an opaque sapphire. Thus prepared, it begins to lift into the air and as it walks forward it rises into the air, sixty feet up, towards the caravan.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Going to assume that it doesn't have Truthseeker goggles shaped. Thus, un-shaping Totem Avatar, and
shaping Truth-seeker Goggles.

Shaped:
Airstep Sandals (Feet Bind) - 3 essentia
Bluesteel Bracers (Arms Bind) - Allies within 90' share initiative bonus) (+8 at the moment) /+2p.ess(0)
Sighting Gloves +1 atk/+1p.ess (0)
Truthseeker Goggles - 4 essentia

30' Fly (perfect) +40' move = 70' fly (perfect)
+10 to Sense Motive (+25 total), Search (+14), Gather Information (+8)

[MikelaC1]

Cowdenbeath loosens his axe, and polishes up his horns, ready for any action that comes his way.

[Tjallen]

Upon seeing the merchants, Dead-Ear perks up and pulls out a handful of surprisingly well drawn images with names underneath them: Hand-drawn Wanted posters.
"Is time, if you see-spot any of these, we go have a talk-see, might be bounty-target. Is good-free lesson. If find target, say-shout, any group with bounty-thing also criminal-target, good-fun deal."
Handing out the posters, Dead-Ear preens as he brags about them: "Is good-best posters, bought-got from drawing-man, found sister-girl, good-best reward is posters, only pay-give few gold for each, much-good investment. Look-study close, human-things look same, but important to find close-near match."

[MikelaC1]

Cowdenbeath studies the pictures for a little longer before passing them on to other members. He secures his axe so that he is not approaching in a combat ready state and moves towards the caravan. Minotaurs possess a natural cunning and thus are decent at spotting things that others might miss and he looks through the crowd, trying to see if he can pick out any of the wanted criminals

Spoiler: Spot

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(1d20+13)[19]
(1d20+13)[26]
(1d20+13)[32]
just putting down 3 if you want more, advise.

[~Corvus~]

Although Thorn knew the behavior of prominent tribes members well,it had trouble distinguishing humanoid to humanoid. The Animists wore tattoos around their eyes and on their calves - a feature uncommon in most humanoids - but beyond that, the bush cared little about who was what; it cared about who might lead it towards its goals.

It would watch for its mark.

[WarHunter]

Cowdenbeath sees someone similar to one of the female bounties but sporting a well groomed goatee and their ears are a bit pointy. The rest of the merchant carvan aren't human enough for comparison to the posters. Some too scaly and green others near the size of the minotaur himself.

Spoiler: perception results

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a male half elf
a female Yuan-Ti Pureblood
A male ogre

[MikelaC1]

Cowdenbeath makes his way quietly to Dead-Ear to let him know that there is one potential bounty target in the group

[Tjallen]

As Cowdenbeath approaches him, Dead-Ear looks at the group: "You want to arrest-fight the ogre-thing? Is good-fine target for practice." Before pulling out a frankly amateurish drawing of an undetailed ogre, with not even a name beneath but simply the words: 'dangerous ogre wanted for murder and pillaging'.
"This what you find-see?"

[MikelaC1]

No, what I saw was female, not ogrish and having pointy ears and a goatee. I did see an ogre, but this picture could be any ogre and doesnt even have a name.

[Doxkid]

"It doesn't especially matter if this is the correct ogre; what's important is that we will get paid to bring down a ogre and any civilians we kill along the way can be counted as collateral damage and/or co-conspirators of the ogre. Now then, how are these bounties be collected? Do we need to present them with a full corpse, just the target's head, all of the target's skin, or some other body part belonging to the target? What's the penalty to bringing in the wrong target?"

[Tjallen]

Dead-Ear looks at his new hires with glee, before tucking on his mask:
"We go talk-see, ogre-thing is excuse to kill if fight, but bring back alive-broken, else head is good-fine. Depends on bounty-paper. Also, good spot-see on elf-thing, hair can be changed-added, magic is good-strong for this. If not is maybe sibling-family. Good-wise to catch-talk."
With that he takes the ogre-drawing in hand, making it visible for any looking closely: "We find-talk to caravan leader, make sure elf-thing does not run-hide."
Motioning towards the caravan he heads towards the wagon most likely to have the caravan-master.

[~Corvus~]

Thorn was not yet used to Red-eye's laissez-faire approach to bounty hunting. There was one time when they'd been assigned to find several monster-hunters that were killing off too many Ankhegs in an area of platinum miners. Turned out that the beasts were useful for digging natural tunnels, and the hunters were overhunting the wrong beasts. They killed nearly 60 people that season, a good deal more than was likely needed. It's not that Thorn didn't dislike using its powers but rather that those few hours of target-hunting caused more collateral damage than it would admit to the newcomers at this time.

This was, sadly, shaping up to be another case of accidental misunderstanding. Not that the humans didn't deserve it--many did--but Thorn had yet to see merchants that truly lived to twist others' lives to dust the way "nobles" did. But that story was was better for another musing. Its speed afforded it a faster approach than the others' gait, and as it looped into the air, Thorn listened for any conversation it might be able to understand.

Spoiler: crunch

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Getting within 40' of the Caravan if needed.
(1d20+6)[20]: Listen
Understands Common and Elven.