Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Buying items through Oleg and Svetlana

Mundane Items (things that cost less than 10gp or that make sense to have available for explorers, merchants and trappers)  
At any moment, Oleg has approximately 500gp of equipment available for you. This is mundane equipment: armor, weapons, adventuring gear, some alchemical items (sunrods, for example)... In general, he won't have more than 50gp invested in the same type of item.  
The available equipment is replenished once a week, on the first day of the week.

Special and magic items
For special and magic items you will have to order them and he'll be able to provide them in 5-10 days, depending on whether he finds someone that sells them in Restov or needs to find a contact in New Stetven, which is farther away... Pitax is a den of thieves and bandits, not suitable for honest commerce (this is what Oleg tells you)... As for the exact number of days, we'll decide it using a Luck check (done by the person for which the item is intended). The time will be 5 days + 1 day for each point of difference between your luck test and 11; maximum number of days will be 10.
- A 20+ (or natural 20) in the Luck check means the object is available immediately with a 20% discount.
- A 1- (or natural 1) in the Luck check means the object is not available at that moment. You can retry the check 10 days later, but the item will cost an extra 20%.

Special treatment from Oleg
Thanks to your help with the bandits, Oleg will provide boarding at his lodge at half price, he will also waive his commission for bringing special items, i.e., he'll assume the risk of the item(s) being stolen. On top of that, and also thanks to the moon radishes you gave Svetlana, Oleg offers you a discount of 50gp per adventurer for 1 item each (could be the first item you buy).

Alchemical Items (potions, oils, poisons, and similar)
Finally, he also tells you that he buys most alchemical items from a hermit called Bokken, who has a hut 15 miles east of Oleg's Trading Post. Bokken also brews potions, so it could be well worth the visit... He also agrees to trade with him in your behalf if you prefer it. Therefore, alchemical items and potions will take 1-5 days to arrive (same Luck check as with other magic items, so 1 day+difference of Luck test to reach 11).
- A 20+ (or natural 20) in the Luck check means the object is available immediately with a 20% discount.
- A 1- (or natural 1) in the Luck check means the object is not available at that moment due to lack of components. You can retry the check 5 days later, but the item will cost an extra 20%.

Luck Check
This is a Charisma check, with other modifiers depending on the circumstances.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Davik Nettle's Diary/Ledger. Info 2

The ledger continues with Davik detailing the comings and goings of many merchants and trappers. They were all happy to be able to easily cross the Shrike River, making the journey to Jovvox and Taldor much easier. Davik made even more money than expected, as news of his bridge reached the right ears in both Brevoy and Jovvox, so he calculated he would be able to fully pay back his investors in a bit less than 2 years, instead of the three he had first calculated. He goes on detailing the names of the members of the Restov Merchants Guild that had invested in the bridge.

Davik got once into a verbal fight with the trapper Breeg Orlivanch, as he was a miser and always haggled the fee to use the bridge. After that fight, Breeg told him he would never use his bridge again, and some trappers told him that he had moved his hunting area to the northern Narlmarches.

A bit more than a year ago, the merchant Rufus Seadwell told him that he had seen a group of Kobolds move into an abandoned mine to the southwest of the bridge. Davik shows some sign of worry in this part of the diary but soon is relieved after some other merchants told him that they had seen some signs of skirmishes between them and the Mite tribe that inhabited the Old Sycamore tree. According to the stories told to him by other trappers and merchants, Taldan colonists once made an attempt to settle in the Stolen Lands. They failed, but not for lack of resources. There’s supposedly some old and abandoned mines somewhere in the Kamelands, and Davik was making plans on investigating and possibly developing these mines.

About a year ago, more and more merchants and trappers started reporting an increase in bandit attacks. He explained Davik that a group of evil monks and priests of a lesser-known goddess of hatred, extortion, and spite had once dwelt on the northern shore of the Tuskwater to the south and that he was convinced they were the cause behind the sudden rise in banditry!

Also a year ago, another trapper named Timitius Bandy had paid him with an ancient medallion he said he had found in a battle sight near the western edge of the Narlmarches. He was happy to accept it, as soon after a travelling Pathfinder named Ollix Kaddar had paid him a good sum of money for the medallion and offered him to buy any other medallion he could find. He even said that he would try to organise an archeology expedition to find such a site, as he was sure the medallion was a relic from the ancient Barbarian Lords of Numeria.

Davik Nettle's Diary/Ledger. Info 1

From what he writes at the beginning of the book, Davik was an engineer from Restov (remember Brevoy is mainly the union of two kingdoms, you can check it in the blog). Some years ago, he was contacted by a group of Restov merchants who wanted to increase the trade with the kingdom of Galt (to the south of the Stolen Lands). The only bridge crossing the Shrike River was in Mivon, one of the River Kingdoms, and the tolls to cross that bridge (and the danger of having to cross the Narlmarches wood to reach it) were too high. They convinced Davik to build the bridge and paid for the expenses. 

Davik did not intend to stay in the area, but in the process of building the bridge he developed a liking for the rugged beauty of the Kamelands (the hills just to the southwest of Brevoy that the Shrike River crosses) and decided to stay as toll master when the construction workers left. As he had enough money and received a nice bonus from the Restov Merchants Guild, he kept the tolls low. 

One of the first persons to use the bridge two years ago was Nugrah, a strange mendicant druid of Gozreh who was travelling with a teenage boy of 17 or so. The boy had scar marks in his face, as if he had been burnt in a fire, and the druid did not treat him well, as he was constantly hitting him in the back of the head and calling him names. Davik asked the druid to stop manhandling the boy, but the man told him to mind his business, as "his son was a lazy boy and a retard and needs to be taught discipline if I have to make a man out of him".

Dealings with Restov Merchants (3rd and 4th Gozran 4710)

Conversation with Jonah Renton (the merchant attacked by Trolls)
Jonah is open to the development ideas of the characters. He explained them the following:

1.- Davik's bridge is very important for the merchants to be able to reach Galt, and Taldor further to the south, both of them rich lands with demand for northern goods (although Galt is now in the middle of a rebellion/civil war). Not having the bridge means dangerous and costly detours, so its reconstruction would be a high priority project for the merchants, for which they would risk investment if you are able to keep the area secure and promise low fees to cross the bridge.
Without the bridge (even with it), the merchants have to cross the Kamelands hills, and here there are 3 problems at the moment that need to be solved before the merchants are able to fully use this route: bandit raids from the Stag Lord (already diminished thanks to your actions in the past weeks), Kobold raids (there are still reports of merchants being robbed by the Kobolds), Mite raids (same thing as with the kobolds).

2.- Another important area is the Narlmarches (the forest in your area of influence). It would be important to have a nice road and several safe places to stop. Oleg's Trading Post is one. Another one could be the Temple of Erastil (now starting to be developed by the priest Jhod Kavken). The problem here at the moment is that west of the Temple there is not much you know, so you would need to explore the west a bit... specially important would be finding a good place to ford or cross the Thorn River. Jonah tells you that there was an old bridge to the south of the area you have already explored (south of the Bandit camp you assaulted) but that it is at the moment too near to the Stag Lord's fort to be used safely.

This is an important area to reach Pitax from which it is easy to take barges to Lake Encarthan and other exotic lands to the west. At the moment, Pitax has a new leader, Lord Castruccio Irovetti, who is intent in developing the "bandit kingdom". He has funded an Academy of Arts and there is great demand for some products: musical instruments, paper, fine cloth for costumes, etc.

3. As for natural resources, the Greenbelt has been a wilderness area for a long time, so there are many untapped resources, although many trappers and merchants complain that most developments have been harashed not only by bandits, kobolds and mites, but also by strange accidents and mishaps attributed to the "forest spirits"... In order to develop these resources, these spirits should be taken care of somehow.

4. As for the Troll assault, they are a very rare sight in the northern Narlmarches, and that's the reason Jonah's team was taken by surprise. He thinks they might be a small roaming band from a big tribe that must be much more to the south... He asks you to keep an eye, although he doubts you'll see any of them... You also talk with other merchants and trappers at Oleg's and only a third of them report sightings of Trolls, and mostly lone Trolls.

Session 8: The Golden Cave

in which the characters find a possible future resource

The Golden Cave
The characters followed the tracks left by the fleeing Mites and reached the old sycamore tree under which, according to the rumors heard at Oleg's, the Mites had their lair. Along the way they found many skirmish sites, with looted corpses of the miserable creatures and kobolds, the pitiful sight of a pitiful war.

They discussed whether to immediately storm the lair or try to strike an alliance with the Kobolds with which the Mites were fighting, and decided themselves for the second course of action. Not knowing where the Kobold lair was, they kept exploring towards the northwest of the old sycamore and found a crevasse in the face of a hill of the Kamelands. A strange golden glow emanated from the crack, so the heroes decided to explore it.

The crack gave way to a steep slope which the characters descended making a lot of noise. At the end of the slope there was a cave with walls that glittered under the rays of the midday sun that managed to enter the crack. The cave was big, more a series of small caverns than a single cave, and while exploring one of the side tunnels, Kii was attacked by a strange crab-like creature hiding on a high ledge. The creature ensnared Kii with a sticky web strand and pulled him up the walls; Kii had some very scary moments, but his shouts alerted the rest of the group and thanks to Am's arrows the creature was badly wounded and was forced to flee.

Crab Creature

Other points of interest in the caves were a small rivulet of water that entered through one low crack, and a crude altar with strange symbols (which seemed Draconic and made by small creatures, probably Kobolds); the altar had been used to offer some sacrifices, as it was surrounded by small animal bones, probably of chickens, ducks and other birds.


The Ambushed Merchant
At this point, the group was running low on rations and ammunition, so they decided to return to Oleg's to replenish supplies and possibly hear more rumors.

On their way back, the group arrived at the site of an ambush. Four corpses were strewn around a looted wagon, its horse dead and half eaten. In a group of nearby bushes they found, injured and scared to death, Jonah. He was a merchant from Restov that had been ambushed by a couple of Trolls. Jonah was bringing some musical instruments, ink, paper and other goods to the recently created Academy of Arts of Pitax. He and a group of merchants (one of them was lying dead at the ambush site) had invested some money in these goods after hearing that Pitax was willing to pay good money for them. Now most of the goods had been stolen or crushed, and Jonah was not only scared but very sad.

The characters helped bury the corpses and escorted Jonah to Oleg's. While on the road, they discussed with him different possibilities to develop the Greenbelt and obtained much information from him (detailed in another entry of the blog).


Letters from Kii's family
When they arrived at Oleg's, Svetlana was waiting with two letters for Kii. As they had important information, the Gnome decided to share them with his companions.

Kii's parents, Majet and Zarzuket , were happy to hear that his son was in good health. They told him that they had shared the information sent by him with their clan, and that many Gnomes seemed excited by the amount of fey activity in the area and were preparing to visit the Greenbelt with the aim of exploring and even colonizing the area if it was not too dangerous.

Roomalaiskatollinen Pappi, Kii's cousin in Jovvox, had written that some agents of the Stag Lord had lived in the town in the last months, buying equipment and weapons for his bandits. Just a few days before Kii's letter arrived, a new agent, Reaver Pete, had arrived. Apparently the Stag Lord was angry with a group of troublemakers that were disrupting the activities of his men and had offered money to any able fighter and mercenary that was willing to help the Stag Lord carve a kingdom in the Greenbelt. The agent said he would depart the 20th of Gozran with any people that decided to take the offer. Pappi wrote that already an infamous group of 20 or so mercenaries had signed an agreement with Reaver Pete, and that at least another 20 were in conversations with him. Pappi mentioned that the trip to the Greenbelt from Jovvox would take 8-15 days, so unless something delayed them, they would reach the Greenbelt towards the end of Gozran.

Those news were troublesome, as that meant the characters would have 3-4 weeks maximum to storm the Stag Lord's fort if they wanted to avoid fighting an army of mercenaries.

XP:
- 100 (exploring Golden Cave hex)
- 600 (crab like creature)
Total this session: 700XP
Total campaign: 9445XP

Loot:
- silver masterwork dagger; found at Golden Cave.
- identified wand found at hidden cache. It is a Wand of Burning Hands (CL 2nd, 4 charges).

Time Passed:
- A bit more than 3 days.
The time now is 4th Gozran (April), in the evening. The group is at Oleg's Trading Post.