Chapter 3: The Glittering Tower

[Rusty Tincanne]

Flintlock smiles at the others and quietly let's them know that whatever is on the other side of the door is mild mannered and probably not a threat. Big thumbs up from the short, metal man, who is currently blending in nicely to the backdrop of the surrounding room..

[Starbeard]

The Princess enters the rag room, toting an urn. (Point of clarification: The Crooked Theodolite is an arcanum that precisely measures rooms.)

Ah, that makes more sense. I was wondering why a room was called a theodolite.

The Princess sets the urn down to rest, as she is not used to carrying things herself.
(How big is it?)

"This chamber is disgracefully untidy." She tries not to touch anything while waiting for the others to finish their business here and move on.

[ChubbyPixie]

"Haaaaaaahh..." says Wikerus, wincing and glancing around the room frantically as if looking for something misplaced. "Fffffffff...!!! ... it doesn't taste... Don't taste it. ...I don't feel well..." He carefully replaces the lid and joins the group, seeming a bit unsteady on his feet.

[mb.]

Deet looks at Jake's carved rat skull, then pokes through rags with his bayonet, mumbling "genus rattus... tails have proprioceptive functions... ugly, diseased..." Schroff scouts around the room, excited by all the new scents his snuffling uncovers.

I'm out of town a few days without my computer, so map update coming Tuesday...

[kensanata]

Splinters looks at the cat skull sized rat skulls rat and cat skulls and a mutters to himself, At least these rats can be killed by cats! I'm not going back to a weird giant castle full of giant rats!

He pushes forward, out of the rag room, if there's an obvious exit, ready to pull the line of the duplicator he's carrying in his backpack should the giant ape return. On the other hand, he carries his musket, trying to look dangerous but not pointing it anywhere. Just in case we meet some friendlies. Ideally, he's trying to remain quiet and not alert the ape he's following.

[mb.]

Splinters looks at the rat and cat skulls and a mutters to himself, At least these rats can be killed by cats! I'm not going back to a weird giant castle full of giant rats!

Didn't it say rat skulls the size of cat skulls? Don't think there were any actual cat skulls here...

[Pulpatoon]

Further investigation of the rag-room reveals about a dozen mostly-complete rat skeletons, each skull bearing markings carved in their forehead. The rats, prior to your investigations which have shifted them around a bit, were arranged in a tight circle in the center of the room.

To Horton's eyes, the marks look related to Ancient Hyborean in construction. He cannot make any sense of them.

The rags are almost entirely filthy, although there are occasional piles of clean rags, once neatly folded and stacked, but since slumped over and mingling with the dirty ones. The dirty rags are smeared with a thick, mineral-smelling grease, a golden oil, and a number of unidentifiable fluids.

The Princess sets the urn down to rest, as she is not used to carrying things herself.
(How big is it?)

The urns are 18 inches tall, and weigh about 15 lbs.

Splinters moves past Flintlock and opens the door on the opposite side of the room.

The Crooked Theodolite: This room is 40x50', with a 30' tall barrel-arched brick ceiling. The floor is dark stained wood, crossed with carved geometric bands. A gemstone is set in the center of the ceiling, casting a dim pink radiance over the room. Three walls have two doors each. These doors are all closed, except the one Splinter's is now peering through. The fourth wall has an open doorway that leads to ascending stairs. Faint blue light glimmers from up the stairs.

For purposes of this encounter roll, I will count Splinter's one-hand on the Mirror Engine, one-hand on the musket approach as equivalent to handling two bulky items.
Encounter roll: [1d6] = 2
Type of encounter: [1d6] = 6

A door on the opposite side of the room creaks and begins to open. It is opening slowly, as if by stealth.

Actions!
More on Monday!

[kensanata]

Splinter quickly moves back a step, letting go of the rope to the mirror engine, nearly closing the door. He leaves a small gap for his musket and kneels into firing position. Then he whispers to his friends: Hush! Something is coming.

[ChubbyPixie]

Poking rags to and fro, Wikerus examines the focal point of the rats' original arrangement, trying to determine what, if anything, they are symbolically guarding, or perhaps worshiping. He hopes he's right it's just symbolic, suddenly realizing he's now at the focal point of a potentially literal animated rat skeleton attack.

[Pulpatoon]

Splinters observes two horrible figures sneaking with obvious caution through the door. They are dressed like the previously encountered pirates, but are less than half the height of an average human. Their skin glistens with a texture more like sharkskin than human flesh, and the shapes of their heads and limbs are all wrong. As the emerge into dim pink light of the glowing gem, they are revealed as bearing the features of a remora.

The half-sized remora-figures venture slowly away from the door, sticking close to the walls. They are making their way in the direction of your door.

Wikerus, head swimming, stands among the rat skeletons. He does not notice anything of interest.

[1d6] = 4

Actions!
More on Wednesday!

[Urson]

Jake

Ugly little bastards... Jake says, readying his maul for a fight.

[Rusty Tincanne]

Ugly, but tasty. Try not to squish 'em too much.

[kensanata]

Splinters will wait for them to come close, real close. Close enough for them to be jumped by his friends. Then he'll fire the musket, in their face! No talking to fishheads.

[Rusty Tincanne]

Splinters will wait for them to come close, real close... Then he'll fire the musket, in their face! No talking to fishheads.

[Starbeard]

The Princess waits behind Splinters, holding the large urn precariously. If things go wrong she intends to dump the urn over one of their heads with a "Cads!" and traipse off back to the safety of the hallway.

[coil23]

Horton had really been hoping that sneaking would have prevented this sort of thing. He stands still and waits to assist the others once the fish-heads get close.

[Pulpatoon]

The little fish-heads continue to tip-toe their way towards the party's door, unaware that they are being observed.

[1d6] = 6

Okay, you have the drop on them. If you are planning on an attack, present actions for the first two rounds—first round they are surprised, second round they will have a chance to respond.

We'll be using the play-test rules for combat. This means that instead of adding up damage from multiple attacks, we'll preserve the highest result.

Please make it clear which action is for which round (1 or 2) and which fish-head is targeted (Remora and Remorb).

If you're curious, here are some of Chris McDowell's thoughts on this particular change:

Ganging Up
The biggest and probably most contentious change. I've tried it out before, but have never reached a conclusion on whether I prefer it to the existing system of just piling-on attacks.

Advantages are:
- Damage on any single round is capped at the highest die being thrown against you, so that's a hard cap of 12 damage. This helps lessen one-shot deaths on both sides, especially those getting ganged up on by large numbers of opponents, which felt like it was far too deadly in the existing system.
- At most, a combatant is making one save vs Critical Damage between their turns. It help protect big, high STR targets from being overloaded by multiple attacks causing 1 STR loss each, triggering a Save vs Critical Damage every time.
- Armour becomes more significant (with a low cap, it's better at keeping you alive against hordes), ganging up is still a decent way to overcome it, but really big weapons are the better overall counter to armour, as they should be.
- Encourages more teamwork. You'll want to plan who's doing what on your turn before anyone rolls an attack.
- Single, or matched combats remain simple, fast and unchanged.

Disadvantages are:
- Requires more teamwork. I know it seems odd, but I don't necessarily want to punish players that aren't all that tactically coherent, and with this new system a player could miss their chance to do anything on a turn if they're really not paying attention.
- Many vs One combats will now last a bit longer.
- Potentially leads to players feeling they have less impact, as only one person's attack die is used. Statistically, they've assisted in making sure the attack yielded the most damage, but there's less personal achievement.
- Of course, the major disadvantage is that it creates another rule, adding to the weight of the engine, however simple that rule is.

Feel free to provide feedback on this and any other elements of the playtest in the OOC thread.

Actionsx2!
More on Friday!

[ChubbyPixie]

Wikerus holds back, not willing to attack a creature without having some idea of its intentions. They do seem like sneaky fish, though. Almost cartoonishly thievish. He wonders what his impression would be if they looked like goldfish instead...

[Urson]

Jake

Jake holds his position, ready to defend if need be.

[Starbeard]

The Princess holds her position behind the fighting types.

In the second round, if there is combat, she will do her best to drop the urn onto remora's head and scamper off to safety.