D&D 4e Game, Homebrew Setting, Houserules

[silarion]

So, how can I get in on this discount?

[bac8434]

Awesome. Well that certainly sounds like a plan to me, if Notos is down with it. It would probably be a handy skill. If so, I say we set up a smithy and shop. Might as well, since I'm sure we'd have to craft a lot to learn that skill, and we'd probably turn a nice profit selling any excess stuff we make. Even crappily enchanted equipment should sell for a pretty penny.

If you're in, Notos, I'll leave setting up shop to you since I've got an errand to run.

First thing I'm going to do is buy a horse for 75gp (unless Melech's benevolent diety already gave us some form of transportation) and ride back down to the coast, in an attempt to pay back the merchants I accidentally screwed over. In order to avoid being instantly run out of town again, I'm going to buy the "Alter Ego" martial practice, for 275 gp, and disguise myself before going into town.

I turned a decent profit there, enough to buy my glaive for 400gp and a modest seaside home, so I guess I'll try to repay... 4000 gold, give or take? If I can find them, I'll try to repay the specific merchants from before, by asking the local merchant's guild which of their members were impacted by the whole debacle. However, I'm going to make sure I do all of this while disguised. My hope is that after a long absence, my disguise should be plenty capable of hiding my identity. After all, most of the townspeople only saw my face for a few minutes at most. They would remember me if they saw it, but it would probably take them a while. I'll also try to return my original glaive to the guy I bought it from, if I can, since I doubt he had much else like it and I've upgraded since then.

As a further matter of precaution, I'm not going to do any of this directly. If I walk up to the merchant and say "You don't know me but here's your highly recognizable magic glaive back" I think he'd be suspicious, so I'll take my time and watch each merchant for long enough to locate their shop first. Then I'll wait until they leave to eat or something, and I'll stash the money behind their stall, whereever they would find it but theives wouldn't. In the case of the glaive, I would just place it back amongst his wares. In both scenarios, I would mill about and watch to make sure they find it, just so I know that some pickpocket doesn't run by and grab it or something. In the possible scenario that one of the merchants no longer has a shop, I'll wait until they leave their house and try to drop it off there. If they have someone else living there I will leave it with them, and if not I'll risk talking to them briefly when they get back, and call it an anonymous gift.

Assuming that all goes well, I'll ride back to the capitol, guilty conscience at least partially alleviated, and get to work on the shop. Also, I still have those 3 previously-enchanted rings on me, anyone want to try identifying them?

[silarion]

Garron will likely have a good deal of free time unless there is something to engage him.

Hopefully with Melech's help -- since this sort of civilizing project is in his god's purview -- he wants to begin a legitimate business where he will transport merchant's goods from city to city both throughout this kingdom and between of possible. However, the main goal is not making money. Beginning with the "Carpenter's guild" he began as soon as he hit town, he will train spies to collect information. (Another route to doing this is infiltrating an existing interkingdom merchant's guild if one exists) So while the business is legitimate and the spies do nothing illegal, the main purpose is to fix the uprising dearth of information in which out party has lived. A part of this project is to engage and, in effect, network the church of Vamir -- which is already an information gathering service -- and reroute the information through my character. Since the main goal is not profit and therefore he can undercut any opponents, this should not be too hard to accomplish. Additionally, most of the business aspects will be done through a false identity (25 Bluff at take 10,) so it will be hard to trace it to him.

As for competition, a little sabotage can go a long way.

This should not take more than a month to set up and at first needs only intermittent attention because of the nature of pre-modern transportation and is well within his skill set. After this he will train a loyal proxy -- likely a priest of Vamir -- to run the business. Garron is only really interested in the information and ability to set up quickly in any town due to the contacts he will make through the business.

Besides this, a year is a really long time for him and will be willing to get engaged in other people's projects. He is, generally speaking, trustworthy with the party. If not, he will begin to rob the city's nobility.

[bac8434]

Ancor is more than willing to give Garron any info he finds on the merchant's guild in whatever the name of that town I'm going to is, since he'll be there anyway. Also, if you're going to be running competition out of town and taking over the merchant's guild in the capitol, feel free to run a smith out of town and I'll just take over his place.

[Relmin]

As an aside first off, I am very sorry I could not make last session even on skype, I literally could not even sit up for more than 10-15 minutes at a time due to my back pain. I found out the next day I am having muscle spasms, and now I am on medication and doing much better. I will definitely be there on Monday, assuming we have a session. That being said I have no idea what rewards or experience we have gained, and if I get any share in it with my absence. This weekend I am home alone so I intend to spend all of tomorrow working on deities and town backgrounds to make up for any lost time, and I will post them in the thread as I finish them. Also I am completely free this weekend if anyone wants to meet up to discuss anything or work on any stuff for the campaign.

Here is my plan for the year break, let me know if anything is out of line in terms of what I can buy/have accomplished.

Notos agrees with Ancor that figuring out how to make magical items would be a great feat, and Notos is particularly eager to get back to his roots and take a rest from adventuring for awhile. While Ancor is off on his errand, Notos sets about town establishing contacts, and trying to get a place for his blacksmithy on the outskirts of town, preferably in an out of the way place. After getting his place set up Notos starts to talk with the locals and finds a son of a well known and well liked family to take on as an apprentice for a year's time. With his apprentice he sets up shop and starts to make weapons for the guards and equipment for the townsfolk, as well as set up some trading routes to cater to any traveling merchants.

When Notos is not working on his blacksmithing he starts to quietly research the area, and in particular the place where his father's weapons sank to the bottom of the river. He tries to figure out what sort of man-power he will need to get back his father's equipment. When Ancor gets back Notos shares his information and asks for help in retrieving the weapons. Notos thinks that they may help immensely in trying to create magical weapons, as he hopes by studying his father's work he will learn how he may infuse weapons with raw magical power. Through training Notos hopes to infuse the weapons and have Ancor refine the magic to make it more usable. While Notos does have his father's staff he is reluctant to try to research any magical properties it may have, both because he does not want to inadvertently break it in the process and also because he fears Neris' influence on the staff may make it inscrutable.

Let me know what knowledge checks you want me to make (as well as what level I should be at) to figure out about how many people it would take or what kind of equipment I would need to retrieve my Father's weapons (during the year break if possible).

[silarion]

None of us know the xp yet. You have 20,000 gp.

We are in the capital of the kingdom nowhere near the river. You will likely need backup to get that weapon of your father's. That river is infested with Fey creatures who hate us now.

[Relmin]

Ah ok... Well my original plan stands then except I will not be taking on an apprentice. I want to leave my character open in case I figure out a way to retrieve my father's weapons and while it seemed doable in the town relatively near the river I do not want to leave behind a well known kid apprentice if the opportunity presents itself for me to take back the weapons. I will however start looking into temples that may know about the fey in the area (nature temples and the like) and see what I can figure out about the river and what may be going on there/what I could expect if I go back.

[bac8434]

In order to assist Notos with his research into the fey, Ancor will also send a letter by courier to that priestess in Silner who helped us with those annoying fey riddles. Since he had a relatively close relationship with her, I can't imagine she would mind helping out, especially just by correspondence. She had access to those old archives, so hopefully she'll have some useful info.

[powerslave84]

I think we should be at Paragon now actually.

Is pendarric still crazy? Or have some of those personalities shown themselves less often? Either way I will roll with it!

[bac8434]

I do believe it was Richard's plan for us to hit paragon now, so I'm sure he'll let us know what's up soon.