Re: Battle & Breeding
[...and then sex]
A thousand gold pieces. One thousand gold pieces. And maybe more! Maram had told them about it, as her sort of payment to the adventurers who had so interested her: the temple of Saale within the next few days going to offer a small fortune for the return of a sacred statuette, lost when one of its border convents was sacked by a sudden monster attack. Five hundred if it could be confirmed as missing, even. Plus an extra six hundred if they can find evidence as to how the monsters pierced the holy barrier surrounding the convent, and additional rewards for other relics, artworks, and nuns rescued. Maram had coaxed the job from a local abbess she had 'befriended' previously, and was planning on taking her own crew to retrieve it, but after their behavior in the bar, she decided to let them cool off on a long trudge through one of the nearby swamps instead.
By the time the women woke up the next morning feeling deliciously drained and refreshed, the bitter rain had finally stopped. Three days hard travel along the thin, muddy, rarely-travelled road brought them before the ruined convent, nestled into a hollow in the dark forest they had been skirting these past few days. A wooden palisade bordered the structure, the sharpened trunks standing some ten feet high, with small domed towers rising above the wooden wall at each corner. Along the road a large gate, carved with sacred seals, lay broken and charred, blasted from it's hinges by some mighty force, leaving the way open to the courtyard beyond. Whatever beasts had attacked this place, they seem to have gone some time ago. Scavengers had devoured most of the corpses left behind by fallen attackers, but the the markings on the scraps of cloth and build of the gnawed bones suggested feral orcs and their goblin slaves. Almost escaping your notice is a small, round stone hut just off in the woods, seemingly undamaged, it's white stone glistening through the line of trees separating it from the convent proper. Perhaps the orcs missed it? Or maybe there just wasn't anything of value there.
Room Actions (each of you may do one of the following; you should roll in your post, and narrate the action. You get +1 if you make it particularly interesting and/or sexy; it's up to you to decide if you feel like you've made enough effort to deserve a bonus):
---MND+Survival DC 10 to learn something interesting about the invaders. DC 15 to learn something more specific.
---MND+Knowledge DC 15 to find some hidden magic.
---MND+Communication DC 15 to commune with and learn something useful about the fallen holy barrier.
---STR+Athletics DC 13 to climb the palisade, and peer inside without the risk of being seen.
---DEX+Subterfuge DC 10 to scout ahead through the gate. DC 15 to set up an ambush of anything beyond. Under 10, and you risk being spotted if there's anything there!
---Something else (If you have something you want to do that's not noted here, describe it and make whatever roll you feel appropriate, and I'll narrate it in the next post. I'm pretty permissive on this, but be aware that you might not accomplish anything, even if you roll well, so generally only use this if you have a clever idea.)
(For all 'scouting' options, if you succeed and there are enemies in the next room, you can choose to either engage them or avoid them once you're in the room; you can choose to move to the next room in the same turn with no penalty.)
The convent is ahead of you. What do you do?
Party Actions (vote on this):
---Make your way through the gate, into the courtyard.
---Go examine the stone hut in the forest.
---Scout the perimeter of the convent thoroughly. (All 'thorough search' options like this will allow you to automatically succeed at all room actions you wish to perform)
---Rest for some reason? (Heals 1d4 per level+4 HP; unlike magical healing, this does restore HP lost to spellcasting)
(Thorough Search and Rest actions will always take a substantial amount of extra time, which will usually have consequences attached later in the dungeon. The consequences will tend to start negligible, but can grow if you use them too often.)
Notes:
---I'm only going to require you to expend rations when faced with unexpected travel delays or other similar problems. Otherwise, assume your characters were smart enough to pack enough food along the way.
---You're starting off with three out-of-combat heroism/metamagic uses each in this dungeon. Metamagic uses can always be used to modify a spell to do something somewhat outside of it's normal effect, so long as it's logical.
---If I don't hear from you for a day and you don't let me know what's up (I know about cross_grave disappearing every other weekend), I'll move on without you, and you just won't do anything that 'turn'.
Lore:
---Saale: The goddess of the sun and queen of the eastern gods. Her consort and guardian is Pernas, the god of storms.
