The same thing we do every (ten)day... plot to SAVE THE ISLES (planning thread)

[Magile]

With the idea of her being some dark godspawn being on the table, Mal does not want her brought to some significant magic well.

We know the powers we're working against, currently, corrupt natural lands (see also: epic dire crocs, storms, etc). Bringing the child, if she's not actually a Good Guy(tm), to the heart of such a thing might cause more harm than good. Better to ask the druids to make a house call.

Aglaril upon hearing of the poem would become even more pensive than before if the child-hatchling comes up in conversation or is close by.

Planning-wise he'd (reluctantly) seem more open to suggestions that involve focusing on her.

The Druids are the option. I was hoping we would backtrack to MacSheean or whatever, but the fact is, it doesn't make in-game sense to not handle things with the kid first. If we can do it during this week? All the better - Ari has been on twice to DM after 10pm EST, and we've exhausted options with our PCs, so it's time to do the druids. We either bring them to the Hall (I'm going to say this won't work), or we bring her to the Grove (I'm going to say this will work, but will also result in more consequences).

Considering that the NPC input we had, from the people we helped, was to bring the child to the Grove to be looked over by Druids (according to other PCs), it's the thing we are probably following.

[orangetree]

"I have.. looked at the accounts on where you found this child... Though I don't want to draw too many conclusions from these mad words I have to conclude it is likely some direct reference to this child you found..."

She sighs."Part of me wishes it was not so... I have no wish of placing an innocent child in this situation.. though ultimately, that decision lies with our... leader?" She glances to Zova.

"In any case, the poem does not give us anything we do not already know. I will attempt to find more writings."

[Mick]

Arizma, her background being what it is, was initially most concerned that the child is some manifestation of Sebek. She no longer thinks that is likely and, once Arizma hears of the verse above, she posits a new theory.

The verse sounds to her to be a prophecy. One that might allow for the chaos of the stones to be controlled or even neutralized. The circumstances leading to the discovery of the child are described almost perfectly. If the child is the fulfillment of some prophecy, the she may have the power to counter the power of the stones. She may even be able to destroy them. Obviously, this would be a giant leap forward in the story of the stones and would present us with the additional important challenge of protecting her until all of the stones can be found.

Arizma suggests that exposing a stone to the child and seeing how she reacts. Risky, but the discovery of the verse (good job, OT) may be too fortuitous to not act on it in some way.

[Ithildur]

While much of the poem seems fitting of current circumstances, the one especially troubling word Aglaril would point out is

'astringe'.

"It's an almost brilliantly ambiguous word in this context, with enough ambiguity to cause one to wonder whether the results of the 'astringe-ment' will be weal or woe: confine/restrain/limit for destruction/weakening of chaos (the stones most likely), or... draw and bind together ... for a disastrous result."

"Perhaps a skilled wordsmith, or one knowledgeable in the etymology of words or linguistics even, might be called for. A history of the book the poem was found in, or the nature of the translation, might also be elements that need to be clarified."

((oocly I'm not strongly advocating such a pursuit necessarily for the weekend session; it's something I would find interesting personally as a player and characters with artistic/linguistic interests might bite, but the entire group chasing this level of detail might not be the best use of Sunday's session and probably wouldn't make sense ICly either.)

[Magile]

Alright. Arianna has been very generous with her time this week, so we've been able to test some theories with the child. It seems that this weekend will either become "dealing with the child," or "we've dealt with the child, time to follow what it leads/backtrack a bit again". In terms of what to do with the child, there are several things people still wish to attempt:

1. Check the scalp of the child for a possible symbol (Aglaril suggested this)
2. Bring the child to a druid's grove/to the Earthmother (Elves in Lewyrr suggested this)
3. Expose the child to the stones to see what happens (Arizma suggested this)

If this can be accomplished before Sunday, that would be great; however, given time restrictions and Arianna's schedule, some things may not be possible. I believe our last suggested course of action, before we found the child, was to reinvestigate the Ruins of MacSheean (sp?). I don't know if we can ICly find a reason to do that while we still have this werecrocodile god child with us.

[Ithildur]

So we can scratch #1 off the list above. Test came back negative which Aglaril reported to several others.

Are there plans for tomorrow? #2 and/or #3?

#2+#3+Macsheean with child in tow... (though Aglaril would not suggest this unless there's compelling reasons)

Aglaril brings up the following:

"Unless we decide to bring her into the kind of danger we tend to attract... how can we keep the child safe while we're out and about as a group, or in general for that matter? The Hall is less than secure; Lily watching her by herself against the kinds of assassins we've seen is not a good idea. No doubt we can set up watches in shifts ((preferably with someone that has access to Dimension Door or such constantly present, 4 PCs currently)) around the clock but is this really ideal?"

"This adds even more urgency to visit the most powerful druid grove we can find; we may ultimately need to keep the hatchling with them, or perhaps the Lewyrr, or in the Queen's keeping. If we do move her, we'll have to ensure it's done in secret... it helps that we know the stones prevent scrying even while inside the boxes."

"We may want to consider divying up the stones further, at the least giving Layali one along with a scroll of Dimension Door, to take advantage of the protection against scrying."

"My hope is that the child is still an unknown factor (both the fact she exists and whatever her relation to the stones are) to our foes, but... it may already be too late. If that's the case, a secret relocation become even more urgent. It's one thing for the stone keepers to carry these evil things around with them, but a living child is much more difficult to safeguard than an object."



(Plus it's totally a thing... hide away young Aragorn in Rivendell... unless Aragorn turns out to be Sauron...
related note going forward: more allies or more cooperation with current allies is definitely a factor to consider. There's strength in having allies, and the entire Isles are being threatened... Hopefully we'll visit the Northmen soon and get to make friends with some)

[Analogkid]

At this point Toby would suggest taking her to the queen and lord regent, at the minimum she can offer valuable advice

[Ithildur]

[edit] changes happened apparently

[vergin_sacrifice]

Bel advocated for visiting the druid grove right off, and still agrees that is the best plan. But then again, she is of the Moonshaes, she believes the Mother's real and the strongest power. (and that Yondalla is an aspect of her, just saying)

So we should take her to the druid's grove. If you want to ask the queen which one to take the child to, I'm all for that.

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Right now, the plan is as follows:

1) Take child to druid grove.
a) If chance presents itself on the way, expose the child to a stone briefly to test the prophecy (will likely vote on this part).
2) Visit old ruins of Isis/Ishtar that a stone was found at previously, and fully explore it.

[Arianna]

Right now, the plan is as follows:

1) Take child to druid grove.
a) If chance presents itself on the way, expose the child to a stone briefly to test the prophecy (will likely vote on this part).
2) Visit old ruins of Isis/Ishtar that a stone was found at previously, and fully explore it.

DM will suggest the Grove near Rillifane's Run if your going to take her to a grove

[Magile]

Are we all on the same page as to where we're going on Saturday?

A lot of us immediately thought of the Mac-Ruins when it was stated that we must "go back to where it all began"; however, we've had several others mention different locations. It looks like this...

1. MacSheean Ruins, where we discovered the whole 12 lights, a stone, the cursed ones, etc.
2. Greengrass Festival, where apparently the Queen began the plot to go after the stones, according to some PCs.
3. Skaug, where the first major storm/event struck (and was on stone-level).

Have we reached a verdict on what we all believe was the correct "where it all began" location?

[Ithildur]

Also in the works: commissioning of 2 more crystal boxes. Aglaril spent some time ingame today at the Mage Guild which has accepted commissions for such items previously, and would have inquired/put in a commission before departing.

Depending on DM availability/ruling etc., wishlist of things to attempt at some point (outside of main session if possible):

-learn (in general terms most likely; I'd assume the druids would not divulge all their secrets) of the grove's defenses against attackers
-learn whether the grove affects/hinders/blocks teleportation magic of any sort
-establish an emergency protocol of sorts as a group and/or individually should the grove or child be threatened in any manner
-scry attempt on grove and the child to attempt to determine whether they're vulnerable to such

[Magile]

What is our goal for this Sunday? The rumours have gone cold lately, so should we continue to follow-up on old leads? If so, that would leave the Temple of Isis, I believe, to check things out again. The sooner we can agree to where we're going, the sooner Arianna can plot our TPK.

[Ithildur]

~Three months ago
-- Raiders took Farview on Moray

~In the last month
-- Oddly within a week of Oman being cleared of strange weather the Weather on Moray also cleared up without effort from the group
-- Raiders have taken the villagers of Skein and Trondhelm on the Isle of Oman, razing the grounds and burning the structures.

That was posted about 5 weeks ago RL time; not really sure if that translates into exact 1:1 ingame time (I really, really hope not for a variety of reasons) so it's hard to know how fresh/old the trail(s) is. It may still be possible to pick up the trail/find some clues on the isles of the Northmen - if nothing else, there's the fact we (afaik at least) have had minimal interaction with the Northmen, might bring fresh perspective, clues, or opportunities.

Spoiler:

4 stones currently are 'unshielded' according to the lights in Macsheean, yet the miles radius stormy/nasty effect has ceased. Most likely the raiders recovered the stone from Moray, undid the silver 'amplification', and they had it on board the ship that we missed in Skaug which would explain the small, localized stormy effect around the ship we saw.

They were losing this game: we got 8, there's 4 left, possible someone decided to pack up the 4 stones so they're not easy for us to locate and find... possibly team Myrkul managed to get to them.

Either way it's a race, whether we're racing against Talosians and/or Myrkul, and the clock is ticking. Due to timezones/schedules we only have 2 hours where all the key players are available together with a DM during the weekend session - which, if time IS in fact progressing 1:1, translates into painfully slow progress even if we were more organized.

We're ahead in the game in terms of numbers of stones, we stopped the storms, we got rid of the crocs, we found the key-child, found various clues; that's all good stuff, progress. But there's still a clock ticking: 1. we don't know what the raiders/talosians/myrkul plan to do going forward, but I'd expect myrkul's going to step up his game since the revealing of the child 2. there are a lot of people who were captured as slaves ... or worse. The redheads in particular are a concern... I think there's going to be very bad consequences if they aren't found soon. I think we need to ramp things up a few notches.

The ruined temple of Isis

Spoiler:

This is an option as well if we wish to backtrack some more, though it's an even older lead/trail. The possible benefit I see as an outcome of this is the prospect of picking up the Drow thread which might lead straight to some of the slaves.

It's also a very dangerous option, if say, it does lead to the Underdark. A relatively quick task might be to explore the temple simply to determine whether this is the case or not.