Talk:Road to Kebnegard, Chapter Thirty

tcm: Done, and with no notes whatsoever.

also, at the end of the fifteenth, the party had a whole hit point to its name, and that hit point belonged to Ivan. We're thinking about calling ourselves the Ghosts Who Walk (an homage to the Phantom).

ET: I'll start correcting here - the party had several hit points but also several people at neg, and so the party total came out to 1 hp. Most of the injured people we were toting around were healed up to 1, remember?

--yeah, but it sounds cooler the way i wrote it.

Also, the whole idea about Polymorphing into one of the jotun and using Friends to convince them to clear out? 100% Nic. I have all the email and IM evidence to back that up. The only question was which of the giant forms Polymorph allowed and once Hal said we could take ogre and troll forms, we were golden. Rey came up with looking injured.

--that's funny, since there'd be no IMs or emails about this plan since we didn't come up with it 'till that morning when you asked about ogre forms. i admit it was mostly your plan, which is why you do most of the work (Friend spells, talking), but Rey still helped in the planning, and in coming up with solutions to problems as they popped up (it was Rey's idea to lie to the Jotens in the Killing Rooms that those above had decided to evacuate the mountain).

---Email sent by ET, 3/30/07 "The Friend spell may be a good one to use. Perhaps Nic can be polymorphed as an efreet and claim that the intruders found another lava pit and everyone needs to evacuate?" Y'know, you're right. Bears no resemblance to plan. Never mind. You might also want to avoid the IM with me, you and Dan that started at 10:58am on 3/30, staring shortly before the 11:15 mark where Dan and I discuss my idea at length, and the major question is which jotun Polymorph goes up to. Because, y'know, that also bears no resemblance to the plan that "we" spontaneously brainstormed that morning.

---you're right; no resemblance whatsoever :)

If you move the two paragraphs starting with "After Ivan's seventh retelling" down to after Nic removed the ladder, it'd be in chronological order. The party didn't fight the Umber Hulk until after Nic & Rey cleared out the killing rooms.

--except that the narrator doesn't get that part of the story until after the party reunites. he specifically says "While we were telling stories and fighting Umber Hulks, Reynaldo and Nicolae were talking to Jotens." the narrator uses the same device later when telling about Reynaldo's Mushroom Men adventure.

---ET: Y'know what? That sentence you quoted? Parses as saying that Umber Hulk fighting was happening at the same time as talking to jotun, when that specifically happened after. But hey, whatever.

When Nic went to investigate the end of the crustacean corridor, he was in Wraithform and then took Ogre form to cast another Friend spell (the spell affects only those within the area when it's cast). This gave him the maximum possible charisma of 25 and when he yelled that we were casting, a hill giant actually turned and ran. That was awesome.

--done

Also, one of the giant skeletons in the Killing Rooms was not turned by Edward, and JC was fighting it. I think he lost a mirror image to a back attack when he disengaged to cross the Rainbow bridge.

--done

In the lava room, the fungus on the disks was phosphorescent, not purple. Also, same paragraph - you refer to Nic as a she when he warns the party of the fire men climbing up the chains.

--i remember them being purple (Hal?), but the 'she' is done.

---Hal: ET is correct.

---done

I think it's notable that we took harpy forms to ferry people across. Not a lot of flying forms allow us to carry people.

--done

When we got into the room where we saw the succubus, she was actually in the room with Cain and came into the other room to fight us. And she only said, "We've got company."

--done, except for some artistic liberty

Nic polymorphed into a woman, not a little girl. Also, I dunno if you're taking artistic liberty, but Nic never came out and asked for Cain. He was warning them to leave the mountain and was trying to convince them that we were there to make sure they escaped. Since we were stalling for time, admitting that we were there for Cain would almost certainly start the fighting again.

--done

And Anna didn't just decide to attack. The succubus who'd been fighting JC started attacking again and called for her sisters to join in the fight. That's when Anna went into Cain's room and picked him up. Also, if she cast Dispel Evil, I missed it. I'm fairly sure the succubi weren't attacking after she picked up Cain because they were afraid of hitting Cain.

--done, however Anna totally cast Dispel Evil. it gave her a -9 AC against the succubi which is why they didn't hit her once.

The lava monster who flew up as we approached the lava room was the same lava imp again, but no longer blinded. You might want to make sure you refer to it accurately.

--done

I think JC actually managed to grab a chain and swing himself and Nic onto a disc.

--they didn't make onto the disc. JC just hung on the chain, with Nic strapped to him. had he tried to climb down, he probably would have been forced to make more DEX checks and then fallen.

--Hal? I remember JC specifically making a roll to land on a disc because JC seems unlikely to be strong enough to hold both of them while waiting for Anna to come back.

---the roll was for grabbing the chain. Hal was going to force JC into making a STR check to see if he could hold on to you, but we remembered you guys were tied together. but i can also wait for Hal to corroborate or tell me i'm stupid.

Also, you might want to call the "stone" the "red gem" instead. That's how you referred to it before.

--done, but Ivan can call it whatever he wants.

The ifrit outside the mountain also kept trying to find out what we had done. It's interesting that they had no idea why we went into the mountain. In fact, had it not been for our cover story to clear out the Killing Rooms, they might not've connected us to the volcano erupting early. Remember how ridiculous they thought it was that we could blow up the mountain at all?

--I don't remember that at all, could you elaborate?

tcm: but seriously, Ghosts Who Walk? what do we think?

Chris: I think there's no smoking in the skull cave...wait a second. You drowned a civilization of Myconids in a sea of lava? Myconids are so nice! Why don't you call yourselves the Legion of Douchebags? Or the International Goon Squad?

Noah: Hey, yeah! League of Extraordinary Douchebags has a pretty good ring to it!

tcm: yeah? fuck you, how about that? we offered them help. they turned us down. and frankly, "fate of the world" > "tribe of Myconids" every Goddamn time, so Myconids can suck it.

Hal: To be fair, if blame is being assigned for the massacre of the Myconids, it probably should not fall on the shoulders of the entire party.

tcm: To be fair, you dick, if blame is being assigned, then it should go to either a) the evil people or b) the Myconid King for, you know, turning us down. you can't save those who don't want to be saved. but my vote is for the evil people who were going to blow up the mountain anyway in six hours time and I'm gonna bet cold hard cash that they weren't going to even bother warning the Myconids, much less offering to take them out of the mountain like Rey did.

Kerry: It's nice to know that committing genocide in Kebnekaise is becoming a game tradition.

Chris: OK, fine, how about the Pre-emptive Hitlers? The Monsters We Are (Lest The Monsters We Became)? The Moral Equivocators?

tcm: Do you understand that we're in the middle of a war here with nothing less than the fate of the world at stake? And in the middle of a war (any war really, but especially the ones where the fate of the world is at stake) difficult decisions need to be made on the field of battle to ensure victory, and sometimes these decisions will cost civilian casualties. We measure success in two ways: 1) did we complete our mission objectives? and 2) how many casualties did we sustain, military or otherwise? I'm not going to insult your intelligence any further by explaining why we did what we did at this particular juncture, and why we think this was a success since I'm pretty sure you understand the rationale, whether you agree with it or not. Regardless, I hope Arben's never sent to make any tough decisions; God forbid some Finnish Baked Mushrooms get in the way of saving the world. And on a final note, quit riding me or I'm gonna morally equivocate you, you self-righteous ass.

Chris: The Collateral Damagers? I mean, come on, your offer to save the royal family? Myconids are one giant family. You're giving him Sophie's Choice.

tcm: okay, "The Collateral Damagers" is actually pretty good, but you're still riding me, boy. My original offer was for everybody (and it stayed that way even after he said there were thousands of them). He refused it, then Rey said royal family, and he declined that too. Rey didn't give him Sophie's anything. Rey flat out said we will try to save you, and he flat out said no thank you. That's it. You don't like it, then cast Speak With Dead on the charbroiled head of the Mushroom King (Princess Peach's father?) and berate him. Also, I could have given him no choice and written them all off as acceptable civilian casualties (which is ultimately what ended up happening anyway, but he made that choice for us).

Chris: Did you try telling them in advance so that they could have time mount a reasonable evacuation instead of spending their last moments futily scrambling for their lives, only to ultimately drown in a lake of fire?

Noah: Well, I have to speak in Adan's defense here -- the mushroom kingdom was in a very hard-to-reach section of the dungeon. We got there as fast as we could, and had we delayed the destruction of the mountain for even one round, Logi would have toasted the party.

Chris: According to the quest notes, God wanted the dungeon "totally clear". I hardly call an entire civilization left behind totally clear. I mean, I think propriety dictates that at the very least you go and inform them a few days before you plan on turning their ancestral homes into a burned out waste land of molten magma. Even the dialogue in the wiki goes like "god wants us to make sure we clear it out first" "well who's down there?" "Myconids and Cain" "Well, shit, we gotta get Cain out of there"