Do your kids check these forums? No, but at least my daughter knows and understands a lot of the adventure setting this leads into.
Your email re tonight's game actually helped quite a bit to answer a few of my questions about the particular situation
Maybe I'll post something. My questions will be of the following variety:
1) A general overview of their lands. Flora, fauna (e.g. Drakken, and whatever made the poisons), population, density, cities, languages, names, technology level etc.
The general overview is "dead desert lands". Meaning there is very little "alive". There are cacti, some grasses, etc... The dominant life forms are probably the insects. With reptiles being the second. The Drakken are up right bipedal Lizard like creatures that are ridden by the "little ones" who typically wield spears and sound as if they use them like Javelins.
The cities, there are none, inhabited by living creatures. Only the dead inhabit what remains of the old cities.
Technology level? Mostly subsistance, suplemented by their priests praying for food from the Gods. The "Rnagers of the Waste" know how to make weapons and armor. Their exceptional armor is made from the skins of the Drakken.
Populations are low. He figures his own people may number between one to two thousand, spread out all over the dead lands.
There is a city, hidden in among the mountains. With several towns or villages nearby. It is an area ruled by a great and evil being.
We have tried to kill him, but have stopped since our priests divined that the being is not our "Traitor King". We lost many trying to kill him.
A sense of their history and culture (leading to deeper questions about "why do you believe X", etc.)
Their whole culture has centered around finding and killing their "Traitor King" for just over 1,000 years now. Their religion, including their clerics, worships a deific power that is itself dedicated to killing the "Traitor King".
It doesn't sound like any Deific power you know of. It may be an "aspect" of one of the many gods of Vengeance you have heard tales of.
Their whole society is very focused on two things. Surviving and killing their "Traitor King". You have no doubt they are fanatics about this.
Info about Articus
"He was a wizard living in a tower in Dro Mandras. 9 of us died penetrating his tower and killing him. What more is there to say?"
2) specific information about these mage hunters, their organization, leaders, numbers, spread through the North, means of transportation, divination, which Church, what powers the church has, how do they communicate, weaknesses (I don't ask for weaknesses, I just note them when they are mentioned) etc.
He says, "You are a great friend, but I cannot tell you the secrets of my people."
a closer examination of how the smelling of magic works
"I only understand that it allows us to smell you like an animal smells its prey."
3) more info about the cities of the dead. Locations, contents, why full of the dead, and so on
Also, a rough hand drawn map of the region with cities, watering holes, Drakken hunting grounds ( ) prominently notated
"I cannot tell you much of such things. We are intentionally kept in separate "groupings". Most of our communication is via our Clerics magic.
The only time we meet is at neutral grounds decided upon by our clerics. This is primarily for the purpose of trading women.
I know there are 3 "Cities of the Dead" near my groups lands."
4) more info about how a mage turned a region to waste (the assassins probably do not know that, but do the sages I consult know how magic might "use up" a region?). How might this process be reversed?
"We do not know how the "Traitor King" drained our land, exactly. Our priests just know it was done channeling massive amounts of Negative Energy to to steal the energies of our land and were "trapped" within the body of the "Traitor King". We hope, we believe, that when we kill him the energies will be released, and restore life to our lands."
5) info about the unclean who are allowed to remain in the society. How, why, what role? Aren't they potentially the King? Do they do magic? what purpose
"The unclean do not remian in our society. They are outcast. The priests deal primarily with them. The rest of us shun them. They have been known to use their unclean magics to fight the Drakken and other enemies. It was attempts to try and earn their way back into our society. We cannot risk their contamination. We cannot allow them to breed and have more children born with the unclean magics in their soul.
The priests are known to argue every so often about it being a mistake to let them live as it is. The main reason they don't kill them is because they are born with the curse, so the priests cannot bring themselves to kill them."
(Think Sorcerors from 3E here.)
I will come up with some more specific stuff as the answers roll in! Hehe.
No, no need to produce 50 pages of info. Just a general gist on these issues, as well as allowing me to make "knowledge checks" when I want to see if I know something from down there. Such as:
What were drakken immune to again... (rolls knowledge check)...oh yeah, ice magic!
Remember, the interrogation target views me as his good friend (from the charm person), so no need for waterboarading techniques!
Also, I want to get a sense of how strongly they view "keeping one's word" without saying "do you ever lie?". If I get a sense they are very truthful, and rational, is there any possibility to try to show this assassin that he is mistaken about mages. That mages do not turn areas into a wasteland through magic (look at the lush lands of the north-full of spell casters) and there are relatively simple divinations that can figure out if a mage is lying when he says he is not the lost king. Someone powerful enough to avoid these divinations is certainly also powerful enough to avoid these pesky hit squads, so their quest is a pointless one.
" He realizes, and so do his people, that magic doesn't have to drain the land of its life, but was used to specifically do so. "We kill mages to prevent anymore to become powerful enough to do such things to other people in other parts of the world." So they are convinced that killing mages is for the greater good of the world."
"Our quest is not pointless. Our priests divinations have revealed that our swords, made with rituals that make them part of our land, will penetrate the "Traitor Kings" defenses, and kill him."
My idea was while he was charmed, go and buy a sleeping draught.
Have my "friend" drink it. Next morning, I load up with charms and sleep draughts and slowly over time try to convince him to abandon his quest.
So does my interrogation lead me to believe this is remotely possible, or impossible?[/quote]
Your pretty sure he is fully committed to the beliefs of his people.
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