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ICon Pathfinder Kingmaker Stolen Land - Page 207

Game Master says...

Out of Character: Okay, let me clear a few details here. Caelum only managed to uncover the top corner of the stone trapdoor, noting a stone hinge. From afar it may look like a normal rock.

There are 3 sets of gates. The front 10-foot wide door opens outwards and is closed. Behind is a wooden portcullis. Then there's a wooden double door which is the only one that's open.

The bandits had been emptying their waste onto the hill and not directly into the water.

In Character: Keeping to the vegetated areas for cover, Archival detects no auras on the bottom perimeter of the barren hill. Will he check anything else like the handful of zombies still milling around, not yet reclaimed by the earth, or check the fort itself?

Neenah replies, translated by Arnisa "Unfortunately my powers work like a drip against stone or a river against a mountain. I can do it, but it will take some time. Kesten's ideas are probably better."

Yarrow adds, "I have other abilities, such as raising the level of water and creating a large rolling ball of water, but I can't imagine their use here. Also some limited magic to purify the body that I will keep only for those I trust.
"We have told you our abilities. It's up to you to use them."

Out of Character: I added a topographic map. Its contours measure 20 foot height increases. Bright green is 0-20, red is 80 feet and higher. Blue is water. But the colours do not indicate the true colours of the ground. The hills around have long grass, bushes and a few small trees.

As mentioned before the hill with the fort is devoid of plants except for thorns. On that hill the Grey circles are rocks and boulders large enough to cover you, some 5 feet in diameter, others up to 15 feet. The grey square in the southeast is the trapdoor.

In the fort itself, watchtowers are light brown with a faint outline, walkways are grey-brown, the palisade is the dark brown outer wall, the stone ruin is the dark grey inner wall, and the stone platform is the light grey. If you look really closely you will see stairs as a set of three lines. The path to the north is also marked.

For a distance reference, the fort is 100 feet deep.

Land Stolen Kingmaker Pathfinder ICon

The Second says...

Out of Character: Like the psychedelic colors.

In Character: Zork looks at the others, especially those that are rather silent and says, "Well… what do you think?

ICon Pathfinder Kingmaker Stolen Land Archive Pathfinder / D&D

"What if they saw a nice looking partially clad lady down by the river. Would they be interested in coming out to greet her by the water? I think that one of the fey have the ability to make suggestions. Maybe see if they can suggest to the bandits in the fort to open the gates and go see if she needs help."

Page 207 Land Stolen Kingmaker Pathfinder ICon

Game Master says...

"I suppose I could," Arnisa says. "When the morning comes around I can sit in the lake and shout for help. But it is too far for my magic to reach into the fort; I would have to rely on their greed or their lust to come closer at first. When they're by the lakeside I can convince them to come into the water. Perhaps then the bandits will come out to save their comrade?"

"Or I could walk along the path and get them to come out the front. Right now, with this moonlight, they might barely see somebody approaching. I can lure them out about 50 feet, but I can't be sure they will keep the gate open."

Out of Character: The colours were meant to be like a topographic map, I guess I should have picked more muted greens.
It's up to you to tell me your plan, with lots of detail, and we've been here almost a week but I don't want to rush you. Aericsteele, any ideas?

Land Stolen Kingmaker Pathfinder ICon

"I wonder how much food they have in the fort. We could always starve them out if the other suggestions don't work."

With having already used a spell, I don't want to risk exposing myself by moving closer.

Edited: Diarmadhim on 23rd May, 2016 - 12:51pm

ICon Pathfinder Kingmaker Stolen Land

"We need to draw them out if possible. Trying to take the fight to them will be hard. Frontal attack is out of the question and dealing with the undead will subject us to missile fire from above. Keeping them from being resupplied can be helpful but how long do we have to break in?"

ICon Pathfinder Kingmaker Stolen Land - Page 207

Ignoble says...

“Attempting to starve them out could take months, if not years depending on their supply level and I doubt we have that kind of time” Mykael says “Archival is there any chance you would be able to summon some sort of elemental inside the walls of the fort? We could try to draw as many of them out as possible using a diversion and then coordinate our attack on those outside of the fort to coincide with summoning elementals inside the fort. Use the boulders for cover on our approach.”

Mykael looks over the makeshift map and draws vague oval shape in the dirt to represent the areas where the zombies are. “Archival, you can’t summon within the walls maybe you could summon a fire elemental or something to distract the zombies here while the rest of us try to access the trap door. A direct assault on the gates is ill advised if you want my opinion, those things are designed to be death traps; even if they leave the gates open it would likely be to draw us into the kill zone that is the inner gate. We would likely have to contend with boiling oil being dropped on us while getting hit by arrows from both flanks. Then they’d close the gate behind us and trap us inside. I shudder to think on it…we would need to have control of that gate before we went through it.”.

ICon Pathfinder Kingmaker Stolen Land D&D / Pathfinder Archive - Page 207

Game Master says...

Kesten speaks on the point of the siege. "Larger cities and towns can have food and water supplies for up to a few years. With the numbers Tyg gave us, a single fort like that could last 20 weeks in theory, but it was also mentioned that they bring in large quantities of food.
"Say that they do organise themselves and sally out, what would we do then? They only need to come out and hold us off whenever they get other bandit groups coming in. The other bandits flank us, then get behind the Stag Lord's men and into the fort. They follow up with a retreat and, if the stories of their leader's cruelty are to be believed, they won't care for the lives of prisoners we capture. But we will care for those that we lose.
"We have to surprise them, if only so that Falgrim Sneeg doesn't evade me again. It's almost midsummer, but perhaps we can get lucky with bad weather. Can anyone here predict what will occur in the next few days?"

Kesten adds to the map in the dirt, "Mind you this other side of the fort is unknown. Caelum didn't travel that far. If they're not watching the hill apart from the path, they may have more traps or more zombies there."

Edited: iCon on 23rd May, 2016 - 3:48pm