Llyarden

Do we actually start with any Digimodify cards? It says everyone has a deck of 10, but I'm not sure what the rules for actually creating them are.

Also, semi-relatedly, how will it work if we pick an evolutionary path that involves Jogress Evolution? That would presumably necessitate us having the relevant card.

It's never been entirely clear where Tourna came from, predominantly because he can't actually talk, his communications being via the medium of various clicks, chirrups and other assorted noises and some very expressive tentacles. Some attempts at research have dated the runes carved across his body to being from centuries in the past, although actually translating them has proved challenging. Among the few scholars that have bothered to try, the common consensus is that they translate to things like 'Gordon Woz Ere' and similar mysterious statements.

Despite the mysteries surrounding him, the little blue golem has become something of a town mascot, and it can often be found pride of place in the local tavern, cooking with whatever ingredients people put too near its tentacles (whether they were intended to be used by Tourna or not) and its own arsenal of spices that seem to never run out.

Okay that's fine, I just wanted to check.

Okay this could potentially lead to a slightly weird mechanical interaction, so just to clarify - is Zella currently detecting magic?

I've noticed recently that if you put a spoiler in a post in a game, if it's close enough to the start of the post to show up in the snippet used in the 'what's new in this game' part of the overview, the spoiler gets completely stripped out and the text inside it added to the snippet as though it were anything else. Maybe it's just me, but personally I would rather the contents of spoilers not get included in snippets.

(It also rather confusingly prints the title of a spoiler immediately before its contents.)

16 hours ago, GralphidBlackstrip said:

The only downside is that depending on Llyarden's interpretation, it probably makes as much noise as combat does, so it might alert any residents that we're here.

Well there's not much interpreting needed, Magical Signs is very obvious.

Once you arrive at the town, there doesn't immediately seem to be any sign of a zombie apocalypse. Certainly, in the grand scheme of things, everything seems pretty normal. The four of you get some looks as you arrive, but no more than any small, fairly isolated settlement would give to strangers showing up in the evening, and there's no obvious sign of the PMC supposedly using the town as its base.

There's also no immediate sign of your quasi-contact, although it's a small enough place that it probably wouldn't be hard to find him...especially if he'd been raving about zombie apocalypses to the police. Word about something like that would most likely travel fast in a place like this, at least if you find the right people to ask.

Okay, we're back, sorry again for the delay. Long story short my father had an operation on Monday, and while the operation itself all went perfectly it stressed me out more than I was expecting.

The flagpole hasn't been cut down per se, but rather snapped, like a twig. It's difficult to know the exact cause, not least because there has been quite a lot of wear from age alone over the years...but it would have to be quite a strong wind to break a pole as thick as a person's leg.

Vance discovers no traps on the door, although the lock is remarkably good quality for how old it is - it would probably almost be easier to take the door apart! Nonetheless, he manages to get the door open, revealing a spiral staircase leading down.

Sorry for the delay. To be honest the whole 'site getting hacked' thing...kinda sapped my motivation a bit. IRL I have some family stuff going on this week and weekend, but I'll try to post next week assuming nothing goes wrong with that.

Sorry for the delay. To be honest the whole 'site getting hacked' thing...kinda sapped my motivation a bit. IRL I have some family stuff going on this week and weekend, but I'll try to post next week assuming nothing goes wrong with that.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet is tactics on the GM's side. Even given two identical encounters for two identical player parties using the same tactics, a GM's choices for the enemy actions can easily make the difference between PCs going down (or dying) or not - and I'm not meaning, like, Tucker's kobolds level of tactics. Simple things on the part of the DM like distributing attacks between the party instead of focusing on a single character can go a long way to keeping the PCs alive - or can go a long way to taking players down! It depends on the party composition and the GM's understanding of the PCs.

To answer the original question though, low-level PF1 can definitely have situations where PCs can get taken down in a couple of attacks (spellcasters who don't have enough spell slots for their defensive buffs are particularly prone to this) but routine TPKs aren't a thing in my experience.

The progress of the group up to the top of the cloister seems to go unmolested, and they land on the roof of the tower without incident. The area doesn't seem to get much use - about the only feature on it is what might once have been a flagpole (the White Doves did have a logo, and used the flag to show when they were open to petitions from the public), though, worn by age, it seems to have snapped in half at some point in the past.

There is a door down from the roof - a trapdoor, to be exact - although it is locked.

That was round about my plan, although I think I set up a Google sheet for a previous card casting character that would let me track cards and stuff (still rolling on here, obviously). Will have to see if I can dig it out.

Character Sheet

So Christmas being Christmas and all I wasn't really expecting any posts over the festive period, but I should probably check - is everyone still here?

The transport flight takes the better part of two hours. Your handler stays in the mirror the whole time - although to be fair, it's also possible that it's just an AI-generated image and he's actually just relaxing in a chair somewhere - but unless you have any questions for him, he doesn't say anything further.

November 1st, 1700UTC / 1800WAT

Eventually, the plane touches down in a flat area of ground - it's a bit of a bumpy landing, but clearly one the transport has been either designed or retrofitted to handle, because it taxis to a halt soon enough. "From here on, the mission is officially underway. You know how to reach us." Your handler pauses briefly to take another sip of his Starbucks (which is definitely evidence in favour of the 'AI-generated image' theory, since you haven't seen him top it up at any point during the flight even though he's probably drunk three cups' worth and almost certainly would've needed to go to the bathroom by this point). "Good luck, agents."

The jeep comes with GPS, so you know that you're about quarter of an hour's drive away from the town.

Are non-DDS sphere things (eg Veilweaving sphere, Dragoon class, Card Casting spherecasting drawback, talents like Earthswimmer, etc) allowed?

Sorry for the giant delay.

One thing I realised I forgot to ask for in the balancing thread - what special senses does everyone have?

The cafe down the street is indeed decent enough, although it's evidently still close enough to the cloister that the proprietor and patrons are clearly still cautious of it - and by extension, a little suspicious of a group of adventurers showing up out of nowhere.

Soon enough, night falls, leaving the cloister looking even more ominous than it had during the day. While Altea is never fully silent, not even at night, it's clear that anyone whose paths would take them past the cloister as the shortest route are giving an even wider berth around the cloister than the daytime pedestrians had. This does, of course, have the convenient side effect of leaving you seemingly completely unobserved.

As Adam had expected, he was indeed travelling alone to the Africa HQ, while the other three would, of course, end up travelling together. Zeta Force's planes had probably once upon a time been military jets before being coopted and upgraded (even Zeta Force would not easily be able to have a custom-designed jet plane made for them), so your journey is definitely faster than any commercial travel...although not necessarily as comfortable.

November 1st, 1530UTC

As you touch down and emerge from your respective planes - meeting in person for the first time in real life in the case of Adam with regards to the others - you are greeted and rapidly shuffled off to your next mode of transport; this one is a rather more normal-looking military transport, with an equally-ordinary-looking jeep loaded inside it. What looks like a full-length mirror is set up in front of the jeep, showing your handler - who has once again managed to acquire himself a Starbucks coffee. Or maybe he's just reusing the mug. It's hard to tell.

He doesn't say anything, giving a nod of response if any of you greet him, until the transport's loading door swings shut and you take off.

"The information you requested can be found on the tablets by your seats." He doesn't bother to specify that it isn't to be taken with you. "The person who reported the incident is Ivan Vlasic, a Croatian national who experienced the original incident while on holiday. While there were no issues with his debrief, he refused the offers of counselling that we sponsored and returned home, where he subsequently lost his job due to his stress and paranoia. He moved to Cameroon with the last of his savings and has been running a food truck in the town since. It's not clear why he chose the same continent to emigrate to that he experienced a zombie incident in. His call to the police came across as deranged rambling - at least to anyone who didn't know his history - so they dismissed his call. It's also unclear whether he was deliberately trying to warn us, either knowing or guessing that we monitor emergency calls, or if he was actually intending to contact the local constabulary and hoping to be believed."

The original incident that Vlasic had experienced, after a brief scan through the files, seems pretty normal - well, normal by the standards of an averted zombie apocalypse, which for y'all is indeed pretty normal. It happened in an isolated (and fairly upmarket) safari camp, so the spread of zombies was minimal; it probably also helped that the camp had a couple of rifles - tranquilisers are useless against zombies, of course, but they had guns that fired actual bullets as well. The zombies were wiped out once the Zeta Force team arrived, and the normal cleanup procedures swept the area, debriefed the half-dozen survivors, and erased all traces of their existence. 'Patient Zero' in that case was one of the guests, who had brought with them some drugs that had been contaminated by Zombie Toxin; given the time gap by the time Zeta Force were investigating, finding the source was impossible.

I'm here, but like Avaday I just have literally no inspiration for anything to do with Bubblegum for some reason. At this point over the past week I've probably spent a good couple of hours just staring at the post window trying to think of something to write.

Valros eventually roused himself from taking care of the little golden kitten - partly because his attention was drawn by the sudden flash of movement of a faerie dragon leaping from Killian's clothes and into the Korova Cream. Please don't get too drunk, little dragon, he pleaded - not intending to be 'heard' by anyone, although Valros wasn't really used enough to telepathy to be entirely sure that he'd avoided broadcasting his thoughts to the golden kitten.

He glanced over at Ariand as she introduced herself. "Uh, I'm Valros." Somehow his introduction felt even weaker than it had the first time around, what with Killian and Lucrezia amping up their own introductions, and so after an awkward moment of umming and ahhing he added "I, uh, think my grandpa is an honorary duke, or something? If that helps? It's not exactly royal, but..."

Having made a complete and utter hash of introducing himself, he blushed slightly (probably not too noticeable given his red skin, luckily for him) and latched onto the first topic of conversation that came to mind. "So, uh...why did you want to see Humbert?" The question was directed at Ariand, although Valros actually had no idea why any of the others were going there either.

Sorry, I missed the question about the time. I was originally envisaging it being kinda mid-morning, but for convenience sure I'll say it's three hours to sunset, another hour after that before it gets properly dark.

The handler looks away for a few moments, presumably giving instructions to someone who's next to him in real life, before looking back to you. "The information regarding the previous incident will be ready for you at the Africa HQ." You all know from past experience that the full information is almost certainly not going to be made available to you; even within Zeta Force itself, information is at a premium - although you've never been entirely clear on why they're so reluctant to tell you about other peoples' missions. "As for the PMC, if they interfere with the mission, do what is necessary to prevent that interference. If that means killing their soldiers, so be it, so long as you can do so without making the mission harder to complete. If they're stupid enough that they're actually responsible for this outbreak -" various private enterprises around the world have tried to modify or weaponise the Zombie Toxin at various points, usually thus becoming the source of a new outbreak Zeta Force have to fix "- ensure that the soldiers are either dealt with or available for interrogation when the cleanup teams move in. Hopefully, at least some of the soldiers will be opposed to what their higher-ups are doing, and you can treat them as you would any other combat-capable civilian." Zeta Force has a rather...loose...definition of 'civilian,' applying it to almost anyone who isn't a part of Zeta Force itself. "Those that aren't, apprehend them if possible, eliminate them if not."

"Obviously, the PMC can also be useful cover for you so long as you don't get caught by its actual members."