Dash of the Missive: Part One

This week brought the team to the town of Otminster for the Dash of the Missive, a cross city race attracting runners from all over the land.

On the way into town, Jamlamin introduced a moral question to Corax, "If a hunter draws his bow and another steps into his path, is he a murderer?"

The team had differing opinions on the issue, which Jamlamin used to as a metaphor for his chaos magic. Corax was still convinced both men should be at fault, the hunter for not paying better attention and the man for not looking where he was going. Crag brought up that the man may have come from behind a tree, and they all stewed on that for a while.

When they reached Otminster, Quickroot chose to remain outside the town, preferring to spend time alone. "My mind is like my swamp, full of ruins, this town reminds me much of.. another," he said. The team agreed to participate in the race without him while he staid with the horses.

Corax entered the town with much fan fair. He signed up for the race declaring, "Corax, the hero of Blood Spot is here to register!"

The mayor, Sir Reginald, came to great the group and explain the race.

The Dash of the Missive goes across 5 routes: The rooftops of the wealth part of town, the streets of the magic district, Main Street, the poor district alleys, and the rooftops of the poor area. Each racer is given a message to deliver to the top of the tower at the end of the race. The race ends when the first racer finishes.

Our team was competing against a gnome, Gunzunda, who sets traps, a charming street performer, and elf, a guard, and a half-orc.

We began the race with Eglan and Lex facing Orc on Main Street, Jamlamin facing the Elf on the poor rooftops, Crag facing the Street Performer on the rich rooftops, Corax facing the Gnome on the poor streets, and the rich streets unchallenged by the guard.

Eglan maneuvered his way through the crowds at the beginning with ease using his acrobatics and charisma. He was caught in a cluster and couldn't squeeze through the thick rush of people, or push them apart, so he instead decided to jump over them. He made the rest of his way through by using his position as a religious figure to earn enough respect for people to move out of his way. He then reached the second area, the bridge, which was blocked by merchant carts. He did a hand spring over one, used his nature skills to spook the horses of another, but failed to charm the next merchant, and so decided to run along the banisters on the side of the bridge instead.

Corax was quickly confronted by 4 thugs. He used his magic to appear as Death to scare them, which put them off guard. He then used his street smarts to weave around them, trying to shame them for their bad behavior, causing one to run away as he escaped. Corax then reached the second stage, a river of filthy, polluted water, which proved to be a struggle as he took mouthfuls of the gross water. He tried to teleport, but failed, causing him to take on water and loose a turn.

Jamlamin jumped onto the roofs only to be attacked by pigeons. He decided to switch to the poor streets, where he ran into the thugs. He tried to intimidate them by acting crazy, but, they were not afraid and decided to try to rob him. He switched tactics and decided to pretend to be poor and gain their trust, he pushed it too far, however, by trying to turn them on the Elf instead and they attacked. He used thunder leap to escape and switched to Main Street bridge. He then used a combination of diplomacy and intimidation to make his way across the bridge. He made it to the Market Place by convincing the merchants he was an inspector.

Lex struggled to control the crowns on Main Street. She was held up for a long time trying to be heard over the crowds. She finally decided to switch to the wealthy streets around the magic district and used her teleportation ability with Dimension Door, giving her self an extra leap around the angry merchant blocking her path. The streets were filled with magical smoke, so she took ingredients from surrounding shops to fashion a gas mask to endure. She then reached the second stage of the race, the barges. She lied her way onto a boat by telling the man rowing it that she was guaranteed to win if he placed a bet on her. When he decided he couldn't take her any further, she summoned an image of Hongya from the sea to scare him out of the boat. She then began to struggle again failing to leap onto another boat and to intimidate a boatman.

Crag had an easy time of the hot roof on top of the rich houses until reaching then end, when the heat began to slow him. He eventually made his way across to the rigging over the water. He eventually became tired and decided to switch to the barges on the rich street route. He couldn't scare the initial boater, so he used an action point to jump on the boat anyway, and then began to intimidate his way across the barges.

This is where we left off, about half-way through the races.

Play Notes:

This was an nearly entirely skill based night, which was very interesting and required a lot of thought to strategy. Changing paths could cost one a turn of moving, but could prove particularly clever if one knew they had the skills to get through a different path. The race ended with Jamlamin on the lead, but, it's hard to say who the winner will be!