Out of Character discussion:

Mal will definitely hit the church first for healing and to beg for military aid, then she would likely seek out more sober military strength than Elmo. There is some sort of guark keep on the south edge of town, is there not?

I believe you’e referring to the (30) DOUBLE FIELDSTONE WALLS FILLED WITH EARTH: "Here are the beginnings of a smallish cas- tle, being built around a new tower atop the low mound. Workers have dug deep trench lines about ten feet wide and as deep, down to a hard clay. They seem to be in the process of mortaring the foundations of the wall to be built above. Work has barely begun, but the outlines of bastions, towers, a gatehouse and a keep can be noted. The keep is atop the second hillock, and considerable excavation has taken place. The earth from this digging has been used in the walls around the whole. Some dressed stone blocks are visible, but not similar to local stone."

And on the western side of the area is (31) TWO-STORIED TOWER: "This structure is some 55 feet tall, a smaller tower rising inside the greater at about 35 feet above the ground. Its entrance is accessible only by going up a curving flight of stone stairs which terminate in a landing about 10 feet above the ground. The outer door of the tower lowers to form a bridge to the stone land- ing. There are numbers of arrow slits around the tower, and it has a splay around the base to about 6 feet in height. The lower and upper battlements are machicolated, the merlons being pierced for archery as well. Two men-at-arms watch from its roof."

The laborers are basically building a wall around this tower, though to my knowledge none in the party have ever actually enquired as to the nature of the tower itself. You’ve always just passed it by and given it no heed, focusing on the ruins of the moathouse instead.

Yes I suppose I'm being meta in assuming any knowledge of the actual town garrison. I guess we will have to light a fire under Elmo's butt to get anything done, although I would like to run it up the ladder at the church first.

With Eltrezar considering taking a week to improve his spellbook, does that take the entire day each day? I assume it does, but it's worth asking. Most of our trips to the moathouse are over pretty quickly, so there's a lot of time leftover for scribing, but not entire days.

I suppose that I could allow for down time. We’d just decide how many hours on an evening the wizard is putting towards his studies and I’d keep a running total. I suppose as long as Eltrezar’s getting his regular rest, we can do that. Of course, as long as I have to start bookkeeping Eltrezar’s study hours, I feel its fair to track his resting hours and if he’s not getting enough sleep, there would be penalties as per R.a.W.

One thing to consider though, is that I sort of misspoke on Spugnoir’s offer of exchange. I had expected Eltrezar to level up this "session". Instead, he remains Level 1, and you can only have a limited number of spells in your spell book, and can’t add more until you gain a level. So right now, the wizard’s spell book is as full as it can get.
On the other hand, that might not be the case with Spugnoir, and Eltrezar can surmise that Spugnoir really wants to access your Magic Missile. There might be some room for bartering with him in other ways in the time being, or perhaps a rain check for him to make good on a deal with you later.

Also, just a thought, if we’re going to start tracking Eltrezar’s arcane off-hour time, one could argue that the man could use his free time and ability to write scrolls to maybe write some for any party members that are in need of scrolls.

I have a question for you, and I want an honest answer…

Rules as Written for writing scrolls is as follows:


This could technically be interpreted in a couple of ways:
1. It takes one week, AND 500gp per level of the spell.
2. It takes over week per level of the spell, AND 500gp per level of the spell.

One could argue for the former, in that a scroll is only so big, and can only take up so much space, and it generally just takes a week to write it all down in the arcane script.

One could make a argument for the latter, in that a higher level spell is more complicated, and its arcane words are more so as a result, and thus it takes longer to write out a spell onto a paper.

How would everyone like to interpret this? I’m open the fence either way. I think it’s intended to read in that a 3rd Level spell takes 3 weeks, in the true spirit of B/X. But I can also bend and agree that either way, a week is a really long time to wait for a single scroll, and a Mage would be advised to consider them rare, and can expect to have to rely on her other arcane talents or find other means of acquiring scrolls as her primary method if she wants them quickly.

It looks to me, due to the lack of a comma, that it would take weeks and gold calculations equal to the spell level. Especially since gold and time is multiplied for items with multiple uses.

Also, given that Spuignor wants something from me, Eltrezar will propose he helps with the Gnolls. Only needs to cast Sleep, then hide.

Part 10 is up. Tomorrow the wife and I will be travelling to Billings and back to pick our daughter up. She stayed with a teammate for a while after her Junior Nationals tournament. I'll probably check in a couple times today if possible, and then tomorrow probably not, or at least not until later tomorrow evening.

Just a heads up Thurig has 518.22 XP with his +5% bonus and his next level is at 2000 as he is a dwarf race fighter class (like Mal, separate race/class).

Good catch. I thought for some reason I got mixed up and forgot he was a Fighter. I had it in my head that he was a flat-dwarf. I even had the spreadsheet correct the first time and then "corrected it" this week.

As far as XP, I have him at 493.72 Does that sound right?

Ah, yes, I didn't realize you were adding our bonuses for us. Such time between awards that I'll probably make that mistake every time lol.

You never know. Up till now you've only been able to grab small handfuls of XP before the party has to flee back to safe haven. I have a feeling things are gonna start getting spicy in town, and with half the party having 10+ HP now, you might be able to stay out on adventures a bit longer before having to come back and rest. You might start actually pulling in some usable XP...

...Or you wind up biting off more than you can chew and get yourselves TPK'd with all your newfound confidence...

I guess time will tell.

I should hopefully have a post up this evening. I have Mal, Luban, and Thurig headed to the church. Gilly and Luban to the moneychanger's. Not sure about Ora.

Send her to the moneylender too!

How much money were we trying to collect for the church?

For hiring an acolyte to brew potions? 1000gp/month, to be paid on the 30th of each month. In addition to the sense of goodwill and personal satisfaction you would gain by contributing such a generous sum to the community (which I'm sure we can all agree is the greatest reward anyway), such a donation to the church every month would also allow the party to go from having 1d6 potions available for sale to the party each tenday at 40gp each (assuming your cleric is making the purchases), to having 2d6 potions available for sale each tenday at 20gp each.

Per the post dated September 21, 2021:

I’m gonna be out of contact tomorrow and the day after. My wife and daughters are headed to the mountains with friends for two day to harvest huckleberries from a secret spot we discovered a couple years back.
Probably won’t have cell service, let alone internet. But I should be home Monday night, so Tuesday the 9th at the latest.

Nice! Huckleberry pie!

Gang, I ended my hike early for a multitude of reasons (including a potential thunderstorm while stuck on an exposed ridgeline), so I'm back! I'll try to get up a post in a bit.