Campaign on Hold: Moving on from Air Temple

While we take a breather from the mind-heavy setting of Dereth, let's be sure we don't forget what exactly we're doing, just sort of keep this written down somewhere.

The last thing I remember is that we were going to instantly teleport to Holtburg, the means provided by the agent Aerfalle sent to collect Zeiss and bring him to us. Then, while we try to do some illegal tribe market unification along the way, we'll quickly buy up the rights to the mine at Marblebush for the Exchange with what I'm hoping is real Dereth currency that we do in fact have. Or we could use currency from the people backing the Exchange, since they would already have an interest in owning a Pyreal mine. Then we can have them start working on some Pyreal equipment, which will be pretty cool.

Then we go back to Holtburg via a different route, or a split route, one group going along the path we took to Marblebush to make sure things are going our way, or just observe. We'll port from Holtburg to Yaraq to fight in the arena in Danby, the idea of which brought Snarg to the verge of tears. Sadly my efforts to console him with camaraderie came up fruitless/ignored.
Nothing unusual here...Nightshade can't do that.

Next, we could hub jump to a temple we haven't been to, or skip right back to unifying the illegal market tribes and otherwise spurring and capitalizing on the efforts of the Exchange. Might be a another good stopping point, and we could roll the dice for the passage of time to see how long it takes the group to get things done, how much capital we make... As well as the skills of the people who work for us, etc. I know Kolson would love that. Me, not so much. One thing I'm looking forward to with the increasing numbers and talent is finding the ship we first acquired. I mean, we did name it. It'd be a shame if that name went to waste.

Fight at the arena? WHILE there is a war going on in Naverre with Aluvia? Huh.... NO.

As for Zeiss : he wants to go back to Holtburg and try to convince the other factions to join the Exchange. But first, he'll go to Janwall to figure out what happened to Sareth, his friend. He'll go there whether the rest of the group wants to follow him or not.

After that, he'll work with the Exchange.

I'd like to go to Janwall as well. See what happened to that captain I hired to get the ship. Never got the chance to follow up on that.

Since most people seems to be giving a certain point little to no priority, I'll play devil's advocate here and try to approach it from a D&D mechanical standpoint, as even the GM has been heavily hinting at it: raise in personal power is a must for the near future.

Two of the easiest ways of doing that is gearing up and leveling up. Which means we need to get gold, adventure, and get in combat situations more often, although the last is something our party tries their hardest to avoid. That is fine, but we need alternative sources of income for both exp and gold. The arena is overall a lower risk alternative to combat-to-the-death stuff, and we should make use of it.

Zeiss is already one level below the group, and should be one of those that enter the arena fight, not to mention stay together with the party.

I agree with leveling up and getting more gold.

But Zeiss is not going to this arena knowing that Aluvia is going to come attack Naverre very, very soon. I even doubt fighters will be present at the arena. They will most likely have been hired as mercenaries by the Naverre military. But if you guys really want to fight, the Undermarket faction in Janwall may prove worthy of our time. After all, they are responsible for putting bandits on the roads who demand gold to pass. And taking their place would help us get more gold, since Janwall is an important intersection for illegal goods.

Either way, if Sareth hasn't come back to Holtburg when we get there, Zeiss WILL go to Janwall to search for him. He is not the kind of person who would leave a friend in danger.

First, not sure the others would jump at the opportunity to extort gold from travelers-by or fight them for it. Sorry we aren't as hardcore.

Second, we can head to Janwall first and then to Marblebush through Irondell and Ritholme. Danby isn't going anywhere, and neither is that tournament by the looks of it. It's been a whole month since we saw it on the notice board, and apparently its still signing up competitors.

Thirdly, isn't your friend a PC? He'll be fine.

Oh GOD. I didn't mean we should take the Janwall faction place THEN force people to pay passage to us. I'm really sorry. I meant : we make them join us (willingly or not) then stop them from taking gold from travellers.

And going to Janwall to search for Sareth is not really my choice, but Zeiss'. It is a pain, but that's what he would do.

Well, shouldn't be fairly difficult. I guess we still need to check up on the faction led by the Centaur PC. Last I checked, they agreed to work with us, its this new faction that moved in, so we need to make sure our people are backed up, alive or dead.

So the plan is: 
1. Teleport to Holtburg
2. Go to Janwall for invading faction, check up on Centaur PC faction and crew sent to recover ship, find Sareth
3. Head through Irondell and Ritholme to Marblebush and procure the Pyreal mine
4. Go to Holtburg through untraveled faction territory and try to unify them, do various management/bookeeping tasks at Holtburg
5. Teleport to Yaraq and head to Danby for the arena tournament. Yes?

Although most of it looks good, I would greatly encourage visiting another temple very soon after getting the mine started.

We could book passage to the Fire Temple from Holtburg, there must be some sort of port for receiving pilgrims near it. The question raised in that regard is whether we book passage back to Holtburg or leg it to the nearest Hub town, which would be Rithwic.

Similarly, we could book passage to the Life Temple instead, Gwydo might like that. Then we could sail to Hebian-To, which would open up the option of exploring and taking jobs within that territory instead of fighting in the Danby arena.

We could take hub transit to Arwic, which is Fairy territory, and leg it to the Light Temple. That would depend on whether whether Javan objects, since we have OOC knowledge that he's sort of a social outcast in Arwic.

We could take hub transit to Zaikbal and leg it to the Water Temple, then take hub transit to Yaraq.

We could take hub transit to either Lin or Tou in Osteth, and leg it to the Dark Temple, and the same option for finding ourselves in Hebian-To applies here.

Similarly, we could take hub transit to Sawato or Shoushi in Sho and leg it to the Earth Temple. Same thing.

Whichever temple we choose to visit, we have to be prepared to travel to the temple and back, and have enough money(for everyone) for as many hub transits as we're prepared to take.

*drums fingers together, chuckling ominously*