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nimby
Nov 4, 2009

The pinnacle of cloud computing.



CobiWann posted:

No one on TANICUS is banging a plant.

Spread rumours the cult of Az does, then watch your GM come up with a half-orc army of Az loyalists.

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Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

CobiWann posted:

No one on TANICUS is banging a plant.

And just because you put the drat idea in my head I went to Literotica and did a search for "banging a plant." I think I just botched a Sanity check. drat you Splicer, you rodent centurion!
There are limits to my suspension of disbelief, and "humans have not had sex with [noun]" is where I draw the line.

Rodent Centurion would be a pretty good name change :raise:

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

nimby posted:

Spread rumours the cult of Az does, then watch your GM come up with a half-orc army of Az loyalists.
This can only be a good idea.

Ichabod Sexbeast
Dec 5, 2011

Giving 'em the old razzle-dazzle

Splicer posted:

Rodent Centurion would be a pretty good name change :raise:

....you're the rudderkin from the story, aren't you?

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

nimby posted:

Spread rumours the cult of Az does, then watch your GM come up with a half-orc army of Az loyalists.

"Skeever, I have an idea for a ballad..."

Eox
Jun 20, 2010

by Fluffdaddy

Yawgmoth posted:

Vampires are undead and thus immune to both disease and poison (which includes drugs). You need special not-diseases and not-poisons for that.

Everything else is not gonna get past that, but ghost rabies definitely affects undead and Giga Dysentery could probably give a golem the screaming shits after a few mutations

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Yawgmoth posted:

Vampires are undead and thus immune to both disease and poison (which includes drugs). You need special not-diseases and not-poisons for that.

If vampires were immune to disease, then they wouldn't be suffering from anemia. Checkmate.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Tunicate posted:

If vampires were immune to disease, then they wouldn't be suffering from anemia. Checkmate.
That's a condition, not a disease. :colbert:

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸
How quickly would the vampirism take hold? What's the progression? Is it just pick up coin *boom* vampire? Because if so, lot of apparent spontaneous human combustion gonna be happening.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


No idea, given that Vampirism in standard Pathfinder isn't actually a disease and doesn't work via the disease rules.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


senrath posted:

No idea, given that Vampirism in standard Pathfinder isn't actually a disease and doesn't work via the disease rules.

Well then the coins should do nothing, the whole vampire thing is a pointless red herring of a subplot.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


So I looked into things and the whole vampire thing did not happen how the AP presents it. The differences are:
  • The vampire has no interest in the boxes.
  • The boxes are single use items that pretty much anyone with Craft Wondrous Item can make, and all(?) the boxes in the AP already used up.
  • The vampire is interested in vampirism as a disease because he wants to cure his own vampirism.

Edit: Also, after making sure I wasn't missing something, I can say for certain that the boxes cannot, as written, spread vampirism.

senrath fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Mar 18, 2017

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Kwyndig posted:

Well then the coins should do nothing, the whole vampire thing is a pointless red herring of a subplot.
That's the best solution. After months of leveling and gearing up and wondering how much damage their cowardice/sense of self preservation has wrought they track the Vampire back down and confront him.
"How many Vampires have you made???"
"Oh, none."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, turns out I was completely wrong and vampirism isn't a disease after all. Wasted centuries on that."
"Oh. Well... Good. Sorry though."
"Thanks."
*awkward silence*
"Now I just use them to infect people with things before I drink them."
"Uhhh what :stare:"
"Makes them taste fizzy."

Freudian
Mar 23, 2011

I just had a very good 5e session.

So we're doing the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. Our party is raiding a cave occupied by a dragon cult, the two relevant notable figures of which are Langded Rosa (half-dragon champion, nearly killed our paladin with one hit in a one-on-one duel) and Mondarth (the cultist general, and apparently NOT A MAN - our last attempts to infiltrate the camp were rumbled when, having only heard the name, I referred to her as "he").

We follow the trail through the cave, dispatching cultists as we go, and find Mondarth's chamber just as she climbs down a hole once under a carpet. Everyone else is raring to go ahead and catch her, but my Rogue is on like 4HP and would rather hang back, rest up, and see what fun stuff is in the chamber - loot, intel, personal keepsakes to mock her with... well, I hit the jackpot there.

The rest of the party follows the tunnel into a large cavern - presumably the cult's main shrine - dominated by a huge statue of a five-head dragon. Arranged around the base are the entire elite of the cult, including Mondarth and Langded Rosa. Rosa challenges our paladin, Alexander, to a duel to the death, again - he can't exactly say no. But this time they're much more evenly matched. Rosa breaks his spear on Alexander's shield, and realises he might actually die in this fight. He pulls out the big guns, and prepares to use his lightning death attack - when a voice calls out "MONDARTH! ROSIE!"

And I begin to read out her love poetry.

quote:

Scales of beauty,
Breath of might,
Serving my duty
To bring the light

O how I love thee,
O how I crave,
Bless me, O Langded,
King of the Brave

Soon you will conquer,
Soon we will rule.
We will bring order,
Power most cruel.

We'll be together,
Close as we can,
Knowing each other
As woman and man.

The room is silent - Mondarth is turning fascinating shades of red - and Rosa whispers, "She wrote that for me?" He has not used his breath attack, and Alexander presses the opening and tips the fight in his favour - and with one swing takes off Rosa's head.

Mondarth and the gathered cultists look down at his corpse.

They look up at us.

They charge.

End session.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

senrath posted:

So I looked into things and the whole vampire thing did not happen how the AP presents it. The differences are:
  • The vampire has no interest in the boxes.
  • The boxes are single use items that pretty much anyone with Craft Wondrous Item can make, and all(?) the boxes in the AP already used up.
  • The vampire is interested in vampirism as a disease because he wants to cure his own vampirism.

Edit: Also, after making sure I wasn't missing something, I can say for certain that the boxes cannot, as written, spread vampirism.

Yeah, the Vampire's mostly there to be "A guy you can't really fight who can provide exposition" and maybe a deus ex machina for an optional plotpoint way down the road. (It's possible the Big Bad villain of the AP might become a vampire. Hey, didn't you know someone who was working on a cure for that?)

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
I have to ask...is the love poetry part of the canon adventure? If not, props to your DM for rolling with it!

NachtSieger
Apr 10, 2013


Freudian posted:

and with one swing takes off Rosa's head.

You dick. You should have waited a bit longer so it could have been Soap Operas & Dragons.

Freudian
Mar 23, 2011

CobiWann posted:

I have to ask...is the love poetry part of the canon adventure? If not, props to your DM for rolling with it!

He mentioned there was bad poetry about dragons*, probably as a joke (we've been speculating in-character for a little while about Mondarth and Rosa), and I told him I was keeping it for later. I didn't realise I was going to get such a good opportunity quite so soon.

*he may have said "bad dragon poetry" which is a WHOLE DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

So for the past couple of weeks now I've been playing in a D&D5 campaign based on the MtG setting of Ravnica. It's a slightly uneven experience at times due to the GM being relatively new at it but it has worked so far and everybody else is good on offering suggestions for improvement.

For those who don't know all that much about it, Ravnica is a plane where one giant massive city has spread across the entire thing and is essentially controlled by nine different guilds. Who all hate each other but can not really do much because of the magical guildpact that ensures that poo poo does not hit the fan with all out warfare.
So it's fantasy Coruscant with a heavy slavic influence.

The players:
Lukasz - Devarkin (Dark Elf) Rogue. Guildless and the most jaded in the group and has no real hesitation towards outright murder if needed. Has decided to take Anatta under his wing to train her, regardless if it's something she wants or not. Childhood friend of Iskra.

Anatta Nowak - Human Rogue, part of the Golgari Swarm guild. Has lived all her life in the undercity as part as one of the gangs that roam the sewers. Which has also led to her having a rather unwashed appearance.

Ember - Human Barbarian, part of the Gruul guild. A recent arrival to the city proper as members of the Gruul clan live in the ruined and reclaimed parts of it.

Zermat - Human Eldritch Knight fighter, part of the Rakdos guild. A weird and eccentric man, fitting for a guild that can be described as either murderhobos or murderclowns to a certain degree. Has a tendency to always wear a mask.

Iskra - Half-Elf Wizard. (My character) Guildless but was formerly part of the Izzet guild, aka the guild of mad scientists, before she left in disgust after having research and subsequent fame stolen from her. Known Lukasz for most of her life.

Anyway, the basic story so far is that the party is wanted by the Boros guild for somewhat unknown reasons after a man slipped Iskra a note before dying while in the middle of an open street during a festival. On this note was the symbol of one of the many Gruul clans, the Split-Eyes, living out in the rubble areas of the city.
But before we had much of a chance to explore that we were contacted by a nobleman who had tasked the one who died into investigate a string of gruesome murders across the city. And the clan on the note was somehow linked to this as well.

Skipping ahead a session or so the party sets out for a trip to the Rubblefield where this clan and their shaman that we were going to speak to lives.
During this trip a couple of things happened.

The first one was Lukasz almost managing to get murdered by an angry female boar after having found one of her kids trapped underneath a fallen statue while out hunting on his own and disposed of it. This happening as the rest of the party was chatting amicably with each other around a campfire, more or less oblivious to his plight.
During his second trip, this time alongside a pair of other Gruul barbarians that acted as our impromptou guides, he managed to prove himself a lot better until the point he had to skin their pray and failing that somewhat.

The second event happened during the last leg of our travel towards the barbarian camp. Turns out the Split-Eyes had a history with another clan we encountered during our trip and as payment for getting guided there we had to rescue a pair of kidnapped women. So Anatta, being the crafty rogue she is, thought that brewing up some paralytic poison could be helpful.

What started with a poor Nature roll from Ember at identifying a mushroom ended in hilarity as Anatta rolled really poorly (A nat 1 with a -2 penalty) while making the poison and managing to splash it over herself. Aside from swallowing some of as we. At which point she began screaming about imps crawling all over her and began screaming incoherently. Iskra quickly deduces that the mushroom in question was not poisonous but instead possessed hallucinogenic properties.

By now Anatta is flailing wildly on top of the giant packbeast that was our transportation and fighting against the others trying to hold her down so she didn't fall off. Iskra dispells the situation by casting sleep on the poor girl to calm her down, and manages not to knock out anyone else in the process. So the others tie her up with rope before she wakes up again, in the meantime Iskra figures out how to purge the poison out of Anatta by drinking salt water. Lukasz mixes a couple of tablespoons of salt into his waterskin, but after that comes the problem of making the girl drink it.

Roll20 logs posted:

Lukasz slowly pours the salted water, making sure to pour just enough so she can't spit it out.

Lukasz massages Annata's throat to make her swallow.

Anatta Nowak: "MMM-MMM-MMMFFF-AHHHH"

Lukasz slowly continues pouring.

Anatta Nowak can't do much more than writhe and buck weakly, her eyes rolling in terror.

The GM posted:

Resist as she might, the saltwater does its work. All that remains is to give the Golgari her first hair wash.


At the end of the session the GM saw fit to level us up (which I assume was almost incidental), so this was probably the first time I've had a character gain a level from someone getting their hair washed.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

CobiWann posted:

Stannis Grumgate, High Priest of Citira and warden of the prison of Catra’zal.”[/i]

Your GM has a gift for... I'm not sure whether to call it twisting the knife, or wiggling it playfully.

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

bbcisdabomb posted:

Holy poo poo what a wonderful dick move. I hope to one day be able do that sort of poo poo to players.

I love creative dick moves from badly phrased wishes. Or just unintended consequences of wishes.

I once ran a campaign where the players had just liberated a dragon hoard that included a wish. So they scoop up all the loot onto a patchwork of tapestries and wish it all back to their room at an inn several hundred miles away in a major city.

So with a *wop* of displaced air, a dense pile of coins and whatnot suddenly shifts to their room.

On the third floor.

Of course, because I thought it would be funny, the floor collapses, which sends the massive pile down a floor, which also collapses, landing the pile in the common room, crushing a dozen people under a mountain of gold.

Which then causes a riot as people scramble for handfuls of gold as the PCs try to fight them all off and figure out a way to protect it.

Of course the sudden surge of gold into the populace causes massive inflation that wrecks the economy...


It was gleeful madness.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


Perfectly sensible, honestly. A huge pile of gold is going to be very heavy. An adult red dragon, going by d&d rules, is probably going to have at least 700 pounds of gold. If it's got significant quantities of silver coins or is abnormally wealthy for its age I could see the treasure breaking half a ton in weight, and when combined with the weights of the adventurers your average floor is not going to be able to stand up to that suddenly slamming into it.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

Cooked Auto posted:

So for the past couple of weeks now I've been playing in a D&D5 campaign based on the MtG setting of Ravnica. It's a slightly uneven experience at times due to the GM being relatively new at it but it has worked so far and everybody else is good on offering suggestions for improvement.

For those who don't know all that much about it, Ravnica is a plane where one giant massive city has spread across the entire thing and is essentially controlled by nine different guilds. Who all hate each other but can not really do much because of the magical guildpact that ensures that poo poo does not hit the fan with all out warfare.
So it's fantasy Coruscant with a heavy slavic influence.

The players:
Lukasz - Devarkin (Dark Elf) Rogue. Guildless and the most jaded in the group and has no real hesitation towards outright murder if needed. Has decided to take Anatta under his wing to train her, regardless if it's something she wants or not. Childhood friend of Iskra.

Anatta Nowak - Human Rogue, part of the Golgari Swarm guild. Has lived all her life in the undercity as part as one of the gangs that roam the sewers. Which has also led to her having a rather unwashed appearance.

Ember - Human Barbarian, part of the Gruul guild. A recent arrival to the city proper as members of the Gruul clan live in the ruined and reclaimed parts of it.

Zermat - Human Eldritch Knight fighter, part of the Rakdos guild. A weird and eccentric man, fitting for a guild that can be described as either murderhobos or murderclowns to a certain degree. Has a tendency to always wear a mask.

Iskra - Half-Elf Wizard. (My character) Guildless but was formerly part of the Izzet guild, aka the guild of mad scientists, before she left in disgust after having research and subsequent fame stolen from her. Known Lukasz for most of her life.

Anyway, the basic story so far is that the party is wanted by the Boros guild for somewhat unknown reasons after a man slipped Iskra a note before dying while in the middle of an open street during a festival. On this note was the symbol of one of the many Gruul clans, the Split-Eyes, living out in the rubble areas of the city.
But before we had much of a chance to explore that we were contacted by a nobleman who had tasked the one who died into investigate a string of gruesome murders across the city. And the clan on the note was somehow linked to this as well.

Skipping ahead a session or so the party sets out for a trip to the Rubblefield where this clan and their shaman that we were going to speak to lives.
During this trip a couple of things happened.

The first one was Lukasz almost managing to get murdered by an angry female boar after having found one of her kids trapped underneath a fallen statue while out hunting on his own and disposed of it. This happening as the rest of the party was chatting amicably with each other around a campfire, more or less oblivious to his plight.
During his second trip, this time alongside a pair of other Gruul barbarians that acted as our impromptou guides, he managed to prove himself a lot better until the point he had to skin their pray and failing that somewhat.

The second event happened during the last leg of our travel towards the barbarian camp. Turns out the Split-Eyes had a history with another clan we encountered during our trip and as payment for getting guided there we had to rescue a pair of kidnapped women. So Anatta, being the crafty rogue she is, thought that brewing up some paralytic poison could be helpful.

What started with a poor Nature roll from Ember at identifying a mushroom ended in hilarity as Anatta rolled really poorly (A nat 1 with a -2 penalty) while making the poison and managing to splash it over herself. Aside from swallowing some of as we. At which point she began screaming about imps crawling all over her and began screaming incoherently. Iskra quickly deduces that the mushroom in question was not poisonous but instead possessed hallucinogenic properties.

By now Anatta is flailing wildly on top of the giant packbeast that was our transportation and fighting against the others trying to hold her down so she didn't fall off. Iskra dispells the situation by casting sleep on the poor girl to calm her down, and manages not to knock out anyone else in the process. So the others tie her up with rope before she wakes up again, in the meantime Iskra figures out how to purge the poison out of Anatta by drinking salt water. Lukasz mixes a couple of tablespoons of salt into his waterskin, but after that comes the problem of making the girl drink it.




At the end of the session the GM saw fit to level us up (which I assume was almost incidental), so this was probably the first time I've had a character gain a level from someone getting their hair washed.

:stare:

No amount of hairwashing is going to get all the poo poo and fungus out of that woman's hair. Golgari don't gently caress around with living in filth. The party's lucky she's humanoid and not a shambling fungus monster.

A friend of mine ran a short-lived Mage game set in Ravnica. (It was short-lived due to scheduling troubles :( ) He let us go hog-wild with the goofy races in the setting and gave use a suite of free Merit dots to build our racial traits. I played a Loxodon (humanoid elephant) who's suite gave him Large and natural 1L weapons for his tusks. He was an orphan that got abducted by the Rakdos and used as a pit fighter for decades before he was finally freed by a joint Boros/Azorius operation against the nightmare circus he was held in. The GM asked about his background and I described it as, "You know bear baiting? Ok, so Imagine that but the bear is sapient, and also an elephant instead of a bear." This is a man who has killed a lot of murder clowns over the years, just to stay alive. He joined the Azorius and swore his life to them for saving him. In the present, he was the Grizzled Old Veteran DetectiveTM.

Things got real interesting when one of the other PCs came in as a Rakdos street magician.

(For reference, the Azorius are Ravnica's lawyers, cops, and judges. They are led by a sphinx, and their colors are W/U. Boros are Ravnica's military, and they are W/R. I think they are led by... an angel? Yeah, that sounds right. Rakdos are R/B and their leader is a literal demon. Their purpose in the city are the "entertainers," which they take very seriously.)

And another PC was a shambling fungus monster from the Golgari. It was like interacting with something truly alien. It was cool as hell.

Decorus
Aug 26, 2015
I just found this thing I wrote* a few years ago, that I thought someone might find interesting.

It's an in-character epic poem/recap of the first adventure in a short campaign inspired by that Wrath of the Titans movie they made a few years ago. I played the bard, and decided early on that my buddy was going to be the hero of the story whether he wanted to or not. It was great fun, and D&D 4th worked pretty well to describe an aspiring "classical" hero.

*shamelessy stealing large parts from the Iliad


The feats of Kriktos posted:


Part I: The Stormcaller

Sing, O goddess, of the anger of Stormcaller son of Zeus, that brought countless ills upon the Achetonians. Many a brave soul did he send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did he yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so terrible was his thirst for revenge.

Yet his blight upon the land was fated to be short, for from the south a champion came, Kriktos of Sparta, and Kitanetos of Minos also. They had come by ship to the lands of the Achetonians, hastened on their path by the will of the Virgin Goddess, who was greatly angered by the Stormcallers demands of sacrifice.

"Sons of Acheton," Kriktos cried, "may the gods who dwell in Olympus strike me down if the Stormcaller not be slain by my hand and your homes be safe once more, before any sacrifice of your daughters need be done; in reverence to Diana, daughter of Zeus."

On this the rest of the Achetonians with one voice were for respecting the hero and rejoiced; but not so the old priest, who spoke fiercely to Kriktos and cautioned him. "Young warrior," said he, "let me not find you tarrying about our village, your stout spear and your sharp sword shall profit you nothing. You must seek the arms of the one who bested the Stormcaller in the days of my grandfater, for no mortal blade can slay the beast. So go, and do not tarry lest the Achetonians lose all hope."

Kriktos respected the old priest and followed his counsel. Not a word he spoke, but went, and Kitanetos also, by the shore of the sounding sea and sought the tomb of Blissos, the champion of old. "Hear me," he cried, "O hero of times past, that protected Acheton and all the lands of the Greeks with thy might, hear me oh thou of Elysium. The sons of Acheton have great need of a hero to deliver them, so Ares grant my prayer, and let me raise your arms against the Stormcaller once more." And the lost spirits of Blissos' tomb fell away before might of Kriktos of Sparta, and he claimed the spear of Blissos.

And so Kriktos and Kitanetos returned with great haste to the village Acheton, to raise the spear of Blissos against the Stormcaller and strike him down. But the sons of Acheton had lost heart and were set to send their daughter to the shrine of the Virgin Goddess as sacrifice to spare their land. Moved by Diana, Kriktos grew wrathful and vowed to go himself to the shrine and strike the Stormcaller down. And Kitanetos went also.

Thus all night long the young champion Kriktos and Kitanetos held vigil in the shrine of the goddess, and awaited the coming of the Stormcaller. At last the Stormcaller came, in the shape of a great argent wolf, to take the daughter of Acheton. But the two heroes fought him with sword and spear and great determination, until Stormcaller grew weak and Kriktos drove the spear of Blissos through the heart of the beast. And so Stormcaller son of Zeus was slain and his remains taken to Olympos by his father.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

senrath posted:

So I looked into things and the whole vampire thing did not happen how the AP presents it. The differences are:
  • The vampire has no interest in the boxes.
  • The boxes are single use items that pretty much anyone with Craft Wondrous Item can make, and all(?) the boxes in the AP already used up.
  • The vampire is interested in vampirism as a disease because he wants to cure his own vampirism.

Edit: Also, after making sure I wasn't missing something, I can say for certain that the boxes cannot, as written, spread vampirism.

Weird. Apparently we were just told that the vampire HAS to get one of the unused boxes, or the campaign derails completely. This may be because there are two versions of the adventure.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

Decorus posted:

I just found this thing I wrote* a few years ago, that I thought someone might find interesting.

It's an in-character epic poem/recap of the first adventure in a short campaign inspired by that Wrath of the Titans movie they made a few years ago. I played the bard, and decided early on that my buddy was going to be the hero of the story whether he wanted to or not. It was great fun, and D&D 4th worked pretty well to describe an aspiring "classical" hero.

*shamelessy stealing large parts from the Iliad

This is rad as hell. Every game I've played that had the players write their own postgame write-ups was better for it. It gets everyone to engage in the game more and think about what they're going to do next time. It's even better if the characters have writing gimmicks like this that fit with their characters and/or the setting. My write-ups for my droid character in an Edge of the Empire game was written like a program's log. I made up a bunch of programming :techno: that looked vaguely like programming language and wrote the log around that.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

hyphz posted:

Weird. Apparently we were just told that the vampire HAS to get one of the unused boxes, or the campaign derails completely. This may be because there are two versions of the adventure.

...Not in either version, no. Both versions, he wants a bribe of 1-2K GP to leave town and give you the prisoner he's holding (Who's the subject of a sidequest you may or may not have picked up), because he doesn't really want to be there and isn't a fan of the cult, he's just forced to work for them by the master vampire who created him. In the anniversary edition he -wants- one of the coffers to experiment with, but only demands it if the party attacks him and loses in exchange for their lives, and even if you give it to him, he buggers off to Ustalav with it. But it can't spread Vampirism, he just wants to test it to see how the coffer might interact with vampirism as part of curing it.

The only thing needed to keep the adventure on course is his notes on the disease, which is one of the plot coupons to develop a cure, and he'll leave those when he ditches town.

unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Mar 18, 2017

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

Railing Kill posted:

:stare:

No amount of hairwashing is going to get all the poo poo and fungus out of that woman's hair. Golgari don't gently caress around with living in filth. The party's lucky she's humanoid and not a shambling fungus monster.

I don't think we the players realized as much due to our relative inexperience with the setting itself.
Although at the same time, as pointed out by one of the other players after talking to a friend of his, technically the whole group would be at each other's throats for being mixed guilds and guildless so were not 100% keen on being absolutely correct.

Railing Kill posted:

Things got real interesting when one of the other PCs came in as a Rakdos street magician.

Funny enough that is pretty much what our Rakdos party member is, he's fluffed his sword summoning EK ability as a sword swallower act.

Railing Kill posted:

And another PC was a shambling fungus monster from the Golgari. It was like interacting with something truly alien. It was cool as hell.

Now that I know one of the players in my group would love because he has a tendency to go for mostly non-human or slightly off kilter character concepts.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

Cooked Auto posted:

Now that I know one of the players in my group would love because he has a tendency to go for mostly non-human or slightly off kilter character concepts.

Pretty much anything goes on Ravnica, as far as PC races are concerned. All the GM has to do is make up stat blocks for them, which isn't too hard in D&D. Off the top of my head, there's: elephants, lion-people, centaurs, fungus-people (called Corpse-Jacks), doppelgangers, sphinxes, blue alien looking dudes called Vedalken, angels, demons, giants/cyclopses, and basically every standard D&D race like elves and dwarves. Every guild is run by a different non-human race, to highlight how weird things can get:

Azorius (W/U): a sphinx
Boros (W/R): an angel
Golgari (G/B): a lich, I think? Maybe a corpse-jack though
Dimir (B/U): a shapeshifter
Izzet (R/U): a dragon
Rakdos (R/B): a demon
Gruul (G/R): a cyclops (whose name is Bobyrygmos, apparently the Greek word for "the sound of a grumbling stomach")
Simic (G/U): don't remember.... an elf, I think?
Orzhov (W/B): a ghost council of dead popes :spooky:
Selesenya: elf (...? Selesneya is like a plant commune that has all of the city's plants working on concert, so the actual head of the guild is the collective voice of the plants, just speaking through their chosen humanoid, who happens to be an elf woman. Think of it like the Borg and Locutus).

Oh, yeah. That reminds me. We had a mage that was a human who was another voice of the Selesneya collective. So he was also pretty alien because talking to him was like literally talking to a bunch of plants that had learned speech. It was also different enough from the corpse-jack, though. The Golgari saw all non-fungus beings as food, but he wanted to learn from them. Learning, to a fungus, meant growing, which meant eventually eating everything. He basically followed the rest of the party around and helped out with the tacit, creepy understanding that, "eventually you'll all die, and I will eat your bodies and grow strong." So he was always encouraging the party to take the most dangerous options, although he was also.... patient. Very, unnerving patient. He had little interest in the missions and basically wanted to see us all die. But he also wanted our enemies to die. So we were useful to him as long as other people were dying in our wake.

The Selesneya dude was not self-interested but more like an eco-terrorist. The Gruul usually fit that mold, but the Selesneya can also be that way when they're not being hippies. He had a sort of dualistic personality: he'd be serene and peaceful in one moment, and amorally violent like a natural disaster the next moment. Things would trigger it, but it wasn't a truly human motive so to the rest of us it was unpredictable. Both the Selesneya and Golgari characters were hosed up and awesome.

Meanwhile, my loxodon just wanted to solve mysteries and protect people. And yet he got stuck traveling around with these weirdos.

My backup character concept was an Orzhov sphinx con man.

Kibner
Oct 21, 2008

Acguy Supremacy
Had my first game of the recent HeroQuest: Glorantha game. Picked an adventure from the Pavis and Big Rubble collection that we could complete in an afternoon. It was called the Temple at Feroda.

I was the GM and my players loved the funny voice I used for the initial quest giver. It was a low pitched, warbly kind of voice for an excitable and proud cult leader. It just happened to also be a sentient 800lb catfish named GLURF.

He sent them to recover a long buried artifact from an ancient temple. The players ran into some baboons that negotiated doing the manual labor of digging up the temple in exchange for food.

When they recovered the artifact, the quickly found out it was haunted by the ghost of another giant fish. As long as their intents were pure, it was not a hostile ghost. Did not stop it from being super annoying, though.

It had a "feature" that as long as someone was touching the box containing the artifact, that person got to listen to constant and effusive praise for the river and being liberated from the temple. It would not shut up and you couldn't block it out as it was being shouted directly into your mind.

After the players returned the artifact to GLURF (they towed it behind their flat boat), the contents were finally revealed: a suit of scaly fish armor that GLURF quickly donned.

I love Glorantha. :allears:

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin
I read that as the Temple of Fedora at first. Which would not have been half as interesting. :allears:

Preechr
May 19, 2009

Proud member of the Pony-Brony Alliance for Obama as President

Dareon posted:

I read that as the Temple of Fedora at first. Which would not have been half as interesting. :allears:

Oh m'god.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
It wouldn't be completely out of character for some versions of Glorantha, which once featured in-game fiction where someone's membership in an obscure cult dedicated to the goddesses of Grime and Rinsing was a minor plot point.

(The Goddesses were named Bryllo and Smutch.)

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

unseenlibrarian posted:

...Not in either version, no. Both versions, he wants a bribe of 1-2K GP to leave town and give you the prisoner he's holding (Who's the subject of a sidequest you may or may not have picked up), because he doesn't really want to be there and isn't a fan of the cult, he's just forced to work for them by the master vampire who created him. In the anniversary edition he -wants- one of the coffers to experiment with, but only demands it if the party attacks him and loses in exchange for their lives, and even if you give it to him, he buggers off to Ustalav with it. But it can't spread Vampirism, he just wants to test it to see how the coffer might interact with vampirism as part of curing it.

The only thing needed to keep the adventure on course is his notes on the disease, which is one of the plot coupons to develop a cure, and he'll leave those when he ditches town.

Fair enough. While it's nice to know it's not a railroad, I think it's still a bit iffy though. Knowing what the coffers do, inferring that he wants to spread vampirism with them is reasonable. They have only his word otherwise and who's going to trust a vampire hanging out in a temple of disease who's too high level to succeed at a Sense Motive against? Another reason RPGs need a sincerity skill as well as bluff..

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!
You might think that walking in on a guy performing a ritual sacrifice would be cause for an initiative roll, but if you're in my game you would be very much incorrect.

My players :allears:

Falstaff
Apr 27, 2008

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

When last we left our heroes, they'd just escaped Aecofin's home of the destitute, homeless, and forgotten - Port Desolation, after the Apocalypse had arrived there. We decided we needed to make it to the capital of Swordhold to warn the world and maybe get some help in figuring out how to stop it.

In attendance during this session was:

-Sir Durnik, a penniless hedge knight sworn to the service of House Vastrid,
-Gwlitharyddeilen Serenaryngweilgïoedd (aka Sera), an elven etharch-in-training.
-Arzhul Dustroof, recently-graduated druid.
-Sana el-Amin, the spooky weather witch, first mate of the pirate junk the Dauntless Star, and Bra’Tel rebel.

We head upriver toward Swordhome with our group of survivors. It’s a journey of several weeks that will also take us through the town of Fiddlecrest, itself about two weeks away. We’re all frazzled and a bit shaken – none of us have seen anything before like what happened in Port Desolation. Still, we get several days of relative peace, and so far the Apocalypse seems contained to Port Desolation - at least, if the strange fog is spreading, we haven't seen any signs of it yet.

Arzhul is above deck watching the passing landscape as Sana weaves her weather magic to create winds favourable to ensuring the boat makes good time despite going against the river’s current. Arzhul notices a small logging camp next to an old grove of trees in the process of being cut down by a group of Bra’Tel soldiers with a war wagon (basically a steampunk tank.) At first he looks at the sight of the destructiveness of Bra’Tel ways with mere resigned sadness, then it occurs to him...

What are Bra’Tel soldiers doing in Aecofin? Particularly this far inland? We decide to stop and investigate.

Sana and Sera decide the direct approach is best, simply walking forward to greet the Bra’Tel. Dal “Coalbug” Kalir, the leader of the Bra’Tel war band, explains that they were sent here to fight the infestation in Port Desolation, and they’re taking the trees for fuel. Beyond that, he’s very cagey and refuses to provide much more information.

Of course, this just provokes more suspicion. If they’re here, how do they know about what happened at Port Desolation? Who sent them, and how did they know to send them? It seems like very fast turnaround for them to be here already.

While not forthcoming with answers, Dal Kalir is forthcoming with medical aid. “If you’ve come from there, you probably need to have our medics take a look at you.”

Between the panic and stress, it didn’t occur to us to check on our refugees. While some of us have medical training – Grumblin is a Khirurgeon, Arzhul is an herbalist, and Sera sings at wounds to make them close (loving elves) – none of us are particularly good at it. Sir Durnik does a quick survey of the refugees travelling with us, asking them if any of them need medical assistance.

Only one, an 18-year-old girl of minor noble birth named Kamilla, steps forward.

“It was fine at first, but it’s really starting to itch,” she explains as she removes a glove and rolls up the sleeve of her left arm – revealing a blackened mutation of twisted, cord-like flesh ending in a wicked, three-fingered claw. The mutation covers her entire forearm.

Well, that’s a thing.

Sir Durnik tries to put on a brave face for her sake, not overreacting so as not to worry her. Since Captain Leena (Sana’s sister) refuses to let any “Bra’Tel Imperialists” step aboard her ship, Sir Durnik takes Kamilla to the Bra’Tel’s medical tent – he tries to go into the tent with her, but they refuse him entry, so he stands guard outside instead. One thing becomes clear in the exchange – the Bra’Tel are VERY interested in Kamilla’s mutation.

Meanwhile, Sana takes the opportunity to explore the logging camp. She meets Gul Marib, something of an unofficial spokesman for the indentured servants in the war band. Mostly murderers and thieves punished for their crimes with their current status as grunt labour and front-line cannon-fodder in the event of fighting, none of them are particularly please with the situation they find themselves in, so Sana makes him a deal: He tells her everything he knows about Dal Kalir’s mission, and in exchange when the Dauntless Star shoves off in the middle of the night, he and his fellows can be on board. He agrees, but with one alteration: They shove off first, THEN he informs them of Coalbug’s plans.

Eventually, the surgeons emerge from the medical tent. They inform Captain Leena that the girl's arm needs to be amputated, but she's unwilling to consent to such a procedure. One surgeon explains, “We cannot operate without her consent or, lacking that, the consent of someone with authority over her. But it is IMPERATIVE we operate. In her present state, she’s highly contagious.”

“Contagious?” asks Sir Durnik. “Are you sure?”

“Well...” the surgeon says, “pretty sure. 70, 80 percent sure.” He looks to Captain Leena. “You’re the captain of the vessel, correct? You could consent on the girl’s behalf.”

Captain Leena begs off on the matter – she’s a pirate, not some foolish noble girl’s keeper, so she delegates the matter to Sana. Sana and Sir Durnik argue about the issue – Sana wants to amputate, Sir Durnik refuses to let it happen without consent from Kamilla herself. Arzhul, who was observing the entire time (and doesn’t trust any Bra’Tel, much less the word of the surgeons), suggests that a test might be in order to determine whether or not Kamilla is, indeed, contagious.

A Bra’Tel soldier finds a feral cat and brings it to Kamilla, who scratches it with her mutated arm. The cat is then placed in a cage, while Kamilla returns to the ship to wait for the results, reassuring everyone, “I really am feeling better, it barely itches anymore. No need to amputate anything, really!”

The sun passes below the horizon and the two groups break off to light campfires and make dinner. Arzhul, however, wants to know more about this contagion and how it progresses – he sneaks back into the Bra’Tel camp and steals the caged cat. Who knows how truthful the Bra’Tel would be about the matter, he wants to see the phenomenon for himself. Besides, he reasons, it’s important to understand how these unnatural mutations work in order to combat them.

Before he can leave the camp, he notices a trio of shadowy individuals (two humans and a lizardfolk) sneaking away from the Bra’Tel munitions tent. They just reach the river when a fiery explosion consumes the munitions tent and sets alight several other nearby structures. As chaos descends on the camp, Arzhul sneaks out, worried he might be blamed for sabotage in addition to the theft. Sir Durnik rushes to the Bra’Tel camp to organize the fire-fighting efforts, and manages to save most of it.

Arzhul sets up a secluded camp next to the river where he can observe the cat in peace. Sana and Sera notice him doing so and leave the ship to confront him – while his efforts to convince them that “no, this is a completely different mutating cat” fail, he does manage to convince them that he’s a more trustworthy keeper of the cat than the Bra’Tel surgeons.

During the night, one of the saboteurs makes contact with Arzhul – a human woman who greets him with a hand-signal telling him she is a fellow druid. She asks what the hell he’s doing, and he explains that he’s observing the progression of the cat's mutations, but she clarifies, “No, what are you doing with these Bra’Tel?”

As she explains, it seems that the Bra’Tel knew well in advance of the peace summit that something bad was going to happen in Aecofin. The Empire had stationed troops in secluded spots throughout the country so that they’d be ready to swoop in and fight whatever disaster occurred, thereby coming out as big heroes and gaining a massive advantage in dictating the terms of the ensuing peace. The druids of Aecofin object to their presence, as well as some other activities they’ve been getting up to. Of course, Aecofin has outlawed all religion so they aren't inclined to work with authorities on the matter, and instead druids in the country are under orders to harry them whenever their paths cross.

Arzhul tells her what he saw happen in Port Desolation, and that he suspects "These Bra'Tell will discover these enemies are not so easy to fight with sword and cannon..." This fills in a few blanks for the druids, who explain that they’ve heard tell of strange, twisted animals coming from that direction – ones that, she warns, sometimes explode on death, mutating other creatures in their wake. He thanks her for the warning, and she departs to continue her mission. He checks on the cat and, lo and behold, it has grown extra limbs – some of which are decidedly tentacly.

Back in the ship, Sir Durnik checks on Kamilla and discovers (despite her attempts to hide it) that the mutation now covers her entire arm and part of her jaw. This is now dire – a simple amputation is no longer sufficient. For her to survive the process, she will need a magical Bra’Tel prosthetic, and even that will grow impossible before long. He rushes Kamilla to the medical tent in the wee hours of the morning, grabbing a surgeon and imploring him to begin surgery immediately.

By the time Arzhul arrives at the medical tent the surgery is already underway. Still, late warning is better than none: Arzhul tells the surgeons that they should do whatever they can to keep Kamilla alive, otherwise there’s a chance she’ll explode and start an epidemic. No biggie.

The surgeons “thank” Arzhul for his warning by calling for some soldiers to take him in for questioning.

quote:

“Excuse me, but on what grounds?!” Arzhul demands.

“Suspicion of sabotage of munitions. And possibly cat-napping.”

“Oh, right. Those things that happened last night.”

Before noon, Kamilla has been saved with emergency amputations and prosthetics, and Arzhul has convinced his questioners that he really, truly had nothing to do with the munitions explosion. "Also, why would I steal a cat? I don't even like cats! More of a dog person, really."

Upon release, Arzhul returns to check on the cat, which seems to have finished mutating. Still small, but six-legged and bearing nasty-looking tentacles. Step one (observation) is finished, next step: dissection. Of course, this part of the plan is made more complicated by the fact that the cat might explode on death and infect a bunch of other stuff as a result. Since scratches can also spread the mutation, and Arzhul doesn't really want to create an epidemic here...

He calls a wolf and asks for its aid in clearing an area of small game. The wolf isn’t really interested, but does suggest that there’s a nearby cave with a crab monster that lives inside. Kill the crab and the cave should suffice as a site to dissect the cat.

Having little in the way of martial skills, Arzhul enlists the aid of Sir Durnik, who (with the wolf’s help) makes quick work of the horse-sized monster crab. The wolf takes a claw and departs, leaving the druid and the knight to their strange experiments.

quote:

"So, wait, you can talk to wolves?" asks Sir Durnik.

"Of course," Arzhul says, taking a meaningful puff on his pipe. "I *am* a druid."

"Can you talk to my horse?"

"Ah, no." Arzhul admits with a frown. "Never got hang of domestic horse dialect, to be honest."

Unfortunately, when they attempt to slay the cat (from a distance for safety’s sake), Sir Durnik’s arrow breaks the cage open and the cat flees deeper into the cave. Seeing the potential for things to escalate quickly, Arzhul guards the entrance of the cave while Sir Durnik returns to the ship to enlist Sana and Sara’s aid. Together, they begin an hour-long spelunk-hunt. In the end, the cat is dead, and Arzhul is finally able to dissect the remains.

Arzhul begins to piece together a vague idea of how the mutation progresses, but it’s just a beginning; he realizes he’s going to need to find larger specimens if he wants any usable information.

With that done, we have little reason to stay around the area any longer. Sana performs a ritual to summon a vicious flash storm; using the cover of the storm, she sneaks out Gul Marib and the other indentured servants, who join us on the junk as it shoves off.

Hours later, everyone is on the ship enjoying the crab cakes Arzhul cooked from the monster crab’s remains, and Sana finally gets an opportunity to question Gul Marib about the Bra’Tel’s presence. Gul Marib tells us some things we already knew thanks to the druid saboteurs, but also adds that the mutations are something that figures into the Bra’Tel plans somehow. They’ve been studying every specimen they can get their hands on (discovering that the corruption gets less contagious as it moves from secondary to tertiary, quaternary, etc. Hosts).

Gul Marib: "And that girl's arm? Once they removed it, they put it in a preservation tank. They're doing studies on it, apparently it's the largest mutation they've come across."

Sera: "*gasps* They're not... Looking to weaponize it, are they?"

Sana: "Of course they are. That's what the Bra'Tel Empire does."

Gul Marib also explains that the Bra’Tel have agents in Fiddlecrest, where they’re trying to steal something called the Fragment of Harz – an artifact relating to the ancient druidic circles of Aecofin, and a part of the fabled Tablet of Harz. Broken apart by the ancient druids because it was too dangerous to be left intact, this fragment is one of three pieces they hid across the face of Aecofin; this one was placed by the druids in a place called the Burrows, who enlisted the aid of kobolds in protecting the site with traps. If rebuilt, the Tablet is said to give great insight and knowledge “that has no place in the world.”

These days, the Burrows is one of the sites taken over by the Knights of the Sheathed Sword (one of the pre-eminent knightly orders of Aecofin), who jealously guard it against anyone who would seek to recover the fragment. The town of Fiddlecrest grew around the Knights’ camp.

Well, we were going through Fiddlecrest anyway...

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!


Good stuff, looking forward to the next part.

I'm hoping to get some Scion FATE in this Friday. With any luck, we get to kill Vecna before I shove him into a giant bong in order to steal his divinity.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
The "I don't speak horse" bit made me laugh. Good stuff as the_steve said!

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
Four things you need to know about today’s Tanicus update…

Arwin – The Wise Warrior, twin sister of Caradoc, embodies heroism, wisdom, and all the positive aspects of war. Patron god of the Neutral Good nation of the Kaeryn.

Caradoc – The Foul Destroyer, twin brother of Arwin, embodies conquest and battle, and all the negative aspects of war Patron god of the Lawful Evil nation of Korvis.

Fergus – The Master Craftsman, a jolly, fat, boisterous god who is friends with everyone, even Qord. Is considered a “bro” kind of god.

Seane – The Golden Orb, god of the Sun, considered to be the “head” of Tanicus’ pantheon, a warrior god for good and for ill.

****

When last we left our party, Sagan Pennywhistle had told us that the only way to get rid of the Revenant that had been haunting our healer Aeana was through the use of a ritual known only to the clergy of Citira, Goddess of Vengeance, to whom all Revenants hold allegiance to. Luckily for our party, the High Priest of Citira was in town – Stannis Grumgate, aka Varis’ uncle/maybe father. The last time Stannis and Varis had seen each other, it had been when Varis had discovered that his mother, who he thought was long dead, was instead recently dead after being imprisoned by Stannis for decades, and was being bound to this plane of existence because Stannis still loved her and refused to admit she loved my father instead.

As Tellisyn starts to get drunk, blaming herself for her Grandmother fooling out party and getting us to release Az, Cullus and Ksena volunteer to go visit Stannis to get the ritual. Ksena tries to get Varis to come along, but after the whole Plane Shift debacle Varis feels like getting drunk with Tellisyn. Ksena tells Varis that since he’s pledged himself to Riva the God of Fortune he should flip a coin and let fate decide if he should visit his uncle or not. Of course, this means the DM flips the coin…

So Varis, Ksena, and Cullus head to the Three Legged Mare, aka the Wonky Donkey, in the seedy section of town where Stannis is staying. Varis simply sits and stare at Stannis, sipping on an ale, as Ksena and Stannis discuss the ritual. It entails going back to the location where the Revenant initially died and performing a ritual that will pull the Revenant’s soul from wherever its physical body may be (in this case the body being part of a magical compass that can track our party through the Revenant always knowing where Aeana is), and either having the person who ‘created’ the Revenant beat it in one-on-one combat, destroying the soul in the process, or convincing it to give up its path of hate to allow its soul to pass on to its final reward. Any clergy of Citira known this ritual, including Stannis, and he was willing to give us the ritual…provide Varis comes back in one hour, alone, to pick it up.

An hour later, Ksena and Cullus loiter across the street (Ksena – ”Don’t give in to your anger.” Cullus – ”The groin is where to hit him.”) Varis head into the Three-Legged Mare where Stannis is waiting for him at a table. During a very tense conversation (”Son.” “Allegedly.” “Your mother never lied to me.” “I’m sure of that, uncle.”) Stannis reveals that he laid my mother’s body to rest soon after we left Catra’Zal. And that he had left Catra’Zal. And was no longer its Warden. And no longer the High Priest of Citira. “I turned my back on the Goddess of Vengeance. This…made her angry.” The reason he’s staying in the Three-Legged Donkey is because it’s right next to the temple of Myrthyn, the Goddess of Mercy. “I’ve made mistakes. Your mother died from her hunger strike a year before I raised her spirit. During that year, I wondered if I had done the right thing. I even tried to love another woman, but she just left one day and I know not the reason why. In my anger I bound your mother…and in my life, the two people I loved the most, my brother and your mother, I murdered in one way or another. And I do not wish for you to go down the same path I did. If you sought revenge against me for my actions, I would not blame you. Our fight would be…interesting. And my death would be well deserved.”

Varis considered his words. “I don’t seek vengeance against you. The past is something we can’t control. If…you’re trying to atone in our own fashion, even if it’s introspection and weighing your actions for when you finally die and your soul goes wherever is goes…killing you, were I able to do so, would be cutting you off from that path. I’d be interrupting your chance at whatever redemption you seek. What’s done is done. It’s how you live the rest of your life that matters, and even if I still hold anger and resentment against you, I hope you find the peace and solace that you seek.”

Stannis hands over the scroll. ”I wish you well. And tell Ksena I think her for the letters.”

“Letters?”

“Oh, she didn’t tell you? I was worried about you possibly turning down a darker path, based upon our interactions and your death and resurrection, so I asked her to send me updates and to do what she could to ensure you didn’t fall the same way I did.”

“Huh.”


So when Varis comes out of the Three-Legged Mare, looking like he’s been in a fight – skin covered in ash, hair on edge, smelling like ozone. Ksena rushes over as Varis falls to one knee, clutching at her sash. “Oh my God! I didn’t hear any explosions!” She begins to wipe off the ash, only for Varis to smile as the Minor Illusion and Prestidigitation fall off. “That’s for punching me in the face and writing to my uncle. Now we’re even.”

“You mean writing to your father.”

“Alleged!”


*****

Ksena ducks away to go meet up with Falinrae and Aeana while Varis and Cullus take a trip to Abeforth’s Apothecary. A few sessions back, Varis met Abeforth’s daughter Zoe during the hijacking of an airship. Zoe proceeded to blast Varis about how he took advantage of her father, as the discount he gave our party and the reduction in price on Varis’ robes were causing his ledgers to remain in the red. Varis felt horrible about this and decided that he could spare enough coin to make up for the price reduction on the robes.

As we approach the store, Varis and Cullus notice two simple things. Varis notices that there’s a huge shimmering, shifting, glowing sign in the window – ABEFORTH’S APOTHECARY, OFFICIAL SUPPLIER TO THE LIGHTNING LORD! Cullus notices that there are a gaggle of young teenagers across the street who have stopped to stare at Varis as he’s looking at the sign. Inside the store…

…there’s a merchandising table surrounded by kids all scrambling for the latest wave of Lightning Lord goods.

The Spellbooks of the Lightning Lord! Little wooden figures with a wand in each hand tipped with a little bit of copper that arc electricity between them! Robes! Scarves! Potion bottles!

Varis – “I…er…um…Cullus?”

Cullus – ”Dude, I know. How are we NOT getting a cut of this merchandising?!?

Abeforth eventually shoos every one and greets Varis warming. “Varis my boy! You’re looking well! And alive! Robes serving you well?”

Varis - ”Yes…what is all of this?”

Abeforth – “Merchandising! I’ve made enough money off of Lighting Lord sales to open up TWO new franchises! Some bard sang a song called ‘The Ballad of the Lightning Lord’ a few weeks ago and it caught on like wildfire! I can’t keep up with demand!”

Varis – ”I met your daughter Zoe a few days ago…she said you were starving and about to go out of business!”

Abeforth –“Oh, she does that to everyone I make a deal with. She’s just trying to get their measure and make sure they’re good people who aren’t taking advantage of me!

Varis – ”Ah. Well, I’m going to apologize. I kind of…treated her poorly.”

Abeforth – ”That’s not good. Did you know she’s the head of the Enchanting School with the Cabalists?”

Meanwhile Cullis is dealing with the kids across the street who are all doing anything they can to get a peek at the Lightning Lord – including charging 25 gold for the right to ask him two questions. He meant it as a joke…until the daughter of the Count of Highspire pays him 200 gold for her and seven friends to ask him questions. “And…does Varis do personal appearances?”

Cullus – ”A thousand gold an hour!”

Long story short, if Tanicus is still around in a year, Varis is going to be paid 2000 gold to be the entertainment at the “Sweet 16” birthday party daughter of the Count of Highspire.

*****

So as Varis and Cullus join Tellisyn in getting absolutely hammered, and Skeever stays hiding in our room at the inn because he doesn’t want any of the gods to see him and ask him “what have you done,” Ksena, Falinerae, and Aeana go to the Temple of the Tri-Fold God. It was the first temple ever raised in Highspire to the “God of Nature” before people realized that the people realized that instead of worshipping one god with three faces, they were really worshipping three gods - Bile (the Wolf of Winter), Emanyn (the Wave Master), and Dyanae (the Storm Queen). The temple is a three-sided pyramid – one in perpetual winter, one in perpetual bloom, and one a beach with waves always crashing on shore. As the trio go inside, they notice that the temple guardians…are a bit off. The clerics are off staring into space, the paladins have their swords drawn and appear on edge, and the rangers have their bows drawn (not notched) with their animals looking like they’re ready to rip someone’s head off or curl up and die.

Aeana goed to Dyanae’s section and climbs the tallest tree in the temple. At the top is a squirrel, who communicates with her that Dyanae has stopped talking to the animals. Her presence can’t be felt by any of her favored creatures, and as a result domesticated animals, including the temple guardians, are starting to resort to a more primal state.

Kseana goes to Emanyn’s section where the waves are…lapping against the shore weakly, almost like the ocean was just flicking water against the sand. As she arrives however, all the monks and supplicants in the temple kneel before her, and the head of the temple calls her “The Swan Queen.” Apparently the monks of Emanyn are losing their powers, but Emanyn appeared to the temple head and told him that Ksena is her Avatar on Tanicus and what she says goes. She tells them their job is to help the followers of any gods who fall, as it’s important that we all pull together. Falinrae is doing the same thing, explaining what happened with Az to the head of the Chalice Knights, Arwin’s order of paladins, that they need to gather up Tulani’s followers, get them out of their funk, and get them ready for the fight that’s coming. As well as gather of Tulani’s holy artifacts, relics, and to protect the High Priest of Tulani, who along with Falinrae holds the other portion of the Godspark. The head of the order agrees to do so, although he warns Falinrae that Arwin has fallen silent in recent days and she may change their orders once she’s back in contact with them.

”You’ve come to ask Arwin’s help in assisting Tulani. Have you sent anyone else to talk to the followers of any of the other gods?”

*****

Meanwhile, Varis, Tellisyn and Cullus have been getting smashed on high end whiskey…

Varis – “Come on Tellisyn…it’s not YOUR fault…”

Tellisyn – “I should have seen Grandmother coming. I thought I wasn’t playing into her hands, but instead I played right into her hands…

Varis – ”NONE of us saw it coming…come on, let’s have another drink. Falinrae and the others will be back from the temple soon enough…

Pause.

Varis – ”Tellisyn, I have an idea.”

Tellisyn – ”Yes?”

Varis – ”The others went to tell the clergy about what’s happening with their gods.”

Tellisyn – ”And?”

Varis – ”Did anyone go to tell Fergus?

Pause.

Tellisyn – ”I don’t think so!”

Varis – ”And if we’re going to drink ourselves blind, shouldn’t it be on the GOOD stuff while we’re doing our duty to tell Fergus what’s happening?”

Pause.

Tellisyn – ”A barrel of whiskey to go!”

Fergus’ temple consists of two buildings. One is a foundry, and without the voice of Fergus to guide them the craftsmen are working overtime making implements of war. The other is a distillery, and without the voice of Fergus to guide them the brewers are working overtime making beer. We’re welcomed with open arms and given a lesson in the history of Fergus’ most holy object – Alistar’s Stein of Neverending Ale.

quote:

”So Alistar is wandering through the desert dying of thirst. He stumbles across a wrecked caravan and find a magical lamp, which contained a genie. The genie is glad to be rescued and offers Alistar three wishes. Alistar thinks and wishes for a mug filled with ale that, one emptied, would refill with fresh, cold ale. The genie easily grants this wish, and Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

The mug empties, and as Alistar watches, refills itself with ale. With a smile on his face, Alistar eagerly chugs the ale to quench his thirst.

This pattern repeated itself. The genie is watching helplessly, still bound to the lamp, as Alistar drinks yet again from the mug. “Come on, I have places in the City of Brass to be! What are your other two wishes?”

“After finishing the mug, Alistar smiled at the genie. ‘This thing is great! I want TWO more just like it!”

So eventually after fifteen minutes of small talk/drinking, we drop the bombshell that Az is back. The entire temple gets quiet, the only sound the bubbling of distillation, until the Master Brewer speaks.

”So the war’s begun?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“THE WAR’S BEGUN! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!”


As we watched, the brewers all ran to the walls, pulled down their warhammers, threw on their breastplates, drank EVEN more, and then ran off into the darkness screaming about how the war has finally come and it’s time to tear Az a new one.

And then they come running back in. “We don’t know who to fight yet, so we’re gonna keep drinking until we do!”

*****

The next morning, it’s Varis who wakes up without the hangover, but everyone gets woken up by the bells and the sound of people running through the streets calling for a fire brigade.



Above the city, over 30 angels of the Burning Host have appeared, and they’re dive bombing the city lighting it on fire. Luckily, we had Bubbles to quickly put out the houses while the party made quick work of the Burning Host (the DM couldn’t roll a save to save his life), but the message was obvious – we need to get our butts in gear and head south to retrieve Az’s artifact from the swamp. As we left Highspire that afternoon and travelled well into the night, we could see that it wasn’t just Highspire that had been attacked. The countryside was on fire too, and even as we slept we could see the glow of fires on the horizon. The burning of Tanicus had begun.

*****

Varis and Cullus are sleeping peacefully, but at the same moment Skeever, Ksena, Falinrae, Tellisyn, and Aeana all wake up in a cold sweat. They feel like something really really BAD had just happened, but they can’t figure out what it is for the life of them, until Skeever tries to contact his god, Hllal, the Draconic God of Humor and Muses, and gets nothing in return. Ksena tries to do the same thing but has no luck in doing so. Aeana tries to contact Dyanae and manages to have a breakthrough. Skeever and Ksena tried to contact Hllal and Ksena in their home plane, but Aeana was just looking for Dyanae…who is all around Aeana, almost smothering her with her presence. Everyone else soon discovers that they can indeed sense their patron deities all around them, and after some Religion checks and a few more attempts to contact the gods, we figure out what happened thanks to visions, signs, and portents.

Az’s plan is to kill all the gods to take control of their individual portfolios. Once he did that, he’d have control of all Creation here on Tanicus and from there he and Grandmother could branch out into the rest of reality, slowly wiping the planes one planet/timeline/branch of reality at a time. The best way to do that would be to assault the gods on their home turf, the plane of Aeden, the largest of the outer planes of Tanicus and the home of all the gods. Az planned to gather a large enough army and gather his artifacts and do nothing less than wage war on “Heaven” itself.

Seane, as the most powerful and leader of the gods, had other ideas. Seane is the Warrior of the Sun. He would not sit around and wait for Az to come to him. He was going to go to Az. And the rest of the gods were coming with him whether they liked it or not.

So Seane proceed to kick the gods out of Heaven. No one was going to hide in safety and comfort. The gods were going to fight for their existence. And they were going to do it on Tanicus, where they would face Az alongside their worshippers and followers. No running, no hiding, no cowering.

Except…they all left their Godsparks behind. Even Seane. He ripped out their divine powers, locked the doors, and threw away the key. If Az wants divine power, then according to Seane he’s going to have to earn it through iron and blood.

Heaven is empty, and all the gods are here.

*****

We get to where Septimus died – the border between Kaeryn and Korvis. A bridge spans the deep and fast-moving river, guarded on one side by a Kaeryn keep that’s packed to the brim with soldiers. The keep on the other side, the Korvin keep, appears to be empty. But there’s no time to send a scouting party to see what the Korvins are up to. The keep commander (as well as Kirwin Icemantle, a warrior cleric of Arwin that we sprung from Catra’zal) have received reports that the Wilderlands are on fire because of a host of angels lighting up the place.

Varis draws the ritual circle, Aeana steps inside, spills a bit of her blood…and as the wind howls, Septimus’ soul appears in front of her. It’s his soul, so he can’t harm her, but because of the ritual he can only interact with Aeana, and vice versa. However…Septimus has brought friends. Angry friends.



Three Burning Wraiths, each one with the soul of Tellysin’s cousins that the party has slain. And…once again, our DM’s dice failed him as we simply curbstomped her cousins a second time so badly, by the end of the fight Tellisyn had a genuine smile on her face.

Aeana meanwhile is talking to Septimus. The reason for his rage and vengeance against Aeana is because she robbed him of seeing his wife and child, a child he’d never seen because he had joined the Kaeryn army to provide a better life for them once he found out his wife was pregnant. He had given up a life of seedy dealings and working with the underworld in order to go legit and in the process found himself dead at the hands of an adventurer, and that if he had stayed with a life of crime he would still be alive with a child in his arms. He made Aeana swear to provide for his wife and child – not sending them gold and being down with it, but making sure they’re physically OK - their home isn’t falling apart, his criminal friends aren’t taking advantage, and so on. Aeana agrees because she’s truly and deeply sorry – she explains how she can’t sleep at night, she’s been holding back in combat, and she’s just as afraid of losing her friends and family. Septimus agrees with her, and his soul solely dissipates into the air…but not before Aeana can give him a hug and apologize profusely.

*****

No rest for the wicked though…

As soon as we collected Aeana and headed back into the keep to rest until morning, the High Priest of Arwin suddenly explodes in a halo of white light. As her mouth hangs open and unmoving, a female voice that radiates command and respect speaks out.

”He comes. He leads the armies of Korvis. He comes to kill me. Prepare Kaeryn for war.

Caradoc is coming.

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Decorus
Aug 26, 2015

Railing Kill posted:

This is rad as hell. Every game I've played that had the players write their own postgame write-ups was better for it. It gets everyone to engage in the game more and think about what they're going to do next time. It's even better if the characters have writing gimmicks like this that fit with their characters and/or the setting. My write-ups for my droid character in an Edge of the Empire game was written like a program's log. I made up a bunch of programming :techno: that looked vaguely like programming language and wrote the log around that.

Thanks! The fake droid logs sound pretty sweet too, I'm sure they came in handy if you needed to reboot after being hacked or something.

I agree that it really helps to engage with the game, when you have these stories to carry the greater tale forward. Also, since I was playing an actual bard I wanted to have something I could actually quote if needed. I'm not that good at improvising epic tales of glory, and leaving that sort of thing to a dice roll is a bit lame.

The other participants really weren't doing any sort of postgame writeups, this was primarily for pure art.

The campaign petered out after the fourth adventure, which was a shame. It's still one of my most favourite ones to date, in large parts duee to the effort I made in playing a "proper" storytelling bard.

I wrote* up the tale of the second adventure as well, but since I'm a talentless hack it's nowhere near as good as the first one. Read it at your own peril.

*shamefully stole much of it from the Iliad (but not enough to make it good)

The Feats of Kriktos posted:

Part II: The Tale of two Kings

And so it was that on their journey from Aketon to Narcsos, the hero Kriktos of Sparta and Kitanetos of Minos came upon a warrior travelling on the road. The warrior, knowing who the hero before him was, said, "Hail son of Sparta, hail and well met! Servants of Ares, I am Stentor of the City on the Cliff, seeking fortune with the strength of my arms."

Kriktos answered, "In chance meetings such as this is the will of the gods revealed. Join us, valiant Stentor, and let us seek fortune for us all!"

Thus through the livelong day beyond the going down of the sun they feasted, and every one had his full share, so that all were satisfied. Kitanetos lifted up his voice in song, singing of their deeds. And long after the sun's glorious light had faded, and the moon stood high in the sky, they finally rested and slept.

Upon the third day of their travels the hero Kriktos of Sparta and his companions beheld the city of Narcsos, by the river Panagia. Within the city the men of the kings Efistoles of Arcos and Perseos of Hameiklon made war upon one another, each blaming the other for the unrest. The son of Sparta was furious, and the heart within his shaggy breast was divided whether to draw his sword, push the others aside, and kill the men of the two kings, or to restrain himself and check his anger. But he stayed his hand on the silver hilt of his sword, and thrust it back into the scabbard. Hearing of his arrival, heralds of both kings came to Kriktos and bid him raise his sword under their banners. But Kriktos brooded silently, while Stentor and Kitanetos turned the heralds away.

At last Keihios of Narcsos, councilman of the city, came to speak with the silent hero: "Most noble son of Sparta, champion of Acheton, how shall the Narcsosians survive this strife? Our crops rot in the fields, and we have no common store from which to feed us all.. The kings both claim that the other has stolen his child; we cannot stop their men from destroying our farms as they quarrel with one another. Find this girl Persephone and this boy Aristoteles, therefore, and if Zeus grants us our prayers, bring peace to this land."

And Kriktos was moved by the words of the old man and answered, "I will go and find this son and daughter; and he to whomsoever I may come shall rue my coming."

Now the other armed warriors of the city slept soundly, but Kriktos of Sparta was wakeful, for he was thinking how to end the feuding of the two kings, and bring peace to Narcsos. In the end he deemed it would be best to speak with Deimos of Hameiklon; so he went to the camp of Hameiklon and said, "Lies surround us, it is time for their ending!"

The warriors of Hameiklon came instantly under arms upon seeing the giant Kriktos walking among them. And Kriktos of Sparta, and his companions, fell upon the warriors of Hameiklon and bested them in combat.

The hero then sought Deimos, captain of Hameiklon whom Perseos honoured above all of his councilors, and found him in his tent, wrapped in a profound slumber. Deimos saw only his death before him, and answered truly, telling him of the spy that had brought him the tidings of Persephones disappearance.

The hero Kriktos now wended his way to the tavern of Pysios and challenged the worm Klydos where he slept. And Kriktos said: "I bid you tell me all you know of the taking of Persephone, daughter of Perseos and Aristoteles, son of Efistoles. There can be no longer divided counsels among the kings; Astraea, goddess of justice, has brought me to her own mind, and at my hands will this strife be ended. Remember this, and you may yet see mercy."

And Klydos the worm grew fearful and spoke to Kriktos of the secret temple to some unclean god where the children of the two kings were taken. And he also gave to the hero Kriktos a parchment carrying the sigil of the winged lion.

When they were assembled outside the chamber of Klydos the hero Kriktos laid a cunning counsel before his companions. "My friends," said he, "Let us tarry no longer. We will fly like an arrow in the dark to the temple of this dark cult, so make ready to go at once." And so Kriktos of Sparta, Stentor the Loud and Kitanetos of Minos set to hasten into the dark night, to travel to the lair of their foes. The men of Narcsos, fearfully guarding their gates, agreed to grant them passage.

So did the hero Kriktos of Sparta, and his companions, travel into the wilderness at great haste, until they came upon the cave where the evil cult resided, deep in the earth. And they fought the great spiders that guarded the cave, and Kriktos vanquished the priestess of the cult by her tainted altar. Finally he came upon the dark lair of the ancient monster that the cult revered, and found within it the son of Efistoles and the daughter of Perseos, deep in dark slumber. And such was the wrath of Kriktos, that the dark creature could not withstand it, and so it fell before landing a single blow of its twisted claws.

Thus did Kriktos of Sparta return to Narcsos, having saved both the children of the two kings. And there was great celebration in the streets, and offerings were made to the gods.

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