Baronjutter posted:

Amazing Gaming Experience:

A D&D game I wasn't enjoying because of some DMing styles got better because I talked to the DM about it and now he doesn't just let who ever's loudest run away with the scene anymore, giving everyone a chance to say what they're doing.

Robindaybird posted:

Help.

PoptartsNinja posted:

Let them. Make it (subtly) clear that he's using them. None of his stories fully jive with other sources of information, he's pointing the heroes at his rivals (also bad people) and securing his own power base. If the capes let themselves be manipulated by the Kingpin because "he's never steered us wrong, those other guys must be lying" then the "BBEG" can be another hero team confronting your players about their misdeeds.

The story potential there is huge.

Edit: They just took your solid BBEG idea, polished it to a mirror sheen, and presented it to you in wrapping paper.

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

DOUBLE EDIT: If they're smart enough to finally go "hey we need to go after Crime Boss and clear our names before the rest of the heroes throw us in jail," make sure Crime Boss gets a chance to say something along the lines of "honestly, I'm surprised it took you this long, I thought you would have figured it out ages ago. Well, I guess even idiots can get superpowers. But smart people can buy them." And then he activates his Crime Mecha or whatever.

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

DOUBLE EDIT: If they're smart enough to finally go "hey we need to go after Crime Boss and clear our names before the rest of the heroes throw us in jail," make sure Crime Boss gets a chance to say something along the lines of "honestly, I'm surprised it took you this long, I thought you would have figured it out ages ago. Well, I guess even idiots can get superpowers. But smart people can buy them." And then he activates his Crime Mecha or whatever.

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

DOUBLE EDIT: If they're smart enough to finally go "hey we need to go after Crime Boss and clear our names before the rest of the heroes throw us in jail," make sure Crime Boss gets a chance to say something along the lines of "honestly, I'm surprised it took you this long, I thought you would have figured it out ages ago. Well, I guess even idiots can get superpowers. But smart people can buy them." And then he activates his Crime Mecha or whatever.

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

DOUBLE EDIT: If they're smart enough to finally go "hey we need to go after Crime Boss and clear our names before the rest of the heroes throw us in jail," make sure Crime Boss gets a chance to say something along the lines of "honestly, I'm surprised it took you this long, I thought you would have figured it out ages ago. Well, I guess even idiots can get superpowers. But smart people can buy them." And then he activates his Crime Mecha or whatever.

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:

The lid

Agrikk posted:

The lid reminds me of AD&D hijinks with the levitate spell. Is part transport, part battering ram, part Swiss Army knife.

Robindaybird posted:

Welp had a heroes game, and I made basically a crime boss that's a jovial old man that is perfectly willing to shoot a man dead, in that 'Charming like a snake' fashion with the full intention of making him the BBEG of the campaign.

The players immediately latched on to him, excitedly talking about using him as an information broker and the teenage heroes just gaga over how cool he is. Yes, I did make it clear he's a crime boss and you don't get to where he is by keeping his hands clean but they just love him.

Help.

Quornes posted:

I'm curious, what system are you using? I've been wondering if there's anything better than M&M3e yo run a superhero/villain game

Robindaybird posted:

Also TY, I was a bit concerned since I know the tone my players that they'll try super hard to reform him.

Robindaybird posted:

Welp had a heroes game, and I made basically a crime boss that's a jovial old man that is perfectly willing to shoot a man dead, in that 'Charming like a snake' fashion with the full intention of making him the BBEG of the campaign.

The players immediately latched on to him, excitedly talking about using him as an information broker and the teenage heroes just gaga over how cool he is. Yes, I did make it clear he's a crime boss and you don't get to where he is by keeping his hands clean but they just love him.

Help.

PurpleXVI posted:

Well, if he's genuinely a criminal mastermind, have him act reformed. "Oh, thank you, dear superheroes. I have seen the error of my ways, now please help me deliver this package to my grandmother who is not another mob boss and the package most certainly does not contain several kilogrammes of space heroin."

Or maybe having him convince them that he's the rare ~virtuous~ crime boss: "Oh, no, I'm really just iron-fisted to keep this city safe. The protection money really is protection money, and I'd certainly never sell drugs to kids. Now, those other criminals, who are coincidentally my competitors... they're real asshats also here's a map to their lair and all their sensitive information. It would be a shame if they were to fall on any superpowered fists."

quote:

The Great Cemetery of Thalos is outside the Wall near the Middle Gate, which is a long walk from DSD so we decide to retire for the night and set up shop in the morning. When we get back to the guild house, Mung is seated in a chair under the gibbet. Waiting for us.

“How’d yer meeting go?”

“As expected,” Snakeeyes responds. “Though our evening was interrupted by someone called the Exile and her cronies. Do you know her? Him?”

“Her. Lestways I hear it’s a her. An’ her voice wigs me out. All a-changin’ and whatnot.”

The Exile surfaced on the streets of Thalos about five years ago, promoting a weird belief system around the three fundamental forces that govern the universe, symbolized by the Weaver that creates the pattern of existence, the World Snake that defines existence and not-existence, and the Spider who creates chaos and disorder in the Weaver’s tapestry. Hers is a death cult that worships Miska the Wolf Spider, performing ceremonies involving ritual strangulation. The Blackshirts and Brownshirts have declared the Stranglers outlaws punishable by death and yet the Exile moves though the City night untouched by the Rule of Law.

She calls her band the Deceivers, but who or what she deceives remains a mystery.

“You would do well to steer clear of her,” warns Mung who then walks off into the night.

The next morning we plan our operation to put surveillance on the cemetery, hoping to catch corpse thieves who might lead us to the next piece of the puzzle.

There is a stone wall encircling the cemetery that itself is situated outside of the Middle Gate. In the wall is a small gate with a small gatehouse, just large enough to allow a small funeral wagon into the acreage of the grounds. As planned, Severance walks into the cemetery and we find a spot to wait in one of the shantytowns that exist outside of each gate.

We wait for two days, Severance being spelled by Snakeeyes and then Ospar and myself and then back to Severance, each of us emerging from the cemetery during the day to have a meal or two with us before going back in to continue watch. There are plenty of visitors during the day, and several funerals that draw the customary cart or horse-and-carriage for the dead, but all of the corpses go into the ground and none come out.

On the second night, with Severance on watch within the cemetery and the rest of us outside, a simple torch lit cart pulled by a draft horse and accompanied by six hooded and cloaked figures approaches the gate. There is a hushed conversation at the gate and the gate guard opens and lets the procession through.

Snakeeyes and Ospar creep up in the shadows near the gate to see what they can see as the gate closes and locks behind them. Hours pass and the midnight bells toll from within the city. There is a clatter and a clank as the gates are unlocked from within. The gate guard pushes open the gate and the procession emerges and heads back into the city.

Shortly thereafter, Severance makes a flying leap over the wall, levitating across the street to land quietly next to me as we are rejoined by Ospar and Snakeeyes. As we hurry to catch up to the procession and reenter the city, Severance and Snakeeyes update us. “The group is a mixed bunch of humans and some bird/men creatures and they dug up a grave that looked long abandoned and untouched for many years. They spent time rooting every bone and missing digit from the ground and counted every bone twice before packing up the bones in a box.”

“Kenku, I think,” says Snakeeyes. Very agile and deadly, but fairly linear and uncreative in thought, but very loyal and good at following decisions.”

We stealthily follow the funeral wagon though the dark streets of Thalos and turn towards the rougher part of town towards Barge End and the Maze, eventually stopping in a dark, off-street plaza in front of an abandoned slaughterhouse that is falling into ruin. Even now, after years of inactivity, the slaughterhouse emanates a palpable aura of misery as it sits, hunched and dark and out of place in the middle of town.

We watch as dark figures unload a wooden crate from the back of the cart and then two lead the cart away as four enter the building with the crate.

We make our way into the dark warehouse and after some exploration we locate a large freight elevator that descends into the earth. The elevator itself looks fresh and well maintained, in stark contrast to the rest of the building.

We enter the elevator car and Ospar throws the level that causes the elevator to slowly descend into the depths. We descend into a rough-hewn chimney, carved from the earth and unlined.

Agrikk posted:

We enter the elevator car and Ospar throws the level that causes the elevator to slowly descend into the depths. We descend into a rough-hewn chimney, carved from the earth and unlined.

Ilor posted:

Because what could go wrong with this plan?

quote:

We descend for a surprisingly long time- several hundred feet into the earth. As we descend, we pass fissures and chasms in the walls that open to reveal buried ruins of buildings and structures. There are multiple layers of ruins, as if the city of Thalos was built on the ruins of another city swallowed by the earth, itself on another city also swallowed, and so on, every dozen or score feet maybe representing the rise and fall of a civilization. We finally come to a stop by descending through the vaulted ceiling of an ancient church hall built maybe ten centuries ago and long forgotten.

The gate rolls back with a clang and we find ourselves in a large columned chamber with a giant pool at one end and three archways leading into darkness. As we move into the chamber proper we are immediately attacked by three tieflings as a fourth runs down one of the passages.

Between Ospar, Severance and Snakeeyes we make short work of them but the alarm has been raised so we follow the fourth tiefling down the hallway to a set of double doors standing slightly ajar with torchlight spilling into the hallway from beyond.

We open the doors and enter a long room in which dozens of suits of armor, ranging from battered leather to rusted plate, line the walls. There are doors to the left and right of us and from a hallway ahead of us a man walks into the room to address us. He is dressed in plate and slings a steel shield and a sinister looking war flail. He is scarred and missing an eye.

“You are trespassing on our hallowed ground and by your presence I assume that you have murdered my temple guards. Whoever you are you have no authority here. Be gone!”

The four of us walk towards him and he backpedals. “By Hextor and the Overgod, I command you to begone!”

Ospar pauses and motions us to stop. “Hextor you say?”

“I do say,” the man sneers.

“Hextor saved my life!” Ospar says walking towards him. “I have sworn myself to his service!”

The man holds out an open palm of parley and Ospar approaches with arms outstretched. I grab at Ospar but he shrugs me off and walks over to the plated man.

“Come my son. Come to me. Come to Hextor.”

Ospar steps in front of the man and stops with arms outstretched in supplication, and quick as a flash the man swings his flail up and smashes Ospar dead in the face. Ospar drops like a sack of meal as the man whistles a three tone call.

From the door to our left a rabble of men issue forth to block our advance and on either side of us the armored suits animate and move towards us. The plated man steps back behind the mob of tattered men and cries, “Fools! What is Hextor but an illusion of order in the chaos! What is Vecna but a slave to the Daughter of the Night! What is Erythnul but a lesser servant of Miska!”

He then turns his back on our plight and walks down the hallway and out of sight.

Using my spellcraft I was barely able to take control of two of the skeletons before we were engaged by skeleton and cultist, with Ospar lying prone and bleeding from his ruined face. The mob of cultists, while untrained, were proving difficult for Severance and Snakeeyes. They use their spears and staves to maximum effect, keeping back from our attacks while harassing with wild jabs. Paying little heed to their injuries they rely on the crush of their numbers to overwhelm us: a cultist would throw himself on Severance’s long blade to allow his cohort to attempt to grapple him. If not for Snakeeye’s handiness with his katana we would have been lost.

As it was we were driven from the room deeper into the complex or else risk getting flanked and squeezed between skeleton and cultist. There was a group of skeletons fighting me and my skeletons while Severance and Snakeeyes defended the front. Out of the corner of my eye, even as we were forced down the hallway, I saw Snakeeyes drop a potion bottle onto Ospar’s body.

“Maybe it’ll help him,” he panted as he stabbed a cultist in the stomach and whirled to avoid a spear slash.

Snakeeyes and Severance continue to wreak horrible damage on the cultists, but my sturdy plate-armored skeletons and I barely hold off the press of skeletons from behind us.
We fight our way down a corridor, passing doors on either side of us, until we are forced through a pair of open doors into a long, wide chamber surrounded on all sides by a balcony perched twenty feet above the floor. The balcony opposite use features a sizable viewing box with a sloped floor and several ostentatious wooden chairs positioned to allow easy view of the chamber Illuminated in the flickering torchlight, a huge statue of a six-armed humanoid clutching a bewildering array of weapons stands in the midst of the chamber. A fist-sized red gem set in the statue's forehead glitters in the flickering light. A thick layer of sand covers the floor to a depth of a few Inches. The walls are smooth, polished rock, and a crimson banner with the symbol of a black, gauntleted hand clutching six barbed arrows is set above the double doors we just came though.

As the last of the cultists fall to the blades of Snakeeyes and Severance, the bronze doors slam shut behind us. My battered skeletons and Severance finish off the last of the skeletons leaving us alone in the room with no visible exits. We take a minute to catch our breath as Snakeeyes quaffs another healing potion and Severance wipes blood and sweat from his brow as he drinks from a waterskin.

But we can do no more than that as more cultists stream into the room from an archway high up in a side wall behind the viewing platform. There are two priests with them who command the cultists to rain arrows and quarrels on us. Severance and Snakeeyes hide behind the base of the statue while I cower behind my armored skeleton.

Severance sends a pair of shock bolts at the archers and I animate a newly-slain cultist as the walking dead. Interestingly, I am better protected by the zombie as it appears the cultists are reluctant to send arrows into and further mutilate a dead brother. I command the skeleton to be a mobile shelter for Severance and Snakeeyes as they search for a way out of this ambush and all three of us are scratched and bleeding from near-misses.

Finally, Severance has an idea and sends a shock bolt into the leg of the statue, blowing chunks out of its knee and I understand his intent. I send a shock bolt into the same leg and blow it completely apart and as the statue starts to topple, Snakeeyes and Severance heave against it to send it crashing into the upper balcony with a rolling crash and a cloud of rock dust. Snakeeyes sprints nimbly up the statue and into the dust cloud to engage the archers. Severance follows but is hit in the thigh with an arrow and he goes tumbling to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. I leave the zombie to serve as a shield for him and I make my way carefully up the statue, using my staff as a balance.

Snakeeyes has cleared out a bridgehead on the balcony with his katana and I follow in his wake, shaking off some kind of mind entrapment spell from one of the priests as I lay about with my staff. We battle our way to the observation platform and do battle with the remaining cultists and the two priests and are rejoined by Severance as I take a blow to the side with a mace.

As we are fighting, bloody and weary, the plate armored priest walks into the fray from the archway. Up close his face isn’t so much scarred as burned and his black armor has a crude holy symbol of Hextor scribed on his chest plate in dried blood. Around his neck is a leather thong from which hangs a wicked looking talon of some large beast.

There is a pause in the melee, such is his power to command, and he takes the opportunity to bellow, “By Hextor and the Overgod, hear this battle and may it please you! Give us the stre-“

He stops suddenly, as if confused, and blood pours from his mouth with a gurgle. A pair of daggers wielded by delicate hands suddenly appearing at his collar line on either side of his neck. The priest collapses and Ospar is standing behind him, face a bloody ruin with one eye swollen to a slit.

“Heretic bastard!” he screams and spits on the corpse. His cry is years of betrayals and torments and helplessness pouring out like a pair of dagger strikes.

Any discipline that the remaining priests and cultists might have had dissolves at the felling of their war chief and we lay about, wreaking mayhem and death until only the four of us are standing. Well, three: Ospar sits down next to the corpse of the high priest and puts his bloody head in his bloody hands.

quote:

“Glad you made it,” says Snakeeyes to Ospar. “And nice entrance.”

We collect ourselves, strip the bodies of loot and gear and Ospar, though split lips and broken face, tells his story as Snakeeyes gets to work prying the huge gem from the fallen statue.

“I bwacked out when I got hit and don’t remembah whad happened immediadely afterwardz but I woke up in bain and vound a potion bottle. Since I didn’t hab anyting to loose I drank it and instantly veld bettah, buh my wounds wuh still bad. I choze to expwore the side entwance wheah the cultists camb fwom and found myself in their quarters wif the sounds of battle echoing fwom ahead. Zo I fowowed da noise and got wucky on my approach to the head pweest.”

“You daggers were certainly well timed and well placed,” says Severance.

The ruby comes free and we finish our looting. Ospar directs us through the rear archway which leads us into a small chapel to Hextor where we pick up two Everburning Torches and a scroll that is in some kind of code. We loot whatever we can carry and what isn’t nailed down and recover the journal of the head priest, a man named Theldrick. We are pretty beat up and weary so we decide to withdraw and regroup, stealthing our way back to the elevator, past the dark pool and up to the surface.

It is strange to get to the surface and find the City sleeping while we have been though murder and mayhem. We breathe in the night air and stumble out of the square and back towards the Department of Sanitation Department. But before we get to the safety of the building, two shadowy figures step out in front of us into the torchlight.

“Hello Snakeeyes. Severance. Ospar. Pepper.” says Prather, indicating the smoky and starless night. “What a pleasant night for a walk.”

“Hello Prather, Chopper,” nods Snakeeyes.

Prather unhoods and steps closer. “Ospar, you are a mess. What happened?”

We relate our tale of the evening’s festivities while Chopper tends to Ospar’s face. When we get to Ospar’s assassination of Theldrick, Chopper grins.

“Ospar, you are really banged up. Would you like to come with us to seek better care? We promise to return you whole or not at all.” Chopper grins a friendly and yet guarded smile.

Ospar looks at the two of them, back and forth. Back and forth. Slowly and deliberately.

“Yes. I thing I would wike to be in your care, bery much.”

I say, “Are you sure about this?” Ospar nods and turns to leave with them.

“If anything happens to him--” I start to say.

Chopper turns on me suddenly. “You’ll what? You'll what, exactly?” and for a moment I see the real Chopper. The violent, murdering, sociopathic Chopper.

I shrug helplessly and just wave. “Good luck Ospar.”

The three figures slip back into the night and we three are alone in front of DSD HQ. “Well,” I say with a deep breath. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

The first thing we do is mount the damnable everburning torches in brackets on either side of the gibbet that hangs over the front door to the Department of Sanitation Department. The second thing I do is animate the skeleton within, just for fun. If a skeleton could glare, this one does.

Severance and Snakeeyes start going through the pile of loot and I thumb through the book. Aside from gold and valuables to sell, we have recovered Theldrick’s plate mail which is magically enchanted, a small pearl enchanted to allow additional spells to be cast per day, and a ring enchanted to protect its wearer from attacks. We decide that Severance should get the plate, I get the pearl and Ospar will get the ring when he returns. If he returns.

The journal by the high priest Theldrick and describes life as a loyal priest of Hextor. Recent entries describe his conversion to a belief in a being called the Overgod after a chance meeting with a priest of Vecna called the Faceless One. Final entries describe setting up a temple to the Overgod below the slaughterhouse for himself, the Faceless One and a grimlock priest of Erythnul called Grallak Kur:

quote:

Praise Be to the Scourge of Battle,

The Faceless One grows increasingly concerned. That addled beast Grallak Kur has yet to provide new insights into the Overgod's nature. The crude missives he sends speak of a Spider, of a slumbering power that must be awoken, but nothing more. I wish he would go back to the black pit that spawned him if he has nothing more to give.

The Faceless One tells me this ties in to an ancient figure, a being of great power. Of course, he tells me little else. He enjoys keeping his little secrets, but he forgets that they flourish only behind the protection of Hextor. His latest taunt is a scroll that he tells me contains all the answers I seek. Of course the fool wrote it in a cipher. Were it not for the dictates of the Ebon Triad, I would lead my troops into their damnable labyrinth and kill every last bird and wizard within it.

Grallak is the key. Thank the Scourge that he trusts me and not the Faceless One. Otherwise, I doubt the Faceless One would bother imparting anything to us. We cannot trust these mages. When the Daughter arises, I think it will be time to settle some old scores.

---------------------------------------------------------

Under the Herald's Watchful Eye We Conquer,

Grallak Kur has finally yielded a useful clue. I personally delivered it to the labyrinth, and the Faceless One giggled like a blood addled berserker when he saw the message. Grallak spoke of the Weaver and the Web again, of course. He says that even now the web of creation stirs and writhes. It undulates like a fisherman's net caught in the surf. All seems well for now, but soon the web will tear asunder and true Chaos will sweep over all of creation. Still, part of this vision troubles me. Grallak spoke of a great power behind the Daughter of the Night, but the Ebon Triad teaches that our effort will awaken the Overgod. Is there some other power here that we cannot see? Is it friend or foe?

The Faceless One knows more, but of course he has little to say. Perhaps Grallak has invented everything. His monstrous kin are few in number and battered after their pilgrimage though the Underdark. If he is an impostor or a trickster, we may need to root him out of this place. In that case, our agents must make another supply run. Six coils of rope, and perhaps bows and more arrows, should do the trick. With the petitioners leading the way we can uncover any ambushes they have within the cliffs.

quote:

We waited.

While we wait for the hoped-for return of Ospar, we busy ourselves as best we could. Snakeeyes spent time tending to his krrf business down on Barge End and keeping watch on the slaughterhouse to see if there were any developments since our raid. I split my time between managing the affairs of the Department of Sanitation Department, researching fine wines and wine making, and entering into the Arcane List of the Sage’s Guild where I am chosen by my new mentor, Allustan. I learn some additional spell lists (including discovering a druidic method of turning a staff into an enchanted weapon and power multiplier) and begin to research the history of Thalos and the Daughter of the Night and its relationship to Hextor, Vecna and Erithnul.

And Severance… Severance does whatever Severance does.

As days turn into weeks our observations and research bear fruit. The Slaughterhouse no longer appears abandoned and is instead actively inhabited by a Sorceress named Eldara who is the head of a band of cutthroats called the Moonlight Blade. They are still uncovering bodies from the cemetery and taking them inside the slaughterhouse where they disappear down the elevator into the complex deep within the earth.

I learn that the City of Thalos has been ruined, buried and rebuilt many times throughout the centuries, but the central Tower has always stood. Historians and legends make reference to the Overlord’s Tower as sometimes being surrounded by a trading camp, a sprawling city, a vast wasteland, a thriving metropolis. The most recent event to touch the Tower was over two hundred years ago when the Sulouise invasion was turned back by the Oeridian Army at the battle of Victory Bridge, several days march inland to the east, although most accounts of that battle and the conflict are third-hand at best.

My new mentor, Allustan explains the situation with the Mage’s Tower as well:

“The Mage’s Tower was once what the Sage’s Guild aspires to be: learned, noble of purpose, of the people, a place of learning. But in maybe the last fifty years or so the Tower became insular, turning inwards and sealing itself off from the populace. In the last two decades or so the Tower has become outright hostile to van Neuman, ambushing him any chance they get. The Overlord’s wife was killed about ten years ago in such an ambush by the Mage’s Tower and you told me you saw an ambush like that during your arrival in the City when van Neuman appeared with his new consort.”

“Snakeeyes’ mother, apparently,” I say.

“Really?” Allustan tents his fingers in front of his chin. “Now that is interesting. Was she coerced or did she go willingly? Has Snakeeyes ever mentioned anything about her?”

“Nothing. Snakeeyes isn’t the most social fellow on the best of days.”

“You should find out. Why van Neuman took a consort might be critical to understanding why the Tower battles against him so fiercely. Or not.”

I also learn more about the Daughter of Night. She appears here and there in some fringe death cults’ legends. Her primary cultists are called Deceivers and their rites of worship to the Daughter of the Night involve ritual assassination by strangulation.

“I shall have to do more digging into the Daughter for you, though. Perhaps we can do a trade: you can find out more about Snakeeyes’ mother and I will look into the Daughter of the Night and her Deceivers for you.”

Weeks pass and we are all growing restless and concerned for Ospar and the status of the Hidden Temple deep below the City. I am ready to go visit the Legitimate Businessman’s Club myself to go asking about his whereabouts, but Mung assures me that this is a bad idea. So we wait.

quote:

After three weeks, Ospar returns to the Department of Sanitation Department in the company of Prather and Chopper. I notice immediately he is more relaxed and moves differently. Confidently and with a touch of swagger, whereas before he was skittish and timid.

“Hello Pepper,” he says in a rough voice. His face is completely healed, though the eye in the side of his face smashed in by Theldrick’s mace tracks a little off center and looks a little bit over my shoulder. But what is striking is the beautiful black steel collar he wears around his neck. Presumably to cover a fresh scar that came from a wound that probably almost killed him and left him with his new voice.

“Ospar! It is great to see you. Hello Chopper and Prather. Thanks for bringing him back.”

Chopper smiles his easy smile. “I told you I’d bring him back ‘whole or not at all’. Well, I lied a little bit since our healers couldn’t fix his peeper all the way. I think it suits him.”

Ospar laughs once. It’s clearly an old tale between the three killers now. Snakeeyes steps into the torchlight under the gibbet and nods at Ospar. “Welcome back. Are you here to help us finish the deed at the slaughterhouse?”

Ospar nods. “Hextor has shown me a different path to serve him. A path to Greater Glory for the Herald over his enemies and these heretics with the aid of my friends here and the LBC.”

Prather steps forward, sweeps off his broad-brimmed hat with a flourish. “Well met, Snakeeyes and Pepper. We bring a special dispensation from the Hound of Death and Guildmaster

Hreimar to render you aid. It seems mention of the Daughter of the Night and her Deceivers has given both the Maze and the LBC pause.”

“And why is that?” asks Snakeeyes.

“We take umbrage at the Exile’s band of Stranglers and any other groups associated with the Daughter. They hold to no code of conduct or treaty and her brash actions bring unwanted attention and ruin to our operations,” says Prather.

“The Exile is bad for business,” says Chopper. “Whatever the Ebon Triad is, we assume it’s down below the slaughterhouse and we’ve been sent to help you get rid of it. We’d like to put a stop to the theft of bodies from the cemetery and put a dent in the anything the Daughter’s followers might be cooking up.”

From Theldrick’s journal entry we gather up ropes and missile weapons, and I prepare enchanted rocks that glow as lights in the darkness. From watching the slaughterhouse over the last few weeks we know that the soreress Eldara has her group of mercenaries fortifying the complex and we are trying to avoid sounding the alarm and letting anyone escape down the elevator shaft. We decide to use Severance and myself as a distraction and let the assassins do their thing.

We gear up and go, crossing the City at night once again to the slaughterhouse where we see some faint lights on inside. Severance and I approach the front door and Snakeeyes, Ospar, Prather and Chopper disappear into the dark.

Agrikk posted:

Ospar’s Return

quote:

From Theldrick’s journal entry we gather up ropes and missile weapons, and I prepare enchanted rocks that glow as lights in the darkness to be used as lights in the darkness.

Aniodia posted:

Minor nitpick, but you have


Seems kinda redundant, imo.

Yawgmoth posted:

Aniodia posted:

Minor nitpick, but you have


Seems kinda redundant, imo. Also, out of curiosity, who exactly are the player characters in this? I'm thinking it was Pepper and Snakeeyes (though it seems Snakeeyes' player missed a session or two early), Severance came in later, and Ospar's player was a super late pickup? Or are Chopper and Prather new additions to the party as well?

quote:

Severance knocks on a side door and I stand nearby. Knocking twice more before there is an answer. A rough-looking man opens the door, looks to either side and, seeing only Severance, steps onto the small stoop. Severance begins a tirade about import and export taxes and manages to draw them man out of the doorjamb, and I am able to sneak past him and into the slaughterhouse. Having been here before, I sneak my way past the offices and converted quarters towards the main warehouse floor and the elevator. I stand post here invisibly with the simple job of preventing anyone from descending while the rest of the group deals with the Midnight Blade.

I stand quietly and see figures move in the dark, but since no alarm is raised, I remain silent. Suddenly, the stillness is shattered as the ringing sounds of combat crash from the offices. There is a hue and cry as guards wake up and begin to rally. A humanoid races towards the elevator and my shock bolt hits him squarely in the chest, knocking him off his feet and stunning him long enough to finish him off with a swing of my staff. After that the room is fairly quiet, with screaming and running and shouting and dying happening out of my view.

When the dust settles, the five combatants enter the warehouse and we regroup. Snakeeyes and Prather give me a rob that they call a Robe of Bones and allows the wearer to create undead from the patters and patches sewn onto it.

“It suits you,” says Snakeeyes.

We divvy up some loot and Prather and Chopper appropriate as their share a lock box full of gold, silver and a couple of potion bottles and we step onto the elevator and head down.

We descend down through the layers of dead Thaloses, though hundreds of feet of dead civilizations and down to the dark cathedral. It hasn’t changed much since we’d been here a few weeks ago. The black pool at one end and the three passageways leading off into the dark at the other. One lead to the temple of Hextor, and the other two presumably to the temples of Vecna and Erythnul. As we discuss which of the two passages to take first, Snakeeyes walks over to the pool of water and starts to dump flasks of oil into it. Lots of oil from lots of flasks.

“What are you doing?” asks Chopper.

“You know and I know that something is coming out of this pool at some point.”

He finishes pouring oil into the pool and joins up with us as we head into a rough fissure that we assume is the grimlock lair of the worshippers of Erythnul. On Theldrick’s advice we have our glowing stones, and Chopper, Snakeeyes and Prather have shortbows ready and Severance takes the lead.

We move slowly into the fissure and the rough, rocky walls press in and lead inexorably downwards. We take our time, Severance and Ospar throwing glowing rocks well ahead of us. We had decided that warning the grimlocks of our presence would be better than setting off an ambush in the dark. After a few hundred feet into the fissure our thrown stones of light illuminate a small cavern and a screeching rush is the harbinger of our first contact. We push ahead into the corridor and are met by two or three wildly thrown javelins followed by a rush of grimlocks with stone clubs and axes. Severance and Chopper meet them head on, Ospar moves to flank them and Snakeeyes and Prather feather them full of arrows as I stay out of the way after throwing more stones into the chamber to remove any shadows.

Severance and Chopper resist the initial onslaught, Severance’s no-dachi and Chopper’s bastard sword flashing as arrows score hits until the grimlock guards are defeated. Examining their corpses reveals each of them has flakes of stone stitched into their skin in the pattern of a five pointed star- a crude representation of Erythnul’s holy symbol.

We recover our glowing stones and continue on and are engaged by another set of grimlocks and their krenshar “watchdogs”. Another wild melee pitting their stone weapons against magical steel ends with us victorious, leaving us to explore the room that ends abruptly in a cliff. From here, a great pit drops into darkness and crude iron spikes have been driven into the cliff face, offering a convenient path downward. The cave is approximately fifteen feet high at the edge and stalactites hang jaggedly from the ceiling.

We take some time to explore the cavern we are in and drop a couple of light stones over the edge, illuminating a drop of over forty feet to a rocky floor choked with loose rubble, fallen stalactites and other debris. Severance throws a rock into the darkness and reveals a rocky face about twenty feet away with a narrow cave or tunnel set in its face. Taking the cue from Theldrick’s journal entry, Severance wraps a rope and makes an arcane leap across the chasm, floating across and down into the mouth of the cave. Before he can do anything more than regain his balance, there is a banshee shriek and he is attacked by some kind of feral grimlock who lunges at him from within the cave. At the same time arrows begin to pelt at us from the darkness up above in front of us.

Unable to advance to aid Severance, the rest of us seek cover behind stalagmites and listen to the sound of Severance’s efforts as we throw glowing rocks to see if we can spot the archers. Severance defeats his foe and shouts back to us that he is okay and he ties off several ropes to the end of his rope. We haul the ends back and begin the makings of a rope bridge as he floats upwards to hunt for the archers. He takes two minor arrow wounds to the chest and arm for his effort but squares off against two more grimlocks. As we watch, Severance puts on an incredibly lucky set of moves and cleanly decapitates one grimlock and then the other before they can drop their bows and change their weapons. Heads and bodies tumble off the tiny ledge and down into the chasm.

We shuffle across our rope bridge one at a time as Severance moves deeper into the cramped tunnel. I step over the corpse of a grimlock barbarian and make room for the others as he returns to tell us that the tunnel is very cramped but only travels for about twenty feet before opening up into another chasm.

We follow Severance’s light rocks through the tunnel, and find that this chasm has a sturdy rope bridge already in place. I turn invisible and begin to make my way across the rope bridge, but before I can make it across, Severance leaps silently over the bridge to land in a small cliff chamber before his spell wears off, scattering more rocks to illuminate the area. The sudden light alerts guards there and grimlock arrows begin to fall among us as we scamper single file across the bridge.

I make it across with Ospar and we join Severance who is engaged with three and completely on the defensive. One of the grimlocks disengages and runs to the back of the chamber and disappears up a sloping passage that curves out of sight. We are joined by Snakeeyes, Chopper and Prather and we six finish of the two guards. We pause to catch our breath and bandage wounds, deeming that the alarm has been sounded so we might as well prepare the best we can.

“That is a handy trick you have there, Severance,” says Snakeeyes. “I saw you do that move at the cemetery and had meant to comment. I’ve seen men move with cat’s grace and agility, but never leaping straight up or floating down.”

“It is two lists, actually. Highriding and Movement Enhancement my master called them,” he says in his weird accent.

“If you are willing, I’d like to learn from you,” I say, envying the way he moved so easily.

“Perhaps.”

From the passage in the back of the chamber we hear a hue and cry, so we bare steel and advance forward and up.

Agrikk posted:

“What are you doing?” asks Chopper. 

“You know and I know that something is coming out of this pool at some point.” 

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The long passage curls up and around and opens into a large cavern with a roof that glistens twenty feet above with traces of iron ore. It is cramped as the bowl-shaped floor rises up into a nearly vertical slope. There are three exits around the lip of the bowl and we are once again pelted with javelins and arrows from more than a half-dozen grimlocks stand in front of two of the three exits.

With nothing else to do we charge, rushing full speed up the wall of the bowl to gain momentum enough to reach the lip. I decide to not charge, instead I send shock bolts into one of the group of grimlocks as Chopper, Prather and Ospar gain the lip and Snakeeyes makes the other lip, followed shortly thereafter by Severance, who needed an extra moment to gain the lip after slipping trying to climb up.

The battle is joined, with Snakeeyes and Severance heading straight into the fray and battering down any defenses, while the trio of Chopper, Prather, and Ospar work together to flank opponents and redirecting any Grimlock advance back on itself. I simply stand back and send bolts at any Grimlock attempting to press an advantage. Several of the Grimlocks draw blood and hard bruises despite their crude weapons and Ospar and Severance look battered and grim when the tale is done with the telling, but eight Grimlocks are down, including a beast of a specimen with tattoos and scars of Erythnul etched into his body, and we six remain standing.

We decide to move clockwise through the exits, looting and plundering the grimlocks’ den, the chieftains’ den before finally heading down a tight spiraling tunnel deep into the ground. As we descend, the air grows musty and sickening with the scent of rotting flesh as the tunnel begins to glow with the red light of a lantern or small fire.

As we approach we are immediately attacked by three grimlocks wearing bronze masks of Erythnul who scream and gibber incoherently, even as they go down under our blades. We find ourselves in a small room with an alcove burrowed in one wall with a knotted rope anchored to the lip. In the alcove a grimlock perches atop a small stone ledge 10 feet above a smoldering fire. He tosses strange powders and mushrooms onto the fire and inhales the smoke deeply, exhaling as it turns to face us.

This is Grallak Kur. He has sewn preserved eyes of a beholder into his empty eye sockets, giving him the strange, wide-eyed look of a madman. His hair is cut short and dyed red, while a holy symbol of Erythnul is branded into his chest. His teeth are filed into fang-like points and he cackles at us even as he utterly ignores the three corpses of his bodyguards.

In a raspy, heavily accented voice he speaks in a hacking cough-like laugh, “At last, the will of the Ebon Triad Be done. Do you see, my killers? With the return of the Daughter of the Night, the Age of Chaos is nigh!”

Prather speaks, “What business have you with the corpses from the cemetery?”

Grallak cackles, “soon a great force will be unleashed and all will be as ruin and the dead will slay the living and the living will wish to be dead…” and trails off into muttering and wild gesticulations against phantoms only he can see.

Chopper hefts Toothpick. “What are we doing here Prather?”

Prather continues, “Tell us about the third tunnel. Is that the shrine to Vecna?”

Grallack shuffles around the cave, touching the occasional rock in the walls. “Vecna!” he spits. “Vecna! Erythnul! Hextor! What are these but building blocks! Their existence is but a pale suggestion of What Could Be. A great power stirs in the land. Mountains become sand. Lakes dust. Cities ruins. The cycle of energy fades into nothingness in a great vomit of turmoil. The final push by the Daughter’s Return to free the spider to return to his consort. At last the weaver and the snake will be torn asunder and fade to nothingness-”

Chopper kills him.

“I’ve heard enough and am sick of this place. Let’s be on with this business and get back to fresh air.”

We loot the area, recovering a set of mithril chainmail, a nifty haversack that stores more than it should while weighing almost nothing, and gold, silver, jewels and other items of wealth. I also recover a book that looks to be a journal of Grallak’s heeding a call by the Overgod to begin a migration through a place called the Underdark to this Dark Cathedral and meet up with Theldrick and the Hextorites and the Faceless One and his followers of Vecna.

“So let’s go find this Faceless One and have done," says Chopper.