- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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The Temple of Vecna
quote:
We head back through the caves, across the rope bridges to the Dark Cathedral, keeping a wary eye on the pool, and head down the third and final passage towards what must be the shrine to Vecna. The tunnel here is roughly hewn out of the rock and dirt, with rough framed supports every couple of yards. We walk in the glow of the light stones to a T-intersection when I feel a searing stabbing fire pierce my ribs and I collapse in agony and am swallowed in darkness.
I come to in an equally searing pain staring into the face of Ospar. There is a look about him, something akin to awe.
“Praise be to Hextor,” he breathes and scrunches his eyes shut. “Thanks to the Scourge of Battle!”
The pain is subsiding almost as if it never was, and I reach for the wound and there is none.
“What happened? I don’t understand…”
“I believe you are Ospar’s first miracle,” Snakeeyes says dryly.
I sit up and Ospar helps me scoot back against a wall. We are in a different intersection, a four-way this time with tunnels extending in the cardinal directions. Around us are corpses of some bird creatures, six in all, and Chopper is wiping his blade off with a rag.
“Kenkus,” says Prather, keeping a watch down the passageway with Severance, Chopper and Snakeeyes. “We were ambushed by a flight of Kenkus who came at us from a secret passage that we missed. One stabbed you and then they were among us, dancing among us and then circling out to come at us from a different direction.”
Ospar opens his eyes. “You went down with a blade in your side and it was all I could do but to see if I could help. I was sure you were gone to us, but I felt Hextor will and by his grace I was able to help you.” That weird look comes into his eyes again. That fanatical devotion.
Severance coughs and says, “Yah, okay. So. This is some kind of maze. And these Kenku clearly know their way around it.” He hefts his blade and adjusts the straps on his pack. “What do we do?”
“We press on,” says Ospar. “Hextor will protect us.”
Chopper rolls his eyes. “He may protect you, but I don’t remember having a deity as a bodyguard. Prather ‘n’ I have good eyes fer hidden tings now ‘at we know what we are up against. We got caught napping.”
“Well then let’s do this,” I suggest. “I can turn Prather and Chopper invisible and the two of you can trail behind us a ways. When they come in to strike, you can strike first. But this will take most of my power to accomplish.”
“It’s a simple plan. I like it,” says Prather.
I concentrate a moment and they disappear from view. “Don’t go running off on us.”
Snakeeyes says, “We are really going to trust those guys?”
“I’m standing right here,” says Chopper’s disembodied voice.
“I know,” says Snakeeyes.
We continue to navigate the tunnels, with Severance creating some arcane system of marking the walls and floor with chalk to help us navigate. None of us understood what he was doing so he became the de facto navigator. Snakeeyes had a simpler approach: since we entered the complex from the south heading north, we should continue heading north. “We entered from the south. This means that the lair will be to the north at the top of the page I mean maze.”
Between Snakeeyes and Severance we headed ever northward, stalking and hiding through twisting passages and discovering a rats nest of secret passages that doubled back on themselves, cut across routes, and generally made navigating difficult. Adding to the challenge was the kenku ability to duplicate sounds. Several times I found myself pausing alone in a tunnel because I thought I heard Prather or Chopper calling my name only to be targeted by a pair of kenku leaping from the darkness. While the lightly armored Ospar and myself took wounds, we four were able to win though three more ambushes, six kenku in total, without Prather and Chopper springing their trap.
We continued to press northward and ran into a pair of giant weasels who screamed and hissed at us before engaging. As Snakeeyes drew his blade he said, “If that doesn’t bring the neighborhood down on us, I don’t know what will.” And he leapt into their room/lair with his katana.
Severance and Snakeeyes engaged the weasels and Ospar and I crouched in a corner. Me to stay out of the way and Ospar ready to ambush anything entering the room.
Sure enough, several kenku entered the room from the multiple exits. One immediately went down under Ospars and the other five engaged us. One had a wand out and blasted Severance with a shock bolt and another was reaching for a small sphere on his necklace when he went down with Prather’s longsword through his back. After getting off another shock bolt from his wand against a rapidly wilting Severance, that kenku died from a massive wound from Chopper’s bastard sword. I picked up the wand and called “tiltowait” as I’d seen the kenku do and sent a bolt from the wand into the nearest kenku.
With the sudden death of three of their kin, the remaining three kenku tried to disengage and were cut down in short order, followed closely by the weasels. We loot the corpses and I grab the necklace and keep the wand and we head north. Prather locates a secret door by spotting a rune of Vecna etched into it near the floor and we push it open, tired and bloody and ready to see this thing though.
We press into a room filled with supplies and booty, but we press on intending to come back later for it.
The next room is a simple room with a table and two beds, but is unoccupied. “Well there’ll be three left at least,” says Severance.
An acrid, almost metallic stink fills the air of the next chamber. The walls here consist of a strange green rock with purple veins that writhe and dance within it. Six black pillars form two rows along the length of this chamber. They have a tar-like appearance, and what looks like human hands push at their surfaces from within, as if a crowd of humanoid creatures was trapped within each one. A plain, basalt altar rests at one end of the chamber and in the middle stands a plain slab of polished granite about as tall and wide as a double door.
A spectral figure cowled and robed in black and two human acolytes in ragged robes of purple attack us from behind the black columns. They launch spells that score hits on us and then they engage, to meet their end suddenly and violently at the hands of Severance and Prather. We press on with blood in our eyes, passing some doors to the north to venture though an open archway to the east.
And we stop short almost immediately. Directly in front of us is a half-excavated room with the east wall still showing pickaxe marks and as we walk into the room, four floating sparks approach us, swirling and growing into living flame.
“Back! Back! Get back!” cries Prather and shoves us back through the archway and we tumble back into the outer sanctum room with the black columns.
“What in the nine hells…?” says Severance.
“Those were the fire demons that guard the walls of Thalos.” Explains Prather as we backpedal and head towards the northern doors. “I recognize those sparks as the same creatures bound to the walls to prevent entry or exit over the walls. I never thought about how far under the walls their territory extends.”
“But we must be a hundred feet down!” says Ospar.
“Closer to five.” I say, ever the pedant. "But if the wall wardens extend this far down, how did the grimlocks get here?" We have no answer.
We push through the northern door into a lab of some kind. Two long wooden tables dominate this chamber. They run along the length of the room, pushed up against opposite walls, and are covered with a variety of beakers, alchemical tools, and other devices. A few glass containers bubble with materials of a variety of colors, from a boiling green sludge to a fizzing, effervescent blue liquid. Several bookshelves filled with tomes occupy one section of the wall. Beside the shelves stands an intact human skeleton. A few glistening organs, a heart, a set of lungs, and a liver write and pulse within the skeleton's rib cage. In the middle of the chamber stands a large, black iron cauldron. A thick layer of wax seals it shut. In a corner lie the rotting remains of maybe a dozen corpses, the sweet stench of decay mixing with the smoke of the cauldron fire and the vapors from the lab.
At the workbench is a figure wearing green robes and a leather mask set with iron studs. Only his coal-black eyes are visible beneath it. His hands are covered with mystical tattoos and he picks up a rod and a curved kris and he utters a Word of Command in a high lispy voice. At his command a giant centipede springs into existence, completely blocking him from view. We are forced to hack apart the centipede so we can climb over the thing into the lab where, reading from a scroll in that high lispy voice, the figure sends a lightning bolt into Prather. He then summons a huge Dire Gorilla and sends it into us. Severance does his arcane leap and soars over the centipede carcass to land next to the creature and gets a shock bolt to the chest for his trouble, but by then Ospar and Snakeeyes have made it over, followed closely by Chopper and the figure and his gorilla are cut down.
We plunder the lab and, in addition to some interesting tomes about Vecna and some details about the Undercity of Thalos I discover the code to crack Theldrick’s message and spend some time at the altar of Vecna and the granite slab. Upon closer inspection the lab has been etched with a giant symbol- like a pentacle but with several hundred points- and the face is coated with a light dusting of some grey powder, with more powder sprinkled at the base. I take some notes as the other gather loot and plunder.
Finally, the five others are loaded down with plunder and Chopper uses some looted oil and some alchemical fire to burn down the Faceless One’s lab and the temple to Vecna and we depart this maze.
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Jun 8, 2019 08:43
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 21, 2024 22:34
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- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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Missives of the Faceless One
(I wish I'd read this before leaving the Dark Cathedral)
quote:
The Age of Chaos
I came to life today, in this dark place. Then, the Master's Voice taught me my place in this world, and spoke of my role in the accomplishment of the Ninth Prophecy. He told me I have to forget the surface world, the trees and the sunlight, that these dreamlike memories weren't mine but would stay with me, and that he had taken away from me the face that wasn't mine too. Toiling on the Master's Great Work makes me happy.
The preparatory rituals are done and at last the riddle of this place is solved. In ages past, a great being known as the Daughter of the Night rose above the petty warlords who fought and struggled for material gain. The Daughter is the herald of the Overgod. Soon, she will sound the clarion call to the faithful. The three sundered faiths shall me made whole.
My lifeforce is now linked to the Spawn. The womb left uncompleted by Vecna, then a simple lich, already wears his imprint. We only need to melt in the two other divine essences needed.
The Hextorians came, trickling down by small groups from the mountains and into the city. They seemed pleased by the rooms prepared for them, and began at once the consecration of their temple. In accordance with the Master's plans, they mistook me for a servitor of the Maimed God and don't suspect my true allegiances.
As foretold by the Mother, the grimlocks came by the portal that we had prepared. I presented myself as an emissary to their prophet, named Grallak Kur, and was welcomed as a divine messenger. Apparently, their complete collaboration was mine even before I spoke, as I appeared in the prophetic dreams that led Grallak Kur and his tribe to this place. This fanatic has even burnt his ships by shattering his slab. I have to laud the Mother for the clever manipulation of those barbarous humanoids.
All necessary attendants being here, we proceeded to the first infusion of divine energy, under the direction of Mother Maggot. At first, Theldrick was reluctant to lend hand in what he called ”blasphemous ur-flan rituals”. I had to remind him of what he owed to our timely help, and of what he risked by rejecting our demands. The thought of the future destruction of Hellbridge, and most notably of the followers dwelling there, also seemed to help him to stifle his scruples.
I had to inform the Master's Voice that the embryonic growth is slightly behind schedule. He told me that specific necrotic reagents could be used to optimize the divine energy infusion. I should receive new instructions soon.
As instructed, I transmitted the Mother’s orders to Telakin. He will contact this Zyrxog and demand the delivery of the raw materials needed for the distillation of the necrotic reagents. With the arguments given by the Master, his full cooperation is ours.
An intruder has been located in the slaughterhouse, but managed to escape by the sewer. A sample of Tenth Prophecy material has been stolen from my laboratory. The Mother has been informed of the situation and she vows to take care of it. Alas, the sample hasn't been recovered, despite the divinations used. We must acquire more relics of the Age before Ages. If they are not here, then we must send agents to the Rift. If the Deceiver herself, or her agents, cannot shepherd in the Age of Chaos, then we shall do it ourselves so that the Overgod may live.
Those idiots are impatient to see the birth of the Threefold Spawn. If only they knew that their participation in the infusion rituals tied their life forces to it, as mine is! Soon, our deaths will give the needed impulsion for the womb's bursting. I giggle in glee thinking of my part in the coming of the Age of Chaos. But the right time hasn't yet come. A premature birth would only produce a weakened Spawn.
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Jun 8, 2019 08:49
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- Ilor
- Feb 2, 2008
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That's a crit.
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Missives of the Faceless One
Soon, our deaths will give the needed impulsion for the womb's bursting.
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Jun 8, 2019 19:12
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- Foolster41
- Aug 2, 2013
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"It's a non-speaking role"
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Session 3(?) of the campaign. Perhaps not as interesting as the others. No combat this time.
At town our rogue searches for a deed for a town. They find a framed parchment on the wall
Me: "Is it Eat Pray Love?" (I meant Live Laugh Love. Gets a laugh from the GM, he got what I meant.)
Behind it is the deed to the town
We find 16 horses and there's some arguments about whether to keep them. Most of the party wants to take them with and resell them, but that would mean pulling them behind us, and Geno (my character) thinks that's a bad idea since we were given only enough time to arrive at the town and immediately turn around, let alone investigate before they came to hunt us down.
I'm overruled and the party takes the horses.
When we get to town of never-winter, we're surrounded by spear-men and there's wanted posters with our faces
We give the evidence (a necklace we found worn by the wight which is some sort of control/communication device. The Lord is really disappointed we proved we were innocent.
He takes our horses ("See! Told you it was a waste!") and pays us 100g each (which is a bit less than if we were able to sell the horses) to keep things quiet.
We do some shopping, and go to an inn. For some reason the bard preforming has a hate stare at me (because he sees my charisma. all 12 points of it)
Geno: "Death Cure, isn't that a Orc heavy metal band?"
GM: "It is now!"
We get a roof for the next. Our rogue? bought a dog (a mastiff) that I guess crapped in the room. A character tried to throw it out the window with mage hand, but the elf warlock used thaumatergy to shut the window. They ended up paying 2G for the mess, which the rogue made the warlock pay half
Warlock: "It was 1 gold worth of entertainment"
After breakfast (the GM gives us choices of food and drink for some reason) we get directions from a guy who either was drunk, had a stroke or both ( he had a really hard to understand voice, he reminded me of the guy with the guns from Hot Fuzz)
At the job board we hear that someone is looking for adventurers at Chult, and are told by the lady hiring us that we are to find an object called the "Soul Monger". After one last chance to shop (and Geno does a charity dance/song performance at a orphanage and gives some money). we are teleported to Chult.
Unfortunately, it's not clear where we are supposed to go. We are recommended to hire a guide which costs us 5gp a day, and a "license" to go into the jungle (another 100gp total).
Geno: "This is starting to look like a scam"
We still have no idea where we're going after asking around, and are not quite prepared to just go aimlessly wandering into the forest (perhaps this is getting a bit too open world of a campaign).
After asking around we roll D% to get rumors which range from useless to slightly helpful.
One was told we have to pay a license fee (we already know that)
Geno/I got one about a turtle in the bay that should be appeased (alright)
One got a rumor of a crashed airship (okay)
Another got a rumor about a place near a chasm with a guardian naga who is both generous and wise.
We decide this last one is our best lead.
Foolster41 fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Jun 10, 2019
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Jun 9, 2019 21:09
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- mcjomar
- Jun 11, 2012
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Grimey Drawer
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Welcome to the same world I'm trekking through!
And thanks for the reminder about the "Soul Monger". I needed that.
Also listen to Geno. He is clearly very wise.
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Jun 10, 2019 08:35
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- Foolster41
- Aug 2, 2013
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"It's a non-speaking role"
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Welcome to the same world I'm trekking through!
And thanks for the reminder about the "Soul Monger". I needed that.
Also listen to Geno. He is clearly very wise.
I should start using spoiler tags from here after, since people are also probibly running the ToA, but I felt like i hadn't gotten to spoilerish stuff yet, if I have, let me know and I'll spoiler it.
Tell that to my party members. :P They don't listen to 'Ol Geno enough. (probibly has the highesst wisdom since he's using it as his AC AND attack stat)
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I forgot to mention the hotel rooms. We rented 2, and were given keys to #6 and #15. t turns out 1-5 were in the right order, but 15 was right after 6, and then a bunch of random numbers.
Some of the group talked about setting up a watch in the rooms.
Geno: "Go ahead and set a camp fire in your room and do a watch like you're in the great outdoors. I'm going to get my beauty sleep"
Female Seasonal elf Warlock: "We're not going to set a fire in our room!"
I think people don't understand in general when Geno's being sarcastic.
One of the people we talked to told us the Monger wasn't on the island, and I almost blabbed a bit of information about a secret, because I didn't understand OOC it was meant to be a secret, so I walked that back, since I don't think Geno would blab it out.
I'm trying to get an idea of who this character is, I feel right now he's a bit just Taako from TAZ, in terms of personality and mannerisms (Sarcastic, uses phrases like, "my man", is a little arrogant (is a street performer acrobat/dancer/musician rather than tv chef)
I'm trying to figure out how to flesh him out to be interesting. The giving to the orphanages and doing sort of make-a-wish style performances is something that maybe hints at Geno's personality and possibly past. I'd love to see some of our character's backgrounds used as hooks to flesh things out the way it's done in the Adventure Zone, after we get out of the ToA.
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Jun 10, 2019 09:45
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- CobiWann
- Oct 21, 2009
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Have fun!
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According to my DM, I'm no longer allowed to refer to the "Monster Manual" as a "Waifu Catalog."
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Jun 10, 2019 12:06
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- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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The God in the Pool
quote:
We exit the maze and the Dark Cathedral is silent save for gentle lapping of the water in the pool.
Snakeeyes and Prather notice it immediately. Prather says, “Something must be moving in the pool, otherwise the water would be still.”
Snakeeyes smirks and throws a vial of alchemical fire into the pool, igniting the oil which had spread across the entire surface like a bomb that sucks the air out of the room and up into a vortex of flame and black roiling smoke. At once we see a giant hand grab the rim of the pool. Then another. And another. Two right hands and a left are coated with oil and are burning, even as they grip the edge and heave.
It is a ten foot tall, powerfully built monster with six arms. It has smooth, dull gray skin and bulging muscles that pulse with arcane power. Three of its arms, two on its left and one on its right, are missing their hands. It has a gaunt, skeletal face, massive fangs and is missing one eye. It growls like a beast and heaves itself from the pool, flaming oil streaming from its skin as it steps out of the pool onto solid ground.
We scatter in the face of it, spreading out and launching our attack as it gathers itself. Chopper, Prather and Snakeeyes let fly with arrows from their bows, Ospar ducks into the shadows, I pull out my wand of tiltowait and let fly a shock bolt as I run for cover behind a pillar. Severance grips his no-dachi in both hands, concentrates a beat, then launches himself into the air with a mighty leap, cleaving downward with his blade against the creature which proves remarkably resilient to both flame and blade.
The Ebon Aspect is ablaze with oil, but doesn’t seem bothered by it. Instead, it pauses and raises six arms in supplication with a howl and a roar and a shimmering war flail appears in one of its fists. “The flail of Hextor!” cries Severance as he charges in, raking the Ebon Aspect along the ribs and drawing black blood that sizzles in the flames.
Chopper readies his Toothpick and ducks into the flickering shadows as Prather and Snakeeyes change tactics and concentrate their arrows against the creatures face, looking to score a hit on its remaining eye. Severance is fully on the defensive, wheeling and parrying and leaping about, avoiding mighty swings from the war flail as he tries to land another blow. I am sending bolt after bolt against the thing and am scoring hits, though they do not seem to harm it much.
We are playing a dangerous game at this point. Surely we must be wearing it down, but the flail is deadly and it finally connects against Severance, smashing against his arm and shoulder and sending him flying, mid leap, across the Cathedral to land in a pile, stunned and helpless. Snakeeyes draws his katana and rushes toward the beast and dodges a backhand swing from the flail and uses a kata to avoid being grappled with the remaining hands and arms.
Suddenly, the beast howls with pain and rage and stumbles forward as Ospar sticks a pair of knives into the back of the Ebon Aspect. And before it can recover, Chopper is there with a mighty cleave of Toothpick that bites deep into an arm, slashing tendons and rendering it useless. But the beast recovers and manages to grab Ospar with a hand and a club arm and sends him sailing into a wall.
Chopper and Snakeeyes are swinging their long blades in an attempt to avoid getting grappled, Prather has struck the monster in the face several times with arrows and I am burning charges of my wand like there is not tomorrow, for there may not be.
Prather scores at last and an arrow pierces the remaining eye of the Ebon Aspect, who lets out a long howl and begins a chaotic rampage through the room, swinging wildly about with his flail and reaching blindly for targets. Snakeeyes and Chopper dodge out of the way and Snakeeyes hurls another flask of alchemical fire, reigniting the failing flames. Severance is out, but Ospar picks himself back up and ducks back into the shadows for another attempt at a rear attack.
Chopper lands another solid hit that sends the Ebon Aspect reeling and as the beast staggers backwards, a wild swing of the flail smashes the side of the elevator car to pieces. Followed by another huge cut from Snakeeyes’ katana, followed by a deadly stab from Ospar. I send a shock bolt at it that hits the beast on one of its arms, burning it and rendering it useless. And Chopper, with a mighty swing of Toothpick, finishes it off and sends it toppling over with a howl and a crash.
The final cries of the Ebon Aspect echo throughout the Dark Cathedral and silence descends.
I rush to Severance and Prather beats me to him, pulling out some kind of herbal poultice to apply to the side of his face and his shoulder. It is foul-smelling stuff, but within moments Severance open his eyes and can sit up.
“I told you something was going to come out of that pool,” says Snakeeyes.
We are battered and bruised and bloody, laden down with our booty, surrounded by our slain foes in a complex dedicated to the three most evil gods, and after inspection we realize that we are hundreds of feet below Thalos with a destroyed elevator car and no obvious way of ascending to the surface.
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Jun 11, 2019 07:04
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- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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The Climb
quote:
I stand on the wreckage of the elevator and look up into the darkness. “I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t climb several hundred feet straight up an elevator shaft.”
Chopper grins evilly, “It isn’ta problem. Five hunnert feet is only ten pitches or so.” He pulls out a large knife and begins to saw the head off of the Ebon Aspect.
Prather chimes in, “Chopper and I can take the sharp end of the rope and lead us out of here, of that I have no doubt, but it’s going to be a guelling go so we shouldn’t start until we get some rest and eat whatever food anyone has brought.”
“It will be very restful to nap next to a pool that spewed forth the physical manifestation of the heretical belief of cultists dedicated to combining the energies of three of the most evil gods in the pantheon,” says Snakeeyes as he packs a bowl of krrf.
Nevertheless, we pile our loot next to the elevator shaft and head back into the temple of Hextor for provisions and all the rope we can find. We have our meal midway between the pool and the elevator, by the light of my glowstones and a fire that Severance starts to chase away the gloom of this oppressive place. While some of us sleep, Severance and Chopper fashion a large net out of some of the rope to haul up our booty and then we are ready to start moving upwards. Chopper pulls out a different coil of rope from his pack. This one is incredibly slender and supple and with a mumbled word, Chopper causes it to glow faintly. He keeps a hold on one end and tosses the other end straight up into the shaft and as soon as it touches a wall it springs to life and begins to slither straight up the wall like a creeping vine in fast forward.
“Nice trick,” says Severance.
“This rope ha’ gotten me inta and then outta more scrapes then ah care ta mention.”
As soon as the rope has extended its full length, Prather grabs a hold and starts to shimmy up the rope until he gets to the ceiling, at which point he puts both feet on the wall and stands outwards, his body perpendicular to the ground and standing casually as if the vertical wall was the floor of an inn. He walks up the shaft and out of sight and then the end of a coil of normal rope drops down, knotted every foot or so. Chopper ties the net of goods to the end of his magic rope and the rope begins to coil itself up, pulling up the whole load into the darkness. Chopper pauses before ascending to put the severed head on the fire and throw more wood and oil on the blaze to help things along.
In this manner we climb and are hoisted up to a belay point consisting of rope hammocks suspended from spikes driven into the wall. It is dusty, tiring, tedious work and very quickly I vow to never touch a rope or climb a wall ever again.
We are on our third pitch when we reach the first, and original, city of Thalos or whatever it was called then. The smooth walls of the elevator shaft give way to a fissure that runs horizontally across the shaft and in all four directions the 2-3 foot high crack extends into darkness. It seems narrow and claustrophobic and aside from using it as a belay point where we don’t have to use hammocks, no one feels much like exploring.
We toil on. Chopper and Pather, and to some extent Snakeeyes and Ospar, ferry us steadily upwards on the ropes. We pass several more dead Thaloses as we belay and on the eighth pitch we come to the most recent layer of Thalos less than a hundred feet below the surface. As the others continue to haul ropes, I wander into the dead city, and this is a layer that is almost completely intact and excavated, allowing me to stand almost upright. I don’t venture far, but what is immediately obvious is that this is the Thalos that, in all histories, was burned to oblivion by the Suilouise in the last War of Occupation between the Sulouise and the Oeridians before the Oeridians defeated the Sulouise at the Battle of Victory Bridge.
The buildings here show no signs of fire damage and instead show signs of scouring and sand blasting as if caught in a sandstorm of epic scale. I crouched a little bit and moved forward further into the city, stepping over rubble and ducking under collapsed beams, my light rock casting long shadows through the ruins.
I stepped through a window into an old building and suddenly a pair of points winked into existence and a haze started to coalesce into a humanoid form. I immediately felt stuck and drawn towards the lights and could think of nothing else. But when the points gathered and grew into glowing ruby red eyes framed in a gaunt and haggard humanoid shape, I broke and ran as hard and as fast I could beck towards the elevator shaft and probably would have gone over the edge and into the void if Snakeeyes had not swept my legs out from under me, sending me sprawling.
I don’t remember much after that in my haze and delirium, but I vaguely remember two ghostly apparitions with the glowing red eyes flowing into the camp followed by a great commotion as I buried my face in my hands and wept.
The commotion passed and I immediately felt as though a great weight had been lifted from my mind. I sat up and liked around.
“Ye daft fool,” cursed Chopper as he put away his bastard sword. “What did you do?”
“I saw ghosts! Ghosts with red eyes!”
“Red Eyes? Down here? Interesting,” says Prather as he sheaths his sword and coils up rope for the next pitch. “We see them in the lower sewers from time to time and they leave us alone for the most part. I suppose their range is more extensive than we thought.”
“What are they?” I ask.
“Ghosts. Spirits. Undead. We don’t know. They can be killed like other creatures of the negative plane, but they do not behave like ghosts. We don’t know what they are, only that they are dangerous and should best be avoided then their red eyes appear. But why this level? Why not the surface or lower down? Why not in the Dark Cathedral? I wonder.” Prather finishes coiling the rope and begins walking up the wall again. He calls from the darkness above, “Don’t wander off again.”
With this last pitch we get to the surface, deep within the slaughterhouse. It seems like ages but it has been less than 24 hours since we descended the second time to fight the followers of Vecna and Erythnul. We re-divide our booty and leave the slaughterhouse through the office door.
“Prather, I assume you are satisfied to the original terms of our agreement?” Snakeeyes lights up a bowl of krrf. “It is safe to assume that the corpses were being stolen by agents of the Faceless One to deliver to him.” A beat. “It.”
Prather glances at Chopper who nods ever so slightly, then looks back at the four of us. “Yes. You four have fought well and we have stopped the theft of cadavers, and we have apparently stumbled on an effort by the Deceiver to rise.”
Prather looks up at the hazy night sky and exhales loudly.
“I’d like to know more about this Mother Maggot. I’d like to know more about what the Deceivers are up to. I’d like to know more about the Daughter of the Night.”
He sighs again and Chopper stirs impatiently. “No matter. It’s late and this will keep for another day. Would you trust me to send your payment over tomorrow?”
“Of course,” says Ospar. “Come by or have it sent to the Department of Sanitation Department. Alternately I can swing by the LBC and pick it up myself.”
And with that, we six cutthroats heft sacks of ill-gotten goods and slip away into the night.
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Jun 14, 2019 07:54
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- thespaceinvader
- Mar 30, 2011
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The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
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This is even better than my character's Cloak of Billowing.
(It billows dramatically as a free action)
I spotted that in the D&D Beyond item list it's hilarious.
I mean who needs it when you have Gust, but
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Jun 14, 2019 18:12
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- thespaceinvader
- Mar 30, 2011
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The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
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Psh who needs to be a shitfingers I make my OWN MAGIC.
(Sorcerer 4lyfe)
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Jun 16, 2019 12:26
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- Tetracube
- Feb 12, 2014
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by LITERALLY AN ADMIN
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Let me tell you the story of my party's greatest nemesis: a guy in a box.
My players (level 2, 5e) went into the labyrinthine city sewers to stop a drug operation run by some kobolds.
The first room was pretty simple: two giant rats (who they immediately dispatched), a bunch of pressure plate traps (dealt on average 7 damage, hard to dodge but very easy to find), and one single kobold in a makeshift bunker (who had 10 hp, for reasons). The bunker was a 10'x10' stone pillar with a small horizontal embrasure across all four sides for the kobold to shoot out of (located about two feet above the ground). The actual entrance to the bunker was a ladder from below. There was also gross sewer shitwater, which was generally harmless except for making them vomit if they jumped in it and failed a con save.
The traps didn't matter to the party. What mattered was kicking that kobold's rear end.
The paladin and the cleric charge forward, triggering and getting hit by the first two traps on the left side of the room. The cleric runs a circle around the central pillar, again triggering and getting hit by the traps- while the kobold also takes potshots at him. The cleric is now near death.
The paladin runs upwards to investigate the northern room, and the monk charges towards the room to the right. They are both shot by the traps, which roll stupidly high damage. They are both now near death.
The cleric tries to smoke out the kobold by dumping a barrel of shitwater into the bunker, but it just flows down the ladder hole. The druid tries to thorn whip him, but she can't get a clear shot because she's afraid of looking directly into the bunker. The kobold takes a potshot at both of them. The druid is now injured. The monk, meanwhile, is wading through shitwater and vomiting.
The ranger takes one look at this and decides to stay behind.
The warlock tells the cleric to get out of the way, and uses burning hands on the pillar. The cleric does not get out of the way. The kobold succeeds on his dex save. The cleric does not. The cleric is now unconscious. The paladin goes to save the cleric, but in the process triggers a trap for the maximum possible damage somehow, and then gets shot by the kobold. The paladin is now unconscious.
The cleric uses thunderwave on the pillar. She rolls incredibly poorly and the kobold succeeds on his save, so he takes little damage.
The kobold takes a shot at the near-death monk, but misses. He succeeds on his save against a second thunderwave, but it's not enough- the kobold is finally defeated. The monk very carefully picks up the treasure chest in the corner of the room.
But it is a pyrrhic victory, because the party is now half-dead thanks to this one loving kobold. They emerge in the market above, covered in poo poo, piss, and blood, and refusing to speak of what happened down there. The monk takes great pains not to open the chest without getting hit by the trap inside; when he does, he finds the only thing inside is a note that says "gently caress YOU".
One long rest later, they return to the sewers, where the kobold reveals he is not only still alive but has received a promotion for singlehandedly holding off a party of six adventurers, and he has come back with a second kobold.
They finally outwitted him by covering themselves in wooden boxes and using those as cover to move across the room.
Tetracube fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jun 16, 2019
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Jun 16, 2019 16:18
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- Golden Bee
- Dec 24, 2009
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I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
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Had a kids on bikes game finally. Everyone made teens except for me, the middle school bully.
It was the high school lock-in and there were already mysterious disappearances. Turns out it was robots, disguised as teachers! Luckily we were able to fight back with super soakers and confiscated fireworks.
Unfortunately, the principal was loadbearing and the high school started to collapse. Once everyone escaped, I reminded them that “It’s fine!
I don’t go here!”
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Jun 19, 2019 06:52
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- mcjomar
- Jun 11, 2012
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Grimey Drawer
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So, as I'm in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign, welcome to spoiler territory.
So in last night's game, we found a serpent oracle lady (some kind of comparatively kind Naga?) who told us a bunch of info.
This is after 100 in game days of basically loving around with all the side quests we could possibly find that have nothing to do with the main campaign thread. Because we are bumblefucks, that's why.
After spending probably a real time hour bombarding the snake lady with questions, owning up to the fact a nearby hag wanted her scales (the snake told us she was a hag, which we figured out for ourselves out of game), and doing a bunch of other dumb poo poo (we only managed to get to see the snake lady because I make lots of notes about every drat thing), we got ourselves some fancy tattoos, and left.
A few in-game weeks later, using the GM's newer travel system to remove the godawful hexcrawl bullshit, we finally arrived at Camp Vengeance on day 112, to find the place deserted and proper hosed. Exploring the place, we found bugger all except for a hole in the wall, and a dead t-rex in a ditch, which had a hole in it's stomach with something shiny inside - we're adventurers, do the math.
Thus commenced a stone throwing competition, wherein the weakling drow druid (drowid) tried to throw a pebble and barely managed to huck it 5 feet towards the t-rex. The dickish elf ranger tried with a bigger rock, and only managed a few extra feet, falling short. "Iron Dwarf" our Str 20 dwarf ranger hurled his rock, and only managed to hit the elf's rock. I, of course, got up in the breach and hurled my rock, and bounced the fucker right off the dino-corpse head.
And, as some of you guessed, that bastard got up.
Drowid panicked, cast darkness in the space around it's head, and legged it back towards the camp entrance where we'd left our pack-triceratops (because mules are so passe, and this is Jurassic Park). I decided as the barbarian that using the trike as an extra meatshield was an intelligent tactical choice, and fell back as well, getting a lucky disadvantage javelin shot as I did so while raging (because I figured it would be good to rage).
The elf ranger backed up and fired two sharpshooter shots with his longbow (we'd just hit level 5), getting a couple of lucky hits. The Iron Dwarf just booked it.
Then the Zombie-Rex came out of the darkness, charged the drowid and I, up-chucked a zombie out of its guts, and promptly bit the drowid so hard he went unconscious for the rest of the combat (it doesn't help he rolls for his HP rather than taking the average, and gets really lovely rolls every time). No, our Iron Dwarf didn't bother to stop partway through to heal him, why do you ask?
I, of course, ignored the zombie and hacked at the Zombie-Rex, while calling for backup.
The remaining elf backed up further and tried to use animal handling to command the Trike to "kill". It decided grass was more interesting.
Iron Dwarf came charging in, but was a bit short, and had to resort to throwing handaxes.
The Rex circled around me, giving me a shot at its nads, and vommed another undead blighter, while biting me, and critting Iron Dwarf with a tail smack. And of the two of us, I'm the one with adamantine half-plate. Nice.
A few more bouts of yelling and shooting from the elf, while Iron Dwarf circled around - ignoring the drow - to use his three (dual wielder) attacks to hack a crazy chunk out of the side of the Rex. A desultory hit from me took another sliver off, and then the elf ranger got a wild sharpshooter shot (after missing the first), killing it. And it stood back up again, because it's a zombie, and gently caress you. The only person with radiant damage in our group was the drow, and our NPC cleric was off-screen guarding the baggage.
At this point it decided it was still hungry, and after the critical tail smack, Iron Dwarf became the next snack on the ground.
My response was basically "gently caress that", as my dwarf barbarian had refused to run away after the drow went down, so I rolled reckless.
Nat 20, gently caress you, I'm taking your drat head, Rex. It was perfect timing, and the entire table cheered because we had two down, and with just me and the elf left I was beginning to think it was a TPK (I'd have maybe lasted another turn with the damage from the Rex, and the elf would have been a dessert snack).
It's a pity our dwarf bard was away from the table and missed all the fun due to babysitting. On the plus side, we're all still alive, and we've finally reached level 5 (exp system is a hell of a crawl).
I have no clue what's next, but we know the ultimate bosses are three hags, a lich, and a necromancer, plus a poo poo ton of naga, thanks to the oracle. This is going to get really drat difficult without a proper cleric (rather than the multiclass ranger3/cleric2 NPC we have following us around after we rescued the albino dwarf's forge from fire newt invasion - he was very happy with the Gauntlet of Moradin we helped him rescue).
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Jun 20, 2019 09:17
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- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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Downtime
quote:
Our share of the spoils arrives the next day and we find ourselves without anything pressing to do. With gold and silver at our disposal, we go our own ways for a little while as each of us pursues our own interests:
Ospar splits his time between the Hellbridge temple (where he learns how to read while studying philosophy and theology and communing with Hextor) and the Legitimate Businessmen’s Club where one can only assume he was being trained under Chopper and running “errands” for the Club.
Snakeeyes strengthens his hold on the krrf trade on the docks and plies the streets and libraries looking for information about Overlord van Neuman. It seems that a member of the van Neuman line has been Lord of the Keep for centuries and it boggles the mind a little bit to think that each of the cities of Thalos buried on top of each other was ruled by an unbroken line of van Neuman. He also learns that, while the battle of Victory Bridge was a great victory for the Oeridian armies and the threat of Sulouise occupation was finally broken, there are no eyewitness accounts of the actual battle nor are accounts from any soldiers. This, coupled with our firsthand explorations of the ruins under the earth leaves giant inconsistencies in Thalos’ history.
I spend my time with Severance at the Sage’s Guild, learning new spell lists under the tutelage of Allustan, including how to use the air itself as a platform to fly, levitate and leap great distances and some methods of using the body’s own mechanisms to speed and aid healing. I also learn a new list geared towards finding the origins of things and identifying the mystical properties of objects. The three of us pour over old texts devoted to the Daughter of the Night and the Age of Chaos. Severance and I add on a third floor to the Department of Sanitation Department and build rooms for our fledgling library, a research laboratory and an observatory for delving into signs and portents.
Together Severance and I explore some of the origin stories of the multiverse and the origin of my power. As everyone knows, all of creation is bounded by the World Serpent, endlessly growing longer while simultaneously eating its own tail. Within that circular space dwells Dannu the Weaver, She who creates All. These two would dwell in perfect harmony and all of Creation would live in balance. But there is also the Queen of Chaos who climbs through the Weave and creates flaws in the Pattern. All of the gods, good or ill, live within this pattern. Priests receive their energy in return for their devotion to these gods. Mentalists use the power of the mind and Casters of Essence draw power from creation. From the Water Finder I have always understood my power to be drawn from more fundamental sources, but I learn that I draw my power from the very interactions of Dannu and the World Serpent directly, albeit in a limited way.
Warps the mind to dwell on it.
While I look inwards, Severance also researches legends concerning the Daughter of the Night. After making a hefty donation to the Library, Allustan escorts us into the Restricted Works section and we spend days reading about the Age before Ages, the rise of the Queen of Chaos and her consort, Miska the Wolf Spider:
In that time when the beginning of everything was still a vivid memory to those inhabiting creation, the Queen of Chaos discovered the weave and her ability to manipulate it directly. These manipulations brought chaos out of order and brought about the rise of the twisted things, abominations and demons that chose to dwell in the dark places of creation. The greatest of these abominations was Miska the Wolf Spider whom the Queen took as her consort and together these two brought forth blight.
Seeing these aberrations in her Pattern, Dannu brought forth the Vaati, the Wind Dukes, to combat the chaos and in a great battle that diminished the Vaati greatly the Vaati captured and imprisoned Miska in a citadel of pure Law that remains hidden from creation.
But the demons that Miska and the Queen of Chaos unleashed on creation would not be so easily diminished and so they remain to this day.
In later ages, scores of millennia ago, the great Archmages rose up and explored creation. Some sought to understand and be a part of the harmony of creation and others sought domination and knowledge of a darker sort. Legend has it that one of these Archmages begat the Daughter of the Night in order to bring about the Age of Chaos, but the books in the Library are incomplete on this matter.
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Jun 21, 2019 05:35
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- Golden Bee
- Dec 24, 2009
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I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
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oh my god
why aren't there more movies like this
just the idea of a group of teens with a middle school bully tagging along is already fun
She had a crush on the nerdy chemistry kid who was friends with her brother, until she found out that the rich kid was on the fencing team. “You get to carry a SWORD?”
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Jun 21, 2019 16:36
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- Lemniscate Blue
- Apr 21, 2006
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Here we go again.
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Has anyone ever done any campaigns set in very young worlds? Reading "Downtime" by Agrikk had me searching my memories, and I don't think that I have. Then it occurred to me that essentially every story and related tale I hear, whether it's an accepted, publisher endorsed setting or not, is set in a world that's been around at least quite a while. I suppose that it's more fun to play in a world with thousands of years of lore, but my curiousity has been piqued between Agrikk's recent post and having recently read some of the Dragonlance novels set thousands and thousands of years before the War of the Lance and such. One that I just read starts basically before bipeds existed and chronicles a basic history of dragons from their first appearances on the Prime Material Plane up until the "present", which did fill me in on some things that I hadn't understood.
Dawnforge from FFG is a d20 product from back in the day that explores this idea. I was intrigued by it but never played so I can't offer any personal experience. You might find some discussion if you look for that.
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Jun 26, 2019 07:04
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- PurpleXVI
- Oct 30, 2011
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Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
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Has anyone ever done any campaigns set in very young worlds? Reading "Downtime" by Agrikk had me searching my memories, and I don't think that I have. Then it occurred to me that essentially every story and related tale I hear, whether it's an accepted, publisher endorsed setting or not, is set in a world that's been around at least quite a while. I suppose that it's more fun to play in a world with thousands of years of lore, but my curiousity has been piqued between Agrikk's recent post and having recently read some of the Dragonlance novels set thousands and thousands of years before the War of the Lance and such. One that I just read starts basically before bipeds existed and chronicles a basic history of dragons from their first appearances on the Prime Material Plane up until the "present", which did fill me in on some things that I hadn't understood.
I think the "problem"/challenge is that very young worlds require a very pro-active party. Because the party won't just be reacting to what's already there, exploring a ruin, finding an ancient artifact, solving a long-forgotten problem, beating up a risen villain, etc. they'll largely be helping shape things out of whole cloth. Because there are no ruins yet, possibly not even any cities, maybe half the living things supposed to be aren't even shaped yet, depending on how young the world is. I also think that most systems just would not really support the sort of shenanigans you'd be able to get up to in any coherent fashion.
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Jun 26, 2019 07:17
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- Yawgmoth
- Sep 10, 2003
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This post is cursed!
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Dawnforge from FFG is a d20 product from back in the day that explores this idea. I was intrigued by it but never played so I can't offer any personal experience. You might find some discussion if you look for that.
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Jun 26, 2019 15:30
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- Mister Bates
- Aug 4, 2010
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In my Star Wars campaign, the players just destroyed an Imperial industrial-scale agriculture facility, responsible for providing fresh food for the local Imperial army garrisons, in a hilariously creative way I did not anticipate. They brought a lot of explosives, but barely used them. Instead, they stealthily made their way to the central control computer, along with an OOM battle droid they'd brought along, the Duke, which has a personality fanatically loyal to the cause. They wired the Duke up to the computer, brought in their hacking specialist, and copied the Duke's personality matrix thousands of times, overwriting the personalities of every single droid wired into the farming complex's (highly centralized) network with a copy of the Duke. The facility's droids then helpfully destroyed the facility for them.
also I forgot to finish the last story I was telling, I'll come back and wrap that up at some point
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Jun 27, 2019 04:24
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- Mister Bates
- Aug 4, 2010
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Alright, so, Star Wars. The last story chain starts about here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3460258&userid=166604#post494315540 Forgot to actually finish it.
The short version is that the party was lured into an ambush by the Imperial secret police, successfully turned the ambush through a combination of intimidation, bullshit, and explosives, and ending up standing around in the ruins, with a freshly stolen ship, surrounded by a scratch fleet of independent fringers, civilians, and ally-of-convenience Imperials (who the goons had been trying to kill, wanting no witnesses).
There are some quick, and tense, comm negotiations. No one is quite sure what to do or where to go. The party's headquarters ship sent a transmission shortly before everything went to hell, indicating that there were incoming boarders, then dropped off the comm net. The party is desperate to go save their friends, but they know they won't be able to do it alone, so they're sending out radio messages to every ship remaining in the system, desperately trying to put together a scratch fleet out of the survivors of the attack. They have a breakthrough when they manage to convince the Imperial admiral - who is a basically decent man deep down - to see this whole thing through and take what's left of his fleet to the rendezvous point with them. A few of the civilians follow, though most head off on their own way.
It is at this point that I need to take a quick interlude to talk about some scrapped plans. Before the party decided to infiltrate the drydock, they toyed with the idea of assaulting it head-on. The initial plan included a human wave of over a thousand escaped convicts in space suits being disgorged from the party's captured passenger liner. The party's Admiral, whose primary character motivation is casualty prevention, blew a loving gasket upon hearing this suggestion, and the plan was modified. Through theft, salvage, and piracy, the party had acquired a lot of cargo pods, droid brains, and a bunch of spare maneuvering thrusters. The party also has a defected Imperial engineer from a starfighter design bureau, who by this point had already thrown together a scratch workshop. Instead of space suits, the party got the idea to modify hundreds of cargo crates with thrusters, droid brains, and grappling cables. The pods would be fired at the drydock, grapple to the hull, and boarding teams would use cutting torches to breach the hull and gain access to the interior. This was again shot down, after much argument, as too dangerous. The party's engineer, who in-character was bored, restless, and nervous, killed the time leading up to the operation by building a bunch of boarding pods anyway.
The party arrives at the rendezvous point to see their HQ ship, the Joy Bringer, and an Imperial light cruiser, both drifting dead in space. The Bringer is festooned in Imperial boarding shuttles. The Imperial cruiser is encrusted with cargo crates like barnacles. One of the party's NPC subordinates contacts them from the bridge...of the Imperial ship. Out of desperation, the crew had piled into the crates, launched them while the cruiser's shields were down to deploy boarding shuttles, and burned hard for the enemy ship. Some of them had missed, some had been shot down, but with the stormtrooper detachment mostly gone, the ship's shocked crew had been easily overwhelmed. There is now a standoff - the surviving Imperials are nearly all on the rebel ship, and the surviving rebels are nearly all on the Imperial ship, but neither one has sufficient control of the vessel to jump away, so they're just floating there next to each other. The party's arrival fixes that. The hundreds of troops returning from the dockyard raid are able to retake the ship with ease.
I was expecting them to steal the Imperial cruiser, but instead they spent a day or so stripping it for parts to repair their own ship, stripped all of its weapons (which they had nowhere to mount, so they literally strapped the turbolasers to the exterior of the Bringer with cables), and then turned on its loving distress beacon, leaving the ruined hulk floating there as a warning. The party - accompanied by their newly stolen Nebulon-B frigate, about half a dozen badly damaged Imperial ships, and a newly defected Imperial admiral - jumped away to somewhere safer.
In the end, they suffered massive casualties, nearly six hundred killed or wounded, more than they'd lost during the prison break...and they killed a Star Destroyer, an Interdictor, a light cruiser, a bunch of smaller ships, and an Imperial dockyard facility, and made it out with hundreds of new recruits, several new ships, and a huge morale boost.
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Jun 30, 2019 05:01
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- The Glumslinger
- Sep 24, 2008
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Coach Nagy, you want me to throw to WHAT side of the field?
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Hair Elf
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Like, I know that playing as a Cleric who worships the goddess of lies is just asking the DM to gently caress with you, but god drat was I not expecting it.
At least my bluff is high enough to lie to rest of the party about accidentally worshipping the main villain of the campaign 
Edit: So we had just finished up in a huge dungeoneering tournament with a bunch of npc friends. Right then, the BBEG, a goddess who we suspected to be behind a lot of recent trouble but know very little about, appears suddenly. She offers any of us great power to turn evil as her champion and she'll grant us powers like the absurdly powerful boss of the tournament. And if one of us doesn't offer themselves up within a day, she'll take pick which one as her champion. And then the DM split us up and did 1 on 1 discussions about what our characters did the rest of that night. Like sell themselves out or run to the loving king for help. It's broken down into a game who everyone can trust to not betray the group for a shitload of power. Or try to save their friends and offer themselves up as a sacrifice. And we're all lieing about what happened and acting coy
The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Jun 30, 2019
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Jun 30, 2019 06:14
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- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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Has anyone ever done any campaigns set in very young worlds? Reading "Downtime" by Agrikk had me searching my memories, and I don't think that I have. Then it occurred to me that essentially every story and related tale I hear, whether it's an accepted, publisher endorsed setting or not, is set in a world that's been around at least quite a while. I suppose that it's more fun to play in a world with thousands of years of lore, but my curiousity has been piqued between Agrikk's recent post and having recently read some of the Dragonlance novels set thousands and thousands of years before the War of the Lance and such. One that I just read starts basically before bipeds existed and chronicles a basic history of dragons from their first appearances on the Prime Material Plane up until the "present", which did fill me in on some things that I hadn't understood.
I’ve always wanted to play a campaign based in the Silmarillion. I thought it would be fun to start a campaign with all of the characters starting at level twenty or thirty and spring up into existence like Athena springing forth from the forehead of Zeus.
I though that the mechanic of characters springing into existence strangely overpowered and having their players fumble around with them for a little while as they “learned to walk”. Yesterday the world didn’t exist. Today it does. Go explore it. 
And then doing battle with Balrogs and dragons like Ancalagon the Black right out of the gate?
It would be like World Building 1.0 with all the settings turned up to eleven.
Sadly, my players like building heroes in an existing would rather than building a world with existing heroes.
Agrikk fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Jul 4, 2019
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Jul 4, 2019 05:09
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- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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The Raid
quote:
One night I am sleeping in my room on the third floor of the Department of Sanitation Department when I am awoken by a hand over my face. I struggle to free myself when Chopper’s face materializes in the moonlight.
“Ye really need better wards me friend.”
“The hells are you doing here…?”
“Get ye gear. Prather is a-wakin’ Snakeeyes an’ Severance. The LBC an’ t’ Maze are partnering up t’ raid a house full o’ smugglers. But somefin’ donna feel right abou’tis.”
Blearily I grab my kit and meet Severance and Snakeeyes and Prather Longarm in the lobby. Snakeeyes looks a bit rough, like he has hit the krrf pipe a bit hard this evening.
“Good evening gentlemen,” says Prather. “Chopper and I have convinced our organizations that it is time to deal with the Exile once and for all. Ordinarily this would be a guild matter handled internally, but the Deceivers have been raiding temples, museums and noble houses and have been collecting artifacts and objects of lore from something called the Battle of Pesh.”
Severance speaks up. “The Battle of Pesh is the battle in which the Wind Dukes battled with the forces of chaos led by the Obyrith called the Queen of Chaos. They used the Rod of Law, now known as the Rod of Seven Parts, to smite and imprison her Tanar'ri slave and eventual consort, Miska the Wolf Spider.”
“Yes, that,” says Prather wryly, clearing his throat. “Well. The Hound of Death and Guildmaster Hreimar have grown tired of the Deceivers stirring things up with this rash of operations and wants them hit. Hard. But we are concerned about their collecting of Pesh artifacts might somehow be involved with the Daughter of Night that we heard about in the Dark Cathedral and want you to be there to help us. Just in case.”
We meet up on the edge of the Maze with a dozen men and women dressed head to toe in black. Thieves discuss tactics with assassins and we agree that I should accompany one group through the roof and Severance will come up though the sewers. We will use mechanical timekeeping devices belonging to Chopper and Prather to initiate the attack.
The raid target is a two story house in slight disrepair. We gather up on the roof of a building next door and a soft click from Prather’s mechanical gizmo indicates the go time. We stalk our way onto the rooftop of the house and down through a stairwell and the grisly ambush begins. Quiet death rains down from above as more death flows up from below and just as quickly as it begins it is done, with no sign of the Exile or her lieutenants.
As Chopper and his crew behead the fallen, we grab some scrolls and texts and spy the presence of another granite slab decorated in the same fashion as the one we saw in the Dark Cathedral and described in the Faceless One’s journal entry. It is a slab about as wide as a double door inscribed with a thousand point star. I grab the scrolls and instruct the crew to smash the slab to pieces, they loot the place and we note the absence of any artifacts from the Age before Ages. We flee the scene to a roof of a tenement home where thieves and assassins divide booty, tell some whispered tales and then fade into the night.
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Jul 6, 2019 17:47
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 21, 2024 22:34
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- Agrikk
- Oct 17, 2003
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Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.
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The Granite Portal
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Prather, Chopper, Severance and I return to the Department HQ and I pour everyone some excellent Velunian Fireamber as we go over the scrolls and notes. Briefly, they describe a way to build a portal of some kind out of a granite slab.
“But a portal won’t work due to van Neuman’s ward,” says Severance.
“Well clearly we need to figure out how these portals bypass the Walls of Thalos so we can control it,” says Prather. “The LBC will pay. You need to get this to work.”
The rest of the notes are exhaustive lists and descriptions of objects and relics relating to the Age before Ages and the Battle of Pesh and I get to work deciphering the notes and emulating the creation process using supplies provided by the LBC and the Maze.
It takes Severance and I several weeks of experimentation, during which we move our laboratory out of the Department of Sanitation Department into an abandoned building across the street at Weston’s request when an explosion in our lab leaves me unconscious and Severance with a burned face and ringing ears, but we are able to unlock the secret of the portals and manage to create our own and summon Prather, Chopper, Allustan the Sage and Snakeeyes for our first demonstration.
“The essence o’ the portals isn’t that they be a linear method of transport from here t’ there,” says Severance in his lecturing tone. “Rather they be gates t’a different plane o’ existence, seemingly created solely for this purpose. Th’ notes make a a reference t’a ‘Shadow Thalos’ in which ya kin travel from one portal into that plane, cross the distance dere, den by another portal back into this plane.”
We are standing on our ramshackle lab in front of our new granite slab that is covered with the thousand point star painstakingly drawn out over dozens of backbreaking hours of work.
I do the honor and cast the portal spell. With a quiet huff of displaced air, the center of the star opens with a sparkle and a perfect circle opens. It is as if a window has been opened in the middle of the granite slab but the window only allows shades of grey. Around the granite slab is the faded and drab wood of our lab in normal color but looking through the slab shows the same room, but in perfect absence of any color at all.
“How big can this gate get?” asks Prather as he bends over to peer into the gate without going through it.
Severance continues, “The size o’ th’ gate is dependent o’ th’ size o’ the drawn star, which is dependent on th’ size o’ th’ granite slab. Th’ trick being it ha’ to be one single piece of granite. Ye could get a wagon through one if ye could cut a piece o’ rock that big.”
“So stepping through this hole here would take me into this room in Shadow Thalos?”
Severance nods and Prather continues, “But that still doesn’t answer the problem of the Walls. All modes of transport breaching the plane of the Walls are forbidden. How does this manage to bypass it?”
“Whoever created Shadow Thalos expended a huge amount o’ power t’ build an entire plane o’ existence t’ replicate Thalos an’ its immediate surroundings in perfect detail for some reason. Apparently this simulacrum is similar enough tha’ th’ Walls are not able t’ defend against this type o’ travel. I also suspect tha’ since color would’a been an added power expenditure it was left out o’ th’ construct.”
Chopper asks, “Can we go in?” and without waiting for an answer he steps though the portal followed quickly by Snakeeyes, Prather and Allustan.
“Wait!” Severance and I cry in unison, but as they pile through the gate there is an acrid smell, a strange crunching noise and a robed figure in black materializes out of thin air with glowing red eyes. Without hesitating, the figure in black flees through the nearest windows out into the streets of Thalos.
“What th’ hells?” says a monochrome Chopper standing just next to the gate on the Shadow side.
I speak up this time before Severance can lecture more. “Shadow Thalos was created to be a perfect replica of Thalos as it was at the moment of its creation. Since that time Thalos has aged and changed from that image, but Shadow Thalos ages a lot more slowly. Look at the ceiling of this house. Where you stand the timbers are new. Where I stand the timbers are black with age. The Faceless One theorized that these disjunctions accumulate over time as the two images of Thalos drift apart and the act of transitioning though the portal from one plane to the other acts as a focal point for enormous energies. These energies somehow become sentient in our world.”
“So the Red Eyes are sentient shadows? All the Red Eyes in Thalos have been created by transits to and from Shadow Thalos?” asks Allustan.
“Exactly.”
Monochrome Allustan rubs gnarled hands together as he paces around the room in Twilight Thalos. “van Neuman needs to know about this. He needs to know that not only are his Walls breached, but they’ve been breached enough times that a races of shadows is living in the dark places of this city.”
At the mention of the Overlord’s name, Snakeeyes suddenly looks up from inspecting the colorless room on the far side of the portal. “Yes,” he says with grim eyes. “We should definitely get the Overlord involved. His consort as well. We should seek an audience with both of them.”
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Jul 6, 2019 18:02
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Jun 8, 2019 08:43
