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wiegieman posted:Dipsomancers (drunk magic) can switch bodies as previously mentioned, or can teleport people across the world, or raise the dead as an army of zombies. (Dipsomancy is kind of all over the place.) UA is a game that people either bounce off of, or fall for. If you enjoy the fact that the drunken wizards can control ghosts because "spirits" has two meanings, you are likely in the latter camp.
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May 16, 2020 20:27
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Yeah, so a couple of people above have described the main mechanics for magic in UA, and some of the main charging structures. My current party consists of: Lacey: Kleptomancer. Gets a major charge for stealing something worth more than $10m. Ray: Entropomancer. Gets a major charge for risking his own life (at around 50/50 odds) alongside either 10 strangers, or 1 person he really cares about. Which is how he got one for almost killing the entire party with his reckless driving. Amber: Epideromancer. Gets a charge for serious self harm. Has had one so far in the game, from cutting off her own nose and taking a permanent, irreparable penalty to all social roles on account of she's a terrifying noseless freak. Marcel: Gun Mage. Hasn't had a major charge yet. He gains one by either making a gun completely from scratch. Like, completely. Digging up the metal, turning it into a weapon. Remember that guy who spent a year making a poo poo dysfunctional toaster? That but for guns. Or, the other way, is to make a gun that enters the popular consciousness to the same extent as something like the AK 47. He probably has the hardest time getting a major charge, because those are both ridiculous. Theresa: The Plutomancer. As noted, gets a major charge if someone gives her $100m in a single transaction. Jack: The Oneiromancer. Gets a major charge if she has a prophetic dream, speaks it aloud, and then sees it come true. This is the one that most obviously relies on the GM deciding to just make it happen. Generally the schools of magic which can gain charges more easily either have weaker effects, or can lose them more easily.
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May 16, 2020 20:34
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Exculpatrix posted:Marcel: Gun Mage. Hasn't had a major charge yet. He gains one by either making a gun completely from scratch. Like, completely. Digging up the metal, turning it into a weapon. Remember that guy who spent a year making a poo poo dysfunctional toaster? That but for guns. Or, the other way, is to make a gun that enters the popular consciousness to the same extent as something like the AK 47. He probably has the hardest time getting a major charge, because those are both ridiculous. What about 3D printing, if he's allowed to use tools?
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May 16, 2020 21:21
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Reclaimer posted:What about 3D printing, if he's allowed to use tools? The gun mage has to do and make everything themselves. They have to hand make the tools they use to get the ore to make into metal, and all the stuff they use for smithing has to be made by them as well - absolutely nothing can be already made for them to use.
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May 16, 2020 22:09
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Heliotrope posted:The gun mage has to do and make everything themselves. They have to hand make the tools they use to get the ore to make into metal, and all the stuff they use for smithing has to be made by them as well - absolutely nothing can be already made for them to use.
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May 16, 2020 23:49
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3D print the pieces to make a 3D printer which you use to print a gun.
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May 17, 2020 00:14
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What rules is that the baroque weirdness of that concept and how unclear the rules are is extremely the way magic should actually be Can you cheat it, somehow? Maybe, maybe not; is it the third Sunday of the month?
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May 17, 2020 00:31
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Entropomancer seems like a quick route to serious loving power if you're lucky.
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May 17, 2020 01:01
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Kavak posted:Entropomancer seems like a quick route to serious loving power if you're lucky. The key word here is "if" you are lucky. You absolutely cannot cheat this because the risk is what fuels the magic, and there is a good chance you will die chasing a major charge.
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May 17, 2020 01:09
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wiegieman posted:Plutomancers (money magic) gain charges by receiving money. Lump sums of dollars, not simply things that are worth that much, but electronic transfers are fine. A major charge takes $100 million. They can get anything into their possession (suitcase nuke, anyone?) or dictate the world economy for a day (let's make Amazon employee-owned!) or get themselves into the presence of anyone alive (punch _____ right in their stupid face, no matter how many guards they have.) So THAT'S what those mega-church motherfuckers are up to, they're all Plutomancers
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May 17, 2020 01:19
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Plutomancers have to achieve new wealth right, they can't just shuffle the same millions back and forth between themselves.
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May 17, 2020 01:22
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Exculpatrix posted:Marcel: Gun Mage. Hasn't had a major charge yet. He gains one by either making a gun completely from scratch. Like, completely. Digging up the metal, turning it into a weapon. Remember that guy who spent a year making a poo poo dysfunctional toaster? That but for guns. Or, the other way, is to make a gun that enters the popular consciousness to the same extent as something like the AK 47. He probably has the hardest time getting a major charge, because those are both ridiculous. Pfft, "hard." Just look how easily Oswald made the name 'Mannlicher–Carcano' a household term for a while there. ....okay maybe that's still not that easy, but hey. Your party already bought the Pope, effectively; I'm sure they could come up with a plan for Marcel to shoot a few famous people with a sufficiently rare gun that suddenly everyone knows about. Kavak posted:Entropomancer seems like a quick route to serious loving power if you're lucky. Yeah, but it's a big 'if.' The thing about UA magic is that it all relies on inherent contradiction. Dipsomancers gain control of the world around them by inhibiting their control over themselves; pornomancers gain vast powers in the realm of passion and interpersonal relationships by slavishly following the rote actions of a former porn star, meaning they lose all that passion in their own lives. Entropomancers, then, gain power over fate and luck and destiny... by taking chances. That means any use of magic to hedge your bets and reduce the risk means you don't get the charge, because you haven't taken the risk. It means any use of anything to reduce the risk means you don't get the charge. It has to be a genuine "heads you win, tails you and all your friends die horribly" kind of a deal. So, yeah, big power... if you survive long enough to use it. UA magic rests on these inherent contradictions because UA mages are loving crazy. Like, definitionally, every one of them is hosed up in the head, because you have to be hosed up in the head enough to devote your life to magic; they are all obsessive wierdos. This is why UA having the best sanity/madness system I have yet seen in an RPG is super-important.
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May 17, 2020 01:37
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Yawgmoth posted:I think at a certain point you have to let them use something made/acquired by someone else or else you're just being a dickhead. You have to make the tools, but how do you make the tools? With a forge? So now I have to make a forge, which I do with other tools... that I have to make? Well gently caress, now we're in a chicken-and-egg scenario, especially if I have to get the material for tools myself, because that generally requires the same tools to dig into the earth as you would to make a gun. You pretty much have to make everything by yourself, yes: quote:Alternately, a fulminaturge could make himself a new totem weapon, and its bullets, unaided and entirely from scratch. If he mined all the iron and saltpeter and copper himself, made his own forge, his own charcoal, his own hammer and tongs, and built the weapon with no help from anyone, touching it with no tools but those he made himself, then he could get a major charge if the gun was any good. So basically getting a major charge as a gun mage is the kind of thing a character would spend a campaign working towards. The examples for what you can do with a major charge are become immune to all firearm attacks, curse someone to always be hit when fired at, or turn all munitions in a twenty miles radius except your own into inert sand. Kavak posted:Plutomancers have to achieve new wealth right, they can't just shuffle the same millions back and forth between themselves. Magic in Unknown Armies has various rules which don't allow stuff like this. In addition, Plutomancers lose all the charges they have if they spend more then $1,000 dollars on something.
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May 17, 2020 01:40
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UA sounds amazing and I need to find a game to join. My most recent session was cut short (one player's work pushed start time back an hour, and another pushed the end time up half an hour). Krugg the rear end in a top hat goblin fighter, Quinn the chef human bard, Kone the shonen gnome sorcerer, and Escor the murderhobo human ranger are preparing to fight Raldar, the insane demon blocking their path. Raldar is bugfuck irrational. He sits in a cave, on a throne he cobbled together from rocks, in front of a bunch of goblin corpses. He shouts at them, demanding they worship him as a god, until he loses his temper and stomps the ground hard enough to knock them all over and apart. Then he shapeshifts into a goblin, rebuilds the corpses, returns to his true form, and gets back on his throne to start over. We set up a trap in one of the tunnels leading to his chamber. There's a board wedged in the rocks near the ceiling holding a couple of bottles of holy water, with a rope tied to it. Someone (probably Krugg) lures him into the tunnel, and someone else yanks the rope and drops the holy water on him. We've also each got a couple of bottles of either holy water or holy beer to hit him with. The divination spell we cast told us offering him beer to drink would work, but no one wants to actually talk to this insane rear end in a top hat long enough to try it, especially after he previously disemboweled half the party. Quinn has a wand of Sleep, so we decide to try putting him to sleep, leaving a bottle in front of him with "TRIBUTE" scratched in the dirt, and hoping for the best. He passes his Will save, becomes furious, and casts Enlarge Person. Still unseen, we bug the gently caress out and decide to try again tomorrow. The next day, we sneak into the tunnels again and debate how to approach this, and then Escor steps up. He walks out of our hiding place, getting the attention of Raldar who immediately recognizes him as the guy who tried to shoot him a few days ago. Escor pulls out a bottle of beer and explains that he wanted to offer Raldar a tribute for being so great at slicing his guts out, but there's a human tradition of giving gifts while people are sleeping as a sign of respect. Raldar looks unconvinced until Escor starts explaining how he found the beer that only kings and nobles are allowed to drink, and peasants are put to death if they even look at it, and then he sets it at Raldar's feet, backs off, and drops to one knee. Raldar is deeply pleased and chugs the bottle of holy beer in one gulp. After a few seconds, he realizes that the pleasant burn from properly made booze is, in fact, a poison destroying his insides, Krugg stands up and declares that booze always destroys false gods, he casts Enlarge Person, and we roll initiative. We ended partially through combat, with Krugg using his keen barfighting instincts to smash multiple bottles of holy beer over Raldar's head. Now we retreat through the trap, wait for Enlarge Person to wear off, draw him in, and hopefully kill him.
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May 17, 2020 05:01
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LawrenceFriday posted:UA sounds amazing and I need to find a game to join. It's really good. My current campaign is the third one I've run using it (though also a direct sequel to the first one). The whole way the magic is an awful addictive brainwrong just constantly drives PCs to put themselves right in the middle of terrible drama, with minimal external poking by me. Mini story: in the previous campaign we had a character named Charity. Her magical obsession was photos, particularly taking photos of emotionally charged moments. She'd gain a minor charge just for spending time taking photos, a significant charge for taking a photo of something really important in a person's life, and a Major by taking a historic shot. The party wanted to learn more about a spectral entity which had just manifested in their bar. Charity had a spell for that! Only, she didn't have enough charges - she was one significant short. She could go out, find a wedding or something, get some pictures? Hell no, that was too slow. Instead she pulls out a gun and shoot's her sister's girlfriend in the foot (who was another PC, to be clear), then takes a photo of them both being super, super loving pissed off with her. Because the day your friend shot you in the foot for no good reason is an emotionally important day, right? It worked to get her the charge, but it fed into drama for a long, long time after.
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May 17, 2020 20:04
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This is why I strongly tend toward Avatars, and more often strange normal people. I'm too batshit-averse to appreciate Adepts at anything closer than a very safe distance.
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May 17, 2020 20:17
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Does the gun wizard's self-made weapon have to actually be a good modern gun? Or would cosplaying Primitive Technology until you have something on par with a fire lance suffice?
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May 17, 2020 22:47
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Asehujiko posted:Does the gun wizard's self-made weapon have to actually be a good modern gun? Or would cosplaying Primitive Technology until you have something on par with a fire lance suffice? It would have to shoot a bullet and be easily recognizable as "a gun", as the general public understands it.
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May 17, 2020 22:57
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UA Avatars are cool but come with their own brand of weirdness; their obsessions are a little less dramatic, their prohibitions are a bit less stark, but they get their share of crazed, self-destructive bullshit. For those that don't know: UA has two 'main' types of magic - Adept magic as discussed above, and Avatar magic, which is used by essentially aligning yourself with the personification of a concept, like The Fool or The True King or The MVP. The powers of Avatar 'channels' are much less flexible than Adept magic, but they can be pretty cool. Mind you, all Adepts can really do, long-term, is get better at magic poo poo and possibly aim for getting a Major Charge at some point in their lives; Avatars can scheme to effectively become gods by inhabiting their archetype better than anyone else. Or possibly subverting the archetype into a new and different meaning (changing the True King into the True CEO, for example). Anyways, the point is Avatars have way more story hooks dripping off of them than the average Adept.
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May 17, 2020 23:04
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Adepts can't quite chase godhood, but they can do some pretty world-shaking things with a major charge, and adepts hunting one down are liable to try and pull off similarly ridiculous stunts - my favourite is the idea of a videomancer holding a TV studio hostage and forcing them to turn his fanfic into a canon episode for ultimate arcane power.
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May 18, 2020 15:08
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So with two slightly different flavors of re-writing history, is the overarching rule that who ever casts (successfully) last, is the reality we now know? Also, does the part know IC that things changed? I mean I kind of doubt two players would be so petty as to magic snipe each other with something as powerful as History Altering magic, given all the effort that has to go in to even achieving that kind of power. But I could see where the dynamic could get called in.
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May 18, 2020 22:24
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Ok. There's this thing called the Invisible College, which has 333 members, each of whom are Archetypes: the True King, the Fool, the Messenger, the Mother, and so on. The College "resides" in the Statosphere, the super-reality that exists above our own. When it fills up to 333, the world is unmade and remade in the image of the archetypal humans who best exemplified the beliefs of humanity last time around. Usually this is overseen by the Comte who I hate for being a boring gmpc, but he no longer has that job. Between UA 1st edition and UA 2nd edition this happened (on 3/3/03, of course.) All the adepts and avatars went to sleep and woke up in new lives that they hadn't ruined with the pursuit of magical power. Most of them immediately burned these happy lives to the ground, but: history doesn't matter in UA. People matter.
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May 18, 2020 22:54
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CzarChasm posted:I kind of doubt two players would be so petty as to 
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May 19, 2020 01:51
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Never underestimate Player Pettiness
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May 19, 2020 05:15
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Robindaybird posted:Never underestimate Player Pettiness Some of my greatest VtM moments were brought forth by the desire to be a petty dick about something.
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May 19, 2020 06:52
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UA chat is bringing back a flood of good memories about playing it at university. The changes between first edition, second, and third are not only interesting mechanically, but the "meta plot" changes with the times as well. But, it doesn't prescribe any specific story beats, like L5R. Since the game is set in the current day, and what's current changes, the flavor of mystic bullshit affecting the world shifts with popular culture. The avatars in ascension shift, schools of magic die out or become more prominent and the power groups evolve.quote:For example: the avatar of the messenger. It's the embodiment of the person that delivers the right and truthful message at the right time. It started in western culture with Pheidippides at Marathon and his news of victory for Athens. As time went on, it morphed into the idea of reporters and newsmen, Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite were likely avatars. They delivered the truth to millions. At the time of UA1, late nineties, this was being disrupted by the idea of the "Heisenberg messenger", the man that tells the story that changes the world, in essence, becoming the story. If I find the time and can dredge up any details about the games I played, I'll try and write up a summary or two for this thread.
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May 19, 2020 09:05
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quote:If you're kicked out of godhood, you descend to earth. And you're now very, very pissed off. I think there's a thing where you descend via the House of Renunciation, which is a set of weird pocket dimensions which exist to turn visitors' personalities into the opposite of who they used to be. So the former Messenger is now a step beyond Arkane's ideology of "the medium is the message" and is probably embracing some philosophy of "ignorance is bliss, let's smash all information everywhere and enter a new dark age"
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May 19, 2020 11:55
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UA really does change, iirc the original flavor of Videomancer ended up being pretty much impossible to use due to DVR and streaming services making them unable to get charges as originally written.
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May 19, 2020 16:15
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the_steve posted:Some of my greatest VtM moments were brought forth by the desire to be a petty dick about something. Guess where my character went that very next night.  A brief stealth mission later and I have absconded with a whole library of useful books on the occult!
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May 19, 2020 17:38
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I know no players who can resist a huge sign saying "OFF LIMITS! DO NOT GO THERE!" If that Ventrue had been smart they would have said nothing at all and just passed a note to the storyteller saying "let me know if anyone tries to get into this one specific castle in Prague. I have <storyline> there." Unless, of course, they were trying to get vampires to go there. In that case, well played.
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May 19, 2020 20:19
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Agrikk posted:I know no players who can resist a huge sign saying "OFF LIMITS! DO NOT GO THERE!" Isn't this the problem that the people designing 10,000-year "STAY OUT" notices for atomic waste disposal ran into Even if you can figure out a way to make a message last for ten millennia and be understandable as "there is oogy poo poo here, do not touch" for that entire gulf of time, people will either go "oh, this i gotta see!" or "Haha, I bet they're just trying to keep us out of their valuables and gold!"
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May 19, 2020 23:10
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The closest humanity has come to solving the problem of warning people away from closed doors for long periods of time was the curse warnings on Ancient Egyptian tombs, and 99% of those were robbed blind inside of a century.
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May 20, 2020 00:09
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Agrikk posted:If that Ventrue had been smart they would have said nothing at all and just passed a note to the storyteller saying "let me know if anyone tries to get into this one specific castle in Prague. I have <storyline> there."
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May 20, 2020 01:52
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Phy posted:Isn't this the problem that the people designing 10,000-year "STAY OUT" notices for atomic waste disposal ran into In Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light there is a place called Hellwell, where people should not go. From its description: quote:There is a huge, burnished metal door, erected by the First, that is heavy as sin, three times the height of a man and half that distance in width. It is a full cubit thick and bears a head-sized ring of brass, a complicated pressure-plate lock and an inscription that reads, roughly, "Go away. This is not a place to be. If you do try to enter here, you will fail and also be cursed. If somehow you succeed, then do not complain that you entered unwarned, nor bother us with your deathbed prayers." Signed, "The Gods." naturally, there then follows descriptions of the last few people to try entering Hellwell, shortly before the narrative of the guy who actually succeeds. (read Lord of Light btw it is the best novel about Buddha waging guerilla war against the Hindu pantheon except also they're settlers from Earth colonizing an alien world)
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May 20, 2020 06:59
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My Clone Wars era Star Wars game (FFG rules) is going great so far. I'm not very good at describing things after the fact, but we've had two missions that both ended with incredible dramatic moments The PCs: Garret, Jedi Padawan and official commander of these operations. Acting under the leadership (but seldom direct aid) of Jedi Master Admiral Manar Kel Element (CT-1153) the Lieutenant of the clones, and often the de facto leader Tank (CT-7825) the Heavy of the group, and glowing fire magnet who ends every battle KOed Blink (CT-3777) an ARC trooper in training, and the clone with the widest array of skills Cypher an old droid of a now-defunct line, on hand to provide knowledge of the situation and mechanical skills The first mission saw the players acting as diplomatic envoys to the Harch (spider people), trying to stop them from joining the CIS. Blink got poisoned in an ambush in their embassy rooms, and when Garret learned that the CIS had the antidote he headed over to try and get it. While the official CIS representative was very willing to work with him, the commander of the droid forces stationed there was not and Garret ended up captured. Element and the friendly CIS representative attempt to distract the droid commander with diplomacy, while Tank and Cypher sneak in to free Garret and Blink. Unfortunately, the commander's undiplomatic streak continued and they weren't able to keep him distracted for long. Garret and Blink were being held on a transport ship, ready to leave world as soon as they could get away without detection. Tank and Cypher snuck onto the ship just as Element's distraction fizzled out and the alarm went off. Figuring that there's no hope of fighting out through a platoon of droids, the newly reunited party decides the only thing to do is steal the ship while they're at it. Tank grabs the pilot seat (none of them are good pilots, but he has the highest agility) and tries to fly out of the hangar while the rest of the group fights off the droid reinforcements - including a Droideka that manages to miss every shot it takes. They blast free, and Element is called in to talk to the Harch. He plays on their independent and warlike nature to avoid escalating the conflict, and everyone makes it out alive. The second mission sees the party having to operate behind enemy lines to bring down a shield generator so the Republic can get supplies to a besieged city. They're on a strict time table, and the earlier they succeed within that window the better. They are hot dropped in on speeders, and quickly escape from the sep pursuers, making their way to the shield generator fort. The goal is to make contact with a clone strike force who landed earlier, to secure additional manpower and ordnance. Unfortunately, when they arrive they see a Shell Hutt leading a droid column with many captive clones - at least some of the missing strike force. Deciding that searching for the scattered remnants would take too long, the party instead attempts an all-or-nothing assault on the fort via a service tunnel connecting to wave tamers. As they near the end of the tunnel, they trip the alarm and find themselves facing a full droid army. Tank and Element hold off the phalanx, while the others move as carefully as they can towards the generator. As they near the generator, the droids happen to spot Garret, and drop him with a lucky shot. Blink and Cypher patch him up, but everyone is on their last legs. They make it to the generator, and are faced with another Droideka. It nearly finishes off Blink and Cypher in its opening attack, when Cypher realizes they can't afford the time to whittle their enemy down. He loads himself up with grenades and walks through the Droideka's shields, setting them all off and taking the Droideka with him. As Cypher's heroics clear the room, the Phalanx outside captures Tank and Element. The remaining droids, along with their Hutt General, enter the room before Garret can finish destroying the generator. Blink heroically holds off the Shell Hutt in a one-on-one duel for several turns. He finally falls just as Garret succeeds. Garret turns to make a heroic last stand, but is no match for the Hutt. They are all captured, but Garret's Master manages to free them, making an exchange that will have dire consequences in the future. Currently, they're on a short timeskip forward as they recover and undergo further training and receive promotions (they hit a Duty threshold). Garret is now a Jedi Knight, Blink a full ARC trooper, Element and Tank upgraded their gear and Cypher's player is coming back as a smuggler-turned-mercenary Some other interesting characters: Luku, a Toydarian Mechanic on the Venator Class Star Destroyer Indefatigable (their primary base) who loves to tinker with equipment despite being told to stop. His love of strapping guns to things has endeared him to the players, but his tendency to dramatically reduce the reliability of the equipment in the process has not. Pholci the Deathweaver is a Harch Bountyhunter who uses his unique physiology to sextuple-wield pistols. He is good at throwing together gangs of expendables and showing up at the worst possible moment, before escaping and swearing revenge Maya Cho, a Separatist Representative. Daughter of the Chairman of Pantora, she's trying to get her people to join the CIS. She is an actually respectable and honorable person who believes in the Confederacy's mission statement, which puts her at odds with most of the leadership of the CIS's military
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May 20, 2020 08:18
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The Korvin Rebellion Chapter 2 https://tinyurl.com/y99nzbpy X X X X X Searian Spy Ring EXPOSED! The Pelts - A meeting of Searian spies and traitorous collaborators was raided yesterday by the Iron Guard under orders from Lady Catrinna Stålgaard, Master of Whispers for the High King. Over a dozen spies and accomplices were arrested and half-again that number killed while trying to escape justice. Unfortunately, Aldric Stålgaard, brother to the Master of Whispers, was lost during the fighting, along with several of the Iron Guard... murdered by traitors to the crown! The insurgents also set fire to the Gray Orc saloon attempting to cover their escape, resulting in the burning of eleven nearby structures in the aftermath. The leader of the spy ring, Rodrick Kolaburn, Tiefling male known in the underworld as "Defiance," was not among those captured. A reward is being offered by the Iron Guard for any information leading to his location. X X X X X As the party looks around at the burned neighborhood surrounding their new hideout, the coin in Random’s purse buzzes, signifying that our possible new patron is calling us. This is Watchdog. Proceed to the Southern Docks, south of the town of Westler, outside the southern walls, sundown, tonight. Slip 12. The party scatters for the day. At Zinnia’s suggestion, Viktor sets up a hovel in the garden next to the burned down chapel, allowing him to keep an eye on the dragon egg that the party discovered during the last session. The party meets that evening at a tavern near the docks called the Lucky Flask where Random works as a waitress, departing for the docks at sundown. Zinnia scouts the docks while Nuriel, Kalena, and Viktor pretend to haggle over a moonlight boat ride. As Zinnia watches, a red-skinned tiefling crawls out from underneath the pier. She manages to get the drop on the tiefling, whom she recognizes as the same tiefling from the meeting the day before. He introduces himself to the party as Defiance, one of the leaders of the resistance. “My identity has been compromised,” he explains, “and I will be leaving for the other Kantrevs in the next few days. The loss of Aldric means the loss of a valuable source of information directly from the government. It will be difficult to recover, but we shall endure.” During the conversation he says to Reppi that he knows his master, stares at Kalena with possible recognition and tells Ransom to look for the word “harrier” among his people. Kalena notices a man standing on the roof of a nearby warehouse, wearing garb portraying the colors of the Iron Guard. He pulls out a bow and whistles, the signal for several more Iron Guard, armored up and weapons drawn. Defiance watches to gauge the party’s capabilities as we not only easily defeat them without any stragglers escaping, but also roll the bodies into the water so they won’t be found. After fleeing the docks, the party reconvenes in an upstairs room at the Lucky Flask, where several party members explain why they’ve pledged themselves to overthrow High King Ducaid. quote:Ransom - “My father is in Catra’zal. Bringing down Ducaid is the best chance of seeing him freed. At this point the coin buzzes once again, signaling that Watchdog is once again calling. “There is a cemetery outside of the northern gate to Kantrev Kronus. It is currently under the control of the one named Baron Kasper Nachtheim, although the title of ‘Baron’ was not given but self-awarded. For some reason, he is preventing the recently deceased from being given their final rites and buried within the sacred ground, unless a hefty fee is paid. Find out what it would take to bring him down and liberate the cemetery from him, and you will provide that you have what it takes to see this through to the end.” After Nuriel and Kalena come up with a code phrase (“Ask us if things are doing well. If we say things are good, Ducaid’s people have a sword to our throats”) the group departs for the evening, but not before Ransom gives Viktor a pair of throw pillows for his new home. Kalena asks around about Kasper, discovering that he’s an outcast from his family but has somehow made himself indispensable to the High King. While Nuriel goes to find a tender of Lethik, the Neutral eidolon (demigod) of the Dead and Judgment, Viktor finds a burned corpse amidst the rubble surrounding the chapel, planning to bring it to the necropolis to see the Baron’s methods first hand, with Ransom accompanying him and Zinnia serving as a lookout. The tender of Lethik is a hobgoblin named Kresk, who acts as the central coordinator for Lethik as some people wouldn’t care for a hobgoblin knocking on their door asking them to bring out their dead. During a pleasant conversation, Kresk tells Nuriel that the cemetery no longer operates under the authority of Lethik as the High King has turned the grounds over to the nobility. Instead, the cemetery is now under the jurisdiction of a different eidolon - Falazure, demigod of entropy, rot, and decay. With the burned corpse in a wheelbarrow, Viktor rings the bell at the front gate of the cemetery with Ransom at his side. Zinnia is stealthed in a nearby tree, observing as a figure leaves the central mausoleum and takes his time getting to the front gate. Fifteen minutes later, the robed figure inquires about Viktor’s family. Viktor almost turns on the waterworks, stating that while he isn’t from a noble family, he cares deeply for his “dead” sister and wishes to ensure her soul is properly guided to the afterlife. The figure relents and invites them in, allowing Zinnia to get closer as they make their way to the central building. She notices that several graves are freshly dug, however they’re shallow graves, nowhere close to six feet deep. And more importantly, the graves were dug up and recovered from underneath and not the surface… The central mausoleum is now a makeshift throne room. Two other robed figures stand silently by as Viktor and Ransom approach “Baron” Kasper Nachtheim, who sits on the throne, a disc emblazoned with a mummified head hanging around his neck. quote:Viktor - “Please, sir. I loved my sister. I do not wish for her soul to wander the darkness for eternity.” Viktor pauses. Ransom notices his eyes quickly scan the room before he resumes speaking. quote:Viktor - My sister loved Korvis, my Lord. She held the High King with regard. While she wasn’t a soldier, she served as a comfort woman to the army. She told me her only wish was to give herself to Korvis, in both life and death. Viktor and Ransom leave. As soon as they are out of earshot of the cemetery gates... quote:Viktor - Every being in that room was undead. You and I were the only living creatures. As the trio separate, a magpie lands on a nearby trash can. Viktor nods and throws it a piece of bread, which it snatches out of mid-air and takes into a nearby alleyway, to which Viktor follows. During a conversation consisting of mimicry and the repeated statement “ask the right question,” the magpie tells Viktor that his ideas for what the Baron may be doing (“An undead army to support the Korvin forces?” “Worse.” “Raising nobility to mine them for blackmail material?” “Worse.”) before informing him that the Baron is really a Zombie Lord who was given his power and authority directly by Kincaid, before squawking in annoyance and flying away. At the tavern, Nuriel confirms that the cemetery is under new management, controlled by the noble families with crown sanction, while Zinnia lays out some of the noble names she saw on the dug-from-below graves - Krieghurst, Siegholm, Bluthammer, and Bogenfeuer. The party decides to spend the night watching the cemetery to see what happens after sundown. On the stakeout, a creature akin to a large stag, only with wings and talons, lands on the cemetery - a greater peryton, the holy animal of Caradoc, evil god of war and conquest and the patron god of Korvis. And climbing down from the peryton is a figure Kalena recognizes as Lord-Magistrate Javen Kreighurst, Master of Law. He heads for the central mausoleum where the Baron waits, taking a knee when Javen approaches. “He’s accepting homage from a Zombie Lord worshipping an illegal deity,” Nuriel points out. After their discussion, Javen turns to leave. The Baron reaches out to touch him, only for Javen to turn around and kick him in the face hard enough to flicker the illusion of false life surrounding him. The Baron quickly goes back to one knee and bows even deeper, holding the position as Javen climbs back on the peryton and takes off. Once Javen has left, the door to the mausoleum opens and a female form, badly burned, shuffles out the door. It lays one hand on the Baron’s shoulder as if comforting him, before the Baron stands, pulls her close, and kisses her passionately. quote:Ransom - “Apparently you chose a dead body with child-bearing hips, Viktor!” CobiWann fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 22:52
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I've lifted the "This is not a place of honour" text for old tombs in RPGs before and it's always been a good idea. (I think the last time was that the world had been built by the gods with sites that would ask the first person to enter a philosophical question and then make them an archmage, and the collected archmagi had figured out that the world had been created to settle a dispute between gods and would be erased once all the votes were in.)
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May 21, 2020 09:59
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edit: nvm
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May 21, 2020 15:22
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Kaza42 posted:Star Wars galaxy adventures As a Star Wars fan, these are awesome and I can totally imagine them as comic books or episodes of the Clone Wars TV series. Also, someone has been watching The Mandalorian. Loved that moment of heroic sacrifice.
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May 22, 2020 11:48
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Reading through this thread, about a hundred pages back someone mentioned their theory that all summons either bring items from a plane of whatever item is summoned or takes the item/creature from elsewhere in time/space. That reminded me of a failed attempt we once had with a bowl of commanding water elementals. The GM, Eric, made our wizard, Nick, roll to see if he could use the bowl correctly. He rolled a 1 and it was determined that it would randomly summon a creature from an encounter table. Nick rolled and got a result of dog. He joked about it being from an elemental plane of dogs and I suggested it be from the para-elemental plane of dachshunds. Thus, he summoned not a water-weird, but a weiner-weird.
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May 23, 2020 02:14
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