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Splicer posted:Swing by a friendly wizard and do a sidequest for him while he imbues the warhammer with the axe's sweet berserker powers (100gp in 4e, don't know if there's a 5e equivalent but your GM sounds like not a dick so...) Well, Skeever's already trying to name the axe and is trying to figure out a way to equally spread the bloodshed out between them. The warhammer is pretty sweet - +2/+2 on the first attack roll of combat, wielder can't be surprised as it automatically leaps into their hand the first round of combat, and a couple of other properties I forget off-hand.
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May 24, 2016 11:45
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Rampant Dwickery posted:At which point, because we never left the dungeon or beat the boss, the Vampire Lord coughs politely and makes her presence known. This was a loving FANTASTIC story, and this is the kicker that makes it drat near perfect.
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May 31, 2016 14:20
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So, let me tell you about the Ancelyn. Long along, the Danaans were the only race on Tanicus, “grey elves” created at the dawn of time. After creating the Sidh (elves) and their various sub-races, the Danaans left the Prime Material Plane to live out their eternity in Elysium. Fast forward a couple hundred centuries and the conflict known as the Godswar where a group of heroes (a previous group of PC’s, one of which was a Paladin named Karik Dragonhall) needed to learn how to kill a dragon. They sought out the Danaan and learned out to remove the immortality of dragons. However, one of the PC’s was an agent of Cymber, the Maiden of Mystery, Chaotic Neutral goddess of twilight, secrets, and mystery, and was tasked to steal a large chunk of the Danaan treasury due to an ancient debt she felt she was owed. The heroes were caught and almost executed, but managed to escape after a tough-fought battle. However, they had been followed to Elysium by the mortal Catria Windsong, an enemy of the PC’s who was using the Godswar in an attempt to empower her patron god Qord, the Vile Betrayer, Neutral Evil god of greed, decay, and the undead. With Karik’s Blackguard brother at her side, Catira and her army slaughters nearly all of the Danaan under the banner of Dragonhall “in retribution for the affront against Karik and the House of Dragonhall.” Fast-forward to the end of the Godswar. Catira is now the Lady of Pain, Lawful Evil goddess of pain, suffering, vengeance, and torture. Unrecognizable to the surviving Danaan, she convinces them to seek revenge upon the mortals for the crimes they committed. She uses her powers to transport them to their ancient island home of Ancellyon. The Danaan rename themselves the Ancelyn and swear vengeance upon all mortals, specifically their wayward children the Sidh, for their “part” in their near-annihilation. Come the Worldquake and Ancellyon is no longer an island. It’s once again attached to the mainland. The Ancelyn discover that Catira had been lying to them the entire time, and that she was the one who had slaughtered them. Their response? They embrace her further. They’re so far gone that they give themselves over to vengeance, but also swear that “once we’re done with all the mortals, we’re coming for you bitch.” The Ancelyn want the destruction of all the mortal races, especially the Sidh. And who else does? Our Eldritch Knight’s aunt, the one who almost brought the Sidh to their knees once before and is ready to do it again. Taliessyn’s aunt has dispatched one of her sons to train an army of Ancelyn, who will soon be ready to march on the rest of the world with the aid of demonic forces and a red dragon. Now, Taliessyn is an Eldritch Knight who is slowly picking up classes in Warlock as our GM brings Tanicus into 5th edition. Her powers come from the Feywild, and the powers within recognize the threat the Ancelyn pose to the world. They’ve promised Taliessyn an army of her own to take the fight to the Ancelyn…provided the army is summoned BEFORE the Greening festival, as once spring has sprung the army will be need back in the Feywild. So, now we have a ticking clock… X X X X X Right now, our party is trying to break my PC’s mother out of jail. My PC had believed for years that his mother had died when he was very young, but his father’s brother (the High Cleric of Catria) had told him otherwise while standing in a Zone of Truth. The prison is an island in the middle of a huge freshwater lake. Once you’re on the rock, you’re not coming off of it. If you’re a prisoner, you’re there for life. If you’re a guard, you’re a prisoner who has been granted special privileges in return for acting as a guard. If you work there, you never leave but your entire (handsome) salary is sent directly to your family. The only people who are allowed to come and go are the Clerics of Catira, as one of her major shrines is located in the heart of the island. Our group has two leads to find out about how to get onto and off of the island. One is the leader of the local Thieves Guild. The other is a druid who lives in a grove near the shoreline of the lake itself. Cullus, our Rogue, volunteers to go see the leader of the Thieves Guild, with our Barbarian/Bard Skeever coming along. Skeever is coming because he’s carrying the Frost Giant drinking horn we obtained last game, and the plan is to sell it to the leader. The inside of the Thieves Guild is opulent. We’re talking the Amber Room meets Smaug’s horde. There are Halfling whores everywhere, just lounging on plush furniture idly playing with tapestries and gold pieces. The leader sits on a carved throne, with a buxom Halfling on either side of him and a Halfing in a butler’s suit sitting at his feet. The leader himself? The best word is “corpulent,” with a gut that could hold three halflings. Cullus and the leader bargain over the drinking horn as the leader agrees “it would really bring this den of sin together.” 7500 gold pieces…and the information about the prison costs 5000 gold. Cullus, grumbling, agrees… The Halfling butler speaks up. “They’re clean.” All the whores stand up, put their hidden daggers away in a manner that Cullus and Skeever can see them, and file out of the room. The stomach of the Halfling opens up and two Halfling assassins calmly climb out, help the “leader” out of the costume, and also walk out of the room. The butler sits up on the throne and nods to Cullus. “Alright, now we can discuss business.” It turns out that the butler is really the leader, who hides his identity from everyone to keep himself safe and out of the limelight. Eleven years ago, he had been asked to break into the prison and deliver a message to a prisoner. He wouldn’t tell us HOW he did it (“You can’t afford it and I’m not selling it anyway”), but he drew us a rough map and gave us a description of the prison. The prison itself is carved out of the island so the walls go right up to the edge of the cliffs. Prisoners arrive by boat to the base of the island, where a drydock/lock brings them to the entrance to the prison. Prisoners only are taken from the boat – if any crewmen step on the dock, then they become prisoners. The only way into the prison walls is through one gate that takes the prisoner into processing. From there, processing lets out into the exercise yard, and from there it’s only one entrance down into the bowels of the prison. The only other exit is the morgue, where a portcullis is opened when a prisoner dies. The body is dumped out into the lake, where after a thousand foot drop sea lions and merman fight over it. He also points out a certain cell in a certain corner of the prison. “This cell was tripled locked and magically warded. Whatever was inside sounded really angry. I don’t recommend you open this door.” Cullus thanks him for his time…and goes to hand him back a bag of cold worth 500 gold pieces. “Thank you for both your hospitality and a lesson learned in secrecy.” And while he’s shaking hands with the leader, he rolls a natural 20 to slip him a note that Cymber asked him to deliver to the leader without his knowing it. At this point, Skeever asks about the secrecy. quote:Leader: It’s important. This way no one comes after me and my enemies spend their efforts going for someone else. So Skeever hands him a bag of gold. quote:Leader: Um…thank you? Skeever got his gold back in the end. X X X X X A trip up the coast to the druid grove followed. The locals avoided the grove because of the powerful druid that dwelled inside, but since the druid was attached to the lake, perhaps there was a chance she would have some information that could help us. Now, ever since the festival of Wintermist, our Elemental Monk Ksena had slowly been growing what can only be described as a long, flowing cloak of swan feathers. Any time we looked away from her and looked back, the cloak had grown longer and thicker. Apparently it was a gift from the secret order of female monks who had “chosen, but not yet called” Ksena and allowed her to shape change into a swan once per day. This was important because once we got to the druid grove, we saw that it was a giant pond filled with swans. (”There’s a Super Mutant hiding under the water” our Paladin joked). Ksena changed into a swan and swam out into the center of the pond where a large black swan was slowly paddling back and forth. After exchanging greetings in Swan, both shape changed back into human form. The druid in question, Swansea, was in her early 60’s, black leather, swords, daggers…and absolutely insane. See, she had been shape changed into a swan for the past TEN YEARS because no one ever came to visit her. It was just her and the swans. Imagine the TARDIS from the Doctor Who episode The Doctor’s Wife mixed with a whole bunch of downers and that’s Swansea. It took a while to coax the information out of her because she kept looking at her reflection in the pond and going “oh? I’m human? I forgot.” It turned out that there was a secret way onto the island. A long underground tunnel ran from a lakeside cave into a small grotto inside the mountain. The exit from the grotto to the ocean was hidden, even under low tide, which is why no one on the island had ever found it. Once we were in the grotto, we could swim out of the grotto and use Potions of Climbing to scale the cliffs to the entrance to the morgue and break in that way. Of course, when she said “tunnel,” what she really said was “a long passageway consisting of treacherous climbs, steep drops, crumbling boulders, several flooded chambers that will have to be swam through, and the creations of a transmuter named Keller the Mad that lives in a nearby tower who feels the need to ‘improve’ creatures by merging them together to create abominations that he eventually releases into the tunnel once they get too riled up for him to control.” Yep. This adventure was The Rock meets The Island of Dr Moreau. Armed with Potions of Climbing, Water Breathing, and Swimming, along with backup light sources in case my Sorcerer PC goes down, we set off for the cave entrance. As Swansea had said, the transmuter’s tower was in sight of the cave entrance, though luckily the gated itself was hidden in a small depression in the earth. As our Rogue worked on picking the lock and our Cleric worked on dispelling the Alarm spell that would have gone off once we opened the gate, the rest of us saw flashes of light coming from the walkway around the top of the tower. A small figure was up there, cackling madly and shooting black beams of crackling energy at any bird or bat unlucky enough to be flying by at the time. Birds grew kangaroo pouches, bats grew possum tails, and one poor stag walking near the base of the tower turned into half stag/half bear before exploding in a torrent of arcane energy. We ended the session with the entrance to the cave wide open, and our Paladin looking up at this madman and quietly going “just so we’re all on the same page, once we’ve rescued Varis’ mother we’re coming back here and killing this guy on general principle.” 
CobiWann fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Jun 9, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 23:14
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JustJeff88 posted:Please, please, PLEASE tell me that she spoke with a Welsh accent. ...huh. I guess she did. I was trying to place it but couldn't because of how spacey the GM was playing her.
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Jun 9, 2016 16:18
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Poison Mushroom posted:Once everyone arrived, the group reluctantly followed the (thankfully obvious) trail into the forest, where Gza almost immediately noticed that the trees were VERY upset about something- trespassers of a sort they did not care for. Arelle lit the way and Hazel trailblazed while Gza coaxed the moss to grow into a thick trail that would ease their travel AND keep them from getting lost on the way back. Everyone rolled well, and was contributing to the scenario and the setting- so when they found the horses, I asked each of them a question regarding the setting. I love this. I love the questions and the answers. I love this post. I look forward to hearing more about your game!
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Jun 10, 2016 20:01
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Yawgmoth posted:A time-honored tradition amongst the Gangrel. As opposed to the Tremere in my Vampire/Wraith LARP, who recently when told to "make sure the spirits of the ancient Indian tribe that live on the mountain will not become a threat to us" decided that the best course of action was to LIGHT THE FOREST ON FIRE. My Southern redneck semi-racist Wraith is actually making progress with regards to negotiating with a 16th century tribe who was wiped out by smallpox to peacefully co-exist and direct their vengeance against the white man towards some evil cultists (Black Spiral Dancers, the player knows/the character doesn't) when the Tremere initiate drives up to the edge of the forest, gets out, drops a huge fire ritual on the place, gets back in the car, and leaves. Yeah, her sire/master was not happy with that. My character wasn't happy with that. The Tremere is "on assignment" to let her player handle a Wraith for a story arc. All of us however found it hilarious. It seems the solution in all of our White Wolf LARPs to most problems is the judicious use of Path of Flame/lightning/plastique/fire spirits/Forces.
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Jun 13, 2016 15:28
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Displacer beasts. Well, not quite. More like panthers with snakes grafted onto their backs. Oh, and did I mention they could Shadow Step?  As our party began to make their way through the underwater tunnel towards the island prison my PC’s mother is being incarcerated on, we ran into these creatures. Created by a mad transmuter, they hit like a freight train, could cause the Poisoned condition if one of the snake bit you, and also breathed sleep gas. Half our party gets knocked out in the first round – only those of us with Sidhe/elven blood managed to resist it. One of the panthers grabbed our Rogue, Cullus, and disappeared into the shadows, only to reappear a round later in a different corner, minus sans Rogue. We manage to take out the panthers (our Greensidhe/Halfling Cleric woke up our Dragonborn Barbarian by cannonballing onto his cheat and my pseudodragon familiar slapped the Monk around until she woke up), but Cullus kept failing his Constitution rolls. He remained unconscious as every round, he took 4 points of damage. After finally defeating the panthers, I sent my familiar to sniff him out. Cullus finally woke up with TWO hit points left and discovered why he had kept losing hit points every round. Kittens. Namely, the panthers’ brood, little tiny kittens with miniature snakes whipping around on their backs had been chewing on him and rolling max damage every round. So Cullus wakes up as my familiar gets there… quote:Do I have to make an alignment check for killing a kitten? Cullus ends up snapping the necks of three of the kittens while my familiar dines on the last one. Now, when the rest of the party find Cullus covered in tiny bites slamming a kitten against the cave wall, we all just lose it, both in character and around the table, save for the Cleric PC who is AGHAST at the animal cruelty as my familiar rips the entrails out of one of them. What makes this even funnier was the fact that our GM’s stepdaughter is learning to be a GM herself. She’s been sitting behind the screen with her stepdad for the past few weeks – she’s twelve years old and ADORES cats. Cullus’ player didn’t realize what was happening until he killed the second kitten and looked up to see her completely shocked. We all had a really good laugh (”If I had died, you better have told the story to EVERYONE about how my character died drowning in pussy.” “Dude! Stepdaughter!”) especially as the Eldritch Knight collected the kitten corpses as a gag. ”In my culture, no part of the kitten goes to waste.” X X X X X A little later on, our party comes across a chamber with a deep pool of water. The tip of an obelisk peeks out from the surface. Carved into the walls of the chambers are two sets of runes, one in Tanicus’ version of Latin from one of the first ancient empires, and the other in Infernal. The runes tell the story of a Devil who fell in combat and was banished to an eternity of imprisonment within the obelisk. Our response is “ok, we’re just going to move right along, nothing to see or mess with here WHY IS THE ROGUE DIVING INTO THE WATER?!?” Well, turns out Cullus saw a huge pile of treasure in the bottom of the pool and was entranced to dive right in. Entranced by what? A Naga and her four servants.  This is a NASTY fight. Our party didn’t realize how tough Naga could be and were very thankful that it was one Naga and her lesser servants rather than four or five full blown Naga. Each time we kill one of the creatures, the obelisk flashed and a carving of one of the creatures appeared at the base of the obelisk. We were worried kill all the Naga would summon something evil, but it turned out that it just meant the Naga were imprisoned in the obelisk directly instead of just being bound to the pool of water. They would “respawn” back into the pool in a mere seven years once defeated… And there WAS treasure in the bottom of the pool. 20,000 gold pieces worth. Along with some very nice magical items – a Cloak of Many Colors for one. Right now, it’s indigo which means the wearer is immune to necrotic damage. Once the wearer takes necrotic damage, the color shifts along the rainbow spectrum to violet and they become immune to I believe poison damage. It goes all the way around the spectrum (including white and black). There was also a Coin of Balance – flip it once per day. Heads, gain 20 temporary Hit Points until a long rest. Tails, lose 20 temporary Hit Points until a long rest. X X X X X Sea Lions. Literally.   After managing to use Potions of Water Breathing and Potions of Swimming to sleep past a slow moving shark, our party emerged from the underwater tunnel into the small grotto hidden in the bowels of the prison island itself. Another passage leads down into a tunnel that comes out under the lake’s surface which would allow us to swim to the island’s base and climb to the Morgue/Corpse Disposal entrance. But first, we had to get through these neat looking models. The fight is a bit tricky because we’re underwater. While Potions of Swimming give us a swim speed, we can move normally underwater. However, we only have a handful of piercing weapons that could do full damage, and any attempts to cast spells with a vocal or somatic component require a Constitution check. Oh, and Thunder/Lightning/Force spells are a big no-no as our GM takes a few minutes to explain why explosions underwater are a BAD thing since water can’t compress. This fight actually goes pretty well (it helps to have a Monk whose specialty is the Water Elemental school), except for this one moment from our Paladin when he rolled his Action Surge to take two swings…  The GM checks his Fumble Deck and determines our Paladin has dropped his sword. In the course of swimming down to grab it however, one of the Sea Lions grapples him. By the time the fight is over, the sword is falling into the depths, just barely visible in the dark water thanks to infravision. The Paladin and Barbarian swim down after it while we make sure the Sea Lion corpses don’t bleed out and attract sharks, and the adventure ends with the pair reaching the bottom of the lakebed. The sword has landed on the deck of what looks to be a wrecked prison ship, and as the Paladin goes to grab it… …tentacles.
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Jun 30, 2016 03:41
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Ilor posted:And by literally, you mean figuratively, because according to their spots those are totally sea leopards. My PC is a Sorcerer, not a Ranger!
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Jun 30, 2016 10:10
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Guess I should roll on the Critical Fumble table for bad storytelling?
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Jun 30, 2016 23:49
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In our 5e campaign, we don't get XP but rather level up once we hit certain milestones/complete a major story arc. Going through our world's version of the Underdark, finding a lost city of Sidhe, closing the portal to Faerun to stop the Drow from coming through, and convincing the elves that a holy war was coming took us six/seven sessions and brought us from 7th level to 8th. Wrapping up the huge conclave and stopping Az kicked us up to 9th. It cuts out worrying about counting XP and keeps us focused on the bigger picture. Like knowing that a Kraken has the 5th highest CR in the 5e Monster Manual and our Priest ROLLED IT AS A RANDOM ENCOUNTER THIS PAST SESSION!!!
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Jul 5, 2016 16:31
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Previously – our party is trying to break into Tanicus’ version of Alcatraz to rescue my mother from my uncle, the High Cleric to the Goddess of Vengeance… X X X X X So when you roll two 1’s on an attack roll with disadvantage, bad things are going to happen. Our Fighter/Paladin Falinrae’s sword is a thing of beauty. It’s a +1 sword that gave her True Seeing once per day and Detect Evil once per day. The biggest perk however was the “bong.” Whenever she hit a target with her sword, whether or not she did damage, the deep resonance of an elven bell would echo across the battlefield. Her allies would receive a +1 to attack/casting rolls, a +1 to damage rolls, and a +1 to saving throws. It’s pulled out butts out of the fire many a time. And at the moment, it was drifting down through the dark waters into the murky depths of a lake because she fumbled it away while trying to hit a sea lion. As the rest of the party is mopping up the sea lions, Falinrae is diving towards the falling sword. Our Barbarian/Bard Skeever sees her swimming down after it and races after her. The rest of us have no clue where they had gone. The pair go in slightly different directions trying to find the sword. Falinrae ends up finding a cave in the bedrock of the island prison we were trying to break into, only to also find out that it’s inhabited by a giant octopus.  Luckily, the octopus rolled a natural 1 on its attack roll, it got stuck in the small cave and couldn’t get out to follow her before she got away. Skeever on the other hand? quote:Hey, it’s a sunken boat! Maybe it landed on the deck! Hey, there’s holes in the boat! Hey, there’s shadowy forms swimming around in the hold! I’ll ask them if they’ve seen Falinrae’s sword!   Turns out it was a boat full of sea hags. And as much as Skeever tried to communicate with them through as many pronunciations of the word “glub,” they either hadn’t see the sword or thought the Dragonborn was beautiful and swarmed to attack him. Luckily, the rest of us managed to show back up before Skeever had gotten too injured and killed all but one who got the hell out of Dodge. Each of us had about half-an-hour left on the Potions of Swimming/Water Breathing as well as a back-up potion in case of an emergency, so we all swam down even further to the very bottom of the lake. The lake was semi-freshwater, having once been part of the ocean before the Worldquake sealed it off and made it an inland sea, so the bottom was a mess of dead coral and debris. After 15 minutes of searching thanks to my Light spell, we managed to find a fresh cut in the coral that could have been made by the sword. The cut led into a underground passage, but the passage was so dark that even my Light spell couldn’t cut through the gloom. Skeever, the only one of us with Blindsight, could barely make out the walls and volunteered to swim inside and feel around for Falinrae’s sword while the rest of us stood watch outside in case the sea hags or sea lions decided to swim back this way. Behind the GM Screen, he’s pulled out the Random Encounter Table… quote:GM: Aiena, roll a d20. Pause. quote:GM: I need five minutes. Skeever swims into the tunnel, and it’s almost pitch black. He manages to find where the tunnel widens into a large cavern…and there’s something in the cavern with him. Something very big. Something very powerful. Something whose eye takes up Skeever’s entire field of vision. A voice speaks in Skeever’s mind…it turns out, sleeping under the bottom of the lake, having been trapped there for hundreds of years after the Worldquake cut him off from the ocean and his followers, is a Kraken. A completely randomly generated Kraken. In the Monster Manual only three things have a higher Challenge Rating than a Kraken. An Ancient Red Dragon, an Ancient Gold Dragon, and a Tarrasque. And our Favored Soul managed to pull one out of thin air. Needless to say, the sword had fallen into the lair, and it had pricked the Kraken on the skin. As a holy sword, it BURNED and the Kraken, who hadn’t felt pain in an eternity, wasn’t in a good mood. It told Skeever that it would let him leave (after asking him if he and the group outside were going to try to kill him like every other fool who had stumbled across his lair) as long as he passed his patron Goddess (Tulani, the Great Muse, Chaotic Good goddess of poetry, music, and art) then when she falls, he will free himself and be there to catch her just before he kills her in revenge for what she did to him millennia ago. Yep, by random chance Aiena’s player just introduced the Great Old Ones to Tanicus. Skeever agrees to leave, but gets lost along the way as at one point the Kraken used its legendary action to squirt black ink everywhere. He’s feeling his way along the cavern walls (he hopes) when he comes across the Kraken’s treasure horde – at least, it’s a pile of gold, gems, and items. The GM makes him roll to grab a random sword as he makes his escape. Sadly, he doesn’t grab Falinrae’s original sword, although he managed to grab a +1 sword, +2 against spellcasters, summoned creatures, and anyone who has had a spell cast upon them. It’s a step down, but what can you do? X X X X X  (the prison map, covered until we explore) About an hour later, our group is using Potions of Climbing to scale the rock that the impregnable prison of Catra’zal sits atop of. Our goal is the portcullis set into the side of the cliff that leads to the morgue, where the coroner/doctor (who is a prisoner himself) would toss dead bodies from. About 30 feet from the grate we hit the prison’s anti-magic field (it nullifies spells when one passes through it, you can still cast inside the prison), so we have to climb the rest of the way without assistance. One Immovable Rod later, Cullus, our Rogue, is using a small flexible periscope type thing to peer under the door. There’s the grate and a door immediately to the other side. Through the periscope, I can barely make out the lever that would open the grate. So I go to Mage Hand it open since the GM says it’s in my line of sight… The door open. And before he can open the grate, I’m staring at the coroner, in a blood-stained smock, a dead body over his shoulder. Before he could react, I Misty Step inside, distracting him long enough for our Monk Ksena to leap over to the Rod, reach through the grate, and slam the coroner’s head off of the bars… Critical. Max damage. So the coroner’s neck snaps and he slumps to the ground dead. Luckily, there weren’t any guards inside the “morgue” as I pulled the body inside and then open the portcullis to let everyone in. It’s not so much a morgue as a laboratory that has a sign that says “dead prisoner storage,” complete with jars full of organs and poisons lining the wall. The coroner’s body has a list of prisoners, with several names crossed off including one that’s relatively fresh. Since the prison of Catra’zal holds the worst of the worst that the Lawful Evil nation of Korvis has to offer, it contains a mix of people who legitimately deserve to be there (murders, necromancers, thieves) and those who don’t (those whose existence violates laws on racial mixing, political dissidents, people who tried to sneak into Korvis, people who tried to sneak OUT of Corvis). Going down the list, we figure if we can spring some of the prisoners they might be able to help us by providing information on the prison and maybe, if we can get a hold of some of the guard’s weapons and armor, help hold the morgue open as our escape route. As we’re going down the list, three things immediately jump out at us.  (the list – the GM found some perforated paper on Amazon where you can print stuff out on it and then remove the tabs to make it look worn and faded) One is the cell number for Laeryell man Laurlaethy, my mother. Two is that one of the corner cells is heavily warded, constructed entirely of three-inch thick steel, and the door doesn’t have any visible way of opening from the outside. There isn’t even a meal slot or a window to look inside. And it’s warded against spells. And three is that Kreighton Dragonhall, Prince of Kaeryn, a Lawful Good nation that’s the sworn enemy to Korvis and is currently involved in a minor border war between the two countries, is apparently a prisoner after being assumed missing for nearly five years.  Aside from being the prison to end all prisons, Catra’zal is also the High Temple for Catria, the Lady of Pain, Lawful Evil Goddess of Vengeance. So the halls are patrolled by a mix of Shadow Mastiffs, Shadow Monks, Warlocks, Dark Clerics, and Eldritch Knights. Cullus pops the cell door open for Kreighton and we all slip inside, with my familiar (who I cast Invisibility on) outside perched in a high corner keeping an eye out. Kreighton is shocked to see us – apparently he had been riding a border patrol and was kidnapped by Korvin raiders on the grounds of “illegally crossing into Korvin territory.” As he gives us a list of trustworthy prisoners (a Sidhe spy, a Druid of the Moon, a Firblog (sea dwarves) sailor, a Human Mage), the Shadow Mastiffs come back around, stop outside Kreighton’s cell, and begin to sniff at the new scents they’re detecting.   Did you know in a pinch, Prestidigitation can be used to simulate smells? Specifically the smell of a Prince who has been locked up for nearly five months in a grimy, lightless prison cell? As the Mastiffs stalk away once the Alpha stares down the rest of the pack, Cullus sneaks out after them and unlocks the door to my mother’s cell. Ready for a tearful reunion (my PC thought my mother had been dead for as long as he could remember), I step inside…and it’s empty (of course!). A high Perception roll however discovers a letter shoved into a crack behind her bed. Long story short, my mother had been an adventurer in her younger days. During a trip through Korvis, she was arrested for the crime of being an elf. A young guard became infatuated with her and managed to have her pardoned, inviting her into his home to recuperate. For he had fallen in love with her. But during my mother’s time in his house, she had fallen in love with his brother. And the young guard caught my mother and his brother one night. That young guard was my uncle, Stannis Grungate, the warden of the prison. His brother was my father. Out of love for her, Stannis let my mother go with a warning to never come back. However, he turned my brother in for the state crime of “race mixing” and oversaw his imprisonment. My mother fled Korvis to the small town of Dale. She give birth to my PC and raised me until I was old enough to be given to my brother’s sister to raise before returning to Korvis in an attempt to rescue my father and convince my uncle to forgive her for what she did to him. In that time however, Stannis had given himself over to Catira (who lives to corrupt the weak and wounded) and instead of freeing my father, witnessed his execution. He then imprisoned my mother until she “came to her senses” and “professed her love for him, not his deceitful brother.” The letter ended with a plea for me not to kill Stannis, because he isn’t evil. Just misguided.    So while my PC is dealing with that emotional bombshell…   Shadow monks SUCK. She kept leaping to the shadows and tripping up the melee fighters so the guards could gain advantage. A Zone of Silence kept me out of combat for the most part (I just hung back and cast cantrips anyway), but we managed to defeat both groups. We were hurt, but still in pretty good shape. The prisoners took some of the weapons and armor as Kreighton promised to hold the morgue, giving us an escape route once we had rescued my mother. Cullus scouted up the steps… Here’s the problem. The GM assumed we were going to go up the set of steps across from the morgue, but instead we went to the steps at the far corner of the floor. If we had gone up the immediate steps, we would have gotten the drop on another set of patrolling guards. Instead…  It’s the main courtyard and Stannis is waiting for me with his personal guard at his sides and archers in the towers. The reunion goes as well as you expect. I tell Stannis about the letter. He says “I must have missed it.” I demand my mother’s release. He tells me I’m too late, that my mother starved herself to death nearly six months prior (just about the time my PC was introduced to the game via a dream that led him to the rest of the party). I demand her remains so I can take them back to her homeland for a burial. Stannis responds that he already gave her a burial in the tradition of the elves. I ask him why he would imprison her if he loved her so much. “I told her I would never ever let her go. And that is still true today. I will convince her that she never loved your brother, no matter what it takes. Not even her death will stop me.” Falinrae’s eyes go wide. “Varis,” he says quietly, “I know what’s in that warded cell.” Tellisyn, the Eldritch Knight with major family issues, pulls her halberd and says “Vengeance isn’t always evil.” Ksena says “I’ll hit whoever you need me to Varis,” as she summons her Water Elemental Bubbles. Skeever calls out across the courtyard to one of the guard. “Hey, do you follow Catira!” “Yes?” “Are you vengeful against anyone?” “…not at the moment.” “Excellent! I’m about to give you someone to venge against!” My PC’s response is a Lightning Bolt directly at my uncle. The Warlock next to him Counterspells it, and the fight begins. All of us, players and GM, expected to lose. We were outnumbered, running at half power, and were fighting a High Cleric, a Warlock, a Shadow Monk, three Paladin-types, and four archers in the tower. Put simply, we get drat lucky. The Warlock and Stannis are casting like crazy and instead of throwing damaging spells I’m Counterspelling every chance I get. Tellisyn and Bubbles go for the towers, and Tellisyn gets lucky with some good damage rolls while Bubbles is Whelming the guards and ejecting them over the walls to fall half a mile into the lake. Ksena and Skeever beat the Shadow Monk enough for her to go “screw THIS” and Shadow Step away while Falinrae and I manage to down the Warlock. Stannis realizes he might be in trouble and throws up a Globe of Darkness. Ksena counters with her Globe of Daylight but Stannis is gone at this point. We’re down to fumes at this point. As everyone else mops the guards, Falinrae, Cullus and I decide to go after Stannis to stop him from escaping. Cullus hides, Falinrae steps into the Ethereal Plane, and I step into the Astral Plane (Robe of Stars). As I plane shift, I immediately notice something. The prison on the Astral Plane is solid. Very solid. Incredibly solid. More solid than anything in the Astral Plane should be. As I realize just what this means, a voice booms out. quote:NO ONE ESCAPES FROM CATRA’ZAL! And in an instant, everyone else has joined me as Stannis shifts the entire prison into the Astral Plane. Except for Falinrae.
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Jul 13, 2016 02:42
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Covok posted:The session I had today was okay, not super notable, but I do love this quote: "Remember, Ray, it is acceptable to say Iron Man built a beer hat into his suit." In our Mage LARP, one of the members of the Order of Hermes is a prim and proper Boston socialite whose Avatar is the character of Mary Poppins form the original novels. The Son of Ether is currently building her a Mecha-Poppins suit for when poo poo gets real, complete with deployable petticoat shield and assault parasol.
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Jul 13, 2016 13:05
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Splicer posted:Supercharged and fragalicious extra-large explosions. 
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Jul 13, 2016 16:40
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Manic_Misanthrope posted:So in my 5th Edition D&D game, the GM has taken off the kid gloves and started throwing out assassins at us. The party were all in small individual rooms, and each member had an assassin climb in through the window to sneak attack us while we slept. Assassins as in 50 damage+ attacks in the surprise round. This might be the most original use of an NPC I have ever read.
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Jul 14, 2016 13:14
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Haven’t had a chance to write up the latest session of our Tanicus campaign…but our Bard’s player has dove headlong into the “make Varis famous” fountain. He’s actually started to write sonnets based upon Varis' exploits…quote:The Sonnets of Varis #7
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Jul 27, 2016 14:26
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Shady Amish Terror posted:I can't really get the cadence of that to line up in my head without turning it into the sort of strained ad-libbing you hear from Skyrim bards, but I think that sort of makes it even better. Well Skeever will admit he's not a very good Bard - his character flaw is crippling self-doubt.
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Jul 30, 2016 02:25
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In any other gaming system, I’d be horrified. In this one?  That’s how you get revenge.X X X X X Line from yesterday’s Tanicus session, with a nod to Mr. Welch…we have one more next week before a long break due to end-of-summer vacations so I’ll do the write-up then for the last four sessions, but until then… quote:According to the GM, the Beholder does not have a Ray of Fourth Edition.
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Aug 1, 2016 15:31
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Recap - When last we left the party in our Tanicus campaign, they had broken into the island prison of Catra’Zal to rescue my PC’s mother from the clutches of my evil uncle, only to discover that my mother had died due to a hunger strike and that my uncle had someone raised her from the dead to force her to admit he loved her. After somehow winning a fight we weren’t supposed to win, Varis’ uncle Stannis Grumgate shifted the prison of Catra’Zal to the Astral Plane, trapping the party, a summoned Water Elemental, the rescued prisoners, and the remaining guards, while cutting us off from our Paladin who had stepped into the Etheral Plane right before the plane shift. X X X X X The prison sat in a sea of gray mist with the only landmark being a large floating stone head off in the distance – the capital city of Tanicus’ githyanki. One of the guards informed us that the nation of Korvis (where the prison was normally located) had an alliance with the githyanki, and that in two hours a githyanki dreadnaught would be landing to help take back the prison per the terms of the alliance. The only way to send the prison back to the Prime Material Plane was to somehow convince Stannis to send the prison back, and good luck with THAT. After restraining the guards (one of them tried to stab our Bard/Barbarian in the process. Do you know what happens to a guard that gets thrown off a wall in the Astral Plane? It turns out blood forms the most interesting shapes as the guard tried to “swim” back to the prison), the party headed down below to inform the rescued prisoners what was going on and what had happened. The “commander” of the prisoners was Kreighton Dragonhall, Prince of Kaeryn, a Lawful Good nation that’s the sworn enemy to Korvis. While we were upstairs fightning, Kreighton and the prisoners (which included a Wizard, a Moon Druid, and a dwarven sailor among others) used the bodies of the patrols we had killed to form a barricade around the morgue, scavenged the dead patrols’ weapons, armor, and spell components, and had fought off two other patrols in the meantime. As our Monk (Ksena) and Cleric (Aeana) laid out the situation we had found ourselves in, my Sorcerer (Varis), our Rogue (Cullus), and our Sidhe Eldritch Knight (Tellisyn) head to the heavily warded cell in the corner of the block. The Rogue took one look at the door and said “there is no way in hell I can open this.” It had no lock, no keyhole, was sat perfectly flush into the wall, there were no visible outer hinges, and there wasn’t even a small hole for a food try or a waste bucket to be placed inside. Tellisyn placed her ear against the door, trying to hear something, and managed to discern a very, very faint knocking. After a few moments (and a very nice Perception roll), she realized that the knocking had a broken pattern to it and that someone was on the other side of the door. I have to give credit to Tellisyn’s player at this point for coming up with something brilliant. She’s a Sidhe adventurer, my mother was a Sidhe adventurer, and all Sidhe have to serve in the military during their lives. She looked at our GM and said “does this sound like Sidhe Morse Code?” The GM thought about it for a moment. “Well, Tanicus doesn’t have Morse Code…but I would imagine the military would have some kind of basic non-verbal communication system…yeah. Yeah, I’ll say it sounds like that. Nothing detailed, but concepts like ‘all clear’ or ‘enemies, number to follow.’” After a few moments, Tellisyn managed to determine “alive,” “unharmed,” and “in need of urgent assistance.” Figuring that there was a very good chance it could be my mother (who could have still been alive. Or an reanimated corpse. Or a free-thinking corpse), I urged Cullus to study the door again. Another good roll (Arcana this time) allowed he and I to figure out the trick to opening the door. Along the edges of the door, incredibly faint and barely scratched into the surface, were a series of runes. Runes that belonged to the written language of the dark Gods, a language only an evil Cleric like my uncle could read and understand. So basically, we needed an evil Cleric to open the door. Stannis wasn’t going to do it, of course. With this information in hand, the party reunited outside the morgue where my PC quietly asked Kreighton if he knew of any evil Clerics that had were imprisoned in Catra’Zal. Kreighton’s response was to spit on the ground and growl that there was indeed a Cleric who had been incarcerated a few weeks earlier for, and I quote, “spreading falsehoods, proclaiming blasphemy, and committing random acts of spontaneous reanimation.” This Cleric worshipped Qord, the Vile Betrayer, Neutral Evil God of the undead, greed, and decay. Qord is one of the more despicable gods in Tanicus, one who revels in misery and suffering, especially when it’s caused by the undead. EVERYONE hates Qord, even the Korvins. But the door needed to be opened. With no other options, Varis and Cullus head to the Cleric’s cell where Cullus picks the lock. Inside, sitting cross legged on the floor, is an incredibly thin creature with bloodless lips, sharp teeth, and wicked claws. He’s already staring at me the moment the door opens. “You are not a guard,” he finally hisses, the GM’s voice making us feel very uncomfortable. “No, I am not,” my Sorcerer responds. “My name is Varis Stormglass, and I am here because I need your assistance. In return I will give you an opportunity to leave this prison.” “You need MY assistance? What use for a Cleric of the Vile Betrayer could someone like YOU possibly have, dragonblood?” My young, sweet, incredibly naïve Sorcerer answers honestly. “My mother is quite possibly trapped in the warded prison cell around the corner and there’s a very good chance she is a sentient undead. Only a Cleric of the dark gods can open the door. You’re the only Cleric aside from Stannis in this prison and therefore the only one who could figure out how to unlock the cell.” Pause. And the Cleric busts out laughing. “You’re…THAT’S what Stannis had hidden away behind that door? YOUR undead parent? Oh, that is indeed precious. Very well! For the sake of my amusement and the potential look on your face when you lay eyes upon your undead mother, I will assist you…but on one condition. Only one condition. A simple request, really…” X X X X X “Um…Prince Dragonhall?” “Yes, Varis…WHAT is HE doing here?” “I am here at this young Sorcerer’s behest, my Prince,” the Cleric said with a smirk. “What possible use could you have for this…this…fiend?” “Watch your words, Prince. I have not yet agreed to anything, and may find my cell more enjoyable than watching your suffering.” “Prince Dragonhall…this Cleric has agreed to help open the door to the warded cell. In return…in return, he asks for a writ of passage through Kaeryn so that he may travel through your country without fear of being harassed or slain simply because of his positon as a Priest of Qord.” “He wants WHAT?!? Permission to wander MY country committing necromancy? By the light of the gods I would never allow such a thing! As a Priest of Qord, simply setting foot inside my country is a very affront to the gods I worship!” “Prince Dragonhall,” the Cleric smirked, “I would never dream of breaking the laws of Kaeryn. Why do I care about your petty and short-sighted laws? All I am asking is to traverse your country free of persecution. I promise to obey your rules and raise no undead while inside your country’s borders. All I require is an official writ with your signature on it.” Prince Dragonhall stares at the Cleric for a second…and then over to me. “On one condition. If this Cleric breaks his word and commits any crime while in my country, both of you will be held responsible. If he raises the dead, you and he will both be punished. If he steals from a farmer, you and he will both be punished. If he commits a crime but manages to escape, you will still be subject to his punishment. His actions will affect you, no matter where in the world you are, and I expect you to return to Kaeryn to face the consequences regardless of his presence of lack thereof. Do you accept these terms, Varis Stormglass?” “…yes, Prince Draghonhall. I do.” The writ is signed (ink by me, blood by the Cleric). After tucking it into his robes, the Cleric heads over to the door and studies the runes for a few moments. “Fascinating,” he finally says. “Do you have any sketch paper? I could use a lock like this in my future endevours.” He makes a copy of the runes, puts the paper in his robes, and then motions to me. “I need a piece of copper wire in order to open this door.” I had a piece in my spell components pouch and hand it over to him. He waves it over the door, touching the runes in a certain order and causing them to light up while…chanting and grinding his teeth in a language NONE of us understood. Eventually, the entire door flares with a sickly blue light and it swings open just an inch. “Done. You may enter…and thank you for the copper wire. You came from the Prime Material Plane with it, correct?” “I did.” “Excellent. Goodbye Varis.” And with the wire as a component, the Cleric teleports back to the Prime Material Plane. My PC doesn’t hear Tellisyn complaining that we’ve just let a Cleric of Qord loose in Tanicus. Instead, he’s sliding his knife into the one-inch crack between the wall and the door. With Cullus’ help, it slowly swings open to reveal what’s inside… CobiWann fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Aug 10, 2016 |
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Aug 10, 2016 15:36
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the_steve posted:Seconded. I need to know what happens next. Need. Make a Persuasion roll. 
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Aug 11, 2016 00:43
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Last time, in order to open the warded prison cell that may have contained the reanimated corpse of my dead mother, my Sorcerer PC made a deal with a Cleric of the god of the undead… X X X X X The door to the cell slowly opened to reveal… …our lost Paladin, Falinrae. When Stannis Grumgate shifted the prison of Catra’Zal from the Prime Material Plane to the Astral Plane, Falinrae had been scouting the Ethereal Plane to see if she could discover how and where my uncle had fled to. With her anchor point no longer in the Prime Material Plane, Falinrae was trapped in the Ethereal Plane until such time as Stannis shifted the prison back to the real world…and who knew how long THAT would take? Fate was on Falinrae’s side, however. As she took in her new surroundings, Falinrae noticed a shimmering blue figure in the distance beckoning her to come closer. It turned out to be the ghost of a middle-aged Sidhe woman…my mother, Laeryell man Laurlaethy. With Catra’Zal on the Astral Plane and her soul on the Ethereal Plane she managed to manifest herself physically in the Astral Plane and bring Falinrae with her (aka “the GM spent two days trying to figure how the HELL to get Falinrae back to the group”) into her prison cell, since the cell was warded against magic it also protected them from the localized translocation of the two metaplanes (as I said, TWO DAYS). Falinrae shakes Varis’ hand before saying “there’s someone here who wants to meet you.” My mother was a manifested ghost, attached to the prison itself due to a spell from Stannis. Cue the emotional outpouring from my Sorcerer who thought his mother died when he was an infant. When my PC asked how he could possibly free her, she responded that he couldn’t. She was bound to the prison until Stannis died, at which point she would finally be allowed to rest. “Fine,” I said, “then I’ll kill Stannis.” “You’re not a killer, Varis.” “…ok, maybe I’m not, but have you met my friend Tellisyn?” “There is no other way for Catra’Zal to be returned to Tanicus save by the wishes of Stannis. If you kill him, you will be trapped here at the mercy of the githyanki.” “…ok, so we’ll threaten him. I’d like to once again introduce you to my friend Tellisyn.” “If you threaten Stannis, he will not be swayed. He is stubborn in that regard. Remember, he bound my spirit because I would not give myself to him. He must be convinced, not coerced, into returning Catra’Zal to Tanicus. You must be the one to convince him.” After some more back and forth, she goes on to explain what happened to cause my uncle to bind her. Stannis was in love with her, having freed her from a Korvin prison and brought her into his home to recuperate. However one night he caught her with his brother…my father. He told her that she had one night to flee while overseeing my father’s execution for “race mixing,” a big no-no in Korvis. She fled to the village of Dale to raise me in the cottage of my father’s sister, but a few years later discovered that Stannis had given himself over to Catira, the Lady of Pain, Neutral Evil goddess of vengeance, pain, suffering, and torture. She blamed herself for a once-decent man becoming a pawn of a goddess and went back to Korvis to convince him to mend his ways and forgive her. Instead, he arrested her and had her brought to Catra’Zal where she was imprisoned for nearly 15 years. Why? quote:“Because he swore he would make me fall out of love with his brother and in love with him.” Yep. Stannis would make my mother fall in love with him whether she liked it or not. This went on, as I said, for 15 years, but my mother refused to budge, saying she would not forsake the love for my father to lie to Stannis. Eventually, she decided that the only way to redeem Stannis was to kill herself and make him realize his mistakes. One hunger strike later, Stannis buried her per the Sidhe tradition and let her soul rest. For 30 days. At which point he bound her soul to the prison as a ghost, in the warded cell, and continued to try to convince my mother of “her mistake.” My mother’s ghost makes me promise not to kill or even harm Stannis, as “there’s a still a good man inside of him.” With the githyanki ship nearly an hour away, Prince Dragonhall agrees to hold the morgue while the rest of us head to find my uncle. Aside from being an unescapable prison, Catra’Zal is also the high temple to Catira, and Stannis is her High Priest. Stannis, according to a guard we interrogated, was holed up in her temple on the surface of the island. So, we load up for bear, I tell my mother “see you soon,” and we head out… X X X X X In Processing for Catra’Zal is a very regimented procedure, carefully designed to ensure that new prisoners are well aware that there’s no chance of escape from Catra’Zal save for a pardon or surviving until the end of their sentence. A prisoner is brought up from the docks and directly into the processing area. There’s only one way into the courtyard (from the docks) and one way out (the processing area). Once given their prison fatigues and their prisoner number, prisoners are taken down to the cell block to begin serving their sentence. Only the priests and servants of Catira are allowed to leave the processing area through the secondary door, which leads to their living quarters as well as the High Temple to the Lady of Pain. And since the guards on Catra’Zal are either prisoners who act as guards for special privileges or Korvin citizens who agree to work in the prison until death in return for a generous monthly stipend paid to their families, there’s absolutely no deviating from the process. You come in, your registered, your given your clothes and number, and you’re taken to your cell in the cell block below to begin your sentence. So what happens when someone enters Catra’Zal from the cell block, trying to go through In Processing to the courtyard? Cue one very confused prison guard who has no idea what’s been going on, locked inside his windowless room, as a heavily armed group of adventurers, complete with a water elemental (note – summoned creatures do NOT like to be taken to another plane, and Bubbles was shaking like a nervous puppy, complete with occasional spraying, that Ksena had to soothe and calm down). Our Bard/Barbarian Skeever takes one good look at the guard, bares his teeth, and…introduces himself. quote:
It’s an easy walk through the prison’s outside area to the High Temple, which you can’t because of all the whips, chains, and spikes hanging from its facade. Stannis is inside with two Shadow Monks, a Warlock, and a Cleric of Catira. In order not to make him feel threatened and risk him becoming hostile, my PC goes in by himself, with the rest of the party pressed up against the door waiting to come barging in the moment things go south, because face it, you know they’re going to… The conversation between my PC and Stannis boils down to this. My uncle is a Cleric, but he has draconic blood in him, same as my father. Stannis went the divine route whereas my father choose the path of the arcane. Stannis believed my mother truly loved him, however my father somehow performed some sort of sorcery/charm spell/love spell on my mother that caused her to become infatuated with him. All Stannis was attempting to do was discover what kind of spell my father had cast upon my mother in order to dispel it so my mother can go on to her eternal rest free of the burden of false love. My response? quote:”Uncle Stannis, in my time travelling the world, I’ve fought dragons. I’ve banished demons. I’ve been savored by mind flayers. I’ve been propositioned by an evil black dragonborn. (cue a shudder from Stannis, he knows it’s the dragonborn from the conclave) This just might be the most disturbing and horrifying act I have ever witnessed.” I try to convince Stannis that love can’t be quantified, dispelled, or altered, but he kept insisting that my father charmed my mother and that I was the product of an unnatural affair. I started to press him, asking for any evidence of a lingering effect. “There is none, but only because I have yet to unravel the spell keeping it hidden from me.” “Fine. You’re a divine spellcaster, but I’m an arcane one. Allow me to search for a magical effect on my mother. If there is one, then I will turn myself over to your custody and assist you in unravelling the spell. If there isn’t one, you will free my mother from her bindings and allow my companions and I safe passage from the prison.” He agrees. His entourage and I leave the High Temple, only to find the rest of my adventuring party pressed against the temple door ready to kick Stannis’ rear end if he laid a finger on me. With my entourage and his entourage warily staring at each other, we all head back down to my mother’s cell to determine once and for all whether or not her love for my father was natural or the result of an enthrallment…
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Aug 11, 2016 13:07
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I love this thread so much. 
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Aug 12, 2016 02:56
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Anticheese posted:What kind of shows would you get to see on networks like Necromancers' Broadcasting Circle? Soul Train.
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Aug 12, 2016 09:59
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It’s a stand-off between the adventuring party and Stannis’ entourage as Stannis and my PC step foot inside the jail cell containing my mother’s ghost. For about five minutes, the conversation goes like this… quote:Varis: Stannis, I can’t detect any arcane energy. Pause. quote:
My mother smiles sadly at Stannis. quote:
So I’m in shock. The other players are in shock. The two customers behind us who came into the store during this scene are in shock. Stannis takes one look at me, a good, HARD look from the GM that actually made me want to go stand in the corner. quote:
He turns and stalks out of the cell. My mother looks at me, still giving a sad smile. quote:
At that point, the prison is plane shifted back to the Prime Material Plane. My mother’s ghost disappears, and Varis walks out of the cell. He looks at the group…gets a hug from Ksena…and says quietly… quote:
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Aug 12, 2016 18:30
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Sorry I haven't posted lately - been busy at work and home. I have a story involving demons, ice storms, Androsphinxes, beholders, kuo-tao, an ice devil, a rickety wooden bridge, and a Monk vs. Monk showdown over whose elemental mastery was better. As a taste of things to come... quote:"Wait. You're telling me that while I was asleep you went out and got my Sorcerer corporate sponsorship?!? 
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Aug 22, 2016 12:08
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After our adventures on the island prison of Catra’Zal, the party and rescued captives (ahem…pardoned prisoners, as NO ONE ESCAPES FROM CATRA’ZAL!) make it back to shore thanks to a little trick our Monk had up her sleeve – a magic feather given to her by Swansea, the slightly-touched Druid who told us how to break into Catra’Zal in the first place. When dropped into the water, the feather turned into a massive self-propelled swan-shaped boat that got us back to shore in less than a day (visions of that one part of Fallout 4 danced in my head as I waited for the GM to put a Super Mutant down on the table). At this point in time, our party had two immediate goals… 1 – Head to the city of Highspire to meet an “immortal” Bard named Saegen Pennywhistle who would be able to tell us the codeword to get past the Iron Golem in an ancient temple to a departed god. 2 – Head to a set of standing stones in the Danaan Empire of Ancellyon (aka the land of the Dark Sidh/evil elves) in order to summon a Fae army to stop the Ancellyn from forming an army dedicated to our Eldritch Knight’s aunt. X X X X X With regards to the first goal, a few months ago our party was wandering through the Sidh capital of Summertide. In the Temple District, we noticed an ancient and shuttered temple down a narrow alleyway, blocked off and hidden from the much larger temples surrounding it. The temple belonged to Io, who was one of the original three Gods who created the “existence” that eventually became the pre-history Tanicus. Io had left long before Kaos, the Father of the Gods, had birthed his children, but the Sidh respected Io (who represented the basic concepts of justice, law, and civilization) and built a temple to her. It was shuttered and closed because no one had worshipped Io…ever…however the Sidh figured “just in case.” Well, the temple’s doors were busted open. From the inside. Of course, we go to take a look. Standing guard outside were two activated guardian statues who immediately tried to murder us. Once we defeated them we entered the temple. Floating in front of the altar was an archangel who bid us welcome and thanked us for defeating the guardians who were designed specifically to keep her inside. The daeva spun us a tale about how she had been bound to the temple by the forces of Az (an evil archdemon masquerading as a god) and had spent eons and eons trying to free herself so she could warn Tanicus about his evil plans, only for her to be thwarted by the warded statues outside who were specifically spellbound to hurt daevas. So we’re all happy, thinking we finally have someone on our side, and right when the archangels tasks us to go take out a priest in another temple who’s secretly an agent of Az… …then our Eldritch Knight, our Religion/Arcana/History expert, who had been dead quiet the entire time, speaks up. “Io didn’t have archangels. There wasn’t a Heaven to have a Heavenly Host when she was around.” This is when we found out that Az had convinced several members of the Heavenly and Infernal Hosts to come to his side by masquerading as daevas for OTHER gods… The Eldritch Knight had been waiting to find out the archangel's plan before blowing its cover. We beat back the archangel and explore the temple. We come to find out that there’s an Iron Golem guarding the way to the temple’s back rooms, and he’s powerful enough that there’s NO WAY our party could have taken him. All the Iron Golem will tell us is that only the bard known as Saegen Pennywhistle knows the codeword to make him move. Saegen Pennywhistle is a legendary figure around Tanicus – a Johnny Appleseed/Pecos Bill/Molly Pitcher type who has been around forever and has numerous tall tales about their exploits…except in this case, Pennywhistle IS real and IS immortal. We come to find out that Pennywhistle was last seen in the city of Highspire, performing at a tavern known as the Cranky Owlbear. With regards to the second goal, I’ve mentioned before that our Eldritch Knight’s grandmother is one of our campaign’s main villains. The Ancellyn are Sidh (elves) who felt abandoned after the Worldquake cut them off from their fellow elves and dedicated themselves to Catira, Lady of Pain, Lawful Evil goddess of pain, vengeance, and suffering. The grandmother (whose allied with the Lich King, the villain of the first Tanicus campaign ALLLLLL the way back in the late 1980’s and the world’s most powerful necromancer) has vowed to exterminate the rest of the Sidh and has convinced the Ancellyn to bring their forces together into one huge army in order to bring chaos and conflict the rest of the world, starting with the Sidh. My GM created Tanicus for a campaign back in the 1980’s and the actions of his players have shaped the world’s history, geography, and pantheon ever since. He’s updated the world based upon the released editions, adding new classes and new races along the way. The fall of the Cabal (Wizard’s Guild) in one campaign and with it a lack of formalized training schools led to the introduction of Sorcerers in third edition while an alliance Korvis made with some demons and devils led to the introducing of Tieflings in fith edition, for example. No Half-Orcs, sadly, as they’re a fungal based raced and regardless of how much I want to play one in our next campaign, in Tanicus no one’s getting freaky with a plant… For the introduction of Warlocks, our GM did something a bit different. Normally, Eldritch Knights pick their spells from the Abjuration/Evocation schools, but instead our Eldritch Knight is pulling from the Warlock list as she’s been tasked by one of the Faewild (The Queen of Air and Darkness specifically) to stop the Ancellyn. She’s wicked powerful as a Fighter with Chill Touch and Eldritch Blast is just NASTY. At the moment, the Queen of Air and Darkness is serving as the Faewild’s Queen of Winter. If our group can get to a specific set of standing stones before the end of winter, she’ll send us a Fae army to attack the Ancellyn and remove them from the equation entirely. The problem? Getting into Ancellyn is a BITCH. It’s a peninsula that was once part of the main continent as a vast highland steppe, only for the valley between it and the nation of Korvis to flood during the Worldquake. It’s cut off from the rest of the continent by a set of steep, impassible mountains. The dwarves live in the mountains…under the mountains, really…but all the mountain passes and city gates are besieged by the Orc and Bugbear tribes who are “privileged” to live in Ancellyon in return for their service. Going across the water is an option, but the sea is patrolled by corsairs and their merman allies, plus there’s a lack of landing sites that aren’t under Ancellyn control. Luckily for us, one of the prisoners we rescued was an Ancellyn, who made his living smuggling people in and out of the country. He had been arrested for failing to pay the proper bribes on the Kovin end of a trip, and in return for rescuing him he promised to smuggle us into Ancellyon once he managed to establish his smuggling route once again. We were wary of course, since the smuggler WAS an Ancellyn and could sell us out, but we were running short on options… X X X X X After some discussion, our plan is this. We tell the smuggler we would meet him in Redfall, a town on the Korvin side of the sea separating Ancellyn from Korvis, in two weeks time. It would allow us a chance to travel to Highspire, find Pennywhistle, and ask him what the Iron Golem was guarding in the temple to Io. The trip to Highspire would involve a three day ride through the Lawful Good kingdom of Kaeryn, followed by a three day ride through the Lawful Evil kingdom of Korvis and a one-day ride through the lands surrounding Highspire, which is four-city states that make up the Kaeryn-allied Grand Duchy of Seawyn. Now, here’s the kicker. The border between Kaeryn and Korvis is a wide, deep, fast-moving river. The only way to cross the river is by a bridge built centuries ago. Kaeryn holds a keep on the south end that’s constantly manned and occupied. The northern end of the bridge doesn’t have keep, but usually has a Korvin army encampment depending on how relations are between the two countries at the time. Sometimes it’s just a small scout garrison, sometimes it’s a considerable force, and when things get really heated it’s a full-blown war camp complete with siege weapons zeroed in on the keep. Beyond the river is a vast grassland that both Kaeryn and Korvis claim as their own. Sometimes the Kaeryn hold sway, sometimes the Korvins are collecting taxes, and every now and again Seawyn will send their armies down to occupy it and give Kaeryn a chance to catch its breath. News of our rescue of Prince Dragonhall from Catra’Zal reached the garrison before our group did. We were welcomed by the commander and given permission to spend the night before attempting to cross in the morning. On the other side of the river was a large war camp as this was one of those times where Kaeryn was involved in several border skirmishes and Korvis decided to flex its might. The commander simply asked that we not interfere with the actual military operations of the garrison and in return she would send a morning cavalry push to cover our crossing by distracting the Korvins. It was a nice bit of role-playing – our Paladin talked military matters with the commander, our Bard talked up my Sorcerer’s exploits while my Sorcerer met with several soldiers who hailed from his hometown (Dale isn’t part of Kaeryn but has an alliance with them in return for a small outpost and occasional border patrol) and my pseudodragon familiar assisted by cleaning out the storeroom of several large rats. Of course, nothing goes as planned…   In the middle of the night, the garrison alarm goes off. The soldiers all snap to, as do all of us, though it takes me a bit longer (Natural 1 on my roll to wake up) as my pseudodragon is lying on my chest and can’t quite remove itself thanks to being overstuffed with rats. From the outside comes a loud gibbering voice in a language that our Eldritch Knight recognizes as Infernal. Smack dab in the middle of the bridge are two huge devils, one heading north towards the Korvin camp and one coming south right for the keep. The devil uses its powers to summon several minions…   …and the fight is on. The minions themselves are a cakewalk. It’s the Shadow Devils that are the problem. The fight…well, the melee fighters tear through the minions and Shadow Devils thanks to magical and silver weapons. The casters, however…our Cleric/Favored Soul decided to drop an Ice Storm on the largest group of little demons. However she miscalculated the area-of-effect and caught one of the Kaeryn soldiers right on the edge of the storm. Everything under the Ice Storm died. Including the soldier. Considering our Favored Soul is as optimistic as a kender on Aderall, this CRUSHED her that she accidentally killed someone and she ended up spending the next few days in a depressive funk that we had to work her out of. My Sorcerer? Well…the big devil crashed into the courtyard and I had an inspiration. I stepped out of the tower I was hiding in, pointed toward him, and yelled “BACK TO THE ABYSS WITH YOU!” I blew my inspiration to give him disadvantage on the Banish. The GM rolled two natural 20’s. I ducked back into the tower, only for the devil to peer inside, whisper “I see you, little Sorcrerer,” and cast Shatter on the tower. Between the flying masonry and falling damage from rolling another freaking Natural 1 on my Dexterity save, I got knocked down to 1 HP and spent the rest of the fight trying to dig my way out of the hole I was in since I couldn’t see out of it to Misty Step. Eventually the PC’s and the Kaeryn soldiers get the devil down, and in the confusion of the other devil tearing the Korvin camp apart, we quickly heal up and charge across the bridge. While the Kaeryn help take down the devil in a “the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy and man it’s great to watch my enemy get their rear end kicked” sort of manner, our party slips into the night… X X X X X The Cranky Owlbear was a lot more high-end then we expected. How high-end?  Yeah, the GM actually wrote up and printed out a full menu and had us order off of it while tavern music played in the background. It was a nice place in the noble district of Highspire, complete with an owlbear head for a sign, a stuffed and mounted owlbear threatening patrons as they entered, and an actual hostess to show us to our seats. Oh, and two trained baby owlbears who would dash around the floor picking up any dropped food (we were told NOT to fee the owlbears. Everyone did anyway). My pseudodragon familiar spent the entire time wrapped up against my chest since owlbears are natural predator to pseudodragons, while our Favored Soul got her groove back by being introduced to ice cubes…which she didn’t use for her drink, but for dumping down the back of my robes, which causes my Sorcerer’s entire body to flinch, which caused my pseudodragon to flinch, which causes me to barely make a save against being poisoned by its stinger. When asked about Pennywhistle, our waitress asked us to wait until the end of her shift. In the meantime, Skeever decided it was time to tell another tale of the Lightning Lord that the player himself had penned in the 60 minutes or so between the fight at the bridge and arriving at the Cranky Owlbear… quote:
Admist much applause, I quietly whispered “Skeever, I was under the tower most of that fight.” “I didn’t specify the order of events!” The waitress sit down and explains to us that Saegan went missing about three weeks previous. Highspire sits on the west coast of Seawn, which is bordered on the east by a series of mountains. Those mountains were once home to an ancient civilization, so ancient that the tombs, caves, and dungeons had been picked clean centuries ago by other adventurers. A few weeks ago however, a group of dungeon crawlers came back loaded with enough loot to set them up for life. Other adventurers had piled them with enough drink to find out that a landslide had revealed an old road that wound up into the mountains and that there were plenty of tombs up there ripe for the plucking. Pennywhistle himself decided to go check it out, but hadn’t returned after nearly three weeks. Armed with a map from Pennywhistle’s room, we loaded up and set out for the mountains. Seawyn’s pretty peaceful, so we made it to the mountains without any problem. The only problem we experienced was…  …a group of Xorn who smelled all the gems in the Bag of Holding my Sorcerer had…and all the gems that the Rogue had palmed during the last few adventures and hadn’t had a chance to pawn off yet. Turns out the poor things had taken a wrong turn from the Elemental Plane of Earth and were starving. I handed over some of my personal cut of gems to allay their hunger while the Paladin “convinced” the Rogue to give them all of the gems he had taken. In return, they told us about the path heading up the mountain and where we could take a short-cut while also warning us about something very big and very nasty further up the trail. They couldn’t be more specific (“it was very big and very nasty, we didn’t stick around to see what it was!”), my Sorcerer Banished them back to the Elemental Plane of Earth, where they promised to spread about how nice and generous with the gems my PC was (of their own volition and accord, I should point out! The GM says "dude, 18 Charisma, you're memorable without even trying." So what was further up the trail, you ask? Following their advice and Pennywhistle’s trail, we soon came to a small alcove sitting off the path (which continued up the mountain) that faced the western approach, giving us a good view of the Grand Duchy and the setting sun. Inside the alcove were three doors, each with a symbol carved above it. And sitting above the door? An Androsphinx.  These thing are REALLY freaking nasty. Like, “asking the GM for Permission to look in the Monster Manual to see why the other players just took a breath” nasty. Luckily, it was nice, polite, and vowed to destroy us if we passed under its gaze into the mountain. It did confirm that Saegen Pennywhistle had indeed passed this way three weeks earlier and was currently inside the mountain. The three doors underneath the sphinx did lead into the mountain. Specifically, one led to a great treasure and the other two to certain death, in the Androsphinx’s word. In order to get into the mountain without being horribly killed, all we need to do was solve this riddle… quote:
So we’re arguing for a good long while. Could it be the wind, since the alcove was open to the mountain face but might not catch the gusts? Could it be the setting sun, whose rays would illuminate the alcove as it set but may not shine directly on the doors? Could it be the rain, since the alcove was open to the sky but sloped just enough that the rain might miss the door entirely? We have a good half-hour of discussion about the solution to this riddle, some GOOD role-playing, when suddenly the Rogue’s player sits up, snaps his fingers, and says “I got it.” And he got it right.
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Aug 26, 2016 01:42
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The road. The answer was the road, the one that led to the top of mountain and the real doorway inside We asked the DM what was inside the three doors. He said he won't tell us because he's saving it for later.
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Aug 26, 2016 10:08
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Senior Woodchuck posted:God dammit, I just got that. ...holy, so did I.
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Aug 27, 2016 01:46
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As I mentioned earlier, the answer to the Androsphinx’s riddle was “The Road.” Our group climbed the rest of the way up the mountain. At the very top was a small opening that had once been covered by a large stone slab, said slab now resting in pieces on the ground. Scratched into the stone next to opening was a symbol that Skeever recognized as a Bardic symbol (kind of Tanicus’ hobo code).quote:
Figuring the symbol had been carved by the man we were looking for, the bard Saegen Pennywhistle, the party entered what appeared to be a small but lavish temple. The stonework was set perfect against each other, tapestries that were JUST too frayed to be worth anything hung on the wall, and a large cistern had been set into the middle of the foyer, one that had been carved from the bottom up as opposed to being dug into the ground. A little further one, we found out just which deity the temple had been dedicated to…  Bilbdoolpoolp. Seems an army of kuo-toa had been living in the depths of the temple and the earthquake opened a pathway to the cistern and back this ancient temple. And they had somehow pissed off whatever had been living in the temple since it was last used and had barricaded the door to keep whatever that thing was locked inside. Sadly, none of us spoke kuo-toa and Skeever’s initial attempt to parlay was to take a swing as one of the obvious magic users. We plow through the kuo-toa (except for our Rogue who got cut off and failed a Death save before we got him back on his feet) except for one monk who manages to slip past me and escape down the cistern. (This adding to a running joke in our group – during big encounters, we’ve sometimes let one enemy them get away. A bullywug, a kuo-toa, and in a few sessions a Frost Giant. We keep expecting one day to find someone kind of “Legion of Doom” of leveled-up NPCs armed with their own magical gear to throw down with us) It takes us a bit to open up the door. Inside is a short corridor and the walls are covered in stone carvings of eyes with their lids closed. As the party crosses through the corridor, some of the eyes open up. If you fail your Wisdom save, you’re entranced for a round. If you make your Wisdom save, you then fail your Dexterity save as stone tentacles whip out of the walls and pin you in place. Only the Rogue manages to make his Wisdom and Dexterity saves (Natural 20 on the Dex save, because ”When you’re covered in your own blood, it’s easy to slip out of a tentacle’s grasp.” We have a harder time getting through the drat corridor than we did with the kuo-toa but eventually make into the room beyond. The room beyond is interesting as there’s a pit of magical darkness sitting right in the middle of the room covering up whatever waits down below. A quick trip to the Astral Plane shows something really disturbing…hundreds and hundreds of eyes just staring at me, whispering over and over again “Katral…Katral…Katral…” The trip reveals though that there is a chamber down below that our group could easily climb down into using our ropes. It’s the tapestries on the wall that are of interest. While they’re just as faded and worthless as the ones in the entryway, the subjects of the tapestries are…us. All of us were represented, even down to the Rogue, our party’s newest member. What was interesting were the titles of the tapestries, which a scroll of Comprehend Languages revealed to be… Skeever, Dragonborn Barbarian – The Lizard Chief Fallinrae, Sidh Paladin – The Last Martyr Tellisyn, Sidh Eldritch Knight – The Prophet of Air and Darkness Aena, Greensidh (half elf/half Halfling) Favored Soul – The Lamp in the Dusk Cullis, Halfling Rogue – The Final Arbiter Varis, Half-Sidh Sorcerer – The Lightning Lord (”Not one word, Skeever”) Ksena, Human Monk – The Rainbringer Now, eyes? Tentacles? Magical darkness? What do you think we discovered once we all made it down the ropes into the chamber below? How about a huge pile of treasure, a golden vortex of swirling magical energy, and six statues of adventurers in various stages of panic, including one with a lute strung over his shoulder (who actually looked nothing more than a tad surprised) and this sight for our eyes?  Yep. A drat BEHOLDER!!!  We split the party so it can’t keep its anti-magic zone on all of us at once. The problem are its eyestalks. It’s randomly generated eye stalks. And its lair actions. I get the concept behind lair actions/legendary actions because they make fighting things like beholders/liches/dragons affairs worth biting your nails over. Put simply, this thing is kicking our asses. It’s floating in the air which makes melee really hard (thank Riva for Jump spells and Monks running up the way), which means it’s the Rogue and Sorcerer who are really doing the most damage to it. Cullis? Petrified. Fallinrae? Paralyzed. Ksena? Slowed. Varis? Killed. Yep. Disintegration Ray. 10d8 Necrotic Damage. He rolls a 72. I have 65 Hit Points. I turn into a pile of fine dust. Along with my Wand of the War Mage, Robe of Stars, Ring of Arcane Might, and our party’s Bag of Holding with all our potions, 27,000 gold pieces, 5,000 gold worth of gems, and one Scroll of Time Stop. And since it’s a beholder’s ray and NOT the actual Disintegration spell, the GM ruled that indeed the magical items were dust as well (we talked about this after game over a beer, and I'm cool with his ruling). Somehow the rest of the party pulls out the victory, barely, as in the Eldritch Knight has 10 hit points, the Monk has 3 hit points and no Chi, and the Favored Soul is sucking on fumes spellwise. Fortunately, the pile of treasure had two scrolls of Flesh to Stone which were used to turn Cullis back to normal and revert Saegen Pennywhistle as well. Pennywhistle snaps back to life, takes a good look at the remainder of the party…  “Fallinrae, Tellisyn, Skeever, Ksena, Cullis, Aena. It is good to finally meet you, I’ve heard so much about you…” Pause. “Wait. Where’s the Lightning Lord?” Ksena just points to the pile of glowing green dust on the floor. “Oh. Oh, boy. The gods aren’t going to like this.” So yeah. RIP Varis Stormglass, 9th level Sorcerer, 2015-2016, died a virgin.
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Aug 27, 2016 20:02
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Doodmons posted:tl;dr: Doodmons masturbates furiously about some of his characters. Ignore him at your leisure. Nah. Those were some fun stories, especially how overpower White Wolf can get. Besides, I've been pretty much posting The Varis Show. I'm trying to get more of the other players' moments as well since I'm blessed with such a kick-rear end group of fellow gamers... X X X X X The upside? The beholder’s stash came to about 5000 gold, 1000 in gems, and a Holy Avenger. This made Falinrae, our Paladin, happy because he had lost his original sword to the bottom of a lake a few sessions previous. He was even more pleased when he picked up the sword and it told him, in no uncertain terms, he was going to have to prove he was honorable and worthy of being its wielder. Yes, please challenge the 40-year veteran of role-playing to prove he can roleplay a Lawful Good Paladin… On the way back to Highspire (with my ashes having been collected and turned into an ice cube by Ksena, our Monk) Saegan Pennywhistle explained that he had ended up in the beholder’s lair because he had gone looking for the other adventuring party after they hadn’t returned from the mountains. They were also long-time patrons of the Cranky Owlbear and had a huge tab with the owner, and not even petrification would stop him from collecting. The four statues were safely wrapped inside Saegen’s bag and he would have them restored at a temple and deliver them back to the tavern in return for the owner of the Cranky Owlbear settling HIS tab. quote:”How big is your tab?” Saegan Pennywhistle was originally a PC from WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back in the day, back from when the GM was running Tanicus in his college’s student union. He didn’t think too highly of Tanicus’ gods, and a few of his Bard’s tales were long, flowing songs about how foolish and petty they all were. Tulani, the Great Muse, and Halaal, the Draconic god of mockery and trickery, found his stories amusing as they tweaked the nose of their counterparts. Until he spun a story about the two of them. At the tavern between adventures one night, the PC was met by a man with a bow and a lute over his shoulders. After a few drinks, the man asked Saegan what he most wanted in life. “For my stories to live forever…because that means I’ll live forever.” The man smiled and said “So you want to live forever?” “Yes. I want to live forever.” “Done.” The man? Tulani in human form. And from that point on, Saegan Pennywhistle was immortal. And by immortal, meaning he would never age…but he could die. And come back to life in the same body, just healed up and regenerated – Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who before his time, or Mr. Immortal from the Great Lakes Avengers for the truly nerdy among us. Saegan has been an NPC for centuries, and the sheer amount of years he’s been alive means he’s a font of knowledge for all things Tanicus. He’s not an oracle, but you can see their temple from where he stands. And he’s bored. Incredibly bored. One time, he managed to make his way to Elysium, Tulani’s home plane, an endless expanse of wisps, stags, bears, forests, and plains. It took him seven years to cross Elysium, hounded every step of the way by Tulani’s animal guardians. They would kill him, he’d get back up and keep going, they’d kill him again, he’d get back up and keep going. At the gates of Tulani’s hunting lodge, he died over a dozen times banging on the door asking for an audience with him. Tulani finally lets him in… quote:
That’s the entirety of the conversation. 30 seconds after seven years of trying before Tulani snaps his fingers and sends him back to Tanicus… X X X X X Basically, Saegan has been introduced to fill in the gaps in the party’s knowledge, both with what they want to know and with what the GM wants them to know. The key piece of knowledge is how to pass by the iron golem back in Summertide – the passcode wasn’t verbal, it was a hand gesture – and the party also learns a little bit about one of our upcoming enemies and how to get to them without fighting through a good chunk of their fortress (Tellisyn’s second cousin, a Blackguard in service to her grandmother and has a young red dragon for a mount, but that’s a story for another time), along with some tips on how to survive in Ancellyon once the party heads over that way and several other little pieces of knowledge. Of course, the big question on everyone’s mind is... quote:”How do we raise Varis?” As I was turned into a small collection of fine dust, we’re looking at a True Resurrection spell since it’s the only spell that works without a body. Unfortunately, there’s two hitches. One, it’s hideously expensive and the party only had 6000 gold. The second hitch…well… Here’s the thing about resurrection in Tanicus. Annwn (ah-NOON), the Dark Lady, Neutral Evil, ruler of the gods of darkness. The dead are her domain. Not the undead as those fall under Qord, but the dead. Anyone who dies on Tanicus passes through her hands on the way to their final resting place, no matter what race they are or which plane they’re going to be spending eternity on. Annwn takes death very seriously. If someone on Tanicus is resurrected without her consent, there’s a 75% chance of a member of her priesthood being called to kill them and bring their soul back to Annwn for its return to its proper place in the afterlife, but there is a 15% chance of escaping her notice and coming back clean. The other 10%? Should someone on Tanicus be resurrected without the consent of Annwn, there’s a 10% chance that Annwn will show up in person to kill the newly resurrected, and her very presence on Tanicus as the queen of the dark gods causes every living thing within a ten mile radius to die – humanoid, plant, animal, all fall down and don’t get back up. This is how one of the GM’s campaigns got thrown way off course, when the party tried to resurrect their Cleric with a scroll of Resurrection. The end result saw the entire city-state turned into a desolate wasteland and several plot-vital NPC’s go down. The only reason the party survived was because Annwn told them to spread the word that trying to raise the dead without her approval was a BAD IDEA!!! The only people allowed to resurrect the dead without Annwn’s direct approval are her clerics…but the problem is since Annwn is a dark god, temples to her are kind of hard to find in good-aligned cities like Highspire. They’re there, because no one wants to risk upsetting a god by denying her worshippers a place to pray, but they’re tucked away in very hard to find places. Saegan tells the party that he can call in a favor to call in a favor and have Highspire’s clerics of Annwn resurrect Varis. He takes Tellisyn to see someone who owes him a huge favor. In the basement of a small bookbinder’s shop sat a middle-aged lady who was gluing a blank spellbook together when Saegan walks in all smiles, calling her “darling” and “baby,” while Tellisyn…Tellisyn is very straight forward, dour, doesn’t joke around, and wants nothing more to kill the rest of her family out of a sense of both justice and anger. Saegan asks the middle-aged lady for a favor – to cash in her huge favor to ask the priests of Annwn to resurrect Tellisyn’s friend. Apparently, the middle-aged lady was owed a favor by the clerics of Annwn and since she owed Saegan a favor as well, Saegen was calling in his favor to call in her favor. She agreed, however she then turned to Tellisyn. quote:“And you require a favor as well?” The small basement falls away, turning into a landscape of stars. And the woman turns into a silver dragon.  quote:”Ok, this is getting out of hand. Does ANYONE not know about our party’s quest?” So Saegen and Ksena take the ‘cube’o’Varis’ to Annyn’s temple, which is hidden deep underneath the city. As he was with the silver dragon, Saegen is all smiles and happy with the head priest, who actually smiles and greets him back. After exchanging a few barbs with Ksena, who is dedicated to Emanyn, god of the sea, she asks for Varis’ ashes… X X X X X Now, when you die on Tanicus, you pass through Annyn’s hands for a brief moment before ending up at your final resting place. In Varis’ case, that would have been Celestia, a place where his magic would always work, the food and drink would be perfect, and spring is just now rolling into summer. Instead, Varis wakes up in the middle of Gehenna. Gehenna is where evil and failed souls go, a thousand-thousand hells all intertwined, each one devising a unique form of punishment or torture for its denizens. Souls here are burned free of their sins and infidelities before being let go to wander the afterlife free of their burdens but not yet able to seek perfect rest. It’s also the place with the truly evil and wicked are recruited and trained to go fight in the Blood War. So there’s Varis, whose last memory is being torn apart atom by atom by a beholder, and now he’s in a place that’s best described as part Warhammer 40k Chaos Marine boot camp, part Dante’s Inferno, and part the ship’s log from Event Horizon. People are being ripped right from the ground, twisted up, have a weapon shoved into their hands, and sent off to fight, and that if they’re lucky. “Hello, Varis.” A cold hand rests on my shoulder. Annwn is standing right behind Varis. Imagine a coldly beautiful Morticia Adams in black silk, blood red lips, porcelain skin, and an aura that would chill a white dragon. quote:“Where am I?!?” So for the next three days Varis gets to see hell first hand, and even gets the guided tour as Annwn shows him around. It’s not so much a “tour” as a “sales pitch,” as she keeps asking Varis if he wants to work for her. Not in the Blood War, that’s small time, but with regards to bigger and better thing. “The gods of light and the gods of balance have their representatives in your party. Why shouldn’t I?” “…I know I shouldn’t tell a god no, but I’m already pledged to Reva.” “Oh, yes. Him. Boring choice. He never has any fun. And didn’t you die a virgin? My priests have the best parties. They live like every moment might be their last... The time comes to resurrect Varis, and Annwn asks me if he wanted to stay or if he wanted to go. Both player and PC wanted OUT. ”Very well. Remember, the first time you are brought back to life is a blessing from myself. Beyond that? Well, that’s when bargains are struck…oh, you don’t have a body to inhabit, do you? Mmmmm, this is going to hurt.” Yeah. Bones first, then muscle, then organs…it took ten minutes for Varis’ body to reconstruct itself. Ten long, agonizing minutes. When Varis snaps up, he’s laying on a cold marble slab surrounding by the priests of Annwn, naked as the day he was born, and has to be convinced he’s not in Gehenna but back on Tanicus. Varis slides off the slab…right in front of Ksena, who can’t help but glance down. quote:”Huh. That’s what 20 Charisma gives you under the hood." X X X X X Player’s note – When I went to the GM’s house that week for our Ghostbusters game, Ksena’s player handed me a copy of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary and said “You may want to read this for some role-playing ideas…”
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Aug 29, 2016 16:14
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So Varis is snoring away in a large comfy bed in the Noble’s room of the Cranky Owlbear after being knocked out with a Sleep spell because every time he closed his eyes he couldn’t stop screaming. His pseudodragon Cadavell is curled up on his chest , stinger capped to ensure he doesn’t sting his master in case the Sorcerer woke up. The rest of the party is feeling bad, both in an emotional way and in a pragmatic way. Emotionally, the youngest member of their party has obviously been through hell and won’t tell them what happened. Pragmatically, he’s naked. All he had to his name were some priests robes given to him by the High Priest of Annwn, and no way was he going to be walking around Highspire with those on. No robes, no wands, no rings…all the party had to their name was 8000 gold to replace Varis’ gear while also obtaining a new Bag of Holding. And a staff from the beholder that no one could attune so no one knew what it could do. Skeever, our Bard/Barbarian, and Cullis, our Rogue, decide to shop around and see if they could maybe get some second-hand magical gear to outfit Varis until the natural inertia of adventuring replaced what he lost. After a suggestion from Saegen Pennywhistle, the pair headed to Abeforth’s Apothecary, one of the best known magical shops in all of Highspire (now with a second shop just opened in Midway!). The trip started out as nothing more than a shopping expedition, until Skeever and Cullis walked into the shop just as the owner, Abeforth himself, was sending out some young children with flyers to drum up business… quote:
Pause. quote:
He pulls out a small black handkerchief…and whips it open. It goes from being a handkerchief into a 10 foot by 5 foot black hole 3 feet in depth. quote:
X X X X X Varis wakes up the next day, and the souls of the damned have stopped screaming. He comes downstairs to the dining room of the Cranky Owlbear, familiar around his shoulders, with the rest of the party happy to see him. Ksena, after giving him a big hug, hands him the staff they found in the beholder’s lair – a Staff of Defiance (+2 to AC, advantage on physical saving throws, 10 charges, d4 + 1 recharge at midnight, 1 charge for Shield, 2 charges for Dispel Magic, 3 charges for Counterspell, 50% chance of the staff withering away if it runs out of charges) and Abeforth’s Robe of the Archmage (+2 to spell save DC and spell attack bonus, advantage on saving throws against magic). The robes are really cool – Abeforth ran copper threading through the sleeves and chest so that the robe flares up any time Varis casts a lightning-based spell. If Lightning Lad from Legion of Superheroes was a spellcaster, these robes are what he would wear. quote:
Varis does so as Skeever gushes about how they’re technically getting PAID to spread the word of the Lightning Lord and Cullis is talking about payment plans as Varis notices a logo on the back of the robe… (The GM drew that up the week between sessions after sketching a quick mock-up during game) quote:
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Aug 30, 2016 19:57
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CzarChasm posted:If he dies, Skeever has to strike a deal with Abeforth's competitor An Enchanter turf war?
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Aug 31, 2016 02:09
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the_steve posted:More of this please.
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Sep 4, 2016 22:02
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 We had to fight this Grell Queen and her minions on Sunday. IT WAS FREAKIN' PREGNANT.
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Oct 13, 2016 11:46
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I support my GM by bringing him Big League Chew every game as well as marrying his ex-wife. Does that count as proper compensation?
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Oct 24, 2016 11:51
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Samizdata posted:He has multiple ex's you have married? Also, where do you find Big League Chew any more? I've only married his one ex-wife. What would be the proper grammar for that statement? And you can get Big League chew at Five Below. That actually have a great selection of candy at cheap prices. ** Sorry for the delay in reporting on our Tanicus campaign – it’s been a combination of being busy at work/writing and submitting a story/depression/breaking my iPhone with all my gaming pictures on it. ** Last we left off – Varis had been resurrected and was now a spokesperson for Abeforth’s Apothecary. The party’s immediate goal is to somehow get into Ancellyon, the home of the evil Sidhe (Elven) race and summon an army from the Feywild in order to stop the Ancelyn army from joining up with our Eldritch Knight’s grandmother and her devil allies. Ancellyon is separated from the mainland by a vast sea and bordered by tall, jagged mountains. The only way into the country is through one of the heavily fortified and militarized ports or through the bottom levels of the dwarven capital of Anarak. However that exit from the city-fortress is constantly besieged by Orc tribes allied to the Ancelyn. Our first attempt to get into Ancellyon involves a Ancelyn smuggler who we had sprung from the prison of Catra’zal who said that he could sneak us into the country under the guise of slave trading. However, when we arrived at the hidden cover to meet up with him our group discovered that the smuggler, his crew, his cargo of “slaves,” and indeed his entire boat had been frozen solid in a huge block of ice by none other than an Ice Devil. After defeating the Ice Devil and his frostlings, our party came to realize that Tellisyn’s grandmother somehow knows our plans before we do, as if she’s constantly scrying on us. It’s enough for Tellisyn to almost give up right then and there as she believes there’s no way to make it to the Standing Stones and summon the Feywild army with her grandmother on our back the entire time. It takes a visit from the Queen of Air and Darkness herself to “remind” her that a pact had been struck and she WILL make it to the Standing Stones to summon the army. There was no “or else.” Fortunately, luck was on our side. It turned out that our group had been followed the entire time by a dwarf who was the cousin of another prisoner we had rescued from Catra’zal. And he had a way to get us into Ancellyn via the dwarf capital. The dwarf was an arcane spellcaster who teleported us to the roof of the city-fortress of Anarak. From the roof, it would be possible to descend through the mountains to a monastery dedicated to Emanyn, the Wave Master, god of the sea and all things water-related. It had once sat on the shore of the ocean until the Worldquake had changed the geography of Tanicus and placed the monastery in the foothills of the World’s End mountains. The monks just shrugged and dug a series of aqueducts to bring water to the monastery and went about this business. Underneath the shrine dedicated to Emanyn was a staircase that led to the ocean floor which was now a dried out badland as opposed to the lush seascape it had once been. Oh, and I should mention that Ksena, our Monk, grew up in this monastery and had NO Idea this staircase existed. We fight across a rickety bridge after being ambushed by harpies, who are the favored species of Caradoc, the Foul Destroyer, god of war and battle lust, force our way through a bevy of Frost Giants, and make it to the monastery where Ksena is greeted by her master as “Little Raincloud.” After a “my Kung Fu is superior to your Kung Fu” brawl with one of her rivals who believed that travelling the world made one weak as opposed to study and meditation, the Grand Master reveals the staircase. Before our party leaves however, Ksena has a vision. Right after the Worldquake, a monk (Ksena in a past life) made a pilgrimage with several other monks to the Barrier Spire to retrieve several important artifacts and return them to the monastery. Our journey to Ancellyon would take us along the same path this monk took, only his journey ended in tragedy as orcs killed his party along the way. The trip to Ancellyon proper takes across the bottom of what was once part of the ocean. The ground is covered with the bones of large sea creatures, decaying coral structures stretch above us like dirty fingernails, and what were once undersea steam/heat vents still project foul gases and mist into the air. We manage to avoid getting into fights most of the way across the floor, heading towards the marshlands that once made up a vast river delta pouring into the ocean. Along the way, our party runs into an orc ambush where Ksena turns into a whirling dervish of death, pretty much giving the orcs no quarter as she rips through them. It’s this way for most of our trip – orc ambush, Ksena tears them apart, orc ambush, Ksena tears them apart. Even our Eldritch Knight and Paladin, who pretty much live by the maxim “kill as many of them as you can before they surrender,” are taken aback as Ksena works off past life baggage. Our party ends up at the Barrier Spire itself. The tribe who had taken up residence inside had plundered the place of anything valuable years previous, save for one item that the party found once Ksena had finished killing every orc…. quote:Cullus – Ksena killed everybody. The only magical item left inside was a staff - a Staff of Tranquil Rest. When used, the Staff opens a portal to the Elemental Plane of Air for the entire party to step through. Inside the portal is the idea resting place for whoever is wielding the staff at the time – our druid-esque Favored Soul had a vast green meadow, Varis had the town of Dale during a cool spring night, and Skeever was a large sphere filled with nothing but large fluffy pillows where nothing could possibly harm anyone. Air elementals act as servants while inside the portal and the party gains the benefit of a long rest and a complete meal after 8 hours. As the dried seabed slowly gave way into the marshland, our party came across a huge orc camp/fortress that blocked the way into the marshlands. Ksena, as usual, wanted to walk inside and kill everyone, but Fallinrae managed to convince her that tact might be needed this time out (leading Skeever to ask if we needed a doppelganger check). With the help of Cullus’ Rogue disguise kit and some drat fine rolls (the lowest he rolled was a 16 before modifiers), Cullus turned our party into a group of Ancelyn and their goblin slaves. This allowed us to walk right through the first part of the camp without a fight. In the back of the camp however, a group of Ancelyn were with the Orc Chief. They were in the middle of warning the Chief that interlopers were attempting to force their way into Ancellyon and that the orcs needed to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Like the party of Ancelyn and their goblin slaves that no one had ever seen before who JUST walked into camp. The fight took two-and-a-half hours. Half the party recreated “Horatio at the Bridge” to hold back the orcs from the front of the camp who were pouring over a bridge (even the Rogue kicking out the supports didn’t stop the orcs from charging across the chasm using the bodies of their fallen comrades as stepladders to climb the opposite wall of the moat) while the other half dealt with the orc chief and the Ancelyn. The orc chief was apparently expecting a double-cross from the Ancelyn, because on his first action he took a swig from a nearby stein…and went from a Medium-sized creature to a Huge-creature. The party had to pull out every single trick in the book to stay alive, from bringing the tent down on the Ancelyn to giving the Orc Chief a hotfoot to buy a few rounds to heal up to hiding behind the pile of dead orcs...we won (barely). In the end, the only two orcs left alive were the two guards at the very front of the camp, the ones who let us in while we were disguised. quote:
Next time - The Brains That Wouldn't Die, complete with pictures!
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Oct 24, 2016 15:45
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Nah, there’s no cat-piss to it. I met my wife and her ex-husband/current GM through my roommate at the time. I played in some games with them (“DC Superheroes,” “Firefly,” a homebrew cyberpunk setting) but at the time I was a horrible RP’er – not quite cat-piss, but you’d want to change the litter after a few sessions with me. My wife started to run a “7th Sea” campaign on Friday nights for my roommates and myself so I became good friends with her. When the divorce hit, my wife ended up moving into a townhouse just down the road from me. We played a new “7th Sea” campaign at her house with new players, I started hanging out with her/going to the movies/babysitting her daughter, she convinced me to start going to her White Wolf LARP, one thing led to another, her and her daughter moved in with me, we got married, she ran “7th Sea” for a few more months until I took over to run a West End “Star Wars” game. Meanwhile, her ex-husband gets remarried (to Ksena’s player). The divorce was…about as pleasant as a divorce could be with a kid involved, but once the dust had settled my wife and her ex-husband became very amicable towards each other, almost friendly. It also helped that I hit it off with his new wife and anytime the four of us were together it was easy for the two of us to get a conversation rolling, plus I was able to help him break the ice with HIS new stepdaughter since the two of us were new at the whole "stepdad" thing. Fast forward a bit – they’re dropping my stepdaughter off at our house. The GM mentions he’s going to run his D&D game and I ask him what edition. He says fifth, I chat with him about the rule changes between third, fourth, and fifth, and he invites me down to play a one-shot character, a local Sorcerer who can escort the party to a cave high in the mountains. One thing leads to another, and next thing I know I’m in my first regular “Dungeons and Dragons” campaign. The family and social dynamic is…a bit mixed. There is me, married to my wife, who’s the ex-wife of my current “D&D” and “Ghostbusters” GM who’s married to a new wife who also plays in both games. I run a “Star Wars” game for three friends and my wife who have all been playing together for nearly a decade. One of those friends is the ex-wife of another player in my “D&D” and “Ghostbusters” games and THAT was a nasty divorce, so nasty that those two don’t talk to one another because she’s dating (and just bought a house with) one of the “Star Wars” players. The third “Star Wars” and “Ghostbusters” player is an incredibly chill guy who not only plays in the “Star Wars” and “Ghostbusters” games, but makes a drive every other week to play “7th Sea” with my ex-roommate who HATES my wife and her ex-husband…and this is without getting into LARP drama… I could sit down and write a book using my social dynamics as a backdrop, except I’d get called out for it being too unbelievable. You’ve heard of blended families? We’re a freakin’ Gordian Knot. The four of us actually have a Board Game Night coming up – “Exploding Kittens” with the girls before they go to bed, the new expansion for “Betrayal at the House on the Hill” once they’re asleep… CobiWann fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 13:05
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Previously in Tanicus… http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3460258&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=222 A few months ago, our party was caught in a devilish ambush. Our Favored Soul, Aiena, dropped an Ice Storm on a whole bunch of little devils and wipe them all out. However, the edge of her storm clipped a nearby tent holding a unit of soldiers. The specific soldier (who we had nicknamed “Septimus” because he was the seventh soldier) that got caught under the template failed his save miserably and ended up becoming a statue of solid ice that was broken during the fight. Aiena, who normally has the energy of a Kender on crack, was miserable and had to be coaxed out of her depression. Sometimes fights are much harder on the PC’s than the NPC’s but it didn’t turn her into a sad depressed sack of tears for the rest of the campaign. She moved past it, and healed. ** Still making our way towards Ancellyon and a date with some standing stones, our party had finally made it out of the dry seabed and were firmly in the marshlands by this point. They were sticky, stinky, sulfuric, slimy, and spongey. Still, we pressed up as my Sorcerer kept chain casting Prestidigitation to blow the smell away from his nose and Aiena just put sandalwood incense stick behind her ears. Along the way, we run into these.   Grell. Brains on legs that do psychic damage. For the most part, we’ve been ignoring them and they’ve been ignoring us, keeping a wary distance and just observing without any muss or any fuss. Eventually though the path comes to a chokepoint, and that’s when the grell strike! By themselves they weren’t much of a problem. Their attacks hurt, but they’re incredibly squishy. The problem comes in the third round…when the sky opens up in a slash of black clouds and silver lightning. In a cloud of jagged ice and biting fog, this creature descends from the sky.   A Revenant. Named Septimus. And it has its sights set on Aiena. Revenants are undead creatures of vengeance and anger who died in a wrongful manner and crave revenge against their killers. They’re incredibly tough with a Nightmare for a horse, hit hard, and can teleport across the map with ease. They can be put down, but within 24 hours they can find a fresh corpse and reconstitute their body for another go. They can’t be stopped, they can’t be hidden from, and can pursue their target for one year, until either it’s dead or the Revenant is dragged to the afterlife, its quest for revenge unfulfilled. So our sweet, innocent, happy-go-lucky, childlike Favored Soul has a Revenant after her.  It almost killed her (she failed two death saves) before we managed to destroy its (current) body and fell the Nightmare with the help of Fallinrae’s Unicorn mount. But now Aiena, our healer, is devastated and retreats into her shell, barely managing to do anything other than heal us when we’re wounded. The thought of her casting Ice Storm or any damaging spell, even Call Lightning, causes her to curl up into a ball and sob. ** The Ancelyn are…pragmatic when it comes to warfare. When a Ancelyn dies, their bodies are recovered at all costs so they can be returned to their homeland and ensure the proper funeral rites are observed. When it comes to their Orc allies however, the Ancelyn figure that they have more use for a dead Orc than the Orcs do. Enter the Corpse Collector Golem.    It was lying in wait at the bottom of a pool of sludge as our Rogue was scouting ahead. Cullus was distracted by some very expensive looking crystals that were jutting out from the muck. While he was debating the past way to climb over to them without sinking, the Corpse Collector rose up from the ground, grabbed him…and with a Natural 20, jammed him right onto one of his shoulder spikes. I hate Golems because they’re ALWAYS immune to one type of spell damage and my character is becoming infamous enough that most golems sent against us are immune to lightning, or worse healed by it…it’s also my GM’s way of making me think outside the box. Which I did with acid damage via Acid Splash and Chromatic Orb. But the kicker of the fight was our poor Rogue, impaled on a spike, attempting to remove himself, as we just plink and plunk away at this armored monstrosity. The GM allowed him an Athletics check to pull himself free… Natural 20. quote:“Ok, it turns out you weren’t as stuck as you originally thought you were. So you can act this round to jump down….” Cullus rolls both his attacks. Two Natural 20’s. He does massive enough damage that it’s enough to take the Golem down as the GM rules that Cullus found a major gap in the Golem’s armor and strikes it down. We manage to scavenge a good bit of the scrap armor and shove it into our portable hole/ditch in case we need it later to…I don’t know, but damned if we were going to leave it lying around. **  We have a few more off-screen run-ins with the Grell. We easily brush aside the walking brains and spend more time consoling Aiena than dealing with them. At the edge of the swamp, we run into one final pack of Grell. As we get ready to cut through them, there’s a disturbance in the water nearby…and this thing rises out of it.   It’s the Grell Queen. Not the whole Queen mind you. Just the portion that’s above the surface as the rest of the massive creature sits underwater. On its first action, it…shudders…and squeezes out two more Grell. Yeah. Not only is it a Grell Queen, it’s a PREGNANT Grell Queen. So the fight is now trying to force our way through an increasing amount of Grell to take out the Queen. We take her down once we get to her, however the nickel and dime damage from the tiny Grells made it a lot closer than it should have been. ** The marshlands begin to give way to rocky foothills. Named “The Path of Flame” on our maps, the narrow valley between two mountain ranges was the most direct path into Ancellyon without going through the heavily guarded border. Why was the valley called “The Path of Flame?”   Fire Giants. And right now, two of them were casually making their way to a nearby hot spring to sit, relax, and talk about any and all things Fire Giant.. Still a bit beat up from taking on the Grell Queen, our party decided to hang back and just let the pair of them pass. No muss, no fuss, just allow them to go one their way without them every knowing we were hiding. That’s when Falinrae’s Holy Avenger demanded he smite them. Our Paladin’s new sword is a bloodthirsty yet honorable weapon who will only unlock its full potential if Falinrae proves himself “worthy.” And letting a pair of evil Fire Giants pass by without challenging them makes the Paladin unworthy in its eyes. So we all pass our Hide checks (FOR ONCE) and are getting ready to make like rocks when Falinrae strides out towards the giants and demands their attention by stabbing one of them in the foot. We ended up defeating THREE Fire Giants while the fourth one wisely escaped before we could turn out attention to him. A little later down the road, the valley becomes much more treacherous, with a lot of ledges, deadfalls, boulders and depressions, and large rock formations to climb up and over. Our party has to make Athletics rolls to maintain our footing. It’s only a target number of 5 but at one point my Sorcerer stumbles after rolling a 3. This puts him at the extreme back of the party when a group of Fire Giants pop out of their foxholes and beginning throwing boulders. And then with a roar, THIS guy leaps down from a nearby hillside right into the middle of the party and slams his sword into the ground, releasing a Fireball at point blank range.   (As a note, the new Giant models are REALLY freaking cool) So while two Giants and the Fire Giant Chieftain pound on the party, by stumbling Varis actually has a shot to make it up the hill to a nearby foxhole without being seen. I manage to do so, and as the Fire Giant inside rears back to throw a boulder, I cast Banish with Heightened Spell Metamagic behind it. Did you know Fire Giants have a +5 to their Charisma saves? I sure as hell didn’t. Neither did the rest of the party. And the DM only realized it at the last minute when he glanced at the Fire Giant’s statistics sheet. So the Fire Giant, seeing that I was doing nothing more than waggling my fingers at him, grabs me and manages to completely and utterly immobilize me. All I can do is try to break free every round using a Strength check…yeah, right…as my Pseudodragon familiar pecks and stings at his fingers (“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.”) trying to get me free. The rest of the party meanwhile is wailing away on the Fire Giant Chieftain, trying to get him down before he can cast another Fireball. He’s down to 20 HP when one of the Fire Giants comes roaring out of his foxhole and runs full tilt towards him. Did you know Fire Giants have Paladins who can Lay on Hands? I sure as hell didn’t. Neither did the rest of the party. The Chieftain manages to get off another Fireball spell and the party is getting hammered over and over again. The Fire Giant is about three seconds away from petting and hugging and squeezing and calling me George when he leans forward and whispers into my ear. quote:”You never saw me. If the Chieftain dies, I become Chieftain. You let me go, I let you go. You talk about me, I will send the entire tribe after you.” So he lets me go and I crawl out of my hole. The party has beaten the Chieftain and his two companions down as I manage to climb over the rocks and line up a Lightning Bolt. 78 points of damage later, they’re all dead, we have a huge magical sword whose size class is “gently caress the gently caress Off,” and we ease on down the road with the rest of the party unaware of the future geo-political ramifications of the conflict. ** Another Fire Giant is sitting in the middle of the road. And this one is a LOT bigger than even the Fire Giant Chieftain. He’s hitting the side of the mountain with a hammer roughly the size of Nebraska and picking through the resulting boulders looking for what appears to be veins of iron ore. The rest of the rubble gets casually tossed into a large pile. We DEFINITELY aren’t in any shape to fight a Fire Giant of THIS size, and we’re deathly afraid that Falinrae is going to walk up and challenge it to a one-on-one duel. So it’s decided that Cullus will go back to the party and lie while Skeever goes to talk to the Fire Giant and convince him to hide while the rest of us pass.  I have to point something out that the DM brought up after game on his blog. Cullus came back and spun a really horrible lie about earthquakes and avalanches that no one in their right mind, especially a suspicious Paladin, should fall for. However, Cullus rolled incredibly well on his Deception Check and Falinrae rolled very poorly on his Sense Motive check. It was one of those moments where dice and role-playing don’t quite get along. In a lot of other games, the DM could easily go “you fall for the lie and that’s that.” Or the players could get into an argument that derails the game and leads to hurt feelings. I have to give credit to Cullus’ player and Falinrae’s player who both played out the scene to the point where Falinrae said “I have every reason to believe Cullus is lying about WHAT is up ahead, but I’m going to trust him and NOT go ahead.” And props to the DM for letting the two players handle things between them and not stepping in too early. It’s a sign of trust in his players, and vice versa.  Meanwhile Skeever had walked up to the Fire Giant. In the course of the conversation, Skeever mentions coming across “some of your kind” in the mountains. The Fire Giant immediately perks up and demands to know if this is true, that our party has found other of his kind. Because…well, it turns out that the Fire Giant before us isn’t a Fire Giant. His name is Ilholdyn, and he’s a Fergian Giant. What’s a Fergian Giant, you ask? They’re servants of Fergus, the Master Craftsman, Lawful Neutral God of crafts, smiths, and ale, also known as the god who built the world. He didn’t create it, but he followed the blueprints. Fergian Giants were the actually construction workers, the one who actually poured the foundations for the continents and helped to flood the oceans. Ilholdyn is the last of them as he hasn’t seen another of his kind in nearly two thousand years, and he’s never seen a dragonborn (Skeever) or a dragon-blooded Sorcrer (myself) before, to the point where he asked us if we’d donate our bodies to him once we died so he could study us and make blueprints for the next time he’s called on to help create a new race… The crux of the conversation however was as follows. The Ancellyn had sealed the border of Ancelyon (“they know we’re coming,” groused our Eldritch Knight) and the only way to get into the country was through the fortress city of Methryl and ten thousand screaming evil Sidheborn. Although, there was another way…the Old Lady of the Mountain who lived on the Balancing Rock at the top of Mount Waylourn, just a hop, skip, and a seven-day walk through a series of mines that once contained the very ore that was used to forge the world of Tanicus. She could help us get into Ancelyon without having to fight off hordes and hordes of evil elves. Seven days underground. The trip won’t be so bad though. According to Ilholdyn, the only creatures who live in the mines are harmless spiders.
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Nov 16, 2016 22:44
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HiKaizer posted:More on my DnD game, finally: I love it when a PC makes a situation WORSE...
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Nov 17, 2016 14:41
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In my time as a White Wolf player, I’ve played two Malkavians. One was a cyromaniac. He liked things COLD. His haven had the AC cranked as high as it could go and his coffin was in a deep freezer. His way of torturing supernatural beings was to freeze their limbs and use a sledgehammer on them. One time he caught outside in a “Storm of the Century” and spent a week buried in a four-foot Chicago snowdrift because he couldn’t make it back to his Haven and it was the only way to stay out of the sun. The other? Believed 100% to the bottom of his soul/psyche that he was actually a member of Clan Ventrue. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 20:31
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The Bee posted:Hank or Dean? 
CobiWann fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 20:46
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