| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
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| bjorntfh03-07-05, 09:01 PM | Right now I'm running a game set in Sharn with the PCs being part of an investigation company. I've had perhaps the most satisfying moment of GMing in the past few years when I managed to get 4 out of the 6 PCs to asctually ask for a break for a few minutes because they were scared. The Pcs are investigating a very bizzare murder/suicide that they witnessed. It all started with the 6 of them (level 2) eating breakfast at a small open cafe in Sharn. As they're eating a man in his early twenties wearing the clothes of a University librarian walks into the area. He's moving awkwardly, almost as if he's not really aware of where he's stepping. He then half staggered into one of the tables and looked around. The PCs, more annoyed at the intrusion than anything else, get up and ask him what's his problem. He doesn't respond and begins trying to walk past them. At this point one of the PCs noticed that he was carrying a strange gray oval in his hand and pointed it out to everyone else. The Kalashtar made a knowledge check and recognized it as a Quori weapon, but the player decided that his character's response would be, rather than tell anyone, to bugger off and go for cover. The party tries talking to him, pushing him and even taking the orb, but he doesn't respon to any stimuli and the orb seems immatereal. At this point they're all worried as the guy pushes past them into the interior of the cafe and begins scanning the room. The party can hear him muttering "The Door is Open." over and over as he looks from patron to patron before finally stopping and lifting his hand to point at them. The orb sprayed deep green flames across first one then the second person at the table before turning to face the PCs. Combat was started, the PCs who got iniative (2 of them) both took cover and readied actions against the guy. At that point is got really scary for the players: the guy simply lifted the orb he'd been carrying and pointed it at his own head. The PCs heard a "snip snip snip" sound before the guy blew his head across the front of the building and dropped to the ground dead. Suffice to say, they were NOT either expecting or prepared to react to that over breakfast. The guard then came to investigate, asked some questions, and took the PCs to their captain in order to get a more detailed explanation. A short while later the guard captain told the PCs that the case was closed and there was no need to investigate further. Being both curious and unwise the PCs demanded that they be allowed to investigate the case, to which the captain said "Go for it, I've lost 8 men already investigating these sort of strange events. Good luck." The PCs proceeded to investigate the killer's room at the university and had more than a few creepy moments. The books on the shelves were ordered to spell out "They're watching, I can feel them I can't hide much longer, please help me." The man's journal was in code and the Pcs are still trying to figure it out. When they left the room they heard a second door click open as they shut the first one, even though there was only one door into or out of the room. Further investigation revealed a small coin made of Byshek hidden on the underside of the desk. When they tried to find the source of the second door thorough searching turned up nothing. They then tried closing the door, then silently opening it. When they opened the door there was a second door open on the far wall of the room. The door was located such that it couldn't physically exist there and it opened to a set of stairs that lead to a hallway that occupied space that the PCs knew couldn't fit it. The door slammed shut suddenly and the PCs looked around to realize that the NPC librarian that had been with them wadn't there anymore. They haven't been able to locate her thus far, but they'll find some of her eventually. I'll post the rest of what happened last session soon, but suffice to say after she disappeared and the party was standing there in an empty room with no other way out and another missing person the players got freaked out and needed a break. It's not obvious that I've played CoC before, is it? :D |
| zambuka03-07-05, 09:22 PM | It's not obvious that I've played CoC before, is it? :D CoC fan... gee I never would have guessed, that or a M(violence and mature language) rated episode of Scooby Doo. Nice start to the adventure. |
| DanjaNinja03-07-05, 09:27 PM | So it's eventually going to turn out that the PCs have been asleep this entire time, and they're the targets of some sinister Quori plot to brainwash people by their dreams, right? :P |
| zambuka03-07-05, 09:39 PM | So it's eventually going to turn out that the PCs have been asleep this entire time, and they're the targets of some sinister Quori plot to brainwash people by their dreams, right? :P Or discover it was really Aunt Edna in a Quori mask using a bunch of silent image and ghost sound spells to scare everyone else away from the family fortune. Seriously though, get rid of the guy in the mask and let people actually die and Scooby Doo is a great source of horror material. |
| bjorntfh03-07-05, 09:55 PM | I thought the high point was when one of the players got the shakes so bad that he dropped his soda bottle (closed thankfully) four times in under two minutes. They were in a house that was more than a little odd. It was one story, but at the end of the hallway there was clearly a set of wide stairs leading upwards. They'd found the location by going through the killer's research note and found repeated references to a "house of closed doors." There were no doors to any room, all of them having been obviously ripped off at an earlier point. All along the walls were frames facing the walls. The party go curious and the Changling lifted one of the frames. Facing the wall was a mirror. This wouldn't have been that scary, except that the mirror didn't show the wall, it showed a man in his mid-twenties screaming and pounding at it in terror. Then as he watched something large and shrouded in shadows reached down with gossamer threads, tangled them around the boy and dragged him struggling up out of view. At that point the party stared hearing something dripping in the room. Then the party (by now very afraid, players and PCs) heard heavy footsteps in the hallway and rooms around them. They started flipping mirrors and saw a web of gossamer threads full of bones, some human, some not, and large shadows gathering around them. In the shadows multiple multi-pupiled eyes stared at the PCs and they could feel things brush against them. The the spellthief did what I enver thought they'd do: he picked up a mirror, waited for an eye to appear in it and stabbed a dagger into the mirror. One of the things screamed and the party heard a ripping sounds coming from one of the doorways. At this point all of them ran like hell, taking 2 of the mirrors and some of the pieces of the broken one with them. Now they're going across town with the mirrors and can see threads tied to peoples' necks. If they ask them about the threads the people a) don't see them or recognize them and b) when questioned closely about the house or the dissapearance or the murders get scared and simply say "There are rules." or "You know the rules." before hurrying away. Thus, at the current point in the story they are in the middle of a large city feeling alone, helpless and very scared. And it's still daylight... The players, in spite of being scared out of their wits, have been loving it. |
| bjorntfh03-07-05, 10:05 PM | It's the little tricks that make it really creepy, like walking down the street and having a complete stranger look at them, smile and nod once before continuing on. Or when they looked at him with the mirror he was a twisted figure wrapped in a human skin that looked to be stitched together around itself. Or, even better, the constant dripping sound one of them heard as he was sitting at a table in a bar, and when he looked in the mirror there was a eviscerated corpse hanging above the table dripping blood onto it, only in the "real" world there was no evidence. Also including a generous helping of Giger images makes it all the more fun. |
| Siduakal03-07-05, 10:19 PM | That sounds wicked awesome, man. Seriously. Keep posting updates, I'm intrigued. |
| bjorntfh03-07-05, 10:25 PM | Well, one image they haven't gotten yet will be a honeypot trap. In a room they'll hear quiet crying. If they look in the mirrors they're see a little girl wearing a dress in the corner. If they try to rescue her by say pulling her through the mirror (which could be done, albeit with difficulty) they find that she has been chained to the floor by a pair of chains that are attached to where he legs would be, except that they've been removed and simply capped over. Pulling her through will leave the chains in the mirror, opening a doorway for the things to get through to try to physically drag the PCs into their own realm. Gotta love traps like that, cruelty plus just enough twisted creativity to make people wince. I do love the fact that there's going to be a hand in one of the PCs rooms when they wake up the next morning... No blood, just a severed hand. Another one will have cryptic threats etched into his door. Only they're etched from the inside of the door so the words are raised from the inside. |
| Siduakal03-07-05, 10:31 PM | Warped man. Awesome, but warped. The trap is a stroke of cruel genius. |
| Marshall Stone03-08-05, 01:27 AM | First, Wow! You've got an excellent story/plot there. Really, excellent job. Second, Please keep updating us on what happens. Third, Okay, what's really going on? What creatures from what world? Doing these things for what reason? Again, nice job. |
| bjorntfh03-08-05, 11:16 AM | Ok, a few spoilers (ANY OF MY PCS, YOU KNOW WHAT GAME THIS IS SO DON'T READ. I'LL JUST COME UP WITH SOMETHING WORSE FOR YOU.) The things are a lesser type of Quori called Puppet Masters. They're 3HD creatures with the ability to mentally manipulate living things and they exist only on the Ethereal plane. Their main means of fighting is through either mind wipe, which they can use as a physical touch attack against things in the Ethereal plane, or Body Control which they can use to control things in the matereal plane. They feed on emotions, mostly fear and pain, and have been using the lower sections of Sharn as a hunting ground. The only way to effectively fight them is to either go Ethereal and fight them in their own nest (possible by passing through one of their mirrors, but it's a one way trip) or to open a mirror and attack through it at them. Psionic weapons/attacks such as a Soulknife's Mindblade work normally against them. Both options are meant to be horrendously difficult, thus making the Puppet Masters seem all the more dangerous than they really are. |
| Belabras03-08-05, 12:48 PM | That sounds like an awesome game you are running. Creepy. |
| bjorntfh03-08-05, 12:58 PM | When players say to you the next day "I can't look in the mirror now." You know you've set up an image that will stick with them. Hopefully forever! |
| Zedium03-08-05, 01:31 PM | Man, that is evil haha. Say, can you post the stats of the puppet masters? I do think they would be quite unusual quori, but damn cool foes for my PCs. I am still waiting for the oppertunity to throw some horror at them. |
| bjorntfh03-08-05, 02:08 PM | Puppet Masters: Large Outsider [Quori, Evil, Ethereal, Psionic] Hit Dice: 3d8+3 (16 hp) Initiative: +2 Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares) Armor Class: 15 (+2 Dex, +4 natural, -1 size) touch 11, flat-footed 13 Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+7 Attack: Bite +4 (D6+1) or Mindwipe Full Attack: Bite +4 (d6+1) or Mindwipe Space/Reach: 5 ftx10ft/5 ft Special Attacks: Mind Wipe, Puppeteer Special Qualities: Ethereal Sight Saves: Fort +5, Ref +7, Will 0 Abilities: Str 12, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 15, Cha 16 Skills: Spot +8, Listen +8, Bluff +9, Diplomacy +13 Intimidate +9, Knowledge, Planes +9, Sense Motive +9 Feats: Improved Iniative, Weapon Finesse Environment: Any Organization: Cluster (4–9), Swarm (10–20) or Hive (20+) Challenge Rating: 4 Treasure: Standard Alignment: Always LE Special Abilities: Ethereal Sight: A Puppet Master can see from the Ethereal into the materal plane regardless of ambient light or other effects. This effect is similar to a True Seeing spell. It is always on. Mind Wipe, as Psionic power manifested by a 11th level manifester. Use of this ability requires a touch attack against its target, thus it is only useful against targets on the Ethereal plane or within reach of a Shadow Mirror. DC is Intelligence based. Puppeteer: A Puppet Master can manifest Control Body at will requiring no PSP. It can maintain concentration on up to four bodies at once (instead of the normal limit of one.) This ability can be manifested from the Ethereal plane onto targets on the Materal plane. Targets reduced to 0HD by the Puppeteer's Mindwipe ability don't count against the four target limit. There you go. Hope you can use them! |
| bjorntfh03-08-05, 02:15 PM | Their description... I forgot to include it. They look like a long (10'+) lamprey with four spindly arms ending in long claws (6 to each hand, 4 fingers, 2 thumbs, one on either side of the hand))hanging from their tube-like bodies. From each claw tip hangs a gossamer thread that is tied to a victim. Multiple threads run off of their bodies and off into the distance. They understand Common and Quori, but don't speak except through their puppets. They can telepathically speak with any creature within line of sight. |
| Zedium03-08-05, 04:04 PM | Thanks mate, looks like my players will have a rough night sleeping next time we play ;) |
| Siduakal03-08-05, 04:06 PM | Make them fight doorforged next! =P |
| Taurren03-08-05, 04:49 PM | Bjorntfh, that is a great story! Please add my voice to the others who have already spoken up and update the story as it unfolds! Congrats :clap: |
| Jar Head03-08-05, 05:22 PM | Have you ever played or DM'ed any World of Darkness games? I hope I don't get shot for mentioning WoD in the Eberron forums, but you really should look into that if you haven't already... This is very WoD... |
| Lasrifriir03-08-05, 08:54 PM | *chuckles* This is brilliant, sadistic stuff bjorntfh. I love it :inlove: . I've been trying to interject my Eberron noir with a little horror aspect; this goes far beyond anything I imagined. Kudos on the game, and don't go light on the sanity damage for us :88E: |
| bjorntfh03-09-05, 10:39 AM | I've played a little wraith, but didn't like the "whiney *****" nature of a lot of the stuff in vampire, or the insanely unbalanced nature of Mage. So Siduakal, been reading my other thread about the forgotten forge have you? I know that I'm one of those DMs who always sets up the game to be as smart as possible, so as a player I do the same thing. I still think that someone should have planned the Forge a little better... the doors are way too valuable to be put near PCs. Heck, I'd probably toss the warforged the Schema in exchange for letting me take the doors! And anyone using them as antagonists remember: they feed of fear and terror so they perfer not to kill everyone they can, that would reduce the herd too quickly. Only the curious ones get killed or puppeted. As for sanity damage... You imply that there will be anything left to damage after the storyline ends. That's a big assumption. My next story arc is going to involve them getting shipwrecked on a small island off of Xendrik. Still haven't finished fleshing it out, but after this adventure I'm sure a little isolation will do them good! |
| Demon in Shades of Gray03-09-05, 10:55 AM | is anyone else getting creeped out when they look in a mirror, now? great work, man. |
| bjorntfh03-09-05, 11:15 AM | Thanks man. I'm glad that people other than my current victims... I mean players... are enjoying this. |
| Lasrifriir03-09-05, 03:46 PM | As for sanity damage... You imply that there will be anything left to damage after the storyline ends. That's a big assumption. You win, hands down :D . |
| Jar Head03-09-05, 04:08 PM | Mage wasn't unbalanced if you had the right ST. Our ST would make sure if you did vulgar stuff, you would pay for it. We've had people almost die from paradox. And what's so bad about vampire? Got to play with the right people, I guess. I played with a bunch of animé lovers, so everyone had a trench coat like Vash the Stampede's, or they were a ninja or some sort of martial artist. Then there was myself and DoctorX. Me, a Mafia Don, and him, my lawyer. Surrounded by animé characters. |
| bjorntfh03-09-05, 05:14 PM | Well, I'll continue to give input as to what's going on to these poor souls. I run the game every other Saturday for 8 hours so next Saturday I'll have a good long post of the madness and suffering that they endure. Of course the fact that they don't as of yet have any weapons to use against their enemies makes it all the more entertaining. I think that the fact that my players come back in spite of how much the game scares them is what makes me proudest. Anyone can make a scary story, getting people to come back in spite of it is a sign of an addicting storyline. ;) |
| bjorntfh03-09-05, 06:09 PM | One new idea I did just have for terrifying one of them: One of the PCs is shaving in the morning and in the mirror as the PC shaves the side of his face his reflection turns the razor and cuts along his own neck and face until its cut a circle around his face. There is no blood as the figure reaches up and removes its face like pulling off a opera mask revealing the open maw of one of the puppet masters. The mouth then slams into the mirror spiderwebbing it with cracks. When the PC flinches away from the impact (a natural reaction) the mirror is suddenly whole again and there's no evidence that anything amiss happened. The PC needs to make a DC 20 Will save or be Shaken for the rest of the day. Thinking of this made me smile. :D |
| Gunrock03-10-05, 08:51 AM | Thinking of this made me smile. :D You are an evil person. Clever, insidious, interesting, but evil. Good work scaring the PCs. I'd be scared too, if I weren't insane (functionally). Good luck and keep the tales coming. |
| bjorntfh03-10-05, 11:38 AM | Well, thank you. I get told I'm evil a lot insteringly enough. Maybe being evil is a good trait for a setting like Eberron, since it lets you set up a very dark noir game while keeping players hooked. |
| xanthus03-10-05, 11:51 AM | Bjorntfh, I must say sir: You are a genius. You have inspired me to do terrible things to my gaming group. :bow: The would-be Exorcist in my group will flip. Thank you. -X |
| bjorntfh03-10-05, 12:05 PM | Something to remember: exorcisms will NOT work on puppets. It's a telekenetic control of the body rather than possession so the only way to stop it is dispell magic or to make the fortitude save. Also, since the puppet is controlled by an external force damage won't stop it short of dismembering the whole body (which should get them more than a few dirty looks.) The easiest way to stop them is to use a force effect or weapon to snap the threads (which works fine, I've ruled that every point of damage you do grants a +1 bonus to a new saving throw i.e. if you hit the strings for 6 they get a new fortitude save at +6.) Although if you think about it the drawback is that they can simply rebind a victim as a standard action, thus this is temporizing rather than stopping the threat. |
| Turin03-10-05, 12:11 PM | First off, let me say bjorntfh, that you kick :censored: ! and that I am so totally ripping this off for my soon-to-start Eberron game starting in Q'barra... even though I've been nervous around my mirror for the last day or two I've been keeping an eye on this thread. ;) So a little brainstorming here in terms of plot & game mechanics. 1. What is the relationship between the Puppet Masters and the typical Tsucora that inhabit the Inspired? Do the Puppet Masters operate completely independently of the Inspired (much the way the Dreaming Dark does), or are they some kind of servant? For my campaign, I'm thinking the Riedran Ambassador to the fellow running New Galifar these days (can't remember his name) is going to be the sort of "untouchable" BBEG. But once the PCs encounter her, they'll be under constant danger from these sorts of horrifying goings-on. 2. How do the Puppet Masters create their twisted "special effects"? It seems like they should have the psi-like abilities of False Sensory Input and/or Dream & Nightmare... or maybe am I missing something about the Shadow Mirror concept? The use of Body Control is a nice way of getting around the "willing" caveat of the Quori possession ability, though. Nice touch. |
| bjorntfh03-10-05, 12:22 PM | Okay a few answers for you: 1) The puppet masters are a offshoot of the Tsucora that dwell in the Ethereal plane. They are connected to the Dreaming Dark similarly to how the Order of the Emerald Claw is connected to Vol: they are a subgroup that functions with near complete autonimity. 2) The strange effects they generate are created by how they interact with the matereal world. They can use any mirror as a window and can choose to let other beings see through the mirror the other way but they require mirrors made of Riedran crystal (Shadow Mirrors) to actually physically slide between planes. The same holds true for doorways (but it's the door that's the key, so if you have an empty doorway they can manipulate through it, but not acutally pass through it.) The images and sounds are created by real input, not False Sensory Imput, they're actual sounds and images that the Puppet Masters can creates and manipulate. Since they choose what people see and hear through mirrors and doors they create the sounds and images as they see fit. They are basically manipulating the Ethereal plane in minor ways to create echos on the Matereal plane to terrify their prey (and so that they can feed.) As for reproduction they reproduce asexually by vomiting up a few dozen smaller versions of the adults when there is enough food. Hope that helps. |
| Puppy03-10-05, 01:09 PM | Man, come to Norway and start a group here (seriously!). I would commute for many, many hours just to participate in a game of this caliber. This is borderline genious! Keep up the good work. :thumbsup: Btw, hope it's ok if I steal this for my own campaign... |
| bjorntfh03-10-05, 01:52 PM | Feel free. I'm putting the stuff online so that other people can use it. I'm really glad so many people like it, I've been trying to set the game up so that the PCs feel like the world has lots of shadowy groups vying for power around them and that they're pawns in the games (at least at this level.) |
| Dagda Mor03-11-05, 02:48 AM | Very nice work indeed, sir. Perhaps we should compare notes. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=339366&page=1) |
| bjorntfh03-11-05, 11:22 AM | I like you ideas, I may steal a few, but I'm trying to avoid changing the entire campaign into a CoC one since my game is happening simultaneously to another party and we've had interactions between the two parties so if I shift the game too much then the competing parties dynamic will fall apart. (As it is they're both working for the same jobs, only each one is getting sidetracked and/or they're getting there after the other party has been there.) |
| Dagda Mor03-11-05, 11:36 AM | Yeah, that's about what I was thinking. we both take some inspiration from one another. That being said, wouldn't it be interesting if you secretly started using the sanity system and occasionally give players mental disorders caused by the fear and stress? :angelhide |
| bjorntfh03-11-05, 11:44 AM | Oh, I'll be "arbitrarily" (i.e. whenever I decide that they deserve them) giving out quirks for PCs... Although most of my players have been giving themselves quirks in response to the game. Makes it a lot easier since I don't like the sanity system if the players get to keep count. OTOH it also falls apart for Paladins and Loredivers since both of them are immune to fear, thus negating half the stimuli that leads to sanity checks. Seeing a zombie just isn't unnerving to someone who can stare down a demon with no ill effects (aside from being killed...) Personally I give those PCs half the max sanity and they can't go over 50 for a sanity score since they don't suffer from most ill effects, but once something cracks that shell they're supposed to BREAK. |
| Marshall Stone03-11-05, 01:44 PM | The party tries talking to him, pushing him and even taking the orb, but he doesn't respon to any stimuli and the orb seems immatereal. At this point they're all worried as the guy pushes past them into the interior of the cafe and begins scanning the room. The party can hear him muttering "The Door is Open." over and over as he looks from patron to patron before finally stopping and lifting his hand to point at them. The orb sprayed deep green flames across first one then the second person at the table before turning to face the PCs. Combat was started, the PCs who got iniative (2 of them) both took cover and readied actions against the guy. Questions Please: Who is this guy with the immaterial orb? And why does he kill the partons at the cafe? Why does he then kill himself? And isn't it a bit unwise for the Puppet Masters to "reveal thier hand" even it's only a little? I mean I understand you had to get the plot going and all, but why was it so important to go to the cafe and kill people? On a side note, I've got to write, this has become a favorite thread of mine and I for one would not mind seeing it stickied. Keep up the good work. (You realize of course I stealing all of this for my campaign :schemes: ) |
| bjorntfh03-11-05, 01:52 PM | The guy who was sent was someone investigating the house the puppet masters were using as a base of operations and the people he killed were his two primary investigators. It wasn't revelaing their hand so much as silencing a major leak permanently. Mind you the party has only figured out part of that so far, but it will make sense once they know all the facts. Of course they'll then have to ask if someone is going to be sent after them now that they know too much. |
| Altaris03-11-05, 05:31 PM | Yes, very twisted. Very, very twisted. Bjorn, have you ever run Ravenloft? *shivers* I'm a PC in a weekly Ravenloft game that just hit our 64th session... You're doing a great job, as many people have said. I, too, may be borrowing some of your stuff. At the very least, it will serve as inspiration. :D |
| bjorntfh03-11-05, 05:43 PM | Yes, I've run a lot of settings, Ravenloft is fun. I personally LOVE the Horn of Valhalla in that setting, since the summoned fighters don't automatically go back! |
| KP9103-12-05, 10:26 AM | These do seem like the most horrific creatures possible even with only 3 HD. You could make this a lasting campaigne by making them stronger (perhaps give them some spell-like abilities like insanity or the entire madness domain) and making it so the PC's have to find out how to wipe out the whole race. These don't really sound like Quori though, as they attack you while your awake and are not on Dal Quor. With the tentacles they could easily be made by the Daelkyr, maybe even have the Daelkyr invade the Ethereal Plane and make more creatures like this. It would lead to a very large scale game. |
| bjorntfh03-12-05, 02:17 PM | They're a Quori offshoot that has learned to manipulate the real world by forcing dream realms into overlap with the "real" plane. Dreams exist as little pockets in the ethereal plane and these are Quori that aren't bound to dreams. |
| trapspringer03-13-05, 07:00 PM | Nice. I really admire your DMing. I did this deal with shadow-y illumination instead of mirrors a few months ago. It worked real well. One of my favorites was the 1.5x1.5 crawl space lined with spikes containing a 'mildewed bag of something soft.' It smelled vaguely sour. The door to the crawl space was etched with some interesting phrazes along the lines of "I'll never open the door again!" and "Please let me out!" Some how I like your mirror thing better, though. Maybe because you have to turn your back to see what is really there.... I also really like the thing with the books. Very nice. How did you reveal the message to the players? Was there a skill check involved? My campaign had nothing on this. |
| bjorntfh03-14-05, 12:30 PM | It required a DC 20 search check to notice something was "off" and a DC 20 discipher script check (taking 5 minutes) to figure out the code. Mind you while this was going on the rest of the party was trying to figure out why the room kept changing size with respect to their divination spells. :D |
| KP9103-18-05, 07:21 PM | *Must press button and keep alive.* :bump: Please, what happens next? I'll give you a cookie. :cookie: |
| bjorntfh03-19-05, 03:33 PM | I'm running the session right as I type, so you'll all have to wait a few hours to hear from me for results. |
| bjorntfh03-20-05, 01:19 PM | Okay, here's the results of yesterday's game: Party 2, Quori 3. It all started inconspicuously as the party gathered together and went to the suicide/murder's room again this time carrying shadow mirrors and bringing along Professor Fizzwinkle, their employer. As they were walking along someone in the crowd turned and watched them and when they spotted him he nodded to them and walked off into the crowd. The party recognized him as the guy they'd seen in the mirrors, the one who was torn apart out of sight after the shadowy things grabbed him. One PC tried chasing him down but he'd already disappeared and he lost him in the mix of people. The party then went to the University and easily got back to the room, mostly on account of the staff not wanting anything to do with them after one librarian disappeared. The door to the room looked the same and when the party tried detect magic on it it still seemed the same fuzzy wavering shape as before. When they entered the room though they found that the room seemed entirely normal; no shifting walls, no strange doors, nothing. Then they heard the dripping. Looking around the room with their mirrors they saw the remains of the librarian who'd disappeared in the room with them the previous time they were there hanging from gossamer thread. Around he head was carved letters in a long spiral around her skull, the words literally etched into the bone. After examining the body (through the mirrors, making it all the harder) they were finally able to get the words copied down and the professor was able to translate them from Riedran (which none of the other PCs spoke.) The words read: "Chains of thought that still the mind, The are none who'll freedom find. Hope is just a hollow dream, That collapses with a scream." As the party was trying to figure it out they heard someone walk into the room. Searching via the mirrors they found a man sitting behing the desk. He was wearing purple and blue robes and the Kalashtar instantly recognized him as an Inspired Lord. He then asked the party "Why do you keep invading my house?" When the Kalashtar tried to answer he cut him off saying "Silence coward. We'll cleanse your kind eventually." The spellthief then began laughing player is really annoying, always trying to taunt people...) this time it got him a quickened concussion for 12 to the face. That quieted him down VERY fast and cause the monk to try to open the door, which wouldn't budge. As the Inspired explained to them why they should stop investigating the murders and disappearances the monk managed to force the door open and get out, only the door no longer opened into the hallway of the university, it opened into a huge abyss about 150' across with stairs, platforms and doors all laong the walls. The stairs and walkways were 4' wide (meaning you could move sinlge file and fight one on one, but getting past each other would be difficult.) As the party tried bolting out the door to avoid the Inspired the professor agreed to stop looking into the matter and the party meanwhile moved ahead into the giant chasm beyond the door. The Inspired then said "Very well, if you can survive the House of Shadows you are free to go." Then the door slammed shut and merged with the metal/stone walls of the abyss. (Think of it as a long shaft with no top or bottom that you will fall forever in.) I'll post the results of their first explorations later today. |
| Puppy03-20-05, 11:41 PM | :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: |
| bjorntfh03-21-05, 10:01 AM | Sorry I'm a day late, had dinner with my parents, then we went out to a movie, don't get to do that often enough. I'm posting the next bits now. |
| bjorntfh03-21-05, 12:38 PM | One note to remember: the entire area is lit with shadowy illumination from the walls to about 60', the opposite side of the abyss was visible but more than 60' up or down was gone into shadows. Once the party entered the House of Shadows they began shuffling along the ledges and steps (VERY SLOWLY mind you.) About fifty feet along the wall (and three stories up, steep steps, narrow ones too, the party wouldn't let anyone go past other than the halfling spellthief since he was small and had lots of ranks in balance) they cam across a door. It had no handle and was made of iron. After the monk searched it for a few minutes he found a tiny keyhole in the center of the door. They took a while of discussing to finally remember the key they'd found in the study when the librarian had disappeared the first time they were there and passed it along to the door to test it out. The key (upon close examination) had somewhere between 2 and 7 tongs on it, the number kept shifting as they watched. When the monk put the key into the hole and turned it. The party heard a click then a loud "snick" sound. The monk then lightly pushed on the door and it fell inwards with a loud slam. At this point the scene got weird for them. The frame around teh door was filled with tubes that pulsed and bled a thick green-blue syrupy substance. The liquid flowed out of the doorway and out into the room and over into the abyss. The monk quickly stepped to dry ground and the psion stepped up and into the room. Inside the room were 12 large glass tanks filled with the strange liquid covered in flexable pipes and tubes. At the back of the room was a strange black portal, completely opaque with no reflection. When he tried pushing a dagger into it the blade dissolved into the surface and left silver threads mixed into the blackness. He then began examining the tanks, in 11 of them were baby puppet masters swiming around, in the last was what looked like a human being wrapped in leather bands and completely covered over so that they couldn't see anything of its flesh. At this point the psion did what the rest of the party thought of as "ludicrously stupid things not to do." He grabbed one of the pipes attatched to the thing's tank and began yanking on it. After two rounds the pipe broke free and began spraying the fluid all over the room. One of the other PCs, a ranger, was at the tsame time trying to figure out what the stuff was and managed to deduce (DC 25 knowledge nature check, he made it...) that the stuff was liquid organic paste. Sort of like food, but made by simply reducing all of an organic creature to a goo and then feeding it to things. With one of the main pipes broken the tanks began to drain out into the room and the party started booking it to higer ground as the psion started tapping the glass that the thing was behind. It started moving and then lunged at the glass. The glass spiderwebbed and the psion called to everyone that "That thing's waking up..." One of the other PCs carefully made it through the doorway (which if you'll remember was filled with about an ince of flowing think syrup, and the flow went right into the abyss,) grabbed the psion and dragged him out of the room. As the party set themselves up in firing positions above the doorway they heard more breaking glass and the sound of something snapping loudly. Then they heard a lound crash and a thud. At this point the party was near panic to be trapped on stairs with no real cover, no room to maneuver and something horrible getting out below them. Then they heard the crying, it sounded like a hurt animal whimpering. They heard more snapping sounds and then the crying stopped and silence ensued. The party waited for a half a minute and then strted to go back towards the room when a hand grabbed the doorframe from the inside and the thing staggered out onto the ledge. It looked human until the group realized that its mouth was a tube full of teeth like the puppet masters had. It stared at them for a second at which point the party unloaded on it with ranged weapons doing a whopping 6 points of damage (it had DR5, and the party rolled very badly.) Combat ensued for a couple of rounds during one of which the thing opened its mouth and sprayed a cone of bone shards and teeth at the party hitting the psion for 7 (out of his max of 10.) At this point the monk stepped foreward to hit it and swished. It then hit him for 13 points of damage (after missing with 2/3 attacks.) Considering the party is 2nd level, that was a BIG dent in his HP. His next action was to try pushing the thing off the edge of the steps and due to a very bad roll on my part it went over, although the party did manage to heard a snarl below them that told them thatthey hadn't knocked it far enough to stop it from grabbing one of the lower levels of stairs. They cast a light spell at where they'd heard it land, but all they saw was a long trail of blood leading off into the darkness. The party decided they'd managed to at least chase it off for a while and moved on to explore more. As they advanced they came across a normal wooden door, no handle, no lock nothing special. The warforged pushed it open easily and stepped into the next room, a library. Inside the library were dozens of random books on all sorts of topics. As they moved in to explore the party head a quite voice say "Who's there?" When they moved past the corner they found a VERY beautiful girl withlight blue hair hiding behind a desk. She was exstatic to find other people there and the party, upon hearing her story about falling asleep and waking up here, decided to protect her. (Yay for heroism...) They then moved on quickly to explore more after she told them that she hadn't left the room after opening the door because she was scared to go outside of the room alone. As they moved on the party came to a slip in the steps, one set moved upwards, the other moved downwards to a single door made of interlocking metal poles. All of the party but the psion moved down to explore the door while the psion decided to walk up the steps. The steps upwards weren't braced against any wall, instead being free stairs over the abyss that lead to the opposite wall where another platform and door lay. The party (sans psion) unlocked the door with their key with its dwindling uses (each time they used it one of the tines disappeared.) Inside was a set of shiny metal steps leading downwards. As the party began exploring the rogue at the rear noticed that the door disappeared behind them. They started downwards and walked for ten minutes ever downwards until they noticed that there were steps coming from under them. The spellthief bent down and looked between the steps (they were flat panels connected by two poles at either end to the steps above and below) and saw a pair of boots. He then took a dagger and poked the book, thus also poking the rogue who was on the next set of stairs above him, much to everyone's surprise. At this point the party realized that they had stumbled into a trap. Now the real fun began as the group started trying to figure out how to escape, until someone noticed a small white object drop down on them from above: it was a tooth. The party began running like hell as they guessed that the thing they'd fought earlier was in there with them. They tried all sorts of tricks to get out from setting thread down to simply trying to break the steps. When they damaged one of the steps (against the advice from the girl who warned that breaking one step could break them all) the mark appeared on all of the steps. The new girl then started walking backwards away from the party, and since no one was looking she disappeared just like the door had. The rogue in the rear started backing away as well and suddenly found himself standing on the ledge looking at a mirrored panel where the door had been. He stepped back into the room and called out for everyone to walk backwards to get out, and soon the party was standing on the ledge, albeit at even more reduced HP... It should be noted that although I've got 6 PCs, the group has no healer and is relying on potions for that. The party then fell back to the library, braced the door shut and decided to rest for a while. Eight hours later they felt prepared enough to continue on into the maze. Following the staird they got to the next door, a tapestry with moving images and symbols. After failing to force it, burn it and cut it they sat down and the rogue tried to decipher the symbols. It took a LONG time (over two hours in game time) but eventually he found a single spot on the tapestry that didn't change and tried putting the key into it. The tapestry disintigrated revealing an Arboreum. It was a giant greenhouse (over 100' long and 50' wide) somewhere. The party was VERY sure that it wasn't Eberron because of the three suns in the sky, but they had no idea where it could be. The psion examined the plants (and got poisoned, 4 points of strength damage. When your GM says "are you wearing gloves" twice, just say yes.) While the ranger looked outside at what looked like a salt flat, only what worried him was that there was absolutely no wind, no dust, nothing. He guessed that that must mean that there must not be any air there and the party left quickly. The next door along the way was another standard wooden door, nothing complex, no secrets, just an ordinary wooden door. They pushed it open to reveal a walkway surrounded by pipes and strange machines. The walkway went off far into shadow. As the party walked down the walkway they began to hear a scraping sound among the machinery and something moving along the pipes after them. They were looking around into the maze of pipes, gears and vents trying to figure out where whatever it was was hiding at the point that I called the game. Hope everyone enjoys this section, I'll explain the traps later on if people want me to, they were entertaining and I had 3 other GMs (who were in the store where I run the game and were watching me) applaud for the way that it was set up. I felt proud. :D |
| Altaris03-21-05, 02:12 PM | Ok, this post was a little confusing. Did the Psion rejoin the party? And what happened to the 'very beautiful woman?' Did she disappear after passing backwards through the door, or did the PCs find her there when they managed to escape? Also, what was the creature? It sounds like you applied the Pseudonatural template to a human. |
| bjorntfh03-21-05, 02:34 PM | Okay, the psion did rejoin them after they made it out, and the woman is still trailing along with them. The creature... well, sore wa himitsu desu. It's something of my own design, it's a hybrid between and Inspired and a Puppet Master. Suffice to say it's VERY difficult to kill. So far I've given them 2k exp for managing to survive 2 fights with it and escaping the mirror trap. (The trap was a CR 6 trap, the monster is worth more, probably a CR 7) The point is not for them to fight it on even terms, but to, thus far, evade it until they can either escape the house or kill it, or manage to throw it far enough into the abyss to prevent it from chasing them down before they can escape. Hope that helps, I'll give the stats later on if people really want them, but be aware that I'm running a campaign where the PCs are supposed to be underpowered compared to the situation (it helps elevate the sense of fear.) My goal is to have them be level 4 (they're at 3 now) by the time they exit the house. The reward is going to be a "minor" effect instead if items: they'll all gain a trait called "Shadow's Key" which gives them a +1 bonus to AC and Reflex saves as well as making them fluent in Riedran. Mind you, it also isn't something that most PCs would even want to have known about, getting a blessing from Dal Quor... |
| Altaris03-21-05, 03:28 PM | The reward is going to be a "minor" effect instead if items: they'll all gain a trait called "Shadow's Key" which gives them a +1 bonus to AC and Reflex saves as well as making them fluent in Riedran. Mind you, it also isn't something that most PCs would even want to have known about, getting a blessing from Dal Quor... Nice! That is very pleasantly twisted. :D |
| bjorntfh03-21-05, 03:35 PM | I try, I'm setting up Riedra as a utopia in which the people has traded their freedom for true peace and stability. The question is is it a good act to "free" someone who doesn't want to be freed? |
| Amoz1203-21-05, 04:55 PM | Okay, cool use of CoC elements and boy I appaud your skill at scaring the coke outta their hands. Now I have a question for you, have you read House of Leaves? I noticed some of similarities between the house on Ash Tree Lane and your House of Closed Doors. |
| Dyvynarth03-22-05, 10:44 AM | A little bit of CoC, some House of Leaves, and Silent Hill mixed together in Eberron. I like it a lot. :coolcthul |
| Amoz1203-22-05, 11:24 AM | Throw in a little Neverwhere and you got a great game with lots of WTF?! going on...I like it. |
| bjorntfh03-22-05, 12:25 PM | Thanks, I'm trying to set up an view of Eberron where morality is relative and the PCs are forced to choose based on what they value, not some nebulous sense of "Good." Of course coming to a Utopia when they grew up at the end of the Last War... Well, it's going to be interesting. |
| Puppy03-22-05, 03:53 PM | Just a tip to bjorntfh: Pick up the latest issue of Dragon Magazine (#330), you'll find an article there called 'Enter the Far Realm'. It seems like it would be right up your alley, IMO. Incredible good job of scaring your players silly. I like your work alot. |
| bjorntfh03-22-05, 06:57 PM | Thanks, I'm planning on picking it up this Thursday (that's when the FR game I'm in is run... I'm in too many games... every Thursday and every other Saturday, that's 3 games right there, and I'm supposed to be joining a Sunday one as well! Yay for being a gamer) so it will be in my set of available stuff. Of course I'll be holding that back, I'm planning on creeping them out with a perfect utopian society. After what I've thrown at them that should freak them out even more! |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 01:57 PM | Well, quiet here, isn't it? |
| Altaris03-23-05, 02:20 PM | Well, quiet here, isn't it? :D Only while we wait for the next installment. |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 02:33 PM | Sadly that'll be 2 weeks away you know (or 11 days technically.) I'd love some more commentary on what people think of what's happening to the party, later on I'll give some previews of what they'll be experienceing when they leave the House (here's a hint, they'll end up in Reidra.) I won't be around after this Friday for a week though, I'm taking my GF to Britain and Iceland. I'll be back after then so please keep up some modicum of discussions so that the page stays up! Thanks all! |
| KP9103-23-05, 03:58 PM | Then while we wait can you post the stats of your Inspired/Puppet Master thing? :coolcthul :coolcthul :88E: :88E: By the way, hers the cookie I promised you. :cookie: |
| Aubri03-23-05, 05:18 PM | Thanks, I'm trying to set up an view of Eberron where morality is relative and the PCs are forced to choose based on what they value, not some nebulous sense of "Good." Heh, I try to do something like that too--in my campaign (Greyhawk setting) the PCs have been hired by the lawful evil former dictator of a city to help him regain his throne from a chaotic good conan-esque barbarian. The trick is, the barbarian is really BAD a running a city, but the dictator is really good at it. Essentially, they have to decide whether to side with good against evil or law against chaos. (For the record, the dictator guy really does have the city's best interests at heart--I mean, you don't get to STAY dictator by being a jerk. His dark Warlock-powers have nothing to do with this. ;)) |
| Aubri03-23-05, 05:19 PM | Jeeeeeeeeezus! I wish I was creative enough to come up with plots like THAT! I just don't have the right brain to come up with imagery that... disturbing! I love the shaving scene, that's just genius... If I may ask, what city are you in? |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 05:40 PM | Alright, but only because you asked so nicely and gave me a cookie. Puppet Master Hybrid: Medium Aberrarion [Quori, Evil, Psionic] Hit Dice: 10d8+30 (75 hp) Initiative: +0 Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares) Armor Class: 19 (+4 natural, +5 Deflection) touch 15, flat-footed 19 Base Attack/Grapple: +7/+7 Attack: Bite +12 (2D6+7) or Slam +12 (1d8+7) Full Attack: Bite +12 (2d6+5) and 2 Slams +10 (1d8+5) Space/Reach: 5ft x 5ft/5 ft Special Attacks: Bone Spray Special Qualities: Distorted Space, Broken Mind, Inertial Control Saves: Fort +10, Ref +7, Will +4 Abilities: Str 20, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 10 Skills: Climb +18, Jump: +18, Listen +15 Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Ability Focus: Bone Spray, Improved Natural Attack: Bite Environment: House of Shadows Organization: Single Challenge Rating: 10 Treasure: None Alignment: Always CE This creature appears to be a mixture of Puppet Master and Human bound with leather straps and dripping with a dark green ichor. It's mouth is a hole in its face filled with razor sharp teeth and it glares at you with hate filled multi-pupiled yellow eyes. Special Attacks: Bone Spray: Deals 2d6 points of piercing damage in a 30' cone, DC 17 Reflex Save for half. Usable once every 1d4 rounds. Special Abilities: Distorted Space: The hybrid constantly generates a +5 Deflection bonus to AC. Broken Mind: The Hybrid's mind is a failed merging of Quori and human entities, as a result it gains SR20 against all mind affecting abilities and powers. Ineritial Control: As a free action on each of its turns the Hybrid generates an Inertial Barrier giving it DR 5/-. If Dispelled it is raised again automatically at the start of its next turn. There you go. Yes, I know it's WAY too powerful for the party (being level 2 when they entered and level 3 after evading/weakening it twice) but the point is for them to be fleeing through this extradimensional house of horrors with this thing right behind them. They will end up killing it by the time they leave the space, but it's probably going to end up being worth enough EXP to boost all of them to level 4 by the time they finish it off. (Isn't that the point of a monster like that?) |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 05:48 PM | If you read from the start, the story started in Sharn and is now moving through a dreamscape to Reidra. |
| Altaris03-23-05, 06:07 PM | That's a very interesting creature. I may borrow it in the future. I like the 'distorted space' concept, very cool! |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 08:54 PM | Here's a preview: it's a power used by one of the NPCs the group will meet after they get out of the House, and into Reidra. His name is To'Ton'Idill Mir (To-Tan-E-deel Meer) and his title is Lord of Life. The way naming is working in my view of Reidra is that every name is broken into three parts: Rank, Family, Personal with personal being used only down rank, between equals, or within close family. For example: To'Ton'Idill Mir is ranked as Blessed (To) Second High Lord (Ton) with a family name of Idill and a personal name of Mir. His daughter is the woman who the party has "rescued" from the House of Shadows and her name is Sar'Idill Kaiah (KI-ah, not Key-ah): First Lord (Sar) of Idill personal name Kaiah. When she gets out with the party all of them will be given the Shadow's Key, meaning they'll all have a divine blessing, thus her name will change to To'Sar'Idill Kaiah. To simplify this whole mess for those who are confused there are eight ranks of lords and three ranks of blessings. The Ranks of blessings are To (Blessed) Re (Ray) (Twice Blessed) and Gho (Go) (Chosen). Each one is the equivalent to three jumps up on the social scale (e.g. a person with the title of Gho is the equivalent of a rank nine lord without any other titles.) The way to get the first one is to receive a divine blessing, the second title comes from receiving your second blessing and the last one is given to anyone who can gain the favor of three or more Quori gods. Since this is a VERY hard thing to do anyone with the title of Gho is considered superior to anyone who isn't likewise blessed or a very high ranked blessed lord. The ranks of Lords are Er (air) (Least Lord), Nis (neece) (Lesser Lord), Sha (sha) (Third Lord), Tal (t-al, two sylables) (Second Lord), Sar (sar) (First Lord), To (toe) (Second High Lord), Char (char) (First High Lord), and Lil (Leel) (True Lord). Now for the fun math: Who's higher rank Re'Char'Siric or Gho'Nis'Mala? First correct answer gets to name a noble family (please keep it appropriate...) |
| Puppy03-23-05, 09:23 PM | Now for the fun math: Who's higher rank Re'Char'Siric or Gho'Nis'Mala? First correct answer gets to name a noble family (please keep it appropriate...) That would be Re'Char'Siric, I believe. |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 09:28 PM | Correct! Think up a good name for a family (you've seen the style I use for them) and I'll include it in the campaign. My next teaser will be an explanation of how the government in Reidra works. Sort of like a democratic tyrrany, only more interesting. |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 09:43 PM | Minor teaser here: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=400442 It's a power that To'Ton'Idill Mir designed himself. There's a reason why he's called the Lord of Life... He's got the Key of Life (another Quori divine blessing) that lets him Lay on Hands 2 x Charisma modifier x level per day, gives him +2 to Heal checks and +1 to Fortitude Saves. The Shadow's Key I tweaked to give +1 AC, +1 Reflex Saves, and +2 to Hide checks. The Keys all work as +2 to 1 skill, +1 to one save or resistance 5 to one element and one other ability. Yes they're nice, but good luck getting them! |
| Puppy03-23-05, 09:46 PM | Winner! :dancin: Wohoo! Looks like I'm going to be a part of your campaign after all (not in the sense I thought, though...). This may be horribly egocentric on my part, but how about naming a family after my first name; Espen? |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 09:56 PM | That's fine, it'll probably be pronounced As-pen (I tend to accent most names so the PCs get the feeling of a foreign land, it also has helped them remember who's who oftentimes.) Anything you would like the family to be specialized in? Each family tends to have either an industry or a few individuals known for skill in one area. Idill for example is known for healing and medicine as well as pottery. |
| Puppy03-23-05, 10:10 PM | Seeing as this is in Riedra, what if they had some links to politics or diplomacy. Maybe they are some sort of 'spokespersons' for the Inspired, when they in reality have no power at all. Could be that the Inspired use them for diplomatic occasions to say: "Look, we involve the humans in our decisions." In short, this family is some sort of windowdressing to conceal for the outside world what the Inspired really are about. |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 10:35 PM | Actually in the setting humans can and do attain ranks, it's a meritocracy in that regard. Ability determines your rank, not birth. Of course, the Inspired tend to be more capable than humans inherently, but the humans know that and worship the Inspired because of that fact. Once I explain the political system in full it'll be clearer, but the way it works (simplified for a quick answer) is everyone has say in the Hall of Minds based on their rank. The Quori don't get involved with the day to day runnings of government more than they have to, but a Quori has a "block" of votes equal to three times its HD, so it's entirely possible for the Assembly to refuse a demand from a lone Quori. The Quori trust the Inspired (and to a lesser extent their worshipers in Reidra) to rule and run the government for the betterment of all their goals, thus the Quori don't need to step in and instead guide the Inspired and advise them, rather than dominating them constantly. Families can be a mix of human and Inspired (talented humans are often "adopted" into Inspired households) and those with skill are quite often fought over politically by influential families. What this means overall is that anyone can have a say in the government provided that they can prove themselves skilled or worthy enough to earn it. OTOH since the Inspired are more naturally capable than humans they tend to hold higher offices, but they often hold less offices by direct numbers. Remember though that those of lesser offices in a family often will vote along family lines, especially if they're humans and the Inspired in the family vote together on an issue. Politics is THE main medium of social interaction in Reidra, there is a very complex social web with the Inspired as nodes and the Quori laying the threads, thus every family is focused on diplomacy and subtle interactions. Assassinations are legal, but they must be announced in the Hall of Minds BEFORE they are carried out. This means that you must declare Housewar between your house and theirs, or just your person and their person, and then each party is free to hire anyone they like to remove their opposition. This results in "wars" between houses, but never any large scale damage or violence that could unsettle the perfect social order. I'll explain how more of the politics work later, but you could have a house of orators, perhaps even a house with few Inspired in it, just highly skilled humans who know how to politic just as well and in some ways better than the Inspired. They'd be seen as an asset to the Quori because they not only worship the Quori and the Inspired, but they are capable and skilled social manipulators (a trait the Quori respect very highly.) |
| KP9103-23-05, 10:48 PM | Correct! Think up a good name for a family (you've seen the style I use for them) and I'll include it in the campaign. My next teaser will be an explanation of how the government in Reidra works. Sort of like a democratic tyrrany, only more interesting. He's actually wrong. The other is Gho and you said anyone named Gho is ranked higher than anyone. :) |
| Puppy03-23-05, 10:48 PM | Having you explain the political system of Riedra makes everything much clearer. Having 'my' family as orators sounds like a very good idea, but a new idea just sprung to my mind. How about if there is one family responsible for containing Adar. Maybe they're some kind of military branch to act as sentinels or watchmen to ensure that nothing comes in or out of Adar. Pick whatever you like, I tend to agree with the ideas you present. |
| KP9103-23-05, 10:50 PM | If I'm right, I'll re-name the Family Ir' Gekel |
| bjorntfh03-23-05, 10:59 PM | KP91, actually the person Gho'Nis'Mala has an effective rank of 11 (2 lordly rank, 9 divine blessing) while the person Re'Char'Siric had an effective rank of 13 (7 lordly rank, 6 divine blessing.) Mind you both are lower "rank" than a 7 HD Quori. Yes, it's supposed to be complicated like that though. I may end up using your name anyway though! Puppy: There are actually 3 families whose duty is to keep Adar besieged, and you're welcome to be one of them. Those families have less political say (tending towards lower ranks) but have much larger numbers of lords than most of the other houses because military service is often a way to prove ability, and thus to earn rank. |
| Puppy03-23-05, 11:09 PM | KP91: :pbbbtt: Sorry about that, KP91, I've just been waiting for an opportunity to use that smiley. No offense I hope. :) bjorntfh: Yup, that sounds very good. Are they in any way related to the Thousand Eyes? |
| bjorntfh03-24-05, 12:09 PM | This afternoon I'll write up the explanation of the political system in Reidra, it's kinda complex though so it may take a while. |
| xanthus03-24-05, 01:23 PM | Keep up the good work on this bjorntfh! Love your bits on your view of Rierdran politics and houses. Great stuff, lots of thought obviously has gone into this. Vaguely reminds me of some of the war between houses in drow cities in FR, but much more organized and civil. Very cool. It also seems that you've integrated the quori a lot more into the society than I would have initially imagined they would be. As far as I was aware (according to canon anyways) they were a secret power behind the Inspired, but it seems you've made them a bit more to forefront. It's very interesting on how you're pulling it off. And if I remember properly, you have a Kalashtar in your party right now, and if that's the case oh man is that guy gonna not be in a happy place when he figures out where he is! This is some seriously good stuff. Who knows? Maybe Wizards people like it too and they'll send ya an email :P -X |
| bjorntfh03-24-05, 01:37 PM | Alright, here's my workings of the Reidran government, hope you enjoy it. The social system is based off of a system of Houses or families that each control certain provinces. Each province is ruled by a single family and they hold absolute sway over their territory. Free Citizens (citizens for short) are the equivalent of serf, they are tied to the house they are born under, but can be transferred or given to another house. They are subject to two groups for legal repercussions: their lord and the Dreaming Dark. Overall they are treated very well, but socially speaking they are property rather than independent people. They have no say in the government and live their lives in service to their house (which few if any of them actually mind, since they worship their lords as personal gods.) Above them are the lords and anyone can be given a title of lordship, provided they can prove themselves to be of high enough skill. Lordship is based on ability and talent as well as skills, not race (thus humans can hold any rank Inspired can, although it's rare). For example a human expert 3 with a +12 skill modifier in Knowledge Engineering, Craft: Stonemasonry, and Craft: Sculpture would be politically fought over by any house that could get him and would offer him favors and rank in order to get him a position in their house. He could choose which house to accept position in (given more than one offer) and he would be given a rank (probably Er) and adopted into the family of whichever house he chose to join. Families are often a mix of Inspired and humans who are related by political faction rather than blood much of the time. Blood does NOT determine rank, skill and ability are the only measures. In order to be given rank a family must successfully petition the Hall of Minds (more later) for the right to increase the number of votes available to their house. Each house gains votes usually at a rate of 1-2 a year, but the numbers can go down as well since lords can be voted down in rank due to failure or ineptitude (or even concentrated opposition.) The Hall of Minds is the main political body of Reidra's day to day functions and it is rarely affected by the Quori. Each member (all Lords and Blessed) gain individual votes based on their rank (up to 8 votes, 1 per rank) and their blessing (3 per blessing, max 9.) Quori rarely involve themselves in the day to day running of the government, but when they do they have votes equal to twice their HD. Their host votes independently from them, but almost exclusively along the same lines. Quori votes are referred to as "sponsor votes" and aren't counted as part of the normal amount of votes a house has (since they're so rarely invoked.) There are a few major "parties" in the Hall, those being the Martial quarter which controls nearly 30% of the total votes, but rarely acts outside of its task in suppressing and besieging Adar, the Collectors who maintain the monoliths (which act as giant cognizance crystals drawing from the populous) and control approximately 20% of the total votes and the Archivists who run the libraries and the educational systems for all of Reidra who control a little over 15% of the total votes. Multiple families make up each of the "parties" so they don't always vote the same way and often on minor issues parties can be split by different views. The remaining votes are from lesser families not affiliated with any of the major "parties" and what are referred to as free votes. Free votes are individuals who have either earned a title or gains a Blessing, but are not affiliated with any house. They vote as they see fit (just like anyone) but they have very little individual say, although they sometimes band together to influence votes. Voting is done throughout the year, but every year at midsummer all the voting members meet in the Hall itself and are re-attuned and recorded. Note that not every lord involves himself with politics every year, in fact many of the older lords retire to their lands and step down form politics. They have the choice to get involved but choose not to. After this point whenever an issue is brought before the Hall (which requires traveling to the Hall itself) all members of that year's Hall are informed of the issue via a mental missive and asked whether they will either "vote" or "abstain." If he chooses abstain then his votes are nullified for that vote only and don't count against the total number of votes and he is left alone with respect to the issue being voted on. If he chooses to vote he is given a telepathic recording of both sides' arguments as well as the commentary of any experts invoked and the input of anyone on-site who wished to comment as well. At this point he is asked how he would like to vote: For, Against, or Abstain. Votes are tallied and a motion needs to gain 51% of the voting block in its favor (e.g. if 45% choose to vote then he needs 28% of the total votes in his favor.) Often most lords don't get involved in votes that don't influence them or aren't related so the voting pool tends to be more focused to those involved and those they can sway to their side by bribes, promises or threats. The Hall is maintained by the Thousand Eyes and they constantly keep a watch on how the government is run, although they never act to stop it. They represent impartial observers rather than enforcers. The Dreaming Dark are independent secret police who make sure that no one attempts to endanger their perfect social order or openly breaks the rules. The rules are simple: -Overt violence is unacceptable outside of Housewar. -Disobedience of a Quori is unacceptable without justification (e.g. if you have evidence that the Quori doesn't have you can bring it to the Hall to decide on.) -Proper social order shall be recognized at ALL times in any public location. -No religions will be tolerated with the exception of worshiping the Quori themselves. -Arcane and Divine magic are prohibited. -Within the walls of a House dwelling the family determines what rules are followed provided they do not break any of the above rules. Minor offences will get warnings, repeated offenders and major offenders can be either "chastised" (losing social rank) or "corrected" (physically killed.) Those who have the rank of Blessed (but no social rank) are instead brought to answer to their patron Quori (if they do something grave enough to earn demotion) and provided they can satisfactorily answer the charges they are released without harm. Try not to think about what can happen otherwise. Housewar is a special condition that must be announced from the Hall of Minds and involves declaring your house, the target house, and why you are declaring housewar. The targeted house is then allowed to either attempt to apologize and/or make an offer of reconciliation OR accept the housewar. Housewar lifts the ban on violence between the two houses, but the ban still applies to all non-noble, non-bodyguard members of the house e.g. you cannot go kill the Free Citizens or damage their fields, but you can send assassins and/or covert groups. Housewar is maintained until either one house is destroyed, one house puts forth a request for peace at the Hall, or the Hall votes to end it (which happens VERY rarely.) There are a multitude of other minor peacekeeping rules (no armed groups over 20 members allowed anywhere outside a House dwelling or monolith, no more than five guards per person not involved in a housewar, no more than ten during a housewar, etc.) but I've got them in my notes. If anyone really needs them I'll type them up later. Wow... that's 3 pages of political notes... hot damn! :dancin: :dancin: :dancin: |
| Hellcow03-24-05, 04:22 PM | Hey! I was asked to comment on this, so I will. First off, great work Bjorntfh. You've obviously put a great deal of thought into this, and you've come up with an intriguing and complex system. If people want to use this as the basis of Riedra in their games, I say go for it. With that said, this is significantly different from how Riedra will appear in official source material. The culture of Riedra is developed in somewhat more detail in Races of Eberron, and between time and NDA issues, I'm not going to type up the whole thing here. It is certainly the case that the people of Riedra believe that they live in a utopia, and have no interest in change; they pity foreigners, who are chaotic, violent, and imperil their immortal souls through foolish trafficking with demons. A few things to bear in mind (and possibly incorporate into your model if you wish): The Inspired may be lawful evil, but the typical Riedran isn't; most are likely lawful neutral. The Dreaming Dark do not act as the secret police of Riedra; their mandate is the expansion of quori power and destabilizaiton of other forces. The Thousand Eyes are charged with maintaining order in Riedra, and they do this both overtly and covertly. In the official version, all positions of significant influence are held by the Chosen (empty vessels) or the Inspired. The common folk hope to attain this status in a future life. In their view this IS a meritocracy, because no one will question the Chosen's right to rule. The quori have no need to conduct political debates on Riedra. The typical Inspired spends 40 hours each day (using 4 hours of the 24-hour Eberron day) in Dal Quor, and it is here that the governors meet to discuss the affairs of their provinces. The location of the physical body doesn't matter; this allows the quori to maintain a perfect web of communication, even with quori in Khorvaire. The quori have a remarkable unity of purpose. They are outsiders, and that describes their mindset as well as their physical nature; it's not in the nature of a tsucora to question a kalaraq. Thus, political debate is a rare thing. They don't need a system of voting, because they adhere to a hierarchy that has lasted them over 300,000 years. What debate there is would occur on Dal Quor, beyond the eyes of the Riedrans. So to the Riedrans, the Inspired always act with perfect unity and judgment; the idea of them debating is an alien one, because they always know what is right. When you know what is right, why debate it? Riedrans don't actually consider the Inspired to be gods; they don't believe in gods, and consider the clerics of Khorvaire to be trafficking with demons. The Inspired are the bearers of the wisdom of the past, guided by the most enlightened Riedran souls. In a sense, they are divine avatars, but the source of their power is seen as the power of the Riedra itself, not some outside god. The average Riedran knows nothing of the quori or the Draming Dark, and would refuse to believe any stories; clearly, such things are the lies of corrupt foreigners. And given the peace of Riedra, why SHOULD they believe these stories, especially as they are likely perpetrated by those who clearly DO traffic with evil outsiders (wizards and clerics)? The hanbalani - the giant obelisks - are more than just psychic batteries. Among other things, they help the Inspired subtly dominate the people, and this is one more reason that it will be hard to convince a Riedran that there is anything evil about the Inspired. Stay long enough, and you might reconsider your own opinions on the matter. Anyhow, more in Races of Eberron. But like I said, I think you've come up with an interesting and detailed system and encourage you to run with it (or if you want to stay true to the official material, introduce a previously unknown society hidden in Xen'drik that uses this system). One thing I will note is that Aerenal is a meritocracy, with noble rank based on talent as opposed to lineage; this is in the completed queue of Dragonshards, but it will be a while before it actually hits the web. (You may say "but how's this work with things like the line of Vol?" - well, lines are larger than a single family, and each line has its own nobility, so anyone in the line may ascend to noble rank.) |
| bjorntfh03-25-05, 01:18 PM | Well, I'm off to Europe for the next week, so please keep the page active with your theories and input guys! When I get back I'll be running the next day so you'll get a new post from me soon, provided the page is still around. Thanks you guys! :tiphat: |
| Hellcow03-25-05, 02:52 PM | I'm looking forward to it, personally. My post was purely intended to give you a hint of what Races of Eberron is going to say in a few weeks. I think you've developed an interesting and in-depth scenario here; I encourage you to continue to use it, and as I said, if others want to hold true to official material it could always be transfered elsewhere in the world. |
| Altaris03-25-05, 03:14 PM | Have a safe trip BJ! We look forward to the next post! |
| KP9103-25-05, 04:54 PM | Remember not to look in mirrors, especially when shaving. :coolcthul :88E: |
| Vharuck03-26-05, 04:19 AM | I hope I'm not the only one who got chills. I am definitely throwing in a horror scenario into my campaign now. This brings up a good question: what makes the scene a nail-baiting horror? As far as I can tell, at least these components help or must exist: 1. Removal from terrifying thing. Look at the monster in the tube for an example. The cracking and shattering of the glass, followed by the thud and crying, is chilling. Why? Because they only heard it. They didn't smell it, see it, or feel it. It carries with it a hint of the unknown, which is terrifying. 2. Oddities that one is afraid to find out why. The reverse mirrors. I had no idea what was on the other side, and if I was in that house, I would not want to find out. 3. The little yet surprising things. Seeing the man in the mirror as a tentacled beast shrouded in motley-stitched human's skin, the sound of dripping actually originating from a concealed body. 4. Knowing where the horror will come from. It's not terrifying if you expect everything to suddenly jump out and yell "boo!" What is terrifying is that they know that by looking in the mirror, something horrifying will be shown. But they don't know what. They may leave the mirror face-down on the table, feeling pulled to look into but too afraid to do it. Any other thoughts as to how to achieve such a frightening scene like bjorntfh has? BTW, bravo. Bravo. You are a credit to the army of DMs. |
| Puppy03-26-05, 08:15 PM | I thing that this campaign's success has been because of (mainly) three things: 1. The characters are facing something they don't know the scope of. The things they see in the mirrors, they have no idea what it is or why it is happening. It's the surrealism of it, I guess. Add on that these events are very disturbing, and you have a recipie for horror. 2. Whatever goes on is a threat to the mind, not the body. If it's a scary monster, all the characters have to do is kill it. Here they have no idea how to fix things, and that drives them up the walls. 3. Good, but limited descriptions. What I've learnt is that if you want to scare the bejesus out of someone, give them short but to the point descriptions. Don't go into too much detail about what they see, but give them an idea and let the rest form in their overworked minds. This is what I think is the most important part, especially when I GM Call of Cthulhu. Keep up the very good work, bjorn. This has become one of my favourite threads and I'll like to see it continued. Have a good time in Iceland (?), the girls there blow every scale there is. |
| Neofish03-27-05, 07:21 AM | I absolutly love your frightning imagination.!!! This stuff is pure gold... Might I make a suggestion..? Perhaps you should place something in the corner of the a ceiling in a room, just a small humanoid without any skin, with no face, just a giant grin of flat, pearly white teeth, if the PC try to interact with it, have the being just tilt it's head and then open its mouth, from within the mouth have a small, childlike face emerge and without it opening its eyes or anything, just let it begin to cry like a baby... Or perhaps as they are viewing through one of the mirrors, have a puppt master slide across the image, freaky.... I used that in a D20 modern game, a shadowrun game, in which the small humaniods were scouts for the shadow realm, I got a jump out of my party when the babyface emerged... I look foward to viewing your next post, great stuff man, great stuff.... |
| KP9103-29-05, 05:31 PM | While he's gone lets discuss this. Who is more horrifying and twisted: bjorntfh or Daelkyr |
| Endless_Helix03-29-05, 07:56 PM | First, I must congradulate you on your campaign, really just amazing. Those puppeteers are evil. and to answer the question at hand... the answer is neither. whatever has been whispering secrets that unravel bjorn's brains and create such madness that are the epitome of evil. |
| bjorntfh03-31-05, 11:41 AM | Hey all, I'm in Heathrow airport right now, plane was delayed, ergo I'll be posting more stuff for you guys on Friday night at the earliest, more likely Saturday after the game. Sorry for the problems, missed my flight out due to subway work and had to get shifted to another flight. You know how it goes. :banghead: :banghead: |
| Altaris03-31-05, 03:39 PM | While he's gone lets discuss this. Who is more horrifying and twisted: bjorntfh or Daelkyr To that I say: Who is more horrific? The monster who is by birth, or the monster who is by choice? |
| KP9103-31-05, 05:46 PM | I'd say by choice, but you still can imagine a war between the most horrific of each of their creations fighting it out in a war. Terrfifing. |
| bjorntfh04-01-05, 08:08 AM | Unfortunately due to the problems of travel and having schoolwork to do as well it looks like I´ll be forced to put the game on hold for a while. Sorry to do that, but seeing as I´m trapped in Iceland right now there isn´t much I can do about it. Maybe next month I´ll have some more free time. :weep: |
| bjorntfh04-02-05, 11:13 AM | Okay, fisrt off, April Fools everyone! I'm running the game today in 2 hours so you should have a post up tonight with some firsthand details. Second of all, I'm glad to be back in America, airports aren't fun places to side for 8-12 hour stretches. |
| bjorntfh04-03-05, 07:04 PM | Alright, here's how things went down last session. The party was walking down the corridor of pipes as the hybrid was trying to reach them from outside the piping. As the party hustled down the walkway they caught sight of the hybrid moving through the shadows. The halfling slowed down to try to spot exactly where the hybrid was and leaned in close to the pipes, at which point the hybrid grabbed his shirt through a small hole in the pipe wall and slammed him into the pipes repeatedly. He staggered free and then stood there waiting for the thing to reveal itself again while the party told him to run. Half the party booked it while the warforged barb and the monk ran back to help him. The hybrid knocked up one of the panels to the walkway and clambered up onto the walkway with them. As everyone fell back to avoid it it sprayed them with bone shards though due to a good set of rolls no one took more than 6 points of damage... sigh. Combat ensued with the monk and the barbarian trying to hold the thing off while the cleric stood back and healed anyone who got hurt too badly (i.e. everyone.) The halfling refused to fall back, regardless of everyone else's shouts, although he did manage to continue to throw daggers uselessly against the thing's inerital barrier. After about 7 rounds of slugging at the thing the party finally took it down and the monk proceded to behead it and toss the head down the walkway in order to "make sure it stayed that way." The party then continued down the hall until they found a doorway with a cicular handle in the center (like the door in a submarine.) As they opened it inwards they saw an open land and fields with two crossed spears held ceremoniously in front of the door by two guards. The NPC with the party dashed out and the party followed, watching as the NPC and the guards had a flurried conversation that slowly made itself clear to the party (the Shadow's Key giving them understanding of Reidran and Quori.) After some perfunctionary questions the party was escorted from the monolith (which they had exited from via the House of Shadows) to the NPC's home which was about 60 miles away. That evening the party was escorted to the private domain of the local lord, the NPC's father, To'Ton'Idill. I'll post the discussion and descriptions of his private gardens and complex tomorrow, I've got a paper to do tonight so I'm busy, sadly. |
| Altaris04-04-05, 10:58 AM | Sounds cool! I look forward to your descriptions of the RP! |
| RadicalTaoist04-04-05, 12:49 PM | http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/AiMThiS/thisthreaddelivers.jpg Wait a sec...why aren't images formatting????? |
| bjorntfh04-04-05, 02:23 PM | Thanks guys! I'll be posting the RP bits in parts tonight (I'm at work right now) so expect them in about 4 hours time. Thanks for all the support. |
| bjorntfh04-04-05, 08:17 PM | I'll start this off with a description of the House Idill lands and the private complex that the PCs were taken to, then I'll post the actual converstations and incidents. They were walking down the long straight paved road (think Roman style, large flat paving stones) and on either side of them were large tierd rice fields and orchards. The party noted that the fields were very lush and well irrigated (DC 10 knowledge nature check) as well as being much more productive than anything they'd seen in Khorvaire. There were a few people working each field, and small single story houses spread along the way, each one on a small side path off of the main road and large enough to hold a family or two comfortably. The party was being led by the NPC Kaiah who'd told them that her father would be glad to repay them for their "saving" her. The party went along questiong her about the general area and got some answers, although with more specific questions (such as politics) they were politely put off and told that her father could explain things so much better than her. They were able to get that her father was a famous doctor and that he'd created and bred plants to cure almost any ailment or injury. The party was rather pleased to hear that (considering that they were all but one member at less than 15 HP.) After a few hours they finally came within sight of the Idill family grounds and they could see where the fields went from verdent green to a bright spread of colors and even from a mile of it they could smell the flowers and herbs. The grounds covered over two acres of land and stood out almost like the perfection of the lands around it. As they got closer they saw a "fence" made of 2' tall 3" diameter logs set 1' apart along the edge of the grounds. They weren't there to impede anyone, instead being there to differentiate between where the gardens began and the fields ended. The gardens were literally breathtaking, the ranger noted instantly that the flowers (what ones he knew) seemed to be blooming regardless of their usual cycles, creating a perfect garden regardless of what nature might have intended of the plants. They came to the nearest gate, an opening in the fence with two guards in front of it and two on the other side framed by a pair of tall poles with a crossbar above them. For a good image think of the gates to a Japanese Buddhist temple (or if you play Magic, the set symbol to Champions of Kamigawa.) They went to enter and the guards nodded and let them through. As they stepped through the gate they felt a sense of peace wash over them. Outside there was a sense of pastoral tranquility, safety because of no threats, inside there was a palpable sense of peaceful security because everything was right. There was a sense that nothing was out of place and that everything was designed to be exactly as it seemed, a sense that everything was honest and peaceful because that's how it was supposed to be, rather than because it was defended and heavily protected. The party was led through the winding gardens and across small bridges over little brooks that ran through the complex. Small clay irrigation troughs ran all around them keeping a constant supply of water flowing everywhere. The party noted dozens of small springs bubbling everywhere in the gardens. There were nearly no straight paths, everything flowed naturally from one point to another. The buildings were single story with white walls, sliding doors (think Japanese architecture) and slate tiled roofs. The party was busy examining the gardens, which they noted were full of herbs of every kind and season, as they were led to a small obviously single room building with a large wooden box that looked like a coffin next to it. Okay, I"ll have their conversations and social interactions up soon, hope you like the feel for the area. |
| bjorntfh04-06-05, 12:27 PM | I'll have some free time tonight to post the RPing, sorry to take so much time. |
| Altaris04-06-05, 01:29 PM | I'll have some free time tonight to post the RPing, sorry to take so much time. No worries mate! Life is what it is, and we all live it. We'll devour your posts as soon as they're up though... :D |
| bjorntfh04-06-05, 06:40 PM | Okay, here we go! (It's my dinner break so I'll be eating and posting for the next 30 minutes. I'll be around tomorrow though.) So the party is in front of this little cabin and Kaiah calls out that she's safe and for her father to come out. The door (a wooden frame with ricepaper paneling) slides open to reveal a tall thin gentleman with light purple hair in a long braid down his back wearing a white smock and gloves, blood dripping down from his elbows to his fingertips and blood all over the smock. He looked surprised and happy stepped forewards to hug Kaiah, then paused and looked at his garb. He apologized to the party for his appearance explaining that he was in the middle of an autopsy. The party spellthief (who I'm still barely not snaping and beating to death IRL) decided he must have murdered the guy (disregarding all the information they'd previously learned about this guy being one of the best surgeons in the country, as well as the other player's comments) and tried starting combat before I told him to try rolling a Heal check to see if he was telling the truth. The guy rolled a 20 (with no ranks) and I told him that, yes, it WAS an autopsy. The Lord said he'd be right back after cleaning himself off and closed the door, the party noticing that he managed to get no blood on any of the screens. The party waited a couple of minutes for him to get clean, then he offered to have a dinner prepared for them. The party agreed and discussed with him about the autopsy as they walked through the gardens. The Lord, who'd introduced himself as To'Ton'Idill (he didn't give his personal name) explained that one of the local free citizens had come down with a cough and the medicine that should have helped him worked for a few days, then got very ill and died overnight. He was trying to figure out why he'd died so as to prevent anything from spreading. The party (aside from the spellthief) were all impressed and glad to have a full explanation. They were led to a small tearoom, a 20'x20' square building with sliding doors for all the walls. the Lord opened the sliding doors to maximize the view and ordered food for them. Small talk began and food shortly arrived. I've got to go back to work now, but I'll post the info on the rest of the game tomorrow morning. Thanks for the patience. |
| bjorntfh04-07-05, 12:33 PM | Tonight people. Sorry for the holdup, finishing a paper for class. |
| KP9104-10-05, 10:00 PM | I want madness! I want madness! :evillaugh |
| bjorntfh04-11-05, 05:37 PM | Over a meal of rice, fish and pastries the party was thanked for their help and offered to stay for a few days until they got used to the country and could travel to wherever they would like. The party was pleased at the offer, then requested if there was a market nearby to restock. Myr told them that it was about twenty miles from the compound, but that they could be taken there if they liked that afternoon. The party decided to go and thus the uneventful trip to the marketplace began! Aside from the pretty countryside the party didn't note much of interest on the trip, but when they got close to the market they were VERY shocked. It stood out as a 2 story cylinder about 200' across made of a shimmering silvery substance. When they got close they noted that the substance was like a wattery mirror. Theyw ere ushered through it and with great trepidation stepped through. Inside they found a large circular marketplace filled with stalls and supplies. After a few questions they found that the rules of the market were "take what you need and leave wht you don't." As a result the party quickly put in orders for better weapons and armor (since the numebr of military supplies was very limited in an area well away from the war with Adar) and picked up new arrows (hunting style) lightstones (everburning torches effectively) and rope. They also picked up white robes to mark themselves as free nobles, i.e. without a house. The thief managed to piece together a mw thieves' picks piece by piece rather than try to explain why he wanted to have something for breaking and entering with. When they left the market place they noticed that the sun hadn't moved at all, in spite of feeling like they'd been in there for hours. They were told that the markets were madeout of domes of quintessence so that within the market no time passed relative to the outside world, that way goods stayed eternally fresh and traders didn't need to spend their entire days working on trade. That evening they all went to sleep in individual cabins around the complex. Around 2 AM most of them (all but 2) woke up feeling a sense of danger, or more accurately that the sense of safety and peace had dissappeared from the complex. A few rounds later the party was woken up (or for those already awake, heard) three short sharp high pitched flute notes. The Monk and Spellthief lwft their cabins to investigate into the complex while the rest of the PCs gathered first to go as a group. The group came across a badly maimed soldier (he had been stabalized by a tattoo of Revive, so he was at -1 HP and stable, but the party didn't know that) and the cleric healed him up to 1 HP, only to have him try to shuffle the party back to their rooms explaining that it "wasn't their war." The party was by now worried and moved towards their cabins, then doubled back to search forwards. The Monk and Spellthief met up and continued towards the center of the compound. They were stopped when they heard a wet thud up ahead and someone walked town the path in front of them very quickly. They followed his path backwards and came across a long dark stain on one of the walkways in front of oen of the cabins, as well as half the door in pieces on the walkway and in the bushes. Upon closer examination they found hefty chunks of meat and organs spread all over the plants. At this point they decided to trail the guy (I've got NO idea why...) The rest of the party by now managed to get caught again by guards and a full squad of 10 guards plus Kaiah marched them back to one of the cabins "for their own safety until the incident is over." The monk and the spellthief menwhile managed to follow the figure around some of the storehouses for herbs and medicines before they noticed someone in black moving parallel to them in the gardens. His hands were glowing purple and they decided he was a better target so they changed course after him. They cut across the bushes after him and watched him go into a small shrine-like building at the very center of the compound. And that's where I'll stop it for today. More to come tomorrow guys, I'll finish up what happened and the consequences. Sorry for taking so long everyone. |
| okaynowa04-12-05, 07:58 AM | Excellent stuff-- it's like "Adventures with Clive Barker." What I admire most so far is the cat-and-mouse game with the hybrid. D&D sometimes seems so geared towards "one-off" combat encounters that drawing out a long, creepy engagement like that can be difficult. The dramatic rewards are so high, though. I've been thinking about an earlier comment on this thread about the difficulty of playing paladins in a horror-based campaign like Bjorntfh's. Certainly the player can get scared, even if the character (supposedly) doesn't. But how to play it out? One could actually view the paladin's immunity to fear as a greater liability in this type of game-- especially against a foe like the hybrid, fleeing in terror is safer/saner than standing your ground. Another angle: the paladin may not personally fear things, but could fear for the safety of others. Imagine the burden of knowing that the next time your party encounters the faceless horrors in the mirror, you, the paladin, are the only one you can count on to stay rational. Driven by such growing anxiety, the paladin may start pushing the party in certain directions "for their own protection," leading others to believe he's the one cracking. ("No, I'm not mad-- all of you are!") Your frights are first rate, Bjorntfh. Wet thuds? Dark stains? Characters can't hit things like that, and that scares players. Well played. |
| Altaris04-12-05, 09:55 AM | More! More! More! We want more! :D :D :D |
| bjorntfh04-12-05, 12:20 PM | And ye shall have it! Here you go! :D The Monk and the Spellthief heard the sound of something hitting metal from inside the ill-lit shrine and decided to "help" by stopping whoever it was. The Monk charged in and grabbed at the guy, but only managed to yank off his cloak. The Spellthief meanwhile cast Shocking Grasp and advanced through the shadows to try and flank the guy. The monk punched him in the face once and the guy responded by looking at him, saying "Interloper!" and cutting him across the chest (though only for 4 points of damage.) The man whispered something as the spelltheif stepped up and swung at him, only to have his hand and spell pass through the guy. The guy looked down at the halfling and the decided that he wasn't a real threat and focused on the Monk. Meanwhile the pair noticed someone in black robes hustling up towards them. The Monk and the assassin traded blows ineffectually for a round while the spellthief missed again with his touch attack due to the miss chance. The hustling figure stopped short and stared for a few seconds then cursed very loudly upon seeing what was going on. The monk, perceiving a new threat turned and charged at the newcomer, took a minor hit from the assassin and ran at the new guy. At the last minute he pulled short as he realized that the figure was Myr. Myr snarled and pointed at the assassin (who wasn't in great condition at that point, but had more than half his HP.) He shouted "I am the Lord of Life and that which I can give, so too can I take away!" The spellthief stepped back as the PCs heard a loud ripping snapping sound and the assassin collapsed onto the ground bleeding from all his joints and orafices. The two were then quickly moved back to the cabin with the others and informed that there would need to be a meeting in the morning. Come dawn the party were politely woken up and escorted to a teahouse where Myr and Kaiah sat them down to explain why what happened the previous night was a) nothing to get involved in, and b) why they were going to have some legal troubles for intervening in a Housewar without right. After much discussion the party finally came to an agreement by which they would serve as caravan guards for the next shipment of medicines to the capitol and when they got there Kaiah (who was to go with them) would explain how they had served compensation to the state to make up for their unintended lawbreaking. The party then spent two weeks healing, getting supplies and getting ready for the three week trip to the capitol. Their duties were clearly explained as "protecting the wagons from unaffiliated bandits, animals and natural terrain dangers." With said mission the party left for the capitol. The first five days went uneventfully until they reached the border of the Idill lands and were told that the spring thaw had been causing minor landslides on the most direct route to the capitol. Another pass was recommended, although it would add three days to the journey. They discussed and decided to add a few days rather than put the carts at risk. Four days later in the safer path ( which was moderately wooded on either side) the party came across a tree fallen along the road. The party advanced slowly expecting an ambush, and investigate the area. After much searching and time spent the party figured out a few details, a) the tree had been pulled down b) there was no one nearby (within 200') and c) that the tree would take hours to break up. So, being helpful people they merely dragged it far enough to allow the carts to ride around it and continue down the road. Now here's the question: what was the trap with the tree? I'll post the answer later today. |
| KP9104-12-05, 05:42 PM | You are evil. I want to know... :weep: |
| chimpman04-12-05, 06:28 PM | Yes, me too! I've finally caught up on this thread and now I can't get enough of it. Some brilliant work here (much of which I intend to steal at some point ;) ). |
| bjorntfh04-12-05, 07:27 PM | Well, here it is, sorry, had to taunt you just a little there... I'd be a bad GM if I gave everything away! The party traveled for nearly a minute before 50' ahead of them a figure stepped out from behind a tree (it was a DC 10 spot check, most everyone made it) and held up his hands. He was wearing obvious house colors and he announced "This is a sanctioned seizure of goods during a housewar. Surrender your carts." The party monk, being both impetuous and ignorant of the rules that governed the society, decided to charge the guy. As he ran screaming at him the guy sighed and drew his swords, raised it high and dropped it calling out "Fire." At this point the party realized that maybe something very bad was going to happen as from behind the fallen tree (200' behind them with no cover) four archers stood up and began dropping arrows onto them. Suffice to say, 8 attacks with 1d12 weapons inflicted a LOT of hurt on the PCs and other guards. Four more house soldiers came out of the woods (2 on either side of the group) and engaged in flanking actions while one tried to cut the reins to the horses. Combat ensued painfully as the warforged barbarian charged the leader while the rest of the PCs scattered to engage the flanking enemies. The monk ran back to try to stop the archers alone (stupid!) and the pain well and truly began. First round of combat: warforged misses the leader by 1, having decided he didn't need to rage yet, and deciding not to use an action point... Leader responds by power attacking for 4, the hit the warforged for 22 points of damage (5th level samurai.) The flankers and the PCs got mixed up well and multiple PCs and guards, as well as the flankers, took hits. The monk finished his move within 20' of the archers (he had the Run feat) but was left totally exposed. The archers filled him full of arrows. Out of 8 shots (they all had rapid shot) he was hit 4 times, but used deflect arrows to negate one. His HP went from 40 to 3 in under 2 seconds. The next round started and the barb raged, then hit the leader for a whopping 21 points of damage back. The guy countered by managing (by 1 point) to smash the warforged for 26 points of damage. Please note: the warforged started the encounter with 52 HP. I described it as the guy hooking one of his chest plates with the edge of his sword and ripping it free causing it to skip across the road. The monk wisely took cover behind a tree and downed a potion (one of the few they have left, since magic is outlawed. They'd been given 11 medicinal herb pills each that heal 1d4+1 each, but the party doesn't know that yet, since they haven't used them. Thus the party is relying on their limited known supplies.) The rest of the party was faring better, although the archers had started firing into the melee in order to whittle the ranks (since their men were outnumbered.) The next round one of the flankers went down and his partner grabbed him and did a full withdraw to get the two of them into cover of the woods. The other flankers were faring badly as well, although by now most of the PCs were down to less than half HP as were the guards. The opposite flankers followed a similar action as the PCs swarmed after the leader. The warforged hit him for a solid 18 points of damage the next round and, being beset by enemies, he missed his attack. The party tried whaling on him but his defenses barely held up. On his turn he shouted "Interlopers! Abort!" and hit something tied to his thigh. His winked away with a quiet pop and when the party looked around they couldn't find any of the archers or the other troops either. It netted each PC a whopping 1900 EXP each, although they were NOT in a position to call it a victory. Had the not disabled the leader they would have probably gone down to arrows VERY quickly from there. The rest of the trip was uneventful, if filled with lots of time spent resting and healing. When they got within sight of the capitol, the marble buildings rising like a crown above the plains, they were greeted by a group of 60 soldiers in black robes with spears and swords with the leader of the failed raiders with them pointing to the PCs. They were politely asked to come with the men, who intorduced themselves as state police, and the party was bright enough to not cause trouble. That's where we left off! Hope you don't mind suspense... no, wait, that's the point, isn't it? Leave 'em hanging! |
| KP9104-12-05, 08:24 PM | That's where we left off! Hope you don't mind suspense... no, wait, that's the point, isn't it? Leave 'em hanging! .......I....... .......I....... ......( )...... ...../.I.\..... ....../.\...... ................ ................ I'm hanging, you can continue. |
| bjorntfh04-12-05, 08:25 PM | Thanks. :D |
| rwarner370104-12-05, 09:18 PM | Also waiting impaitently for more. I also just read this post and have to say i am very impressed. I have a soulknife in my party who wants to destroy the Dreaming Dark and they will likely go to Sarlona to confront them. Thank you for the wonderful ideas and consider them stolen. :shifty: Thanks again, hope the next two weeks pass quickly |
| bjorntfh04-12-05, 09:26 PM | ACtually, I stepped it up to every week, so you'll have more Sunday. |
| Flame_Drake04-12-05, 10:00 PM | One question: If there is a Kalashtar in the party, wouldn't he realize that this is Redia and that there are (presumably) Inspired lords around them? Wouldn't the Redians recognize him as Kalashtar and therefore the enemy? Or it this still to come in the capital? Drake |
| Altaris04-13-05, 12:32 PM | Sweet Bjortfh! Sweet! I like the Housewar politics. We are like the desert awaiting the storm, eagerly soaking up your tidbits. More, I said, more! :D So, Bjorntfh, what would it take to convince you to move to South Florida? Or are you interested in commuting? :D |
| bjorntfh04-13-05, 06:16 PM | Unfortunately the commute to Florida is a bit of a long one for me, since I'm way up north in Maine. As for the Kalashtar his player has been missing for the past few weeks so his PC didn't leave the House of Shadows. Sad but fitting... |
| KP9104-13-05, 11:08 PM | Want to come to a small peacful town in MA? So close and away from the city. |
| bjorntfh04-14-05, 12:04 PM | Anyone who's willing to come up to Maine is welcome to have at least a cameo spot for the game. www.crossroadgames.com That's the store I run it at. Every Saturday at 2 till whenever we get done, usually 7 or 8. |
| Altaris04-14-05, 12:18 PM | *ponders spontaneous business trip* I wonder if I can expense a trip up to Maine... ;) |
| bjorntfh04-15-05, 07:06 PM | As I said, anyone who's interested can come on up for a cameo spot. Other than gas the game's free. The next leg of the story is going to involve the PCs picking a punishment (they'll be given the choice of a few of them, all are reasonable, some are more so than others.) and, hopefully, they'll choose to do a single major service for the state. If so, I've got a happy jungle trek set up for them through the horrors of Xendrik, complete with river boat trip ala Heart of Darkness and their very own swarm of army ants! Of course they'll probably be running the other way... but... oh well! Mind you those are just a couple of the fun and interestingthings that are awaiting them! The fun all starts tomorrow, so don't miss out! |
| Flame_Drake04-15-05, 07:30 PM | Anyone who's willing to come up to Maine is welcome to have at least a cameo spot for the game. www.crossroadgames.com That's the store I run it at. Every Saturday at 2 till whenever we get done, usually 7 or 8. Please tell me you live in Derry. That would just be too fitting. Drake |
| bjorntfh04-15-05, 08:27 PM | Nah, sadly I commute from Portland. |
| KP9104-15-05, 09:48 PM | When do we get the Xen'drik adventure? P.S. Any tourist attractions in your town? Maybe I can convince my parents to go. |
| bjorntfh04-15-05, 09:58 PM | Lots of them, but I'm not too up on them (I live here, I don't do touristy things...) Look them up online. And Xendrik is tomorrow, or maybe next week. |
| bjorntfh04-18-05, 01:46 PM | Okay, here's a one sentence preview of the last game that made me twitch. I'll post the whole thing later, maybe Tuesday, but probably Wednesday. "After only twelve days on the trail the party was reduced to canibalism." Also, one PC gave me the nicest gift! He gave me a "Wand of Silence" for quieting down those who try to interrupt me when I talk! It's a board about the size of a baseball bat... I felt so happy. |
| Altaris04-18-05, 02:04 PM | Also, one PC gave me the nicest gift! He gave me a "Wand of Silence" for quieting down those who try to interrupt me when I talk! It's a board about the size of a baseball bat... I felt so happy. :rofl: Okay, here's a one sentence preview of the last game that made me twitch. I'll post the whole thing later, maybe Tuesday, but probably Wednesday. "After only twelve days on the trail the party was reduced to canibalism." Dude... You suck! I hate teasers! :D |
| bjorntfh04-18-05, 10:56 PM | Here's what I can post while I'm at work: In the previous episode the party was arrested by the state police. They were gently led off to a "jail" that consisted of a small wooden dwelling with iron bars over the windows and two guards at the front door. The party wasn't disarmed, they wre simply taken and put away from the populous and told that their case would been seen the next day. Sadly (for me) the PCs instigated no escape attempts, did nothing to cause trouble and acted generally contrite the entire time. Ergo, the guards didn't have to rough them up, nor did they get themselves in any deeper legal trouble. The next morning came around and the party was fed a nice breakfast and led off to the "courtroom" a medium sized parlour with one man behind a desk with a small bell. He motioned for them to all sit at comfortable wooden chairs and the "trial" began. It cosisted of him announcing that while they were guilty of major crimes against the state, unlawful intervention in a housewar, grevious bodily assault and unlawful intercession in a state sanction siezure. Because they "hadn't killed anyone the state saw no need to have them summarily executed." They were told that because they were barbarians their punishment would be lighter than would normally be assigned to a citizen, but in addition to their civil reparations they would be tutored for two weeks in Reidran law so as to prevent any other incidents due to ignorance of the laws. The party was given three choices for their civil reparations: exile (effectively a death sentence,) indentured servitude to the house they had wronged for a term of two years, or to serve the state for a period of six months in wahtever capacity that the state saw fit for them. The party, after a half hour's deliberation, chose state service and were informed that they would be given a task once their training in the laws was done. Two weeks later the aprty were told that they were to go to Xendrik and collect a strange psionicly charged Syberis shard that had been located by scriers earlier that month. The party was given four days to write out whatever common objects they needed, but nothing they couldn;t carry on their backs. Because of a strange interference field around the artifact the party was to be teleported to Stormreach and outfitted there with retrieval gear for the crystal and given coinage necessary to buy food for the trip. The trip was estimated to be around sixty days to the site, plus return travel. The party was given 4K each to buy stuff with and proceded to get some psionic weapons and armor, as well as healing medicines and otehr generally useful items. The NPC Inspired and her bodyguard (a PC psion/samurai) were to accompany the group as observers and guides. The bodyguard was given 6 single use items that generated a 16 hour Leomund's secure shelter and an everful spool of rope (generates up to 500 ft of rope at any one time, rope cut off the spool disappears) whilethe Inspired was given a Heward's Handy Haversack. A few days later a much better equiped party was teleported to the consulate for Reidra in Stormreach and the party was given 100 GP each for food and otehr supplies. After getting food and general equipment (I was thorough with them there, an itemized checklist by price) they booked a river trip as the first step of their journey into the heart of Xendrik. The weather was awful, heavy rains and driving winds, but the PCs persevered and continued on gamely! I'll detail the river cruise later, but suffice to say the river was full of pirhanas and the captain was a drunkard. The ship was powered by a pair of wheels (think old steamboats) run by a warforged in a treadmill. No one complained about the obvious mistreatment of the warforged, even the warforged, probably because they were worried about ******* off the captain (the only one on the boat other than themselves and a new PC who was taking the riverboat at the same time.) The weather got progessively worse the entire time. |
| Altaris04-25-05, 11:35 AM | :bump: |
| bjorntfh04-25-05, 06:11 PM | Hey all, sorry I was away, lots of schoolwork. I've stepped it up to every weekend, and I ran 2 sessions this weekend. I'll post them maybe tuesday, probably thursday. |
| bjorntfh04-29-05, 04:56 PM | Okay, here we go! (Gomen Nasai everyone for being so late.) The river cruise: The PCs were on a rickety old river boat in a steadily worsening storm. Most of the PCs decided to stay below decks while the monk and the warforged stayed above decks to keep a lookout. The party noticed over the next two days that the boat was listing worse and worse to the right as they traveled, but the drunken captain seemed to be ignoring it. The party got increasingly worried as they hear the sound of grinding wood beneath them when they went below decks, but the captain still ignored their pleas for help or information. Then the party simply holed up below waiting for something horrible to happen, while the monk and warforged went topside. The halfling decided that since the people were grouped in two places, the most logical thing to do was to sleep on deck alone at the opposite end of the boat from anyone That night the monk heard somethng wet hit the deck in the back of the ship and went back to look: he found the halfling being dragged off by a 7 foot long leech. Calling the warforged over they proceded to swing and hack at the leech in an attempt to get it off of the halfling, and much thwacking ensued. The highpoint of the combat was when the warforged managed to miss his swing at the leech, but firmly plant his axe into the halfling (eliciting a comment from the PC of "Oops, too high.") The PCs managed to beat off the leech and two others, then get the mangled halfling to the cleric (he was at -8 HP at that point.) Three more days went by in worse weather, but no more attacks happened. The party eventually found themselves at a small slave camp at the midpoint of the river. They stayed overnight in a large colonial house (the only painted and maintained building on the site, the rest was crude cabins and small storehouses.) The feeling was of colonial Africa, only the slaves were an assortment of humans and elves. The PCs then bought 8 baggage slaves and 2 guides and enough food to last them 150 days, and in spite of warnings from their guides and the plantation owner, headed out into the storms. Three days of travel later the typhoon that had been battering along the jungle really hit where the PCs were. (I never said they were smart, but wow...) The party promptly paniced, used a leomund's secure shelter (they had 6 for emergencies on the trip) and hid all the PCs and NPCs in it. They fialed to bring any food or gear, just PCs and NPCs. When the eye of the typhoon went over them they managed to gather enough food for everyone for 5 -6 days, and then used another hut to keep safe from the second part of the storm. During this time the halfling, rather than go for cover, stayed out in the storm and was smashed into a broken little sad pile at -9 HP. The cleric healed him up to full, and when everyone went out to gather food, the halfling and the rogue and ranger managed to get themselves lost and hid under a fallen tree to wait the storm out. Much suffering was had by all. That brings us up to one session behind on recap. I'll post it tomorrow, this weekend's game is on Sunday. |
| Whakapapa04-29-05, 05:46 PM | oh man, thats is brilliant work! I wish I could conjure such games and plots up :/ Sadly I'm practicing with premade adventours and trying to figure out what to do :D This has surely been an inspiration to me. Would it be possible to aquire your notes for your games? I'd like to see how you work. If you can, would it be possible to send me the first adventure? I like it alot and would like to do something similiar. My email is: Whakapapa27@hotmail.com if you got anything :D (I hope so ;) ) |
| bjorntfh04-29-05, 07:25 PM | I'll be glad to get the first session typed up as an "easy-to-run" session for you later, probably second week of May. I'm not expecting much free time until then though. I'll make it generally available, although I will end up having to write a few modules for if the PCs decide against working with Reidra... |
| Whakapapa04-30-05, 06:41 AM | I would love that! :) Now when is the next part ? :D |
| KP9104-30-05, 11:16 AM | Copy and Paste it to me. keith_p91@yahoo.com |
| Altaris05-02-05, 08:28 PM | I would love that! :) Now when is the next part ? :D Ahem. :D |
| KP9105-02-05, 09:20 PM | Soon, or so I hope as much as possible. |
| bjorntfh05-03-05, 07:13 PM | I'll be posting it on Thursday, I'll be busy with end of simester stuff untill then. |
| bjorntfh05-04-05, 11:07 AM | Oh, and as a minor note and spoiler, the party officially joined the government of Reidra last session... Then returned to Sharn to extole the benefits of the Inspired... Nothing like having people come to your door saying the equivalent of "Would you like to join the Nazi party? We have great benefits!" |
| Aneul05-04-05, 02:44 PM | I spent an hour catching reading this from start to finish when I should have been doing my homework...well, what can I say, skillfully DMed monstrocities from another plane of existance beats the **** out of geometry! Congratulations Bjorntfh, I am now afraid to go anywhere near a mirror. (insert mirror in provided space) :gah: I hope you don't mind me taking some of the ideas here for my own game? My poor PCs will never know what hit them, and they too shall develop an abiding fear of shinny glass surfaces! |
| KP9105-05-05, 07:47 PM | It's Thursday and we havn't had a long one in a while only brief previews. I say bring on the madness. :waits: :waits: :waits: |
| Altaris05-05-05, 08:00 PM | Oh, and as a minor note and spoiler, the party officially joined the government of Reidra last session... Then returned to Sharn to extole the benefits of the Inspired... Nothing like having people come to your door saying the equivalent of "Would you like to join the Nazi party? We have great benefits!" Bastich!!! Tell us! We demand to know! Please? ;) |
| bjorntfh05-06-05, 10:42 AM | All right, all right. Now where did I leave off... The starving party wandering through the jungles... Right... Well, the party was given a choice: forage for food, OR trail break for speed. The party repeatedly, in spite of starvation penalties, trailbroke for 12 days. After 12 days the slaves were barely standing and the party was all fatigued and in VERY sub optimal shape when they stumbled across a goblin tribe's territory. Traps ensued! First the halfling took a spear to the back, then the party managed to disable four more spear traps and avoid a pit trap. No one noticed the goblins shadowing the party from the trees. At this point they missed a trap, and a pair of spiked forks of wood snapped up and impaled one of the slaves. The party, being pragmatic (and slipping towards Evil) simply handed one of the other slaves a hatchet and said "start cutting, he's dinner!" For the next fifteen minutes the game devolved into donner party jokes and the quote from Fight Club "His name was Bob!" whenever anyone refered to the dead slave. Over the next two days of travel all but one guide (they started with 8 slaves and 2 guides) abandoned them at night and fled for safety. The party kept a close eye on the last guide as they traveled for another two weeks foraging now (since they had no food or water left at all.) After more than a month on the trail the party stopped when one morning they noticed that the jungle floor ahead of them was moving. The guide made his survival roll and began running like hell while the party (all but the halfling) followed. The halfling waited until he could clearly see what was coming, then realized that it was a literal carpet of ants coming across the jungle floor, as far as the eye could see. The halfling and the party ran until they were exhausted, but the ants still kept on coming (40' a round, inevitable and unstoppable!) They tried using oil to burn the ants back, but that proved an abortive effort as it merely slowed the ants for a round or two. After two hours of running and trying to slow the ants they chanced across a stream about 10' across and 3' deep. The party started to run into the muddy water before pausing and poking a stick into it. Pirhannas ravaged the piece of wood and the party decided to send the warforged across the river (thinking he'd take the least damage) carrying a rope so they could climb across. The cleric and the ranger tried jumping meanwhile and managed to roll so badly they fell short and ended up stuck in the mud, with the swarm of fish attacking them constantly. The cleric grabbed the ranger's leg and used his dimension step ability (from his dragonmark) to pull them to the other side after they both failed a strength check to pull out of the 2' deep mud. Then the party covered the river bank in oil and waited for the ants to come. |
| bjorntfh05-06-05, 10:43 AM | One more jungle adventure session to post, then the dungeon session, then the closure session (that'll be short) and we're up to date. Maybe if you're lucky I'll have it all up tonight. |
| Silverhorne05-06-05, 04:33 PM | I have finally caught up. What a story!! I ditto all of the praise heaped upon you by the others. :bow: |
| chimpman05-06-05, 04:39 PM | Yes, I'm still reading this as well. It's very fun and has provided me with more than a few ideas for my own campaign. Just a question about your PCs: They do seem to be a little hot headed and rash (or at least a few of them have in the past), but eating a dead slave seems a bit over the top. Have they always lent toward evil (ie. did they plan an evil party), or did they drift in that direction during play? If so what do you think caused (or is causing) their descent into darkness? |
| KP9105-06-05, 08:44 PM | Yes, I'm still reading this as well. It's very fun and has provided me with more than a few ideas for my own campaign. Just a question about your PCs: They do seem to be a little hot headed and rash (or at least a few of them have in the past), but eating a dead slave seems a bit over the top. Have they always lent toward evil (ie. did they plan an evil party), or did they drift in that direction during play? If so what do you think caused (or is causing) their descent into darkness? He mentioned they were tending toward evil. Nevermind that they are most probably insane from the last twisted adventure. |
| bjorntfh05-08-05, 07:17 PM | They're all at best neutral right now, mostly because when given the choice of the "greater good" and the "right things to do" they chose the "greater good." I.E. they chose to follow the LE slave owning tyrrany or Reidra than work for the idea of freedom and other ideals. Mostly the reason they're turning Evil is because they have no compassion. They act for the greater good regardless of who gets crushed along the way. They'll gladly murder 15 innocents to ensure that 30 have food and shelter, and often will allow other to suffer as a result of their actions without any guilt, provided they believe that their actions are for the "greater good." Mostly they're shifting towards LE and LN, as well as a couple of NE characters. I don't mind it, since it's done nothing to stop the heroic feel, instead it has made them a party of anti-heros who are working for what they see as the greatest good. Overall it works out just fine. |
| Dead Jester05-08-05, 08:03 PM | I've got to say that these things normally bore me to tears but master Bjorntfh this is rather good. Dammit, it's very good. I'm almost compelled to use smileys but I think that would be going too far. I specially like the fact that PCs who have braved the horros of alien dimensions (excuse the melodrama) flee in horror from a swarm of ants. As it should be. Keep up the good work e.t.c. e.t.c. p.s. What's with the name? Do you even pronounce it? |
| bjorntfh05-08-05, 08:09 PM | Bjorntfh is a shorthand from a warhammer 40k figure called Bjorn The Fell Handed, an ancient dreadnaught for the Space Wolves. Thanks for the support though, I'll be posting up to the current session tonight everyone, so be glad. |
| bjorntfh05-08-05, 08:27 PM | Ahhh, the ants... The ants swarmed at the river and began crossing it by simple mass of numbers. Four rounds of ants flodding into the river and it was passable for the survivors. The party torched the river and then watched in horror as the ants simply crawled into the flames and kept coming for as long as they burned, and continued to come on afterwards. When the ants managed to cross the stream at the party, all hell broke loose and they ran helter skelter into the trees. One failed spot check for the party later and they had jumped over a small gully (1' deep) and they stopped for a breather. The halfling who was trailing behind came close to catching up and had just made it over the gully when he noticed a bright note arc down from the trees towards him. He dove forward and and rolled away as the note, which turned out to be a torch, hit the gully and a wall of flames arched into the air behind them. Then the hurting started. Twenty-two feral canibal raging haflings with pointed teeth swarmed down the trees and proceded to begin mauling the party. (They were all 1st level halfling barbarians with improved unarmed attack, improved grapple and swarmfighting instead of weapon and armor proficeincies, 9 HP each when raging and a +4 grapple check, plus a +3 from swarmfighting plus the boni from multiple aid anothers. They were doing 1d3+6 per bite and they'd basically automatically hit each grapple due to numbers.) Horrible bitey pain ensued with mutch screaming and flailing on the part of the party as they tried ineffectually beating off the halflings. Then the halfling PC came up and shouted (in halfling) "I'm one of you!" They all turned to look at him, chanted something in their savage tongue, and swarmed him. The next round the sorcerer in the party (a new guy who joined at the slave camp) tossed alchemist's fire onto the grapple, sompletely disregarding that there was a PC in the center. Half a dozen flaming halflings broke off in random directions and the rest dragged the halfling up into the trees to eat. The party pondered what to do for a minute or two, then simply shrugged and began to walk off. A few seconds later the halfling managed to escape their grasp... 50 feet up in the air. One facedive later the party carried the near dead halfling off with them as they moved further into the forest. The angry halflings threw rocks and poo (literally) at them for the next two miles of their trek before breaking off. The party slept badly that night. |
| bjorntfh05-08-05, 08:51 PM | The next day the mutch injured and pained party continued their trek. The next four days went slowly (due to the injured) but were managable. The fifth day though gave them a start. They came across a menhir in the middle of a clearing with a kobold skeleton tied to it. After closer examination they found that the body had had its heart ripped out almost as a sacrifice. This put them all at disease as they moved ever onwards. That afternoon they noticed that there were no animals in the jungle around them, no more birds, no insects, nothing. The area eminated a palpable sense of menace as they moved closer to their goal. When the halfling tried using detect magic he noticed sparks everywhere, little blips of magic in the ground and even in the trees. When the party investigated the spots they began finding shards of rusted iron and dragon bone, old petrified dragon bones. The day was spent gathering more of them for examination as were the next four days. They got ever closer to their destination and they were more overcome with a feeling of danger and something angry waiting for them. As they neared their target they came across a 300' long section of flattened land where no trees would grow and the trees before it all had their roots bent as if something had shifted them long ago. More of the iron was found, only thing time in huge plates, 10' to a side and 3" thick. The party slowed their travel greatly due to the now overwhelming sense of anger and hate pounding into their heads. No one was able to sleep at all, and the nights were filled with ghastly visions of flames and destruction that dragged them screaming from their beds. They carried on and eventually came across a long hill with ridges to either side two days later. As they investigated the hill they saw a figure come out of a small hole on the top of the hill waving what appeared to be a pipe and cheering. I'll post the actual dungeon area next. |
| bjorntfh05-08-05, 09:33 PM | So there they are all paniced and ready for any attack when a very short kobold wearing rags and something haging from his neck while waving a bent rusty pipe. He was waving and chanting happily as the party looked on in confusion. He kept pointing at the warforged and saying "Rullah rallah!" I"ll leave it at that tonight, since I've got a final in 9 hours. Take care all! |
| Altaris05-09-05, 02:02 PM | Coolness man, coolness! I loved the canibal haflings (they're one of my favorite aspects of Darksun.) :D Its really too bad that the halfling PC survived. It doesn't surprise me at all that the party was willing to leave him behind. |
| Dryder05-10-05, 08:34 AM | Do we get more of this story... ? :drool: |
| bjorntfh05-10-05, 02:16 PM | Here's a little update today, as it is I'll be finishing finals all this week and all next week I'm working first shift (I normally work second shift, so this is a real pain.) |
| bjorntfh05-17-05, 09:19 AM | Okay, tomorrow night I'll post the rest of the game progress so far. General overview: the party went through a dungeon, storyline history was discovered, the party initiated the death of the world if they don't intervene, the party joined the Reidran government, they went back to Sharn to research a way to stop the previous doom they'd initiated, they took a trip to Korth, they blew up the lightning rail, they were horribly maimed and many (many many many) innocent people died as a result of their actions. Sorry to be so quiet, I'm at the end of my senior year and finishing my thesis. As a result I've got 0 to nil time free to do anythign but work (40 hours a week) and finish my last class. As of next week I'll be free (FREE!) so I can update on Sundays then. |
| bjorntfh05-19-05, 09:27 AM | Okay, just because I'm at work doesn't mean I shouldn't post you something... After all I've got too many people waiting to postpone for much longer. We last left off with the party having a strange kobold running at them waving. The general response was (ironically enough) to stand there and wait, more confused than threatened. The kobold spoke in broken draconic, thus a couple of the party could understand as he pointed at the warforged and said "Rullah Rallah is back!" The "interrogation" began then, question after question being answered in a completely straightforward way by someone who barely spoke a language, thus giving little to no information. Some examples (it went of for nearly an hour, I'll save you the pain) include "What is Rullah Rallah?" "(pointing at warforged) Rullah Rallah." "Who are you?" "Mik Mik." "What is that around your neck?" "(he was wearing a warforged hand like an amulet) Rullah Rallah. (nodding sagely)" "What is this place?" "Home of God." "Who is God?" "God is big. (more nodding)" After literally an hour of these sort of answers the party got tired and set up camp on the main hill. Mik Mik followed them and watched from his "home," a hole in the top of the hill with an iron plate for a floor. The party began searching the site for things of interest and other than a cave in a small hill in front of the main one (about 75' away) and a number of syberis shards there wasn't anything they could find, besides that the crystal they were looking for was inside the hill. They decided to try interrogating Mik Mik again (they had realized that he wasn't being unhelpful, he just was literally as dumb as a brick and didn't understand half of their language.) He finally explained that they could go in to see God by entering the cave, and that God has "chosen" the halfling to be the one to proved that they were going to help God and serve him. Thus the halfling was unceremoniously thrown into the cave. A cave he quickly found out was full of rusty saw blades, spines and other things of pain and death. One barely made reflex save later the halfling (now at half HP and infected with tetanus) made his way down the tube of pain (75' long) and into a small room with two rused over crushing plates on either side of the room and a caved in section leading upwards at the end. The entire area was made of rusted iron similar to the kind they had found everywhere and when he tried using detect magic he was instantly blinded by the magical aura. Now I have to get back to work. I'll try to post some more tonight for you guys, sorry it's taking so long. |
| bjorntfh05-23-05, 02:31 PM | Anyone still reading? I've got tomorrow off from work so I'll be posting lots of stuff then, hope there's someone still reading this... Otherwise I'm just speaking to the audient void. (Ten points and a cameo for whoever knows the reference.) |
| Taurren05-23-05, 02:52 PM | Still reading and enjoying. |
| bjorntfh05-23-05, 03:30 PM | Ok, thanks, tomorrow I'll post the stuff then! |
| Ohtar Turinson05-23-05, 03:31 PM | Otherwise I'm just speaking to the audient void. H.P. Lovecraft, no? |
| KP9105-23-05, 03:44 PM | We all read this great work. |
| bjorntfh05-23-05, 08:55 PM | Yes, but where is the important part Ohtar. |
| Whakapapa05-24-05, 11:58 AM | still reading, and still waiting for that collection of the first adventure with the Quori and the weird alternate realm :D |
| Ohtar Turinson05-24-05, 04:39 PM | Alright, I found the exact reference. Been a while since I read any Lovecraft... "Nyarlathotep ... the crawling chaos ... I am the last ... I will tell the audient void..." -from the short story "Nyarlathotep." |
| DoveArrow05-24-05, 05:25 PM | I just have to say that most posts about the games people are running bore me to tears, but this one has generated a lot of ideas for my own game. In particular, I am very impressed with the amount of intrigue and roleplay opportunities available to your players in this setting of gothic horror you've created. The only thing that I would recommend is that you consider making the puppeteers creations of the daelkyr rather than quori spirits, especially since their purpose is to spread madness and fear. That may not work for your game, but honestly, if you want a setting that feels like CoC, it seems to me to make more sense. Good luck with your game and please keep us posted on the game's development. |
| bjorntfh05-24-05, 09:22 PM | Okay, here we go with the continued recaps and the pain... oh the pain! Oh and Ohtar, you're right. I'll cameo you in sometime either this game coming up or the next one. And, as a fun note, on Saturday we lost our second PC to death! (The first was abandoned, you'll see soon enough.) The poor halfling... NOT! He was stuck at the end of a hall of pain with rusted over and filled with broken metal and crystal. At the end of the room was a hole in the ceiling at the top of a pile of dangerous looking debris, and, lo and behold, he decided to climb it! It took him four rounds to climb 15' (he didn't have any ranks in climb for some reason) and it cost him about 8 HP as well as he kept sliding down the broken metal wreckage. (Personally, I don't know what makes PCs with climb as a class skill not drop at least 1 point into it...) At the top of the werckage was a long 5' wide metal corridor that went off into darkness (the PC had a lightstone that gave out light to 10’, shadows to 20’.) He moved on down about 15’ before he came to a larger room 15’ wide by 20’ long with a small alcove at the end. As he walked forwards he felt the metal plating under his feet shift slightly and managed to jump back as one of the 5’ square floor plates dropped down into the room below, the room with the rusted over crushers. From the broken hole he could see shattered pipes leaking a thick slivery liquid for a few seconds, then the liquid stopped and boiled off into the air. A short jump later and he was across the pit and found himself at a rusty ladder. Upon climbing it he discovered that nearly half the rungs broke off when he put weight on them, this led to another fifteen minute struggle to get up to the next floor. On that floor he found a faint blinking light coming from the wall and upon examination found a panel with hundreds of crystal fuses in it, all but one broken or inactive. He began randomly plucking the old fuses out with his dagger more out of boredom than anything else. After removing all the dead circuits he tried to remove the live one, only to get thoroughly zapped and decide to stop poking that. More exploration of the area led to him discovering a pair of sealed metal doors at one end of the hallway and two benches along one wall. The rest of the hallway was the same unmarked rusted iron. He searched for hours to find a rusted over drawer in one of the benches and dug out a handful of still working fuses (13) which he took with him while trying to get the doors to open. After much searching he found a panel next to the doors that he could pry open (although that also took him a long time to do.) By now hours had passed and he was getting tired, as well as hungry and thirsty. With enough food and water to last one day he dug around behind the panel until he found a socket for one of the fuses, which he promptly placed a fuse into. Nothing happened. He then went back to the main panel and began inserting good fuses into it randomly until he found ones that lit. The panel had 600 slots and I was randomly determining which one were active, so it took him half an hour to go through nearly a quarter of the slots and find ten working ones when suddenly the doors clicked loudly and with a grinding of rusty metal opened up revealing a 10’ by 10’ room. Meanwhile back at the ranch... |
| bjorntfh05-24-05, 09:24 PM | Okay, computer lab closes in 20 minutes so I"ll just post the rest tomorrow, sorry for teh random updates, I'm trying to get my life organized... transmission died yesterday for my GF's car (we share it to save ong as) so I'm more than a little frazzled. I'll be around to post tomorrow though. |
| Xerex Zendo05-27-05, 09:44 PM | Make them fight doorforged next! =P wut the heck is a doorforged? goes off in thought: half door+half warforged= a doorforged "OOOOoo i get it now!!!" :D |
| bjorntfh05-27-05, 09:56 PM | Actually, no. A Doorforged is a reference to one of my earlier comments in another thread on the Forgotten Forge about how the most valuable things in the entire adventure are the doors to the forge. The doors have a 1/2 inch of adamantine on them, which roughly translates out the 1.5 cubic feet of adamantine (which is worth a LOT of money.) Have it made into weapons and other things and you've got more money than any party could reasonably use ever. The refernce to Doorforged came from that thread, and Siduakal refered back to it in this thread that I was running. I'll be posting more stuff Monday or Tuesday when I've got time, work called me in (I'm on call constantly, so I don't get much free time... *sighs*.) You'll see the horror and wreckage that the party unleashes on the world through blundering and fiddling! |
| Puppy05-31-05, 09:40 PM | Hi bjorntfh. I've been following this thread for some while and I really enjoy it. I thought I'd just give you a tip on how to creep your players out even moore (if that's even possible). I've read through a Call of Cthulhu book called Delta Green: Countdown, and at one point in the book I found some stuff which might be just up your alley. A chapter in the book deals with the Hastur Mythos, and it gives these incredibly good points on how to freak out your players. It may sound strange, this being a CoC modern setting, but the elements of said chapter could very easily be adapted to the Quori. Check it out, you will NOT regret it. |
| bjorntfh06-02-05, 11:47 AM | Will do, sorry for no updates recently, I'm sicker than a corpse right now. Had to miss last game, came down with a horrible lung infection. That's the breaks from working at a hospital. I'll post as soon as I get back the ability to breathe. |
| Warchicken06-02-05, 01:53 PM | Incredible story so far. I just started reading it yesterday and just only finished it (only a couple of times a day at work to read it and KOTOR II takes up the rest of the time). I just hope that my DM doesn't read this, it sounds like something that he would do. I hope that you're feeling better. Can't wait for the next part of the story. |
| Altaris06-02-05, 02:24 PM | That suxxorz much Bjorn! I've not been posting much, but I'm still reading and enjoying. |
| bjorntfh06-02-05, 03:06 PM | I"m glad people are enjoying the stuff, my life has been throwing me lots of "diversions" to say the least. OTOH, I'm getting healthier slowly but surely. |
| KP9106-04-05, 11:22 AM | That's the breaks from working at a hospital. So this is where the ideas for your campaign come from? :yuck: |
| bjorntfh06-10-05, 06:45 PM | Back at the ranch the party settled down for a rest and searched the area. They located a large number of syberis shards as well as a small grave adorned with metal pipes. After questioning Mik-Mik again he offered them a meal in the form of Goodberries wrapped in quintessence and explained about how "God is big! God is powerful. Rullah Rallah!" Again the Party gave up on Mik-Mik and instead focused their searches on the area. After about eight hours they noticed that the small hill in front of the main one (think of it like an upside down T with ridges coming from the center and a small hill at the end of the long forward section as well as a large one at the center) had what appeared to be a large dull gray oval of crystal the size of a beach ball. As the cleared it off a single red dot appeared in the center of the oval and then the entire oval lit up with a dull red glow. Now I've got to get back to work. I'll post more Sunday night or Monday morning, I'm getting better, fortunately. |
| Aris Stormdragon06-17-05, 04:16 AM | I stand in awe of your evil genius. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of your campaign story. The Pain :banghead: The Horror :gah: The Possibilities :plotting: :evillaugh Best.Thread.Evar. |
| bjorntfh06-27-05, 06:55 PM | Okay, sorry all, I've been away at Port Con (Yeah, what kind of geek doesn't let conventions get in the way of everything?) I'm posting right now. Oh, and I must say... Con Girls ROCK! ESPECIALLY two of them. *Sighs happily.* Oh, and my lungs are finally better, after two hospital trips. |
| bjorntfh06-27-05, 07:12 PM | Okay, so the party had just seen the orb light up on the hillock and rapidly came to the conclusion that "That's an eye..." At this point things began to spread to panic. The PCs began literally screaming at Mik Mik about what "God" was and Mik Mik told them to ask Rullah Rallah. The party got even more confused before Mik Mik led them to a small shrine off to the side, nearly in the jungle completely, with the upper half of a warforged in it. The body was badly mangled and one hand was missing (the one Mik Mik was wearing) and they had the Cleric begin praying for Speak with Dead (I made him burn an action point to trade out the spell.) Meanwhile the Changling was given some food and water and told to mask himself as a halfling and go in after the halfing. After much pain of sliding down the jagged tunnel he made it in. During that time the halfling had figured out how to get the internal elevator working and had gone up one floor, only to find the door sealed. He went up another floor and found a long room with tubes with dull clear crystals in them along the wall. He searched the room and after digging through a collapsed rack found one crystal that glowed faintly with yellow light. He promptly took it to one of the tubes, levered out the old crystal, and jammed the new one in past the rust and bent frame. Then he did what I thought of as the stupidest thing EVER. He couldent figure out how to get it working so he simply fiddled with it and used UMD to activate it blindly. He rolled a total of a 30... Outside simultaneously the jungle for a stretch of about 400' wide and two miles long straight from the mouth of the entry cave disintegrated as foot long shards of glowing crystal sprayed out for thirty seconds. The party outside (who weren't near the area of effect) ran screaming for cover. |
| bjorntfh06-27-05, 07:14 PM | I've got all of tomorrow off and provided Jen and Jen (my GF and out Con girl we took home) don't occupy my entire morning and day I'll post how the God started to wake up. As it is... Please tell me if any male out there can fault me for find this slightly (just a little bit) more occupying of my attention. |
| Solarious06-27-05, 07:24 PM | Don't worry B. I blame you. :plotting: |
| Aris Stormdragon06-27-05, 08:33 PM | @bjorntfh: You da man! Take that as you will. ;) |
| bjorntfh06-27-05, 09:00 PM | Thanks! I'll take it for the automatic male congratulations... although I will say this: it's a lot more work than it seems like it would be... But the rewards are SOOOO worth it. :w00t: |
| Aris Stormdragon06-28-05, 01:49 AM | :invasion: :bounce: :invasion: I'll say it again: You, sir, are The Man! Oh, and I think that we should speak no more on this matter, lest the All-Powerful Moderators decide it's gone too far :D |
| bjorntfh06-30-05, 11:44 AM | Yay! I can walk again! Jen went home on Tuesday/Wednesday (semantics really) and I worked last night, so I'll post lots of stuff today, I'll be online till about 4. |
| KP9107-08-05, 10:09 PM | The madness must live! :evillaugh :bump: |
| bjorntfh07-10-05, 05:24 PM | I have tomorrow off, two of the managers from work and one coworked quit and, being one of the few people who actually understand the Pyxis System (automated narcotic storage system for hospitals) I've been doing WAY too many shifts. I had to miss this week's game because of work... I've got tomorrow off, I'll try to post more then, it all depends on if the computer lab at school is open. Short filler though: the party spent the next few hours hiding and cowering while the two unfortunates scrambled around and got very lost inside "God." I'll restart the recap from where they started doing things that mattered, as opposed to the full session we spent having the PCs fumble around and nearly starve. |
| Thomar_of_Uointer07-11-05, 05:28 PM | Nice stuff. So, where do you get your ideas (besides the obvious ones)? |
| bjorntfh07-12-05, 06:44 PM | Mostly it comes from being an insomniac and reading WAY too much Lovecraft. Oh, and horror movies. That and being mildy insane..... Lots of things, I just pull them out of my head and run them. I'm at work now, but I've got 5 minutes so I'll type something up. After another day or so hiding and/or starving the party regrouped outside "God" while the people inside fiddled and tried to find a way out. After twelve hours of searching they found a small tube (2' diameter) that led further back into the hill. So the halfling and the changeling explored until they found a large room filled with broken metal and strange boxes. The boxes were bolted to the walls and had a circular "hatch" on the front. More searching and moving of junk ensued and until they found a metal button on the wall. The changling promptly hit it, listened to the whirring clicks and moving sounds from all the boxes. Outside the party was led by Mik-Mik to a small shrine where Mik-Mik explained that Rullah Rallah was. Inside the shrine they found the upper half of a severly damaged warforged, missing one hand (which Mik-Mik was wearing as an amulet.) The party waited for eight hours so the cleric could memorize Speak with Dead and then proceded to interrogate the corpse. They got a long "message" from it consisting of (I'm giving a general recap of it, I don't have it written down, the PCs do. I ad Libed the whole message.) "This is pilot 8371 in God-Engine Four. Sever damage taken to left wing. Power failing. Altitude dropping. Generators 1,2,3,5,6,8,9,11,12 down. Impact iminent. Initiating override. Overide Access Code: Rullah Rallah Rillah Tirah *statick cuts off the rest of the message.)" Further questioning led only to a loop of that conversation. At that point the party realized how bad their situation was and all looked over to the glowing eye on the hillside, realized that it was still watching them and decided to start digging it out to get access to the pilot's chamber. I'll leave you at that. And NO I am not giving out the stats on the God-Engine. Think of it as a warforged dragon that can easily kill elder wyrms. The one the party was digging up took down 17 elder wyrms before being disable... not killed, just disabled. Oh, and that button the changling pressed... it was the auto repair sequence. I'm sorry I'm so spotty on updates... I work 5 days a week with a highly variable schedule and don't have net at home. I'll try and post more while I'm at work tomorrow, but at worst I should be able to do something on Sunday (provided the two females aren't stil over, my GF and I are having Jen over again for the weekend.) |
| KP9107-12-05, 10:57 PM | Why does it speak common. And why is it called God-Engine, and if it's repairing then why won't you stat it. |
| KP9107-12-05, 10:57 PM | Nice stuff. So, where do you get your ideas (besides the obvious ones)? Look above, Bjornth said he works in a hospital. |
| bjorntfh07-12-05, 11:02 PM | It doesn't speak common. The pilot spoke ancient Giant and they had to use comprehend languages to understand it. The God-Engine hasn't spoken yet. It understands giant, draconic and its own language (which is spoken only by it and the other 4 Engines.) I won't stat it YET because they're on a quest to go get something to kill it. At about level 17 or 18 I'll let them go and fight one of the functional ones. |
| KP9107-13-05, 03:30 PM | What color were these wurms and did they have classlevels? Because I really don't think a 17th level party could stop him unless thats a really good item they are going to get. |
| bjorntfh07-13-05, 06:43 PM | They're working on getting the override codes slowly but surely. So far they've got 6 of 7 codes, but they don't know the order yet besides a few pairs. It's a long set of puzzles. With the codes they can focably shut down the armaments and fight it on physical terms (which will still be a VERY painful fight.) If they get the codes and go to teh effort of researching and finding the information on how to manually override the entire system, then they can disable it without a fight. The question is going to come down to how well do they prepare rather than how much can they blast randomly. The God-Engines are more Deus Ex Machina (literally) than a normal opponent to fight. |
| KP9107-18-05, 03:22 PM | When are we going to learn of the adventuring to get these codes. I have to admit, these waits seem to get longer and longer. I would think that these gods could figure out if they are being shut down. So maybe you should have one party member enter the codes while the others hold him off. |
| edventure07-19-05, 10:54 AM | Actually, no. A Doorforged is a reference to one of my earlier comments in another thread on the Forgotten Forge about how the most valuable things in the entire adventure are the doors to the forge. The doors have a 1/2 inch of adamantine on them, which roughly translates out the 1.5 cubic feet of adamantine (which is worth a LOT of money.) Have it made into weapons and other things and you've got more money than any party could reasonably use ever. The refernce to Doorforged came from that thread, and Siduakal refered back to it in this thread that I was running. Do you have a link to the thread you are referring to? I looked around with no success and search is AWOL again. I'm in the middle of running the module and it might be helpful. I wouldn't put it past my group to try and take the doors. On the topic of this thread, well done. Consider it yoinked! :ayyyy!: |
| bjorntfh07-19-05, 05:43 PM | Okay, here's what I can froth forth while at work today, I'll try to get to the lab tomorrow and put up some more. My biggest problem is that I don't have net at home (or even a ground line for a phone, or TV) so I only get net access when I'm at school or work. Since school is out for the summer it makes my access to the internet much harder to maintain. OTOH, come the end of August I'll be online every single day (since I'll have general computer access again.) I really hate being so behind, but I'm working a lot over the summer and I've been getting less and less slack time to fiddle online and write stuff. Stupid management (we lost 2/3 upper managers over a period of 2 weeks this month.) Here we go: those outside began digging into the smaller hill where "God's" mouth was and spent most of the morning working until they finally located an iron door in the hill, soon followed by the half caved in pilot's chamber. Inside was a large array of crystals and wires, all broken or inoperable, and a chair with a row of spiked running down where the spine would be if you sat in it. A quick trip back to the dead warforged confirmed a series of holes in its back in similar locations. They then went back to Mik-Mik and asked him if there was any other way into "God," another no, until one of the PCs asked "If there's no other way into "God" how do you get out after going in?" Mik-Mik smiled and said "Oh, the exit's over there!" and pointed to the other end of the hill. The players then threw empty soda bottles at me for that... it was worth it. The Monk decidedto climb in the "exit" while ther est of the party began digging into the side of the hill to make a larger entrance. Meanwhile the two people inside managed to, while exploring, pull up a floor plate and open ine of the large pipes under the floor. Then they got really stupid and tried diving into the silvery liquid, assuming that, hey, we can both swim! Thus they were sealed in Quintessence and frozen in time while everyone else explored and worked. |
| Soloran07-21-05, 03:07 AM | You have just acquired a new fan. |
| edventure07-21-05, 09:21 AM | I have a question about Quintessence. The two characters dove into the Quintessence and became frozen it time. Ok, I can understand that based on your description. How it it that the market is covered in it yet inside you can function normally? If the produce isn't aging because time isn't passing, doesn't that mean the PC's should be frozen there too? I know exactly what my players would do if I led them to a Quintessence building. Set up shop and start cranking out items until they ran out of XP for their current level. Thanks |
| bjorntfh07-21-05, 09:29 AM | The reason the markets don't freeze you is that the quintessence is in a thin psionically treated layer (like a bubble if you will) rather than a thick pipe full of it. Mind you if they've got the gold and just need time, there's no reason not to let them take advantage of their feats. Ok, I'll be typing stuff today, I've got the morning off and access to the internet for once. |
| bjorntfh07-21-05, 09:51 AM | Okay, so the party (sans timestream-lacking members) dug into the hillside until they managed to find a hole in the "God's" side. This took two days, during which the monk got tired of trying to squeeze down a tube designed so that a kobold would have a hard time traversing it and helped out at the dig. Once they had a new entrance into "God's" interior they began exploring using lightstones to find their way through the dark. As they moved through large empty bays and corridors they hear an omnipresent clicking sound following them from inside the walls. After half an hour they noticed a pale green light coming from a side room and decided to investigate in the most logial manner: charge screaming into the room. Inside the room was another of the circut boards, only this one was now half lit and more circuts were clicking on as they watched, maybe one every two minutes. The party, no very worried about this thing turning on on them decided to bugger out as soon as they found the crystal they had been sent for. Ten more minutes of searching led them to a room with a sealed door that lasted all of five rounds before the party knocked it off its hinges. Inside they found three large crystals in complex metal frames, two cracked and dull gray, one glowing slightly blue and with what looked like some shape shifting inside it. The party quickly slapped three of the teleportation rings onto the crystal and moved back into the main room as they heard a loud cracking sound. Thick slivery liquid (quintessence) began flooding down from a broken panel in the ceiling as the halfling and the changling dropped into the room. The party upon realizing that the area was flooding with this stuff grabbed the two, pulled them out enough to get them to hold one of the rings and activated the lot of them. Teleportation ensued. Although... it was supposed to go to Reidra... it didn't. |
| bjorntfh07-25-05, 06:23 PM | I've got ten minutes to type up some more stuff, so here I go... The party teleported from the middle of the jungles onto... a beach. Nothing but a medium sized island and the ocean expanding out endlessly in all directions. (I'd rolled a 00 on a d100 to see location when they got hit with divert teleport as they tried to leave. End result: middle of nowhere!) They began spreading out and looking for inhabitants, or at least shelter, and dragging the crystal up out of the shallow water. Ten hours of searching ensued as the party combed the island and found literally nothing but trees (palms and coconut) and a large (100' high) dormant peak at the west end of the island. Relying on the cleric for food and water at first the party spent five days building a crude set of shelters (since they only had 2 tents between them, having lost a lot of gear when they paniced and teleported out helter skelter) and fishing for supplies. Then they got down to the long and slow work of getting into contact with the Quori and/or the Reidrans to get teleported back to their proper location. Fifteen days pass before the party's efforts were rewarded by the psion getting mental contact with his Lord and being informed that a scrying search was being made for them. Ten more days passed. During this time the halfling (who had failed his fort save in the "God" when getting lots of rusty wounds) took ill with tetnus and got more and more hostile to the party when the cleric couldn't heal him right away (no spell prepared) and then refused to prepare it when he started threatening to kill him if he didn't heal him right now. After a week he had lockjaw and couldn't speak, nor really feed himself well, before the cleric finally healed him. After that point the party found a small iron disk about 12" in diameter in the middle of the beach one morning. That night the psion was contacted by the Quori again and told to wait within 10' of where the disk landed at dawn with the crystal to be recalled back to Reidra. The psion then told everyone BUT the halfling, and the whole party decided not to tell him themselves, and come dawn everyone but the halfling was recalled to Reidra. The halfling is now an NPC that will come back later to harass the party. In Reidra the PCs were given a choice for a reward: 5000 GP each and transport back to Sharn, or a position in the government as a minor house that they could name. The PCs chose to become Reidran nobles and work for the LE dictatorship... and named the house Mik-Mik. I laughed for nearly an hour. |
| bjorntfh07-25-05, 06:25 PM | I'll see if I can get some free time for more today, but probably not. Tomorrow I'll get another little while free and definately Wednesday as well. I'm trying to catch up as fast as I can... stupid summer. |
| KP9107-25-05, 07:20 PM | So that god is going to come to life and kill the world now, right? |
| bjorntfh07-25-05, 08:10 PM | Oh, well, probably yes? As it is they activated the self repair systems then booked it. The only upside so far is that it's running on 1 power crystal out of 12 normal so unless it gets someone else to replace them (it can't fix them, once they're broken they're gone) it's stuck there for a while. Maybe indefinately. The real problem is that there are 5 total of the things (wel, technically 2 fully functional ones and 1 other crippled one, but there were 5 initially.) Any other questions about the Impending Doom TM? |
| alecthemad07-26-05, 12:31 AM | If they try to rescue her by say pulling her through the mirror (which could be done, albeit with difficulty) they find that she has been chained to the floor by a pair of chains that are attached to where he legs would be, except that they've been removed and simply capped over. Pulling her through will leave the chains in the mirror, opening a doorway for the things to get through to try to physically drag the PCs into their own realm. Gotta love traps like that, cruelty plus just enough twisted creativity to make people wince. Geez, I am all creeped out just by this one image. I am going to bed. |
| Thomar_of_Uointer07-26-05, 12:51 AM | Dragon Mechas of doom is probably the most creative use of an eldritch machine I've seen. |
| bjorntfh07-26-05, 02:43 PM | Thanks! The machines are a set of 5, and I'm wondering how the PCs will either deal with them, or simply take out the one they've found and ignore the rest. |
| Thomar_of_Uointer07-26-05, 05:36 PM | Wow. I just saw the Next War here... Okay, two dragon-mechas wake up and start rampaging through the Five Nations. Sharn gets leveled and all that. Then, a member of House Cannith figures out that the dragon-mechas are very similar to Warforged, and starts an expedition in Xen'Drik to find a creation forge. And he finds one. And brings it back. And starts cranking out dragon-mechas under control of House Cannith at a rate of about 1/week. I think you'll be carrying this campaign out to epic levels quite easily. |
| bjorntfh07-26-05, 06:06 PM | As it is... the mechs aren't easily recreatable. And the party works for Reidra and the Quori... so who do you think will be making these things if that does happen? Can you say major war between the Reidrans and the Khorvarians? |
| KP9107-26-05, 08:58 PM | Wow. I just saw the Next War here... Okay, two dragon-mechas wake up and start rampaging through the Five Nations. Sharn gets leveled and all that. Then, a member of House Cannith figures out that the dragon-mechas are very similar to Warforged, and starts an expedition in Xen'Drik to find a creation forge. And he finds one. And brings it back. And starts cranking out dragon-mechas under control of House Cannith at a rate of about 1/week. I think you'll be carrying this campaign out to epic levels quite easily. Makes me think of a show, can you guess which? :cookie: to whoever gets it. |
| KP9107-30-05, 05:05 PM | Who are the current players anyway? Race/Class/Level wise? If you want you can write up the stats? Also when do we get an update? |
| bjorntfh07-30-05, 08:34 PM | The answer is Eva, or Neon Genesis Evangelion. The party consists of (everyone is level 9) a Human Monk/ Tattoo'd Monk, a Cleric, a Warforged Barbarian/Bear Warrior (Transformers!), a Shifter Ranger/Weretouched Master (Tiger), a Human Psion (Nomad)/Elocator. Right now the Party is gaining a Psion (Telepath) Thrallherd and just last adventure lost the Warforged Sohei and the Human Warlock. Both those characters entered Reidra without permission and tried to resist the secret police when confronted... thus two less PCs. (The players had to miss multiple sessions, like 4 or 5, and they ok'd the removal.) [Total deaths so far: 4, Halfling; abandoned, Changling rogue; drowned when paralyzed in a pool of eggs and breeding spawn from a giant aberration, The warlock and Sohei were taken out by the Reidran government.] I'll try to update on Monday, I've got the game tomorrow (it moved to Sundays) and I've got an entire week of vacation! Woot! I ought to be able to put lots of stuff out over that time. After being accepted into the Reidran nobility and given land (which they then started to have built up as a base of operations) they returned to Sharn as traveling Reidran nobles who were on business to pay off Lost and Found (remeber their original jobs? They didn't.) for their "services" to Reidra. This obvious and flagrant presence in the city resulted in the Atavists hunting them and the ensuing riots (3 of them) killed nearly a hundred civilians. they then proceded to hit the lightning rails to evade their hunters. During this time they tried to make contact with Lost and Found and were solidly rebuffed as "enemies of the state." |
| KP9107-30-05, 09:46 PM | :cookie: Cookie for you, but I'm taking a bite first. |
| bjorntfh08-06-05, 07:52 PM | Finally! Net access! I post now! |
| bjorntfh08-06-05, 08:22 PM | So the party climbs aboard the lightning rail in Sharn heading towards Karnath (having been given one piece of information from L&F in exchange for leaving the city: in the libraries in Karnath there might be more information on the God Engines. The group got onto the train, paid for first class tickets and then proceded to ignore most of the other passengers (and failed fifteen spot checks over two days of travel) until at lunch of the third day the party, as a whole, failed their spot checks. At that point the Atavists who had been trailing the PCs began their ambush. Surprise round: (6 Atavists, 2 Psions, 2 Soulknives, 2 Psycic warriors, all level 4, the party was level 7 at this point) Psycic warriors used Call Weapon to summon greatswords, Soulknives created mindblades, Psions hit the shifter ranger and the warforged barbarian with entangling ectoplasm and stuck them to the walls. Then combat began. In a crowded dinining car with 5 non-combatants 7 PCs tried to fight with 6 enemies who used disabling and/or slowing powers on the party. The Soulknives TWF'd the Psycic Warriors used Power Atttack and the party managed to fail 5 saves vs Deja Vu! It was a beautiful... Suffice to say the party had lots of fun, nearly 3 PCs died when the barbarian (who'd freed himself from the ectoplasm) finally went down to 2 to 1 odds (both soulknives went after him.) The pitched battle ended up lasting 27 rounds (nearly 3 minutes!) and only ended when the party forced back or killed all but one of the Atavists, capturing one. Highlights of the battle: the sorcerer was blown through the wooden wall of the car by an energy push and thrown from the train, the warforged managed to take down a soulknife by using his slam attack and criting him, the monk used a Bead of Force (one of 2 the party had as group treasure from the last adventure) to capture one of the psy Warriros, and the shifter threw a table at one of the psions to pin him for long enough for the party to reform their defense after the barb went down. So the party has this fanatic Kalashtar in a bubble of force and are all waiting for the 10 minutes to pass to interrogate him when the monk notices that he is holding something in his hand. The changeling roguesearched the dead soulknife (the only one they killed outright, the rest were dropped to negatives and dragged off by their allies) and found a strange crystal the size of a soda can. He pointed it out to the party and the ranger (who has a huge spot bonus) noticed that the guy in the bubble had a similar item in his hand and seemed to be meditating. Party assumption: it's some kind of communicator. |
| Solarious08-06-05, 08:33 PM | You know what? I absolutely love the fact that they started off as heroes, but are now villians of the highest orders. And now are being ambushed by Atavists at every turn. Beautiful. :weep: I never so happily encouraged and anticipated a TPK. I will certainly anticipate more Kalashtar attacks in the future. :devil: Perhaps more successful. :smirk: |
| bjorntfh08-06-05, 08:43 PM | So the party heals up, waits for the bubble to go down with readied actions tog rapple the guy as he becomes a target. Bubble goes down... world blows up. The crystal was actually an item the manifested Energy Burst once at 15th manifester level doing sonic damage. Party proceeds to make reflex saves... monk taking no damage, everyone else taking pain. Then everyone had to make a DC 35 reflex save... only the monk made it, and even then only because he rolled a nat 20 on the save. The save was to determine what happened to the PCs as the train detonated and broke apart under the sudden explosion. When the broken remains of the train finally slid to a halt the only PCs who weren't pinned under wreckage were the Monk (who dove out the window with his miraculous save) the sorcerer (who had a 6 mile hike to even catch up with the train) and the warforged who made his DC 25 strength check with no problems by simply raging and hoisting the section of roof pinning him to the ground off of himself. Every other PC was in the negatives (they spent action points to stabalize themselves) and trapped. Under the combined effort of the Monk and the warforged most of the PCs were able to be extradated from the wreckage except for the warlock (the halfling player's new PC) and the Psion who were pinned in the sleeper car (the psion) and under the frame of an entire car (the warlock, he rolled a 1 on his save.) I'll try and post more soon, probably tomorrow night since I'm working again, and just so you know, you're now only one, maybe one and a half, adventures behind the party right now. We've changed some players, but many of the core are still there, the monk, barb, psion, cleric, and ranger are all still kicking. Or twitching. |
| bjorntfh08-06-05, 08:48 PM | Right now the PCs are ALL Evil, work willingly for the equivalent of the Nazi Party (the Reidrans) and are loving it. The other party (I am DMing with another DM in the same world, different parties, but each one affects the world at the same time) is made up of noir heros and good guys, I've got the villians and they're steadily working towards a major interaction. Within the next month or two Reidra will invade the Lahazar Principalities and the party is right now working on destabalizing the region to prevent organized resistance. He's set up the end of the treaty of thronehold by Karnathi rebels and the resulting war is what forces the Reidrans to "intervene" to "restore and enforce peace." |
| Thomar_of_Uointer08-06-05, 09:19 PM | So, are the two parties going to face off or fight together? |
| bjorntfh08-06-05, 09:24 PM | I'm betting that they're going to face off multiple times, since they're at major cross purposes: my party wants to subjugate and annex Khorvaire and the other people want to improve it and protect it from war. |
| Solarious08-07-05, 09:04 PM | The biggest problem will be getting both groups together at the same time for a session to beat each other down. I, however, look forward to hearing what happens when that finally happens... ;) Any hope of a brief description as to what the mirror party is doing? :D |
| bjorntfh08-07-05, 09:29 PM | Well, the other group plays on Saturdays at the same place (we play out of a gaming store) so it's not too hard to organize a meeting. I'm really unsure about the other group's activities, I haven't been paying any real attention to them beyond what the GM and I compile together. |
| bjorntfh08-13-05, 05:03 PM | Hi all, I'm at work right now, but I'm stuck pulling a double so I'll be here till 7 AM. I'll post some stuff now and probably again between midnight and 7 AM... I don't want to be at work, but you know how it goes. Sorry to be so incommunicado, life is being the usual mix of random fun and pain. On the upside I was given a free car this week! I am quite happy about that. |
| bjorntfh08-13-05, 05:44 PM | So the party managed to drag the PCs and all 3 surviving NPCs out of the wreckage except for the Psion and the Warlock. The psion (once he came to) quickly simply used Dimension Swap (he's a nomad) to switch himself and one of the dead people outside the car, thus allowing teh party to heal him up. The warlock however was very solidly pinned and had (I houseruled that broken body parts healed at 25 HP each in addition to the normal damage) broken all his limbs and his ribcage. The only reason he was still alive was a near constant (3/hour) application of healing spells from the cleric. It took them 5 hours to lift the car about 2 inches so they could slide him out, and then it took another three days of healing to get eveyone up and in generally walking condition. The sorcerer was also among the unlucky damaged people as when they were freeing up one of the cars I rolled a 00 on a d100 and had him make a reflex save, which he promptly botched. A Conductor stone that had been pressed against another one by the crash (remember, they rocket away from each other if forced too close) whipped out from the rubble and caught him in the chest. He dropped and also required serious aid over the next days. Total party brakages: 8 limbs, 2 heads, and 3 ribcages. The changling got his skull broken afterwards when he decided to crawl under one of the fallen cars to search for loot. After being told that "it looks like it could collapse at any time." and "You can hear it creaking ominously as you start topush your shoulders under it." The party's searching did locate one item of interest: a set of four large cases made of steel with magical wards on them. The party took them, and the NPCs, and took off down the tracks forwards to find civilization. As they traveled I rolled and got no encounters so I strarted to tell them "you safely make it to the next town" when the guy who played the warlock (who annoyed all of us constantly) said "I'm going to go looking for trouble if there doesn't seem to be anything nearby!" You know, you try to throw them a bone and what do they do? So the party encountered a tiny living Magic Missle. Now think... if you encountered something that simply brushed up against things and did 1d4+1 force damage... you'd avoid it, right? Well, not the warlock. He made three attacks at it, failed to penetrate it's SR all the times (it has SR 11!) and then proceded to panic as the thing continued to hump against his leg. After he'd taken 30 points of damage while running in circles screaming for help (the party didn't care to get involved since he was the one to go looking for trouble) the monk finally grabbed a small sack and simply grabbed the thing (taking 3 damage) and tossed it into the sack. It then became the official mascot "Mr. Zappy." It now lives in a small garden in their Reidran home. Once they made it to the nearest "town," or more accurately a thorp, they found it to be nothing mroe than an area for loading grain onto the trains. A few dozen barns, a coupld of houses, a loading station and that was it. Half the party paid 5 coppers each to sleep in a stall while the rest slept on the rail platform. The cases were delivered to the station keeper and the person on the line as message passer (a minor House Sivis member) passed on the Kharnath the wreck of the train and the rescue of the important cases. (those two were the only non-farmers there besides the toothless boy playing dueling banjos on the platform in the entire area.) The party was told that the next day cavalry would arrive to pick up the cases and that they'd be rewarded for protecting them. That night the party encountered the cases' real owners, and much pain was had as the party tried to fight them off... them being six (as my party calls them) Goblin Death Ninjas. Anyone rember the goblin ninja from the first session? Well, the changling did... especially when he pulled the exact same trick on him, spat darts, critted him and dropped him to -3 before the fight even started. Everyone, including the guy playing the changling, had a huge laugh. The fight lasted maybe seven rounds by which time the party managed to reclaim two of the cases and half of the contents of the thrid before the goblins made off with them. Inside they found piping and frameworks as well as a strange bucket with a switch on the back. When the switch was turned the bucket contained an anitmagic field. Not having any clue what they were supposed to do with them the party put them back in the office and waited out the rest of the night. The next morning twenty cavalrymen arrived and took the cases while the party asked... oh who am i kidding, they demanded outright, that they be taken along back to the next train station. After much "diplomacy" the party was taken along and boarded the next train with the troops and the cases. As the train moved along the party made spot checks and the changling (poor guy) passed his. His spot noticed that at the end of the car were two "men" in long coats who, after closer examination, were actually pairs of goblins. He stood up and pointed and the goblins responsed by spitting Fumiki-Bari at him and, lo and behold, he was critted and went down! The one of the goblins threw a flash egg (like a thundestone, but blinding) and in the next round all eight 1st level warrior guards went down. The goblins grabbed the cases while the rest of the party hid and then threw smoke bombs and fled. The PCs looked around and the warlock sent his skeleton compaion to look out the doorway, and promply got it garotted, not that it did anything. The party then hunkered down, stabalized the changling, and waited for ten minues before going to the next car and denying any knowledge of what happened. They made it to Kharnath safely and for to the capital.without any other difficulties. I'll post more tonight. You're now only one adventure behind the current one. |
| Thomar_of_Uointer08-13-05, 09:15 PM | Stats for a "Goblin Death Ninja"? Or is it just a Goblin Rogue 4? |
| bjorntfh08-13-05, 09:38 PM | Goblin Death Ninja: Goblin Ninja level = Party level (if more than 2 are present) or Party level +2 (if only one is present) They use Fumiki-Bari (free action to shoot 3 usable 1/round, does 1 damage each, as 3.0 shuriken, full round action to ready new ones, can carry 6 readied at any one time) and shuriken. Have short swords. Nothing else fancy. |
| Solarious08-14-05, 01:40 AM | That's absolutely hilarious! The changling seems to have inherited all the bad luck (and sensibilities) of the old halfling character (whom I hope to see sometime in the future ;)). Is the player the same, pray tell? Now, I need to use Goblin Death Ninjas in any Eberron game I run in the future. Its too amusing to pass up. :D |
| bjorntfh08-14-05, 02:28 AM | No, the Halfling became the Warlock, the Changling (who eventually died a VERY ignoble death) became a Warforged Barb Monk for a few sessions, then his schedule forced him to take his leave until September (and thats been a month at least.) The Warlock was eventually killed, then reincarnated, then (to make thing even worse) killed AGAIN by the Reidran government for trying to practice illegal magic in a public place.. then challenging the secret police when arrested. The player is now on the waiting list (I've got a list of twn people waiting to join so I cycle them along to keep the list from getting too long. One death and you're at the bottom of the list, as it goes it tend to be the more annoying, and/or bad players who meet untimely ends. Mostly because I only count it as a death if the party doesn't raise you. Thus only the people who bother the other player and make the game less fun get painfully killed. As happened to the sorcerer... his player annoyed everyone and he was NOT a group player; he kept trying to take lead and ignored everyone else's actions, then got upset and had hissy fits if people didn't just do as he said... that or he'd go the other way and never help at all. You couldn't tell which way he'd swing at any moment which was the reason the party looted his body and left it lying in a ditch. The changling was just unlucky (highly) with respect to the Goblin Death Ninjas. It's become a game rule that the party now has Goblin Death ninjas with a vendetta against them. We all had laughs with that. Right now the party has changed recently, we got 3 new PCs and 2 PCs left. (The changling and the halfling's players either had to stop playing due to scheduling problems, or died and were dropped back to the bottom of the list.) The New PCs are a Rogue, a Fighter/Bard Warleader (a major political figure from Reidra who's been sent along to help the party disrupt and sieze the Lahazar Principalities. Yes, that's the current mission: instigate a major war) and a Paladin/Shadowbane Inquisitor (It's a paldin of Tyranny and I allowed Shadowbane to progress from that because it seemed so fitting for the Reidrans to have the psychotic "No Limits" inquisitors.) He's actually one elvel bhind the party because he's a Thrall. The 'real" PC is a Reidran noble Psion/Thrallherd, but the player is playing his Thrall, since no truly noble and civilized person would dirty his hand if his underlings can do it for him. So the party right now is the Monk, cleric, shifter ranger, warforged barb/bear warrior, Psion/Elocator and the new 3 people. One new policy I've invoked is the Teleportation Fairies: Whenever a player isn't there to play the sound of handbells is heard, a door made of light opens behind him and he is sucked in with a short truncated scream. When the player comes back he's ejected in the same way, usually landing prone. The "Land of the Teleportation Fairies" is a waiting room with a coffee machine, some random snacks and old newspapers. It's boring, but they don't age or die while there, so they just get to sit and read. It's an amusing side part to the game and it's funny when the cleric isn't there and people scream "MEDIC!" to get him returned to them as a band aid. Then he gets dragged off again. |
| Solarious08-14-05, 02:49 AM | Merciful Soverigns above! Teleportation Fairies! That works on almost the same slapstick principal as the Cleaning Fairies and Irritating Little Dieties of yore! Why, oh why, do they not have a laughing your butt off smilie? Wait, yes we do. :rofl: But it doesn't convey the same emotion. :weep: Oh well. When you say twn, I assume you mean ten. This must mean that your game is very popular. As it should be. I can't tell, but are there any original party members left? :smirk: This is darkly disturbing and tremendously hilarious at the same time (waking up dead 'gods', acts of Evil left and right, halfling cannibals all over, Goblin Death Ninjas... I can't go on without having my face cramp up...), you MUST continue telling us about it! I can give promises of many hugs and baked goods in the future... ;) One more thing. You need cookies. Lots of them. I only have one at the moment, but you can have it anyways. :cookie: |
| bjorntfh08-14-05, 03:58 AM | *laughs out loud* Yes, thanks, twn was supposed to be "ten" but I'm goin on hour 11 of work and haven't slept in over a day, so typing will suffer as a result. Anyway, we've got 4 original members left (out of the original 6) although one of them joined around game 3 (the monk) so I classify him as an original, considering one guy was booted after one game (he blatantly cheated, even after I took to hitting him for it. I mean really slapping him for it. I booted him for not learning that leafing through the DM's notes while he's trying to describe the scene is NOT ok. When the DM hits you for it, this does not mean he is a happy DM.) So that's 4 original PCs (still, and it's been nearly a year now, they're up to 9th level) and now 4 new PCs. Mostly I've got the 4 central PCs who make it all the time and the others who often become fairy bait if they're late. And the fairies are such fun... one of the players actually brought me a set of handbells so I could make the noise. It gets minor cheers from the other people in the store when they hear it. |
| bjorntfh08-14-05, 04:10 AM | I think one of my players put it best when classifying the game: Ludicrous Evil Horror. The PCs are fighting aberrations that terrify the players (Bonethieves from Eternal Darkness, using the Toscari stats from LoM) while simultaneously playing unadulteratedly Evil people. They don't care what happens to innocents, other people, or even other PCs as long as "the greater good" is upheld. They're a wonderfully twisted lot who enjoy the idea of a game where there are consequences and you are responsible for your actions, but you aren't told "you are good." They know that their actions will result in pain, death and misery, but they are doing it so that the barbarians can be pacified and saved from themselves. It's this twisted outlook and teh fact that the players actually know how to play (they never just kill random people without a cause, if they burn a villiage, which they have, they have a good reason, a plan, and they go about it as a task they must complete to protect others rather than an excuse to simply loot and pillage.) It's Evil without the "insane random destruction" aspects that people often do when going over the top. Many Evil campaigns end because the PCs turn on each other for personal gain, my party does horrible unapologetic evil, but does it because they're saving the world from itself. (That's one of the Monk's lines... I gave him 1000 exp for using it on a Khorvairre noble: "We're not here trying to kill you because we want to, we're fighting you so we can ensure that we can control you. We're doing this to protect you from yourself. You are your greatest threat after all." Mind you they killed him ANYWAY... but that was his fault for trying to run...) |
| KP9108-14-05, 01:31 PM | I think one of my players put it best when classifying the game: Ludicrous Evil Horror. The PCs are fighting aberrations that terrify the players (Bonethieves from Eternal Darkness, using the Toscari stats from LoM) while simultaneously playing unadulteratedly Evil people. They don't care what happens to innocents, other people, or even other PCs as long as "the greater good" is upheld. They're a wonderfully twisted lot who enjoy the idea of a game where there are consequences and you are responsible for your actions, but you aren't told "you are good." They know that their actions will result in pain, death and misery, but they are doing it so that the barbarians can be pacified and saved from themselves. It's this twisted outlook and teh fact that the players actually know how to play (they never just kill random people without a cause, if they burn a villiage, which they have, they have a good reason, a plan, and they go about it as a task they must complete to protect others rather than an excuse to simply loot and pillage.) It's Evil without the "insane random destruction" aspects that people often do when going over the top. Many Evil campaigns end because the PCs turn on each other for personal gain, my party does horrible unapologetic evil, but does it because they're saving the world from itself. (That's one of the Monk's lines... I gave him 1000 exp for using it on a Khorvairre noble: "We're not here trying to kill you because we want to, we're fighting you so we can ensure that we can control you. We're doing this to protect you from yourself. You are your greatest threat after all." Mind you they killed him ANYWAY... but that was his fault for trying to run...) :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: I can beat you Solarius, 5 cookies: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie: |
| bjorntfh08-15-05, 01:40 PM | Thanks! Last session the group (level 9) got chased by a Daelkyr Lord after they took a seal from where it was supposed to be (because they saw it and though "Hey, loot!") and gave it to the Reidran government for "testing." As a result a Daelkyr Lord is now loose in the Lahazarr Principalities... and he's not a nice person. I've modified him (as I'm planning to for all the Daelkyr to make them more unique) so that he doesn't have the aura of madness, instead he has an ability called Gaze of Torment and instead of Corrupting Touch he's got one called Agony's Embrace. Anyone looking at him who meets his gaze must immediately make a Will save, DC 35. (Note: one PC actually MADE it... he rolled a 19 and then rolled a 6 on his action die. I was floored.) Success results in a -4 penalty to attacks, skills, saves, AC and damage for 2d4 days. Failure results in a -8 penalty if you have more than 5 HD, or paralysis if you have 5 or less HD for 2d6 days dure to your nervous system being overloaded by pain. It has an effective range of 30 feet and is a mind influencing effect. Agony's Embrace is triggered whenever he deals damage to anyone: he automatically deals an additional 1d6 vile damage, no save no DR. His other abilities include channeling negative energy bolts doing 2d6 each with a range of 1200 feet as a ranged touch attack (he can shoot up to 8 each round with his full attack and the full, including perfect, TWF tree.) Oh, the creepiest part about him: he has no eyes. He has empty bleeding socets with long nails (as in hammer and nails) driven into his head through his sockets. He often wears a red blindfold with tears of blookd dripping down his face constantly. His weapons are a pair of spiked gauntlets that do 2d6+5 damage, have a 15 foot reach (the fingers extend like long chains of razors, think Ivy's sword from soul caliber, only five on each hand that he can control independantly.) Suffice to say he is NOT a nice person. Oh, and he wrote a long list of things he's going to to to whoever bound him in the marrow of his victims across the walls of a temple. The party entered to find themselves ankle deep in blood and torn meat and initially though that it was written in blood... closer examination showed that it had been etched into the walls with bone using the marrow as ink. The players were more than a lot disturbed by that one... |
| bjorntfh08-19-05, 10:45 PM | Wow.. no replies to the description... I feel lonely. |
| Thomar_of_Uointer08-19-05, 10:52 PM | You didn't tell us anything exciting. Rampaging Dakelyr is nothing new. |
| KP9108-29-05, 10:10 PM | Sorry, I was enjoying my last days of summer. You are now too disturbing to find cookies good so I give you this thingey: :88E: |
| bjorntfh08-31-05, 03:11 PM | Thanks, sorry for no updates, I've been working 6 days a week at the end of summer and had to cancel two weeks of games for it. You have no idea how much that hurt to do. Anyway we'll be starting again on Sunday and I'll post more updates probably Saturday. (The school computer lab only has a 1 hour block that it's open when I'm not at work. This is why I have such a hard time keeping up steady posts.) |
| Aris Stormdragon09-01-05, 04:25 AM | RE: The description of the Daelkyr Lord in the Lhazaar Principalities: :coolcthul Seriously, for some reason that description reminds me of the first Hellraiser movie. That was some disturbing imagery right there, bjorntfh, and I think it fits the spirit of the Daelkyr perfectly. I bet his first words after the pc's freed him were: "It's time to play!" ;) |
| Guerron09-01-05, 10:26 AM | wow! read the entire thread today at work. hope my employer never finds out :D how come that in my local gaming store people only play tcg's or war-sims? great campaign, great story!!! |
| bjorntfh09-01-05, 07:16 PM | Actually when he was freed his line was "Who broke my toys?" After all, then PCs did kill the aberrations around the seal... |
| KP9109-10-05, 07:36 PM | Can we get an update soon? :confused: |
| bjorntfh09-10-05, 09:03 PM | Yes. Tomorrow night I'll be at the computer Lab from 8 till 11 pm so I'll update then. Also, it looks like the co-DM may be ending his campign sometime next month. If that happens I may end this campaign at the same time (since it'd nearly impossible to maintain a balanced situation without a counter-party on the other end of the world, and I'm not running both sides of the campaign at the same time.) If that happens, worry not! I'll be starting a 3.5 Darksun campaign and I'll include a link to the thread that I run giving a probably more cosistant update on it. Either way it's been lots of fun and I hope I can keep it going. |
| Solarious09-11-05, 04:01 PM | Nuuuu! I'll never get the chance to see a parallel-party conflict! :weep:\ Oh well. At least the Daelkyr will cause some screaming. :devil: |
| bjorntfh09-12-05, 08:42 AM | I'm also quite mad about the other GM dropping, but there's little I can do about it... It's a real pain so my next game is going to be a solo GM endevor. It'll be Darksun (thus allowing for the infinite joy that is a starving dehydrated party raiding villages for supplies.) |
| KP9109-15-05, 12:56 PM | Couldn't you keep your party going without the DM. There doesn't have to be conflict. Or you could look for a new good DM. Or you could write up the opposite party and just have them fight. |
| bjorntfh09-15-05, 04:10 PM | I can try, I don't know how well it will work, but I can try. My biggest problem is I've got a cycle of PCs right now, my party varries from four to anywhere as large as twelve and it's led to half a dozen aborted subplots as players can come one week, disappear for two weeks, then apprear just as suddenly. Heck the guy playing the monk fell off the earth as far as anyone can tell, no contact or anything from him for nearly two months now. I'm really enjoying the campaign, but I'm also looking forwards to having a campaign with a set number of players, no constant random player shifting, and a cap (maximum!) of six people, although I'd prefer five. With the player's inability to focus on a set quest due to random attendance over the last three months I've been getting more and more annoyed at trying to keep the world from devolving into a mess of loose ends. |
| Aris Stormdragon09-28-05, 02:47 AM | Well, no matter what happens, dude, this has been a great ride. Thanks for putting in all the time to tell us your campaign stories. Cheers! |
| bjorntfh10-04-05, 07:00 PM | Thanks. Because of serious illness in my family (Grandfather has been in hospital where I work for nearly a month now) I've had my game on hold. To make it even more awkward, I had my landlord drop dead on my back porch last thursday... Talk about interesting times! I hope I can get things going again, but as it is, life is giving me buckets and fanfulls of you know what. |
| Flame_Drake11-30-05, 04:26 PM | :bump: Everyone still hanging in there? Drake |
| edventure11-30-05, 08:31 PM | :bump: Everyone still hanging in there? Drake Yep. |
| Just Justin12-08-05, 02:43 PM | hey is there a word doc of this or mabey a PDF :D Obsesses with saving eberron stuff |
| Missekat12-10-05, 03:03 PM | well.. I've read through the whole thread, and I'm hoping that Bjorntfh will show signs of life soon. If you're still alive out there, I would like to praise you high and low for your DM'ing genius and creative powers. And plz! Send me the notes, or whatever you have on this campaign. I would love to use as much of it as I can. Both the ideas, the stats, and the whole feel. Cookies, cheers and adulation from a fan: Missekat |
| cmanos12-12-05, 10:16 AM | >:) Oh I so love it. |
| Jagermeister12-12-05, 11:26 AM | bjorntfh, this is excellent. I've procrastinated about reading this entire thread for months and months. Now that I've finally finished it, my hat is off to you sir. :tiphat: |
| Ozymandias V.12-12-05, 06:33 PM | A guy with spikes driven into his eye sockets and covered with a blindfold who has spiked gauntlets that can extend long distances? This sounds vaguely familiar *coughTIMcough* ^__^ |
| bjorntfh02-05-06, 05:21 AM | Hey all. I just was resurrected by my GF. We're moving to a new home at the end of this month and I've been literally dead to the world since, oh, September? I've had to put the game on hold due to real life "sh!t, meet fan." but I'm rebuilding step by step. If I'm lucky I'll have the campaign back up by June. I'll work on typing eveything out (stat wise) for those who want to use it. Appologies to everyone who waited for me to continue transcribing the events, but as everyone knows life never pulls punches. |
| edventure02-06-06, 12:13 AM | Glad to see you're still alive. I look forward to the stats and news of a restart. |
| Missekat02-06-06, 02:17 AM | As do we all :D |
| bjorntfh07-28-06, 06:23 PM | Okay, I've been starting typing up the stats and info from my campaign of yesteryear and as soon as it's done I'll post you guys so whoever wants it can email me about getting a copy. I no longer have internet anywhere but work so that's my biggest problem, but I'll get it typed up anyway. Most of my recent gaming has been running D20 future (a fun campaign about the PCs manipulating demi-gods so as to get them to wipe each other out to free an enslaved race) and playing CoC and Serenity. I ho[e to get a DnD game up sometime this fall, I've got a constant playgroup of 5 people so that's reassuring. Oh well, I'm still not dead... Thanks all. |
| Thomar_of_Uointer07-28-06, 09:06 PM | Nice to see this thread! I thought you'd fallen off the face of the boards... I'd email you, but you have your boards link blocked. |
| bjorntfh07-29-06, 06:42 PM | Actually I pretty much have fallen off the boards... I got tired of 18 new books a year at $40 each and moved on to other systems. I have some that I prefer right now, Conan using some of the hombrew sorcery rules, simply because it;s so much more balanced that D&D. |
| edventure07-30-06, 12:14 AM | Most of my recent gaming has been running D20 future (a fun campaign about the PCs manipulating demi-gods so as to get them to wipe each other out to free an enslaved race) and playing CoC and Serenity. I ho[e to get a DnD game up sometime this fall, I've got a constant playgroup of 5 people so that's reassuring. I'd like to see a copy. On another note, have you had much experience with D20 Future space combat? Besides my Eberron campaign I also run D20 Star Wars. I'm thinking of replacing it's space system with D20 Future. |
| Missekat07-30-06, 02:25 AM | I'm with you Bjorn, I fell off around the same time as you, and I'm not sure I'm coming back. It took too much of my time, (the boards, the game is just on hold untill were done with the Amber campaign). But I would very much like to see what you have on your campaign.. The zombie thing too. |
| warforged_assasin07-30-06, 08:05 PM | ur landlord died on ur porch :uh-huh: ....................creepy...........aws ome thread man |
| bjorntfh07-31-06, 03:40 PM | Well, it was awkward. Especially since the police asked us questions about how we didn't notice... nothing says embarrasing like "I was going at it with my GF, so we didn't really hear anything." Well, I'm at work, I'll check up on the thread tonight while I'm at dinner. |
| warforged_assasin08-01-06, 10:57 AM | ur were banging ur gf.......... :rofl: |
| bjorntfh08-01-06, 07:52 PM | It is really amazing how an answer like that immediately gets you a reprieve from questions. Man I love how people smile and nod when they get bluntly honest answers. |
| warforged_assasin08-02-06, 05:22 AM | true true :bow: ............................even though most eberron player i know are virgins :angelhide |