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[OOC DnD 4E] Hollow Sacrifice

AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered User regular
edited August 2009 in Critical Failures
This is the OOC and general thread for my campaign Hollow Sacrifice and here is the list of people playing as well as the time. We will be playing on a Sunday from 7:00-11:00pm on a Sunday Night New Zealand time. This is 5pm to 9pm Australian time, taken from Sydney (which is handily 2 hours behind NZ so early dinner you Aussies!).

Casual Eddy - Goliath Fighter - (Defender)
Spacecow - Human Ranger - (Striker)
romanqwerty - Gnome Wild Magic Sorcerer - (Striker)
visiblehowl - Gnome Warlock - (Striker)
TSI|Awesome - Shifter Druid - (Controller)
Bizarre- Tiefling Warlord - (Leader)


The glorious dead or departed follow:

Solidsnake - Paladin - (Defender). Slain by a horde of ravenous dire ducks in the glorious defense of the local fishery.
Q'ntara - Fighter - (Defender). Off in Cormyr somewhere when she took a wrong turn.


The party composition up above is fine. The only book you need is the Players Hand Book.

This game begins on the 11th of January (which is a Sunday), so you have plenty of time. If you could let me know about your characters backstory and such that would also be good. Use Myth-Weavers for the character sheet, Maptools b56 and Ventrilo.

Any further questions feel free to ask. Don't put you have "Amnesia" in your character history unless you want me to literally make anything up. The last player that did this discovered they were actually a woman and that they had been transplanted into the body of a man by a ritual. Oh and there were angry people hunting them down to kill them. So yeah.

Story related stuff is in the spoiler for good times. This should be thought of less as a full coherent narrative, but rather as a series of images that form an incomplete story. All of your characters know this information, but perhaps only know some of it or remember some parts more strongly than others. Perhaps it is a dream, perhaps a tale from a bard in a drunken stupor or perhaps there is some truth to it. Perhaps it is just a story or perhaps only parts of it are true.

That's up to you to find out.
bloodiedflower.jpg

Ever since the young woman had died a man dressed in the finery of a lord or perhaps a king had sealed himself within his study and was barely seen for many a tenday. Over time he started to become increasingly erratic, prone to outbursts and even violence for the most minor of transgressions. One day, he emerged from his study carrying what appeared to be one of the oldest books among the families collection and demanded that all the servants and men at arms assemble. Within hours he had them all march towards the family tomb, where he exhumed her lifeless body himself and then march them all onwards into the darkness of a hidden tomb.

It was difficult to see what was ahead in the darkness of the ancient tomb, as no mortal had been within this place for centuries, perhaps even a millennium or even longer. The group of men shuffling their way through the dusty, crumbling hallways felt almost as unwanted invaders within a larger organism. At their front carrying the corpse within his arms was their lord and liege, who said nothing beyond ordering his men to be quiet.

For what seemed to be an eternity the gaggle of humans marched through ever deeper into the darkness, following out of a mixture of loyalty and fear. Finally they reached an immense stone door, etched with images of the dead and dying raising their arms in supplication. Many of those present exchanged nervous looks between one another and it seemed for a moment that their journey had ended - for nobody could hope to open such titanic doors. Before anyone could act, the doors split and with a terrible noise of grinding stone on stone, slowly swung open to reveal a huge chamber with naught but a single altar at its center.

"Come" the lords voice was cold, almost monotone as he instructed his assorted followers to move into the chamber with him. He walked silently to the center and placed the almost mummified corpse of his daughter, the only person who had ever made him at all happy, on the altar. Many minutes passed with nothing happening, except the sounds of the unknown ruler weeping softly piercing through the aura of fear and confusion as to this strange sight.

Without warning, the stone doors sparked back to life and ground against stone once more until they had slid back into position. The chamber was plunged back into absolute darkness, only the last few sunrods they had brought providing any sort of illumination. The lord stood motionless before he turned towards those who had followed him into this place.

"I..am sorry" he began, his voice cracking despite his previous cold sounding determination. "You have been loyal to me and served me very well. Now, I ask not just for your loyalty but..." he paused, his face hardening and his eyes flashing menacingly within the fading light "I must ask you for your lives as well. There is...there is no other way... Forgive me".

Nobody even got to move before they descended upon them from nowhere. Shadows danced in the light of the sunrods, claws tore limbs from torsos, teeth ripped into soft necks and drank firmly of the rich blood that flowed forth. The men at arms drew their weapons and attempted to fight, but were torn apart like childrens dolls by the massive animalistic shapes in the darkness. Iron swords and plated armour proving no match for bestial fury and raw strength. Blood flowed over the floor, filling long since forgotten wells and pooling into individual letters, then words and then sentences.

Raising his arms, in much the same manner of those on the stone door, amongst the screams and the slaughter that surrounded him, the lord shouted a demand to some infernal power "I have given you a glorious sacrifice and now grant me what I desire!"

The darkness took form and surrounded the lord, extending bloodied tendrils of darkness towards him. A voice rang out through the chamber, it's reverberations smashing stone and bursting the eardrums of mortals.

"I demand more"

A final scream rang out and was sharply silenced. Hours passed and then the stone doors slowly opened a final time...

Big important update of doom!

So due to some problems with getting people and such, I've changed around the players a bit (adding back up to six, I can't believe how I lived with just 4 back in the day) and changed the game around. You will note for those playing for a while you're now level 6. This is to just bring people up with the rate of advancement a bit, which is my fault and keeps the game moving.

Canon changes: this game implicitely assumes you already know one another, except for TSI|Awesome (For story reasons!!!) and have completed the adventure "Scepter Tower of Spellgard". Your characters are dealing with whatever revelation they have been told by Lady Saharel (Don't worry awesome you don't miss out, bug me on MSN about what's happening with you for an explanation). Upon returning to Loudwater, you find that there are numerous rumors about of something vile happening in the high forest to the north. Apparently an area of the high forest has completely died, travelers in the region are being found with their skin removed and nobody has heard from their relatives in Wolfdell (their "rich" relatives I'll have you know).

Hopefully this is compelling enough for some adventure, but let me know and we'll obviously work through things like motivation and such. I am wanting to get a quick start to the campaign, rather than having a slower intro like normal as I want to keep momentum up for this game and a good encounter rate!

As for Lady Saharel, you need to give me a question that your character asked of her and then I can tell you the answer. The more interesting the question the more interesting the answer I'm going to give you. Be aware she's a prophet and somewhat crazy after Thoran almost soul bound her, so she's neither very specific or entirely 100% telling the truth.

HighForest_Flat.jpg

This is the new world map, noting that I've shifted the entire campaign out of Thay/Aglarond. This was primarily for the new way the story plays out and because I kind of didn't want to deal with Thay anymore for several reasons. If it's any consolation, Netheril is about as nasty and filled with giant douchebags who worship Shar, which makes them twice the douchebag of the undead in Thay.

The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
Aegeri on
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Posts

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    :(

    I just asked the boss she said she wouldn't be happy with me being busy from 5pm to 9pm since that's usually when we spend time together after a busy day.

    Whereas the morning one she's asleep for half of it.

    I don't care about getting up in the morning that much, it means I get to play other pa games like tf2 and war etc after or just get stuff done, so I'll just stick with the morning. :)

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • romanqwertyromanqwerty Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Sounds awesome. I'm gonna start creating a character soon. Do we use the points based method to generate abillity scores?

    Also, do i have to learn how to use maptools or anything?

    romanqwerty on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Well, it's more that I have to learn how to not epic fail at maptools we should say. Hopefully I'll have that sorted by next year.

    We use a point buy system described in the players hand book. It makes things more fair IMO and gives a more even spread of ability scores. I'm going to have a primer up on what all the roles and classes do up soon as well for everyone to peruse.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I recommend anyone in this game to download the microsoft.net framework (I know I know) and get the character builder from here. It's a free beta at the moment and I highly recommend making your first characters with this and (if you want) my guidance. It's really nice and will make the process quite a bit easier for you.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • romanqwertyromanqwerty Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Yeah, i just tryed it out and its actually really useful. It lets you take skills/feats/powers etc from about 4 different books and really helps with the sorting out through all the pages of different books to find what you need.

    romanqwerty on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    You are allowed (to keep consistency with my other two campaigns) to take regional FR background feats btw.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Hi I'm Vee! on
    vRyue2p.png
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Thank you for that.

    We're going to maptools beta 48, not 45 now. Beta 48 seems to work much better for me than beta 45 and seems more stable.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited January 2009
    The game (timewise) starts this week on Sunday the 11th at 7:30.

    In game time, the campaign begins in the cold winter of Faerun now, on the 5th of Alturiak (The Claw of Winter). Time will be a very important factor in the game, so keeping track of how much time you spend doing stuff is important. All will be revealed in due time of course ;)

    You'll be beginning in a small frontier town that is on the border of Thay and Aglarond called Loudwater (it's north of a town called Escalant on the Lapendrar (which flows into Thay). Your characters can be here for a wide variety of reasons:

    1) It's really far away from anywhere, so it's easy to go "missing" in such an inhospitable and out of the way region.

    2) Being near Thay, it's under constant threat from the undead, monster of all kinds and rumours of something tearing apart travelers and merchants in the region abound.

    3) There is good work to be found in the docks of loudwater as the small military garrison of the town requires strong hands to help load/unload equipment and supplies.

    4) You could be here to look for something, perhaps seeking someone you've lost or perhaps you are seeking to make a name for yourself in one of the harshest regions of Faerun to inspire others to follow you.

    5) You may be opposed to Thay or wish to either observe or analyse the undead for yourself.

    6) Thay makes a habit of picking up human slaves for nefarious purposes, you might have had a loved one (or friend) go missing or perhaps you fear is in the region.

    Anything else of course is also fine. I always try to work with my PCs if I can to make sure I incorporate their characters and goals into the game in a logical manner.

    Also this is a map of Faerun. Aglarond is just below the "Sea of Fallen Stars" near the middle of the map. Thay is nearby that and Loudwater (the starting town) is just a little to the north of Escalant.

    You'll probably arrive there by ship (as it's safer than trying to go by land, but this is certainly possible).

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Hope you all enjoyed that. It will take a while for everything to sort itself out (like maptools and the rules). Once people get familiar with the rules it will go faster and such :)

    You got 850 XP in that encounter (divided by 5 of course).

    There will also be treasure.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • dropsofangstdropsofangst Registered User new member
    edited January 2009
    I definitely had fun :) Hopefully I can light a fire under the ISP's butts tomorrow and get the faulty 'upload' sorted, or at the very least checked out.

    Looking forward to next weekend already :D

    dropsofangst on
  • illgottengainsillgottengains Registered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Is there still an opening in this game?

    If so I would be interested in filling the wizard spot.

    Im eastern timezone in the US.. but Im up all night here so that might actually work well with the time zone.. Im a bit confused on what the difference of hours it is.. but it may possibly work for me.

    illgottengains on
  • HylianbunnyHylianbunny Registered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Damn you, illgotten. I was about to post a similar message. :P

    Hylianbunny on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Sorry, forgot to remove that little bit in the original post. There isn't an open spot in this game as I'm quite happy with 5 players for this game. Sorry about that again!

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Here is the rundown tonight:

    You gained 3 magic items:

    +1 Vicious Dagger
    +1 Healers Broach
    +1 Barkskin Armour (Scale)

    And stuff:

    350 total gold (divided by 5)
    2 potions of healing

    Let me know who has these and such, updating character sheets as appropriate. See you next week :)

    Edit: Some people requested a world map last game, the one I whipped up then was a little shitty and I accidentally stuck a few things in the wrong place. Here is the world map as it stands right now. I have a master version as well and when locations are added, I'll update this map as appropriate.

    WorldMap.jpg

    Edit: Places on the map you see there,

    Aglarond is a nation of half-elves, humans and a few others ruled by a court of magic users. It's a relatively stable country, but is paranoid about Thayan invasion.

    Thay is basically a big nation of the undead and while there are people still alive there, it's definitely not pleasant to be a living person in Thay at the moment. It's ruled by an immensely powerful archwizard who is an undead abomination called Szass Tam. Thay got the way it was shortly after the years following the Spellplague, where Szass Tam botched a ritual (well, some of his former Zulkirs that once served him in Thay helped with that) that would have seen him ascend to divinity. The rituals effect was to drain the life of nearly every living person in Thay, destroy the environment and cause it to become constantly blanketed in a layer of ash (hence the funny colour). Thay is currently building rings of forts around its neighbours territory and is generally very unpleasant.

    Loudwater is a border town on the edge of Thay and Aglaronds border. It is difficult to say who is actually in control of Loudwater, but its' generally a small trading post along the river and serves as a way of watching for activity from Thay (or at least ostensibly so). Generally things that pass through Loudwater are for less than reasonable purposes, which probably explains why the undead and monstrous hordes from Thay haven't rampaged through it yet.

    Spellgard is a former part of a ring of citadels and forts on Thays borders. It was catastrophically destroyed during the spellplague, slaying many red wizards and sending wild magic everywhere. It has since been occupied, but numerous travelers make the journey to analyse the ruins and go in search of a mysterious figure known as Lady Saharel: a spirit whose prophecies are said to never be wrong.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited January 2009
    Important Story Thingie:

    You should all think about what you want to ask Lady Saharel and PM me what you want to ask. You do have a story "allowance" for Curuvar as well, but you should think about what your character might genuinely want to know. If you give me your question ahead of time, it means you get a better and more interesting answer than if I have to just make it up on the spot. You can ask anything you want, but bear in mind that certain questions may not get a direct answer and some not get one at all.

    You don't have to tell anyone what you're asking if you don't want to as well.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Firstly, ggs yesterday. You should roughly have the following:

    155 gold each.

    You're now all level 2. You have 1065 XP each currently.

    Other than that, I am curious if anyone here wants to use Obsidian Portal for the game. This can provide a summary of adventures (written by either one of you or perhaps me - though I am not exactly keen to add more work to a hectic DMing schedule :P). If you guys want to use it, please let me know as I'm quite curious about it as well.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Okay, we're now using Obsidian Portal for this game. The campaign is located here. Please sign up and I'll send you an invite.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Okay, we're now using Obsidian Portal for this game. The campaign is located here. Please sign up and I'll send you an invite.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • dropsofangstdropsofangst Registered User new member
    edited March 2009
    I've got an account there, same username :)

    dropsofangst on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Invite has been sent!

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • dropsofangstdropsofangst Registered User new member
    edited March 2009
    Thank ya kindly :)

    dropsofangst on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited May 2009
    This is the OOC and general thread for my campaign Hollow Sacrifice and here is the list of people playing as well as the time. We will be playing on a Sunday from 7:00-11:00pm on a Sunday Night New Zealand time. This is 5pm to 9pm Australian time, taken from Sydney (which is handily 2 hours behind NZ so early dinner you Aussies!).

    ???? (Defender)
    Spacecow - Human Ranger - (Striker)
    romanqwerty - Gnome Wild Magic Sorcerer - (Striker)
    visiblehowl - Gnome Warlock - (Striker)
    TSI|Awesome - Shifter Druid - (Controller)
    Bizarre- Tiefling Warlord - (Leader)


    The glorious dead or departed follow:

    Solidsnake - Paladin - (Defender). Slain by a horde of ravenous dire ducks in the glorious defense of the local fishery.
    Q'ntara - Fighter - (Defender). Off in Cormyr somewhere when she took a wrong turn.


    The party composition up above is fine. The only book you need is the Players Hand Book.

    This game begins on the 11th of January (which is a Sunday), so you have plenty of time. If you could let me know about your characters backstory and such that would also be good. Use Myth-Weavers for the character sheet, Maptools b56 and Ventrilo.

    Any further questions feel free to ask. Don't put you have "Amnesia" in your character history unless you want me to literally make anything up. The last player that did this discovered they were actually a woman and that they had been transplanted into the body of a man by a ritual. Oh and there were angry people hunting them down to kill them. So yeah.

    Story related stuff is in the spoiler for good times. This should be thought of less as a full coherent narrative, but rather as a series of images that form an incomplete story. All of your characters know this information, but perhaps only know some of it or remember some parts more strongly than others. Perhaps it is a dream, perhaps a tale from a bard in a drunken stupor or perhaps there is some truth to it. Perhaps it is just a story or perhaps only parts of it are true.

    That's up to you to find out.
    bloodiedflower.jpg

    Ever since the young woman had died a man dressed in the finery of a lord or perhaps a king had sealed himself within his study and was barely seen for many a tenday. Over time he started to become increasingly erratic, prone to outbursts and even violence for the most minor of transgressions. One day, he emerged from his study carrying what appeared to be one of the oldest books among the families collection and demanded that all the servants and men at arms assemble. Within hours he had them all march towards the family tomb, where he exhumed her lifeless body himself and then march them all onwards into the darkness of a hidden tomb.

    It was difficult to see what was ahead in the darkness of the ancient tomb, as no mortal had been within this place for centuries, perhaps even a millennium or even longer. The group of men shuffling their way through the dusty, crumbling hallways felt almost as unwanted invaders within a larger organism. At their front carrying the corpse within his arms was their lord and liege, who said nothing beyond ordering his men to be quiet.

    For what seemed to be an eternity the gaggle of humans marched through ever deeper into the darkness, following out of a mixture of loyalty and fear. Finally they reached an immense stone door, etched with images of the dead and dying raising their arms in supplication. Many of those present exchanged nervous looks between one another and it seemed for a moment that their journey had ended - for nobody could hope to open such titanic doors. Before anyone could act, the doors split and with a terrible noise of grinding stone on stone, slowly swung open to reveal a huge chamber with naught but a single altar at its center.

    "Come" the lords voice was cold, almost monotone as he instructed his assorted followers to move into the chamber with him. He walked silently to the center and placed the almost mummified corpse of his daughter, the only person who had ever made him at all happy, on the altar. Many minutes passed with nothing happening, except the sounds of the unknown ruler weeping softly piercing through the aura of fear and confusion as to this strange sight.

    Without warning, the stone doors sparked back to life and ground against stone once more until they had slid back into position. The chamber was plunged back into absolute darkness, only the last few sunrods they had brought providing any sort of illumination. The lord stood motionless before he turned towards those who had followed him into this place.

    "I..am sorry" he began, his voice cracking despite his previous cold sounding determination. "You have been loyal to me and served me very well. Now, I ask not just for your loyalty but..." he paused, his face hardening and his eyes flashing menacingly within the fading light "I must ask you for your lives as well. There is...there is no other way... Forgive me".

    Nobody even got to move before they descended upon them from nowhere. Shadows danced in the light of the sunrods, claws tore limbs from torsos, teeth ripped into soft necks and drank firmly of the rich blood that flowed forth. The men at arms drew their weapons and attempted to fight, but were torn apart like childrens dolls by the massive animalistic shapes in the darkness. Iron swords and plated armour proving no match for bestial fury and raw strength. Blood flowed over the floor, filling long since forgotten wells and pooling into individual letters, then words and then sentences.

    Raising his arms, in much the same manner of those on the stone door, amongst the screams and the slaughter that surrounded him, the lord shouted a demand to some infernal power "I have given you a glorious sacrifice and now grant me what I desire!"

    The darkness took form and surrounded the lord, extending bloodied tendrils of darkness towards him. A voice rang out through the chamber, it's reverberations smashing stone and bursting the eardrums of mortals.

    "I demand more"

    A final scream rang out and was sharply silenced. Hours passed and then the stone doors slowly opened a final time...

    Big important update of doom!

    So due to some problems with getting people and such, I've changed around the players a bit (adding back up to six, I can't believe how I lived with just 4 back in the day) and changed the game around. You will note for those playing for a while you're now level 6. This is to just bring people up with the rate of advancement a bit, which is my fault and keeps the game moving.

    Canon changes: this game implicitely assumes you already know one another, except for TSI|Awesome (For story reasons!!!) and have completed the adventure "Scepter Tower of Spellgard". Your characters are dealing with whatever revelation they have been told by Lady Saharel (Don't worry awesome you don't miss out, bug me on MSN about what's happening with you for an explanation). Upon returning to Loudwater, you find that there are numerous rumors about of something vile happening in the high forest to the north. Apparently an area of the high forest has completely died, travelers in the region are being found with their skin removed and nobody has heard from their relatives in Wolfdell (their "rich" relatives I'll have you know).

    Hopefully this is compelling enough for some adventure, but let me know and we'll obviously work through things like motivation and such. I am wanting to get a quick start to the campaign, rather than having a slower intro like normal as I want to keep momentum up for this game and a good encounter rate!

    As for Lady Saharel, you need to give me a question that your character asked of her and then I can tell you the answer. The more interesting the question the more interesting the answer I'm going to give you. Be aware she's a prophet and somewhat crazy after Thoran almost soul bound her, so she's neither very specific or entirely 100% telling the truth.

    HighForest_Flat.jpg

    This is the new world map, noting that I've shifted the entire campaign out of Thay/Aglarond. This was primarily for the new way the story plays out and because I kind of didn't want to deal with Thay anymore for several reasons*. If it's any consolation, Netheril is about as nasty and filled with giant douchebags who worship Shar, which makes them twice the douchebag of the undead in Thay.

    *Most of them being that I like undead, but I wanted to do a more "primal" based campaign and work on something a bit different. There may be a lot of mushrooms in portions of this campaign.

    Edit: If it isn't clear, you get your choice of weapon expertise, implement expertise or focused expertise at level 5. If you're wondering what focused expertise is, it's basically a combined version of weapon and implement expertise that works for classes that use a weapon that counts as an implement as well. A swordmages sword for example.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Alright, so Tannae has graciously given you his shop to ransack (he's dead, he doesn't need it anyway). If you need to, you can grab any standard equipment (within reason) from the PHB. You could drag a coffin around too if you really felt like it. Make sure to grab a few sun roads (he has 13 of these). It could be important.

    You can choose as a party 3 magical items (representing his wifes legacy).

    Level 7 item
    Level 8 item
    Level 9 item

    You need to tell me what these are :). If you're wondering, I often like to hand out treasure like this so the party can customise their stuff a bit to what they want. I've found a mixture of this approach and giving fixed stuff works pretty well.

    Incidentally, a passive dungeoneering check reveals that Tannae is some form of unique undead. Not like the other mindless creatures around.

    The basic timeline of the story to get you started on things:

    1) Wolfdell and the local Archfey establish a pact, the people can continue to live there and enjoy the feys protection if they agree not to desecrate or harm the forest.

    2) At some point, a noble arrives and he has some discussion with the local druid known to the town Garou.

    3) Garou comes back, the land literally being poisoned around him and is badly wounded. He keeps gibbering about something "in the darkness".

    4) Shortly afterwards, the Fey invade Wolfdell en masse, butchering people as they go and starting a war. "She Without Winter" is slain by Garou only to rise as an undead abomination later. The Dryads that fall in the initial assault become Wormwood and Petrified dryads. These creatures brutally dispatch the rest of the living inhabitants of Wolfdell.

    5) The towns inhabitants begin to rise as undead, being repeatedly slain by Without Winters dryads or the Fey. About this time the entire forest begins to die and the area becomes a giant wasteland.

    6) Travelers and merchants begin to be targeted by something, dragging them off to their deaths and consuming their hearts. Tannae suspects Garou, but he doesn't understand why the druid would be doing this.

    7) You've arrived after point 6 in response to merchants going missing (Wolfdell is actually pretty economically rich, partly because bandits and monsters were almost unheard of previously due to the protection of the spirits).

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    cool beans! I don't really know what I want quite yet, maybe a +2 weapon or armor would be nice.

    also if anyone has any tips for defendering that would be nice. I'm still getting used to guarding squishies

    Casual Eddy on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    The main monsters for a defender to look for are soldiers and brutes. Soldiers and brutes are most effective against party members that have poor AC and can inflict serious damage. As a result, you want to block off their ability to move or severely punish them if they choose to attack them (which your good wisdom score and helm of opportunity allows you to do). You always want to be marking the most dangerous enemy or alternatively the most mobile enemy (to keep them stuck somewhere, rather than flying around ruining peoples shit etc).

    For example, both Spacecow (Ouacif, Ranger) and Visiblehowl (Tsindak, Warlock) have prime shot so they often want to be near enemies (if no other ally is closer to the target than they are, they get a +1 bonus to hit). If you have the enemy marked if they take an opportunity attack, they'll take -2 to hit and end up being whacked by you for damage as well. This lets them hold a front line position, while remaining somewhat more safe.

    The other thing to consider is that you're effectively a massive black hole that prevents things moving past. In a 3x3 corridor for example, if you're standing in the middle square of such a corridor nothing will be able to move past (fighter combat superiority prevents an enemy from moving if struck by your opportunity attack). They either waste another movement action or end up stuck next to you instead of being able to get past into the squishier characters. This is really useful in tight places like tombs or similar.

    Also, if nobody chooses items then I will manually place 3 items for you guys there instead :)

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Can we hold off on the item choice until I get back and have a chance to better understand what happened last session?

    Hi I'm Vee! on
    vRyue2p.png
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Wormwooddryad.png

    Here is the statblock of the Wormwood Dryads.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    VH do you even get a say? You were too busy dancing with inqui!

    Casual Eddy on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    The original battle with Thoran in Hollow Sacrifice (that we've skipped) was 3 parts. The first against Thoran was more or less a standard solo, then he would phase out of reality and taunt the party for a bit (mostly spewing nonsense about his own twisted morality and social justice due to his "condition"). Upon this he was to ask the party as to if they could truly face themselves and indeed, they would fight elite versions of themselves (EG a template of a standard monster of the same race + DMG NPC class template).

    Then finish off Thoran in one final bloody battle.

    It was a shame I decided to dump that, but I couldn't take the rest of Scepter Tower of Spellgard and retain my sanity without basically rewriting the whole thing anyway.

    Edit: I have posted this in the wrong thread (right thread). This is actually responding to you in the main thread. HA!

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    so what gear should i be shooting for exactly? I guess I could request an opportunistic blade +2 but I would feel terribly uncreative

    Casual Eddy on
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    we still need our lewts you know

    Casual Eddy on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Yeah, I'm going to assign lewts for simplicities sake. :P

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    what are our shiny new items

    Casual Eddy on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I am actually still deciding lol. I got distracted macroing a monster and your token. I'm almost certainly handing out armour however.

    And some amulets. Protecting your NADs is important.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    maptools isn't letting me connect

    Casual Eddy on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    In fact:

    Alanas Sorrow; Unique Defensive Weapon +2 (It's a bastard sword); When you take the total defense or second wind action, add the enhancement bonus of this weapon as an item bonus to all of your defenses until the start of your next turn.

    Special: Once per day you may sacrifice a healing surge to aid a dying ally within five squares of you. You spend a healing surge and the target regains HP as if they had spent a healing surge.

    Serpentskin Hide Armour +2; Level 8. Allows you to shift 3 squares and move through enemies spaces while doing so.

    Healers Brooch +2; Level 9. Adds a +2 item bonus to healing powers.

    Edit: Server isn't up yet. I don't want you seeing me test all my sinister macros ;)

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    what does it mean to be a unique weapon?

    Casual Eddy on
  • TSI|AwesomeTSI|Awesome Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I'll take the serpentskin armor-I can probably make a bit better use of it than Ouacif.

    edit: it means that he made it himself and it has special abilities which make it p. sweet.

    TSI|Awesome on
    63.png
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    what does it mean to be a unique weapon?

    It has another property and may (or may not) be tied into the games story. Alanas sorrow is a defensive +2 weapon, but also can be used to heal an ally who is dying within 5 squares of you. It's slightly more powerful than a standard weapon.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
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