Groff the glib |
Groff will follow along grudgingly.
Once inside, he shuns the cooking knives and starts chopping onions with his scimitar. He does restrain himself from chopping all the way through the cutting board.
"No ale for the staff?"
DM Ancient |
Groff will follow along grudgingly.
Once inside, he shuns the cooking knives and starts chopping onions with his scimitar. He does restrain himself from chopping all the way through the cutting board.
"No ale for the staff?"
Of course there are a few dwarven gods among the alters so of course ale can be found along with a decent selection of wine and tea.
Master Chef Kyamba |
Kyamba is busy working away on the half-dozen things that need to be managed at the same time. "I could give you a spot of my own brew if you'd like, it's got a kick to it."
Master Chef Kyamba |
"No...not really. It was a medicinal recipe that I picked up from a monk back in the day. Turns out if you add a few spices it actually makes a pretty good drink."
DM Ancient |
Kyamba prepares a feast the likes of which none of you has ever seen. Even the other clerics throughout the temple start wandering in for a bite. There is plenty of food to go around. And something magical must have been in it because your host looks significantly healthier. Once it is back to only the five of you, Ezren and the Oracle he gets down to business. "400 years ago I conceived an idea to try and get closer than anyone has ever come to the gods. I designed the dome in the atrium for that purpose. Its a sensory deprivation chamber. No light. No sound. No feeling. No smells. Nothing at all. The chamber keeps whoever is inside alive but just barely. My thought was that the further I got away from the material, the closer I would get to the divine. And it worked. I saw glimpses of them and visions of the future. At first I didn't know what I was seeing but eventually I understood the truth. Real truth was given to me. I managed to forewarn many a disaster. The death of Aroden, however, surprised everyone and its consequences have been devastating. I am sure you are all aware of the World Wound. Groff here is its best defender. But the Wound is not the only effect. I have foreseen something worse. The death of a god has thrown the planes out of alignment. Not much but the balance has always been precarious. Lines are becoming blurred. And great creatures of evil and destruction are pushing out the boundaries of our world. That is why I sent for you all. Scattered as you were you might not have been able to handle what is to come. But together you stand a chance. And you have already faired well against one creature. The Jabberwock is one of the Fey's most powerful beasts of destruction. But more will come. I know not how many or how often but I am hoping the gods will continue to guide me so that I might guide you."
Donovan Quince |
Depriving oneself to get closer to the gods? Now I've heard it all. What do the gods deprive themselves of? And you had visions after nearly starving yourself? How does that make you a diviner of the future? Starve Fizzy here for an hour and he'll show you all kinds of visions. Donovan stands, looking displeased. I've been used by the powerful before. Given a yolk claiming to be a mantle. And now, you gather us here for some game of titans? Pull the man you call the greatest defender against the Worldwound away from that defense for some potential threat you divined in a self-induced vision of horrors? I was enjoying my retirement.
Donovan moves closer to the oracle, his fingers twitching.
Mortimer Talinth |
"Donovan, sit down." Mortimer speaks clearly and with authority, hands folded before him. "Do not judge what you do not comprehend."
"We don't even know what's to come, and that's between some of the most brilliant minds in existence. The death of Aroden has changed the very fabric of reality as we know it and is releasing monsters long though dead or gone back into the world. Gods help us if Rovagug gets loose."
Donovan Quince |
Mort, I've been around a lot of people smarter than me. I'm sure you're one of them. But I'd rather listen to my gut any day. Keeps me alive while those smart people die. You're right about one thing, though. You don't know what's coming. You don't know, and neither does this Oracle. He spins towards Mortimer. And don't think your power gives you the right to boss me around, son. I've taken on the powerful before and survived.
He cracks a smile and winks Just like old times. Guess I'm coming out of retirement after all. and he flops onto the nearest open chair, grabbing more food.
DM Ancient |
The Oracle merely smiles back at Donovan. "Donovan Quince. First of all I would like to thank you. You and your companions saved this world once already from a perpetual winter. Even going so far as to hop worlds for ours and facing a terrible evil. Truly. Thank you. But you didn't have to go through that portal to Irrisen. You didn't have to go to the far off world of Triaxus. But when this world needed you, you did the right thing. But whether you believe me or not, this world needs you again. All of you. All I ask is that you give me a chance. Hm?"
Master Chef Kyamba |
"No, you are right Donovan. It needed to be said. I'm sure many of us had similar doubts." Kyamba puts down his own utensils for a minute to speak seriously "But sir...uh, Oracle? Rest assured you will have my services until we have seen this through. If the situation is as you say then it is my duty to do that much at least."
DM Ancient |
"Sorry. My name is Sandarial. The clerics refer to me as the Oracle as a sign of respect. As for what happens now. All I can say is we wait for a sign. Over the next year we are likely to have more convergences like the one you dealt with with the Fey. But the breakthroughs are going to be unpredictable. All I can do is pray for a sign before it happens unless you can come up with another way to track them. The gods all have a vested interest in this world. We draw strength from them just they draw strength from us. If the world is destroyed they will loose strength. They don't want to end up like Aroden anymore than we want them to."
Mortimer Talinth |
I draw my strength from no god. Mortimer nods. "I'm afraid the dear old king will be upset at my temporary leave of duty, but I see little choice in the matter. I could help with some divination magic, but I doubt anything I could come up with would be more powerful than what you have at your disposal. If we are going to be staying for such a long period of time, will we be set up in permanent living quarters?"
DM Ancient |
"Living arrangements can be made but you do not need to stay here," says the elf. "It might even be better to spread out in case an event takes us by surprise. However a means of getting to the next event quickly and communication will be necessary. We could establish here as a meeting point or someplace of your own choosing."
Ezren speaks up at this point. "I have communication already taken care of. Writing on those cards I sent you will transfer the words to others. It will glow when you get a new message. And it will cost a bit but I can place a Teleportation Circle somewhere close to each of you."
DM Ancient |
I am loath to give you guys any more advantages against what is to come but you are right to a certain extent. We can hand wave the cost of Circles. If you want money tell my what for or if you want an item pass it by me first.
An agreement is made and locations are established to set up Teleportation Circles near the others. Your word is needed that you will not reveal the location of the circles. Can't have anything finding its way back to Panthea. Unfortunately for Groff, the World Wound is too dangerous to put a circle nearby so Ezren volunteers to get him when needed.
You all have a week to do things until you will be needed. Even if it has no relevance towards the story I wouldn't mind a peek into the lives of these heroes. I'll return with story tomorrow.
Mortimer Talinth |
"Thank you. We will be ready for your call." With a wave of his hand and a word, Mortimer vanishes.
Mortimer mentally checks through his current operations and research while he's writing. He lets himself fade away from the material world, trusting the invisible Deva by his side to confront any threats.
Your majesty,
I have returned. All went well, no
serious expenses or injury occurred
out in the field. I would normally
give you my complete debriefing,
but this is one of those delicate
circumstances we spoke of previously.
If you require anything else of me,
do not hesitate to call on me. The
matter is not entirely resolved so
I may have to depart again with little
to no notice. I apologize for the
inconvenience, but it is of the
utmost importance.
As always, your servant to the kingdom,
Mortimer Talinth
Lily walks in with the cup right as Mortimer folds the letter. "Thank you Lily, would you deliver this letter to the king?" He exchanges the letter for the tea, taking a gentle sip and exhaling. Then as Lily shuts the door he activates the image of himself reading in the room, then teleports down into his underground room and steps into the portal to his plane.
Mortimer returns to work as if nothing has happened. He's been trying to develop what he calls "Stones of Recollection". The idea is to restore spells to a wizard's mind at a moment's notice. He's made significant progress, but he estimates at least eighty years more before he gets a prototype of it out.
At the same time he shuffles through all of the kingdom affairs he is in charge of dealing with, from cataloging retrieved artifacts to handling dangerous prisoners and everything in between.
Lastly, he enjoys the ability to call stronger creatures than he can on the material plane. He spends a few hours debating politics with a pit fiend, arguing semantics with a balor, and tries again to bind a solar but finds his magic is still not strong enough to call such a creature. With the reminder he continues his research into further enhancing the conjuring capability of his plane.
Master Chef Kyamba |
I want to use money to fund adventurers! That's what Kyamba mostly does with his spare cash. Plus I'd like to purchase alchemical ingredients. Is that all right?
Groff the glib |
Given that you changed the rules on bypassing DR, Groff actually now has to have the golf bag of weapons that was a cliche of 3.5. As it is, he doesn't have a weapon suited to fighting demons even though that is his major vocation. With a couple of feats swapped about I could alleviate this.
Groff heads back to the World Wound with a kind teleport from one of the arcanists available.
He resumes his normal patrols into the wound. He will lead teams of stalwart compatriots, though most of them are nowhere near his skill level, and there are usually losses. Nothing to be done about it and Groff is used to the nature of what he faces.
In the week he puts down a few major raids trying to undermine the wardstones. Noteworthy were the fights with the Marilith and the Vrolikai. These were major players from the abyss thinking they could find a new way to undermine the defenses of Golarion only to run straight into the blade of the crusade. Some of his team were taken down in the fights, but there is a dedicated team of priests back at Nerosyan who can bring almost anyone back, if you have some of the remains. Now fixing their morale after the horrors they are forced to witness if they venture into the wound, now that is another matter. Few, if any have remained with the crusade as long as Groff.
Getting back into his routine drives the thoughts of greater threats from his mind, leaving only a hint of the great peril to the world which he was warned about. It only sneaks back in when he is peering into the bottom of a mug of fine dwarven ale when he recovers from his patrols back in the city at his favored tavern.
Fizzwiddle Glockenfleffor XXII |
Fizzy heads back to Westcrown where he visits those that helped him free it of the council. While there he destroys a rising crime syndicate in the city. Stories come out of the city of a major battle in the streets, where the same gang seemed to be attacking themselves as often as shadowy beasts. All the stories differ, with the exception of the sounds of laughter being present.
Fizzy would really enjoy getting a bunch more spell pages of knowledge. I made a mistake by not taking the feat Shadow Gambit, but what are ya going to do
DM Ancient |
Groff the glib |
That seems like a reasonable solution. The call Pathfinder made on epic weapons I agree si rather hinky in that total bonus can bypass it. It should require a weapon of +6 enchantment like it did in the epic level rules of 3.5. I would need to add Holy to my weapon though for the alignment business since I fight upper CR demons and they all require good alignment. I can either adjust feats or my main weapon to compensate for this if you will allow that.
DM Ancient |
It seems odd you didn't have a cold iron or good weapon anyway since demons is all you fight. You can change the weapon. And crazy tough creatures like these are supposed to be end game bosses. Then the heroes live happily ever after and the story ends. In games like that you don't really worry about what comes after. I want to keep you guys as close to your original design as possible. But I'll allow a certain amount of updating to improve versatility. I don't want this to turn into an MMO where you can change gear and take on a different role though. I want you to have to rely on each other and not magic items to overcome these creatures. I want there to be things you jut can't do, as silly as that sounds for level 20. As Mortimer pointed out there isn't a lot of cooperation yet but that hasn't really been a need either when anyone of you could handle a CR 23 by yourself and probably all the mobs up to it.
Master Chef Kyamba |
Sure, but I'm sure we can find some kind of happy middle-ground between the two. What if we recieved some low amount of "resources" (like 20k gp) per boss monster on the grounds that we report what we buy? Or you can put a cap on the cost of any single item?
Mortimer Talinth |
We don't need massive loot drops of big items or anything, it's just some of our battle expenses are incredibly high. One day we will need to cast wish, and we can only do that so many times before becoming flat out broke. I don't think we need more loot, just some gold income.
IMHO, go empower. It's only a hair less powerful than maximize, and depending on how you roll it can actually do more damage, so at the lower spell adjustment it's almost always worth it.
Groff the glib |
I have an adamantine weapon instead of a cold iron weapon because I knew I could use the enhancement bonus to make it work like one and it never hurts to have your weapon be damned close to indestructible. Adamantine also has utility value that you can't get from other materials. I pretty much always have an adamantine weapon and rely on enhancement to solve further issues on any melee character. This is the case for all my PFS characters and most of the ones I run in PbP.
What I would do given the house rules here is:
A) Drop speed on the weapon for holy and bane evil outsider (since speed is a +3 bonus)
B) Take the penetrating strike feats. I'll trade out step up and greater shield focus for penetrating strike and greater penetrating strike.
I didn't have any intention of changing all the time. I just think it's fair that my build would suit the house rules which were imposted after I finished the build.