Carrion Crown: Forked Path

Game Master gabboge

Sweet!...
or rather, salty:)

Well, later this afternoon I'm going to throw it over to the next intro. Last chance for Gerald.

I hope your feeling OK now.

I am here, getting better too. Very busy with the holidays though.
Was kinda waiting for something to happen, as I wrote, Gerald's plan was to stay quiet and hope to get tossed back to the normal world. From what he gets, these beings are powerful and knowledeable beyond comprehension, best he can hope for is for them to do what they said they'd do and he's trying his best not to do anything to make them change their mind, so just being quiet and as unnoticeable as possible.

Sorry for the delay. Arkivolld and Doon, you are up.

Night of the living dead for you!

Argh - kids have come down with some holiday bug. Will try to keep up but might be a little slow.

Oh goodie. It's time to showcase the art of running....

+1 for shaped charge fireballs in tunnels, ps! Haven't seen those in quite a while! :)

http://www.exploring-castles.com/image-files/medieval_castle_layout.jpg

Here is a decent diagram though the great hall is along the back end. The zombies pushed you all into the first courtyard but hen you found a tunnel system underground.

They have probably filled the first courtyard but you think your underneath the second.

Zombie run!!!!

I feel like I may have accidentally railroaded the previous chapter a bit by not outlining options as well as I could have so please post any questions you have.

This is my favorite kind of encounter to run. Where I back you into a corner as just watch how you get out.

I have a tendency to throw huge monsters that any GM guide would tell me not to use at low levels because I think being clever counts for about 4 levels.

I threw the tarrasque at a 10th lvl part with no warning. Rather then run they lured it to a volcano where they used stone shape to send it hurtling into a volcano.

The volcano itself was a very plotty device I had used previously which has been stated that the lava caused not fire damage but a form of firey vile damage (http://www.iourn.com/dnd/miscellany/viledamage.htm). They remembered that for just such an occasion. Using it to utter desolate this CR25 creature with relative ease.

Rather then be angry I was ecstatic. Sure it cut the session seriously short and invalidated a huge section of game that I had set up but I was so impressed by the ingenuity of it all that I even cut them some slack on some very outside the box use of some rules.

Have fun and I will work with you.

I keep wanting to jump in and help and have to keep reminding myself that Belor's not there.

haha well. Soon you will all be together.

**Notice to all players** (Except Doon and Ark)

Go ahead and level up your characters! There will be a bit of a time jump once we are done with this chapter and in that time you will have bumped yourselves up.

BTW I should mention that I don't really like to do EXP. I would rather have you level up when it makes sense. In this case you all completed your intro chapter and we are going to get things going with a bang soon.

How are we doing hit points rolling 1d10 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8 or something else?

Go ahead. You can have 1 reroll if your dice roll is less then half. Its sucks hard to roll a 1

I had that once. Three 1s in a roll on a barbarian. GM called in divine intervention and gave me a dream sequence to fix that.

hit points: 1d8 ⇒ 5

I cleaned up this alias' profile and finished leveling up.

I keep wanting to jump in and help and have to keep reminding myself that Belor's not there.

Me too:P

Lol That's how I felt during your segments. lol

I need to run faster it seems.

1d8 ⇒ 3
1d8 ⇒ 5

thanks for the reroll 8-}

1d6 ⇒ 4

So about half the group is now at the door. You can get the other half in the next load. At this point it looks like getting the carts loaded in will take longer then the rest of the people.

I'm thinking of using the carts to barricade the doors and also to cart off any other wounded if able too. The zombies already through could be a problem.

Also are the doors already opened or are they closed, Doon has to make a decision on whether to tell them how to open or if already opened, he'll dash back.

Closed. Though the locking mechanism seem to be out in the open begging to be used

You handled the zombies very well but now you have to deal with the door.

The man has been reduced to -1hp. You can save him but you have to be fast.

Also there is the issue of the door. How are you wanting to try and get it the rest of the way?

Now the pressure is on. Zombies behind and traps ahead.

The pressure is indeed on...
I certainty hope I can get everyone in in time and there's something to close the door after all.

The pressure is indeed on...

I certainty hope I can get everyone in in time and there's something to close the door after all.

Uh, I hope so too. But I've gotta cram *some* reckless glory in first, right?

Sorry for inconsistent use of avatar; is there a way to set my default alias for the thread?

Sorry I'm busy at work. I'll try to post tonight or early tomorrow.

SO here is the idea of rolling karma.

When you have something rather random that can go really good one way or the other we roll karma. Though sometimes you can bring it up in games like "Hey, maybe one of the townsfolk is wearing a sword that I can take." The I'll roll Karma.

I roll a D20 and if your 1-10 it doesn't work, if you get 11-20 then it's a success.

Now good luck doesn't last, and bad luck has to run out eventually so if you succeed then your next roll is at -1 while if you fail your next roll is at +1.

These keep stacking. If you have failed the last 5 karma rolls then your bound to break that bad luck streak because you have a +5 to your next check.

So Ark, you have a -1 to Karma.

Nice. Karma can be deadly at times.

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

Dead and curled up into a fetal position all facing towards the doom.

Uh, is that a typo for "door", or is this inner sanctum even more sinister than it looked before?

Excuse the Typo, I indeed meant to write Door.

Though one should simply assume Doom at any given moment.

Doom Doon. Doon Doom. I thought for a moment you called.....

@Doon: DON'T CUT THE GREEN WIRE.

(Edit: Unless, you know, it's the right one to cut.)

Wait....They come in colors??? :P

*cuts them all*

When in doubt re-read lore checks. I don't add a ton of fluffy stuff that has nothing to do with the game. Though every once in a while a red herring is fun.

That was nail biting..........

Thank the powers to be I'm a dwarf..........

And those knowledge locals pretty much give you lore checks that spell out most things. Consider yourself to have an internal map of the points of interest.

Oh and is everyone just about ready for the main event? It's going to happen super fast.

I'll give you a proper warning when we are ready to move on.

I'm prepared but I'm slower on weekends due to having to work.

Well in terms of traps I think you have just set one for yourself.

Lighting fires in an air tight room is a No-No that any dwarf would know. Not just because of the smoke but also the fact that you will quickly burn through all of your air.

Whoops I guess. Do I know if there are any stairs or something that leads away from here?

Tooo late for a retcon then.

So as the walking map, do I know if the king's vault leads the way out?
Or at least get us air?

Oh and is everyone just about ready for the main event? It's going to happen super fast.

I'll give you a proper warning when we are ready to move on.

I'm ready

Present.

Ready, Izorshi, remember we leveled up.

Ready, Izorshi, remember we leveled up.

Oops, I updated my character sheet awhile ago, but didn't change the alias profile. Done.

lol I did the same thing, updated my profile today.

You have herd stories of escape tunnels in such castles. Unfortinatly it is likely that you are in it right now and that it was supposed to lead out the other way. You likely found it because it had been used and then abandoned when the castle fell.

Speaking of which: This castle fell nearly 110 years ago. You remember as a young boy hearing stories of it. A small force of pirates had been goaded into attack by the lord who fancied himself a tactition. The lord had set up a series of traps for any invading force. Unfortunately for him the entire set-up was bypassed.

A small black vessel carrying the pirates best men had slipped in along the river at night, the men had bought advanced climbing equipment and scaled the entire back wall. They assassinated the king in his own keep and then drove everyone else out. It was over before it began, the pirate quickly stole everything of value only loosing a few men in the process who had gotten trapped in a booby-trapped vault, or so the legend says.

And yes, up the stares leads to everything noteworthy

Thanks for that.
Now for the reaction.

Ye gods!!!