GM Neirikr's "The Dragon's Demand" (Inactive)

Game Master Neirikr

Not long at all—twenty-ish minutes, but only because you'll be hiking uphill and trying not to be seen. I've added the lair's location to the region map.

There won't be time to rest. Now that the Window has been destroyed, it's only a matter of hours (or minutes!) until Aeteperax goes on a rampage.

Vibenia. Go ahead and roll those last few changes. Nisany can heal but would rather save it for the fight

What other healing resources do we have. As it is now two of our 3 strong melee characters will get dropped with one hit, and Nisany's reduced HP make life link a much less viable option to keep them going.

Azmur has spent his sole casting CSW and one of his CMWs. He's got another CMW, as well as three prepped CLWs left. Unless you've got consumables to give him or unless he get healing from Nisany, he'll use as much of his remaining healing spells as he needs to bring himself to full (currently at 49/71 HP).

Taking the opportunity to channel that ghostly healing fire to heal everyone and then touching Azmur on the shoulder, hoping to bring him back to peak health for what is to come.

Okay, that brings him back to full!

I'll move us forward tomorrow—sorry for the delay, but I've been a bit frazzled.

Hard to believe we're finally here! This will be the first module/AP I ever manage to see to completion from start to end. A huge milestone in my books.

Yeah, it's pretty wild. I hope we'll get a happy ending!

Now is a good time to set up any buffs you might have access to and plan on tactics. Once you go down, there's no coming back.

I'm ready to go straight down. Will post as such tomorrow if no one else pipes up.

Sorry the Covid shot really messed me up. Apparently its bad if you have had Covid before. And it was. Checking my spells cause some of those should be cast beforehand

Is Dusk going down? So I know how many Shields of Faith I am casting. Its a +3 deflection bonus unless someone does not want it

Also Resist Energy. Only 10 acid resistance cause 20 is sadly at level 7. Dusk will get this too if going

And does Azmur need these?

Yeah Dusk definitely would be.

Been a week! Let's get to botting and dragon fighting.

Right. I'll get a post in ASAP. I'm assuming you lower Dusk into the cave and then rappel down using multiple ropes.

Azmur casts air walk, barkskin and resist energy on himself before zig-zagging down.

So that's 5 resist energey on the party and 6 shields of faith. So 10 acid resist and +3 deflection bonus for this fight.

All Nisany can do now is heal and maybe a bestow curse if she can get close.

You did more than enough, should keep us going for a bit.

Ye!

Motivation of this scene

So that's 5 resist energey on the party and 6 shields of faith. So 10 acid resist and +3 deflection bonus for this fight.

All Nisany can do now is heal and maybe a bestow curse if she can get close.

For botting purposes, I took this to mean that you wouldn't use your fire spells. Please correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption.

*nudge*

Just in case someone is frustrated by the dragon's annoyingly dragon-like tactics, I remind you that you have a method of disrupting them. Until you decide to employ it, I will play him accordingly. In any case, the dragon won't slay himself!

Apologies, what's our method for disrupting them?

Cave-in?

I can try called shots to the wings, though the called shot attack penalty makes it risky. A lucky crit could ground him.

Did we have some magical means that I've forgotten?

”Huh, what was that Szangi? I couldn’t quite hear you over there.” Syksy calls out in an aloof stage voice as she watches the dragon flap his wings.

That's the ticket! For transparency: the first taunt is a freebie, but he'll get a Will save from now on to determine if he can ignore the name-calling.

That was a horrible channel roll. Next round gonna use a bigger cure on Syksy.

Anyone else feel like we've already got this one in the bag?

Syksy is still within nom range (of the dragon) :3

LowEst to hit for sure is a 29 so far. Depends on if Syksy's attacks hit or not.

Whew. Those were some close rolls on Syksy's part, and indeed quite crucial—thankfully, Aeteperax had just charged her. Maybe a bit anticlimactic, but the dragon would have 100% killed Syksy with a full attack, so I'm mostly relieved. :D

Anyway, congratulations for not putting up with the Dragon's Demand(s)! We're at the end of the module. I'll come up with a proper epilogue as soon as I have a moment to sit down and write it out. In the meanwhile, feel free to roleplay out the immediate aftermath of the fight and divvy up the choicest loot, if you'd like. Put some thought into what your characters would like to do with their lives after the adventure is over, but please save that for after the epilogue.

\o/

Time for Epilogue music

Huzzah!

Thanks for playing, everyone! I know the final stretch was a bit of a drag, but even more so, I'm glad all of you stuck with me until the finish line—I hope you enjoy the closure as much as I do. Looking back at the campaign as a whole, even with the loss of players and the lag at the end, I'm still quite happy with the story we managed to tell.

I'll be taking the rest of the month off, so that I can focus on work and reorient myself a little. PbP has been an important creative outlet for me, but as I've finished my thesis, graduated, and tried to find my feet in working life, I've never had the chance to really figure out how this hobby fits into all of that. Once I've had a chance to adjust, I'll likely be back to running.

As for the epilogue, I'll give each of you a chance to write out your own before I mark the campaign as inactive. I gave all of you a hook, but don't feel obligated to bite. Also feel free to ask me about whatever! I'm sure I managed to miss some minor NPC from my write-up.

Thank you for running this epic game, DM. We kicked it off on August 1st, 2017m which makes it 1416 days of total game time. Incredible!

Question: did we miss anything major? Not figure out any key details, or skip over any key plot points? Or even minor but fun things? I feel like we were pretty thorough, but would be curious to know.

Thanks again - a hell of a job, a great ride, and the first serious module I've ever completed here on PbP :)

I greatly appreciate the patience with my slowness. The last year or so have been hectic not counting the plague. This has been a delightful game and thank you for running it!

Was there any thought on another module or game? This is a wonderful group :)

Question: did we miss anything major? Not figure out any key details, or skip over any key plot points? Or even minor but fun things? I feel like we were pretty thorough, but would be curious to know.

Thorough, indeed! Save for the basement of the monastery, I think we covered most of what's in the module. Aside from a couple of grioth clerics of Nyarlathotep, there wasn't really anything of interest down there for non-Irorans. There's also some implied stuff and room for extrapolation based on Belhaim's many residents, but all of that is superfluous.

I think most of the omissions and streamlining I had to do towards the end was material that I myself had added to the module (such as the bust + Arnholde's curse, as well as some Bernard/Hunclay-related stuff having to do with the shadow demon). Of course, some of this was due to losing players that said material was for.

Was there any thought on another module or game? This is a wonderful group :)

I can't really promise anything, since I'm not quite certain where my introspection will take me. If I do decide to continue running (which I more than likely will), I might want to shuffle people around to keep things fresh. You're all definitely on my short list of preferred players, but there's some other folks I'd like to run for, too.

With that said, if there's someone else here who’d like to run a game and keep this group going, I'd definitely be interested in playing for a change! :)

I know I have not been the most consistent recently. But I would be happy to give running a game. I have a few modules I could run.

GM Neirikr I have been looking into how I wanna do the ritual since I will need be blood of a fresh aberration. But we already have the voidglass blades, right?

GM Neirikr I have been looking into how I wanna do the ritual since I will need be blood of a fresh aberration. But we already have the voidglass blades, right?

You have various voidglass weapons looted from the grioths. Having the alchemical expertise, Nisany could have preserved the yangethe's blood for the ritual (it being an aberration), or she could have Vibenia and Dusk hunt down a chuul from the swamp—whatever you'd like. It's totally doable.

took a bit but i think im happy with that.

Well done!

Anyone else going to write something? You don't have to, obviously. I'll wait until Monday, and then I'll mark the campaign as inactive.

I'll get a post up tonight, been pretty hectic recently.

This campaign is now marked as inactive. Of course, you can still post your epilogues if you'd like. I'll probably check the thread a few more times in the coming weeks, but I'd rather not have the game taking up space in my active campaigns forever.

If Nisany is up for running something, you'll probably want to start a new thread and herd people that way via PMs.

I have a few I could run, assuming there is interest.

Gallery of Evil which is for level 8. Its an urban adventure that takes place in Absalom. I have always wanted to run this one.

Blood of Dragonscar is for level 15 characters, assuming yall aren't burnt out on the dragon theme. This one has some urban and dungeon elements. It is in Taldor, the town of Dalaston. This one I almost got to run. It's high level which I do not see very often.

We be Goblins and we be goblins tpo! are ones that could be ran. Low level and you are goblins. So the mischief can be embraced.

And there is Hollows Last Hope which is level 1. That's in Falcons Hollow in Andoran. And there are a few modules that can be run after it if wanted. Can go all the way to level 6. There is some wilderness, dungeons, and urban elements to these ones.

I'm leaning slightly towards Gallery of Evil, just based on the level (7-12 is my sweet spot). All of the others sound fine too.