Just a slight over-extension is all the devil needs. Twin sets of claws gouge into your flesh, holding you in place as its beard stabs into you, moving with a mind of its own.
You swing wildly, forcing the devil to dodge back or be skewered, but it quickly darts back in, rending you with its claws.
The demon descended and the devil born brawl; for that is what it is, any trace of finesse or restraint lost long ago. A flurry of claws is fended off by an arcing swing, only to step up and be fended off in return. Finally the tiefling improvises, crouching down low beneath a swipe of talons, and then shooting upward, sword to the sky with all the force of his legs behind it. The blade pierces through the devils beard, splitting skin and tongue, bone and brain, to crack through the top of the skull. The fiend doesn't even gurgle, merely slumps down to the ground, its weight dragging it off the blade with minimal effort.
Once again, in this strangest of trials, a first has happened. A demon spawned tiefling has achieved the ranks of the most disciplined fighting force in existence. The applause and cheering is somewhat subdued, many being too surprised or concerned to celebrate.
High above, the Vicarius claps twice, invisibly smirking at the stunned Hellknights. Once again, his judgement is proven right.
Two clerics surround you, binding your wounds before guiding you over to the victors row. The Vicarius speaks, his voice booming loud suddenly.
The assembled Hellknights do just that, clapping and pounding their armor until your ears ring from the din.
You have done it.
You are Hellknights.
|
Cassius watches from his place in the stands, brows arched at the tiefling who achieves success.
"Hey boss-- isn't that like cannibalism, or somethimmff--"
Cassius's fingers close over the parrot's beak and he gives the bird a meaningful look. Grumpily, the parrot falls back into silence. Cassius inclines his head to his fellow Hellknights in a small gesture of acknowledgment, then tries for sedate, dignified patience as he waits for further instructions from the Vicarius.
|
|
Sildred barks a few times and bares his bloody fangs triumphantly at the healers as they guide him away.
Before leaving the field he fetches his broken glaive.
His oddly lawful nature is likely to come from the pain of disciplined training rather than enlightened self-interest. He's too dumb to train himself.
Sildred's brand is
Demonic, Disciplined, and Dangerous.
Sildred is NOT
Nice, Educated, and Forgiving
1) Sildred's fear of his father's disdain largely keeps him in line. He has been trained through harsh punishment to control impulses and clearly assess situations.
2) Perhaps Sildred's low intelligence contributes to his sense of selfish superiority.
3)While the other Hell Knights might pour over tomes of laws, he can barely read them. Still he's patient enough to finish the job - it just might take him a year to finish a 1,000 page codex, etc.
4)Hopefully as he works more with the hellknights he can come to grips with what kind of person his mother must have been. It might even redeem him enough for a bump up to LN. Maybe.
From the overlook Ivari watches the remaining challenges. The dead ninja, a worthy way to die, a pity to end such a way. The tiefling...Ivari could not help but bristle...there was a feral rawness to it...a likely candidate for evil, the paladin would.keep a close eye on the being, its fangs glistening as it exited. IvarI stood ready, waiting for what would come next.
Seccty applauded the others as well, seeing some he would have to surpass during his time as a Hellknight.
Bjorn salutes all the worthy new Hellknights
Alright guys. It is time. I've been agonizing over this for like four hours now. But I finally have come to a conclusion. Bjorn, Vorgal, Kayle, Ivari, and Cassius, congrats to you! You made it!
A few notes on some things I expect from the campaign. As you can see, my posting schedule is not the most consistent in the world. So I will not hold you to a strict time or number of posts per day or something like that. That being said, I do want to get this thing moving along quickly, and if I find you consistently holding up progress imma slap ya. You'll get one warning, and then I'll pick someone else. If there are extenuating circumstances of course I'll be understanding, but I've been in too many campaigns that end prematurely due to constantly getting held up by a single person.
Secondly, this is going to be HARD. Not in a traditional style of adventure either. I'm trying to make this have a more realistic mood/theme, and so there will be some elements of standard adventuring that I won't necessarily hold to. It will be entirely possible for you to die very unexpectedly. I have provided at least three options for every situation (plus whatever you can engineer), but I'm not going to make any of them particularly easy. While I'm not in the military, I went to a military school and have done training/work with every branch but the Navy, plus the militaries of several other countries. This campaign will reflect some of that mindset. Being able to identify and accomplish both short and long term objectives will be a key factor in your success.
Thirdly, I am a dumb meatsack just like everyone else, but also with an unfortunate tendency towards insomnia. As such, my memory of rules or past events may falter on occasion. I will not at all take offence to you pointing out my errors. In fact, I really want you to. I play way more than I gm, so there's likely to be many small things that I'm not familiar with. Feel free to educate me. However, unless it's a major situation, I will tend towards consistency rather than correctness. So if I've ruled it one way in the past, I will do my best to rule it that way every time, even if it was a mistake (this has already come up a couple times just in the recruitment). I've found that this helps streamline things in the long run. So I apologize in advance for any missteps I might make.
Lastly, I really hope you all enjoy this! Play will begin tomorrow (approx. 14 hours from posting), but feel free to start posting among yourselves to get into the mood (wink?). Super excited guys!
************************************
To everyone else, I'm sorry that I couldn't play this with all of you, because I really want to. But I can only take so many people. You all did well, and can still proudly call yourselves Hellknights! =P
If you desire, let me know and I'll put you on the backlist in case somebody dies.
Thank you once again everyone!
Vorgal arrives at the meeting place first, leans a against a wall away from the door, and watches for the rest of his squad to filter in. He is thankful for some of his notes from the fights, as so many of them dulled his memories of the other new Hell Knights.
Bjorn was easy to remember, it's hard to go first and even harder to win first.
Everyone remembers Kayle, and I'm sure several will in the future as her named is marked as a perfect champion.
Cassius is somewhat memorable but his bird is much more so.
Ivari still startles him, the concept of a Paladin with oaths to hold also as a Hell Knight is a strange to him as a dwarf shooting a bow.
Understandable. I wasn't expecting it to take this long myself either, didn't consider that this many people would try out. But I guess I know better now =P Good luck in your future endeavors!
... everyone invested considerable time into a 'maybe'.
Indeed, next time, be more clear on how are you going to proceed with the recruitment, cause if you put yourself in my skin, you will realize that is a considerable amount of effort thrown away. After all, it would be less likely that a second pure melee-Heavy Tanker would be selected after Bjorn had the first spot taken (that was pretty obvious, I believe). As I thought you were taking other people to form two squads I applied for the same role, but that was just time lost, wasn't it?
Put me in the list, in case someone dies.
Well, I did say 4-6 people =P But yes, I understand, and I apologize. I've never run a recruitment before, and certainly never one like this. I'll know more of what to expect if/when there's a next time.
You is on da list.
This was certainly an intense recruitment, though i well say that it was one of the most interedting. I've seen others that had role play as a way to enhance the recruit but never so structured. I'm sure there are things to learn from how this went (I'm certainly inspired for my nextrecruitmeng) but i want to thank everykne who stuck it out, i honestly hop e i end up in games with you all one day.
|
|
Cassius exhales when his name is called. He rises to his feet to proceed with the other knights upon this mission, determined to conquer whatever threats await. And to keep Decibel's mouth shut as much as possible.
***
I enjoyed the recruitment thread style, personally. And sure, as someone who got in it's maybe easier for me to say that, but even if I hadn't been selected, I would still have had fun; not every day you get to play out a solo combat between your concept character and a tough monster to see how it would run. It was also a lot of work for Soldier to GM all of that.
I will grant that spelling out more clearly the recruitment phases, and that participating in the test is no guarantee of a campaign spot, would probably help some in the future, but... it's a hobby, nobody made anybody apply, and making characters is pretty enjoyable really, so as far as it being 'wasted work' for anyone, eh. To each their own experience I guess.
But then, I've had people complain in my games that just making the crunch and a short description of their characters was 'too much' work, when they didn't get in...
I just bought the Advanced class guide, going to have to go see what changes I need to make, Would applying an archetype be allowed?
Unfortunately, I don't have the book, and it's not transcribed to the srd or the archives yet, so until one of those things changes you'll have to use the playtest version.
Can do. Have fun!
Oh man, who the hell is that one? things getting even more interesting :D
Dun dun da dunnnnnnnnnn! lol
Cassius, than you for the protective spell, I'll try to make good use of it on my turn.
Spell recall is what you really need
A really nice feature, indeed.
At last I'll take Hellknight levels :D
Aw yeah!
|
|
All my information is coming from the core entry on wizards, and this section here for specifics not covered under the wizard section.
By the Order granting Cassius access to Level 2 spells, I understand that there would be no fee as mentioned just for access to another wizard's spellbook/scrolls. However, if I'm reading the rules correctly, that doesn't negate the cost I have to pay to actually copy the spell into my spellbook, which is 10 GP for 1st level spells, 40 GP for 2nd, and upward from there.
If that is the case, then my new-spell-selection process will be vastly simplified, lol, as all I can afford to learn in my week of downtime will be a single 2nd level spell (I have about 43 gold after getting the 15 gp for mission completion) or some level 1s.
If this is what you intended, that's fine, I'll either cope with only learning one spell or I'll RP out hitting up my squad members for a loan of gold, coff coff. But I just wanted to be sure that I'm understanding the intention correctly, that access to the level 2 library doesn't do anything to change the fact that I still have to pay for every spell I add to my book.
Second question: Per the section on magic, "A spellcaster always has the option to fill a higher-level spell slot with a lower-level spell."
Does this also apply to a wizard's specialized spell slot they get for their specific school? I.e., I now have 4th level spell slots, but one of them is a bonus conjuration spell slot. Can I still fill that slot with a third-level conjuration spell?
No problem at all. I'm not gonna lie, I've never played a wizard either, and didn't know it cost to transcribe spells. But we'll play it as the Order has many of the basic components required at hand, you don't have to pay for them, so the price will be cut in half (so only 20gp for 2nd level spells, etc.). My bad for not researching that more thoroughly.
Yes, you can fill a school slot with a lower level spell of the same school.
I can toss some coins in, we all will benefit from high level casting.
|
|
Thanks, Soldier, I think that works out well all around-- good compromise between not being full-expense, and not writing a blank check.
@ Bjorn: Well, technically right now it's just more low-level casting. ;) Higher-level spells will be a much bigger chunk of gold (since I'd need to pay for access, a minimum of 135 gold to copy any 3rd-level spell, a minimum of 240 to copy any 4th-level spell)... But yeah, more options is a good thing. Cheers ahead of time, but I'll try not to take too much of your gold.
+1 Level of Hellknight Signifier
Full HP as per houserules
All saves +1
Skills: Diplomacy +1, Disable Device +1, Linguistics +1, Knowledge: Arcana +1, Knowledge: Local +1, Knowledge: Planes +1, Sense Motive +1, Spellcraft +1
Languages: I'd like to use the rank in linguistics to pick up Varisian, as Cassius would want to learn more to deal with the largely-Varisian Tower, but I know some GMs have realism issues with the idea that you can learn a new language literally overnight, per RAW. Or even in a week. Let me know if that's okay.
Feat gained: Split Splot, planning to use that on a 4th-level spell splot, to get two more 2nd level slots, for the immediate future anyway.
I'm regretting my choice of Transmutation as an opposed school, haha. I was thinking that I was mostly giving up buffs like Cat's Grace, etc, but I forgot that it means Haste and Fly too. I can't imagine what else I would have picked, though-- I pretty much want spells from all the schools, so this is just generalized whining from me. :P
Doesn't bother me too much. Just rp it as you've been studying it for a while, but finally took this opportunity to get serious about it. Maybe rp out some lessons with Vorgal, I know he knows Varisian.
Kayle
Are we having a discussion before talking I te Vicarius? I was waiting on that doscussion to happen before doing anything else.
After the discussion, i am waiting for what the vicarious has to say.
You will be happy to know then that he has in fact replied!
Hey guys. Well last night my computer died. Mobo beeps indicate a video card failure, but I don't know if I'll have to replace it or just reconnect it. So I may be out a few days until I can get that dealt with. I apologize, and will do my best to be back as soon as possible.
No worries, just hope it is going to be cheap.
Boo to comp death! I agree, take your time, just keep us in the loop. ;p
-Posted with Wayfinder
@Cassius: Fun you are using ¿Amenian? for infernal
I used norwegian for it on one of Bjorn first post :D
the advanced race guide is on the PRD. Can I apply an archetype and pply some small other changes?