The 5th Mendevian Crusade (Inactive)

Game Master Brian Minhinnick

Can I suggest waiting for the results of Sigmund's check before dispelling? I'd like to make sure it doesn't explode upon removal first.

"Maybe we got lucky it is just very fancy body art." Crissor shrugged. "If it was a weapon of some sort I think the giant would have unleashed it on us."

Sigmund approaches Nathaniel, and praying for magical sight concentrates on the gem for several seconds. He appears to be deep in thought and concentration as he follows the mystical threads with his enhanced vision. "I've got it." He announces grimly. "Didn't their leader say that the "eye of the prophet is on us, we cannot fail!"? Now I know why. This is a soulbound eye. It allows the creator to see through the users senses, all of them, at any time. He's probably listening to me right now." Sigmund says, looking concerned. "Additionally, certain spells of mental control can be cas...."

Sigmund is interrupted as Nathaniel's eyes suddenly roll up to look at the gem in his own forehead. The summoner hears a sibilant male voice whispering in his mind, "You friend is lying, he's under the magic of the stone. He's possessed by a demon, why don't you grab ahold of that mace in your backpack, just in case?" Nathaniel's hand reaches into his bag, but then the summoner shakes his head back and forth rapidly as if awaking from a dream. The whole event takes only a second or two. He feels like someone definitely cast an enchantment spell on him just then.

Sigmund pauses for a second before finishing his sentence "...cast through it as well. You okay Nathaniel?"

________________________________

Nathaniel (will save): 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (17) + 11 = 28

Soulbound Eye

Sorry to play your character for you Sigmund, but it's easier and quicker than posting the info and then waiting for Sigmund to explain. He knows all the info in the item description. Including how to remove it.

Note that I have Devotion, +4 on will saves versus enchantment, and I think half-elves get +2 versus enchantment as well.

Nathaniel slams his palm into his chest and spits out a few harsh syllables; in a small puff of smoke, he vanishes, returning to his small half-elf form. He slides his backpack off his shoulders and tosses it away, then sends his weapon away similarly. Breathing hard, he staggers slightly and stops, waiting to see if her hears the voice again.

Note that I have Devotion, +4 on will saves versus enchantment, and I think half-elves get +2 versus enchantment as well

Could you please not that next to your saves on your fused stat block? It will help me to remember it in the future.

Nathaniel hears nothing else at the moment.

Nathaniel's breathing calms and he closes his eyes and focuses himself before opening them again. "Certain spells of mental control? Speak of the devil, Sigmund; a fellow spoke to me inside my head and ordered me to grab the mace in a voice most magically persuasive. I managed to disobey him, but... I assume it could happen again."

Viorel starts to go trough his mind how to solve the issue. "Nathaniel close your eyes and cover your ears, no need to give the enemy anymore information than necessary." He then turns to the other casters of the group. "Does anyone have the required spell?" Not waiting for response he turns towards the half-elf readying himself to neutralize any spells he might cast in case he does lose control.

Nathaniel nods and bends over on his knees and scratches a few symbols in the ground in a pentacle around him. Protection in place, he closes his eyes and stuffs his fingers in his ears.

Cast magic circle against evil

"You don't wanna know my solution,' Liette notes with a waver in her voice, slowly unholstering Justice. "But if we have to go through with it, I'll gladly pay t'bring him back from the Boneyard in one piece." Shifting a look to Viorel, there's an expression of desperation in Liette's expression.

Anything else, it begs.

Note that I have Devotion, +4 on will saves versus enchantment, and I think half-elves get +2 versus enchantment as well.

Is Devotion active even when you're not fused?

Abigail curses: "Fool! You are putting us all at risk. You could easily kill a few of us before we bring you down, and you feel the need to put such an item of doom on your head!? Now our enemy sees all, and heard all our discussions and plans! We will get this thing off your head, as Viorel said, one way or another..."

Now let me concentrate and pray for Erastil's blessings!"

She moves a few yards away and rests against Sacha, her eyes closed, breathing steadily for long minutes.

Sigmund, where can I find which spells you've prepared for the day on your sheet?

Abigail returns after a few minutes: "We can try to kill him, then remove the object, then try a quick reviving. If we do it that way, we'll only have a breath before he slips to the Boneyard. Sigmund, could you revive him? I can't. I've instead asked Erastil to free him from curses. That might work better than trying to disrupt the flow of magic. Here we go..."

She turns to Nathaniel: "Erastil hear your faithful servant! This man has served your cause well in these badlands. He's bled and killed for the community of men, to allow this country to be reclaimed from the claws of unholy monstrosities. I ask that you forgive his sin of hubris and grant him a chance to learn from his mistake. I ask that you free him from the grasp of this abject gem of terror. FREE HIM!" she finishes, slapping Nathaniel with her gauntleted hand.

Break Enchantment, spending a Hero point before the roll.
DC is 11+CL: 1d20 + 9 + 8 ⇒ (6) + 9 + 8 = 23

Abigail looks at Nathaniel, not sure if she freed him...

My prepared spells are in the spoiler at the top of my combat action posts, as shown here. I only get a brief chance to post most days, so updating my character sheet each time is impractical for me.

Hands: Holy Symbol & Shield
AC 21 (+7 armor, +1 dex, +3 shield)
HP 51/59
Conditions:

"A soulbound eye is usually destroyed when removed from its host. The death of its former host must have circumvented that, to our chagrin. Let me help you in your casting, Abigail, for truly this curse is powerful. We cannot allow the scum of Urgathoa to scry upon us. Liette, Crissor, present your holy symbols and help us. Viorel, gaze upon the chains of this enchantment and tell us when they are weakening, ready to snap."

Sigmund will use another hero point to add an additional +4 to Abigail's roll. I suggest others add points as well. We cannot afford to have this item around for another moment longer.

...I'm glad Nathaniel has his ears stuffed closed. He would not be terribly delighted with how quickly you jump to 'hey, let's kill him!'

Well, I'd hope someone other than Sigmund can spend the point since he only has two, but yeah. One hero point is needed from someone to make Abigail's roll a success.

Can I spend it? It's my own damn fault after all for giving you such a great GM story. 'One of my players....'

Yes, you can. I did literally facepalm when I read your post putting the gem to your head.

With the group working together, Abigail's spell is able to destroy the gem. It extracts itself painfully from Nathaniel's brain, and falls to the ground, crumbling into a pile of dust. It leaves no hole in his head, though there is a trickle of blood down his face.

Damn people you are fast.

Viorel glances at Liette and forms the word with his lips. "No." Soon the gem is removed and crumbled to dust. He walks towards Nathaniel. "Okay the bloody thing is gone now, you feel ok?" He turns towards Abigail giving a nod of appreciation. "Oh and I do agree with the smack to the head." He smirks. Soon the mage changes to more serious expression. "Sigmund can you tell how complex of a magical item we are talking about? From what you told allready gives me the impression that whatever tried to control Nathaniel was the creator of that thing, more we know about the creation process the more we can speculate of our newest enemy."

Nathaniel opens his eyes and rubs his forehead. "Ow. Ow ow ow ow." Feeling around where the eye used to be, he sighs in relief. "Thank the gods, I thought-" He pauses and looks around to Abigail and Sigmund. "Thank Erastil, thank Iomedae, and their servants." He stands, and retrieves his backpack and weapon. "Thank you all." Closing his eyes, he mutters his incantation and scrawls some symbols in the sand before the blue dinosaur springs forth, and its eyes open. "And Bartimaeus thanks you as well."

Abigail breathes again, after the gem is removed, and allows herself a tight smile to Nathaniel: "I'm glad you're free. Please don't do it again..."

So, Nathaniel spent his point to assist instead and I still have 2? Whew!

"Well done, Abigail. Truly you are a master of magic."

"Viorel, whomever created this artifact is powerful indeed - in more than one way. Firstly, the giant's leader would have needed to willingly accept the gem. Only someone of great personal power could have commanded such an act without being disemboweled. Secondly, the gem itself is a focus for a scrying spell. You are certainly aware of the difficulty of such spells."

"Best case scenario, this is the cleric of Lamashtu, likely another giant himself, who's personal power roughly equaled that of the giant we defeated. Of course, there are many, many worse scenarios that could account for the circumstances."

"We have likely made another enemy in these wastelands - one who will not simply attack us because our paths crosses, but one who will seek us out. If you have any magical means of detecting scrying, I would suggest you employ them, for it is almost certain that our new foe will spy upon us."

"Nathaniel, you are quite welcome. I am no stranger to foolish, impetuous acts myself, so I cannot judge you without being a hypocrite. I am glad we were able to destroy that gem."

Seeing the gem removed and destroyed, Crissor grins and shrugs. "Well it's like an old saying I heard, live, learn, and don't stick your hand in a cookie jar owned by mouse trap maker."

Holstering her revolver, Liette exhales a strained sigh.

Whap.

It's not the back of his head (that's too high up) but the slap across Bartimeaeus' flank will have to suffice. "Don't, ever scare me like that again," Liette states flatly, offering a sharp look to the summoner before walking past him.

"We need t'get out of here."

"We certainly do, but how best to deal with the scrying focus? Can it be used to teleport here? I don't like that gem. If we can't control it, we should just bury it perhaps?"

It's destroyed already, crumbled to dust. I will work on a post advancing exploration today as that seems to be what everyone wants to do.

Abigail notices rhe gem has turned to dust. In her excitement, she hadn't notices it. "Hmm, it is destroyed. It is the first time I had to use that prayer. Erastil has powerful blessings for the faithful..."

Nathaniel smiles apologetically at everyone- starting back a pace when Liette hits him, of course- and as soon as everyone is ready, steps up into the sky to continue the journey.

Hopefully this mess was a lesson for us.

Barek grunts his agreement. "I don't suppose you learned something from whatever it was while it tried to take you? It knows about us, I'd like to know about it"

(Don't let the silly summoner put anything in his head?)

Nathaniel shrugs. "From the voice, he was male, and he spoke common well. I was a little too worried about touching the mace to hear any more."

GM, any chance there was an accent or anything recognizable?

"Best I am capable of would be to able to tell when scrying happens and even that is not a sure shot, a more accomplished spellcaster could get away with it without me noticing also the target would have to be relatively close to me. And it will not be an option before we are back at the keep, and there isn't a guarantee that the items needed are for sale there. Of coarse there exists more potent magic that could counter any attempts at divination but we do not have the resources to equip ourselves with that."

He definitely had a funky accent, but not one that Nathaniel recognizes. Don't forget you have two divination countering items you took off Raina.

09/06/4712 07:10

With the soulbound eye removed from Nathaniel's forehead and the rest of their gear packed up, the group is eager to put their campsite and the memory of Nathaniel's mistake behind them. They had inadvertently revealed the presence of the Asmodean mace, their commissioned glider and their plans to return to Clydwell Keep to the giants' mysterious Prophet leader. Not to mention the fact that when the charmed giant returns to their base, he will know that he was deceived. What consequences the lapse would bring remains to be seen, but there is no time to waste worrying. They still have a lot of ground to cover.

Putting the rising sun to their right shoulders the group begins marching north through the desert. By the end of the morning, they've reached the northern border of the hex demarcated on their map. As they are turning to head back south and east Kenan, Viorel and Nathaniel spot what must be three of the desert drakes appearing in the sky overhead. They are so far up that they appear be nothing more than three small yellow ants crawling across the giant blue sphere of the sky. As the eagle eyed members of the group watch, one of the drakes peels off, flying rapidly to the northwest. The other two continue to follow the group circling them at extreme altitude.

09/06/4712 07:50

Updated Travel Map

_________________________________________________

Continue on, or what?

...Frakk, I didn't realize things were as bad as that!

Nathaniel shades his eyes and squints as he stares at the sky. "We are being tracked. Three desert drakes; one just broke off."

Any estimate possible how high the drakes are?

Viorel takes out his spyglass for a closer look. "I see them. I think we should deal with them now, sooner or later we are going to come up with hostiles and I would rather deal with them in small numbers. How many can grant the ability to fly among us? I can with relative ease take care 3 of us and maxium of 7 but that will mean my spell casting abilities are close to drained for the day." He strokes his beard for a moment trying to figure out a suitable plan. "Nathaniel how many people can you teleport and how far? I don't like this situation but if we can engage them without them being able to escape I would like to do so."

Well since you can barely see them, you'd guess 8000+ feet away. It's hard to say really. Can you look at a cloud or airplane and tell me its altitude?

"Hmm; two people, 760ft in the air... Does anyone know how fast Drakes can fly? Our best bet might be to strap Sigmund or someone who can heal to my back and send me up there to fight; if I get in trouble, Sigmund can protect me, if all goes to hells then I can dive down and bring them within range of the rest of you."

Well vaguely yes, granted though that is because I am more knowledgable about the subject than majority of people. Anyways 8k+ is good enough. I was basicly asking something in the vein of counted in km's or meters.

Knowledge Arcana to know the speed1d20 + 16 ⇒ (13) + 16 = 29

They can fly at 60 and burrow at 20.

Nathaniel nods in satisfaction. "I can fly rings around them."

"Well by my judgement they are at least about mile and a half high. Because they can't sprint for the whole way down, it should take them 20 minutes to get down or more, that is assuming they are not skilled enough flyers to decent straight down. To be honest I am most worried about the one that broke off, no knowing if it went to get reinforcements. We could try losing them once the visibility is down. I don't like any of the options that I see us having." He has a frustrated look on his face.

Sigmund squints in the sky, but cannot make out the drakes.

"I have been ambushed too many times in this place to be happy about being stalked, but I have no spells that can reach that far. Two or three drakes we could deal with, even in our current state. A whole herd of them, probably not. We should either engage the drakes on our terms, soon, or conceal ourselves."

"An' here I am wishin' I thought that learnin' how t'fire a big ol' rifle would've been better than two dinky pistols. I ain't much good this far away,' Liette admits, squinting up at the sky. "Get me up there, though, and I'll pepper those big, dumb dragons inta' some nice steaks." Shifting her weight to one foot, she rests a hand on her hip and glances over to Nathaniel.

"What'r the odds, y'think, that I could ride on your big blue backside up there? Ain't the best on horseback, but firin' from the back of a winged dinosaur sounds like something I could scratch off my t'do list 'fore I kick the grave in.' Smirking, Liette unholsters her revolvers and looks to Abigail and Sigmund, then Crissor and Kenan, one brow raised.

Finally, looking to Barek she adds, "Unless big an' scary here can just shout 'em out'f the sky, I guess."

If someone is planning on riding Nathaniel, you can't. There is a Mount evolution available specifically to make eidolons mountable. Because he doesn't have that he could pick you up, or one of you could cling to his back monkey style, but that would give Nathaniel and the other person the grappled condition and all the penalties that go along with it.

I can't tie them to my back with rope like a spell-monkey? They just need to hit me with spells, and the drakes if possible.

*snerk* the barbarian shouting drakes out of the sky...

Crissor squints and furrows his brow trying to find them. "Viorel is there any way you could...I dunno pull them to the ground?

I can't tie them to my back with rope like a spell-monkey? They just need to hit me with spells, and the drakes if possible.

If you were to tie them to you, you would both get the entangled condition instead. However I would forgo the movement penalty part on Nathaniel since he's flying magically and not mechanically. To tie someone securely enough to you that they wouldn't fall or get injured would require enough rope to get in both your ways at least to an extent.

Taking someone that high up on your back is possible, but without a special harness and some time training it first it's gonna be difficult and risky. Sigmund's probably never cast while flying on something, much less while being whipped about on a giant dinosaur man's back while he fights an aerial battle with dragons. Nathaniel mighty be strong enough to lift Sigmund easily, but that much weight and bunch of ropes tied around him is definitely gonna cramp his style without a lot of practice first.

... so you're saying that after inventing the Synthesist-transport plane, we need to invent the Synthesist-fighter jet?

Thanks for outlining it. One question. If I flew up there and wanted to descend, rather than just flying down, could I 'turn off' my flight and free-fall? What risk would there be of not 'activating' my flight in time and slamming into the ground?

Lets compare it to skydiving:"A typical jump involves individuals exiting an aircraft (usually an airplane, but sometimes a helicopter or even the gondola of a balloon), at anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 meters (3,000 to 13,000 feet) altitude. If jumping from a low altitude, the parachute is deployed immediately; however, at higher altitudes, the skydiver may free-fall for a short period of time (about a minute)[#] before activating a parachute to slow the landing down to safe speeds (about 5 to 7 minutes)."

[#] - We know that terminal velocity for a falling human trying to go slow is ~122 mph. So 122 miles in an hour means 2 miles in a minute, takes about ~9 seconds to reach terminal velocity. 2 miles is 10560 feet. Meaning you gotta deploy your chute around 3000 feet or splat.

You guys are thinking they are 8000ish feet up, if you fell at terminal velocity it would take around two rounds to get up to max speed, which would be something like 1073'/round. So we'll say in those first two rounds you'd fall another 1073 feet. 8000-1073 (first two rounds)-3000 (safety buffer)=3.6598... So Basically, even falling at terminal velocity, if you are going to do it non suicidally it would still require seven rounds. And, they can also dive in a similar fashion.

I am not a physicist, please forgive the rough math.