Valley of the Shrines (Inactive)

Game Master Grimmy

I would hate to be you right now. Lot riding on this turn. 0_0

You can either try to drop him with arrows or intimidate him into fleeing.

In either event, if anyone conscious has action points left, they can use one to give you a plus four.

Grimmy I only have one action point left, so no cheat death for me.

Hey Jeb, whose comic signing were you at?

Ok Ares. Hope you can stabilize.

@Grimmy - I haven't done readied actions very often. Were my conditions olay, or were they two broad? Will I get my readied action?

@Ares - Sina Grace and Daniel Freedman. Their book Burn the Orphanage: Reign of Terror #1 came out yesterday. With an exclusive cover for the shop I go to with art by Jeff Lemire. It's pretty sick and those guys are awesome. I've seen them a few times now and it's really cool to chat with them while they're signing or sketching.

13th is the signing at my local store with Jason Aaron and Cullen Bunn

Yeah absolutely you get the readied action. It goes off as soon as he swings, and interupts the swing (takes place before).

Why did you position yourself adjacent though Jeb? You will provoke. Or did your token just get slid over somehow.

It was really late when I did that. I wasn't sure if he'd get an AoO if I interrupted one of his actions with my readied action, so I figured I'd go for the high ground bonus on the big rock.I think. It was REALLY later for me.

Well let's just play it from here then. Take your shot, he'll take his swing, then you still have a round. Not bad.

Edit:Well he could drop you. Just skip your readied action. Take you turn. IMO.

@Jeb: Cool, I'll have to check it out. This past Saturday I was at a signing with Mark Waid and Scott Snyder, it was pretty epic.

@Grimmy - good point. 5-foot step and Rapid Shot taken.

@Ares - Awesome dude! Totally envious. I would have had way too much to choose from to get signed by Waid. Can't wait for the Amazing Las Vegas con next month. It's going to drain my bank account, but it will be so awesome.

OK I have to write something cinematic (you guys too) but Jeb just dropped the last acolyte. Ares stabilized. Can Lucia and Tarv do anything to help Andrek?.

I wish I could but Lucia can't do much in the form of healing.

I have learned one thing from this fight... I am going to go for greater transparency about the enemy stats after the first couple of rounds so you guys can experience the white knuckle aspect.

The number of near misses and on the nose successes in this fight was just crazy. If we had been at a table this would have been one of the most white knuckle suspenseful fights I've ever seen.

I'm going to start just putting the bad-guys AC and a few things like that up so you guys can get a little bit of that rush.

I wish I could but Lucia can't do much in the form of healing.

If you see this before it's too late to edit your post, you can attempt first aid if you want (seeing as how I declared the acolyte dead in discussion instead of gameplay).

If Andrek dies there is a silver lining:
the story potential is freakin amazing...

-Church of Muir wants to raise him (contingent upon what the party accomplishes at the shrine)
-Doesn't have 5,000 gp though
-Party has an unholy mace worth a lot of gold
-Lucia or Prissila probably knows a buyer (but mace would be put to bad use)
-Moral dillema for Ares^^
-Is there another way to raise the money?
-...

BUT if we save him we get to keep the tons of gold from the mace xD

And he doesn't miss any action.

It's official! Andrek is not dead.

That fight was so epic I'm afraid to post anything until I can think of something cinematic enough to post.

Jeb and Lucia and Tarv you guys should post something with flavor!

I can't think of anything good right now.

So what's next? You have three conscious and three unconscious, all stable. How will you proceed?

The Twin Shrines are supposed to be about another 12 miles.

Can't post anything but a quick response from work. I'll put something cool up when i get home tonight. Advance warning, Jeb is going to recommend staying out until the other three have woken up. And that will be in there as well.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Yeah that's what you guys have to decide. What to do with three unconscious heroes. Weren't there a couple of potions? I have to find that loot sheet.

The twin shrines are supposed to be 10-12 miles away. That is where the statue is that was beheaded... Not to be confused with the burial halls.

The shrines are models of the temple in bard's gate where you began, but smaller. Just a single room with alcoves, and secret chambers beneath the statues of thyr and muir respectively (two shrines, two statues, two secret chambers, one below each). The secret chambers should be accessible only to initiates, so that would ordinarily be the safest place to recuperate. Of course, with the head off of muir's idol turning up on the market it's difficult to know what to expect at the shrine, but the idols are in an open air room accessible to all, so the beheading of the idol does not mean the secret chambers have necessarily been compromised.

Of course they are designed to only give access to the faithful, so there's no way of knowing whether Lucia could gain entry with the brothers out cold.

Just putting all that out there in case you guys don't have a clear picture of what's supposed to be waiting up ahead.

See this post and this post.

So if nothing else, there are supposed to be a bunch of scrolls in a vault under the idol if you can get three unconscious heroes across 10 more miles of wilderness.

I'm easy to carry cause I'm fun sized

There is potential that they may have some healing on them. I have some cure light wounds and Ares may have some healing left as well if we can get one of us awake.

I just checked what the temple gave you, it was restoration potions not cure potions.

Here are the relevant rules for this predicament:

A character who was dying but who has stopped losing hit points each round and still has negative hit points is stable. The character is no longer dying, but is still unconscious. If the character has become stable because of aid from another character (such as a Heal check or magical healing), then the character no longer loses hit points. The character can make a DC 10 Constitution check each hour to become conscious and disabled (even though his hit points are still negative). The character takes a penalty on this roll equal to his negative hit point total.

If a character has become stable on his own and hasn't had help, he is still at risk of losing hit points. Each hour he can make a Constitution check to become stable (as a character that has received aid), but each failed check causes him to lose 1 hit point.

So Ares and Andrek and Priscilla may just wake up on their own after all.

So I guess when you get a little sleep the night before, you crash for 8 hours when you only plan on taking a nap. I slept through the entire afternoon after getting home from work.

I suppose the up side is that I'm up now and I have nothing to do but work on some posting!!

Post something cool. Such an epic battle deserves a cinematic description of it's last moments.

The situation is not so hopeless after all, did you know you can make a con check every hour to wake up when your stable? DC 10. They'll be awake in no time.

800 XP btw

Sweet! Can't wait to get proper rest and train up the level!

You can level at the shrine if it's secure.

We have enough to level up? I've only got us at 1735.

200-Story award
535-Wolf fight
200-Spider fight
800-Cult fight

You get the ghouls?

200 Intro RP Ad Hoc
535 Wolves
100 Citadel of Griffons
100 Priscilla Kitchen Espionage
535 Spiders
200 Found the ancient path.
100 Avoided glyph trap.
535 Ghouls
800 Cultists

Okay, so that's 3105. Cool. I missed the ghouls and a lot of the little stuff.

If we get the hps from our new level now, we could probably get recovered faster! :)

Yay level

I like to do level up when you get somewhere semi-secure, like it doesn't have to be full bed rest back in town but somewhere you can reasonably expect to pass a night without being disturbed. The vault under the shrine is perfect. It also feels like a logical breaking point.

Andrek 11AM: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 = 22

Boom there you go.

Let me know when I can do my next save is.

And Ares should now be at 1 HP with Andrek's last cure. Get ready for some traveling and resting, people. At the very least, resting. But Jeb really wants to find somewhere more secure to spend the next night.

Agreed.

I'm totally thinking we need at least one more night's rest before we go heading off to the twin shrines. We're all really low on health and spells are just about out for everyone. I think I'm the best off with only 9 hp. Unless we can find a better campsite, I think we should just use all the healing Ares has left now and pass the time. What do you guys think?

I think that is probably a good idea too. Get as possible to full before heading any further.

Agreed

Great RP guys, I love getting home from work and finding lots of good posts to read.

Ares it looks like magical heal got you out of the negatives anyway, but if you need to roll you can, twice. Noon came without any more trouble occurring.

You guys all have such a great writing style, just in general and for the tone of this adventure.

How is that you've been just finding random encounters and it already feels like a story to me? It's the characters!

Well, ever since you talked about a cinematic end to the fight and writing down cool stuff, it just kind of clicked for me. For some reason, 'Kingdom of Heaven' popped into my head. The part of the movie right after Liam Neeson's character is mortally wounded while they're all traveling through the woods of southern France.

So I ran with it.

Still no word from Tarv since last thursday, should I assume he complies with Jeb's plan and goes scouting for shelter?