Howdy all, play will begin tomorrow.
"Oh good! Starting tomorrow gives me time to get ready!" With that Xandarian goes back to drinking heavily.
Uelarik orders a round of drinks for all. "Drink well my friends, for tomorrow the fates will test our mettle!"
"Drink Hearty Laddies!!!"
Armasse officially began at noon, with the blessing of the festival 4 by Lord Hulrun himself, ruler of Kenabres. The crowd gathered in
Clydwell Plaza quieted as the aged inquisitor took the stage, clad
in shining, resplendent armor. He cleared his throat, but just as
he was about to speak, a bright light shone from the west, as if the sun were rising from the wrong direction. Hulrun’s shadow fell huge and distorted across the cathedral’s facade. A moment later, the sound of a thunderous explosion ripped through the air and earth, along with a violent tremor.
To the west, the fortress known as the Kite—the location of Kenabres’s wardstone—had vanished. In its place, a brilliant plume of red re, lightning, and smoke erupted into the heavens.
A moment later, a powerful roar accompanied a welcome sight rising from the crowd—Kenabres’s greatest guardian, the ancient silver dragon Terendelev, who had until that moment been attending the opening ceremony disguised as a human. Above, another form appeared, as nightmarish as the dragon was breathtaking. A humanoid shape three times the size of any man, with skin coated in re and lightning, gripped a aming sword and whip. The creature’s identity was immediately obvious: Khorramzadeh, the Storm King of the Worldwound, had come to Kenabres!
As the ground continued to shake and disgorge demons into the streets, the dragon and the balor lord clashed above. The ght was over in a few harrowing moments, as the balor cut deep into Terendelev’s body, swooping down to strike the dragon and arresting her charge. A few more blows, and the titanic duo spiraled downward toward the crowd.
The sight of the dragon smashing into the facade of the Cathedral of St. Clydwell is one no witness would ever forget. At that moment, a titanic demon erupted at the far end of the plaza, reducing several buildings to ruins as it smashed into this world. The rift it created shot across the plaza, and this time there was no escape—it opened below your feet, angling away into darkness.
Even as you fell, the dragon noticed your plight. Though she saw death standing over her, she seized this nal chance to save a few more souls. After she uttered a few arcane words and stretched out a bleeding talon, you felt her magic take hold of you, slowing your plummet into the darkness as if you were feathers falling into a pit. Yet the fall remained as inexorable, and as you drifted downward into the depths, the last thing you saw was the Storm King standing before the ancient silver dragon, his sword lashing out and cleaving full through her neck. As her severed head fell, the rift above you slammed shut, and the light of the world above was gone.
You find yourselves in a cavern under Kenabres.
The ceiling and far walls of this vast cavern recede into darkness. On one side, the wall has collapsed in an enormous mound of rubble—here and there the arms or legs of victims who didn’t survive the fall protrude. In the back of the cavern, a disturbing shape looms. Nearly the size of a horse, what appears to be an immense black spider crouches silent and still on the ground.
With you are the other five PCs who look normal (or as normal as you freaks decide to look) and three other people with the expected indistinct features and white T-shirts saying 'NPC'.
You are all a bit battered and bruised, but considering how far you all dropped, you are surprisingly is pretty good shape. Your ill fleshed out NPC companions, however, are all rather the worse for wear.
The first has an obviously broken leg (no, it is not supposed to bend that way). He, in addition to the T-shirt over her armor, is in leather armor which just screams rogue.
The second is lying in a heap, his hands at his face, and the ruin of his eyes indicates that he's blind (the large wooden splinters sticking out of his eye sockets tends to explain that). This one is dressed in robes that scream NPC wizard.
The last is rather battered and bruised, but with no gross injuries like the others. He's dressed like a wealthy merchant.
"I hate falling! " Mol cries out as he drops through the rift.
"Beware! Our troubles are not done. There's a giant spider over there waiting for a fresh set of flies!"
Mol crouches and unslings his greataxe to face off with the giant spider.
Enough light filters in from above that you can see dimly in here.
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"By Grud! Chaos and injustice run afoul in MegaCity Kenabres! I mean, Kenabres city..." yells the tall, muscled man in an increasingly angry voice.
"Stand aside, citizens, as I and these jolly good men -with which I feel a strong bond of camaraderie forming by the second- will take care of this abhorrent spider!" McCain says to CrazyLegs, WoodEyes and Merchant #1 as he turns to the spider.
"Justice doesn't care how many legs you have, malfeasant! Prepare thyself to receive a proper righteous beating!"
With that, Marcus moves to be first on the fray.
Looking around the cave he now finds himself in, Xandarian Quartermain takes stock of what he sees.
Casting light on various stones as he moves through the cavern, the cleric moves to the guy with popsicle sticks sticking out of his eyes. Shouting over to the guy with the chicken wing for a leg, Xanarian barks, "Try to relax. You're next".
With that, the cleric begins to treat ol' sticks for eyes.
Wish I had a healer's kit with me!
As Marcus McReckless moves up to the spider by himself, he notices that it's actually dead. Quite dead. Pushing up daisies and all that.
However, dead things have their own issues, like the giant maggots(3) which pop out of the body and attack him.
miss
miss
miss
Init time.
Some speedy critters there.
Also, map is up. Note, squares are 10'.
Slightly faster than a maggot, Rask charges in to aid the impulsive fighter.
"Die! You Maggot!"
Moliator (sic) rushes up and lays a hurting on a maggot, but it still wriggles.
"First blood!!!" Mol exclaims as he slings ichor off the blade of his axe.
Kevin moves out of the rubble and toward the spider while drawing his scimitar. "That was one hell of a welcome home! Well, more like Abyssal I guess." He says grimly.
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Marcus didn't react fast enough to claim first blood, mostly because he was trying not to explode in anger "Trying to assault an officer on duty... that's... that's... that's a heavy crime, you punks!" he yells as his fists fly.
His right tool of justice seeks the rightmost maggot, while his left tries to finish the one already damaged.
Marcus McAngry lashes out with two fisted justice, splatting the wounded maggot, but leaving the other one still wriggling.
"And I thought I was the impetuous one."
Tanrov draws his Earthbreaker from it's sling and moves 30 towards the bugs
"Don't kill them all before I get there " he yells as he realises he can't make it
"Come on over and join the fun! There's maggots to go around!"
Suddenly battle erupts behind Xandarian as the rest of the able survivors fight giant maggots.
Now Xandarian would love nothing else than to join the fray, but the injured comes first, if possible. The taladane draws out his light mace and sticks it in his boot, to have at the ready in case the battle gets too close.
"Keep those f#<*s away from the wounded", barked the cleric. "I'm working here!"
Uelarik wearily crawls out of the rubble and wipes the blood from his brow. "Are we dead? This isn't exactly how I pictured the after life."
Seeing the others in combat, he loads his crossbow and fires on the closest maggot. "I really hate vermin."
Hit, still moving.
Maggots again attack the nearest food.
on Molitor miss
on Marcus miss
PCs are up.
Still coughing and wheezing from the dust in the air, Uelarik reloads and fires on the same maggot.
Hit and dropped. It stops wriggling. (you actually are at -8 from soft cover and shooting into melee, but their AC is that bad)
As he clears the rubble Kevin breaks into a sprint and attacks the third maggot causes innards to splash everywhere.
Dead maggot. Much gunk everywhere.
Combat over.
"Disgusting! I do wish ridding the world of these menaces was a cleaner job." He then walks back to the wounded and sees if he can lend a hand to the one with a broken leg.
"That legs broken. You're going to need some help." he says to the white shirted rogue.
With both of you working on the leg, you are able to get it set up with a splint (and bent back in the correct direction) so they will be able to hobble along with you.
All the time you are tending to the gimp, the merchant is whining for healing.
You can try diplomacy to make him shut his pie hole.
Uelarik reloads his crossbow and looks at the others tentatively. "We need to work together if we're going to survive. I'm Uelarik. What are your names?"
He casts a light spell on the tip of his crossbow and he then searches the cave floor and walls for anything of interest.
Gimp responds with "My name is Anvenn. Thank you for your help. "
The merchant pest responds with "I am Horgus Gwerm. Of course you know of me, I'm very important. You need to get me healed up and out of here!"
and that will be about all of him I am willing to roleplay because he's an insufferable ass.
The blind elf mage mentions his name is Aravashnial.
"Well your worshipfulness we seem to have fallen into a great big hole in the middle of the mother of all battles. You might stop to think that for the moment yer safer down here with us plebes...."
Mol tries to soften the circumstances for the stuck up one.
You make no headway with him, but he doesn't get any more hostile (he's evidently already unfriendly). (an assist might get you there- or at least make him indifferent)
Kevin looks at the merchant and offhandedly says, "I've never heard of you, but once we are finished with Anvenn we'll take a look at you. My name is Kevin Hurly, devotee of Sarenrae. We'll then find a way out of here and get you back to the surface safely."
"Okay, Aravashnial. That will have to do until I find some healer's kits or we get to some help", spoke the cleric to the blind mage. The large bearded taladane man appears to be wearing a dirty tabard with Cayden Cailean's holy symbol on it. As he walks, he continues to create light wherever he can. He walks over to Kevin and inspects his splint job on Anvenn.
"Nicely done, big man. This will do until we get to the surface."
"You! Horgus!" The cleric barks at the merchant, as he slings a clay jug from off his backpack, forcing the alcohol in the merchant's hands. "Chug this down once and don't stop until you have to breath!"
The human turns to address the rest of the survivors of the demonic attack.
"My name is Xandarian Quartermain. And I will be your cleric for tonight's festivities."
"Oh. One more thing." Xandarian pulls out his silver holy symbol of Caydean Cailean and...
to all within 30 ft. radius.
"Mr Horgus i'm sure you can understand that for you to survive we must treat the most wounded first, to make them move faster as we are only as fast as our slowest member.
Uelarik nods grimly at Horgus and the others. "Listen to the tiefling and you may live to see the surface again."
Your arguments seem to mollify him enough that he stops whining. "Oh alright, but we need to get out of here quickly. My business cannot be left alone for long. "
Ulearick's light spell reveals a number of shiny objects among the rubble which evidently cascaded down from above with you.
There are six of these, which appear to be huge scales, likely from the silver dragon which died in the assault on the city.
There are four varieties of scales.
These palm-sized silver dragon scales are unique items—essentially minor artifacts resulting from Terendelev’s death on the Storm King’s blade.
Each of Terendelev’s scales grants a different power to the person who carries them. The powers granted do not function at all if more than one scale is carried. The powers of the four scales are listed below—any nonevil creature that handles a scale immediately understands its use.
Cloudwalking: Three times per day as a standard action, a scale can be used to cast levitate. A pillar of roiling clouds rises below the levitating object or creature, growing and shrinking with the target’s altitude. This pillar is 5 feet in diameter (regardless of the target’s size) and provides concealment (20% miss chance) to any creature or object wholly contained within.
Disguise: Three times per day as a standard action, a scale can be used to cast alter self. While disguised, the target gains a +4 bonus on all Bluff checks made against evil creatures.
Resistance: Three times per day as a standard action, a scale can be used to cast resist elements—but only against electricity or cold.
Sacred Weaponry: Three times per day as a standard action, a scale can be used to cast align weapon, but only to make a weapon lawful or good. Unlike a normal align weapon spell, this effect can be cast on an unarmed strike or natural weapon.
There is one of each plus one extra of Sacred Weaponry and Resistance.
Now you can decide who gets which, or have a deathmatch for them (discouraged). Only one works per person.
Kevin looks to the city guard and says, "With all that is going on in the city, those ones that make weapons lawful or good may be best for us."
"That fancy disguise scale seems pretty spiffy to me, I think I'll take that one if noone minds." Molitor says to the group.
The large Tiefling shifts his fur trimmed beast-skin cloak behind his arms and his tail flicks from side to side. His deep voice rumbles
"I have no need for the disguise, I can do that already, the Cloudwalking scale may be of use to a ranged aggressor, the weapon aligning or resistance would be best for me, I do not seem to have the resistances of a standard Tiefling."
"Cloudwalking sounds like fun. I'll take it if no one minds."
OK, with the two weird ones allocated, it should be easy enough for people to get either weapon or resistance. Best if you make a first choice, and a backup. I'm OK with first come first serve just so this doesn't take a while.
Mol looks around to see if there is an obvious exit from the cavern.
There are two exits to the east, northern and southern.
"I've always been lucky heading south, so I'll take a look."
Mol takes a gander at the south-eastern exit.
"I'll take one of the weapon ones as the resistance doesn't do me much good."
Upon seeing Molitor leave the cavern he says, "Don't go far. I wouldn't want you getting into trouble away from us and not be able to help you."
A stone ledge juts out at a right angle on the south wall of this cavern, fourteen feet off the ground. The leather strap of a backpack hangs from the edge of the ledge, while above, a narrow fissure yawns up into the dark.