Monsters save the world (Inactive)

Game Master caster4life

Tina kicks Cinder a few more times with negative energy, just for good measure. "Huh. We did it. a bit surprised, but overall a good result." She plops down on the floor and opens her eyes wide as she downs another flask and thinks about what they've just done. "We... assassinated a sleeping dragon.

The catfolk wastes no time jumping off the platform and grabbing as much of Cinder's hoard as she can, before jumping back through the portal. As the goods clatter to the floor, the burglar yells, "Dammit Tina! You said you fixed this. What's the point of a burglar who can't actually take things back! As the portal closes, Piedmontina shouts back, "Yeah. I thought I had fixed it. I'll try again!" Once the portal closes, she mutters to no one in particular, "Totally didn't fix it, and probably won't try again.. Another portal opens, and Gary steps through. "Tiiinaaaa! he shouts excitedly, before seeing the dead dragon in the room. Without a further word, he pulls out his own flasks, and starts downing one of them, while holding the other for Tina to submerge herself in.

"New master is dead. New master... has lots of shinies. Snowball will be happy. Ummmm... why is zombie man doing that... ugh..."

Bob turns to the wizard. "What you want to do now? You take half of shinies? We still friends, yes? We no fight. Maybe wizard live here and be friend to Bob. Bob does not have a master. Bob does not know... what to do next."

Hearing the talking coming from down the hall and around the corner, the wizard, cleric, rogue, and barbarian all come walking by carefully. Three of them grin at the dead dragon while the barbarian looks deeply disappointed. The wizard remarks "Fascinating! The draugr seems drawn to drink the dragon's blood. Have you ever seen him drink blood before? Or is this only something draugrs do with dragons, which would certainly be a rarely-observed phenomenon."

When Bob asks his questions, the wizard nods "Yes we are content to take half of the goods and leave the rest for you. There is no need for hostility, perhaps we can even be allies. You have unique skill sets and there are certain problems we address with which you could likely help."

The first three people to agree on a course of action here will dictate the party's next step.

Gorthug is fine going along with the live and let live approach with these adventurers.

Cindy still doesn't like the goblin, but is ok with remaining friendly with the group .... for now ...

"Ally Wizard, let Bob tell you something scary. Can you handle scary or should wizard first put on a wizard cloth to catch water expelled from wizard private parts?"

Snowball's head soon pops out of a nearby cavern wall.
"Cinder gone?" She asks immediately.

After receiving confirmation, she hops out of the wall, glides over to the corpse, and literally (if that site becomes Cinder's final resting place) dances on the dead dragon's grave.
"Snowball is great! Cinder is dumb!"

Snowball is so pleased that she doesn't notice the adventures taking their half of the treasure.

Snowball will get huffy later, probably, but I'm fine with letting them go

This is why smart giants don't let anything remotely intelligent or wily live with them. Dragons sleep sometimes.

The wizard chuckles slightly at Bob's thoughts and nods. "I am ready and can handle scary. We once were attacked by owlbears while we were sleeping. THAT was incredibly terrifying. And you may call me Tylia since we are going to be friends."

"giants"? Clearly supposed to be dragons. I blame this on Bob for making me have giants on the brain.

"Tylia? If we're friends, we can ask each other questions, right?" Cindy doesn't realize she's interrupting since Bob is speaking silently. "Do you have a family?"

Cindy is better than a dragon! She NEVER sleeps!

True story.

Tylia nods to Cindy. "Yes, I have one parent left and a couple of siblings." She eyes the strange doll with interest. "How about you? Do you have family?"

"I'm not sure. I know, I just know that I did have a family once, but I can't really remember them for some reason. Not too long ago I had a new Mommy but she's gone now too. It's all a little confusing I'm just trying to figure it out." Cindy speaks earnestly at first but then fades off into silence, staring into the distance for some time before suddenly becoming animated again.

"I think I'm supposed to have a family, but I don't know how that works."

"Snowball can be mommy!" Snowball volunteers excitedly while swooping down next to Cindy.

Bob projects his mind so all can hear. "So Wizard friend, we went into Master's office and Master had an artyfact that was a twisty gem funnel and Master said that she would bring an exterplane creature, and big shadow popped out and went into Sevren and then Sevren flipped his shadowy aether around and Master fell in two pieces and then Sevren grew wings and flew away and said he was going to have fun. Sevren be very mean now! And he was nice before that and Xeria said he had a beard but Launch Bob never saw him wearing a beard."

"Bob wonders if Cinder took artyfact..."

He reaches his mind toward the loot pile and starts lifting and dropping items in search of the funnel.

Goldslip enters the room after several of the others. She starts to run up to Gorthug to congratulate them, but halts when she sees him drinking Cinder's blood.

Seeing Goldslip, Gorthug stood to his full height. He was drenched in blood, from jaw to toe. Orcish”The dragon is dead. Dragon blood cures everything. Dragon blood shall end my curse and I shall live again.” He stated, sounding confident. He had convinced himself that the legends were true.

Interestingly enough, drinking raw dragon’s blood does heal wounds! Drinking: When imbibed, a vial of dragon’s blood heals 1d4 points of damage. It also grants a +1 alchemical bonus on Will and Fortitude saving throws for 1 minute. Bathing: Covering oneself in dragon’s blood removes 1 permanent negative level. No more than 1 permanent negative level can be removed from a single creature per week using this method. Bathing in dragon’s blood requires 3 vials of dragon’s blood. Blood used in such a manner is expended, and may not be reused.”

Tina have goodbye to Gary as he takes his precious booze back through the portal to his boat. "That's interesting, Gorthug. Where'd you learn that?" She descends to the floor, and scoops a mugful of blood from the dragon's corpse. As she tastes the blood, she shrugs. Meh. I've had worse."

Noticing the others scooping up blood, Snowball remembers the treasure.
"Snowball be back..." She says as she picks up 4d4 + 10 ⇒ (2, 1, 3, 2) + 10 = 18 gold pieces worth of odds and ends and flies them back to her little island.

Snowball only needs a few rounds to fly back and forth, snow now is a good time to siphon off more treasure for the loot split.
For now I'll assume that the 1000gp of odds and ends was all that was there and subtract 500 from Snowball's hoard on the loot sheet.
@GM: I'm pretty sure the money for the adventurers will come out of the 1000 gp of shinies that Snowball originally found (with help), please change the -500 as appropriate xD

Tylia scoops up 500 gp of the horde and leaves the rest for you. She notices the cloak of the hedge wizard but it is only sized for someone far smaller than her so she turns to Xeria and Tina "Does this fit either of you?" Then she taps her chin thoughtfully, turning around and eyeing the destruction. When Bob tells his tale, her eyes widen. "That sounds like bad news indeed. Maybe we should figure out what he is up to... I'll see what I can find and let you know. In the meantime, what do you plan to do with this place?"

Tina's tiny gems of eyes flicker and light up, burning a bit more brightly than usual. "This is Last Hill. It is my home. I have lived here for thousands of years, and will continue to do so for thousands more. These caves, its occupants, and the surrounding lands are under my protection. No harm will come to those who abide my rules, and keep the peace, but those who seek to impose their own tyranny over my domain will know only suffering and death."

Her monologue over, simply shrugs and says "I am Last Hill. People think they are its master, but I am the only constant here. If you would like to live here for a bit, you are welcome, so long as you don't make a problem."

"Bob will stay here. Bob is working on a project by the front entrance; make a wall and door and make it very very nice and then Bob put a cubby above the door which he hides in and drops on bad guys and eats them. And this new door will be very nice and not block Bob from going in and out. Unlike OTHER doors around here."

The undine cleric considers what you are saying then nods. "We do not live here but yes, we see that it is your home and you have every right to it. We will determine what we can learn about this shadowy threat from another plane and then come back to tell you what we can."

Ok so you have a little time to make modifications/manage affairs at Last Hill. We won't have a subsystem for this but will do it narratively with occasional roles. Someone might want to manage the goblins, clean things up, build defenses at the entrance, or whatever else you come up with.

After Snowball finishes ferrying the rest of 'her shinies' back to her little island, Snowball lifts up different parts of Cinder's corpse looking for more.

Eventually satisfied that there isn't any more treasure, she begins carving his bones with her teeth and liberal applications of her icy breath.

Think I can make some sort of bone-spear pit trap? xD

That sounds cool, Snowball! Do you have a craft or profession check, tools, or something else that might help with that? If nothing else, give me an untrained craft check. Similar deal for making the pit but perhaps just a strength check if you don't have tools, craft, profession, etc.

After the post-fight discussion is over, Cindy returns to the entrance of the cave and continues to work on the wall hiding her "lair." She goes back and forth between gathering wood in the forest (while also carefully studying the flora and fauna) and returning to the cave mouth to work.

Now that she has carpenter's tools and has trained the crafting skill she will probably do better than the mess she made earlier. The plan is to build a wooden barrier to block off that area and then cover the wall with mud/stones to make it seem more like the cave wall. In addition to the tools she'll liberally use her mage hand.

craft carpentry: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11

If there is time, she will also begin making some wooden dolls

craft dollmaking: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7

Wow got some crappy rolls there....

or is it a CON check to dig since you need to dig for a long time? :o
Snowball also has a burrow speed, in case that helps (Though she normally leaves no tunnels, so probably not?)
Also, carving the bones of her victims food has always been a Snowball thing. Though it has only come up once before, I believe xD

Alternating between icy breath the weaken the fire dragon's bones and her teeth and claws to cut them, Snowball does her best to carve the biggest bones into spears.
Craft (bone carving): 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3
She gets very enthusiastic about chewing Cinder's bones, however, and ruins some of them without making anything useful.

Eventually she gets around to digging a pit for the spears to poke up from the bottom of, looking like a (scaly) dog getting ready to bury a whole pile of bones while she digs.
Dig (STR?): 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (19) + 0 = 19 +3 if I can use CON :3

...
@Cindy: Snowball has you beat for crappy crafting rolls xD
Guess Snowball should try carving again xD

Once the hole is dug, Snowball tries carving whats left of Cinder's skeleton.
Craft (bone carving): 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13

Snowball, can you mark on the cave entrance map where you are digging this pit?

Cindy enjoys some time working on her crafts and her wall gets somewhat sturdier and more covered in mud (wall has 20 hp, no hardness, and is a DC 15 perc check to recognize) but her dolls are short of the uncanny valley as they are difficult to recognize as referring to humanoids.

Snowball ruins some of Cinder's bones, which takes a very long time given how thick and strong they are, then digs a nice pit (5 ft square, 5 ft deep for now). Thankfully, there are MANY red dragon bones remaining and Snowball manages to break some of them unevenly to form sharp points (I'd say 1d6 piercing damage to someone who falls in).

Bob looks at the dragon's hoard and tries to get an understanding of how much is there. He starts mentally picking up gold pieces and moving them about, but can't make it above three. Eventually he turns to Tina for help. "How many is there? Bob wants some."

Tina looks at the pile of coins, and shrugs. "Let's count them later. but for now, let's move them to where Snowball and the goblins aren't going to look for them." She opens another portal behind her, and the princess from earlier steps out.

Hi, Tina, it's so good to see you! the human says, and then as she notices the dragon corpse, "Oh."

"Hey Claudette. Grab as many coins as you can, and follow me quick. Tina chirps at the princess. She lays her skirts in front of her, and shovels as much gold as possible onto it, before lifting them up and carrying the gold to Tina's crystal room. As they are running through the hallway, Tina asks "So Claudette, tell me more about this one true love you've found?

Oh, you were right. Turns out he's just another do-gooder prince who wants to save me. She shrugs her shoulders and steps through the portal that opened, gold coins clattering to the floor in the crystal room.

Once she has cleaned up the coins, and hidden them underneath some cloth on the side of the room, she takes a bottle of liquor from one of her shelves, and seeks out the goblin leader.

"Hello, I think we've met before, but I wanted to re-introduce myself. I'm Piedmontina Mumblethunder, the Grand Lich of Last HIll. Since Lucian, Sevrus and Cinder are all dead, I suppose it now falls upon me to organize and lead the occupants of this cave. You and your goblins are, of course, welcome to stay here, provided you don't make trouble, and contribute to our little society. Otherwise, you can leave, or be obliterated.

Well actually, Sevren is just possessed, not dead. XD

Several goblins stand around while the one with the biggest knife, apparently the leader, steps forward. "Cinder dead too now? Good!" The goblins cheer happily. "Good good! Now we in charge of Last Hill! Why you?" The goblins certainly don't seem to recognize Tina's authority.

It'll take something to change their minds.

Intimidate with size: 1d20 + 9 + 4 ⇒ (7) + 9 + 4 = 20

Gorthug had spent a copious amount of time staring at the dead dragon, waiting for it’s blood to cure him. At long length he began to shuffle throughout the caves, his scythe left in what remained of the dragon’s neck.

When he came to Tina and the goblins, he walked forward, his axe held before him. Goblin”Goblins?” The draugr hissed with the rattle of the dead. [b]”Fey’s goblins? Intruders?”[/ooc] He walked forward. His voice might have come across as being inquisitive if it were capable of such inflections. As it was, he was trying to figure out if he was supposed to kill them. He somewhat remembered goblins being about. Or was it one goblin? Regardless, he truly wanted to hurt something. Hearing screams might just make him feel alive. But if they belonged to the fey, that would anger them. And then Goldslip wouldn’t give her life-link, and it wasn’t worth risking that.

The intimidating Gorthug walks up behind Tina, reinforcing her words. "Ok ok we work for bones people! Nice good wonderful bones people!" The goblin leader cowers before Gorthug, practically kneeling his legs are bent so low. The other goblins nod and bow, slowly backing up.

150 xp for subjugating the goblins.

Bob goes back to pushing dirt about; and by using his mind this time instead of ploughing his body through it, he is able to create a much more effective dirt pile, with the eventual goal of closing up the mouth of the cave and installing a front....door. Ick. But necessary.

profession mason: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (12) + 1 = 13

"Thank you, Gorthug," Tina nods. She holds up the normal-sized bottle which is weighing her down. "Okay, goblins. We're going to have a feast. I need some of you who are good with knives to go start cutting the meat off Cinder." Her eyes flash as she warns them: "But leave the bones. Those are mine. I have plans." Her voice returns to as gentle and soothing as a tiny lich can be. "Some others need to go outside, dig a big pit, and get a fire started. We're going to hold a cookout!"

Bob also moves the bear traps a little to the south with his mage hand, and works together with Cindy to start restricting the width of the cave opening.

[moved some things on the map. now we have a more defined entry way. eventually we should turn Cindy's wall into something more solid with arrow slits. maybe after the door goes in]

Ok I think that's enough time IRL for projects.

Piedmontina holds a large cookout to eat dragonmeat. Cinder's meat proves difficult to cut off, tough to chew, and extremely spicy. But there is certainly enough to go around several times over. A fantastic party is held.

Meanwhile, Bob, Cindy, and Snowball work on reinforcing the entrance to the cave, as if they expect more trouble! Several days later, you hear footsteps approaching the entrance to your cave. You prepare yourselves for trouble!

Then you hear the tiefling's voice cry out "Friends! I have news!"

I'm going to assume you let the adventurers come in and talk to you to keep things moving forward with my info dump.

When you guide the adventurers in past your traps, the wizard reveals what she has learned. "The one you called Sevren has been wreaking havoc all across the country, destroying for the fun of it. He seems to be possessed by some extraordinarily powerful being from another plane. I've done some research and it seems the only way to drive the being out of our plane would be through the funnel that you found. But first you would need to battle and incapacitate it. It would take great power to do so." She rubs her hands together gleefully. "Fortunately, I am aware of a possible means to such power. There was a great weapon, the Defender of the Material, wielded by an ancient holy warrior. She drove away some huge threat to our world, scholars differ on what it was, with the weapon but it broke into twelve shards scattered across the land. If we can collect these shards, then we may be able to remake the blade and defeat Sevren's possessor." She smiles even more broadly. "And based on a perusal of historical texts, I believe I have found the location of two of the shards. One became part of the horde of a silver dragon. Nobody knows where the shard is but that dragon is currently held captive by an evil princess in a remote fortress. The other is in the vaults of the Mage's University in the capital. We can find one if you retrieve the other."

"A quest! A quest! Bob likes to leave cave and see new things and learn new things. Bob wants to get more and more smarter and more stronger and bigger and more gooey and more better at launching bigger things. Bob does not want to go to the capital because too many people there who think Bob and Cindy and Snowie and Gorthug are scary. We go to help dragon? Wait, do we help dragons now? Bob is confused..."

Bob stops dissolving bits of Cinder as he is faced with a strange moral quandary.

After the cookout, Tina packs up any extra bits of dragonmeat, and tells the goblins, "After dark, take this down to Trogdale. Don't let anyone see you, and don't make any trouble." She guides their gaze over to Gorthug, whose mouth is still red with dragon blood. She tacks a note to the package: Hi, we killed the dragon in Last Hill, and it's big enough that we couldn't finish eating it. I don't want it to go to waste, so you're welcome to it. I would invited the town to the cookout, but didn't want anyone feeling uncomfortable around the goblins. --Piedmontina Mumblethunder, The High Empress of Trogdale

As she listens to the Tiefling describe Sevren's wanton destruction, she murmurs, "Aww, that's my boy. All it took was getting possessed for him to realize his true power.". At the mention of a Holy Warrior wielding a Holy Weapon, Tina's face scrunches up in disgust. When the Tiefling is done talking, Tina speaks up, "See, that's a clever princess. She knows that keeping a dragon is difficult, but allowing your prisoners some creature comforts, like a dragon's hoard, makes them much more compliant. She takes a swig from her flask, remembering the many people that she's thrown in a dungeon over the millennia. Anyway, I don't think we need to intervene with Sevren. Nice as it would be to see the lad again, I think we all know that there's not much left of him in that body, and his possessor isn't our problem. Tina gestures towards the cave's exit. It's been good to see you, and I wish you luck on your quest. Keep that sword away from me if you ever get it finished. Feel free to stop by any time if you want a place to recuperate.

Goldslip's eyes light up with hope. "A way to save Sevren? This is wonderful!"

"I'm sure you wouldn't have to touch the sword, Tina, it will be fine!"

Loving this roleplay with Bob and Tina's secret meat deals. 150 xp.

The goblin leader frowns at the idea of giving the villagers meat instead of stabbing and stealing but he seems willing to comply... for now...

Tylia's brow furrows in frustration as Tina tries to shuffle her and her allies out the door. "Well at least let me tell you where the fortress IS! It's somewhere on the north face of Mount Pardas!"

Gorthug had spent a rather inordinate amount of time standing by the dragon’s skull, talking to it. Random words whispered, in a variety of languages. Orcish, giant, goblin, even a smattering of Draconic. Truly random words, as he grasped at fragmented memories. Slowly but surely it was coming back to him.

Common”Fortress. Sword.” He stated, firmly. Those words made sense to him. He wasn’t quite sure about the rest of what was said, but he assumed that it would be something he would approve of given that those two were involved.

"Fortress and Sword! Yes, yes. Bob is sad Tina do not want to come, but Bob will go. Bob will be leader and tell Gorthug what to kill. And maybe Snowball will go and be partner-leader with Snowball. SNOWBALL! YOU BE PARTNER LEADER WITH BOB?"

Snowball looks up at Bob with a half-chewed chunk of Cinder sticking out the side of her mouth.
"Hatnah? Fatnah-eedah?" She asks as she tilts her head.

Bob gives an ooze equivalent of nodding his nod. "Hatnah fatnah! That is right, Snowie. We be great partner leaders since Tina does not want to come. We be very smart, make great decisions which only will be more smart and more great when we work together. And when we come home with sword and very rich and strong, then Tina will see."

Snowball swallows and then spits out the majority of the meat.
"Rich?! Yes! Let's get shiny!"
Snowball gets up on all fours, wags her tail, and looks around at the others for recruits.

the nice thing about money is that any character can always use more of it, no matter what their goals are...

Tina listens to the wizard's words, nodding absently, "Cool, sure. Good to know. I'll be sure to continue ignoring that place." Suddenly she freezes, and slowly rotates her head, her glowing embers of eyes focusing on the wizard. "You said Mount Pardas? Pardas, over in the east, tall mountain, with a fortress on top? That Pardas? Tina takes a long drink from her flask, and her eyes glow a bit extra. "Haha. it makes sense, the evil princess, captured silver dragon, remote mountain hideout. That rat bastard is stealing my plan!"

Tina shouts behind her as she goes to her space to pack "supplies" "Gorthug, come carry these bottles for me. We've got a long trip ahead of us, and we must leave at once! He was always a lazy coward, and now he isn't even coming up with his own schemes!"

With a surprisingly large stash of booze packed up, she continues "He's not even doing it right. you can't use a silver dragon for that plan. White is the way to go. Hell, that's even worse than if he tried to pull this with a drake. Wouldn't be surprised if when we get there he's got a mold slime too. It's a detailed plan, not some half-baked moonshine recipe. You can't just make substitutions

She shakes her head and looks at the rest of the group. "Let's go. We need to destroy that fortress and leave nothing but ash and pain in our wake. That will teach my brother once and for all which of us is superior.

I'm very confused and curious about many things here. "Hathnah Fatnah"? And how did Tina's brother suddenly get involved? XD Well I suppose this is what I get when I incentivize multiple monsters to take the drunk template... Especially when their int scores are tiny to begin with...

You get ready to head out to Mount Pardas, which you know will be somewhat cold.

Any preparations you want to make? Will move us forward after work.

Gorthug’s limited command of common was stretched to the limit and shattered by the barrage from the group. The poor undead orc was left muttering “Hathnah Fatnah” in confusion as he walked along, carrying the bottles.