Anaxian, the Fractured Wyrm's page

Hi folks. I stopped getting notifications on this game quite a while ago. The game had been in a lull for a while so I thought it had died. Monkeygod PM'd me to ask where I'd been.

I'm on vacation this week with limited internet time, but I'll catch up and get a post in as soon as I can.

"This body is best suited to scouting." Anaxian said flapping from Meridian's shoulder to Drisquar's.

I have come to greatly enjoy your mind, Illia. Would you like accompaniment, or is this intended to be a solo venture?

If your city is so besieged that even Astral and Shadow travel are blocked or too dangerous to attempt, how are you here? Anaxian asked the envoy.

That's... Kinda accurate.

I think one of your summons should be our friendly Succubus down in Drow-ville

Tell us more about this bargain preventing Shadow travel. Anaxian said, tilting his head in consideration.

The smallest Anaxian was present, perched on Meridian's shoulder as though he were a familiar.

Perhaps the discussion of killing non-pirates can wait until after the meeting. his dry voice crackled in their minds.

Anaxian, I've been redoing my sheet, and I wanted to ask, what was that item you gave us all that allows us to see through the endless smoke?

Fogcutter Lenses.

Ok, checks posted.

It occurred to me while figuring all the numbers out that I still haven't made my plan for the Aboleth happen yet. Now I have the resources to do it, so I'd like to make that scene happen soon.

I have a couple ways I can do it. They both start out roughly the same- I Resurrect or Animate the Veiled Master (probably Animate. It's my thing.) The room will be a waterless cell prepared with Dimensional Anchor and something to prevent shapeshifting.

From there, I can do this 2 different ways-

1) Possess the Veiled Master and eat "myself" to gain the veiled master's memories.

2) Make a simulacrum of the Veiled Master, possess it, and eat the original (this appeals to me because then I would effectively have the memory eating ability whenever I want).

Does anyone have any comments? Problems? Things I haven't thought of?

Alright, With the Lore bonus of +7 and a +2 Aid Another bonus from my familiar's help, I can get all those DCs with a Take 10 except for the ones in the mid thirties and higher. For those ones I'll roll.

Knowledge Religion DC 36 or 46: 1d20 + 30 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 30 + 7 + 2 = 46

Knowledge History DC 31 or 41: 1d20 + 30 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (12) + 30 + 7 + 2 = 51

Knowledge Nature DC 37: 1d20 + 15 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 15 + 7 + 2 = 34

Knowledge Planes DC 38: 1d20 + 20 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 20 + 7 + 2 = 39

Ok, got them all but the DC 37 Knowledge Nature check.

Anaxian spent some time in the library running down information and relaying it back to the Council.

I was waiting for the GM to pipe in. Should I just start making some rolls?

Late game stuff is hard. The game tends to devolve after about 12th level. Frankly, I'm amazed at how coherent this game has been. I expected the power level of the characters to cripple the game way sooner than this. I know I would not want to run a game for characters of this power scale (though I've learned a lot about how to do it from watching you).

I don't want the game to end, but I would understand if you wanted to wrap things up.

Maybe we could start a new party as lower level characters working for our old characters (who are now all members of the Council)?

Still here. Checking in.

Do we have time for that? It's definitely something Anaxian would do.

I haven't done my level up yet, but by the time I work it all out I should have at least +20 to all knowledges. I'm lowballing, but that's what I'll go with right now. GM, are we in a hurry, or would Anaxian be able to Take 20 with the use of his library?

Anaxian was undergoing another change. As before he became more reclusive than usual, distant even during telepathic communication save for the occasional odd bust of dry emotions. It seemed reminiscent of molting.

I should probably finish my cohort and Illia-'s level 17. I've again got the frameworks, but ugh.. high level character details..

I KNOW!

Why the heck didn't I play a Barbarian? One sword. One body. Nice, neat pile of numbers.

Nooooooo, I had to be the multi-lich dragon!

Sometimes when you win, you still lose.

I personally don't see why we need the Pygmys. They might boost our progress by a tiny bit, but I don't like them enough to give them any rights. We've got an eternity to grow, and I don't want to spend it with a vegepymy population.

As a player, I completely agree with you.

As a character, Anaxian doesn't like Vegipygmys because they don't have a lot of use to him as corpses. He'd want to get rid of them on that basis alone.

Mostly because we don't need the Harpies.

If you want to keep the harpies, that's fine. Maybe we could annex two pygmy tiles and use the third as the harpy sport place. Then bad pygmys could be sent there as punishment.

Vegepygmy hunger games?

Checking in.

That is enough. Anaxian's mental voice spoke to Drisquar and Illia. "Unnecessary moral labels and justifications aside, we are allies. Whether we like each other or not is irrelevant. It is necessary to work together, which requires at least the appearance of respect."

"Illia, Drisquar is correct. If your harpies are obsolete, dispose of them. Either release them from service, or kill them and drop their remains down to me. Likewise for the vegipygmies."

"Drisquar, if you have not learned to parse Illia's particular colloquialisms by now, it may be best to smile and nod when she says something that makes no sense to you. If it is crucial, ask someone to translate."

"I have three bodies, seven souls, and I still have neither the time nor the patience to act as councilor to the two of you. Treat each other better."

Dread Lich is a third party template. I'm not sure it's an option.

Sorry for the absence folks. Holiday madness has me and isn't letting me go.

1) Does Anaxian's lair generate magic items(like a caster's tower or temple)?

Anaxian cranks out magic items at about 6x the usual rate if that's all he's focused on. Or, he could personally ignore making magic items altogether and still make them at 3x the usual rate.

GM, tell me more about the Alchemy lab.

I had enough to buy a tome of clear thought +5. I naturally used this myself and the new stats reflect that. Dapper, you good with that?

Same question.

This game makes me consider options differently than most.

We have largely blown the roof off of what is possible, so what is the most fun has become my focus. If it were me, I would skip lore master because it doesn't seem to add to the fun.

Mage if the 3rd Eye is pretty intersting, but using those abilities to their fullest potential is going to be work. You might have noticed that I don't tend to make undead minions as often as I used to. It's my character's main focus, but at our level it can be a chore just to build them mechanically. If you don't have HeroLab or something like that to speed up the process, I'd advise against the construct route.

Arcane Savant would be my pick because it boosts your options without adding much to the overall workload. Meridian's biggest asset is versatility. Adding more to your bag of tricks seems like a good way to go.

...this is going to take me a while.

Looks like I didn't make the edit window, so I put the attack rolls in my 2nd post.

Not by a long measure.

Anaxian relaxed back into his own skin again, the blank numbness of undeath settling though him like a comforting blanket. Being alive in the Woundwyrm's body had been thrilling, but also quite distracting.

His unseen servants floated his spell component pouch back up to him. If it's too far for them, Anaxian has two other spare component pouches, each with a couple of his boosting reagents. (Multi-bodied creatures have to plan ahead.)

He looked down at the trapped demon prince and opened his mouth while touching the gem on the inside of his forearm and burning more powerful reagents from his pouch.

Rapid fire arcs of black lighting leaped from Anaxian's mouth and carved terrible rips through the smoke leaving hollow after images in their wake. Dull, colored dust poured from his fangs as the powerful reagents boosting the spells were consumed.

Activating my Rod of Piercing Spell now that I'm back in my own body, and using a Quickening Diamond, an Empowering Topaz, a Maximizing Sapphire and Dweomer's Essence with a casting of Enervation. Then, doing it again without the Quickening Diamond this time.

For clarity, that's a Maximized Empowered Enervation, and a Quickened Maximized Empowered Enervation.

Spell Penetration, 1st Enervation: 1d20 + 12 + 5 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 12 + 5 + 5 = 34
Spell Penetration, 2nd Enervation: 1d20 + 12 + 5 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 12 + 5 + 5 = 36

So, unless he's immune to negative energy, that's 12 Negative Levels.

Hope this works, or I just burned 20,500 gp worth of spell-boosting reagents for nothing. Sad dragon.

Yeah. Now potions are the only way to do that.

Somehow I missed that the round had rolled over. Sorry, I've been sitting here thinking that we were still waiting on the last round to resolve and that I'd already acted.

Today's pretty busy for me. I'll try to get my posts up, but it might not be able to happen until tomorrow.

Sorry for the delay. I didn't realize I was up.

Dris, I'll see what I can do to boost your attack bonus.

Inubrix, I'm not sure if I can help you get here faster. I'll see what I can do.

The Woundwyrm died. Anaxian suddenly felt the peaceful weightless sensation of floating bodiless for a moment before his soul snapped back into his original body, displacing the spirit fragment of his phylactery. HIs scales rippled like a shiver ran through him and the inky blackness in his eyes was replaced with the more familiar purple glow.

I think I lose my Standard action from the spell ending (as if I used my action to shift back to my original body). The rules are a bit unclear. I think I've taken enough actions recently, so I'll call it good for this round.

Since he can't attack through the circle, that would mean Illia would have to be in there with him to be attacked by him, right?

Well, unless he has a way to see through the smoke, he should be flat footed to every attack aimed at him. Hopefully that lowers his AC a bit.

Well, unless Sheorahz can see through the smoke, he'll be firing blind. That's helpful at least.

...we have different definitions of "fun"

>.<

Wel, considering we're taking on something about 10 CRs higher than us, it's kinda to be expected.

Anaxian, the Knot of Souls wrote:

When Magic Circle is cast with a "special diagram" (which is what Anaxian's special ring is), then outsiders inside the circle should be pretty much powerless.

Magic Circle wrote:

...none of its abilities or attacks can cross the diagram.

This is what I'm banking on. If I have that wrong, please let me know. Anaxian is a whole lot smarter than I am.

Since the circle itself is supposed to involve a ring of powdered silver (which you're storing in a tube or something), I was assuming that the pattern has to be drawn with the powder itself, a 10-minute process that can't be easily done earlier and stored; which seems sort of against the spirit of the spell. But simply trapping him in place completely should make the fight a whole lot more possible.

P.S. Good job on the penetration rolls, his SR is 30.

We talked about this back when I was trapping the Belier Devil.

Anaxian's ring is intended to be a pre-made, permanent Binding ring. Think of it like the metal band around the center of a barrel, made out of Adamantine.

Instead of spending ten minutes drawing a fragile design in silver dust, I spent a few days carving the same design on the inside of an adamantine ring, and then metal-casting molten silver into the etching.

I imagine it looking a lot like an over-sized version of the One Ring from LOTR, except instead of one line of weird writing, it has more like 10 lines (for different kinds of outsiders). While he's Binding something, the appropriate line of script lights up. The rest are inert because they don't effect that that of creature.

Scratch the Breath Weapon

The Woundwyrm snatched the Rod out of the air and targeted Sheorhaz with a green ray of mystical energy. This had to work. He burned more powerful reagents and cast the spell thought he rod, hoping to amplify his magic to the point where it could effect the powerful demon.

Spell Penetration, Penetrating Spell, dweomer essence: 1d20 + 12 + 5 + 5 ⇒ (9) + 12 + 5 + 5 = 31

Hope that is good enough.

@Anaxian: I think the dimensional anchor needs to actually be cast on the creature in the circle, in which case it might require a second spell resistance check? It looks like you're only supposed to anchor the circle when summoning?

Well that changes things. I guess I'll have to have Woundwyrm Anaxian cast Dimensional Anchor rather than having Twisted Core do it from a spell. That means no Breath Weapon. I'm fine with that.

Hold on for a post.

Ignore Shaoraaz. Anaxian said to his companions. He is trapped. Powerless. Focus on the Vrocks and other minions.

The Woundwyrm exhaled a cloud of lingering gas into the nearby Vrocks.

Entropic Breath. 30' cone, lingers for 1 minute. As Acid Fog, plus creatures within the cloud make a DC 25 Will save or be Confused.

The Woundwyrm flew in near the swarm, drew two powerful reagents from his component pouch and cast a spell.

Magic Circle Against evil, cast with Dweomer Essence (i'm assuming this guy has spell resistance) and a Quickening Diamond

Spell Penetration: 1d20 + 12 + 5 ⇒ (18) + 12 + 5 = 35

It is done. Now for the rest. Secure the area.

If this works, he should be all but powerless. No attacks or abilities will be able to penetrate the circle, and he'll be locked in with a dimensional anchor, (which is cast beforehand on the circle, not on him).

Only potential liability is if the Vrocks find the invisible circle hanging in the air. So, I'm going to take steps against that...

This post marks a Swift and Move action. The rest is incoming.

I've wanted to do that for years. Enjoy your new eyes.

Hmm. Too spread out and torn up to make use of in combat. I'll put that aside for later. Guess I'll just cast Mage Armor on myself this round, boosting my AC to 34

Retconning my previous action. Are demon corpses remaining behind, or are the un-summoning? Is Animate Dead a viable option?

If so, I do that. I can animate 34 hit dice with one casting. It's a Touch spell, so my Unseen Servants will gather all the nearby corpses into a pile, and I'll land on it.

Alright. I guess I'll send Illia into the sphere to have some fun.

It is my understanding that a person inside a resilient sphere can summon monsters outside of it, because Conjurations spells only require line of sight to the point of conjuration, not line of effect.

Do I have that wrong?

I had that tactic used against me in a game once, so it stuck with me. Didn't think to ask if it was rules legal.

They are conjuration spells. They aren't going through the sphere. They are appearing on the other side of it. Nothing is "passing through" the wall of force.

Inside the Woundwyrm, Anaxian gave the Siabrae an eyeless look of contempt. "I am on your side, fool."

The he flew away to engage new targets.

The figures in D1, are they Siabrae, or enemies?

If they are enemies, I would like to cast Black Tentacles with a Quickening Diamond and Stinking Cloud ( fort DC 22), both conjured inside the Resilient Sphere.

Black Tentacles CMB check: 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (12) + 17 = 29

Breath Weapon Cooldown: 1d4 ⇒ 1