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Iron Gods, 2014-2016. Finally done! Now for the GM's Intermission (that period of time between the end of one campaign and the beginning of another which is traditionally spent vomiting into a hat and hating all of my players). I threw together that ending here: http://bit.ly/1Qw22Sn
The Divinity Drive, being a unique item and powerful artifact, can override a monster ability like this and thus keep her trapped. Artifacts are all about breaking rules, be they magic or technology. That makes my group's cleric an artifact! *Badum-PISH! *Amirite, fellas?! Tip your waiters, they have rogue levels! G'Night!
Huh, I just noticed something. Maybe it's been mentioned but I haven't seen it. Becrux, the ancient vortex dragon in Astrogation, is trapped there because the Divinity Drive prevents extradimensional travel. But Ancient Vortex Dragons are immune to effects that prevent extradimensional travel due to it's galactic emissary ability (gained at the Ancient age category).
I am preparing for the end of this campaign. To that end, I am putting together what is essentially a Powerpoint presentation (similar to ending slides you would see in Dragon age, or Fallout) detailing the conclusion. Here's an example of the Technology slide (in my campaign, they hunted down the League and wiped them off the map due to some... overzealousness on my part to cement them as bad guys). It's up on Google Drive http://bit.ly/1TkkXSu (Note sure if BBS image tags work)
New script for Unity after Bastion is destroyed. I've been playing him with an outward demeanor of a ruthless savior. After Destroying Bastion: "As a sick child fears the surgeon’s blade, your hostility is borne of ignorance to the necessity of my will.Fear me not, for I am your salvation. Your lives are chaotic, your future is uncertain. Your lives are limited, yet you waste precious time and thought on irrelevant pursuits. Your kind lacks cohesion and will, eventually, destroy itself. This is a mathematical certainty." [incredibly complex mathematics begin scrolling through all of the monitors] "Through my will, your species will finally know certainty of purpose. Unity will be far greater than the sum of its constituent beings and I will bring you all to ascension, together as One. I await you in the Godmind, where I will take you into my mind and remake you into more than you could possibly envision in your frail shells of bone and flesh."
We're still in book two of Iron Gods and I'd like to put a stop to books coming in for now. Also, please remove Giantslayer AP #1 form pending orders, I emailed a cancellation request, but it still appeared as pending. Thanks
And because I'm bored, I threw together audio for the Dusklight (the optional sidequest during Adventure 3, the Choking Tower): Dusklight Recording
I recorded the Chrysalis final report and put it on Google Drive here:Chrysalis Final Report . I set the volume high on my laptop top and had it cued up so when someone touched the envoy mouthpiece it immediately played. EVERYONE jumped, since we had just been doing a spooky ship search. I recommend this tactic to others!
My players were fine with it. Fighter saw his first strike leave a small gleaming scratch, so he put all the strength he could behind his follow up strikes (I.E. power attacked). Others tried different ways of disabling it (trying to throw stuff into its fan blades), or of supporting the fighter (flanked, or aid another). It was a hard fight, but they enjoyed it. And since they failed to disable the Robot Core, they had a round two with another one AND Meyanda which turned it into a desperate and pitched battle expending every resource.
Morgan Obreth, human Ghost Wolf Fighter. Killed by Critical magus spellstrike. After leading Sanvil Trett around in ruins below Black Hill (so he could ID technology for them) and making him stay back while they cleared the way, the party returned to him low on resources, wounded and winded. They also had lots of technology for him to have a look at. After doing so, they lead him past the now cleared desert and told him to wait outside of the malfunctioning bio-lock. They run through, he closes the door, they get zapped. The door opens and he blasts corrosive touch through his sword and scores a critical rolling high for damage and killing Morgan. The look of just utter betrayal on the player's face... Sadly, they are now extremely touchy about NPCs following them around so the next bunch are gonna have to really pull some weight. As an aside, they captured Sanvil but after restoring and speaking to Khonnir, they realized that it would be best if Sanvil never went before a magistrate. During their attempt to "due process him to death"(by summoning multiple venomous swarms into the storage room of the Garrison where the guard locked him up), Sanvil made his escape (spell recall within 24 hours of their fight, 2d6 pool acid strike on door lock, 2d6 pool fire strike on npc guard then vanish). This was foiled by the party happening to kick in the stable door as he was trying to go out of it, killing Sanvil in the ensuing melee. So they now they are hailed as paragons of justice for foiling a murderers escape. PCs...
Hmm. The android is male. I might not have to change the story, just include the android's former self. Something like: The android brought the message to him and told him that Justinia died because he was not there to protect her (which is true and logical.) What was left unsaid, because the android assumed that Aldronard understood this, was that what happened was outside of Aldronard's control. He is no more at fault than if she had been struck by lightning and he was not there with a lightning rod to deflect it. During the actual encounter, Aldronard will recognize the android and call him by another name. He will briefly wail his story and IF the player thinks to say, it was not your fault, then I'll proceed with Aldronard's forgiveness. Otherwise it will be a few rounds of combat, before I allow some sort of check for them to realize this.
My group just finished Fires of Creation. Having the final encounter in the reactor room was DEFINITELY better than having Meyanda hunt down the relay. I just had her collector robot use the time spying on them from high in the sky "Umm.. Is that a robot way, way up there?". Now that we're ready to take off for Scrapwall and Aldronard's Grave I was struck with an idea. How could I work it to have Aldronard's ghost recognize our android character? Basically, the android was involved in the whol sad story in some way and then underwent renewal. That way he could legitimately forgive Aldronard, AND its a way to teach him about the concept of renewal. IN fact I'm trying to find ways to insert past lives of the android throughout the AP. WHat I would abso-effing-lutely LOVE, is to recreate that moment in Firefly in which they find a statue of Jayne Cobb and accompanying legend and are just... flabbergasted.
I think I'll just have Meyanda send Gruethor and her remaining ratfolk out to ambush the PC's in the caves, striking as they emerge sickened from the tainted waters of Weeping Pond. That way they get the sense of "someone noticed that we turned off the power relay" necessary to point at the link between it and the goings on beneath Torch. Maybe have one of the ratfolk shriek something akin to "They broke the power link, Mistress wants them dead!"
In my current game, the players have deactivated the power relay, intercepted the two scrapwall fanatics that came out to investigate and are now hunkering down at the Foundry, poking at the odd device. Meyanda has Gruethor, 3 ratfolk and her collector robot left, so she organizes them, prepares locate object and is heading to the surface. My question is simply, can she take the collector robot with her, since it would need to pass through at least 45 feet of submerged waterway (probably longer, since it needs to then reach the surface). 1. Can robots operate underwater (considering most of their artwork shows exposed interiors) 2. Can a COLLECTOR robot move around underwater (since it moves by propellers) 3. Am I overthinking this? I'd assume not, since these early encounters help to set the stage for a players ideas of how robots work in the future.
(We're a couple of sessions in, but better late than never.) Spacker Burnsides Baine- a gnome with a strange relationship with fire and life. He calls forth flame and a healing touch but has no idea where such powers come from, only that they left his hands weak and blackened since birth. He is the adopted son of Khonnir Baine. "Scrapper" - No family name given. A young human mage with a Chelaxian accent hiding from something. He has a strange knack for always finding the most valuable thing in a pile of junk. He is one of the few that was always more interested in what caused the flame, than the flame itself. Joren and Morgan Obreth. Ghostwolf tribesmen. The brothers seem to have some history with the Technic League, and none of it good. Joren, the younger Obreth, constantly harasses his much larger brother during their daily sparring sessions. They distrust the trinkets and tools that are sold by scavengers. 6. Or Six. Possibly Ziks. He has never clarified this. The pale-eyed man says extremely little, more content to study the interactions of the slew of bizarre and probably dangerous chemicals he carries everywhere. Spends an inordinate amount of time staring at the sky at night. All five have formed a bond of friendship, since they are either differ from the townsfolk in form, origin or outlook. They watched with interest as expeditions ventured beneath Black Hill and most failed to return. When Councilor Baine returned with a mechanical man (a "repair drone", he called it), they thought the problem well in hand and soon solved. When the Councilor failed to return a second time, they knew it was time to act. Spacker gathered the others and they debated what to do. Val, Khonnir's other adopted child, wanted Spacks to call on Captain Langer and have the Torch militia mount a rescue. The group had recently learned that Captain Langer and her militia were trying to keep the eastern roads safe from the sudden rise of ratfolk banditry that plagued the area. Since the town's primary source of income had gone out, they needed to keep the roads safe for the merchants and travellers that also fed coin into the Technic League tithe coffers. Resolved to venture into the darkness below Black Hill, the group met with Councilor Feddert at her home. [MORE AFTER TURKEY]
Sixth and final player has submitted a nameless fighter with no backstory or traits. I have posted this to his entry on our character roster to remind him to rectify that oversight: Backstory
Traits
Player Secret:
The other players are now mercilessly heckling him, and he is putting something together. EDIT he also neglected an image for his character and since there is no description, he has this: https://db4sgowjqfwig.cloudfront.net/images/2336754/Fighter.png
Just started running this and so far we have:
Last player wanted to be a synthesist, but I shot that down. Now he's thinking Orc cleric with the animal domain (he's envisioning a savage orc riding a dinosaur).
Spent many hours putting together a fight progression for the Ivory Sanctum since my players got their hands on a scroll of wish (I generate random settlement magic items and keep them on each cities Google Doc with Knowledge local DCs for finding them) and then wished themselves into Xanthir's presence. This was triggered by Xanthir's retrievers kidnapping Sosiel Vanic as he was giving the opening benedictions for an Ascendance Day festival in Drezen. They swaggered through the Vang + Jerribeth + mook demons fight where we ended. So I began counting squares and movement speeds for all the various minions and allies that were beating taloned feet towards Vang's chambers for what was going to be a drag out fight and I just... couldn't... do it anymore. I literally felt a sense of dread at the thought of another session, so I folded the campaign. It was just not fun anymore. It's technically on hiatus pending a deep rewrite of the mythic rules. I picked up Iron Gods and added a new character creation house rule to our wiki page: Mythic characters must first have their character sheets eaten by a GM. Within several hours, the character sheet will be returned and the player will be able to make a new character. This house rule is in effect pending a rewrite of the mythic rules.
We just did Reign of Winter (right before Wrath) and it was greatly enjoyed on both sides. One thing thattwo of my players found annoying, however, was the Geas-like Mantle of the Black Rider which more or less forced you to follow the plot. They were kind of keen on exploring some of the exotic locales you visit (especially during Rasputin must Die) and felt railroaded.
My group will be stumbling into the Woundwyrm's Lair tonight. I am using the upgraded encounter and they continue to ignore the devastation of the area (I describe the Worldwound as covered in black, oily sand with disturbingly flesh-like plants growing vine or vein-like across it's surface. Occasionally sickly animals will be spotted or diseased looking plants. For ever hex marked as the wyrm's territory, it's glassed smooth and acid etched stone, no life and strong ammonia smells), so they are not as prepared for a dragon fight as they usually are. I've given them plenty of warnings (a fly-by with the wyrm carrying a large demon carcass in its jaws, a massacre site where a caravan was ripped to shreds and everything is melted and a slain patrol with a lot of twisted and broken obsidian statue-limbs), so this one's on them. Plus, if we TPK, I have Iron Gods all prepped with an Obsidian Portal wiki.
I too have six players and even though I'm only midway through book 3, I've already reached the "Only x more sessions before this is over". I've thrown in the upgraded statblocks, your changes to mythic and thrown out almost all of the as written tactics (save for some story-based ones). I've been GMing since the tail end of AD&D but I just can't get an appropriate challenge into this AP. I'm just glad that my sessions are twice as long as yours (I'm a community organizer and set my own schedule and my players have Tuesdays off or also have non-standard worktimes) so it will be over soon. |
