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"Your Uncle is a fine man and with the weather being so pleasant recently there really isn't a better time for a trip."

The contact's fingers dance in the shadows of the table.

Sounds like you've been busy. Unfortunately things do not go well here. Someone moves against us from the shadows. High level spies placed in the Karnathi government have been compromised by unknown means and assets have been destroyed. Our masters have a plan to counter this agency but if it fails we may need to call you in. Proceed with what you are doing currently but be prepared for action.

"Another beer for me." The old man calls to a waitress, sounding slightly inebriated.

While other Houses disseminate information through static sites you seek to learn the fortunes of your House by meeting an agent in a run down bar. He sits with his back to the wall and orders you a stein of beer as you take a seat across from him. He appears as an old man in ragged street clothes with a scar bisecting the left side of his face, though this is undoubtedly not his true form.

"Shadowed One." He says to you. "It's been awhile since we heard from you, how do you fair?"

I believe the current total is 8/15. Yep I agree, need another player or two, still busy with holiday stuff right now but will get on that in the next few days. I'll post about what you discover in the enclave tomorrow.

After spending the night in a luxurious guest house your items are delivered to you. As the sun rises you prepare for your journey.

Is there anything you'd like to do in town before leaving?

To Raeli and Vaelins if you guys drop back in at some point go head and give yourself 5,000 gold worth of treasure as your reward. Also everyone gains 2 XP as a reward for finishing the first part of the story.

"Very well." The Archmage replies. "You will travel to the small village of Hendice in the north, Staphos' Keep lies just outside it. I shall inform him you are coming. Spend the night in one of our guest houses here tonight and we will deliver you your items in the morning, then make haste, for I fear to leave those mercenaries to their own devices for to long..."

"I am always willing to help an ally of the Twelve. Tell me, is he associated with a House, or a freelance ally?"

"He is an independent noble, and not very wealthy but he has done much for us in the past and certainly deserves our help. His name is Julian Staphos and we are willing to pay you each another five thousand gold if you can solve this problem."

cool thanks for understanding.

"Many thanks. And what of this other important task you mentioned? I am currently in a position of availability."

"A noble friend and contributor to the Twelve is having problems with some Darkblade Mercenaries in his domain. I'm not sure the exact details yet but with the military busy quelling Emerald Claw backed uprisings right now he is in rather dire straits and in need of support, if you're willing I'd like to send you to deal with the threats menacing his realm." The Archmage replies.

bleh, sorry about the belated response, really busy right now.

"That old thing? You're welcome to it, gives me the creeps if I'm being honest..." The Archmage replies with a sour expression.

"Very well, I believe we have a ring in the vaults that will work for you, is that acceptable?"

It's all good, not a big fan of magic item slot affinities anyway. We'll just give you that and call it even.

Hammer hits, overcomes DR 10/magic, 3 damage

Pseudopod lashes out at Elvombor 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (7) + 10 = 17 -miss-

Nearby Pariem chase off harpies who are trying to flank you with color sprays and magic missiles. "You focus on that thing!" She shouts. "I'll cover your backs."

"You are most generous and I have always wished to understand more of the gods and their creations. I request a Headband of Vast Intelligence that would grant me this Knowledge of the Religions, and a Pearl of Power, not unlike my own, but which would enable the recasting of one of my least powerful spells."

"Excellent." Says the Archmage. "We'll deliver those items to you shortly. What would the rest of you like?"

The Archmage closes the box. "Thank you, but no the ring is going into one of the deeper vaults now, we would rather not risk it again.

As for the information it is clear something unsettling is happening here and someone is moving against us from the shadows. At the moment however we have a more experienced, and frankly, more trusted group searching for answers, however there is something important you can help us with, that will increases your standing within the Twelve if you handle it well. I will speak of it in a moment.

First however, I owe each of you five thousands gold pieces worth of treasure or magic items, how would each of you like your reward?"

"No I'm afraid not, as for the ring, it is a sacred talisman of the demon lord Kabraxxis and we where going to use it to summon him for some information at the time the Ring was stolen. The demon is the patron of secrets and knowledge and we where hoping to use him to answer some questions about an important project the Twelve are working on, unfortunately the time of planar conjunction has passed and our questions must go unanswered, at least for now..."

Ah I see, no I'm using the houserule of static Initiative for this game, if you recall, it's all good.

As the three harpies still armed with barrels approach they are suddenly engulfed by what looks alike a black storm cloud that descends rapidly from the sky and they seem to disintegrate within it's core. The cloud descends, lightning crackling along its length to land on the deck of the ship. You realize it's some kind of elemental or perhaps an ooze as it extends crackling pseudopods toward you in a hostile manner.

Initiative
Elvombor +7
Liriel +6
Lyre +3
???? +0

Six harpies are caught within the fire ball and have their payloads detonate in the heat, blowing them to atoms. Three more approach from the other side of the ship.

What is that roll for Lyre?

The Archmage places a rune inscribed box in front of you. "Place the ring inside to return it." He informs you. To Quayne he says: "Yes this is most disturbing, Raderol himself didn't have the arcane knowledge to penetrate our vaults but whomever let him in is protected from the spells of even our most powerful diviners. A most perplexing case indeed."

The bridge is a sunken down bay surrounding a raised command chair. Strange instruments and glowing panels fill this pit and crewmen are bustling back and forth between them. You can tell at a glance that piloting a skyship is nothing like steering it's nautical equivalent.

Overhead a glass dome protects you from the wind and you have a pretty good angle to see much of what is occurring outside. A dozen Harpies circle the ship as more are arriving off the port bow, the new arrivals carry what look like barrels that they fling one at a time at the skyship, which explode on impact.

Liam hisses in frustration as his crew tries to turn the vessel away from the flying pests, unfortunately even a ship as agile as this one cannot outmaneuver creatures with natural flight.

As Liam shouts at the crew, cursing their inadequacies, Pariem turns to you.

"Join me on the Deck? Let's see if we can't chase away these beasts!"

Return the ring for xp, treasure and reputation bonuses as you complete the quest, alternatively bluff and keep the ring for diminished returns (also extended danger as others pursue the ring). either way we can move on to our next quest.

"That's true." Pariem replies. "And you know how much trouble magic has caused us in the past Liam, best just transport these fine folks and look for that one big score elsewhere, it will come to us eventually."

"Fine." Liam says, blowing out a sigh. "At this rate I will never get to retire will I?"

Suddenly the skyship shudders, suffering from some impact and an alarm begins to wail. "Captain we are under attack! Come to the bridge!" A voice declares over the internal vox speakers.

"Damn!" Liam shouts standing up and tipping over his chair.

"Will you join us?" Pariem inquires of you as Liam races from the room. "We might need your help..."

"The sickness?" Liam inquires. "Terrible I hear, you're looking for a treasure that can cure that? Hmmm." He says, scratching his goatee. "There certainly can be money in cures."

Pariem rolls her eyes at her Captains mercenary attitude. "It sounds like their on a mission of mercy Liam, let's try and not take gold from the pockets of suffering innocents this week, hmmm?"

Liam has the good graces to look at least a little abashed. "Not from the poor, certainly." He replies. "But I'm sure their are some well to do suffering as well..."

Pariem shakes her head with a long suffering expression on her face. "I'm not sure if I've encountered many Shifters with money, what do you think Lyre? Do your communities tend to have an excess of wealth?"

Ulvak takes a sip of his tea, then passes his hand over the cup to add some cinnamon and apple flavoring to itPrestidigitation. He sits back in a chair and explains what took place over the past several weeks since they left.

"I see." Replies the Archmage. "Most exciting, reminds me of my youth as an adventurer. Tell me, have you the Ring?"

Unless Kira becomes an active participant, getting into combat and such, as opposed to just sort of helping, we have three players, if Rae returns.

If you guys want more players I'm ok with it, or even if you want to play more than one character each if combat is what you are worried about. Let's sound off on the discussion thread about what everyone would prefer. In the meantime...

After several hair raising weeks dodging encounters in the wilderness you return to Korth and meet Archmage Silven within his expensively appointed chambers within the Twelve. He is a rather decrepit old man with a long silver ponytail and a friendly smile.

"How was the hunt?" He asks as he has an unseen servant pour you some piping hot tea.

I was waiting for Rae to post, but seems she's still tied up. Let's just return

Also, LJ, did u see my comment on the discussion thread? Think we should try and recruit at least one more, perhaps two more, players.

I see. Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Yes I read it but we still have four characters even though Kira doesn't have a profile. That's average for a game. If everyone wants more players then we can try but I think we are still fine for now. Agreed on returning to the Twelve I'll post that in a bit when I have some time to sit down and write.

The Leaping Sphinx launches soon after, all aboard agreeing leaving sooner is better. That night the Captain invites you to dine at his table with his first mate for a sumptuous feast.

"So tell me..." Liam asks as he spears a pile of sweetmeats with a long fork. "You say you're on a treasure hunt, what treasure are you looking for specifically?"

Hmmm alright, in the interest of moving things along how would you like to wish Quayne? Then we can do Ulvak whenever he drops back in? I guess the other option is we can just move the story along and you can return the ring but Kiralinsee could use her dark powers to grant each of you a one time limited wish sometime in the future so that if Vaelins comes back he could get one too.

"Liriel Opaline, pleased to meet you." She takes the hand and shakes it vigorously. "You'd better learn to be light and fast on those twinkle toes if you're going to last under Liam."

Twinkletoes sighs. "So true." He replies then turns back to collect his scattered tools.

You take a look at the engine and feel a sigh of your own coming on at its state of disrepair. Caranden tried his best no doubt but it looks like you have days of work ahead of you before the engine is in tip top shape again.

"Oi! be careful with that! I spent 20 screaming seconds bolting that into place while a very angry dragon was chewing into this boat for toothpicks. Took me 2 more days to finish adjusting it afterwards."

The gnome looks rather ashamed. "Eheh, sorry I'm rather new to engineering." He says. "I'm still adjusting my workstyle. Caranden Twinkletoes at your service." He says, rubbing a grubby hand clean on his overalls and then offering it to shake.

Ulvak can wish first. Quayne is probably going to wish for Craft Arms and Armour, lacking any better ideas :-)

Granting bonus feats is probably outside the capability of limited wish in that you'd basically be trading a 1,500 gp diamond for a permanent upgrade. If feats were that cheap every high level character with access to a spellcaster would have every feat they could ever desired. Also is rather game breaking if used to excess. I'm willing to listen to an argument to the contrary of course but in the meantime I guess we are waiting on Ulvak.

First place that Liriel goes to is the engine room to refamilliarise herself with the engine and the repairs she made last time she was here.

As you enter the engine room, a massive place of glowing crystals and sorcerous turbines, an older gnome with a wild white beard and ridiculously oversized goggles falls from the engines scaffolding with a curse and lands on his rear end in front of you. His toolbox tumbles after him and he shields his head with his hands as equipment is scattered everywhere.

"Dagnabit!" He curses. "I cracked another power coupling!"

Getting to his feet he spots you for the first time. "Eh? Who are you?" He inquires.

I'm not gone! Just off the grid for the past few weeks, thanks to severe morning sickness. I'm starting to get my feet back under me and would love to jump back in, if that's okay?

Absolutely! Glad to have you back.

alright well instead of giving you a detailed list in character we'll just play it then when you need to know some detail of the ship later you will.

"Shall we have a look around the ship?"

The Leaping Sphinx is an advanced skyship with spacious and richly appointed quarters. It has fallen on hard times however and the signs of multiple emergency repairs are obvious on it's hull and superstructure. Still you have no doubt that it is probably one of the fastest and most agile airships in the sky. As you poke around the ship you find it has all the amenities and resources you would expect from a small castle, with a libary, forges, crew quarters and even a sparring hall for martial training.

Sorcery huh? Must be real handy not having to clunk around a spellbook! I'm Liriel Opaline, "Liriel" or "Opal" to my friends. Formerly Engineer First Standing on Ceran's Folly. I hear it's been raining burnt gargoyles lately." Liriel takes her hand and shakes it with great enthuisasm.

Pariem smiles and shakes your hand firmly. "An engineer? That will be nice, our current Mek-Head is a nice fellow but, well, I'm not sure he knows what he is doing." She looks at Liam and sighs. Liam just shrugs with a 'I've tried my best' look on his face.

Alright, well without a full party I think I will just handwaive the random encounters. It takes you two and a half weeks in rough terrain to reach the bastion of the Twelve so that gives you two more limited wishes, which we can do now, if you like. I recommend one for Ulvak and one for Quayne as Kira is her own wish spell =p

I will definitely continue. I love Ulvak and the game, plus our spooky little girl rocks, lol.

I think, if after another week or so, we should probably look to opening up recruitment once more. There seems to be a lot of people who love Eberron and I think we'd be able to grab another few to fill in spots lost. In fact, there was lots of potential players in a recent interest checking type thread, though nothing ever came of it, so I think you'd be able to get fresh victi.....er, new players, yea, that. lol.

Hehe alright, sounds like a plan.

Taking over a secluded table nook, Liriel starts laying out the copies she made of the maps she found at Margrave. "This basically is the area we're going to practise some treasure hunting in. What I need for you to do is to take us there and if possible pick us back up in a week. I don't need you take us all the way back to Sharn, dropping us off at a lightning rail station would do nicely. And I'll look over your engines on the way up. Besides from the way things look, I'd warrantyou weren't planning on laying over in town that long anyway."

Liam nods sagely. "That sounds acceptable."

A female elf with long blonde hair enters the cabin and approaches the table.

"What's with the monster corpses outside, Liam?" She asks.

"Pariem! Where have you been?" Liam inquires, ignoring her question. "Liriel this is my first mate, one of the finest sorceresses I've ever met." He introduces her.

The elf raises an eyebrow and then a hand, offering to shake. "Pleased to meet you." She says.

"Er...It's nothing too important, just a contractual obligation dispute." Liam walks over to the sleeping bugbear and places his wand against it's temple. He triggers it for a coup de grace.

"Yes my first mate will be here in a bit and then we can leave, in the meantime care to tell me the details of your trip?"

Did you guys want to go straight to the Twelve or go with the plan where you play around a bit and milk a wish for each person, cause you could just make a defensible camp and wait awhile, far less random encounters because your not moving but would give pursuers a chance to catch up.

nice.

The troll roars in pain as it ignites then slumps over, burning to ash.

1 XP gained.

Amidst the trolls burnt remains you find a small ruby worth 300 gold.

How would you like to set up your camp each night in the wilds?

Back when I was first introduced to D&D some ten years ago I had regularly been gaming playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first edition. In that system there was an expendable resource called fate points that basically equated to extra lives. When I began DMing I added those to the D&D game and it cured me of any need to fudge. With that I was able to play around with monsters and abilities I didn't fully understand without having to fudge or softball things if things went violently against my expectations.

In my longest running game group of close friends from high school we simply play by the rules but if something goes down that we don't like we simply rewind time and either play the encounter again or say it happened differently. We are all pretty much on the same page on how we like stories to feel and it works pretty well. I realize many people's reaction to that would probably be "then why roll dice at all if you are allowed to just change things?" To which I reply I dunno it's fun for us.

I just want to say that I don't hate blasting spells at all, they are fun. While I traditionally have chosen mostly Debuff and BC spells for my PCs wizards (and now feel even more confident in that choice having read Treanmonk's guide) that's only because as a PC I have a vested interest in winning. As a DM my NPCs are going to continue blasting PCs all day long Ahahahaha! (a good choice I think in that as had been stated many times, damage doesn't inhibit actions so no PC gets bored by missing turns.)

Hissing in frustrating the Elf makes a full retreat.

"Well that was hair raising!" Liam comments. "Wow, I really owe you guys."

The remaining bugbear snoozes away at your feet.

You can try and stop the elf if you like but if you let him go XP is the same.

Yeah I think three might be too few not only from a combat side but also cause I like party dynamics to be...dynamic, stories are more interesting with more protagonists (well stories like this one anyway IMHO) I can look for another player if you like or we can have more than one character per PC, I'm completely open to that.

This of course only if you guys really want to, you can survive perfectly fine with three and no frontliner against appropriate challenges and Npcs can provide a fine cast to interact with.

Now THIS is more in line with the last thread we had on fudging.

People arguing about the moral implications of playing D&D.

lol that's not what I was trying do, I was trying to figure out a way of separating the idea of DM fudging from the concept of a friend stabbing you in the back because those seem like silly equivalencies to me but against a passionately argued stance I was basically left with "Der, maybe things are a bit more complicated...."

But the truth is some people really do feel that way so what are you gonna do but accept their feelings as a valid personal experience and move on.

Well I guess to clarify I realize that you do experience things that black and white and there is nothing wrong with that but it's not necessarily a universal experience.

Hmmm let me try and explain farther: Being a DM is often much more of an art than a science. Sometimes the hard numbers of the game are creating an unfavorable situation in which no one is having fun and the DM, reading the table, makes an adjustment to increase the enjoyment of the everyone playing(which can include fudging dice). Yes it can go wrong and yes there are plenty of examples of abuse from malicious DMs but if you're all friends who are working towards a positive social experience it will often work out for the better. I guess what I'm trying to say is that when it comes to making those decisions things aren't necessarily black and white, there can be a lot of grey.

I hear what you are saying Ashiel but role playing games are kinda strange in regards to cheating, especially from the DM's chair. Part of what makes cheating suck in most games is that you are getting an unfair advantage over other players. Rpgs are kinda unique in that there aren't really many other games with a role like that of a DM. As had been stated many times on this thread many DM's cheat not to screw the other players but to give them an advantage they would not otherwise possess when they really need it (or mitigate circumstances that would otherwise be a disaster) which you have acknowledged but I think may not be an absolutely terrible thing for many players. While I don't cheat as a DM or player personally I actually do appreciate when a DM occasionally softballs something that would really suck, especially if it arose because of a circumstance I have absolutely no control over(incredibly crappy dice rolls being the most obvious).

In the end I think most of it comes down to what has been established between players and DM. If your DM tells you he will simply never fudge a roll (like I tell my players) and he does then yes he would be lying to you and that could be a problem but otherwise I don't think a bit of cheating is a big deal to some people in a non competitive game that's based on telling a good story.

Attack VS AC 13 hit 6 damage.

Thanks for the complement!

Np. In the end it's not that I think blasters are utterly useless crap(and you never make that claim either) It's just that as a player who values efficiency and effectiveness the "God" wizard style is just the superior choice. Maybe it won't always be that way but for this edition of the rules that's kinda just the way it is(barring any super super nice future blaster additions from Paizo)

Captain Liam unleashes a lighting bolt against the remaining Gargoyle. 6d6 ⇒ (1, 1, 6, 3, 5, 5) = 21 Ref save 14 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9 The Gargoyle is blown apart.