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Sleep is for the weak!!!"
Falls head first down on his desk and starts snoring...
Marvel is probably more of a Wendy - must do things the proper way, behave, follow the laws and such. So we'll have to find one of those belts of masculinity femininity!
MY hand? No, no! Aerel is the one with the long hair and he's melee - he'll make a far better Captain Hook!
Marvel, realising that fighting up close with the alligator probably isn't his best strategy with a bow, moves behind Shaeda and shoots at Mr. Gobblegut.
However, his arms still trembling from the close encounter, the arrow goes wide and doesn't hit his mark.
Instincts kick in as the alligator lunges at him and Marvel feels the teeth pierce his body. Flashes of his children and wife pass before his eyes, mixed with toughts such as Does Lamm brush the alligator's teeth? Will I be infected by something? and I never thought I'd die by being eaten by an alligator. At least it is a novel way to go.. Finally Marvel screams at the alligator in a mix of pain, defiance and pure and primal fear, the words barely legible "Let go of me you f&!&ing piece of green flotsam!"
Realising the alligator is just too strong for Marvel to break free, Marvel shouts out to the rest of the party "Get my daughter to her mother - tell them I love them", as he is being dragged toward the water.
It'd almost be more funny if Gaedren succeeds his will save, to see Emma shouting at him, while Nicholas, right out in the open, goes "I'm sneaking, I'm sneaky, I'm invisbile..." on tip toes towards Gaedren :-D
This shines a whole new light on why cats always decide to sit on my lap! I knew there was a reason I don't like cats.
A few weeks ago my 3 year old daughter told me that if I didn't give her candy, she'd arrange for a bunny to kill me XD
"Do you need to tie up some bad guys? Did your bow break? Or do you perhaps have this wondrous elaborately drawn battle plan but haven't got enough hands to both hold it and point at it? No worries! You just need... Duct tape!!! The no. 1 piece of equipment for the friendly neighbourhood vigilante! Ask anyone - it works!"
Oooooh, a crit 1. Does that mean I hit Aerel? XD EDIT - If it does, then in my defense, they both have long pointy ears!
Marvel promptly falls off the chair at Shaeda's outburst.
Google was quite helpful, but thanks :-) The game looks very interesting. Not found a single negative review. My wife is currently working on her last exams and I'm about to have students up for exams in the courses I teach, so I don't know if I'll have the time. But I'll try and see if I can buy a PDF version of the core book and learn enough of the rules to make a submission before the submission deadline. If nothing else then the game looks interesting enough for me to try with my offline group sometime.
Awesome, thanks folks - I shall pass on the advice regarding which class to chose to her :-) I've been thinking along the lines of giving her some rather strong animal companion early on and then adding a cohort as the game progresses. If GM PCs enter the fray, I do indeed think it would be quite boring if there are more than the one, and that one should be something along the lines of a cleric or buffing bard, depending on which class she chooses to play.
Hehe, aye, I'd either go for that one or someone who talks his way out of EVERYTHING if I were playing solo as well. Try out the things which are awesome but everyone would hate in a group :-)
Greetings and salutations! A week or so ago I mentioned to my wife that we should start a pathfinder campaign just the two of us, with me being the GM and her the player. Asking her what she wanted to play she promptly said "A pirate!" - so lo and behold, Skull & Shackles it is. She even bought herself some pirate dice. Now, I've quite often GM'ed lengthy campaigns and from time to time also run solo games. From my experience solo game'ing can lead to exceptionally enjoyable roleplaying, character development and excitement, with the challenge being encounters and the limited skill set of one single PC (which can be offset somewhat with cohorts, GM PCs - or playing a bard or rogue). I was wondering - has anyone played Skull & Shackles as a solo campaign and if so, what were the pitfalls and challenges? I've been trying to search the forum but can't quite seem to find any discussion on it :-)
There are a couple of threads were this has been discussed earlier: Advice from those who have run it before Tips for making this campaign harder It is probably quite helpful to look there :-) Personally I'm running non-mythic and used the suggestion provided in the book on how to run as such. I've only reached module 3, but so far that has resulted in too easy a game so I've applied at least an advanced template to all creatures in all encounters and more to boss battles. Probably depends quite a bit on the party you are GM'ing but if you want to run without changing encounters I'd either skip the stat or level boost suggested for non-mythic. Personally though I rather like to incorporate the feel of mythic without actually using the mythic rules, so I prefer modifying the encounters to not making them feel special :-)
What have I not added to module 3? XD Pathfinder Society stuff (beefing up the encounters, of course): Scars of the Third Crusade. I've moved it to Drezen (setting the pathfinders that disappear up as envoys out to set up a lodge in Drezen) and adding that the inquisitors finds the PCs to be demonic infiltrators, having stolen divine power and being in league with the demons. The Traitor's Lodge. Also moved to Drezen. Weapon in the Rift. Moved the tower closer to Drezen, giving the PCs the opportunity to arrange some mining and later (once the area has been cleansed of the demonic taint) set up some farming. I've added several random events - one of the more official events being the succubus Zalmisdria and her pet dragon raiding supply boats. I'm hoping my players will decide to invade her forest and kill her - I'd love to see them forced to flee for once :-D I've modified all of the PC's origin stories (from the traits) heavily. I've removed mythic, but I am adding some mythic elements slowly to the game. One of the characters is slowly turning into a divine being without realising it, being the one Touched by Divinity. She has started receiving prayers, believing them so far to be dreams sent by her deity instructing her to help these people. I've also added a crazy druid which is the embodiment of an immortal intelligent inter-dimensional spaceship created by the remnants of a dying world several thousand years ago, intent on having said crazy druid accompanying them to the Worldwound, trying to cleanse the demonic taint, seemingly killing himself in the process and resurrecting all of the PC's equipment to its natural state (leather armour turning into a cow, for instance), with the equipment turning back into equipment once the PCs chase it down and slay it :-D (said spaceship always features in one form or another in my campaigns, when my PCs discover it... they love hating it :-D )
Ehm, not trying to hijack the thread or anything, but we just had the strangest session which pretty much was exactly the opposite of what I planned. Camrad - Human monk of Iomedae with a vow of silence, rigid bloke, very LAWFUL good, sort of makes the paladins seem relaxed and chaotic.
We start by entering the corruption forge under Citadel Drezen. They were fully buffed expecting a boss fight with the Ravener I previously mentioned and the shadow demon. To their disappointed they only saw four advanced salamanders. Not much else to do than attack. Azzah starts shooting and Plank sends of one of his two remaining fireballs, turning it into a coldball. The Salamanders almost but not quite die. Camrad being the acrobatic monk buffed up to 33 AC jumps off the balcony and charges the salamanders. He doesn't hit them. Now the salamanders on the other hand - I have never in my life rolled this well. Crit, crit, crit and crit with x 3 to the crit damage. Confirming again and again and again and again against his 33 AC. My mouth dropped to the floor as Camrad went down. Until then he had been hit a total of 6 times during the entire run of the citadel. The party kills the Salamanders, checks the left and right room, finds nothing. Now they go for the double doors. Kiranda the succubus has previously managed to escape, so she is in the room with Chorussina. I expect a tough fight because I have given everyone advanced templates, added a few spell slots to Chorussina and allowed her to buff herself fully before they enter. Azzah crits against Kiranda. She dies.
Azzah enters the room and tries to get through Chorussina's 5 mirror images and displacement. She doesn't. Chorussina throws the surprise, hammers up a wall of force between Azzah and the party. Azzah is running out of grits, she is doomed, I believe. That is until the wizard uses a magic item to summon an earth elemental, which earth glides in and manages to grab Chorussina. 5 mirror images and many misses later she is dead. Me being the generous GM add in a raise dead to the loot and the players get Staunton Vhane's brother to cast it on Camrad. After almost all of the party wands and cure potions are gone they go back down again, this time entering the Hall of Deception, the one with the altered phantasmal killer trap. The party is wary, not quite convinced it isn't a trap, but move slowly up towards the illusory Sword of Valor. They trigger the trap. Azzah manages her will save, Jestak, Sir Fumble and Camrad as wel. Plank the wizard and walking library fails it. He proceeds to also failing the fortitude saving throw, goes unconscious, gains psychosis and CE. I take the player outside, inform him of this and that Plank now plots the other PCs downfall. He mumbles "oh no" and laughs. We go inside again, the other players heal him up and then ask him what happened. He is the resident walking library, remember, they don't have the skills. He lies to them and says that it just was a weak version of phantasmal killer. The party moves on to the Gauntlet of Ruin, the pit with green slime and the illusory floor 10 feet down, hiding the other 30 feet of the fall. Camrad's player laughs, proclaiming "10 feet, hah! I jump down with my awesome acrobatics, of course!". My mouth drops to the floor again, I look at him and say "Sorry, man..." And inform the party that Camrad seems to fall through the floor. This time I ask Camrad's player to come outside. I tell him what he sees, tell him that the green slime seems to be eating through his equipment and is starting to burn through his skin. I inform him that Camrad doesn't see a way to get out of the pit on his own, and that he can shout for help explaining what happens without thereby breaking his vow. The other PCs shortly thereafter for the first time ever hear a high pitched womanish voice coming from the big strong male monk, shouting for help and informing them that some green slime is disintegrating his (non-magic) gear and burning his skin. Plank, who has gotten psychosis, manages his check. He knows exactly what is happening. He knows exactly what green slime is. He knows exactly how to save Camrad. His player informs me via Skype to tell the others that Plank is unable to figure out what is happening. No one else has the necessary knowledge skills to identify green slime. I watch in horror as they first try getting him up with a rope - well, he is covered in green slime, the rope is burnt up as he touches it. By the time Camrad remembers that he has gaseous form and can fly up he has lost has taken 6 constitution damage. And the others just don't figure out how to get the green slime of him. I had ruled that while in gaseous form Camrad did not take damage, being as the green slime much like the clothes and equipment changed state with him. He decides to enter gaseous form again. He knows the once he leaves it, he takes damage and dies. He debates with himself where to go, almost deciding on the desecrated temple to Iomedae upstairs so he can die "in her presence" before I remind him that it is, indeed, desecrated. He then decides just to leave the citadel, go outside, see the sky and sun a last time, and goes. We do the math, he manages to get outsided before running out of ki points for gaseous form - and I take his player outside again. I inform him that Camrad survived. As soon as he left gaseous form, the green slime seemed to wither and die. The green slime dies in sunlight. He survived with 1 constitution. Now back to the rest of the party, as far as they know Camrad is quite dead. They decide to move on, I ask them for perception checks and not a single one spots the traps. Sir Fumble fails the DC and is knocked into the pit with the green slime. Azzah and Jestak watch in horror, while a sly smile enters Plank's lips. He does his best, he really does his best, trying to convince Azzah that he should put cloud walk on her so she can go down and get Sir Fumble up. She doesn't want to, doesn't see the point when she can't carry him (charisma and dex based) - which is exceptionally good for her, being as Plank's player had informed me that he was planning on deactivating cloud walk once she was over the pit. Plank then flies down (informing them that unfortunately he can only move 10 feet a round - it is 20) and watches as Sir Fumbles dies. At this point Azzah and Plank decide to flee with Jestak, and they are greeted by a Camrad looking pretty much like death himself, but still alive. For the rest of that evening, the cleric NPCs need to prepare restoration, so they decide to sleep, they all fail their sense motive checks. I grow desperate and allow some of the major NPCs to make some as well - and Plank's player informs me that Plank, who carries the Pauper's Tighbone, hardly can move due to they weight it places on him. Sosiel notices that something strange is going on, informs Azzah that Plank is behaving oddly. Camrad succeeds his perception check and notices that Plank is hardly moving and looks as though he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I inform both PCs of what they see outside, but they quickly put two and two together, I roll to see if Arvashniel had prepared dimensonal anchor and they use it to pin Plank down, use restoration to help him manage a new will save and Plank no more wishes to kill the party, but is quite depressed by Sir Fumble's death. Either way - the party sleeps, prepares spells, buffs and goes down once more. Finally, finally! I think to myself, they are going to fight this awesome ravener of mine. Oh yeah, battle of the ages, buh yeah! Azzah wins initiative. She crits. She confirms. She one shots my beautiful ravener. Eustoryiax leaves the ravener and manages to possess Plank. Plank blasts the party and himself with a fireball. Plank is grabbed by Camrad. Eustoyriax leaves Plank and manages to use shadow evocation to cast detonate, knocking Plank unconscious. The party rolls badly, does some minor damage to Eustoyriax, who again manages to use detonate, killing Plank and knocking Azzah down to one HP. I decide it is a good moment to vividly describe (again) how beautiful the Sword of Valor is hanging behind the shadow demon, and oh how they understand why such a thing of beauty could protect the entire city. Camrad manages to catch my sledge hammer hint, gets up to it, activates it and they summon the Herald of Iomedae. The herald heals Azzah and helps them turn the tide, hanging around long enough to raise their friends. But man. I have /never/ before been this wrong about how a session would go... my beautiful ravener... *Edit, now that I think of it, perhaps I have once been more wrong. When one of my players managed to wipe out an entire race of potential allies and destroyed a large chunk of a city I had spent 52 hours drawing...
In some cases it has been very painful. Enervation from the Nabasu in the broken chapel - it almost killed them. Especially because I decided to ignore the tactics as written for the Nabasu. They survived due to lucky dice. Overall lucky dice have played a huge role so far and the Magus in the party had a bright idea, creating Named Bullets for the Holy Gun paladin before entering Citadel Drezen, basically allowing them to destroy the more dangerous enemies before they had the chance to act more than once. In general our party has a tendency to play without clerics yet we seem to survive. In RotRL one of the players is a druid and I play a bard (and I have ignored every cure spell there is), the others are a gunslinger and barbarian. We have played two campaigns with a cleric during the 7 years I have played, yet only one TPK. The players were idiots and I was the GM, I had no way to save them from themselves.
I did a few things in the citadel to spice things up. My PCs decided to enter from Soltengrebbe's den, the tower, and so pretty much started by figuring out that Chorussina was trying to destroy the entire city. I made a minor change, resulting in them getting the impression that it could be any moment Chorussina managed to complete her ritual. As a result, they opted to clear out the entire citadel in one run, no sleep, they don't have a cleric, and during the run they spent their last healing wands and potions. Add in an advanced template for every creature, that I combined some encounters and they actually were challenged from time to time, but only one of them went unconscious. In the end they opted to buff their monk's AC up to 33, and then just threw him into rooms with low CR creatures, figuring that lower level creatures would need a crit 20 to hit him. This saved them some HP. I also decided to roleplay some encounters being as I sensed the party would lose interest if I didn't change pace, but they didn't save much HP that way. Unfortunately we stopped right before the Corruption Forge, so I won't know before next session how the rest of my changes will go down. Chorussina will, as you suggest, already have her buffs up. As for Eustoyriax - I made one major change. Very major. My PCs were very intrigued once they learned that Aponavicious had a red dragon. And disappointed when their PCs read that she had died. When I saw how disappointed they were I made an on the spot addition. Their disappointed changed to horror, when I "read" them the change I had made. The red dragon died, but it rose again. It seemed to have lost all intelligence and was quite unable to cast spells, and was more clumsy than one would expect, but it rose. And Eustoyriax likes to possess the remains of the dragon. Basically I took an Adult Red Dragon, gave it the Ravener template and removed its ability to cast spells and fly. Eustoyriax will be possessing it once my party arrives, and my party is low on resources <insert evil laughter here> (if the party is getting smashed I'll (after some time) drop some hints letting them figure out that they can summon a planetar with the Sword of Valor, and the creature answering their call will be the Herald of Iomedae)
I shall do so - still a good few months till I expect my players to reach that point (I rather like to let them wander of tangents and make up stuff as we go), but in a month or so I'll hand in my master's thesis - and then I'll actually have time to sit down, write this out, plan it, research and so forth. Think I'll let the other GM in the group take over running another campaign while I do so, want to do it properly. My first though was a rather straight through dungeon delve, but it seems like wasted potential and boring. So time to put on the thinking cap, write it out and return here for feedback :-)
Redemption is a rather long process in my campaign, and just rolling the dice won't help you that much, they need to actually roleplay it and surprise me. Luckily enough, my players do just that - especially the female Holy Gun/Evangelist/Gunslinger of Sarenreae (she is the army general as well) and the former follower of Baphomet Wizard. Millorn is well on his way to be redeemed. I played him just about as disgustingly as I could when they encountered him. I found the information on him to be lacking, to put it mildly, so I really wanted them to kill him. They surprised me by not doing so, after which I spent a few hours writing a long, dark, depressing background story for Millorn, decided he had 3 insanities and that it was just about impossible to redeem him, simply because his mind was absolutely shattered by what he had experienced. I couldn't see a way to actually gain his trust myself and so made no DCs to pass or anything, expecting that the unusually militant and unforgiving monk (Iomedae) and the archtypical paladin would sway the party towards killing Millorn. Nope. The Wizard found a way to gain his trust - by using his background story as a former cultist, speaking in abyssal (which Millorn didn't understand but recognised) and thereby opening up for communications, and letting Millorn understand he could trust the follower of Sarenrae. The roleplay progressed, I made some rolls to see how Millorn would react. Each and every morning since then (1 month has passed or so in game) the follower of Sarenrea has had breakfast with Millorn, and he has by now lost two insanities, his TN and convinced the follower of Sarenrae is his (dead) daughter. Nurah - half the party wants to kill her, the monk and the vanilla paladin, while the wizard and follower of Sarenrae want to redeem her. I play Nurah as quite intelligent, keenly interested in history and, from all the skill points she has put into it, she really likes to dance. The follower of Sarenrae has brought Nurah along to eat breakfast with Millorn each morning, is kind to her, listens to and acts on her information, brings her along to help washing, reacts with irony and wit when Nurah tries using suggestion on her to escape, and last session the two high charisma ladies ended up dancing around while the army of paladins was helping them clean a former church - the men quite liked it, and I had that act along with all the effort the player has put into it have Nurah offer the wizard (the only other PC nice to her) information on where to find a way to raise the follower of Sarenrae, after Soltengrebbe killed her. If she continues doing this way, I think Nurah will stop trying to escape come next session. Fun anecdote - next session I plan to start in the follower of Sarenrae's tent. She will wake up to find her newly acquired heavy crossbow missing, hearing Millorn shouting at a Paladin "And I swear, if I so much as see you try to invite my daughter out for a dance, much less touch her, I'll put an arrow through your buttocks!!!" - having just been raised from dead the evening before, the follower of Sarenrae will wake up to find a small mountain of flowers and chocolate as good luck wishes from her army, not so little of the chocolate being in heart shaped boxes. That's when she will discover that Millorn has had the keys to his little mobile prison the past week or so but just hasn't seen any reason to leave it, what with his daughter giving him books and stuff to cook and eat.
Azzah - LG human female Holy Gun/Gunslinger/Cleric/Evangelist worshipping Sarenrea (and is her daughter). I have a feeling this player will end up having a level in every single available class once we finish playing. Plank Tsinatra - CN human male Arcanist with a fairy dragon familiar. On a long and winding road of redemption from CE to CG and a Riftwarden (as well as Riftwarden Orphan), with a dark pas as a cultist of Baphomet. Terak (known as Sir Fumble) - very exceptionally LG Aasimar male Paladin, not currently worshipping any deity more than any other (so long as said deity is good). Has a cohort who is his younger brother and a thiefling paladin. Camrad - LG human male monk with a vow of silence and truth. In our very first session this player was ecstatic from joy when I allowed him to own a fully furnished house in Kenabres where he was/is a member of the Eagle's Watch. A few minutes later a demon stomped on the house. He hates demons. We don't play mythic.
Haha :-D No slamming doors yet, but she does tend to scold her toys if they don't do as she wants them to and especially has a tendency to quarrel with her mother if they disagree on what either of them should do! Speaking of sedition in the ranks, it is 00:02 over here and my wife is threatening me with all kinds of stuff if I don't get to be right this instance, so I better go...
Hehe, aye, she is still only 18 months old so I have much to look forward to. I suspect she will have quite the imagination (we both read and "roleplay" quite the bit), but executing her toys for plotting to overthrow her is probably a few years off. Still, if she ever does something comparable to that I would consider myself quite a successful father :-D (although I suppose this is slightly off topic... only slightly)
Greetings folks - I tried to see if there is any thread already discussing similar re-writes, but I can't find any. We've recently begun playing Wrath of the Righteous but I've already read through all of the modules quite thoroughly (with the result that my wife has been looking at me disapprovingly, pointing out I'm supposed to be working on graduating...). I quite like module 1 - 5, find them to be brilliant. Module 6 is ok, but I did find parts of it, especially the end, to not be quite up to the same level of "awesome" as the rest of the campaign - which we play non-mythic, I rather set the lvl cap at 25 with individual classes being capped at 20. Therefore I've decided to re-write the module a bit but before I get down to the nitty gritty details and plan everything (which really has to wait till I've graduated anyway, lest my wife orders me to sleep on the couch), I'd like to get some feedback on my general line of thinking - whether it's just stupid, could work or even sounds rather nifty. My aim is to make things feel more epic and be more memorable for the PCs. Needless to say, what follows contains countless spoilers. The plan is as follows: Part 1 - I'll largely keep it as it is. The changes I'll make really stay within the normal boundaries of being atmospheric, descriptive and reaction to and incorporating any crazy actions the PCs are bound to take. Part 2 - Rather than the Lexicon of Paradoxes being able to tell the PCs what they need to do in order to close the Worldwound, I want the PCs to find out themselves. Most of the encounters in this part will remain as they are, but much of the story will be driven by the work of one of the PCs - the party wizard - who has expressed strong interest in joining the Riftwardens. The PC and Arvashniel will, at the end of module 5, be asked to research a way to close the Worldwound, and they'll have reached two conclusions at this point. The Nahyndrian Chisel used to break the wardstone in Kenabres is likely to be integral in breaking the link between planes, and they need more information. They'll get the information needed from two sources, I'll replace the Sutur with Areelu Vorlesh's research notes (heavily encoded) on the Worldwound, and the two wizards unwittingly helping Vorlesh, Wivver Noclan and Opon, will provide the remaining information. As such large chunks of part 3 as written will be added to part 2. Part 3 - The Riftwarden PC discovers that the Worldwound cannot be closed once the ritual to enlarge it has begun (by this time the PCs will have experienced earthquakes and other symptoms for some time). I expect this bit of information still will result in the PCs rushing to Areelu Vorlesh's lair and the PCs will be met by a smiling Vorlesh, covered in blood from sacrifices and so forth. Skill checks, as well as the evidently surging energies, will confirm that the ritual already has been completed and in the ensuing battle Deskari himself will grow ever more visible on the other side of the portal. Once the death blow is dealt to Vorlesh Deskari will use her soul to hasten the ritual, resulting in an explosion as the portals are ripped wide open and countless demons surge towards the PCs. Part 4 - As this happens time seems to slow down and the PCs are once again called to the chapel of Iomedae - they are greeted by Iomedae and Sarenrae (who is the mother of the PC with the touched by divinty trait). They'll inform the PCs that the gods have decided not to interfere in Deskari's invasion of Golarion and effectively have given the planet up in order to prevent direct war with the Abyss. Iomedae and Sarenrae opposed this course of action cannot defy the other gods. Even so, they wish to tell the PCs two stories and introduce them to someone. Iomedae will by the way of a story inform the PCs that there is only one course of action now - the only thing which can close the worldwound is the collapse of Deskari's realm. This can only be achieved by killing Deskari not once but twice, but that it is regrettable that the time needed for such a course of action still would leave hundreds of thousands dead and countless demons in former Sarkoris. Sarenrae will tell the PCs the story of the Circle of Hierophants and how her heart is saddened by the corruption of its noble druids into siabraes. She will then tell the PCs an old fairytale of how a specific ritual these druids performed could send them two weeks back in time, and the dire consequences of a paradox which occured when a young druid once stole the ritual, travelled back in time and prevented his daughter's death. While this occurs the PCs will undoubtedly notice that there is no singing in the chapel and how once corner of the chapel is shrouded in darkness. Skill checks can inform the PCs of a demonic presence within the darkness. Once tales are told Iomedae will have a look of disgust on her face while Sarenrae will seem strangely hopeful. It is at this time Iomedae waves her hand, the darkness disappears and the PCs can see Nocticula. Her powers seem to be suppressed, but it is still difficult not to be fascinated by her. She is more straightforward than the goddesses. She has nothing to gain from Deskari's plans, if anything one of her rivals will grow in strength, the relationship between the divine and demonic will suffer even more and trade to her realm might very well diminish. She wishes Deskari to die and she knows how the PCs can kill him. The Nahyndrian Chisel the PCs carry will weaken Deskari considerably if they manage to force it into his body somehow. If the PCs work quickly they might be able to kill him a first time this way before he teleports. After this the PCs quickly have to find Deskari again and confront him a second time. While the PCs might be able to track Deskari down and kill him, his realm won't fall apart quickly enough to guarantee no other demon will seize control of it. The solution, Nocticula proclaims, is simple. Once Deskari is dead, call out her name and she will appear to claim Deskari's essence, power and realm. She will then make the realm crumble and the Worldwound collapse at once. I rather suspect the PCs won't trust her, and with some prodding Nocticula will tell them that she has made a deal with Sarenrae. If Nocticula collapses the realm and the Worldwound, Sarenrae will grant Nocticula some of her divine essence, transforming Nocticula into a goddess - and Sarenrae will inform them that in the process, Nocticula will have much the same experience as Arueshalae had, which Sarenrae hopes will lead to Nocticula's redemption. From here on things move pretty much as I, S and N told them they would, with the one exception that the PCs are struck deaf and dim light surrounds them for the next 24 hours, so as to prevent them from observing whether the Worldwound is closed or not while they search for the ritual. The PCs are transported to the edge of the Stonewilds, where they'll have to fight their way through demons and fallen druids (which should be rather easy on their level) and they'll eventually find the ritual and go back in time. Part 5 - The PCs have moved back in time and will have to be veeeeery careful not to change what they've already perceived will happen, lest they pretty much be ripped apart as reality unravels and tries to repair itself. They have to get into Deskari's realm, figure out where exactly Deskari is likely to retreat to once he has been killed, make sure they know the location well enough to teleport to it, figure out how to stop Deskari from teleporting away and either trick him to or use brute force to have the chisel weaken him in order to have an easier battle the first time they confront Deskari. The second time he will be at full power. Nocticula will claim Deskari's realm (unless the PCs find another solution), she will collapse it and Sarenrae will be true to her promise. Nocticula will, however, not be redeemed unless the PCs do something truly extraordinary which lies outside the boundary of my imagination. |