I promise not to make a joke about your lack of bladder control if we can get that update...
(fingers crossed)
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Yes, well, apparently Friday got away from me as well, but here you go. At last, finally, I present to you the latest installment of…
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Jason Bulmahn DMs Eberron
DUN DUN DUN!
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As you might recall (and if you don’t, you can just go the previous page), we last left off in the dream-memory of Adso, mere moments after Little Adso’s mentor and father figure, Father Kreiteg, fell onto Little Adso’s mace. Seven or eight times. Little Adso, realizing what happened, fled from the room. At that moment, the glass ceiling above shattered, finally allowing women in the workplace unrestricted access to the very highest echelons of management.
D’oh! No wait, different glass ceiling. :\
No, actually, when the glass ceiling shattered four angelic figures floated majestically to the floor. They looked to Adso and declared that he must surrender and face justice. There was a bit of a tense standoff, with Amai and several others in the group looking to Adso and asking, “What do we do? What do we do?”
The angels answered that question with their swords.
They came on strong, knocking off our hit points like a bricklayer knocks off old mortar in order to reuse bricks. (Um… I’m not sure where that metaphor came from.)
ANYway…
So they attacked us and we replied in kind. The battle did not go well for us, and after only a round we were reeling. Then it came to Adso’s turn for the second time and he did something that both lived up to his lawful good alignment (yeah, believe it or not, he’s LG) and cemented Amai’s intent to join the order of the Silver Flame:
He dropped his mace and knelt. “I submit to your justice,” he said. “Please spare my companions.”
…
OOC: Everyone (including Jason) was shocked. Thrown off a little, Jason feverishly flipped through his notes (I’m guessing to buy time as he tried to figure out what to do) before we continued.
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The angels, as one, swung their swords to lop off Adso’s head. But… their swords passed right through his neck. He lived! The angels looked confused. WE looked confused. For a few moments, the scene was actually kind of comedic: two opposing factions in the middle of a fight suddenly stop and stare at each other, confused. Technically, the angels had completed their mission. They seemed unsure of what to do. So they attacked us again.
The fight didn’t last long after that, however. Keldrick and Amai followed Adso’s lead, and after that the rest of the party also surrendered. Satisfied, the angels moved to Adso’s side, reached INTO him, and pulled out a snarling, shadowy, and feral-looking ghostly version of Adso, taking this evil side of him with them into the Heavens. Then the scene faded to black.
Fade in to a bar. At one end sat an obviously inebriated Little Adso, now several months older, dirtier, and angrier. Adso made his way to Little Adso’s side and noticed that his former self had a number of coin pouches, the ties of which had obviously been cut. Adso shook his head in disappointment. The bartender asked for his order. He ordered water. The bartender made the O_o face before walking outside and holding a mug in the falling rain. A few minutes later he walked back in with a mug of cold rainwater and charged Adso 2 copper for his trouble. Adso then bought the same for Little Adso and then tried to talk to his dream-memory counterpart.
At that moment, a host of Silver Flame clerics and paladins stormed into the bar and surrounded drunk Little Adso. They attempted to place him under arrest, but the lead cleric slipped and accidentally fell on Little Adso’s ale mug, shattering the mug and breaking his nose. Poor Little Adso. It’s like he’s a magnet for clumsy clerics of the Silver Flame who keep falling on his stuff. :\
The other Silver Flame followers in the arresting party took out their leader’s clumsiness on Little Adso, beating him and knocking him to the floor. He curled up in the fetal position and began to mutter. Adso realized suddenly what Little Adso was muttering. A spell. A very powerful spell.
Suddenly, the contingent of Silver Flame paladins and clerics were struck by flame. One might even call the effect a flaming strike. Or perhaps a gerund-less flame strike. As one, they fell dead. Little Adso then fled and the bar faded out.
Fade in to an alley. (“Uh oh,” we all said.) A still-drunk Little Adso stumbled through the darkened alley until he noticed two figures at the far end. The three of them stood for a moment staring at one another. Then Little Adso coughed or moved or twitched or something and one of the figures called out a very potent word. A powerful one, even. One might even refer to it as a powerful word meant for stunning. (Yes, a power word stun.) The two figures then stepped into the light, revealing themselves as the Cannith bounty hunters who had also captured Visoka.
We then faded in to a green field below a tower. A cart with a cage full of prisoners (including Old Visoka and Little Adso) arrived on the scene. There is a conversation between an artificer identified as Urgan and a man Amai instantly recognizes as a younger Merrix d’Cannith. They talk about the prisoners a little, saying something about having a complete set now or something. They also mention “the Patriarch,” who Amai can only suspect they meant as the leader of House Cannith right before the Day of Mourning.
Then, strangely, Urgan the artificer turned to us and said we shouldn’t be there. He ended with a heartfelt, “I’m sorry.”
We pondered that strange turn of events before continuing on with our journey. As we approached the citadel on the hill everything faded into black. A gate of some kind then rose up before us and before it stood four monkey-bulls and a Huge clockwork dragon of some kind. Since we had previously stood in an area obviously belonging to House Cannith, Amai boldly stepped forward and declared, “I am Amai d’Cannith, of House Cannith. You will step down and let us pass!”
It didn’t work. They attacked. Amai stood in front of the rest of the party and bore the brunt of the attacks. Three of the monkey-bulls charged her. The dragon breathed and hit her, Zulshyn, and someone else. Zulshyn took 50 points of damage. Amai took 0 (yay for evasion!).
The battle raged and raged. We all did our best to survive, using all our dream points (like action points, but more powerful and usable only in the memory-dream universe) and many of our most wily and creative tactics. Sadly, it was not enough.
The dragon robot swooped down on Zulshyn only a few rounds into the combat and attacked her with all its terrible mechanical claws. Far too many hit and Zulshyn discorporated. We heard a horrible, blood-curdling scream that came not from the memory-dream universe, but from the real body. It was such a scream of pure, terrible agony, of such unimaginable pain, that Amai wept and hoped to never hear again.
But she did. A short while later, mechadragon turned its attention onto the Kid.
He, too, screamed as if his soul had been rent, filling the real and memory-dream worlds with sorrow.
Meanwhile, the rest of us, battered and bruised, made our way to the gate. Visoka pulled forth his chime of opening (still with all the charges he found it with) and put it to good effect. The chains holding closed the door broke free. Amai then shoved on it with all her Strength 9 might, but she could not budge it. Visoka, though, with this manly and buff Strength 10, shoved open the doors by a foot. He scampered in first, followed quickly by Keldrick. Amai lingered, for Adso alone remained to fend off the last monkey-bull and the robowyrm. Annoyed, he shooed her away. Reluctantly, she stepped through the gate.
Adso stood alone.
You can imagine what happened. We all pretty much knew. It was a foregone conclusion.
Except, it wasn’t. Three lucky things happened. Adso made his cast on defensive Concentration check (by 1, IIRC) and both monsters failed their Will saves. With his safety assured by sanctuary, Adso walked merrily through the gate.
Thus began the feature presentation.
In last fifteen or so minutes of the session, Jason presented us with his interpretation of the cause of the Day of Mourning. It went something like this:
Urgon the artificer had, with the help of Merrix (who by luck wasn’t there on the day of the test), crafted a doomsday weapon meant to end the war. This weapon could, in theory, destroy an entire kingdom. Thus, House Cannith had carefully captured one or two people from each of the kingdoms: Breland, Cyre, Karrnath, Thrane, and so on. Each of these test subjects was held in a large glass tube filled with a green goo.
How the machine worked is still a mystery, but it’s ultimately unimportant. What matters is that it did. But it performed its terrible business with a taint of trickery and sabotage.
A woman working under Urgon (who wore a pin that Visoka found when the original group escaped the building) went into the glass-tube room the day before the Big Test, right after Urgon and all the other research assistants left, and rubbed two of the unconscious victims to make them look like one another (a Cyrean man looked like the Karrnathi scheduled to be used as the test subject, while the Karrnathi looked like the Cyrean). The research assistant then swapped the unconscious forms in their respective tubes.
The next day, they strapped the disguised Cyrean man to a table in front of a several-feet-tall spike. They then rotated the table until the spike pierced the man’s chest. Then all Hell broke loose. The man screamed and writhed, the machine smoked and buzzed. Then the alchemical disguise faded away, and instead of a dying Karrnathi strapped to the table, Urgon and the other researchers looked on with fear. He shoved the saboteur out of the way and tried to adjust some dials and controls, but it was too late.
There was a rumble. An explosion. Fire. Destruction.
And up above, Cyre vanished.
And was replaced.
By the Mournland.
…
And now, for the section many of you read this drabble for…
Quotes!
On Little Adso’s collection of cut-string coin-purses…
Mearls: “Wow. This guy sucks at making coin pouches.”
On braining a cleric with a mug…
Little Adso: “Oops. It slipped.”
Adso: “Ha ha. Huh. I was always funny.”
On the House…
Stephen: “I never met a Cannith I liked.”
Me: “Hey!”
On dwarves…
“He looks like a barrel with a beard draped over the top! Ha ha ha!”
On the House, part II…
Me: “Amai steps forward and very forcefully proclaims, ‘I am Amai d’Cannith, of House Cannith. You will step down and let us pass!’”
Tim: “You tried that before. It didn’t work.”
Me: “I know, but I figure if I keep trying, some day it might work.”
Jason: “Maybe. But not today.”
On monkey-bull attacks…
Sutter (singing): “Gored by the monkey cows…”
On good armor:
Jason: “Armor Class 27.”
Stephen: “That’ll miss.”
Jason: “WHA?!?!?!”
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Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh!
So after last session we finally got enough XP to level up. Amai hit 8th level, making her fighter 2/monk 6. This new level is huge for her. HUGE! She's using the wing chun kuen fighting style (from Dragon #334), which grants her at 6th level the Improved Critical feat as her bonus feat. Also at this level: her Strength improves by 1 to 10, eliminating her damage penalty and allowing her to deal 2d8 points of damage with each hit; and her BAB, all three saves, flurry of blows, and unarmored speed bonus all increase (so with her attack bonus actually goes up by 2—1 for the BAB and one for the Str bump). Oh, and she gets to add her Wisdom bonus (which I think is +3) on initiative checks when she isn't surprised, and her slow fall increases to 30 feet.
Booya! :D
Ah, the joys of leveling. I still would like to see everyone's stats though...
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It was a very close thing near the end of Wednesday’s game, but nevertheless, I can happily proclaim…
Amai d’Cannith Status: Not dead.
I know you’re all relieved to hear that. ;)
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We woke up. We woke up from our frightening trip into the dream-memory world to find Zulshyn and the Kid also awake and waiting for us. All of us lay in our little cots, with dozens of scorpions crawling all over us for warmth. Despite sleeping for quite some time (we later found out it took us three days—THREE DAYS!), we were all exhausted. As in –6 penalty to Strength and Dexterity exhausted. Oh, and very hungry.
So we ate and rested, and the next day we were okay.
Well, mostly. Zulshyn seemed haunted by her first foray into “sleep,” and haunted as well by all that transpired in the dream-memory world. The rest of us seemed to take in stride. Several of us, in fact, learned so much from our time in the dream-memory world that when we awoke we found ourselves more capable. One might say we had achieved new levels of experience and power. Amai felt stronger (literally—now her Strength is 10 instead of 9) and discovered a new technique in her wing chun kuen style that allowed her to strike with devastating effect twice as often (i.e., she gained Improved Critical as a bonus feat).
As we rested away our exhaustion, the Aquasa talked to us a little. He explained that the prophecies that predicted our arrival said little more about us once we became tribe members. He did mention, however, that we would all leave someday and that many of us would return to the village.
So, we rested for the entirety of the day we awoke and then all the next day as well. During that time, Amai began to follow around Adso, asking him questions about the Silver Flame. Zulshyn took that time to find a quiet place far from the village where she could reflect on what she had seen and learned in the dream-memory. Unfortunately, she went right where Keldrick wanted to investigate some Draconic runes. The Kid and Visoka just kinda hung out in the village, passing time and resting, IIRC.
On the second evening after we came to, the village gathered for another big party, this one to celebrate our admission to the tribe.
Yub yub. Ewok chub chub.
We all sat at a table together and were presented with a large and delicious dreamsnake. Zulshyn was there, but she was pushed to the periphery of attention, since she had always been a member of the tribe. She regained some amount of attention when everyone started dancing after the meal, as she sat and told her kin tales of her harrowing experiences with “sleeping” and “dreaming.”
The Kid managed to behave himself during the party. Amai had only the smallest amount of alcohol before dancing and politely turning down numerous advances (apparently, the party was meant to turn into an orgy, but Adso and Amai at least were having none of that). On the other extreme, Keldrick did his best to introduce half-elves to the jungles of Xen’drik. Did he succeed? Well, he certainly thought so, but we might never know. ;P
After the party, we all retired for the night. The next day, we approached the Aquasa and declared our intent to move on. We had some revengin’ to do, and we weren’t getting to it by partaking in (or politely declining from) orgies. Much to Keldrick’s chagrin, I’m sure.
Anyway, the village saw us off and we headed down the narrow path, out the back door, to where the village dead went to… um… be dead. The Aquasa had warned us about guardians, so we remained ever alert. Here, I grumble: Amai has a special ability wherein she gains a bonus on initiative checks equal to her Wisdom modifier (+3) whenever she starts combat not surprised. This bonus brings her initiative modifier up to +12. +12!!! In order to be able to gain that bonus, she has max ranks in Listen (required to get the special ability) and a few ranks in Spot (because it’s useful). And as we moved through the canyon of the dead we were asked to make Listen checks. Ha! I thought, I have a +16 on Listen! I rolled a 1. :( In fact, my first dozen or so rolls of the night were all low single digits. It was definitely not my night to shine.
Anyway, as we walked, a number of the sleeping dead woke up, and one of them dropped a poison-coated skull with silence cast on it into our midsts. And then we got pummeled. Amai was dropped to 6 hit points, and I thought for sure she was going to die on the next round, but Jason isn’t a jerk and he had the monsters attack someone else to give her a chance at life. Taking that chance, Amai stepped out of the zone of silence and declared to the undead cleric, “Put aside your weapons! We are members of your tribe who seek passage through this valley. We mean you no harm!” Jason had me roll a Charisma check. I rolled a 3. Sunnova… darned dice!!! >:(
Eventually, though, all the non-sucking characters beat down the baddies (but not before the Kid was dropped to –9, only to be instantly healed by Adso casting close wounds. Zulshyn disarmed one of the undead guardians with her chain sword, succeeding with two disarm checks (they were fighting two-weapon style) of 31 and 32 (yes, I remembered those checks because they were so awesome). ;D Visoka tried to pick up the skull and toss it back at the cleric, but when he touched it he touched a vicious (and sticky) contact poison that knocked his Con down to 4. 4!!! :\ He dropped the skull right after that (fortunately, although he failed his Fort save he managed to succeed on his Reflex save to prevent the skull from sticking to his hand). ;D
After the fight, Adso healed us up as well as he could and we continued down the path.
We emerged a short while later to find ourselves at a T-intersection. A path ran perpendicular to ours. Some relatively new statues of snake-men (*coughyuan-ticough*) stood at the crossroads. In one direction, off in the distance, stood an impressive building that also looked relatively new and had massive gargoyles of gold at the corners. In the other direction, bursting out of the foliage, rampaged a T-rex.
Oy vey.
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Quotes!!!
On drow orgies to celebrate new tribe members…
Mearls: “We’re going to introduce them to lesbianism!”
More on drow orgies…
Mearls: “I’m going to roll 1d10 to see how many women I get pregnant tonight!”
On Trat, that damned dirty dwarf…
Aquasa: “It is in my experience that traitors eventually show themselves.”
Sutter: “Foreshadowing!”
On what the future holds…
Stephen: “He’s making this up. He’s making Charisma checks. You’re buying it!”
On yuan-ti buildings nearby…
Sutter (singing): “Candy-coated obelisk.”
I read these and laugh and laugh...
You guys need an 'underground' uncensored & raw podcast!!
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Contributor
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You guys need an 'underground' uncensored & raw podcast!!
Yeah, there are always about ten times as many quotes as I put up here, but they are from Mearls and thus R or X-rated. ;P
We've talked about recording our sessions in the past, but we always come around to thinking that's a bad idea. :D
After noticing how many of my quotes have "(singing)" after them, I think I may have to play a bard when The Kid eventually bites it. (Not that I'm eager for him to go down, but there's a certain mortality rate associated with being a meatshield... particularly now that I'm not doing as much Spring Attacking...)
"We've talked about recording our sessions in the past, but we always come around to thinking that's a bad idea. :D"
True. It could be used as evidence... and Mearls is probably guilty of something in the South...
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After noticing how many of my quotes have "(singing)" after them, I think I may have to play a bard when The Kid eventually bites it.
Don't worry about the Kid. Although you are also named James, you aren't Jacobs (or me) and thus have nothing to worry about. Ha ha... huh... :\
And yeah, you should totally play a bard. You are a singer, after all. ;)
True. It could be used as evidence... and Mearls is probably guilty of something in the South...And the North, the East, the West. the Underdark...
;D
I couldn't help myself... Mearls is like Magneto, a criminal agianst humanity!!!
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Amai Status: Almost ready to believe House Cannith are the bad guys. Almost.
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, githyanki and githzerai: last night we enjoyed yet another thrilling chapter of Jason Bulmahn DMs Eberron! Yaaaaaay!
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As you might recall (and if you don’t, scroll up a little), our intrepid band of betrayed adventurers were left in a cliffhanger. A tyrannosaurus emerged from the jungle and looked upon us all with hungerous intent! So last night’s session began with the immortal beginning phrase, “Roll for initiative.”
…
But first, a reminder! In case you’re new to the story or are otherwise unsure of the who’s who in the party, here’s a handy look at the PCs and who play them.
Adso: Stephen. Male human cleric of the Silver Flame 8, LG, only recently restored his memory. (Last name withheld for privacy.)
Amai d’Cannith: Me! Female human fighter 2/monk 6, LG, learning the ways of the Silver Flame.
Keldrick: Mike Mearls. Male human sorcerer 8, LE, selfish but apparently loyal to his “friends.”
Syl “The Kid”: James Sutter. Male human fighter 8, CG(???), has done surprisingly well bridging the culture gap with the drow of Xen’drik.
Visoka: Tim. Male elf rogue 5/nightsong infiltrator 3, CG, only recently restored his memory. (Last name withheld for privacy.)
Zulshyn: James Jacobs. Female drow barbarian 6/unknown prestige class 1, NG(???), friendly and helpful native of Xen’drik.
Now that you know, let’s continue…
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So here’s a hint to anyone who ever might get transmogrified into a creature capable of swallowing whole other still-living creatures: don’t do it. It’s a bad idea.
The t-rex emerged from the foliage. Amai did what monks do: she charged. Zulshyn and the Kid also charged, giving her plenty of support at the front lines. Then the t-rex made its first mistake: it swallowed the Kid. Now, in the t-rex’s defense, it did deal a substantial amount of damage to young Syl, but he did a bit of damage to it as well. Worse, that made Zulshyn angry. And you don’t want to make Zulshyn angry.
So she—and I’m not making this up—jumped INTO the mouth of the t-rex. The terrible lizard was confused to have a tasty morsel actually want to be eaten, but it obliged. Because Zulshyn’s attempt to grapple the t-rex resulted in an attack of opportunity, which the t-rex used to bite her and bring her up into its mouth, she lay within the hot and sticky mouth of the monster with her full suite of actions available to her. So she grappled the beast in order to be swallowed. It more or less willingly failed its grapple check and down she went—right into the gut. Unfortunately, the Kid gave in to the gastric juices and endless grinding of the terrible lizard’s stomach and fell into deep (I mean –9 hit points deep) unconsciousness. Fortunately for Syl, however, Zulshyn found him in the rotting stinking slimy innards of our attacker, and she hugged him close.
Meanwhile, on the outside, the now-confused but satiated but wounded tyrannosaur didn’t really know what to do. So it kept attacking. Without any other kind of weapon at its disposal, the t-rex made its second and final major mistake: it bit Amai. Now, compared to the tall and lithe Kid and the muscular Zulshyn, tiny (for a human) Amai didn’t really make a mouthful for the beast, which actually helped her. Being grabbed up in the mouth of a three-story-tall lizard wasn’t on Amai’s To-Do List, but nonetheless that’s what happened to her. Fortunately, though, thanks probably to Adso’s recent training, she retained her composure and started to give the inside of the t-rex’s mouth the what-for. Three attacks, three hits. With her final attack she kicked through the t-rex’s palate and wiggled her foot around in the base of its brain. The t-rex didn’t really know what to do about that, so it kinda stumbled around a little before realizing it should probably just lie down and die. Which it did.
A moment later, Zulshyn and the Kid appeared some 50 feet away, teleported with Zulshyn’s neat escape trick. Zulshyn claimed the t-rex’s largest tooth for a trophy, giving the second-largest to its killer (Amai) and the third-largest to its almost-meal (the Kid).
After bathing and resting, we closed the quarter-mile or so to the freaky weird snake temple. There the Kid spotted emerald eyes in all the statues and put Visoka to work gathering them. Which he did with glee.
Then we spotted a rough tripod over a pit with a chain dangling down. Attached to the end of the chain, and only just visible over the lip of the pit, were a pair of booted feet. A gnome, it turned out. And beyond the temple, bringing tears of joy to our eyes, was an airship. An airship!!! Well, we set to freeing the gnome, but as we did so the ambush we all expected sprung!
Snake people (yuan-ti) and snakes emerged suddenly from the ziggurat and the surrounding jungle, surrounding us in seconds. Four snakes ganged up on the Kid, one attacked Amai, and a couple went after Visoka and Adso. Zulshyn leapt up onto the lowest platform of the ziggurat and engaged the yuan-ti (an archer and a spellcaster) there.
The fight went quickly. The Kid dispatched his four snakes in two rounds. Amai ignored the snake who attacked her and ran up the stairs to take on the second pair of yuan-ti (also an archer and a spellcaster). Visoka sliced through the snakes attacking him and the one Amai left. Zulshyn took out the spellcaster on her side without much effort. Amai went down from a vicious series of attacks from the archer-cum-swordsman. Adso rushed to her aid but was waylaid. The Kid shot down the second spellcaster. Adso and Zulshyn teamed up to bring down the second swordsman, then Adso revived Amai.
After that, we talked to the rescued gnome, an airship captain named Pirant, who was sent by Whillip. Pirant expressed dismay that the fiery ring of the airship no longer encircled the craft, so we took him aboard. He confirmed the fire elemental remained bound, but told us we needed the control rod. So we made ready to descend into the ziggurat.
(Oh, and meanwhile Visoka did his burgling duties by prying more emeralds out of snake statues scattered about on the ziggurat.)
Pirant also gave Amai a letter from Whillip. The letter did a number of things. First, it claimed House Cannith was behind the treachery and that the damned dirty dwarf who turned on us was hunting for Whillip in Stormreach. Second, it implicated Merrix d’Cannith in the plot. Third, it confused the hell out of us all with its date. When we entered Xend’drick it was “July.” We had only been on the continent for a month, so we figured it was some time in “August.” The letter, though, was dated “October,” and Pirant estimated the current day was the fourth or fifth day of “November.” WTF? How did we lose three months? Undoubtedly, the timeless valley distorted our sense of time. Or maybe it just flows differently there. Either way, we somehow lost three months.
Hmm… now I have to check when Amai’s birthday is… she might have just turned 17. ;D
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Quotes!
On the lack of mountains…
Zulshyn: “I’m afraid of falling into the sky.”
On old school thought…
Jason: “You’re in the gullet of an angry t-rex.”
Sutter: “Is there treasure?”
On the idea of “swimming” out of the t-rex…
Jacobs: “Dude. Its colon is 25 to 35 feet away.”
On priorities…
Sutter: “I cut open the tyrannosaur looking for treasure. And my shoe.”
On stagnant water pools…
Jacobs: “Are they so thick with mosquito larvae that you can walk on the water?”
Jason, grossed out: “What? No!”
Tim, pleadingly: “Don’t!”
On alignment detection…
Sutter: “Are you evil, Mearls?”
Mearls: “What? Me? No!”
Jason and Jacobs: “Oh come on, Mearls.”
Mearls: “Ohhhh… you mean Keldrick.”
On House loyalty…
Amai: “I have the dragonmark. I HAVE to be devoted!”
The Kid: “No you don’t. It works anyway.”
On control rods, maces, and rods of wonder…
Sutter: “Will any adamantine rod do?”
Mearls: “Put your pants back on.”
Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Visoka: Tim. Male elf rogue 5/nightsong infiltrator 3, CG, only recently restored his memory. (Last name withheld for privacy.)
I am undecided about Nightsong Infiltrator...I guess I question whether Visoka would be picking up levels in this in a jungle. It's really a city-type prestige class. I was thinking of trading over to Scout, actually. Move by Tumbling to Sneak Attack, adding a Skirmish attack on as well...sweetness. However, the next level of NI gives Teamwork Sneak Attack, and that ain't half bad, either.
On alignment detection…
Sutter: “Are you evil, Mearls?”
Mearls: “What? Me? No!”
Jason and Jacobs: “Oh come on, Mearls.”
Mearls: “Ohhhh… you mean Keldrick.”
- I don't know lots of gamers might say Mearls, himself, is evil. Not me mind you, Great and Powerful Mearls!
Also, the pants comment had me spitting soda...
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Because I know by the time Thursday morning comes around you’re just salivating to read all about Amai d’Cannith’s exploits, I bring you yet another thrilling episode of—wait… what’s that? It’s Wednesday morning? How could this be?!?!?! :o
For whatever reasons, we couldn’t play tonight, so we played last night. So you get your Jason Bulmahn DMs Eberron fix one whole day early!
Don’t say we never gave you anything. ;D
Enough preamble, on with the show!
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Amai d’Canith Update: Alive, but full of poison.
Last night, we went down. Then came back up. Into the temple we descended, coming to the end of a snaky hallway and then deciding to go back up and rest for the remainder of the day, since Adso had no spells and the rest of us had no hit points. So we spent the rest of the day helping Captain Parant repair his airship (everything except that damnable adamantine rod). Amai even got to use the 1/day make whole spell-like ability from her Least Dragonmark feat.
During that time, Zulshyn felt unhelpful, since she didn’t really know much about tek-no-lodjy, so she went hunting for food. She found a massive bee hive full of massive honey bees. Honey! In copious quantities! Guarded by 4-foot-long bees… :\ So she came back to the airship and reported her findings. When she couldn’t get anyone else interested in facing down bees larger than our gnome rescuer, Captain Parant, she went in the other direction and found a couple tapirs for us to eat. Yum!
All the while, up to that day, Zulshyn had hid from Amai that she could speak Common, that she had learned it during her time with us. Everyone else in the party knew, and Amai wouldn’t have found out if she hadn’t brought it up while she, the Kid, and Adso helped repair the airship. Amai later confronted Zulshyn about her trickery, but Zulshyn made no reply and only smiled enigmatically.
The next morning, four of us went down into the temple (Mearls and Sutter were sadly absent) and quickly and efficiently disposed of a huge snake and some yuan-tis with snakes for arms. But boy oh boy did we face down a bunch of poison! Visoka and Amai each had to make a half-dozen or so Fort saves because of that fight. Which, in retrospect, was nothing…
Oh! Right! Before I go on I have to say this about that fight: first Zulshyn and then Adso got chomped by the Huge snake, so while it was busy grappling Adso, Visoka ran up and got in a couple good sneak attacks on it. Then Amai stepped up and did a three-attack flurry of blows. All three attacks hit and—thanks to the Improved Critical feat Amai got as a bonus feat for her awesome alternative monk fighting style—one of the three was a critical hit (in fact, Amai rolled two natural 19s for critical threats last night, but only one resulted in an actual crit). 8d8 turned into 31 points of damage, which turned into a dead Huge snake. Sadly, though, I forgot Amai had Cleave. :(
We then left that chamber and had to decide between the soul-sucking pillars of doom or the final boss battle (the problem with Dwarven Forge is the players getting to see the dungeon’s layout). We chose the anti-Mearls soul-sucking pillars of doom. (Yes, there’s a story there. No, I won’t be relating it in this post.)
Visoka led the way, after Zulshyn earlier set off a terrifying dart trap that engulfed everyone in the party in snake-shaped darty badness. He, sadly, didn’t find the pressure plate that activated the soul-sucking pillars of doom (or rather, he did discover the pressure plate… by stepping on it). Instead of sucking out his soul, however, the pillars merely spat acid at him. He then moved to the other door of the room, from where several of us had heard moaning. Throwing open the door, Visoka discovered the airship’s crew!
Huzzah!!!
No wait. Something was terribly wrong… they looked… a little green around the scales. Green? Scales? Oh no! They’d been yuantified!
Visoka then wisely slammed shut the door, leapt across the pressure plate in the center of the room, and fled back into the main room with the rest of us. We then shut THAT door and pushed the Huge dead snake’s carcass up against the door.
Then we had a short discussion comparing the merits of continuing on versus resting again. We continued on. Death is temporary; pride is forever.
Visoka checked over the door for traps. None. Zulshyn opened the door.
Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?
Swarms of snakes, in fact. And one five-headed mother serpent spewing out another swarm every few rounds. The swarms were upon us in seconds, and panic gripped our hearts. Amai and Visoka stood in the back and fired ineffectual arrows into one swarm, then Adso retreated and called for the others to do the same. Zulshyn, however, had other plans. She rushed the mother serpent.
Amai ran to get Keldrick, as he has magics of the area-affecting kind and she is wicked fast for a small fry. In one round she ran far enough to yell to Keldrick and in the following round she returned to the battle. In the meantime, Zulshyn had beheaded the snake thrice-over. Adso lumbered up to Zulshyn’s side. Visoka remained trapped in the hallway, smothered by snakes.
Keldrick arrived shortly thereafter and blasted all but one of the snake swarms into oblivion. The battle went pretty easily after that. Zulshyn beheaded the mother serpent five times, but her body yet lived. Then it sprouted two new heads, which Zulshyn also quickly took care of. After that, it was a simple matter of Zulshyn and Adso slicing and pummeling the quivering headless body into a sluice of meat, blood, and death.
And then we had to make some more Fort saves. Zulshyn had to make twelve. TWELVE! Over all, I would define the number of Fort saves the party had to make last night, collectively, as “scores and scores.” Zulshyn alone had to make two dozen in the boss fight, plus another two dozen or so from the rest of us. And then there was the earlier fight…
Oof da. :\
But we survived!
…
Quotes!!!
On honey…
Jason: “What you do find that is tempting, perhaps—“
Tim: “Is a girallon!”
Jacobs, me (simultaneously): “It’s so beautiful!”
On the preponderance of snakes lately…
Jason: “Yeah, it’s been a snaky arc.”
Jacobs: “Full of snark!”
On old folks and poison…
Jacobs: “For now. Until a minute later when we curl up like Grandma and die on the floor. Like Grandpa.”
On doors…
Tim: “I check it.”
Jason: “For traps?”
Stephen: “No. For doorknobs.”
On poison…
Jacobs: “Ah! It’s minty!”
On combat effectiveness…
Jason: “Being headless, we’ll call her flat-footed.”
On poisonous blood…
Jason: “You have more poison than blood. The snakes bite you and they taste poison!”
On bloody poison…
Jacobs: “So much unwanted liquid in and around me…”
"We chose the anti-Mearls soul-sucking pillars of doom. (Yes, there’s a story there. No, I won’t be relating it in this post.)"
That sounds like a great convention story to me. Ooo, what about a whole seminar - there could be the banned quotes and stories aboutr Mearls...
I don't think Gen Con would like it if we used those words... :\
Ok, I'll grant you that. I mean you'd have to call it - The Mearls @&^%$#@!ing Seminar! And someone would show up expecting a talk on unusual punctation! :P
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Contributor
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Hey kids, what time is it?
It’s Amai update time,
It’s Amai update time,
Let’s look for a rhyme,
It’s Amai update time!
Amai d’Cannith Update: Alive! (Barely)
Last night, the part of Keldrick was played by Wizards of the Coast Organized Play assistant... director... guy, Chris Tulach.
…
Sometime during the night wherein we rested in the airship after our first expedition into the ziggurat a swarm of small snakes poured forth from the temple, looked around, and oozed back inside. Creepy.
We headed back into the temple. Zulshyn led the way and leapt easily over the pressure plate in the curvy hallway. The rest of us, however, aren’t part grasshopper, so we waited while Visoka re-disabled the trap (someone had reset it). Except, he failed. So Adso purposefully set it off just to get it over with. Dartdartdartdartdart! Ow! :(
So beyond the dart trap we went back into the room where the five-headed mother serpent and her swarms of offspring had hurt us up real bad the day before. Everything up to that point had been scrubbed clean, possibly by the oogey little swarm of snakes who popped out in the middle of the night? That room, however, contained a swollen, bloated, pustule-thing that wriggled and jiggled and just plain looked gross. Zulshyn rushed forward and slashed at the grotesquery with her chain sword, and for her troubles great gouts of jellied acid and corrosive pus spewed forth like great geysers of ick. Some of the acid damaged her chain sword, sending her into a minor panic until Amai stepped up and used the Power of House Cannith (a make whole spell from her dragonmark) to repair said weapon.
Deciding that remaining armed was the better part of valor, we left the great bloated zit to fester and instead turned our attentions to the only other door in the room. Zulshyn used her mystical drow powers to seek out evil and found three sources in the room: Keldrick, the gross sack, and a strange trail leading out the room through the unexplored door. Through the door! And smack into a set of stairs going up.
The stairs led to a 30-foot-long catwalk across a chamber of snakes. On the other side of the catwalk stood a yuan-ti, who tried immediately to turn Visoka into a snake-man himself. When that failed, the yuan-ti cast a spell to strike fear into the heart of Zulshyn, and sadly it worked. Zulshyn ran from the fight (!!!) and cowered at the base of the stairs, muttering and sobbing. The fight then became insanely dangerous, as our main tank was reduced to a quivering mass of fear. Amai and The Kid stepped up and did their best as backup tanks, but Amai dropped shortly before the yuan-ti did. Once the fight ended and Adso returned her to consciousness, Amai went back to comfort Zulshyn until the magical fear faded. It was at that time that Zulshyn revealed she could indeed speak Common.
After that incident, Zulshyn felt the need to prove her courage (as if we ever had any doubt), so she stayed at Visoka’s side when he searched for traps at the snake-decorated door at the end of the catwalk (and down some stairs). Sadly, it just wasn’t Visoka’s night, and he accidentally set off the trap he was trying to disable. Much to the consternation of those of us waiting on the catwalk—which dropped like the rock it was made of into the chamber of snakes!
While we were certainly surprised, the snakes were even more amazed. A loud crash brought with it dinner? Nyah? Before the snakes could react, Keldrick cast levitate on himself, Amai ran up to the ledge and jumped out of the chamber, Adso scrambled up the wall, and The Kid kinda wasted time doing the “wutta-I-do” dance before heading over to the exit wall. The snakes surged up around him, but Adso offered a helpful hand and pulled the lad from danger.
Then we found ourselves in a snake-decorated hallway, wherein Visoka immediately attempted to loot the golden decorations on the wall. The hallway had two egresses: a set of double doors and a single door at the end. We went first through the single door, since we could see what was beyond it thanks to the magic of Dwarven Forge, and found ourselves in a chamber with a pot of green liquid. Suspended in the liquid via a chain and pulleys were the forearms of a human (still attached to the submerged human, though). Amai figured we should pull him out. The others vetoed that plan and pointed out it would be “bad.” (Amai’s still a little fuzzy on the good/bad thing.) Then the arms shuddered. Amai cried out that we needed to save him, but Keldrick had other plans. With a word and a staff, he created a wall of fire surrounding the pot, with the burny side pointed inward. The poor creature screamed in agony, the green goo in the pot began to boil and spew forth a black smoke, and we slammed shut the doors and beat a hasty retreat.
So, then, through the double doors we went, bringing us onto several cards from the newly released Map Pack: Dungeon Chambers set. On those cards waited two yuan-ti abominations and a yuan-ti pureblood sorceress. Four prisoners, chained to pillars, spewed forth some terrible dark smoke from their mouths, which snaked to the sorceress and gave her some kind of terrible powers. Amai rolled a nat 20 on her initiative, giving her a mere 32 on her count and ensuring she went first. Runrunrunrunjumpchargepunch! She ran across the room, leapt a 5-foot gap over some green-liquid-filled pits and punched flailingly at the sorceress. The rest of the party then engaged the abominations, and it was on!
One abomination got blinded, shaken, and tripped and was relatively hastily dispatched. The other one put up more of a fight. The sorceress and Amai did a little dance of ineffectualness: Amai couldn’t seem to strike the sorceress and the sorceress’s spells kept failing to Amai’s awesome monkish saving throws. As the two danced, Amai worked her way over to one of the prisoners and saw that she couldn’t really do anything for him except end his suffering—permanently. Unsure of what to do, and feeling that murdering a helpless prisoner would probably violate the teachings of the Silver Flame and her own lawful good tenets, Amai focused her attention on stopping the sorceress. Unfortunately for her, she began to fail saving throws. It looked pretty bad for Amai, and I feared I’d be telling you all about how she died.
Suddenly, though, Zulshyn leapt through the horrid black smoke wall separating the girl-on-girl battle from the bigger battle beyond. So heroic! Zulshyn called out to Amai to get back and hide, and then she (Zulshyn) did what she does best: she messed up the sorceress something awful.
Sadly, though, the sorceress had a surprise in store. All that smoky stuff she drew from the prisoners fueled her natural metabolism to unnatural degrees, allowing her to heal the impressive damage Zulshyn dealt. Undaunted, the drow continued her assault, redoubling it when the rest of the party emerged from the smoke wall (having dealt with the second abomination). In a matter of seconds, the group hacked down the sorceress.
…
Quotes
On Tulach’s definition of Amai…
Tulach: “Powerpuff Girl monk. Got it.”
On a long but silly discussion of rods in the campaign…
Sutter (mockingly): “We’re adults!”
Jason: “No we’re not!”
On the giant bag of ew…
Jason: “On top of the pillar is a malignant mass.”
Jacobs: “Like a free-range tumor?”
On dispatching the giant bag of ew…
Tim: “Oh sure I’ll shoot it, but if it turns me into a snake person I’ll be pissed off!”
On Keldrick getting his way…
Tulach: “Maybe a magic missile will get your attention. If I can get past your SR.”
On our shared opinion of the Transformers movie…
Jacobs (singing): “Transformers! Michael Bay sucks ass. Transformers! Go see Harry Potter!”
On falling monks…
Jason: “Amai, you take—“
Me: “Slow fall!”
Jason: “You take nothing…. Everyone—except Amai—is prone.”
Me: “Woohoo! Monks rule!”
Tulach: *derisive snort*
On grappling…
Sutter: “Get away, grapply witch!… Somebody’s getting handsy!”
I know bumping doesn't quite work in this setting, but I figured that it's worth a try for this thread...
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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I know bumping doesn't quite work in this setting, but I figured that it's worth a try for this thread...
Have no fear....we finally played again last night! WHOO HOO!
Airships! Honkers! Betrayal! Fugitives! Tasty monkeys!
Stay tuned.....Mr. McArtor will impart the details soonish. I think. Maybe. If he's not too busy. Um. Yeah.
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Contributor
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Right you are, Tim. Right you are!
Last night we finally played another session of Jason’s Eberron game. You’ll be happy to note that Amai isn’t dead.
…
After having recovered the control rod for Captain Parrant’s airship, Shooting Star, our intrepid band of adventures at long last began the journey to civilization. Not much happened. Zulshyn freaked out a little by the flying. Adso apparently has a pretty strong case of acrophobia and spent the entire flying trip inside the ship, trying to sleep away the hours. Amai, who loves high places (she grew up in Sharn, after all), enjoyed every minute of flight, frequently calling out “Higher! Higher!”
We traveled almost straight north for a full uneventful day, camped on Zulshyn Island (where we found monkeys, bananas, and coconuts). On the second day we were accosted by yrthaks, which we quickly and easily dispatched (by we I mostly mean Zulshyn). Unfortunately, the little blighters each got off a honk, damaging the ship in two places and drastically slowing our progress. We camped that night on a high mountain spire and Parrant worked long into the night (at least for a half-hour past his bedtime… at least) to do makeshift repairs. On the third day we arrived in Stormreach.
After we landed, Amai warned Zulshyn about the size, noise, and population of Stormreach, but Zulshyn characteristically waved her off. And then we went outside the ship…
But I’m getting ahead of myself a little. We knew we were wanted by the local constabulary, so we put on disguises (Visoka has a hat of disguise but the rest of us had only the clothes of dead crewmembers) and then snuck off the ship. Parrant told us it would take a few days to repair the ship and that we should find Whillip as soon as possible. Amai warned Zulshyn that Whillip is kind of foolish, but I’m not sure how Zulshyn took that information (or if she was even paying attention).
As we entered the town proper, we saw wanted posters of the original six of us (Jacobs’s previous character was listed, not Zulshyn). With that scary little thought in our minds, we went and found Whillip (but not before Amai tried to sidetrack Zulshyn with all the various foods available—especially crepes). Whillip, of course, was a fool. He insisted he had been careful about hiding, but we soon found out that, no, he’s just a goober.
As night fell and the conversation turned darker and more ominous, Amai finally put aside her denial and realized that her Uncle Merrix is evil. In fact, it’s possible most of her family is evil. Unable to deal with that news, she slipped out of the room and climbed up to the roof, where she had herself a good long cry. Zulshyn, detecting a need for friendship, followed her up a few minutes later and comforted her for hours and hours.
Meanwhile, the others settled on a plan: We’d run back to Sharn. With that in mind, Visoka put on a disguise and headed back to the dock areas to talk to Captain Parrant. He found out it would take about three days for the repairs of the Shooting Star. As he returned with that news, Visoka paused outside the building we were staying in and watched. After a half hour or so he noticed someone else watching the building. He carefully circled around and launched a surprise attack against our voyeur with his burning hands sword. Up on the roof, Zulshyn asked Amai if sudden bursts of flame were normal in cities, to which Amai answered in the negative.
Zulshyn said “Let’s go” but Amai held her back a second.
“Take this feather fall token and jump off the roof. Snap it as soon as you jump and you’ll gently float down to the street below.”
Zulshyn took the token and the two of them made ready to jump down to the street. (The joke here is that feather fall tokens only work in Sharn, but poor dumb Amai doesn’t know that. Ouch!)
At that moment, the mysterious figure Visoka had surprised (who melded into the shadows after evading ALL of Visoka’s fire) suddenly materialized within Whillip’s cramped room. “I wondered when you’d arrive,” he said.
And that was that.
…
Quotes!
On gnomes…
Jason: “Captain Parrant is itching to leave.”
Jacobs: “As all gnomes do.”
Jason and Me: “What? Itch?”
On Xen’drik…
Tim: “It’s the Land of the Lost! We even had sleestaks.”
Jacobs: “Are you talking about me?”
On Zulshyn island…
Zulshyn: “I’ll miss you Zulshyn Island!”
Adso: “Zulshyn Island?”
Zulshyn: “Nobody else claimed it!”
On Huge creatures getting cover from Medium creatures…
Jason: “Oh, there’s a penalty. It’s just not –4.”
—pause for effect—
Jason: “It’s –8.”
On our team…
Tim: “Team sneak attack!”
Jacobs: “That’s our new name. Team Sneak Attack!”
On Amai’s (i.e., Mike’s) poor enunciation…
Zulshyn: “Wait. Did you just say tarrasque or Trask? This is very important.”
Amai: “Trask!”
Zulshyn: “Can you spell it?”
Amai: “T-R-A-S-K.”
Zulshyn: “Oh. Too bad.”
On silver linings…
Amai, crying: “My family has betrayed us!”
Zulshyn: “Not me! They haven’t turned on everyone you know.”
On hygiene…
Jason: “What do you look like right now?”
Tim: “A dirty vagrant.”
Stephen: “I thought you were disguised.”
…
Picture!
Little known fact: I frequently sketch little scenes or comics in the notebooks I use for notes. I am not an artist. I make no claim toward artistry. But I like to draw Amai in various scenes from the game. Last night, I drew a little comic based on a humorous exchange involving Amai, Adso, and Captain Parrant. And now I’m subjecting my “art” on all of you. :P
[IMG]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j194/mkmcartor/DnD/eberronjoke.jpg[/IMG]
The background: Captain Parrant said we needed to land at night because the elemental powering the ship would get tired. Amai was dubious and turned to Adso. That’s what this exchange is all about. Amai and Adso talked about Parrant, who was standing right next to them. (And yes, those are ridiculously long pigtails on Amai, why do you ask?)
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Contributor
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Ugh. I messed up the link. But you get the idea. Just copy/paste the info into your browser. Or click here.
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Contributor
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Amai d’Cannith Update: She’s not dead! No thanks to Jason! (But lots of thanks to Tim… I mean, Visoka!)
The Recap
The mysterious watcher who teleported into Whillip’s room spoke with us all about Visoka’s past and his standing with his House. Well, he waited a couple minutes while Amai and Zulshyn jumped the 30 feet off the roof (discovering in the process that featherfall tokens only work in Sharn) and then went back upstairs with Visoka.
The Watcher, as the mysterious elf called himself, revealed that in order to find us he had to get Visoka disowned from the House (which he has since undone). When Visoka came to call some months back, the House made a note of it and the Watcher tracked us eventually to Stormreach.
The Watcher then went on to explain that Merrix wanted Amai killed because he thought she knew about Visoka’s past (even though at the time she did not), a past that—if revealed—could bring down House Cannith. Or, at least, Merrix. He also revealed that his house needed Visoka and Adso to travel to Droaam to visit Urgan d’Cannith, one of the only survivors of the Weapon used to destroy Cyre. Hunted by his own House (gee, that sounds familiar) and slowly losing his mind, Urgan fled to the monster-ruled land of Droaam to find much-desired sanctuary.
Promising to contact us again, the Watcher vanished. The next morning, Visoka and Zulshyn went forth to meet up with Deerik Eightfingers, who promised to deliver us travel papers to Droaam the next day for 1,400 gp. Visoka agreed, then he and Zulshyn went shopping. When they got back, Amai and the others were just about to “enjoy” another of Whillip’s meals (bread and egg sandwiches—not to be confused with the egg and bread breakfasts we had earlier in the day), but all were saved with the introduction of a new supply of food. Thank the Silver Flame for hats of disguise!
In their errands, Visoka and Zulshyn also went to get our magic items identified. They had a choice: the Citadel of Twelve (where all the dragonmarked houses maintained a collective stronghold) or Von Ruthvek’s insane magic shop. Wisely, those chose the former.
No… I’m kidding. They went to the crazy guy’s magic shop. An hour or so later they emerged with seven magic items identified, with merely a 500-gp gem the lighter. This crazy guy… wow. So he has a drow slave who acts as his “lovely assistant” while he does his stage-magician act. I’m sure for adventuring n00bz and non-adventurers his shenanigans seemed pretty neat, but Visoka and Zulshyn were not amused or impressed. After some more showy “magic” (involving a hidden wand of identify), Von Ruthvek “revealed the secrets” of our magic items. He even sold Visoka a wand of cure light wounds (after a suitably impressive display of prescience, of course).
Oh, and he offered to buy Zulshyn for 5,000 gp.
Anyway, on the day of departure Visoka picked up our travelin’ papers and the Watcher appeared to disguise everyone (applying thick layers of makeup to cover up Amai’s half-face dragonmark). We got to the Shooting Star without any problems and then Captain Parrant announced to the harbormaster that we were ready to leave.
Amai and Zulshyn claimed the aft cabin for themselves, forcing all the icky boys up into the fore cabin. The girls promised to not make too much noise during their tickle fights. Although they were probably kidding about such things, Keldrick honed right in on the possibility and spent the rest of the evening latching on to anything even remotely suggestive that Amai or Zulshyn said.
A half hour later, a group of warforged arrived and began searching the ship. Parrant recommended we strip Zulshyn of her gear and lock her in the storage hold adjacent to the girls’ cabin to make her look our slave. Neither Zulshyn or Amai are impressed with this idea, but they can’t argue that it makes sense.
So in come the interrogator droids… er… I mean, the warforged. They ask some questions of the boys in the fore cabin before finding Amai alone in her room. She fearfully squeaks out some vague answers, but the boss warforged doesn’t seem happy. So it asks her again. She answers a little more resolutely the second time, and the warforged is satisfied. It tries to get her to open the locked door next to her room, but she doesn’t have the key. When the warforged insists (“You have ten seconds to comply.”) she runs up to the top deck, grabs Parrant’s keys, and rushes back. The warforged opens the door and…
During her confinement, Zulshyn kept herself busy. She rigged a trap to bring down a crate of spikes and then readied a spike to throw at whomever non-party-member appeared. Right before the door opened, she cast darkness in the center of the room. When the warforged inspector opened the door, she brought down the crate of spikes onto its head (dealing no damage), then leapt out the door. She ran around the bottom deck a bit before ending up in a corner, the spike in her hand at the ready.
The warforged then turned to Amai. “Your slave?”
Amai shook her head no and pointed up to the fore-cabin, where the boys rested. The warforged nodded and then left the ship.
A little while later, we were airborne.
That’s when the bad juju hit.
Amai stood at the bow of the ship, her arms spread wide and her movie quoting player spouting Titanic paraphrases. Zulshyn lay in her cabin, miserable and grumpy. The Kid and Visoka stood around, with the Kid taking up the controls of one of the ballistae on deck as we flew over a ship. The rest loitered at the aft, bothering Parrant.
“Don’t worry,” said Parrant to the Kid, “it’s just a ship.”
That’s when the pain began. First, a wall of acidic fire leapt up across the middle of the deck, slowly burning away at the ship. Then, two metallic chimera suddenly became visible, to say nothing of the wizards mounted on their backs. The CANNITH wizards mounted on their backs. The one wizard near the fore leapt off his mount, but he failed his Ride check and fell prone to the deck. Amai rushed up to him and slapped him around a bit. The others (the Kid, Visoka, and Zulshyn) first went after metallic chimera, but when the wizard slipped away and ran to the lower deck, all but Zulshyn took to the chase. Unfortunately for us, he cast web, which very nearly resulted in Amai’s death.
Here’s how: Amai cannot hide her connection to House Cannith, as she very literally wears it on her face. The wizard who fell off his mount also bore the mark of making on his head (his neck, to be exact), making it impossible for him to hide his allegiance as well. Thus, the House Cannith wizard and his mechanical mount focused their initial efforts on the House Cannith renegade (Amai). After taking two full-attack actions from the chimera and a magic missile barrage from the wizard, Amai was down to 1 hit point when the web spell went off. Ordinarily, that would be just fine. Unfortunately, the Kid suddenly became a pyromaniac and suggested (repeatedly) that we light the webs. Amai panicked, realizing that—with her multiple gushing wounds—she could not survive such a short-lived conflagration. In fact, one might even call her hysterical. The Kid relented, though, detecting the fear in her voice, and he, Visoka, and Amai began the long and annoying process of pulling themselves free of the webs.
Meanwhile, Zulshyn stood alone against the chimera. She took all the damage the chimera could muster without falling down. I think this surprised the chimera (it certainly surprised Jason!), and with its final thoughts it probably pondered on the meaning of the infinitely hit-pointed drow.
Or maybe it just dreamed of electronic sheep.
As they continued to fight their way through the webs, Visoka leant Amai his newly acquired magic pendant that provided fast healing for about a minute, which began to slowly up-tick Amai's hit point count. Once Amai and Visoka pulled free from the webs, Visoka ran up to the locked door through which the sneaky Cannith wizard had ducked (the elemental control room, by the way). Effortlessly, he tapped a few times on the lock and waved his lockpicks at it and it unlocked. After a brief debate about who should engage the wizard in melee, Visoka chased him into a corner then let Amai in after him. She balled up her fists and got herself all ready to beat the Cannith wizard into next Thursday.
Then the @#$%! Cast dimension door and disappeared.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!
…
Quotes
Wherein Sutter shows off his wittiness…
On the Kid’s mini…
Sutter: “But that’s what I look like: I have a bastard sword in one hand and I’m made of awesome.”
On catching up…
Sutter: “But it’s your House.”
Me: “Yeah, but you missed last session.”
Sutter: “Did you finally come around, then?”
Me: “Yeah. Now I’m all about the Silver Flame.”
Sutter: “Trading one for the other, eh?”
On lunch…
Jacobs: “I had yogurt today. It was on chicken.”
Sutter: “Wow. I’m glad we had that story.”
On Whillip’s cooking…
Sutter: “It’s like French toast if French toast sucked!”
On hunting horses…
Sutter: “I killed your meat beast!”
On Von Ruthvek and school on Saturday…
Jacobs: “I detect evil on this guy.”
Jason: “Ummm… you don’t get any.”
Jacobs: “I detect class.”
Jason: “You don’t get any.”
On Keldrick’s sudden panty-raiding proclivities…
Jason: “Mearls isn’t even here and he’s causing distraction.”
On what to talk about the day after…
Jason: “Mental note: warforged euphemisms.”
On aggroing chimeras…
The Kid: “Hey monster. Try me on for size.”
On Knowledge (arcana)…
The Kid: “Dammit! I’m stupid!”
For the record, taking a couple of points of fire damage is TOTALLY WORTH IT to get out of the webs... and bravely taunting the chimera's only funny if you imagine the Kid stuck in the webs directly in front of the monster, with no way to move until the spell wears off. The Kid was really hoping for some fire breath... : P
"her Strength improves by 1 to 10"
okay, so you actually created a fighter with a 9 strength? wow.... okeydokey. good idea.
okay, so you actually created a fighter with a 9 strength? wow.... okeydokey. good idea.Not a fighter! A fighter/monk. Sheesh, get it right. ;D
Our little monk is a breath of fresh air as far as I am concerned. She's out there kicking ass with the best of them. Take that power gamer/munchkin/monty hauls! A stat array does not a character define!
Anytime. No flanking bonuses for naysayers!
Soooo....new update coming soon?
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Contributor
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OMG OMG OMG!!! Amai is still alive!!!
Barely.
But better yet: Trat is not. Thanks to Zulshyn, Adso, and Visoka, Trat the Ever-Coughing is dead, dead, dead. Ha ha ha! Serves you right, you evil little beard-wearing barrel!
Let’s all sing!
Ding, dong, the prat is dead.
Which old prat?
Trat the Prat!
Ding, dong, the wicked dwarf is dead!
So I bet you’d love to read the story, right? Sure, sure… here goes…
…
The ship tailing us not only kept pace with the Shooting Star, it actually began to catch up. Turns out, that House Cannith can afford heavily armed and armored troop-carrying cigar boats. (Yes I know that’s an oxymoron, but work with me here. Would you prefer I call it a PT boat? Yes? Okay, fine.)
ANYway… we quickly surmised that our sorcerous foes came from that boat (such devastatingly power logic, I know) and we made plans to 1) get away or 2) launch an attack. Captain Pirant whipped out his spyglass and gave Adso, Visoka, and Zulshyn a peek (Zulshyn, being a primitive, had never looked through a spyglass before and promptly freaked out upon doing so). They counted twenty-five soldiers, sailors, and others on deck (poor bad guys, they’re gonna need a bigger crew…), plus four ballistae. After some discussion, we decided to send down an invisible flying Visoka to do a bit of scouting.
While performing his recon, Visoka stumbled across numerous surprises, the most important being the presence of Trat and Finnegan—very high and not so high on Amai’s Revenge List, respectively (see below). He also tried to get down into the guts of the boat to grab the adamantine control rod for the elemental powering the boat. Alas, the door was locked and he could not get it. Most frightening of all, he saw one of the ballistae loaded with an obviously magical bolt trailing a long chain connected to an obviously magical anchor. The sergeant in charge of the ballistae told the ship’s captain that they were just a few hours from being in range to hit the Shooting Star.
Upon his return, Visoka debriefed the group. “That’s it,” Amai declared, “we have to go down there and kill them all.” When pressed for an explanation, she said only one word: “Trat.” The rest of the party seemed to agree, but we faced a dilemma: It would be our second battle of the day and our spellcasters (particularly Adso) were nearly out of spells. On the other hand, their two sorcerers were also low on spells (we hoped). We could wait until the next day to load up on spells, but so could they.
Fortune (and the Silver Flame) favors the brave. We decided to go for it.
Our plan was almost perfect, and our execution nearly flawless. Nearly. Anyway, our prep went like this: Keldrick cast fly and invisibility on Adso, Amai, Visoka, and Zulshyn, plus enlarge person on Amai and Zulshyn. Adso cast spell immunity (lightning bolt and magic missile) on Zulshyn, spell resistance on Amai, and energy resistance (electricity) on himself.
The flying invisible foursome dropped from the Shooting Star. Adso and Visoka were to fire off the magic ballista bolt (either just into the sea or into the PT boat), while Amai and Zulshyn provided distraction. And boy howdy, did we ever provide distraction!
Amai landed in the rear of the ship, right next to Trat, who sensed she was nearby. Unfortunately, one of the sorcerers still had see invisibility running, and he started trying to alert his companion. Amai put her finger to her lips and tried to pantomime to the sorcerer to not reveal her presence, but he seemed a little too shocked to comply. We got a surprise round. Amai grabbed for Trat to toss him into the drink (the sole reason she went in enlarged), but he rolled a natural 20 on his opposed grapple check. Alas! :\ All hell broke loose, then, and that was even before Zulshyn became visible when she took a chunk out of the ballista-sargent’s thinky bits. The battle was on!
Trat hit Amai for 22 points of damage on his turn, so she tumble-flew up near the center coning tower (excuse me, the center “castle”) of the boat and began beating one of the sorcerers. Bulbar the half-ogre (half-giant Jason?) ran up atop the coning tower, forcing Amai to step back from him (to disallow a full-attack action) and continued her assault. Unfortunately, before the PT boat could take its move—thereby leaving behind Amai (who was no longer standing on the deck)—Bulbar charged. He hit AC 23 and dealt 31 points of damage. Amai began combat at full health (50 hp) and as you’ll recall from the first sentence of this paragraph, she had already taken 22 points of damage. You might also recall that Adso was out of spells, which meant Amai was out of the combat on round four. Six rounds later, she stabilized at –9 by using an action point. Le sigh.
In the meantime, Zulshyn did her level best to coat the bow of the boat with the blood and internal organs of its crew. She did a really good job of twirling her enlarged spiked chain (with its 20-foot reach) to kill the ballista sergeant and several of the mooks around him. Around that time, though, Bulbar and Trat arrived and ruined all her fun (as they’re known to do). After they exchanged a few blows, she made a dash for Amai’s unconscious form, grabbed the enlarged monk, and ran (er… flew) for it. Unfortunately, Trat caught up to her (he had consumed a potion of fly earlier), but Adso and Visoka kept him busy while Zulshyn made her escape. (You know the fight is terrifyingly close when the main-tank meat shield has to run for it because she’s beat to hell.) One of the sorcerers decided he hated Zulshyn and made his best attempts to ruin her day with lightning bolt. Well ha ha, bad-guys, she was immune! :D
At the same time, Adso and Visoka worked together to first lower the ballista’s trajectory and then to fire it off. Once they got into position (which took a couple rounds, as the sailors and soldiers kept getting in the way in their weak attempts to bring down Zulshyn) Adso lowered the ballista’s trajectory (spending two action points to take another standard action) and then Visoka pulled the trigger. Unfortunately… Zulshyn was more or less in the path of the ballista’s bolt but made her Reflex save to dodge the hell out of the way! Then Adso, Visoka, and Trat took to the air in a daring and splendiferous dogfight that ended with the well-aimed fireball from Keldrick.
So what of Keldrick? He had no more fly spells and so was forced to remain on the Shooting Star. After we departed he instructed Pirant to make haste right at the enemy PT boat just as soon as Adso and Visoka managed to fire off the ballista. And oh boy, turns out Pirant really can fly! :D Anyway, the Shooting Star came around and flew right at the enemy PT boat, with Keldrick at the ready, his staff of fire in hand. Numerous fireballs later (including one just below Adso and Visoka, where the suddenly invisible but not-so-suddenly grievously wounded Trat hovered) and the enemy PT boat revealed itself as an enemy submarine. A submarine!
So, they got away. But not before we killed Trat (and donated his loot to Davey Jones).
In retrospect, of all the prep spells cast before the fight, the only mistake we made was enlarging Amai. A monk (or really, any character) built to maximize her Dexterity and the use of Weapon Finesse is more hurt than helped by enlarge person. Let this be a lesson to all!
…
Amai’s Revenge List
1. Eran d’Cannith
2. Trat—DEAD!!!
3. Bulbar
4. Finnegan
5. Bolt
Amai still isn’t sure if she should add Merrix to that list, yet. She wants to have a little heart-to-heart with him before she knows if she must kill him. But if she doesn’t like his answers, she absolutely will Kill Merrix (and take two movies to do it).
…
Quotes!
On squishies (a MMORPG term for those with weak armor and low hit points)…
Jason: “You’re down 25 percent of your hit points.”
Stephen: “What’s that for you? Two hit points?”
Mearls: “Almost.”
On mooks…
Adso: “You can take care of twelve soldiers, right?”
Zulshyn: “Yes.”
On… well… I’m not sure what…
Jacobs: “You know what’s cool about ants? If you take off their legs they look like snowmen.”
Me: “Zulshyn, you don’t know what a snowman is!”
Jacobs: “That was James talking.”
Mearls: “Who am I talking to now? Am I talking to James now?”
On an enlarged Amai…
Me: “She’s the biggest little girl ever!”
Jason: “She’s the biggest anime girl they’ve ever seen!”
On sacrifice…
Mearls: “If we kill Trat, it was worth losing our ship. We just have to kill all those other NPCs.”
Stephen: “I’m willing to sacrifice Amai to kill Trat.”
Me: “Amai is cool with that.”
On evil DMing…
Me: “Oh no! Don’t coup de grace my character, man!”
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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But better yet: Trat is not. Thanks to Zulshyn, Adso, and Visoka, Trat the Ever-Coughing is dead, dead, dead. Ha ha ha! Serves you right, you evil little beard-wearing barrel!...
Um....I realize that Trat rhymes with prat (and splat!), but I believe that his name was TRASK?
Other than that, good synopsis!
This weeks' session was AWESOME. It had been TOO long since we played with Mearls and Stephen. Attacking an armored submarine? Totally a normal thing when playing with this group full-up.
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Contributor
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Um....I realize that Trat rhymes with prat (and splat!), but I believe that his name was TRASK?
It's the other way around. We all thought it was Trask but it's actually Trat. Which allowed me to drop the Trat/prat rhyme, yo.
This weeks' session was AWESOME. It had been TOO long since we played with Mearls and Stephen. Attacking an armored submarine? Totally a normal thing when playing with this group full-up.
I agree. With those two in attendance who knows what will happen next? :D
omg this thread is about me lol!
*blush*
lol
omg this thread is about me lol!
*blush*
lol
Yes, I see that we have been watched closely all this time. Damned House Cannith, their spies, EVERYWHERE! If I ever meet this "Mike McArtor" fellow in a dark alley......
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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Ah, April Fools! BTW, Loved this little gem:
On hygiene
Jason: What dost thou paunchy whoreson blind-worm looketh like right now?
Tim: A dirty vagrant.
Stephen: I thought thou errant lily-livered giglet hath been disguised.
Amazingly, this is more true to what is ACTUALLY said during our games than the family-friendly version Mike posts....
Damned House Cannith,
Hey! *sad eyes*
If I ever meet this "Mike McArtor" fellow in a dark alley......
But I thought you weren't an assassin anymore...
And such a strange name that bard has, the one who has been writing about us. It doesn't sound Brelish... :\
I like the new alias thing for posters. Will you be posting as Amai from now on? That would be badass. Real badass. Amai right or Amai right?
I like the new alias thing for posters. Will you be posting as Amai from now on? That would be badass. Real badass. Amai right or Amai right?
lol no i cant do taht im not really good at riting..
BUt i'll be here sometimes to make sure he dosn't mess up stuff lol
kay?
^_^
I like the new alias thing for posters. Will you be posting as Amai from now on? That would be badass. Real badass. Amai right or Amai right?lol no i cant do taht im not really good at riting..
BUt i'll be here sometimes to make sure he dosn't mess up stuff lol
kay?
^_^
Sounds good to me. For my part, Amai is still my favorite character. I like Zulshyn, too and I really miss Ursula, but Amai totally rocks.
Sounds good to me. For my part, Amai is still my favorite character. I like Zulshyn, too and I really miss Ursula, but Amai totally rocks.
*blush*
So....since WOTC pulled the plug, will we still be seeing posts about your game here? Or will the wizards be cracking down on it since Eberron isn't OGL?
Creative Director
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As long as Jason keeps running the game, and as long as Mike wants to keep posting recaps, this thread ain't going anywhere. Just as we can chat about Battlestar Galactica and 300 over on other threads on these boards, we can certainly still chat about Eberron and Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms and stuff here. So no worries!