Ah, that was fun! I see you've met the Forsaken. :) I hope you're all enjoying things so far. Rev's doing a fantastic job, in my opinion.
-Ben.
I'm very sorry for holding up the game, Rev. I've been feeling a little punchy from work lately and forgot to check the games I'm playing, while focusing only on the one's that I'm starting.
Don't worry. I've been very pushed myself the last couple of weeks. It happens to us all.
Rusty is about to do some serious damage here I suspect.
What.
A.
Battle!
:)
It's proving to be everything I'd hoped someone else would run it as... :)
-Ben.
They're really nasty, those derro.
For this group, minions are a particular pain as they have almost no area attacks. They're doing extremely well.
It doesn't help that we can't save to save our life.
That's not helping, I have to admit. Luckily, Abelard has quite a lot of hp. He may need most of them at this rate.
Now that's what I call a fantastic battle against overwhelming odds! :)
Well done, all!
-Ben.
What did you think of that battle in the Hearthforges?
-Ben.
Much easier if you have an actual controller. We didn't, so that encounter can go do several things I couldn't say with children watching. Still, it was fun even though our party is completely wrong for the encounter.
Yeah, we are turbo melee smashy bang bang party. Really, I should have played a Controller. :D
Dorvin is too much fun though.
You are about to come into your own, I suspect.
That said, I'm more and more impressed by the effectiveness of 4e pc builds. You could hardly have constructed a less efficient group for that enounter and you still mulched through it very neatly.
Dorvin yelling "Get over yersel!" and slapping people.
I'm curious about entertainment more than ease of victory. Personally, I think if your controller gets hit by the bombardiers, you'd be having issues, too, but that's situational.
How did you like the wave action, was it fun?
-Ben.
From the GM side, that's an emphatic "yes". Even though I nearly had heart-failure when Isari wiped out half the first wave because I forgot that he'd moved to just the exact spot in the doorway that they'd all have to take OAs to get past him.
I tend to be very visual, so I had the strongest mental image of all those derro swarming like rats out of the doors and trying to swamp the pcs.
For about a week starting Tuesday I'll be at a family reunion with probably no internet access. You are forewarned.
OK. Thanks for the warning. Celestial is getting settled in Italy and Amenephus has only just got back from his jet-lagged honeymoon, so I'm happy to put us into a holding patten. You can go and find stuff out. No bad idea at this point.
It's actually Jonathan Roberts who's doing the cartography, Jon Edwards was either the senator who ran for VP with John Kerry or the psychic medium fellow with his TV show.
I mention it because he's been working with me on other things lately. :)
-Ben.
My apologies for mis-naming him. They're beautiful maps and a pleasure to work with, even if I have to de-beautify them in order to use them for pbp combat.
With Quillan's departure for NPC-hood, you're about to be joined by a controller.
Please welcome Peasant Railgun who is stepping up the plate. If Amenephus doesn't show up I'll be hunting for another leader for you as well, but controller seemed the most urgent need.
For his benefit (and perhaps useful for others as well), this is a brief recap of the story so far.
Mount Rygar and its Golden Citadel are the stuff of dwarf legend. Centuries ago, Moradin's smith son Volund guided the dwarves to the precious ore and helped them to create wonders. No mere gold came from the mountain, but orichalcum - the gold of gold. Malleable as its feeble cousin, but stronger than diamond when forged, no other mineral can compare to orichalcum. All this happened long ago and was forgotten - hidden, some say. No dwarf speaks of the fall of the Golden Citadel and few know of any reason for its failure.
Inevitably, curiosity and greed caused prospectors to visit the mountain again and recently, the mines have been reopened. Naturally, this caused a gold rush. Something wasn't right however, and perturbing messages started to make their way back to the city.
Hired by the dwarf Clovis Stonethrower to make sure a caravan of goods arrived safely at the newly opened mines on Mount Rygar, you were hampered en route by the sabotage of almost the entire caravan. In the process, the saboteur (a quiet dwarf named Ansgar Flintknapper) triggered an avalanche, closing off the route home until spring arrives.
Trapped in the newly re-opened Citadel, the party soon discovered that greed has taken many forms. While there is a massive amount of gold around, there is little to buy and inflation was rampant. A human named Halston had a stranglehold on goods within the Halls. Father Jappe, a friendly cleric has been trying to help the neediest of the prospectors, along with Varden Redfall, leader of a dwarven consortium.
Inflation wasn't the only problem. A form of fever afflicts many of the prospectors and eventually sends them mad. When the columns that heated the halls went cold, it was the last straw and Varden and Father Jappe contracted the party to go and find out what was happening.
On the way, they discovered that a fellow dwarven passenger (Vianna) was in fact a gold dragon and that cultists had captured her and forced her to return to her real form. Before they could do much investigating, they were set on by hordes of deranged derro emerging from the depths of the mountain with vile weapons.
Arriving at the old Hearthforges, they freed Abelard the Fire Shepherd and helped to negotiate with the rebellious Fire Elementals so that the Hearthforges could be lit again. They also found plentiful supplies of food and goods and are superintending their distribution around the Upper Halls.
In addition to all this, they have been befriended by Rabscuttle an incredibly ancient and rather senile gearforged dwarf construct, who liberally sprinkles them with gibberish and gear wheels in about equal quantities. The gearwheels have proved surprisingly useful.
It has been revealed that the gold fever is the work of the Archdevil Mammon and his cultists and that there exists an ancient dwarven fraternity, known as the Silent Brothers who seek to stop him. The Silent Brothers have long guarded a treasure known as the Teardrop of Grajava and are now asking for the party's aid in retrieving it from the Sanctum of Assaying. The Teardrop must be sacrificed on the sacred Forge of the Fire Blessing to cleanse the mountain of the corruption caused by the Archdevil.
They've made a lot of friends and are extremely popular in the Upper Halls, where they're regarded as heroes. They've also made a good few enemies, met a ton of extremely nasty minions and fought some tough battles.
What's the story behind this sentence on Rev's DM page:
Isari has 2 or 3 coins worth of vomited gold on his person.Did the crew encounter a possessed one-armed bandit or something?
Did you get that far in the thread yet? An infernal cult's been infecting people with some sort of infernal greed that also happens to make them vomit coins of pure gold when they die. A pain to fight, but I still want to find out what exactly is the enchantment on the stuff.
Also, I wish Mammon didn't give his cursed minions the ability to redirect a melee attack at-will. It's better as a recharge, but still.
Ah, the vomited gold. As Davi says, infected subjects vomit the stuff then they die. They also have golden eyes and gold-flecked blood, so they're nice colour co-ordinated as well.
The group are a bunch of nutbars (I mean that in a good way). A dwarf is (slightly) the easiest for me to work in organically at this point, but your stinky nature-guy doesn't sound like the sort ot let private conversations behind secret doors stop him. We already have a dragonborn in the party, and Rusty's got a good enough reputation that a fellow dragonborn might well feel inspired to investigate.
Bluenose, how's it looking for you?
Any chance you can get a character up by tomorrow?
Guladrin the Hooded, who's avatar needs work, is nearly ready. The smelly nature guy had too strange a personality for me to get into, and the dragonborn probably wouldn't have been too helpful.
Welcome, hooded one!
Excellent stuff.
I'm kicking your cleric to see if he's back in the mix or not. Regardless, you'll be moving along as soon as Bluenose reckons Guladrin is ready. As always, if you want to swap around feats and powers after the first sensible combat, feel free.
I'll give you something to work with to get you in.
Welcome, hooded one!
"It is my honour to serve with you, Scion of Io."
Guldarin needs his powers filling it, but I'll get on with that. Otherwise, he's ready to roll.
Guldarin, try this for size as a bit of possibly workable background.
The arrival of the party and their rapid rise to heroic status has given you an opportunity and you struck up a warm, but cautious friendship with Quillan, the dwarven Avenger. The pair of you have gone over every detail and historical fact either of you can remember and now you're sure. The Brethren still exist. Rabscuttle the senile gearforged intrigues you greatly. He is marked with many of the esoteric symbols associated with the Silent Masters and is surely ancient enough to have been made by them.
When Varden took the party aside and offered to guide them to the Forge of the Fire Blessing, Quillan made his move. Determined to keep Halston under his eye and doubtful that the vital supplies would be fairly distributed, he wanted to stay in the Upper Halls. He asked if you would be prepared to take his place. Always a quiet dwarf, he suggested that you swap cloaks and that you should find a suitable moment to reveal yourself to the party.
Guldarin, try this for size as a bit of possibly workable background.
** spoiler omitted **
That will work excellently. I had some ideas on my own, and I'm not surprised that they're similar. Though I might change one of my feats/skill selection as a result.
And I'm sorry I haven't responded sooner, but work has been hectic in preparation for the students breaking up tomorrow.
No worries. I'm in last week of term myself and a little hectic too. Change anything you like about the background - it's a serving suggestion of sorts really.
Apologies to all for the continued hold. Amenephus is getting himself back up to speed following his wedding, honeymoon, house move and attendant distractions and Guldarin is progressing nicely. After this long a hiatus, I'd rather hold a tiny while longer and have everyone on board and ready to roll. Things are about to get a little hairy for you all.
And we are go again. Guldarin - feel free to introduce yourself.
Should Guladrin just interrupt the current conversation, or wait till they group is done with the Masters? He's possibly the sort to be waiting patiently outside.
Guldarin
You will know as much about Volund as Dorvin (the other dwarf left in the party). He's Moradin's smith son, and the mountain is where he first showed the dwarves the secrets of orichalcum.
@ Rev Rosey
Works for me.
@ Rev DM
I hope they don't open the door before he gets there.
@ Guldarin
I'm getting married on Sunday - so won't be around much.
I know I shouldn't, but I have to ask. What happened?
Madre dios. That's hilarious. I can see that at the time it might not have been, even if you were thinking "we'll find this entertaining later".
Gheluvelt Park is Worcester isn't it?