Been building the next elemental general, Cagnazzo. Here's what I have so far:
CAGNAZZO CR 16
LE Large outsider (devil, evil, extraplanar, lawful)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft., see in darkness; Perception +24
DEFENSE
AC 34, touch 17, flat-footed 27 (+8 Dex, +18 natural, –2 size)
hp 285 (15d10+135); Maximized for boss creature.
Fort +18, Ref +17, Will +13
DR 10/good and silver; Immune cold, poison; Resist acid 10, fire 15; SR 27
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft., swim 50 ft. (average)
Melee +1 Icy Burst Ranseur +25/+20/+15 (3d6+11+1d6 cold; x3)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 10-20 ft.
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 16th)
At will—dispel chaos (DC 21), dispel good (DC 21), magic circle against good, greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), persistent image (DC 21), summon (level 6, Huge Ice Elemental, 35%)
3/day—fireball (Cold damage)(DC 19)
STATISTICS
Str 31, Dex 27, Con 28, Int 14, Wis 22, Cha 23
Base Atk +15; CMB +26; CMD 40
Feats Iron Will, Power Attack, Vital Strike
Skills Bluff +24, Diplomacy +21, Swim +15, Intimidate +24, Knowledge (planes) +20, Perception +24, Sense Motive +21, Spellcraft +20, Stealth +22
Languages Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal; telepathy 100 ft.
Gather Water
Cagnazzo has the ability to pull the water from the very air and gather it in a rippling torrent around him as a swift action. As the water gathers, Cagnazzo gains certain benefits and detriments.
1 stack: Cagnazzo gains a +1 deflection bonus to armor, DR 1/--, and a minor vulnerability to lightning based damage(+5 to all damage done by attacks dealing lightning damage). His Summon ability increases to 40% chance of success. The DR springs from the water hardening into ice to intercept incoming attacks and thus is treated more like temporary HP than DR and is thus not able to be overcome.
2 stacks: Deflection bonus increases to +2, DR increases to DR 2/--. Summon ability increases to 45% chance of success .Lightning Damage increased by +10.
3 stacks: Deflection bonus increases to +5, DR increases to DR 3/--. Summon ability increases to 50% chance of success. Lightning Damage increase replaced by Lightning Vulnerability.
Afraid of Lightning
Caster level checks made to overcome Cagnazzo’s spell resistance gain a +4 bonus if the spell in question deals primarily lightning damage. Any lightning attack that deals over 50 damage to Cagnazzo causes him to lose control of the gathered water.
Icy Shell
As a full round action, Cagnazzo can encase himself in the gathered water, freezing it into ice. He immediately loses vulnerability to lightning and the ability to move or cast spells. The icy shell has a hardness of 15 and 50 HP per stack of Gather Water consumed by the effect. He may shatter the shell as a standard action, healing himself and damaging foes within a 30 foot radius. The health gained and damage dealt is determined by the number of stacks consumed to gain the effect.
1 stack: Deals 5d6 cold damage and heals 15.
2 stacks: Deals 10d6 cold damage and heals 30.
3 stacks:Deals 15d6 cold damage and heals 45.
Metallic Plates
Cagnazzo’s body is covered in overlapping metallic plates. The plates have a hardness of 10 and 30 HP. Each plate sundered reduces his Natural Armor by 4, to a minimum of 2.
PnP RP: An adventure logFollow
My design philosophy on this one is that I don't want any of their characters to feel useless on the fight. Obrek and Agniray may not necessarily do too well against Cagnazzo himself(though with smiting, Obrek has a reasonable chance to hit at least on the first attack of a Full Attack). With that SR and resist, Agni will likely have a really hard time hitting Cagnazzo himself. However, with Cagnazzo summoning Ice Elementals almost every round, Agni should have plenty of targets weak to fire to play around with.
Tikal is debating taking either the acid bombs or lightning bombs discovery next. Either should prove useful. Gribbletoo should be able to have a field day with that lightning weakness.
Tikal is debating taking either the acid bombs or lightning bombs discovery next. Either should prove useful. Gribbletoo should be able to have a field day with that lightning weakness.
So, last weekend's adventure:
The players find themselves sent to a monastery to look for the final member of Simon's band of childhood friends. While managing to avoid upsetting the monks, they find her and attempt to talk her out of helping Simon in his schemes. Unfortunately for them, two things make this difficult. The first is that she speaks only in nonsensical koans. The second is that she's already joined up with the evil crew.
Simon arrived and they were able to prevent Samantha from attacking him outright, which would have upset the monks(something they were told not to do). They talk with him and Illaria for a bit before the monastery is besieged by orcs and demodands. The monks ask each group to help hold one of the major gates. Both sides do a fairly good job doing so, though Gribbletoo's new alchemical golem, Stanley, is almost destroyed when he sends it to hold off four orcs at once.
I also had the players control the villainous crew for a couple battles, letting them see what they'll be up against in a few levels(and the two parties were in sight of each other, so their characters more or less know a lot more about the enemy capability as well). I think they're a bit nervous about Simon's ability to summon 1d3+1 Witchfires(ghostly flying creatures with an 8d6 ranged touch attack that inflicts fire vulnerability on a failed save) accented with quickened metamagic to toss out battlefield control effects and buffs during the same round. Which is what I was going for. Hopefully they'll prep a few things to try to counter those(which will come in handy against Astaroth when they next fight her).
And, for the first time in a while, I actually watched them use summons to off tank. Which is something their strategy had been lacking.
One thing that I really got a kick out of is that they asked Simon to tell them next time he was going to pull off some major scheme, which is a great tie in to the adventure after next(the Die Hard one).
The players find themselves sent to a monastery to look for the final member of Simon's band of childhood friends. While managing to avoid upsetting the monks, they find her and attempt to talk her out of helping Simon in his schemes. Unfortunately for them, two things make this difficult. The first is that she speaks only in nonsensical koans. The second is that she's already joined up with the evil crew.
Simon arrived and they were able to prevent Samantha from attacking him outright, which would have upset the monks(something they were told not to do). They talk with him and Illaria for a bit before the monastery is besieged by orcs and demodands. The monks ask each group to help hold one of the major gates. Both sides do a fairly good job doing so, though Gribbletoo's new alchemical golem, Stanley, is almost destroyed when he sends it to hold off four orcs at once.
I also had the players control the villainous crew for a couple battles, letting them see what they'll be up against in a few levels(and the two parties were in sight of each other, so their characters more or less know a lot more about the enemy capability as well). I think they're a bit nervous about Simon's ability to summon 1d3+1 Witchfires(ghostly flying creatures with an 8d6 ranged touch attack that inflicts fire vulnerability on a failed save) accented with quickened metamagic to toss out battlefield control effects and buffs during the same round. Which is what I was going for. Hopefully they'll prep a few things to try to counter those(which will come in handy against Astaroth when they next fight her).
And, for the first time in a while, I actually watched them use summons to off tank. Which is something their strategy had been lacking.
One thing that I really got a kick out of is that they asked Simon to tell them next time he was going to pull off some major scheme, which is a great tie in to the adventure after next(the Die Hard one).
This week's adventure(Chapter 20: Choices in the Cold Dark)
Daven Battleheart has theorized that every one of the "Bloods" sought by the enemy forces has been a type of Skymetal, so he sends the players to try to head off the enemy and prevent them from getting at the next one. They get a briefing on Astaroth's generals from Jacob Crane, who also gives Agniray another magic rock, capable of summoning him to help deal with any of Astaroth's generals they might encounter.
They set off and head to a town near a known vein of Inubrix and ask around about any activity by the enemy forces. Gribbletoo is completely creeped out by one of the farmers he talks to. It has no bearing on the story, but it was kinda funny. Anyway, so they find evidence that Astaroth's forces are in the area, as well as evidence that something in the mountains has been killing and kidnapping people, usually attacking large groups and leaving all but one of the party dead before absconding with the remaining party member.
Samantha and Veil head off to another part of the mountain with a group of paladins with the intention of getting behind the enemy while the main party gets their attention. The main party heads into the network of caves and almost immediately encounters some orcs. During the surprise round, the heroes lob a bomb at the ballista at the far end of the chamber, destroying the mechanism holding it loaded and sending its round flying through the air, where it crashes into the cave wall and sends debris and some strange blue liquid spraying into the air. A short time later, they kill the orcs and investigate the liquid. All they can tell is that it's some kind of magically luminescent fungus, which may not bode well considering they've all inhaled droplets of it.
Continuing on, they discover evidence of digging similar to some they've seen before and are able to determine that the enemy is using some kind of large beetles to do their mining. They've seen this before in a previous adventure(Chapter something or other: Covening Thy Neighbor). No sign of Inubrix, so they continue on.
After about a half hour of trekking through the tunnels, they come to another chamber and suddenly become ill. Agniray is the only one who fails his save and passes out. The others spend the next half hour or so vomiting. After this is over, they suddenly find their minds working in overdrive, gaining a permanent +4 inherent bonus to their Int scores. With their newfound intelligence, they realize that the fungus was Mindfire Fungus, an organism that feeds on certain plaques that grow on the brains of humanoids and other animals as a precursor to releasing their spores. This process somehow leaves the temporary hosts much more intelligent than before. How? Magic or some ****. I dunno. Look, I gave it just enough of a pseudo-medically plausible explanation and they didn't try to figure it out further.
While going through the illness, they manage to hear the sounds of digging nearby. Investigating, they find four large fiendish beetles digging away. Of course, being my players, they immediately attack all four at once. Literally during the first round. This was unfortunate, since the beetles were going to ignore them unless attacked, meaning they could focus down one at a time and not have the others interfere. Instead, they find themselves in a fight with four angry beetles. One gets dropped in a hole and spends its entire time there since it couldn't seem to make its fly check to ascend vertically and escape. Two others attack Obrek and don't manage to do much even with smiting. Agni, on the other hand, almost goes down in the very first round due to a smiting beetle. He would have fallen that round save for two things. 1)We ruled that all the native outsider races(Ifrit, Tiefling, Aasimar and such) were instead humanoids with the Planetouched subtype back when we were discussing whether we'd allow them in our campaigns. 2)The player decided that "I've never used Mass Enlarge person, that'll be kinda cool", thus making it so that the other beetles could go trample happy and do even more damage to the entire party.
However, Agni's near one shot tells the players that they should probably not use their normal tactics and, perhaps for the first time, they focus fire. I was so proud of them.
They continued on and encounter Cagnazzo. Just as he begins to gloat and tell them about how he'd outmaneuvered them, Veil comes tearing in from a side passage and tells the players that she and Samantha's party had been attacked by some kind of creature. The other paladins were dead and Samantha was unconscious and being carried off by this thing. Worse still, it was trying to plane shift, but something in the caves was preventing it, so it was heading outside. Cagnazzo laughs and tells the players that now they have to make a choice: Stop him, save the girl or save a town of over a thousand from destruction at the hands of the orcs he'd dispatched.
Obrek decides to split the party. I didn't expect it, but I told them that was fine as long as each split had at least one character each player could control. Obrek and Tikal head after Samantha while Agni, Gribbletoo and Veil go after the orcs to save the village.
Obrek and Tikal catch up to the creature carrying off Samantha and recognize it as a Dimensional Shambler(I had beefed it up to make it a credible threat to the whole party). A level 12 and a level 10 versus the CR 13 monstrosity I had set up to fight them. Despite some really well planned strategy(use of Displacement, for instance), Tikal goes down to beyond negative Con within three rounds due to some excellent dice rolls and a grapple on the monster's part. Obrek stubbornly fights on, but the monster out maneuvers him and his last hope of victory is dashed by a full attack round roll of a 1 followed by a 2 followed by a 3, meaning he lands not a single blow on the foe.
Agniray, Gribbletoo and Veil have much better luck. They catch the orcs funneling through a mountain pass and Agni takes out ~160 of the orcs from the sky with a bunch of fireballs. Gribbletoo uses a sleet storm and three rows of lantern archons set up all revolutionary war firing line style to mow down the remaining orcs.
The three casters go to check on the assumed success of the other two and find their corpses. The angel within Obrek's sword manages to struggle its way out and resurrect them. Samantha, however, is gone. And Cagnazzo got away with the Inubrix.
Obviously, Obrek(the character) was frustrated as all hell. The player thought the whole thing was fairly awesome aside from his really ****** rolls. The players now suspect that Samantha will return later as some kind of villain. Not entirely accurate, but a good guess. She will in fact return as a fusion of her and a horrifying entity to help the party as an Oracle of the Dark Tapestry.
Daven Battleheart has theorized that every one of the "Bloods" sought by the enemy forces has been a type of Skymetal, so he sends the players to try to head off the enemy and prevent them from getting at the next one. They get a briefing on Astaroth's generals from Jacob Crane, who also gives Agniray another magic rock, capable of summoning him to help deal with any of Astaroth's generals they might encounter.
They set off and head to a town near a known vein of Inubrix and ask around about any activity by the enemy forces. Gribbletoo is completely creeped out by one of the farmers he talks to. It has no bearing on the story, but it was kinda funny. Anyway, so they find evidence that Astaroth's forces are in the area, as well as evidence that something in the mountains has been killing and kidnapping people, usually attacking large groups and leaving all but one of the party dead before absconding with the remaining party member.
Samantha and Veil head off to another part of the mountain with a group of paladins with the intention of getting behind the enemy while the main party gets their attention. The main party heads into the network of caves and almost immediately encounters some orcs. During the surprise round, the heroes lob a bomb at the ballista at the far end of the chamber, destroying the mechanism holding it loaded and sending its round flying through the air, where it crashes into the cave wall and sends debris and some strange blue liquid spraying into the air. A short time later, they kill the orcs and investigate the liquid. All they can tell is that it's some kind of magically luminescent fungus, which may not bode well considering they've all inhaled droplets of it.
Continuing on, they discover evidence of digging similar to some they've seen before and are able to determine that the enemy is using some kind of large beetles to do their mining. They've seen this before in a previous adventure(Chapter something or other: Covening Thy Neighbor). No sign of Inubrix, so they continue on.
After about a half hour of trekking through the tunnels, they come to another chamber and suddenly become ill. Agniray is the only one who fails his save and passes out. The others spend the next half hour or so vomiting. After this is over, they suddenly find their minds working in overdrive, gaining a permanent +4 inherent bonus to their Int scores. With their newfound intelligence, they realize that the fungus was Mindfire Fungus, an organism that feeds on certain plaques that grow on the brains of humanoids and other animals as a precursor to releasing their spores. This process somehow leaves the temporary hosts much more intelligent than before. How? Magic or some ****. I dunno. Look, I gave it just enough of a pseudo-medically plausible explanation and they didn't try to figure it out further.
While going through the illness, they manage to hear the sounds of digging nearby. Investigating, they find four large fiendish beetles digging away. Of course, being my players, they immediately attack all four at once. Literally during the first round. This was unfortunate, since the beetles were going to ignore them unless attacked, meaning they could focus down one at a time and not have the others interfere. Instead, they find themselves in a fight with four angry beetles. One gets dropped in a hole and spends its entire time there since it couldn't seem to make its fly check to ascend vertically and escape. Two others attack Obrek and don't manage to do much even with smiting. Agni, on the other hand, almost goes down in the very first round due to a smiting beetle. He would have fallen that round save for two things. 1)We ruled that all the native outsider races(Ifrit, Tiefling, Aasimar and such) were instead humanoids with the Planetouched subtype back when we were discussing whether we'd allow them in our campaigns. 2)The player decided that "I've never used Mass Enlarge person, that'll be kinda cool", thus making it so that the other beetles could go trample happy and do even more damage to the entire party.
However, Agni's near one shot tells the players that they should probably not use their normal tactics and, perhaps for the first time, they focus fire. I was so proud of them.
They continued on and encounter Cagnazzo. Just as he begins to gloat and tell them about how he'd outmaneuvered them, Veil comes tearing in from a side passage and tells the players that she and Samantha's party had been attacked by some kind of creature. The other paladins were dead and Samantha was unconscious and being carried off by this thing. Worse still, it was trying to plane shift, but something in the caves was preventing it, so it was heading outside. Cagnazzo laughs and tells the players that now they have to make a choice: Stop him, save the girl or save a town of over a thousand from destruction at the hands of the orcs he'd dispatched.
Obrek decides to split the party. I didn't expect it, but I told them that was fine as long as each split had at least one character each player could control. Obrek and Tikal head after Samantha while Agni, Gribbletoo and Veil go after the orcs to save the village.
Obrek and Tikal catch up to the creature carrying off Samantha and recognize it as a Dimensional Shambler(I had beefed it up to make it a credible threat to the whole party). A level 12 and a level 10 versus the CR 13 monstrosity I had set up to fight them. Despite some really well planned strategy(use of Displacement, for instance), Tikal goes down to beyond negative Con within three rounds due to some excellent dice rolls and a grapple on the monster's part. Obrek stubbornly fights on, but the monster out maneuvers him and his last hope of victory is dashed by a full attack round roll of a 1 followed by a 2 followed by a 3, meaning he lands not a single blow on the foe.
Agniray, Gribbletoo and Veil have much better luck. They catch the orcs funneling through a mountain pass and Agni takes out ~160 of the orcs from the sky with a bunch of fireballs. Gribbletoo uses a sleet storm and three rows of lantern archons set up all revolutionary war firing line style to mow down the remaining orcs.
The three casters go to check on the assumed success of the other two and find their corpses. The angel within Obrek's sword manages to struggle its way out and resurrect them. Samantha, however, is gone. And Cagnazzo got away with the Inubrix.
Obviously, Obrek(the character) was frustrated as all hell. The player thought the whole thing was fairly awesome aside from his really ****** rolls. The players now suspect that Samantha will return later as some kind of villain. Not entirely accurate, but a good guess. She will in fact return as a fusion of her and a horrifying entity to help the party as an Oracle of the Dark Tapestry.
This one will be fairly short as I have a lot of stuff I need to prep for next weekend's game(custom staves, monsters, Veil's spell list, etc).
So, this week the players found themselves dealing with extra-dimensional rifts and horrible critters coming through them. Each rift had a particular vision associated with it, which the players had to will save to get out of, with a large penalty on the initial save to a particular character due to the way the vision affects them. Each vision was immediately followed by a fight with some random extra-planar monsters.
The first was a vision of wandering a desolate wasteland, starving. Scents of favorite foods occasionally tantalizing them. Gribbletoo the pancake gnome was particularly hard hit. They came out of the vision to fight Gugs from beyond the stars.
The second was a vision of suffocation in a dark cave. Agniray, the fire loving Ifrit, was terrified by the vision. They exited the vision to face Moon-Beasts.
The third vision was of a terrible loneliness while wandering another world filled with plants but no animals or sentient beings. Tikal, people watcher that she is, found herself disturbed by this one. They came out surrounded by Nethersparks from the Negative Energy Plane.
The fourth vision was of the aftermath of the destruction of Ken's Brook. They felt anguish at its loss and even cried as they picked up a doll from the rubble. Already feeling the loss of the village, Obrek was hard hit by this vision. He still made his will save even with the penalty because his will and fort saves are ridiculous, but he was hard hit. They emerged from it to find the courtyard filled with massive tentacles, which they recognized as belonging to a Havero. No, no one was particularly violated by them.
The final vision was waking to being picked up by something and seeing the corpses of Obrek and Tikal lying on the floor a familiar cave. It was then that they realized that all these visions belonged to Samantha. All of the visions replayed, but this time they saw them third person, watching Samantha go through all these horrors. When they awoke, they saw a Moon-Beast trying to come through the rift, but it suddenly stopped as a glint of metal emerged from its mouth - the tip of a sword. It was then unceremoniously kicked out of the mouth and the rift closed. It was then that the PCs realized that each of the rift locations were places meaningful to Samantha. The Golden Lion Inn, where she often went for a drink, the park where she, Lem and the two guardsmen helped protect villagers during Simon's first major attack on the town, Falric's estate, the Silver Legion headquarters and finally, just outside her family's home.
Velandrathal Argentus, who had acted as mission control for this one, paid them for helping everyone. Oh, and something I should have mentioned at the beginning: They got a hint that Velandrathal does not agree with her father's war plans(which will come up next week). Okay, she punched a wall and broke a brick(she cast Force Punch) while cursing about being treated like a child, so it wasn't a subtle hint. She's already planning for the possibility that the battle plan for the next adventure will go tits up. Which it will. This is to lead into her brilliant plan for Obrek to kill his horrifically evil father and take control of the orc tribes.
So, this week the players found themselves dealing with extra-dimensional rifts and horrible critters coming through them. Each rift had a particular vision associated with it, which the players had to will save to get out of, with a large penalty on the initial save to a particular character due to the way the vision affects them. Each vision was immediately followed by a fight with some random extra-planar monsters.
The first was a vision of wandering a desolate wasteland, starving. Scents of favorite foods occasionally tantalizing them. Gribbletoo the pancake gnome was particularly hard hit. They came out of the vision to fight Gugs from beyond the stars.
The second was a vision of suffocation in a dark cave. Agniray, the fire loving Ifrit, was terrified by the vision. They exited the vision to face Moon-Beasts.
The third vision was of a terrible loneliness while wandering another world filled with plants but no animals or sentient beings. Tikal, people watcher that she is, found herself disturbed by this one. They came out surrounded by Nethersparks from the Negative Energy Plane.
The fourth vision was of the aftermath of the destruction of Ken's Brook. They felt anguish at its loss and even cried as they picked up a doll from the rubble. Already feeling the loss of the village, Obrek was hard hit by this vision. He still made his will save even with the penalty because his will and fort saves are ridiculous, but he was hard hit. They emerged from it to find the courtyard filled with massive tentacles, which they recognized as belonging to a Havero. No, no one was particularly violated by them.
The final vision was waking to being picked up by something and seeing the corpses of Obrek and Tikal lying on the floor a familiar cave. It was then that they realized that all these visions belonged to Samantha. All of the visions replayed, but this time they saw them third person, watching Samantha go through all these horrors. When they awoke, they saw a Moon-Beast trying to come through the rift, but it suddenly stopped as a glint of metal emerged from its mouth - the tip of a sword. It was then unceremoniously kicked out of the mouth and the rift closed. It was then that the PCs realized that each of the rift locations were places meaningful to Samantha. The Golden Lion Inn, where she often went for a drink, the park where she, Lem and the two guardsmen helped protect villagers during Simon's first major attack on the town, Falric's estate, the Silver Legion headquarters and finally, just outside her family's home.
Velandrathal Argentus, who had acted as mission control for this one, paid them for helping everyone. Oh, and something I should have mentioned at the beginning: They got a hint that Velandrathal does not agree with her father's war plans(which will come up next week). Okay, she punched a wall and broke a brick(she cast Force Punch) while cursing about being treated like a child, so it wasn't a subtle hint. She's already planning for the possibility that the battle plan for the next adventure will go tits up. Which it will. This is to lead into her brilliant plan for Obrek to kill his horrifically evil father and take control of the orc tribes.
So, for a little bit of fleshing out downtime interactions and filling in character story without turning game time into solo storytelling hour, I've started working on a new addition to the campaign. It's just a semi-random assortment of thoughts as penned by the bard, Lem, in a journal format. This way, the players can read it between sessions for a bit of flavor. Here's this week's installment.
Edited, Nov 9th 2012 1:19am by Poldaran
Quote:
Entry 67
Gribbletoo’s show last night was amazing! Knocked the socks right off the crowd. And then Simon showed up. I hid my identity so I could remain with the crowd and help them if Simon broke his word not to harm them, but it turns out that was unnecessary. I held my breath during the sleeping gas and managed not to breathe enough in to actually pass out, but they left right afterwards, just as they said they would. Good thing too – that Namdrin gave me the creeps.
Sounds like, aside from one explosion in the goblin caves with only a few casualties, Gribbletoo and Obrek were successful in stopping all the bombs.
Entry 68
Had tea with Tikal this afternoon. She accidentally let slip the news of the century. Obrek is Illaria’s younger half-brother! And she wants him to stop Simon. I have to wonder, when the time comes, will she change sides to save the man she loves by turning against him? I also wonder how that monk they told me about will react. Agni tells me that she’s kinda hot, so it would be a shame to have to fight against her. Well, unless it’s Illaria versus her and there’s a trough filled with pudding involved. Mmm…pudding.
Entry 79
I’ve been doing some research, and I think I’ve finally nailed down Veil’s identity. Gonna talk to the others about it later, but if I’m right, she’s close friends with Velandrathal Argentus. Everything fits. Valoria’s mother was a celestial, a vulpinal agathion even. Her father is an elf, which fits as well. A bit of a tyrant, won’t let his daughter out of the house except to visit the palace. Has an absurd fortune, which explains why the girl always seems to have money for new items when she needs them. Wish Samantha were here. She actually knows Veil’s identity. Which would also fit the Valoria hypothesis, since she and Velandrathal Argentus used to watch young Samantha while their fathers sat in council.
Speaking of Samantha, I still can’t believe the visions we all had last week. I mean, the whole city saw them. It helps to think that she’s still alive out there, but to know what she’s going through, how lonely she feels…Sorry, I can’t write anymore today.
Entry 80
I still can’t figure out Oliver. I mean, he(she?) is a boon to our efforts to defend the city, but with those long coats she(he?) wears, I can’t quite figure out whether he’s a man or she’s a woman. I think I may just have to grab his(her?) chest and see what reaction I get. I mean, I might get slapped for my efforts, but at least then I’d know, right?
Entry 83
Well, I did it. I grabbed Oliver’s chest. Couldn’t feel anything through the coat and the armor underneath. Oliver just seemed annoyed. Not the reaction I was expecting, and it really doesn’t prove anything. May have to take more extreme measures to solve this mystery.
Entry 85
Met with Rocktooth today. He’s still the same old Rocktooth. I’m convinced that his wolf wants to eat me. Gave it some cheese in hopes that it won’t bite the hand that feeds it. If I go missing and someone finds this journal, please have someone check in the wolf’s stomach.
Entry 86
Biggs and Wedge got caught by their captain sleeping at their post again. The captain was about to discipline them, but the strangest thing happened. Velandrathal Argentus herself showed up and asked that they be granted leniency. Does this mean that she’s involved with the secret police somehow? Or maybe Jeff just asked for her assistance? Either way, instead of being kicked out of the guard like the captain was saying, they just had to clean the bunk latrines.
Wonder if anyone would step in to help me if I got myself in trouble like that. Again, I mean.
Entry 87
Obrek’s been brooding about Samantha’s disappearance, so I thought I’d do something to cheer him up. Note to self: Cream pie to the face will cheer up any Halfling. Doesn’t work on Half-Orcs, apparently.
Entry 88
With Tikal’s help, I’ve managed to convince Agni that there are a group of gnomes that break into your room every night and steal your underpants. Caught him eyeing Gribbletoo warily yesterday. Tikal saw it too. Both of us seemed to be having the same trouble keeping from laughing.
Entry 89
I got a look at that new thing Gribbletoo’s building. I’m not entirely certain I understand the purpose of a golem made of pancakes, but he’s the Archwizard, so we’ll just have to trust him.
Well, trust him and steal a pair of Agni’s underpants to put on the golem as a hat. I’ll need to talk to Tikal later and see if she’s up for helping me.
Gribbletoo’s show last night was amazing! Knocked the socks right off the crowd. And then Simon showed up. I hid my identity so I could remain with the crowd and help them if Simon broke his word not to harm them, but it turns out that was unnecessary. I held my breath during the sleeping gas and managed not to breathe enough in to actually pass out, but they left right afterwards, just as they said they would. Good thing too – that Namdrin gave me the creeps.
Sounds like, aside from one explosion in the goblin caves with only a few casualties, Gribbletoo and Obrek were successful in stopping all the bombs.
Entry 68
Had tea with Tikal this afternoon. She accidentally let slip the news of the century. Obrek is Illaria’s younger half-brother! And she wants him to stop Simon. I have to wonder, when the time comes, will she change sides to save the man she loves by turning against him? I also wonder how that monk they told me about will react. Agni tells me that she’s kinda hot, so it would be a shame to have to fight against her. Well, unless it’s Illaria versus her and there’s a trough filled with pudding involved. Mmm…pudding.
Entry 79
I’ve been doing some research, and I think I’ve finally nailed down Veil’s identity. Gonna talk to the others about it later, but if I’m right, she’s close friends with Velandrathal Argentus. Everything fits. Valoria’s mother was a celestial, a vulpinal agathion even. Her father is an elf, which fits as well. A bit of a tyrant, won’t let his daughter out of the house except to visit the palace. Has an absurd fortune, which explains why the girl always seems to have money for new items when she needs them. Wish Samantha were here. She actually knows Veil’s identity. Which would also fit the Valoria hypothesis, since she and Velandrathal Argentus used to watch young Samantha while their fathers sat in council.
Speaking of Samantha, I still can’t believe the visions we all had last week. I mean, the whole city saw them. It helps to think that she’s still alive out there, but to know what she’s going through, how lonely she feels…Sorry, I can’t write anymore today.
Entry 80
I still can’t figure out Oliver. I mean, he(she?) is a boon to our efforts to defend the city, but with those long coats she(he?) wears, I can’t quite figure out whether he’s a man or she’s a woman. I think I may just have to grab his(her?) chest and see what reaction I get. I mean, I might get slapped for my efforts, but at least then I’d know, right?
Entry 83
Well, I did it. I grabbed Oliver’s chest. Couldn’t feel anything through the coat and the armor underneath. Oliver just seemed annoyed. Not the reaction I was expecting, and it really doesn’t prove anything. May have to take more extreme measures to solve this mystery.
Entry 85
Met with Rocktooth today. He’s still the same old Rocktooth. I’m convinced that his wolf wants to eat me. Gave it some cheese in hopes that it won’t bite the hand that feeds it. If I go missing and someone finds this journal, please have someone check in the wolf’s stomach.
Entry 86
Biggs and Wedge got caught by their captain sleeping at their post again. The captain was about to discipline them, but the strangest thing happened. Velandrathal Argentus herself showed up and asked that they be granted leniency. Does this mean that she’s involved with the secret police somehow? Or maybe Jeff just asked for her assistance? Either way, instead of being kicked out of the guard like the captain was saying, they just had to clean the bunk latrines.
Wonder if anyone would step in to help me if I got myself in trouble like that. Again, I mean.
Entry 87
Obrek’s been brooding about Samantha’s disappearance, so I thought I’d do something to cheer him up. Note to self: Cream pie to the face will cheer up any Halfling. Doesn’t work on Half-Orcs, apparently.
Entry 88
With Tikal’s help, I’ve managed to convince Agni that there are a group of gnomes that break into your room every night and steal your underpants. Caught him eyeing Gribbletoo warily yesterday. Tikal saw it too. Both of us seemed to be having the same trouble keeping from laughing.
Entry 89
I got a look at that new thing Gribbletoo’s building. I’m not entirely certain I understand the purpose of a golem made of pancakes, but he’s the Archwizard, so we’ll just have to trust him.
Well, trust him and steal a pair of Agni’s underpants to put on the golem as a hat. I’ll need to talk to Tikal later and see if she’s up for helping me.
Edited, Nov 9th 2012 1:19am by Poldaran
Last weekend's adventure found the heroes fighting a losing battle as the orc army they were sent to slay suddenly got reinforcements in the form of thousands of demons. I had them split into two groups, along with the primary NPC/GMPCs, which I had them control as well(aside from Veil, since I don't want her abilities to be truly known yet since it'd spoil a reveal coming later in the story). Tikal and Agniray went along with Veil, Oliver, Stanley(the Alchemical Golem) and Maple(the Pancake Golem) to hold off the enemy army while Obrek, Gribbletoo, Lem and Trent(Gribbletoo's animated Treant) went to recapture the teleportation circles which would allow the army to retreat.
Team AoE faced a number of orcs(a party of 12 followed by a party of 16) who rang in at CR9 each. They made fairly easy work of them, Agniray making excellent use of his fireballs, his lesser quicken metamagic "rod"(it's a magitek lens that gives the same effect) and his new staff, gifted to him by Velandrathal Argentus. Tikal's Dragnatogen also worked rather well, the player really enjoying the expanded cone and slight damage increase on the Breath Weapon bomb. Veil's breath weapon, disguised as a metamagicked breath weapon spell, was similarly powerful. Stanley's bombs were steady as a source of damage and Maple was pretty well useless.
Team Focus Fire faced a couple wasp demons, which the players have come to hate due to one encounter with them almost killing them due to spammable Chaos Hammer(think Fireball but with a slow effect and only really hurts Lawful). Sirocco, a spell on Gribbletoo's new staff, made short work of them. Then they fought a massive demon(Aeshma with double advanced and giant templates) and Obrek used his new earring to go giant form(Divine Vessel Oracle spell) while Gribbletoo spam summoned Lantern Archon(at one point he was up to 27 beam attacks per round). Between the archon swarm and a smiting large paladin and Lem using his powers to give up his turn to give a standard action to one of the others(Bard spell), the demon went down pretty easy. They then evacuated the army, destroyed the summoning circles and escaped on their airship.
When they reached the city a day later, they found it under siege. A member of the Silver Legion told them that Cagnazzo was leading the forces and that there had been reports that Astaroth was in the city. She'd been seen snatching children and the wounded, those unable to protect themselves, and plane shifting away. That's where the adventure ended.
This weekend, they'll see a cloaked woman who looks like Astaroth steal away several helpless folks, but will it be Astaroth? And why is the woman doing it? Tune in next week to find out.
Team AoE faced a number of orcs(a party of 12 followed by a party of 16) who rang in at CR9 each. They made fairly easy work of them, Agniray making excellent use of his fireballs, his lesser quicken metamagic "rod"(it's a magitek lens that gives the same effect) and his new staff, gifted to him by Velandrathal Argentus. Tikal's Dragnatogen also worked rather well, the player really enjoying the expanded cone and slight damage increase on the Breath Weapon bomb. Veil's breath weapon, disguised as a metamagicked breath weapon spell, was similarly powerful. Stanley's bombs were steady as a source of damage and Maple was pretty well useless.
Team Focus Fire faced a couple wasp demons, which the players have come to hate due to one encounter with them almost killing them due to spammable Chaos Hammer(think Fireball but with a slow effect and only really hurts Lawful). Sirocco, a spell on Gribbletoo's new staff, made short work of them. Then they fought a massive demon(Aeshma with double advanced and giant templates) and Obrek used his new earring to go giant form(Divine Vessel Oracle spell) while Gribbletoo spam summoned Lantern Archon(at one point he was up to 27 beam attacks per round). Between the archon swarm and a smiting large paladin and Lem using his powers to give up his turn to give a standard action to one of the others(Bard spell), the demon went down pretty easy. They then evacuated the army, destroyed the summoning circles and escaped on their airship.
When they reached the city a day later, they found it under siege. A member of the Silver Legion told them that Cagnazzo was leading the forces and that there had been reports that Astaroth was in the city. She'd been seen snatching children and the wounded, those unable to protect themselves, and plane shifting away. That's where the adventure ended.
This weekend, they'll see a cloaked woman who looks like Astaroth steal away several helpless folks, but will it be Astaroth? And why is the woman doing it? Tune in next week to find out.
The latest adventure saw the heroes fighting their way through town, trying to rescue survivors. A shadowy figure was flying in and snatching away children and the wounded with some kind of teleportation magic. They fight off a bunch of Erinyes, worked out as currently serving Astaroth, who they assume to be the shadowy figure. During one of the fights, several Erinyes try to steal Obrek's sword. It burns them for their efforts(with divine fire, since they're devils and thus immune to regular fire).
Eventually, they reach Cagnazzo, who is leading the attack on the city. Agniray bursts out an Elemental Blast followed by a quickened Fireball and does almost a third of Cagnazzo's health in damage during the first action of the first round, also killing the Ice Elemental serving Cagnazzo. Cagnazzo gathers water and summons another elemental and takes some hits to his armor from Tikal, whose acid bombs destroy 3 of his four overlapping metallic armor plates. After everyone's turns, a new challenger emerges: The shadowy figure. She begins laughing maniacally, anime style(I'm sure you know what I'm talking about), using Intimidate in a Dazzling Display fashion(requires use of a weapon, but she has the weapon accessible as a free action via her Glove of Storing so I didn't worry about it). Rolls a 17 and has a 23 bonus to Intimidate. This means that everyone, both good guys and bad guys, in 30 feet(which was everyone but Stanley) is now shaken for at least 3 rounds(except the fear immune Obrek).
Next round, Agni begins activating his magic rock to summon Jacob(the immolation devil). I'd sold the danger of this new arrival a little too well, so Tikal bursts out an Elemental Blast to give both Cagnazzo and The Shadowy Figure lightning vulnerability. It also hits Obrek as well, but the players rarely worry about hitting Obrek with their attacks. Gribbletoo then bursts out a Lightning Arc between Cagnazzo and TSF. This puts Cagnazzo at less than 15% and TSF at 129 damage taken of 130 HP. TSF hits both Obrek and Cagnazzo with Chaos Hammer, bringing Cagnazzo to around 5% health remaining.
Agni's rock goes off, but the teleportation spell interacts with the chaotic nature of the rift TSF came through. This results in an explosion of Chaos energy, doing damage as a massive Chaos Hammer. Everyone non-chaotic in the fight(Trent the Treant, Obrek, Cagnazzo and the remaining Ice Elemental) takes 5d8 or 10d6(outsiders only) damage, which finishes Cagnazzo and the elemental. Agni decides to try to talk to the shadowy figure, who reveals herself as Samantha, back from her unplanned sojourn through multiple planes and the depths of space. Obrek/Agni's player had figured this out, but Gribble/Tikal's player was completely surprised. He thought her attacks were targeted at them, instead of just incidentally hitting them because she was negligent in targeting.
Note: I realized as I was writing this that the players forgot to ask Samantha what she'd done with the people she'd teleported(The Answer: They're safely in the Goblin Caves).
Having never really seen Stanley before, she studies him for a moment and reveals that she'd seen similar constructs on a world she visited during her journey(she's been gone for about 6 weeks, but to her it lasted hundreds of years thanks to reverse time planes and such). She gives Gribbletoo a vial of Protomatter(because I've been watching a lot of Star Trek Voyager lately) which she says will upgrade Stanley into a stronger fighting machine.
While talking with Obrek, she also reached out her right hand(which the players will find out through another of Lem's journals has been warped by some kind of radiation or something(pro-tip: she's been combined with an alien entity and now they share a consciousness) and touched his sword. Something about the chaotic energies swirling through her cracked the bond that kept the angel trapped inside the blade, thus releasing Aphrael, Obrek's new helper.
Next Adventure: Obrek and Velandrathal Argentus both have to deal with Daddy Issues. She's working behind her father's back to save the city since she believes he's too focused on honor and old prejudices over the safety of the citizens. Obrek, on the other hand, will be sent by her to kill his father, the warlord of the orcish army and thus assume command of the clans.
Eventually, they reach Cagnazzo, who is leading the attack on the city. Agniray bursts out an Elemental Blast followed by a quickened Fireball and does almost a third of Cagnazzo's health in damage during the first action of the first round, also killing the Ice Elemental serving Cagnazzo. Cagnazzo gathers water and summons another elemental and takes some hits to his armor from Tikal, whose acid bombs destroy 3 of his four overlapping metallic armor plates. After everyone's turns, a new challenger emerges: The shadowy figure. She begins laughing maniacally, anime style(I'm sure you know what I'm talking about), using Intimidate in a Dazzling Display fashion(requires use of a weapon, but she has the weapon accessible as a free action via her Glove of Storing so I didn't worry about it). Rolls a 17 and has a 23 bonus to Intimidate. This means that everyone, both good guys and bad guys, in 30 feet(which was everyone but Stanley) is now shaken for at least 3 rounds(except the fear immune Obrek).
Next round, Agni begins activating his magic rock to summon Jacob(the immolation devil). I'd sold the danger of this new arrival a little too well, so Tikal bursts out an Elemental Blast to give both Cagnazzo and The Shadowy Figure lightning vulnerability. It also hits Obrek as well, but the players rarely worry about hitting Obrek with their attacks. Gribbletoo then bursts out a Lightning Arc between Cagnazzo and TSF. This puts Cagnazzo at less than 15% and TSF at 129 damage taken of 130 HP. TSF hits both Obrek and Cagnazzo with Chaos Hammer, bringing Cagnazzo to around 5% health remaining.
Agni's rock goes off, but the teleportation spell interacts with the chaotic nature of the rift TSF came through. This results in an explosion of Chaos energy, doing damage as a massive Chaos Hammer. Everyone non-chaotic in the fight(Trent the Treant, Obrek, Cagnazzo and the remaining Ice Elemental) takes 5d8 or 10d6(outsiders only) damage, which finishes Cagnazzo and the elemental. Agni decides to try to talk to the shadowy figure, who reveals herself as Samantha, back from her unplanned sojourn through multiple planes and the depths of space. Obrek/Agni's player had figured this out, but Gribble/Tikal's player was completely surprised. He thought her attacks were targeted at them, instead of just incidentally hitting them because she was negligent in targeting.
Note: I realized as I was writing this that the players forgot to ask Samantha what she'd done with the people she'd teleported(The Answer: They're safely in the Goblin Caves).
Having never really seen Stanley before, she studies him for a moment and reveals that she'd seen similar constructs on a world she visited during her journey(she's been gone for about 6 weeks, but to her it lasted hundreds of years thanks to reverse time planes and such). She gives Gribbletoo a vial of Protomatter(because I've been watching a lot of Star Trek Voyager lately) which she says will upgrade Stanley into a stronger fighting machine.
While talking with Obrek, she also reached out her right hand(which the players will find out through another of Lem's journals has been warped by some kind of radiation or something(pro-tip: she's been combined with an alien entity and now they share a consciousness) and touched his sword. Something about the chaotic energies swirling through her cracked the bond that kept the angel trapped inside the blade, thus releasing Aphrael, Obrek's new helper.
Next Adventure: Obrek and Velandrathal Argentus both have to deal with Daddy Issues. She's working behind her father's back to save the city since she believes he's too focused on honor and old prejudices over the safety of the citizens. Obrek, on the other hand, will be sent by her to kill his father, the warlord of the orcish army and thus assume command of the clans.
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