Adjo's Journals (2 of N)
Aug. 27th, 2008 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
Session reports for my 4th ed. D&D game
Before I recount my recent exertions, some housekeeping details. A few discreet questions later and I can more clearly place my fellows.
The Eldrain's name is Kestrel.
The Tiefling's name is Lucius. I don't know if "she" is really a boy, under some sort of curse, or just gender confused. This is what happens when your ancestors don't read the fine print on a deal with infernal powers. At any rate, she prefers it when people call her Blaze, or Blaise. I'll assume the former since it fits with the whole "hellion" thing, but considering that pretty much every Tiefling I've met has some sort of fire-motif nickname, it's a wonder they bother with "real" names at all.
The dragonborn (bronze in color) is named Taras.
The drow cleric is Alanna (with two n's) and worships Illustrae. I still have no idea who Thrace follows.
To sum up. We've just spent a bit of time clearing out Gibbers from a pit-trapped room. Hendrel explains that this is some sort of sporting arena for dwarves. A game called "Pillars and Pits" where squat men race about a pit-filled room attempting to move a ball or capture a flag or something. The pit locations are altered from time to time. Apparently, this is the "warrior" version with deep, injurious pits, but it's also used as a game for "children" featuring shallow, non-injurious pits. I wonder about that last bit though. I imagine that dwarven ankles are like tree trunks and unlikely to twist in a short drop, but I strongly suspect a few head bounces from a trip and fall would explain a great deal about Dwarven culture.
I, of course, ask the obvious question: This is supposed to be a small, forgotten, Dwarven scouting post. A "Pillars and Pits" court suggests a far more extensive and elaborate facility. What kind of place is this? The Dwarf is at a loss. He agrees that this base is much more extensive than he expected from his initial reconnaissance and that it's not just a simple scouting post. But he has no clue what the actual purpose this place serves and he's disturbed that such a large complex hasn't been marked on any maps of the area.
As if this complete failure in local geographical knowledge isn't bad enough, we examine the Gibber corpses. On their left arms they bear the brand of the Three Skulls Legion of the Northmen (you can tell it's the band of the Three Skulls Legion because...DUH!). On their right arms, however, they bear a relatively new branding. It's very odd. The Dwarven rune for fire, or creation fire with a bunch of spiky embellishments that suggest a dedication or devotion.
Northmen don't do fire. They've got a solid cold/ice deal going on (their stated aim is to slap a perpetual winter on the whole world), so this group of Gibbers cheerfully taking up the runes of fire is troubling. It could mean that the Frost Giants have opened up their thinking or it could mean that these Gibbers stumbled upon this unknown Dwarven hold and unearthed something nasty that co-opted them and lined them up solidly for Team Fire. In any event, this really isn't something we want sitting next to the most vital defensive position in the world.
Hence, our plan. Shay and Thrace will take a message back to the Wall informing Dunhouse about what we've found. There are two exits from this room, one to the right and one to the left. The scouts believe that the majority of the Gibbers are located on the left. Perhaps the Gibbers have only just discovered this part of the complex and they've only just sent a few people off to the right. So we post Taras and Blaze as guards on the left-hand door while Hendel, Kestrel, Alanna and myself venture down the left to see what we can see.
We set off and soon come to a T-intersection with a much larger corridor and a smashed door on the wall. The door appears to have some old symbology of Mordain (the chief dwarf god). We take a quick peek inside and see some sort of smithy/foundry. Kestrel, not having to bicker with Shay, glides silently into the room followed by Hendel. Once inside the room, Kestrel spots a Gibber hiding behind an anvil and gets off a shot at him. At this point, other Gibbers light up braziers around a quenching pool and the fight is on.
While the others rush forward, I hang back in the corridor and send fiery blasts against our foes. They are nimble little wretches (and the lout behind the anvil is making good use of cover), but I manage to toast a few. Then a hear a thump and spot a group of three Gibbers rushing down the hallway at me. I'm a bit surprised and I'm sure that throws my aim off as I only cook one of them. So I step into the room and appraise my scattered comrades of the situation.
The rearguard follows me in and bunches up nicely, but the spell doesn't quite wipe them out and I'm now an obvious priority target for the others so I take a few nasty crossbow bolts. But in the end, most of the Gibbers are quite inconsequential and we handily mop them up. The one behind the anvil takes some extra effort, however, but Kestrel teleports behind him and gives him a nasty strike that shoves him from cover.
What happens next is rather unexpected. The surviving Gibber races over to a nearby forge, slices himself open over it and as his lifeblood sluices down onto the forge, it flares to life with hundreds and hundreds of small, fiery spider things. Such a large concentration of summoned insectile life is a strong inducement to stand back, especially when I see it set fire to the cleric. Fortunately, I'm excellent at assailing dispersed vermin like this, but unfortunately, my attacks are mostly fire based and I worry that the spiders are immune (or at least strongly resistant to) the element. Given the ineffectual swipes taken by the others, I assume I can't do any worse and start casting.
In the end, I'm pretty sure I didn't do worse, but I'd be hard-pressed to say I did better. Actually, I did do better than the Dwarf. He grabbed up a helmet full of water and rushed over to play fire brigade but only succeeded in dousing Alanna. Despite the Dwarf's comedic errors, my spells weren't nearly as potent as I'd hoped and grew less so once the party maneuvered in such a way as to draw the two groups of spiders apart. Now I could only catch one group at a time in my mystic flames and my luck was sorely out and about to get worse.
In holding off the rearguard attack, I'd been pretty seriously wounded and I'd mostly been out of range when Alanna performed any healing magics. Yet I felt that I was doing all right and that the spiders were more interested in the tempting morsels directly in front of them as opposed to myself, a far distant target. Not distant enough apparently. One of the swarms rushed over and promptly set me alight. Things were serious, the roaring fires were difficult to douse and I was afraid that they would consume me before I could take any useful action. Fortunately, Alanna rushed over and provided healing aid. I am quite grateful to her for her assistance and I would hardly tell a professional how to do her job, but I do feel compelled to note here that her first aid consisted mostly of attending to the injuries relieved from Gibber weapons and not, say, putting out the conflagration that engulfed me! Luckily, her timely intervention and swift action on my part sent me headlong into the quenching pool. This doused the flames and provided me with the useful intelligence that this area had once been a temple of some sort -- most quenching pools don't have magical blessings that aid in healing.
I dragged my waterlogged self out with as much dignity as I could muster and rejoined the fray where the others managed to polish off the renaming spiders. Not, I will admit, my finest moment.
As we're resting up and recovering from the fight, a sudden realization strikes me like a thunderbolt -- the Gibber who summoned the spiders was using a Ritual! In the thick of the fight, it hadn't been obvious and it certainly doesn't fit the normal patterns one expects of a ritual. Most rituals are time-consuming, elaborate affairs, but the Gibber's Rite was fast and haphazard with no ready materials to hand. Perhaps it was the self-sacrifice that short-circuited the normal Ritual framework, or perhaps the power that gave these Gibbers their new brand granted them this as some sort of dispensation. It's not clear to me at this moment, but it was undoubtedly a Ritual. I don't recall any of the 100 Rituals involving blood sacrifice or fire spiders, although it's not inconceivable that it could have been one of them. Nevertheless, my course of action is clear -- I must find out more about this Ritual and how the Gibbers got it. If it's just some unknown Ritual, I must add it to my collection in order to help further the School's knowledge, but if it is one of the Hundred, then I'm very close to honing in on one of the Secret Six and more of the Hundred might be within my grasp!
Finding out more about the being behind this Ritual means more exploration. From this forge/temple there are stairs going up and down. I consider that perhaps we should go down to make sure nothing comes at us from below, but the scouts examine the tracks and determine that some more Gibbers went up. If there was anything beneath us, the racket from our fight would've brought them up. Following the Gibbers seems like the most efficient choice. So up the spiral staircase we go.
The staircase is trapped in two spots. We know this because of the Gibber bodies/blood we find at the spot where the traps are. I only wish Taras were here. This is how you find traps: send your enemies ahead of you to stumble into them.
The staircase opens out onto a major room with high arched ceilings and pillars everywhere holding the thing up. At one end of the room is a giant, heavily carved door of iron and stone. In front of it, making more noise than an armor-clad halfling trapped in a water wheel, is a small group of Gibbers busily ruining their weapons trying to batter down the door. The scouts estimate there are maybe a dozen Gibbers. Minus the ones killed on the stairs and the group we can see, there's still about 6-8 more of them lurking about somewhere. While it'd be nice to know where all the Gibbers are at, the group at the door is totally focused on their work and easy pickings. Plus, they seem to be trying to break into a tomb of some sort. Hendel is rather agitated by this and so we decide to assault them here and now.
We essentially walk up behind them and kill them out of hand. The others get their jollies flinging metal into them (actually, Alanna hits them with a deadly moonbeam) and then I summon a more substantial slice of my power and simply freeze the rest where they stand. No need to be inhumane when you need to polish off a large number of rats. Magic is kind even when it is cruel.
Our attack brings the rest of the Gibbers back into the room to attack us. Again, most of the horde is inconsequential, but there's one large bruiser there with a pair of short swords who really carves into Kestrel for a bit until Alanna runs up and distracts him long enough for Kestrel to land some telling blows. In addition, there's some hedge wizard Gibber who's flinging fire bolts about and directing the others. Of course, he's the priority target and I send deadly spells flowing his way. He makes some guttural threat about peeling off my skin to free the trapped spirits that give me my power -- which makes it painfully clear how ignorant he is in basic magical theory. Those fire bolts are also painful, however, and I step behind a pillar to gain cover (although as soon as I left his line of sight, he probably thought I disappeared).
My wizard's duel was interrupted by a rude little Gibber who rushed up and actually tried to stab me with his grubby little knife! The gall! I took a measured pace back, gave him a look of pure indignation and promptly drilled a hole through his face with a magic missile. I stepped back to resume the fight only to discover that the wizard was the last Gibber left and Kestrel and Alanna ran him down like the cur he was.
We're resting again. Although we haven't explored a huge amount of this part of the complex (which, I remind you, has gone undetected for millenia), we are pretty sure that we've cleaned out the Gibbers in this part of it. We are returning to the others now and hoping to still find them where we left them. Then we can make plans to go after the remaining Gibbers and discover who or what is behind their turn for the warmer.
In other news, my crafty monster tokens worked a treat and were well received. So yay that. Also, we killed, like, a bazillion giant flies at the game. Don't know what was up with that.
later
Tom
Session reports for my 4th ed. D&D game
Before I recount my recent exertions, some housekeeping details. A few discreet questions later and I can more clearly place my fellows.
The Eldrain's name is Kestrel.
The Tiefling's name is Lucius. I don't know if "she" is really a boy, under some sort of curse, or just gender confused. This is what happens when your ancestors don't read the fine print on a deal with infernal powers. At any rate, she prefers it when people call her Blaze, or Blaise. I'll assume the former since it fits with the whole "hellion" thing, but considering that pretty much every Tiefling I've met has some sort of fire-motif nickname, it's a wonder they bother with "real" names at all.
The dragonborn (bronze in color) is named Taras.
The drow cleric is Alanna (with two n's) and worships Illustrae. I still have no idea who Thrace follows.
To sum up. We've just spent a bit of time clearing out Gibbers from a pit-trapped room. Hendrel explains that this is some sort of sporting arena for dwarves. A game called "Pillars and Pits" where squat men race about a pit-filled room attempting to move a ball or capture a flag or something. The pit locations are altered from time to time. Apparently, this is the "warrior" version with deep, injurious pits, but it's also used as a game for "children" featuring shallow, non-injurious pits. I wonder about that last bit though. I imagine that dwarven ankles are like tree trunks and unlikely to twist in a short drop, but I strongly suspect a few head bounces from a trip and fall would explain a great deal about Dwarven culture.
I, of course, ask the obvious question: This is supposed to be a small, forgotten, Dwarven scouting post. A "Pillars and Pits" court suggests a far more extensive and elaborate facility. What kind of place is this? The Dwarf is at a loss. He agrees that this base is much more extensive than he expected from his initial reconnaissance and that it's not just a simple scouting post. But he has no clue what the actual purpose this place serves and he's disturbed that such a large complex hasn't been marked on any maps of the area.
As if this complete failure in local geographical knowledge isn't bad enough, we examine the Gibber corpses. On their left arms they bear the brand of the Three Skulls Legion of the Northmen (you can tell it's the band of the Three Skulls Legion because...DUH!). On their right arms, however, they bear a relatively new branding. It's very odd. The Dwarven rune for fire, or creation fire with a bunch of spiky embellishments that suggest a dedication or devotion.
Northmen don't do fire. They've got a solid cold/ice deal going on (their stated aim is to slap a perpetual winter on the whole world), so this group of Gibbers cheerfully taking up the runes of fire is troubling. It could mean that the Frost Giants have opened up their thinking or it could mean that these Gibbers stumbled upon this unknown Dwarven hold and unearthed something nasty that co-opted them and lined them up solidly for Team Fire. In any event, this really isn't something we want sitting next to the most vital defensive position in the world.
Hence, our plan. Shay and Thrace will take a message back to the Wall informing Dunhouse about what we've found. There are two exits from this room, one to the right and one to the left. The scouts believe that the majority of the Gibbers are located on the left. Perhaps the Gibbers have only just discovered this part of the complex and they've only just sent a few people off to the right. So we post Taras and Blaze as guards on the left-hand door while Hendel, Kestrel, Alanna and myself venture down the left to see what we can see.
We set off and soon come to a T-intersection with a much larger corridor and a smashed door on the wall. The door appears to have some old symbology of Mordain (the chief dwarf god). We take a quick peek inside and see some sort of smithy/foundry. Kestrel, not having to bicker with Shay, glides silently into the room followed by Hendel. Once inside the room, Kestrel spots a Gibber hiding behind an anvil and gets off a shot at him. At this point, other Gibbers light up braziers around a quenching pool and the fight is on.
While the others rush forward, I hang back in the corridor and send fiery blasts against our foes. They are nimble little wretches (and the lout behind the anvil is making good use of cover), but I manage to toast a few. Then a hear a thump and spot a group of three Gibbers rushing down the hallway at me. I'm a bit surprised and I'm sure that throws my aim off as I only cook one of them. So I step into the room and appraise my scattered comrades of the situation.
The rearguard follows me in and bunches up nicely, but the spell doesn't quite wipe them out and I'm now an obvious priority target for the others so I take a few nasty crossbow bolts. But in the end, most of the Gibbers are quite inconsequential and we handily mop them up. The one behind the anvil takes some extra effort, however, but Kestrel teleports behind him and gives him a nasty strike that shoves him from cover.
What happens next is rather unexpected. The surviving Gibber races over to a nearby forge, slices himself open over it and as his lifeblood sluices down onto the forge, it flares to life with hundreds and hundreds of small, fiery spider things. Such a large concentration of summoned insectile life is a strong inducement to stand back, especially when I see it set fire to the cleric. Fortunately, I'm excellent at assailing dispersed vermin like this, but unfortunately, my attacks are mostly fire based and I worry that the spiders are immune (or at least strongly resistant to) the element. Given the ineffectual swipes taken by the others, I assume I can't do any worse and start casting.
In the end, I'm pretty sure I didn't do worse, but I'd be hard-pressed to say I did better. Actually, I did do better than the Dwarf. He grabbed up a helmet full of water and rushed over to play fire brigade but only succeeded in dousing Alanna. Despite the Dwarf's comedic errors, my spells weren't nearly as potent as I'd hoped and grew less so once the party maneuvered in such a way as to draw the two groups of spiders apart. Now I could only catch one group at a time in my mystic flames and my luck was sorely out and about to get worse.
In holding off the rearguard attack, I'd been pretty seriously wounded and I'd mostly been out of range when Alanna performed any healing magics. Yet I felt that I was doing all right and that the spiders were more interested in the tempting morsels directly in front of them as opposed to myself, a far distant target. Not distant enough apparently. One of the swarms rushed over and promptly set me alight. Things were serious, the roaring fires were difficult to douse and I was afraid that they would consume me before I could take any useful action. Fortunately, Alanna rushed over and provided healing aid. I am quite grateful to her for her assistance and I would hardly tell a professional how to do her job, but I do feel compelled to note here that her first aid consisted mostly of attending to the injuries relieved from Gibber weapons and not, say, putting out the conflagration that engulfed me! Luckily, her timely intervention and swift action on my part sent me headlong into the quenching pool. This doused the flames and provided me with the useful intelligence that this area had once been a temple of some sort -- most quenching pools don't have magical blessings that aid in healing.
I dragged my waterlogged self out with as much dignity as I could muster and rejoined the fray where the others managed to polish off the renaming spiders. Not, I will admit, my finest moment.
As we're resting up and recovering from the fight, a sudden realization strikes me like a thunderbolt -- the Gibber who summoned the spiders was using a Ritual! In the thick of the fight, it hadn't been obvious and it certainly doesn't fit the normal patterns one expects of a ritual. Most rituals are time-consuming, elaborate affairs, but the Gibber's Rite was fast and haphazard with no ready materials to hand. Perhaps it was the self-sacrifice that short-circuited the normal Ritual framework, or perhaps the power that gave these Gibbers their new brand granted them this as some sort of dispensation. It's not clear to me at this moment, but it was undoubtedly a Ritual. I don't recall any of the 100 Rituals involving blood sacrifice or fire spiders, although it's not inconceivable that it could have been one of them. Nevertheless, my course of action is clear -- I must find out more about this Ritual and how the Gibbers got it. If it's just some unknown Ritual, I must add it to my collection in order to help further the School's knowledge, but if it is one of the Hundred, then I'm very close to honing in on one of the Secret Six and more of the Hundred might be within my grasp!
Finding out more about the being behind this Ritual means more exploration. From this forge/temple there are stairs going up and down. I consider that perhaps we should go down to make sure nothing comes at us from below, but the scouts examine the tracks and determine that some more Gibbers went up. If there was anything beneath us, the racket from our fight would've brought them up. Following the Gibbers seems like the most efficient choice. So up the spiral staircase we go.
The staircase is trapped in two spots. We know this because of the Gibber bodies/blood we find at the spot where the traps are. I only wish Taras were here. This is how you find traps: send your enemies ahead of you to stumble into them.
The staircase opens out onto a major room with high arched ceilings and pillars everywhere holding the thing up. At one end of the room is a giant, heavily carved door of iron and stone. In front of it, making more noise than an armor-clad halfling trapped in a water wheel, is a small group of Gibbers busily ruining their weapons trying to batter down the door. The scouts estimate there are maybe a dozen Gibbers. Minus the ones killed on the stairs and the group we can see, there's still about 6-8 more of them lurking about somewhere. While it'd be nice to know where all the Gibbers are at, the group at the door is totally focused on their work and easy pickings. Plus, they seem to be trying to break into a tomb of some sort. Hendel is rather agitated by this and so we decide to assault them here and now.
We essentially walk up behind them and kill them out of hand. The others get their jollies flinging metal into them (actually, Alanna hits them with a deadly moonbeam) and then I summon a more substantial slice of my power and simply freeze the rest where they stand. No need to be inhumane when you need to polish off a large number of rats. Magic is kind even when it is cruel.
Our attack brings the rest of the Gibbers back into the room to attack us. Again, most of the horde is inconsequential, but there's one large bruiser there with a pair of short swords who really carves into Kestrel for a bit until Alanna runs up and distracts him long enough for Kestrel to land some telling blows. In addition, there's some hedge wizard Gibber who's flinging fire bolts about and directing the others. Of course, he's the priority target and I send deadly spells flowing his way. He makes some guttural threat about peeling off my skin to free the trapped spirits that give me my power -- which makes it painfully clear how ignorant he is in basic magical theory. Those fire bolts are also painful, however, and I step behind a pillar to gain cover (although as soon as I left his line of sight, he probably thought I disappeared).
My wizard's duel was interrupted by a rude little Gibber who rushed up and actually tried to stab me with his grubby little knife! The gall! I took a measured pace back, gave him a look of pure indignation and promptly drilled a hole through his face with a magic missile. I stepped back to resume the fight only to discover that the wizard was the last Gibber left and Kestrel and Alanna ran him down like the cur he was.
We're resting again. Although we haven't explored a huge amount of this part of the complex (which, I remind you, has gone undetected for millenia), we are pretty sure that we've cleaned out the Gibbers in this part of it. We are returning to the others now and hoping to still find them where we left them. Then we can make plans to go after the remaining Gibbers and discover who or what is behind their turn for the warmer.
In other news, my crafty monster tokens worked a treat and were well received. So yay that. Also, we killed, like, a bazillion giant flies at the game. Don't know what was up with that.
later
Tom
