After you take the gate Fina sent throught a heavily fortified force to hold the gate. She also sends word that she needs to speak with you on an urgent matter and bids you jion her at her caslte using the gate.
the force she sends looks very capable of holding the gate and includes a great deal of healers, clerics and mages. The figthers all look to be stout and set about placing defenses repairing the roof damage while the clerics start concecrating the ground and casting numerous defensive spells. it seems that they will be able to tacke care of themselves and you can feel secure that leaving the portal will not result in loosing the portal.
Seeing your reluctance to leave, Rexel (the messanger and apparent leader of the party) assures you that it will be sometime before an effective counter attack can be mounted and that the meeting room with Fina is close enough that you can be called if needs be.
Fina greets you as you pass through the portal and shows you to a near by room filled with refreshments. She bids you to tell her of your battle for the portal and congratulates you on your victory.
After you have had a chance to unwind a bit, Fina unveils her plan. She will divide her army. The large part will be tasked with taking Lyko and securing the other portals that link to the allies of the royal family. Those that are contesting the rightful heir will not be reconnected until things are sorted out.
The smaller part of her army will remain and ride out to meet the Mottul army. The timing of the attack on Lyko must coincide with her forces attacking the main force of the enemy. Plans have been made with other nobles to corral the enemy's forces and destroy them. However, if the FF is not taken quickly Mottul will be able to reinforcethe the main army and even if we can destroy it the losses we will suffer may leave us funeralble to a counter attack.
Fina is believes that if the mottul FF is not caputured or destroyed that her plan will fail. She is tasking you with the defeat of the Mottul FF since you showed such excellent skill in taking the portal without losses. She offers her military advisors for your coucil and matches your spoils with a like amount of gold (assume book value for the items taken). The assult will take place in two weeks. you have until then to plan. Once Fina's forces are committed she will have no reserves to defend her captial if the battle goes ill.
__________________ Luck often will save a man,
If his courage holds.
First the loot- just to be clear, we can convert all loot to gold at 100% of book value, right? Is that what you meant by match? Or is she paying us some sort of loot bounty?
On our plan, while "get her" has always stood us well, first order of business is to learn more about the castle: where it is, how it operates and its floorplan. These FFs are extremely old and it is likely we can find accounts of previous visits, possibly even maps. That is worth one of our scholarly types researching. Ah, yeah, we don't have any scholarly types. I guess Draeca can try. Or maybe Princeps mage buddy.
Alot of our planning would depend on what that initial check of information revealed. But a couple of things come to mind:
Getting to a FF is tricky. We can obviously fly but that leaves many of our heavy fighters behind. Draeca can cast airwalk which would work if they are reasonably close to land. Might be interesting to enter it from Mottul through their own portal: enter, close the portal, take the castle. Simple three point plan.
We have seen three red dragons associated with FF and should expect to deal with them. Word of caution from Draeca who has some dragon lore: most red dragons have low maneuverabilty and breathe fire but there are feats that can change both these things. We shouldn't assume just popping some prot-fires will make us all well.
We can expect a Mottul FF to have lots of nasty demons and dragons with hordes of undead fodder...
More I think about it, the more I like going through Mottul. It has advantages:
Good chance of surprise
We don't need to know where the fortress is, the portal will take us right there
We don't need to approach through the air, which might be rather dangerous with dragons and flying demons
Potentially, we just need to gain control of the control room and move the fortress somewhere where some allies can help us rid it of pesky Mottul-ites
We can put more forces on the FF through a portal than we can by flying a force to the FF
Of course, there is the disadvantage that we have to go into Mottul and we need to know where the portal is to this FF and how to activate it.
So, in addition to researching the earlier stuff, I think we should research Mottul in general and the portal to this FF.
Remember that until the counter attack from Mottul, possibly even now, Eidos had a force on Mottul and many of you war-heroes actually battled there. It isn't impossible to go to Mottul or operate there.
Some things to look for:
Allied arcance caster (metagame: might really slow things down to add one to the party)
Creature summoning magic
Magic to defeat wards, glyphs, symbols, locked doors
A rogue might be real handy (anyone have any rogue friends?)
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
I like the plan of going to Mottul and using thier portal to get to the FF! It has definate suprise factor. One more thing to consider on that plan, what if the portal on the FF is inactive? Can we tell if it is active before we start our covert operation?
If we decide to do this, perhaps we should look at spending some of our loot on one-shot magics that will help us defeat undead/demons/dragons?
I like the plan of going to Mottul and using thier portal to get to the FF!
Yeah, but are you happy to be part of it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperBeast
It has definate suprise factor. One more thing to consider on that plan, what if the portal on the FF is inactive? Can we tell if it is active before we start our covert operation?
That's a very good point. We should check with the Pathfinders. Also, since this is a rather important point, if our pathfinder buddies aren't quite sure, maybe we should check with the head pathfinder herself: Draco.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperBeast
If we decide to do this, perhaps we should look at spending some of our loot on one-shot magics that will help us defeat undead/demons/dragons?
Draeca is miffed that you need anyone but her to deal with undead
Yeah, good idea. There may be some specialty items like certain wands, staves or rods that might be worth investigating here as well. Might also want any super-holy stuff too (permanent holy aura?). Maybe there are some artifacts we might borrow or acquire. Guess we should research that. I'll check the book-standard stuff (including supplements). But we should do lore checks and check our friends (both portfolio and Fina) to see if there is some artifact that might be of use.
I think there are some blast undead things we might want to acquire. But Draeca really is rather effective against undead (among other things, she just gained an ability that lets her do 8d8 damage to all undead within 100' for 2 turning attempts; plus she can disintegrate up to 18HD undead these days. Since she has quicken turning, she can do both in one round: 8d8 to clear out the lower level riff-raff and a turn to zap the higher level remainder.). We should look for anti-demon stuff even more than anti-undead. Maybe there is a weapon of demon slaying we can find, for one thing. Can't imagine that would be all that rare in this world. Similarly, anti-evil dragon stuff might be worth it. Might be worth a detour before the 2 weeks are up to find some of this stuff.
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
Reviewing magic item options in the various books, I didn't come up with too much. There are some items that let you blast undead a finite number of times per day but their cost doesn't seem worth it given that Draeca can do much of that already.
It would still be worth looking for artifacts or relics that could be of use but Chris will have to assist with that.
Otherwise, I suggest we:
Acquire potions and scrolls
scroll options: many useful ones. I can work a list
potions: cure, death ward (this is a biggy), oil of align weapons (if someone needs that)
Big deal: some way to silver our weapons or, alternately, some silvered, holy weapons
Wands of curing, restoration, death ward, remove fear (I think many of the PCs/NPCs can use these, like Aura, Gel, etc. Anyone with these spells on their spell list)
On adding NPCs to the group, it would be logical to add a rogue and a wizard. But as a practical matter, this will make our lengthy combats even lengthier. So, for metagame reasons, I'm not so keen on that but I'm open to it if you guys are.
BTW while researching the above, I found that you can redeem evil items: basically turn unholy to holy. This requires the expenditure of XP and timeequal to that needed to create the item but as it does not require anything else (gold, spells, feats), it is actually a cool way to get some interesting items. We should keep it in mind rather than tossing evil items out of hand. If you redeem an item its evil looking features mellow somewhat: a demon's distorted face might look more like a howling hound archon, for instance. Other powers remain and unholy converts to holy.
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
First the loot- just to be clear, we can convert all loot to gold at 100% of book value, right? Is that what you meant by match? Or is she paying us some sort of loot bounty?
Fina is giving you an additional amount of gold equal to 100% of the value of the loot you picked up. She will also buy the loot you have at 100% book value.
She Explains:"There is great risk in what I ask you to do. Not only will taking the FF be difficult, failure of the plan will me thta Mottul will take over my lands and leave me with nothing. i give you this money to prepare your party as best you can. Spend it Well. Speak to no one of this. Few out side of my most trusted friends know my true plan. To all else it shall be known that i am preaparing to defend the caslte to the last."
On our plan, while "get her" has always stood us well, first order of business is to learn more about the castle: where it is, how it operates and its floorplan. These FFs are extremely old and it is likely we can find accounts of previous visits, possibly even maps. That is worth one of our scholarly types researching. Ah, yeah, we don't have any scholarly types. I guess Draeca can try. Or maybe Princeps mage buddy.
Fina did offer her military advisers. They will research the Mottul FF lay and defenses for you.
Fina coucisl against going through Mottul:"Draca your arguments are sound and that may still be the best approach but if Mottul is using the portal to send reinforcements its stands to reason that they will be poised to go through. This might prove to be a hard fight and worse may ruin the surprise. In the end it is up to you to decide your road."
Fina also offers some reliable scouts to keep tabs on the MFF. It is currently keeping pace with the Army martching this way according to her scouts.
The force on Eidos is still in place. By last report they were fending off a heavy assult. I think that portal went through Lyko and if so is still held by Mottul.
Azz speaks up:"we can use both Mythgaurd and Castelleon to attack the Mottul FF. even if we were to enter through their portal we have little chance of sucess without landing troops on the surface. i wouldn't mind Going through Mottul. never been there before."
__________________ Luck often will save a man,
If his courage holds.
Azz brings up an interesting point, attack the motul FF with our FF's. Altough this seems like a very risky propisition, what if we lose one of our FFs? In anycase, I am not sure what kind of magic it would take to conceal a FF, but if we can visibly bring in one FF to attack the mottul FF and then suprise them with the second one, that would surley give us a great advantage. Of course with 2 FFs flying in, we can bring hordes of warriors in!
Let's look at some logistics,
How long would it take to bulster and position these FFs?
Is it possible to use a FF as a ram? Would we be willing to sacrifice one of our FFs for one of thiers?
Is it possible to "cloak" a FF?
If we attack from an FF, we should think of ways to attack from above and below at the same time, then we can pinch our enemy in the middle. Don't all FFs have a shaft out the bottom?
Azz brings up an interesting point, attack the motul FF with our FF's. Altough this seems like a very risky propisition, what if we lose one of our FFs? In anycase, I am not sure what kind of magic it would take to conceal a FF, but if we can visibly bring in one FF to attack the mottul FF and then suprise them with the second one, that would surley give us a great advantage. Of course with 2 FFs flying in, we can bring hordes of warriors in!
Let's look at some logistics,
How long would it take to bulster and position these FFs?
Is it possible to use a FF as a ram? Would we be willing to sacrifice one of our FFs for one of thiers?
Is it possible to "cloak" a FF?
If we attack from an FF, we should think of ways to attack from above and below at the same time, then we can pinch our enemy in the middle. Don't all FFs have a shaft out the bottom?
Well, I guess I'll defer to Fina on this but "go get her with two FFs" seems to be somewhat problemmatic to me. The FFs don't move very fast (few mph) and they weren't intended or used for ramming (due to their slow speed and manueverability).
If they are moving our way, we could probably position ourselves in the path and rise up into their way but this seems like a recipe for a vast battle, one where both sides will have plenty of time to reinforce.
One of the virtues of going through the Mottul side is that we shut down the portal after using it so that they can't send any further reinforcements through. if they are see our FFs mosying up at 10mph they will have plenty of time to get defences ready and send reinforcements through if they need to.
What exactly would the plan look like if we approach with both FFs? are we talking lots of NPCs accompanying us in the raid? I'm willing to explore it but not sure what we'd do. It seems like we could use one or both as a flying base to launch a raid from. There are two basics paths: sneak close and launch the raid (maybe at night? Darkvision is not infinite range) or get close and launch an armada at it. I think the armada approach is a non-starter: with a working portal they can infinitely reinforce and besides, a huge number of NPCs would make for a very unwieldy battle.
Are we thinking we'd sneak up on them with a FF?
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
First the loot- just to be clear, we can convert all loot to gold at 100% of book value, right? Is that what you meant by match? Or is she paying us some sort of loot bounty?
Fina is giving you an additional amount of gold equal to 100% of the value of the loot you picked up. She will also buy the loot you have at 100% book value.
That's really cool. I knew there was a reason why she was my favorite duchess
Can Christina add up the loot for us? Not sure there is anything of interest for folks so maybe we convert all to gold?
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
To get the thoughts going on a plan, if we were to try the direct approach, here's my own thoughts.
I think in all cases, the ultimate objective is to prevent the fortress from supporting attacks against Fina.
At the minimum, this means making it immobile
It would probably also be useful to disable the portal to Mottul but perhaps that isn't absolutely required.
We therefore need to get to the control room and probably the portal room as well. From our own experience on FFs, we know these are well protected.
There are two main options, a frontal assault and a sneak attack.
In a frontal assault, we'd need to gather other aerial forces to assist in an attack
Most likely, we'd use the main force as a distraction while we tried to gain entrance
This type of "main force feint and sneak in" approach has got to have been pretty standard in the history of FFs and therefore not much of a surprise.
Alternately, we just battle our way in with superior force. This seems a foolish course.
On a sneak attack, we need some way to sneak. It doesn't mean we have to sneak all the way to the control room, just get close in before we get discovered so that we don't face a completely armed and ready garrison. It does mean we should assume any magic defenses have been triggered.
Some sneak options:
Drop in from above. Since the target is moving, this can't mean dropping from an upper island but maybe we could drop in from the FF's way above (tens of miles: high enough they couldn't see the FFs well)- you could do it at night and get Fina with magic and fire to light the ground below the Mottul FF so we could see its outline on the way down.
Draeca could summon a storm and we could use it as cover at night. Dracea and other casters could summon continuous storms for days so that Mottul got used to it. The storms last for a half day per casting, I think.
We could try to approach in disguise. Not too keen on that one.
We could approach ethereally. I'm not sure how well that magic works in Ophir though and there are countermeasures anyway. This would be an obvious line of attack.
We will need to try to research the magical defenses of this fortress. Remember the Mithguard had a number of defensives including places for the garrison to do monster summons. Even if we can't find specifics on this fortress, we should consider what sort of defenses have been created for other fortresses
We should look for some way to provide a distraction after we sneak in: some sort of way to summon or gate a lot of distracting critters.
Thoughts?
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
Don't mininterperate Fina's council as a command. She was only raising a point agianst goign throgh Mottul.
Azz: I'm in infavor of exploring the Mottul to FF scenario. There is more than one good reason to try it. Surprise for one - no one in their right mind would go to Mottul to attack in Edios. Simplicity for another - much less corrdination, well at least as far as getting in/onto the FF. And let's not forget the biggest reason - Demoralizing the Mottul forces. They'll think twice about attacking us again if we not only prevent the FF from contributing to the invasion, but actually take it as our own. three FF's are better than two.
As Draca mentioned there are only so many ways to attack these places. Mottul will have to assume that Fina will try and attack the FF. any frontal assult will be costly and sneaking on will require a good deal of luck.
WE shoudl keep the options open a this point.
On a meta note. I am prepraing the reaserch notes for the Mottul FF but it will take another week or so.
__________________ Luck often will save a man,
If his courage holds.
Last edited by Chris the Bigger; 10th June 2005 at 06:12 AM..
Well, without knowing what the situation looks like on the Mottul end, it is hard to say. if there is a massive army camped on the verge of the portal, we won't be able to go through. But most of the portals are in some chamber or other so there is probably some distance between the reinforcements and the portal. We should be able to get some sort of idea of the arrangement from research.
Beyond that, we'd have to go check it out in person. Given the timeframe (2 weeks), we probably don't have any time except to go to the Mottul portal (either leaving now on a FF or finding an existing portal) and hope it is is assault-able from that that side.
I guess to be my own devil's advocate, the trouble with the go-to-Mottul plan is there is not sufficient time to know that the portal is accessible from that side. We could go there and find out we can't take the portal and then have no time to execute any other plan. Without reason or intel to know that the portal is vulnerable maybe it is too much of a crap-shoot.
Taking the MFF with the other methods sounds dicey to me, too, but if we fail at one of those approaches, there are probably more options for a renewed approach. if we fail at the Mottul approach, we are probably without further recourse.
Alright, we can try the take it from this side approach. Of all the methods, the only plan that I've suggested that has any real appeal to me is:
Use Draeca and others to keep the Mottul FF and the Mottul army in constant storms
Position Castelleon in the path of the MFF (with storm cover, the positioning could happen just a few hours before MFF approached so it would not be necessary to know their path with any great foresight)
When they get within a mile or closer, pop Castelleon into the air and board MFF from it. Might not be able to physically get the two touching but could probably get the castles within a few hundred feet. At that distance, Draeca could airwalk the non-flying folks over in seconds if we had a good wind at our back (which we would with the storm in place).
get as many other troops across as flying allows. Try to get castelleon into boarding distance to board (probably can't but might distract them trying to avoid that).
Then we'd fight like hell. Still would give them time to put the magic defenses up. Probably nothing but finding a way to sneak right into the control room would prevent that. But we could attack before they deployed the garrison or summoned many troops through the portal. We'd have to fight through to the portal and shut it down as quickly as possible.
Still a risky, go-get-her kind of plan. I'm open to other suggestions but if no one cares to venture one soon, we should just start pursuing this one.
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
I don't know...after reading Marc's last post, I am liking the sneaky, go through Mottul and secure the portal ourselves.
Does anybody else have an opinon as to which tatic we take?
I don't know...after reading Marc's last post, I am liking the sneaky, go through Mottul and secure the portal ourselves.
Does anybody else have an opinon as to which tatic we take?
One problem I have about the mottul path is not knowing until we are there that it is feasible. And it occurs to me that there is a way to find out: we interrogate a captive. Remember in this world not all demons are pure evil and in any case, it is traditional to ransom, not slaughter captives.
Maybe Fina already has a captive or maybe we can take one. We can interrogate them about the army on the otherside reasonably enough without revealing out intent (to ascertain how well guarded the portal is).
Could save a trip...
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
In the interests of moving this discussion along and since the two active folks on this thread prefer the Mottul route, Draeca with Kestrel's assistance (I hope) does the following:
Draeca interrogates any non-undead captives using her diplomacy with dragon voice (+30 or so). She conducts the interrogation as a general fishing for info starting with how the individual got here from Mottul and what they were doing in Eidos but obviously looking for info on what situation at the gate in Mottul is like. She'd like Leg and a few other heavies to back her up on the interrogations. She would like to coordinate with Fina so that she could offer freedom to a captive for the right info (release to occur after the mission).
Draeca tasks the two pathfinders with learning everything they can about the MFF portal(s) and the Mottul to MFF portal at the Mottul side and portal routes to Mottul that we can use to get there.
Draeca tasks Princep's castellon with researching information on the MFF floorplan as well as magic defenses.
Kestrel is to gather useful magic items, including but not limited to the potions and scrolls above. We will use party treasure, including Fina's treasure bounty to acquire this. People should not assume they have any funds distributed from this in the meantime. However, they can make a request, say, for instance, if you need to buff an ancestral relic.
Draeca is going to converts all spare party cash to gems for use in bribes (for extracting info, maybe for passing through Mottul). Preferably in denominations inthe 1000GP range.
Draeca is going to convert 10,000GP of party cash to spell components for true seeing and stoneskin. She will take this as an advance on her loot share if necessary but would prefer it to be considered party stuff.
BTW Draeca won't talk to captured undead, if there is any. She will not treat with them unless they are looking for absolution before being destroyed.
Comments? Thoughts?
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
Party treasure from our last outing works out to be 82,266 per player (this includes Fina's bonus). Please remember that this is for both your PC's so in my case it actually works out to 41,133 for Gel and 41,133 for Leg.
I like the idea of using Mottul's portal to get to the FF. I am less inclined towards a frontal assault for all the reason's Marc listed above. I think grabbing a captive and interrogating for intelligence is a great idea.
I'm for using some party treasure to fund the purchase of potions and scrolls and also bribes if need be. If we used 10,000 gp from the loot then that would leave us with shares of 78,933 per player.
Chris, what information can Fina's advisors provide us on the MFF?
__________________ Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!
Azz is all for using some of the loot to buy party items like Draca has mentioned.
Fina's sources have come up with some interesting news:
First, from one of her spies that is on Mottul holding the Edios gate. Mottul does indeed have an army of undead ready to launch through the portal. they are close to the portal but not right on the door step. If done correctly a small diversion coupled with some invisiability magic should get you through the portal. you'll have to trust to luck that you are not detected going through but getting through should be a minor problem.
Second, her scribes have located a very old set of diagram's showing the Mottul fortress. they are transcribing them now so you can use them. They will not stand up to much handling in the condition they are in right now. They will be ready by the time you leave.
Thrid, Fina has a spy on the Mottul FF. She just recieved word from her agent that he is indeed on the FF and is in a position to help when the attack on her lands starts. She is pretty confident in this agent but will not take the risk of sending any instructions too soon. She will send instructions once you are rady to go through the portal.
Fourth at your request Fina sent out raiding parties tasked with caputring high ranking Mottul Foreces - living forces. the raids were sucessful and brought back two officers. Draca interegates them and they tell you the same info about the undead army ready to come through the portal and destroy you. they do not know anything about how the portal is gaurded but hink you are pretty stupid to believe you can take the FF and then use the portal to attack Mottul.
You also learn that the leader of this invasion is called Naxel. Draca also manages to pull this last bit of information from them. Naxel is a half fiend half giant and is apparently an up and coming military leader. this raid as the captives call it is just the start for him. They both expect that Naxel will be aboard the FF directing the attack.
Fina's Military advisors believe this to be a true statment and start making plans to try and cut off the flying messengers that will be needed to relay ordes to the army.
The party can find the following magic from Draca's list:
Wands
Cure serious or moderate wounds x3 10/12/40
Restoration x1 15 charges
Deathward (too high level for potion) x2 10/5 charges
Dispel magic x1 25 charges
Fina's sources have also found a tome describing how to silver a weapon. They thingk they can make it work but there is a 10% chance that the weapon is destroyed in the process and they do not know if it will be permanent or how long it will last. This can only be done to metal weapons. Because of the risk Fina will pay for all costs assocaited with this process.
Any one who has a post on this thread by Thrusday night will recieve 500 XP pregame.
__________________ Luck often will save a man,
If his courage holds.
Last edited by Chris the Bigger; 23rd June 2005 at 02:13 AM..
We've got a ton of money so I think we should buy every last thing on the last. Meta-game wise, I am not going to volunteer coordination of who gets what since I won't be there. We should give as many of the wands as possible to people other than Draeca. The wands' purpose is to let other people be mini-Draeca's. At the least Draeca's dragon Aura is a paladin and can use some of these. If anyone has these spells on their spelllists, then they can use them too. Dreace doesn't need much of the protective clerical potions either. But she may be best for all the scrolls.
Draeca's sword is a family heirloom so she is not going to have it silvered. Great news on the intel below. It should help a lot.
One thing I should have made more clear (although I did say a little to the effect in the earlier email), Draeca would have conducted the interogation without specific reference to the MFF because these people can theoretically be contacted by sending or what not and she did not want to reveal our interest in the MFF. She would start with the captive in Mottul and interogate them all the way to the point of capture with no special emphasis on the transit through the MFF.
On a personal note, a half fiend, half giant sounds pretty challening but we have one of our own and can let Gel take care of him
__________________ Marc
___
Certain death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
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