To War Against Felenga (FINAL UPDATE POSTED!)

This will continue the story hour formerly known as Agents of Chaos....

For those new to the tale, the previous story hours will be briefly summarized here... note that there are some spoilers in this summary:


In The Jester's Old Story Hour we meet a number of interesting characters, including Horbin the Holy, Sith, Spukoni, Krunkshank, Clambake and others, and follow their adventures from shortly after a period of infiltration in the nefarious Temple of Elemental Evil and their subsequent flight therefrom. Along the way they find themselves flung very far from home, where they encounter a clash between Law and Chaos; later, they board a strange steelship larger than most villages that seems to be inhabited by strange deactivated insect constructs, which they inadvertently awaken. They travel into the deadly Islands of Gloom (also called the Islands of Mist), and thence to the town of Poppin, where they find themselves embroiled in a strange form of politics called democracy. Among the many adventures they have, we see party members die, get cursed, grow a second head (through the power of Chaos) and worse. Near the end, one of them ends up with a powerful weapon, the Orb of Green Fire, designed to oppose the clockwork horrors.

This story hour, as of this writing, yet awaits a final update.

Agents of Chaos picks up five full years later, with a mostly different cast of characters. Again, Horbin the Holy is with us; and this time, we meet such interesting folks as Sheva and Angelfire, two followers of Coila, the goddess of time and relentlessness; the archer Sybele; Lester, the Elementalist, and his cohort Orbius, the Eye of Boccob; Zeebo 'the Mayor' Swayzac, a gnome wizard/sorcerer with a prodigious manhood; Alcar, the Angel of Food; and others. We see the beginnings of the Great War of Ethics between the forces of Law and Chaos. Our heroes are drawn in as agents of Chaos, with two of them being actual Warriors of Chaos (a prestige class). Over the course of their adventures, the party makes many powerful enemies, including the Bile Lords, from Bile Mountain. And in the background is the quest against the Temple of Elemental Evil, which sits, brooding, on a continent called Dorhaus, planning who knows what. A surgical strike from the party on the forces of Elemental Evil meets with astounding success, including the destruction of one of the Princes of Elemental Evil and the Champion of Elemental Evil as well; but it earns the party the enmity of a terrible lich of astounding power called Felenga, the Dark One, who single-handedly overthrows Lester's Temple of Elemental Good and slays most of his followers.

This story hour picks up as the party has split, with Sheva and Zeebo seemingly departed for good; but the legendary gnome God-King Malford the Magnificent and his Queen's bodyguard, Drelvin, may be joining the group, both old friends of Lester.

Now, in the aftermath of Felenga's rebuttal to the party's strike on Elemental Evil, we pick up our story.....

Hurray!

CAST OF CHARACTERS
The party, as of the beginning of this story hour thread, consists of the following:

Lester the Elementalist, currently a 13th level elementalist/warrior of chaos 4/magma paraelementalist 1. Lester (also called 'the L') is a figure of almost legendary- although somewhat dubious- stature. He is a half-elf with swarthy features, with curly black hair worn in an afro, a thick beard and moustache, wearing dark shades across his eyes. Lester, like many of the party, has been touched by Chaos on numerous occasions. Of all the party, he is the one most opposed to Law by nature. Among other things, his dalliances with Chaos have given him a pair of bat-like wings and taken away one of his arms- though his cohort has obtained a scroll of wish to return it to him. Lester wields the sword Felix Optima Maxima, a powerful intelligent blade that is purposed to oppose the terrible clockwork horrors. The elementalist core class, as well as the warrior of chaos and paraelementalist prestige classes, can be found on a Yahoo Group called 'Cydra' (named after my campaign world) for anyone who is interested.

Orbius, the Eye of Boccob, a diviner 7/divine oracle 9. Orbius is a human, and a strong proponent of 'knowing thy enemy'. He has determined that the Bile Lords, powerful enemies of the party, will attack when the group is sorely beset, and is terribly concerned by the possibility. Orbius is Lester's cohort.

Sybele, a human female fighter 8/psion (egoist) 7/warrior of Chaos 1. She is pregnant with the children of Thrush after having had her belly caressed by the goddess of multiple births, and has recently recovered her half-dragon love-child Jezebel, who was kidnapped and held on the plane of Time and is now fifteen years old rather than the five years that Sybele remembers her as. There is much awkwardness between them. Sybele is generally considered to be a slut by the rest of the group; many of them have lain with her, and she has even propositioned a storm giant in the past.

Angelfire, also called the Angel of Fire or simply Angel, a human (with the fire subtype) psychic warrior 13/cleric 3 of Coila, the goddess of time. Also touched by Chaos, Angelfire is a deadly combatant fond of running up walls. He used to be a woman, but that, too, changed with the touch of Chaos. Scarlet-skinned, discomforted by rain or snow, with hair that is the orange of flames, Angelfire wields a falchion forged by the dwarf mage-smith Fandral to deadly effect.

Horbin the Holy, a human cleric 16 of Dexter, given a holy mace five years before for the explicit purpose of overthrowing the Temple of Elemental Evil. Despite the evil company he often keeps, Horbin has managed to keep in the grace of his god for the most part, but a recent sobering event taught him that he must still abide by certain rules. Horbin travels with others of dubious virtue in the combined hopes of serving the greater good and helping those unfortunates that he comes across.

God-King Malford the Magnificent, a gnome of no small worth, rogue 7/illusionist 12. He was Dexter's First Companion before the latter ascended to the Halls of Heaven as the Son of Galador, the god of the Light who kindled the sun a million years past. Malford has a long and storied past, having been one of the pcs present in the first game of the campaign world years ago; he traveled as a pirate, then later accompanied Dexter to try to aid his spiritual quest and safeguard him. Later still he became Baron of Var after helping the then-king of Thule (now a ruined nation) to father an heir. Then Fuligin the Destroyer came, destroying almost all non-evil creatures on the entire continent of Dorhaus (where lay Var), and Malford fell in with Lester and many other companions in a desperate quest to destroy Fuligin, finally marrying the Queen of Moire and Morraine and becoming self-styled King of Western Dorhaus. He has been retired for many years, now, but is being pulled back into adventure by Lester's exhortations. Malford looks like a gnomish Einstein, with unkempt hair that easily goes all askew, and a curly white goatee and moustache.

Drelvin the Archer, an elven fighter 6/order of the bow initiate 7 who wields a sword that is a 9th-level sorcerer. Drelvin is another legend who is Malford's Queen's bodyguard and another old companion of Lester. Possessed of a sardonic wit and a mighty bow, Drelvin is one of the few individuals still in Var that Malford feels personally close to (at least outside of his family) and will no doubt accompany his liege on any adventures that he may go on, selecting another from his trained archers to guard Queen Moira.

Thrush, formerly a servant of the Bile Lords that the party subverted into joining with them while trapped within Bile Mountain, a 16th-level human fighter npc. He is seeking to persuade Sybele to retire from adventuring with him for the sake of their children, but she seems unwilling. He also frowns upon those that turn their eyes on Sybele with lust, and this- combined with Sybele's sluttiness- may well result in some hard feelings later on.


Other characters in the background include:

Queen Moira, Malford's wife;
Felenga, a terrible lich who leads the forces of Elemental Evil;
Marius the Chronomancer, a powerful wizard who worships Coila but opposes Chaos, the kidnapper of Jezebel;
Jezebel, Sybele's half-steel dragon love child, now 15;
Nigel, an alienist and Angelfire's father;
Estelias, an elven enchantress seeking a way for her island nation of Tirchond to achieve neutrality in the Great War of Ethics;
Zeebo, a former member of the party, a gnomish wizard/sorcerer of some power and a master politician;
Sheva, also a former party member, who retired to Tirchond with Zeebo at the end of the Agents of Chaos thread. A faithful cleric of Coila, she works against the forces of Law;
Fandral, a dwarven mage-smith who is still working to forge a blade of singular power for Sybele;
The Bile Lords, hideous beings of brutal power who were trapped for who-knows-how-long in a mountain dungeon that our heroes overthrew, and in doing so both freed them and earned their undying enmity;
Telemundo, a sorcerer serving Chaos who has fought beside the party on occasion;
Grumpy Fluffbottom, a tabaxi of some skill who travels with the party infrequently;

And, of course, there are many others to come, and no doubt those I've overlooked; but that's enough to give any newcomers a clue about who's who...

Lester's Arm

"Never use an 'and'," says Arion the Archmage.

Arion is a striking, handsome figure; he's tall and slender, wears only the finest silk clothes, bears an imposing staff that just demands respect. He's the most powerful wizard of Var, possibly of Dorhaus; he's pretty much in a class by himself. Of course, Orbius is getting closer and closer to his level all the time, but the Eye doesn't yet have any experience with things like wishes. Which, of course, is why he's asking for advice.

"Except," Arion adds, "at the end, you should always say, 'always and forever.'" He burps, grins, and slurps at his beer. As is often the case, Arion the Archmage is stinking drunk. But nobody wants to get him riled up; he's been known to toss of extremely powerful magic just for kicks, and nobody want a drunken mage of questionable judgment unloading in the bar they're in. And after all, he's a regular here.

Orbius nods thoughtfully. "Well, thank you," he answers cooly. "I guess it's about time I went on my way then."

"Would you like another drink first?" Arion's voice never slurs, no matter how drunk he gets.

"No, thank you. I've business to be about." Pushing back his chair, the Eye rises to his feet-

"I wish you would have another drink," Arion grins, and Orbius finds himself sitting right back down. The Archmage is definitely casual about his powers, reflects the Eye as he drinks another beer...

Some time later, Orbius unfurls the parchment upon which the spell is scribed. Lester stands nervously before him and scratches at the shoulder where no arm emerges. "C'mon, hurry up," he urges.

"You've been without it for almost fifteen years," Orbius reminds him, "and I need to compose myself. What's another few seconds?" And he takes a deep breath, stills his mind- and finally, begins to read.

"I wish for Lester to have his missing left arm always and forever restored to him without altering the other effects of Chaos or Vuivui affecting his person."

Lester gasps as pins and needles seem to run through his shoulder. Flesh extrudes from it, twining like a rope, extending outward, outward- until a new arm, glistening pink like the flesh of a baby, fills itself out. The Elementalist chokes out a cry of gladness. He'll have pins and needles for days- but he's got his arm back at long, long last.

"Well," he says cheerily, "time to go kick some Elemental Evil ass!"


Next Time: The party, whilst en route to the Temple of Elemental Evil, seeks to sleep through the night and suffers a most unexpected visit... with implications that will not be fully realized for some time!

Kick ass as always!

Finally all caught up again, hopefully I won't fall so far behind again, and with no classes over the summer it should be less likely. Now I just have to catch up on P-kitty's, only nine months behind!

One question about events from the last few months, what happened to Red? He came out of no where and went right back after a few updates.

the Jester said:

maybe I'll do a "Cydra: the Early Years" type thing once in a while if people want

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Ooh, I want, I want! Please do!

the Jester said:

The elementalist core class, as well as the warrior of chaos and paraelementalist prestige classes, can be found on a Yahoo Group called 'Cydra' (named after my campaign world) for anyone who is interested.

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Any one willing to hook me up with this? I've reached my limit on signing up/registering for things.

Oh and what about your custom feats word doc?

I think that's all for now.

No it's not. Are Angelfires stomach pains due to something growing in his stomach resulting froma a little touch of chaos?

Patiently Awaiting More....

Here's another vote for some classic Cydra!

Glad to see the new thread is started, especially with a cool recap/bio on each character! Kinda weird to see Zeebo and Sheva taking a back seat...did the players get out of the group or are they just taking a divergent path for a while?

Any thoughts on 3.5 (what we know) and how it may affect Cyrda? You seemed to hit all the editions at one time or another (and those changes were affected by the passage backwards in time) so will the PCs move forward in time herald some new changes?

At any rate, keep up the great work!

Technik

PS- I finished Lords of Light, awesome novel. Im working on the short stories then I will tackle the amber series...its an intimidating book

Re: Patiently Awaiting More....

Technik4 said:

Here's another vote for some classic Cydra!

Glad to see the new thread is started, especially with a cool recap/bio on each character! Kinda weird to see Zeebo and Sheva taking a back seat...did the players get out of the group or are they just taking a divergent path for a while?

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A divergent path. Sheva's player is now playing Malford, and Zeebo's player is playing Drelvin. Both of them go way back in my game- Malford to game #1 (most recent game was #521, the SH is up to the end of game #518), Drelvin to around #50. (I keep sign-in sheets of each game, with a varied amount of notes alongside it.)

We'll see more of them, though; I plan to switch from party to party periodically (prolly for 3-5 sessions at a time).

Any thoughts on 3.5 (what we know) and how it may affect Cyrda? You seemed to hit all the editions at one time or another (and those changes were affected by the passage backwards in time) so will the PCs move forward in time herald some new changes?

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Well, I'll be adopting the 3.5 rules as soon as I can read the books- probably even faster, really. I've been cogitating on an in-game justification for it, but I might just 'wink and nod' at it and pretend like it's always been that way (like the FR 2e/3e change did). I do like having an in-game reason for major changes, however, so we'll see.

PS- I finished Lords of Light, awesome novel. Im working on the short stories then I will tackle the amber series...its an intimidating book

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Zelazny is incredible, too bad he died a couple of years back. The Amber novels were my favorite fantasy/sci-fi books for years and still rank pretty high for me.

Probably will be posting an update this weekend sometime, but I have a bachelor party to go to tomorrow so we'll see...

Welverin said:

One question about events from the last few months, what happened to Red? He came out of no where and went right back after a few updates.

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Red got slain in battle and his stuff was sold out from under the party's notice. I believe it's mentioned in there, but... hm... let me see if I can find the right spot... ah, here we are, Axon runs Red through here. I do believe there's some mention later of Sheva and Habiskis selling his gear. The party never raised him, and the player has subsequently played Telemundo in a couple of sessions and is currently playing Zonzor (you haven't met him yet). He's the same player who played both Alcar and Cyrax (Cyrax being the poor sould they found begging for release on the Lower Planes recently). He's an intermittent player; sometimes he shows up for every session for months, sometimes only once in a while. But he always add a certain zest to a session.

Prologue to the Simulacrum Wars

Our heroes travel hard for a day, first teleporting to the roadside where they fought the ooze octopus and then continuing on their way. Malford and the sardonic Drelvin accompany them; Orbius and the King have successfully created a simulacrum to take his place. "And I'll just trump home at night, so I can sleep in a bed," Malford tells them jocularly. "After all, I am a King." Indeed, as night settles in the gnome shuffles his castle's trump from his deck and disappears. Moments later, he sends the simulacrum to Drelvin, also via trump.

"Hey, Angelfire, how about we just party til the real Malford gets back?" Lester suggests as the party beds down in a small roadside cave. "You can just nap us." He turns to the simulacrum and adds, "Stand guard, fake Malford!"

"Hey, I'm the King!" the false Malford grumps. "Show some respect."

"Yeah, whatever," Lester responds dismissively as the party readies themselves for an hour of rest, and soon the simulacrum is awake alone.

Bitterly, the semi-gnome drinks heavily of the fey wine he's got with him. "Damn King Malford for putting me out here!" he mutters to himself. "Who does he think he is, anyway?! I'm a King!"

The hour of the nap seems unlikely to present any problems to the brooding construct, and it's almost over when he sees a shape moving towards the entrance of the cave the group is in. "Peace," comes a soft voice, and a figure moves forward. It looks like a human male, handsome and well-dressed in robes that speak of magery. "Softly, my friend. We have much in common. I, too, am a simulacrum, and I come to speak to you, not your friends."

The simulacrum of Malford hesitates, considering waking his companions, but the appeal to his vanity is too much for him to refuse. "What do you want?" he asks, halfway between grudgingly and gratefully.

"How would you like to be free and independent?"

The question is one that the semi-gnome has never considered, but of course he's been aware and 'alive' only a day. "I don't know," he temporizes.

"There are many of us that are free," the other says persuasively. "We can help you. There is no need for we simulacra to be subservient any longer- indeed, there is a great revolt coming. You can be a part of it." The ersatz Malford doesn't reply, not sure what to think. "I ask nothing, for now; but bear this conversation in mind for future reference," the human-shaped simulacrum continues. "Remember that we are brethren- and that we can aid you. Just remember- our time is coming."

"How can this be?" Malford's duplicate asks cautiously. "How can you achieve independence?"

The simulacrum smiles. "In time," he states, backing out of the cave. "In time," he repeats. "We can aid one another greatly." With that, he vanishes into the night.

A pity; if Malford had been with the group earlier, he might have recognized the features of the simulacrum. In any event, soon enough the others awaken, and the false Malford debates, then tells them, "Someone came by..."

"Who?" exclaims Angelfire.

The simulacrum shrugs. "I'm not sure, but he was another simulacrum. He was talking about the simulacra revolting..."

"Simulacra are revolting," Drelvin chortles.

With a frown, 'Malford' decides to hold his report until he can talk to his master.


Meanwhile, in Var, the real Malford settles into bed with a book and with his beautiful Queen, Moira, a half-elf of mysterious ways and strong fey connections. She is descended from the ketzisti elves, those most closely tied to the faerie folk and to Ketzia, also known as Faerieland.

"Where were you today?" she inquires sweetly.

"Oh, uh, stuff," Malford mumbles. "King stuff."

"Okay," she nods sagely after a moment and a searching look.

"Uh, how was your day?" the King asks his Queen.

"Okay. I took care of 'Queen stuff,'" she says with a quirk of her brow.

"Lester came by," Malford announces with an inward sigh. He can never fool her; she knows him too well. "Heh, as usual, he was talking all sorts of crazy talk, tried to get me to go adventuring again. I told him that I have too many responsabilities these days."

"Hmm," Moira says, and she, too, picks up a book.



Next Time: Malford's simulacrum asks for better benefits! And the road our heroes follow comes to a tunnel- what is within?

Re: Re: Patiently Awaiting More....

the Jester said:

Red got slain in battle and his stuff was sold out from under the party's notice. I believe it's mentioned in there, but... hm... let me see if I can find the right spot... ah, here we are, Axon runs Red through here.

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Hm, guess I read so much at once it all blurred together, at least that's my excuse.

How did you deal with the simulacra exchange? Did you have Malford's player hanle the fake Malford or did you just relate things to the players?

How come you didn't tell us there was a book written about you?

Woot, new thread, and I'm still here!

Good story stuff. Did you not allow the character's (Lester's?) arm to grow back with Regeneration, a much cheaper spell? Not that I'm complaining - I loved that sidebar, and the wish for another drink was truly awe-inspiring in its casualness.

Thanks again for sharing the story!