Lurker's 5e Campaign Journal

Evil Midnight Lurker · Jul 4, 2017

We're waiting for IatAotW, of course, but preparations are underway. This is a Roll20 game, played on intermittent Sunday nights (it's tricky when the DM and half the players are in California and the other half are on the East Coast).

Characters: Sawney Chert, a Spirit Medium aasimar bard, college undecided, natural-born thief but also natural-born good guy; Vikram Rao, Vekeshi Mystic eladrin paladin of vengeance, detective dedicated to the defense of the innocent and helpless but has a hard time believing anyone is either of those things; Ester Maris, Skyseer human druid of the moon who was guided to RHC membership by a vision; Randall Landshark, a Martial Scientist half-orc barbarian totem warrior whose totem is his college mascot (Go Owlbears!); and Vivian Cammish, an Eschatologist half-elf white-dragon sorcerer who had a prophetic epiphany about the end of the world and dealt with it by hunting down and murdering a couple of Komanov terrorist cells before the RHC caught up with her and decided they wanted her on their side.

"Ok, so we have 1. Streetwise Bent Cop with a heart of gold 2. ROGUE COP ON THE EDGE (not actually a rogue) 3. Agent of Destiny 4. Fight Scientist Cop, who may be the most normal of us all, and 5. Definitely Not Jack the Ripper."

Tormyr · Jul 4, 2017

Great descriptions.

Evil Midnight Lurker · Jul 10, 2017

Bonds of Forced Faith has gone well for both sides thus far.

The group fell for Deliria and Languor's double bluff completely, taking the ritual with hardly a question. Deliria escaped. Lorcan's player (Sawney Chert, above) is absolutely loving the king powers and is going to miss them when regular play starts. (Maybe he'll be king again someday. Time will tell.)

The undying spirits went down without ever getting to show anyone the horrible pain of their deaths.

And then there was Pernicity.

Melissa (Ester) immediately charged her, and with an excellent roll and a failed dex save managed to knock Pernicity out of the cauldron before she had a chance to fly. Then Tomas (Vikram) dashed up and grappled her, and from that point on it was just mopping up zombies and fey while maneuvering to punt Pernicity over the cliff.

Our short gaming night means we had to stop there, but a good time was had by all.

RangerWickett · Jul 10, 2017

It's really fun to design an encounter where "throw them off a cliff" is one of the preferred methods of victory.

Evil Midnight Lurker · Jul 10, 2017

RangerWickett said:
It's really fun to design an encounter where "throw them off a cliff" is one of the preferred methods of victory.

Indeed.

Other notes:

Harkover isn't proficient in Arcana. I'm guessing his proficiency in Religion is an error?

The adder-in-the-corpse trap was deftly avoided when King Lorcan tried to remote-bury the body with earthbending, and the presence of a hostile snake made that fail. Fire from Harkover revealed and killed the snake.

It took two fireballs and both grenades to thin out the zombie pile. Harkover was rather annoyed about their fire resistance. ^.^

One of the dark fey almost managed to wind-gust Tomas over the side while he was setting up the Pernicity-Punt. But only almost.

Thanks to the holy water, Amielle added to her list of historical accomplishments being the first person ever to kill a ghost with a gun.

Giving the silent shortbow to a player who is resolutely philosophically opposed to allowing villains to monologue, no matter how much information one might miss, may have been a tactical error.

There is a very real possibility that Lorcan may hand off the crown to Amielle, and I have no idea what that's going to do to the timeline. n.n;

Evil Midnight Lurker · Jul 17, 2017

Tonight, atop Cauldron Hill: the party Metal Geared their way through the first layer of fey, Tomas dominated both spirits, and the party snuck the hostages out of range. Combat proper opened with a fireball, clearing out several of the lesser witches, and the lion was dropped before the Contessa got to make her speech. There was the expected oh-crap moment when nothing hurt the Contessa, but they figured they could just drown her in her own cauldron?

Speeches made, battle joined. The spirits are trying to make an animated henge experience the pain of their deaths, all witches save the Contessa and one of the minor flunkies are down; Tomas and Amielle have destroyed the cauldron (sending it over the side, of course)...

...and then my apartment was hit by a half-hour blackout. :.-(

So looks like the boss fight will have to be finished next week.

Evil Midnight Lurker · Jul 24, 2017

Boss fight second half!

Sadly, the stone henges never did get to experience horrific pain.

The Contessa never was able to throw a working curse on anyone until Lorcan got two crits with the Royal Claymore and trisected her, since the death curse doesn't get a save to avoid. He initially tried to throw the kingship to Amielle only to be shouted down by Harkover and Melissa. It was quickly calculated that between the party's remaining heals and the King's own powers that the curse stood no real chance of killing him, so the party rode out the storm and decided to leave the actual decision for later.

Amielle pranked everyone with the "revelation" that Melissa was "obviously" in love with Lorcan, causing tsundere shenanigans.

The players assumed that Melissa would eventually succeed, so the timeline needs no rewriting. (Ester/Melissa was kind of annoyed to learn that she'd be assassinated 57 years later. So it goes.)

And now... we wait for Island at the Axis of the World. Any idea of the schedule on that?

gideonpepys · Jul 24, 2017

Evil Midnight Lurker said:
The players assumed that Melissa would eventually succeed, so the timeline needs no rewriting. (Ester/Melissa was kind of annoyed to learn that she'd be assassinated 57 years later. So it goes.)

Wait... what timeline? Assassinated how?!?