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Wow! When I wrote the event, Cntxt and Sagiro read it and said, "Put in stats for the dragon's body. You know someone will try to go in through the body instead of down the throat!"
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Originally posted by Piratecat Wow! When I wrote the event, Cntxt and Sagiro read it and said, "Put in stats for the dragon's body. You know someone will try to go in through the body instead of down the throat!"
They looked at it and thought "ambush". They imagined crawling through there and into a faceful of duo-dimensional bears claws, and then thought again
They closed the mouth because they didn't want a little birdy flying out again.
Part of me was tempted to have Thimdrul escape in order to plague them in the future - he would have made a great recurring enemy - but I decided that he was really ensnared by the Dragonstone, and finishing him off would give them a sense of closure. Mind you, the next section which I've entitled "Revenge on the mountainside" gave them even more of a sense of satisfaction.
I'll just have to wait upon the brotherhood of mutables to find out stuff.
nb in my campaign the mutables (egoists) and telepaths are the two banned, evil branches - because with one, you never know who they are, or what they are doing, and they can suddenly sprout evil teeth and claws; with the other... well, just look at Mind Seed and that body-swapping one and tell me that those aren't thorougly eeeeeevil powers
Cheers
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Worst thing about telepaths: You never know if you didn't actually like them. You don't even remember anything bad about them. Everyone likes them. They didn't do no harm.
*Darklone buying everything to raise his will save.*
Dragging out the body of their foe, and momentarily leaving the issue of the crystal on one side, they check out the remainder of the room – and find a huge passage stepping down towards a cave mouth and the outside!
Very wary of an ambush, Trajan and M’ir work their way down the passage, using ropes that must have been left there by the goblins to descend to the first passage and then to the “balcony” at the cave mouth – a wide semicircular platform with piles of boulders, javelins and arrows. A quick search shows nothing hiding on any of these areas, so they start peering down the side of the mountain – and catch sight of a gnoll attempting to climb quickly down the sheer slope.
Grinning with glee, M’ir starts hurling rocks down the mountainside at the gnoll, shouting out “try some of your own medicine, you b******!). Trajan joins in with a few well-aimed arrows, and the gnoll is dislodged, and falls howling to his doom. A 650ft fall at that point makes for quite a long howl.
Checking further, M’ir’s keen eyes spot the goblin well hidden somewhat further down, and he starts launching a few more boulders. The sound of hammering wafts up from below, and they see the goblin gesturing at them ferociously as he lets out a long, long line of rope – then quickly abseils the rest of the way down to the scree slope.
Figuring that the goblin isn’t going to be a further threat, they go back to investigate the glowing blue crystal.
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
I was actually really pleased that they showed a bit of planning a this point - they didn't "lose sight of the mission" as it were... and they certainly didn't want to leave a glowing, mind-affecting blue rock behind them
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Can you imagine the stories he'll be telling all his little grandgoblins in years to come? I imagine his version of the events near Bellhold could be quite entertaining!
What a life for a spy, eh? Everyone out to get you...
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Originally posted by Plane Sailing Can you imagine the stories he'll be telling all his little grandgoblins in years to come? I imagine his version of the events near Bellhold could be quite entertaining!
I bet it will sound a little bit more like him standing with his back on the wall, heaps of fallen enemies at his feet as he fought valiantly against superior forces that kept him just barely from saving that crystal all by himself.
Last edited by Darklone; 12th April 2002 at 01:31 PM..
As they turn their back on the late afternoon sun, they can hear loud and clear the “bongs” of the wrymcall bell down in the town square, marking out the end of another working day down in the besieged town.
Returning the to dead dragon, their minds are being continually assaulted by the glowing crystal, throbbing away and demanding that they bow down and worship it (although it keeps getting distracted by the thought that it doesn’t have a body any more). M’ir gingerly pokes the crystal into a sack, hoists the sack up and attempts to smash it into the wall - and finds his mind viciously assaulted as it attempts to stop his breathing. Trajan likewise throws off an attempt to dominate his mind.
After a few rounds of these mental assaults, as if in a sulk, the Dragoncrystal says “You are insignificant to my plans anyway. Serve me, mortals, or it will be the worse for you in the long run”.
Trajan remembers the huge gem cutting equipment they saw on the creatures workbench, so they go back into the cavern and up onto the table, selecting an 8 ft long chisel and a similarly sized hammer used for splitting crystals.
Removing the Dragonstone from the sack and wedging it in a corner, M’ir kneels and holds the chisel steady while Trajan takes huge wacks at it with the hammer. With each ringing “clang” of the steel upon steel the Dragonstone flashes a bloody red, before returning to its normal pulsing sapphire blue glow. Chips fly off – but the crystal is extremely tough, and seems to regrow itself almost as quickly as they damage it. After three minutes of frantic hammering (and one wild swing which nearly took M’irs head off) Trajan is fatigued and the crystal looks almost as good as new.
What next?
“Perhaps” wonders Trajan “this crystal is like yours – just the focus, and his real power is elsewhere… Maybe in that strange glowing linked crystal thing we saw on the dragons workbench?”
“Right. Lets smash it” K’tan and M’ir agree.
Once again they make their way back into the cavern, grappling hooks are attached to the crystal construct, and with a few big heaves – it comes smashing down onto the floor of the cavern.
The shattering sound seems to go on and on and on, and on the floor where it hit, it almost looks like there is a shattering in reality, fragments of spacetime falling away to reveal…
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
A shining portal, a rainbow flash of colour and a momentary sense of something collapsing. Then amongst the crystal shards they are astonished to see a person - a young woman – quickly get up from the floor. A brightly coloured Macaw flaps to her shoulder as she steps back from them and brings her rapier up en garde.
“What do you be doing here?” she asks. “And why not be the dragon gristing your bones, eh?”
“Umm, the dragon has been dead some fifty years or more, that’s why” says Trajan.
Her shoulders slump.
“Fifty years? FIFTY years? But the dragon would torment me regularly in that prison – he would come every… every… I don’t know how often... It was a place of swirling greyness with no time to it…”
This was a little demi-plane with the timeless attribute which I decided that Copperdeath used to keep certain “toys”.
Trajan and M’ir try to help Marie-Anne adjust to the fact that fifty years have passed in the outside world while she has remained a prisoner in time. They discover that she is a sword-coaster, daughter of the owner of what was a reasonable merchant concern. She used to travel on her dads boats, and spent much time training with “uncle Jarr”, a renegade from the Scarlet Brotherhood (an evil band of monk pirates who plague the coastline). After a family tragedy she left the ships for dry land, training as a fighter and attempting to right wrongs throughout the sword coast and further inland. She can fight in the traditional two-weapon style of the Sword Coasters, normally using a sword biter in her off-hand. This and the distinctive tassels on her swords earned her much respect as she travelled the Southlands with her pet Macaw.
Finally, rumours led her path to a town under the domination of a dragon – more true than she had expected. The dragon found her mildly entertaining and more resourceful than most of his pets, so he decided to store her in a demiplane that he had once created, visiting her in order to torment or toy with as he pleased.
And that is where she has just been rescued from. What has happened to her family and friends in the meantime? What has changed in the world? She must wait to find out…
Marie-Anne is a Monk2/Fighter4, with the whirlwind attack feat chain plus a couple of other things. Replacement character for Azrin.
Together, they return to the main hall of the dragon, and decide what to do next about the dragonstone.
They decide that the dragons consciousness must reside in that crystal. Furthermore, it seems to not like loud sound. “What”, wonders Trajan, “About the Wyrmcall, the big bell down in Bellhold?”.
“You must be nuts!” retorts M’ir. “The thing has been twisting peoples minds down there for weeks – what is going to happen if we bring the crystal down amongst them eh?”
Lysander chips in - “What about we send Darra, Syl and K’tan with the children down the inside of the mountain, I’ll go down to the village and tell them that the children are rescued and get the townspeople to meet them at the old mine shaft. I can be pretty persuasive”.
The plan is agreed. Lysander sets off quickly down the cliff to mobilise the towns people. Trajan, M’ir and Marie-Anne follow carefully with the dragonstone in a sack. Darra, Syl and K’tan start to shepherd the frightened children down the slither ramp to safety…
Next: Ask not for whom the bells toll…
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Originally posted by Plane Sailing Marie-Anne is a Monk2/Fighter4, with the whirlwind attack feat chain plus a couple of other things. Replacement character for Azrin.
Next: Ask not for whom the bells toll…
Huih! Monk Whirlwind... Your players all seem to go for high will saves, eh?
Huih! Monk Whirlwind... Your players all seem to go for high will saves, eh?
Let it ring!
Well, she's mostly fighter but with a bit of monk because she is aiming for the "Sword Coast Duellist" prestige class, which requires tumble skill. I think that my Poet class (think a spell-less bard) would have been a better fit with the nationality, but the link in to the scarlet brotherhood is something I can use. What if "Uncle Jarr" went on to become a venerated elder amongst the evil scarlet brotherhood? See "timeless body" in action!
Cheers
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Bidding farewell to the others, Darra, K’tan and Syl start shepherding the children through the caverns and to the slither ramp, back down into the old mine. At least they got the easy job this time.
The children “ooo” and “ahh” at the multicoloured waterfall, but as they start down the slippery ramp one of the children turns to Darra and with big eyes says
“Mr, I’m scared” <lower lip trembles> “Please can I hold your hand?”
Darra takes the small little hand in his own – and suddenly finds his mind almost overwhelmed by a deluge of strange impressions and discordant futures! He takes 7 points subdual damage and staggers back!
The child steps towards him, with the same kind of glint in its eye that you might expect if he was pulling the wings off a fly
“Sorry mister, it was an –accident-“ as he reaches out to touch Darra again.
Simultaneously one of the other children looks over at Syl, who finds his arms gripped by some mental force – but which she is able to shake off. “Right, I’m going to have you” she says, drawing her sword.
“Wait, the’re only kids” shouts K’tan
Darra knows that he cannot take another one of those touches so he steps back and judging the size of the shaft carefully. Once again he twists his fingers and then points out towards the kids and a massive web explodes outwards, catching Syl and all three children. The small children have no chance of escaping from the clinging strands, and Darra then intimidates the child who attacked him in best full-on parental mode.
The kid who attempted to mentally attack Syl is still active but K’tan is able to use his far punch talent to knock him out. K’tan below, Darra above and everyone else trapped in sticky webs, they decide to wait until the webs expire (since they aren’t a dismissable spell that will be about an hour).
Still, at least the other guys must be having it easier, eh?
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
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