This is the discussion thread for the Ptolus: Midwood Story Hour. Please keep all discussion of the Story Hour in this thread. I'll be revealing a little information about creatures, spells, NPCs and adventures in here. But this is an ongoing campaign, so not every secret can be revealed.
Although set in the "current day" of Ptolus, this play by post campaign (which has been played daily since January 2006) is set at the other end of the empire, on the Prustan Peninsula, south of Grail Keep, near the border to Kem.
But although the adventures start off in the Barony of Midwood and the surrounding Tulgey Wood, soon enough, some of the adventurers end up on the road, heading into some of the more exotic locations of the world of Praemal.
And although they're a world away from City by the Spire, many familiar elements and names from Ptolus crop up (or are uncovered) in Midwood as time goes on ...
Into the Woods uses two maps from the excellent PDF publisher 0one Games:
Maidensbridge -- its name will be explained at a later date -- is a modified Wodfield, while the cairn Fibber directs the party to is the Ruined Cairn from 0one's Cairns set of maps.
The holidays the adventurers mention are from Top Fashion Games' excellent Fantasy Holidays series. To avoid stepping on their Intellectual Property too hard (the PDFs are all of $1 each!), I won't be explaining most of the holidays in detail. Blood Feast I explained to the extent that I did, because otherwise it would be an essentially incomprehensible reference.
All of the player characters are level 1. Emus Greymullet is a Grailwarden dwarf (see the Ptolus Big Book), so he's missing the anti-giant/goblinoid stuff that Stonelost dwarves get, and instead has a background with technological items. But he's a Grizzly Adams sort, so that's not likely to be obvious for a long time, if ever.
The Bergin gnomes are whisper gnomes and no one in the barony trusts them. Tosh's cousins show up in a later adventure and cause a lot of havoc just for the hell of it.
As you may have noticed, all of the player characters know each other. That was a conscious requirement on my part, as I thought it would promote harmony in the group. THAT didn't work out so well, but everyone's rich backgrounds have provided a lot of fodder for futher adventures, and some of their relatives get drawn into the fray as the campaign goes along, and more of them are in for it in the future.
As you may have noticed, all of the player characters know each other. That was a conscious requirement on my part, as I thought it would promote harmony in the group.
In point of fact, Tock robbed the bodies of the kobolds, taking a wand and other items. It's a wand of Wikanby's dragon bolt, which you can find in the Koboldnomicon from Bards & Sages Press. (Wikanby, his tribe, his spells and a few other spells are my contribution to that book.)
Is he going to use it later? Is he going to sell it? Is he going to "discover" it and give it to someone who can use it?
No ...
You will wince in horror when you see what happens to the first magical item encountered by the heroes of Midwood. (And it'll be the first time seeing it all happen for some of the players.)
Last edited by Whizbang Dustyboots; 28th December 2006 at 07:00 AM..
I so can't wait to see what the deal was with all that. I just knew Tock had taken something. I kept waiting for it to surface, but it never did...or so I thought!
__________________ "You know, my third cousin's great uncle by marriage was a grave robber. Well, not so much a robber, really. More like a grave borrower. He'd always put back what he took, albeit not always in the right graves. Hell of a necromancer he was, by all accounts, but his memory was for crap."
- Ebuferpaly Whitethatch Malpractice Bearscave Fancypants Potentloins, gnome cleric of Garl Glittergold, and caretaker to the Heroes of Midwood
"Supposedly, Drow sell. It seems like WotC believes that having the word "Dragon" in the title sells too." - TarionzCousin
"Me, I'm holding out for "Dragon Drow", which I suspect will be coming out in 2008." - RangerWickett
HA! I'd forgotten all about the butter. One of my favorite exchanges in the OOC thread came out of that:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Renraw
Ok, if you eat all of that butter, you're going to hell for ruining my grease trap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bufer
That's hilarious. It wasn't even intentional--I was just trying to be gross and weird--but eating the butter to ruin the grease trap after you guys have gone to all this trouble is exactly the kind of thing Bufer would do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Whizbang
Who else thinks that Bufer is destined for a horrible accident?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Emus
We need to keep Gnomes and Halflings around so that Emus doesn't become the butt of the short jokes. This is very important.
__________________ "You know, my third cousin's great uncle by marriage was a grave robber. Well, not so much a robber, really. More like a grave borrower. He'd always put back what he took, albeit not always in the right graves. Hell of a necromancer he was, by all accounts, but his memory was for crap."
- Ebuferpaly Whitethatch Malpractice Bearscave Fancypants Potentloins, gnome cleric of Garl Glittergold, and caretaker to the Heroes of Midwood
"Supposedly, Drow sell. It seems like WotC believes that having the word "Dragon" in the title sells too." - TarionzCousin
"Me, I'm holding out for "Dragon Drow", which I suspect will be coming out in 2008." - RangerWickett
The beast was a giant owl with the shadow creature template from the Manual of Planes attached. If I had the book at the time, I would have used the dark creature template from the Tome of Magic instead.
This fight was one of two encounters that illustrated that an unusually large 3E group really makes a hash of standard CR numbers. I overcompensate a bit in the next adventure (along with the players surprising me by dividing their forces), with dramatic results.
Renraw was a student at St. Feldin's College of Abjuration in Tarsis before he had to turn around and come home when his family's embezzlement was found out.
This was originally meant to be St. John's College of Abjuration, but I didn't pick it up since there was no pressing need for it, and I later substituted a Praemal saint once the Big Book was released. (St. Feldin is known as "The Faultless" and "The Rock of Faith.")
Over the course of the campaign, Renraw's player and I have fleshed out the college in dribs and drabs, with fellow students and professors being mentioned and alluded to. I've also tied a few Ptolus NPCs to the college, although the players haven't yet met them.
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