Describe your last RPG session in more than 5 words.

[uzirath]

Ran my first GenCon Online game.

How did it go?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

How did it go?

Really well! The games I played in this year were kind of disappointing for the first time, which is frustrating as a forever DM, but my game went off great. Everyone really got into the adventure and, entertainingly, took different approaches than my regular/playtest group did, which made it more fun for me to DM.

I think I might try two different sessions next year, one at the beginning of GenCon Online and one at the end.

 

[John Dallman]

Lots of people were looking for Yalazar. He turned up: something incredibly evil appeared outside the city's south gate, nailed him to it, and vanished. Most of his memories have been wiped, and he's utterly insane. He only remembers the first ten years of his life. We're currently baffled.

We now know what happened, and a fair bit of why. The One True Church of Evil, a religion confined to Avalon, has been in possession of the essential principle of evil for over a year. They acquired it in an auction run by demons, and the price they offered was killing 15% of the world's population within a year. They failed to deliver on that, owing to annoying adventurers, but had retained control of the principle. It was incarnated in an illithid who was the chief priest of the religion. That was quite odd, because illithids are never seen in Avalon, except for that one.

It was that chief priest who nailed Xalazar to the gate, because while he was a member of the church, he'd been attracting far too much attention. That was a fair point: investigating his activities has revealed a network of hidden temples. The chief priest's operatic villainy has also been attracting too much attention, to the point that a bunch of much higher-level adventurers showed up at one of the hidden temple sites, killed the guardians and witnessed the assassination of the chief priest by his juniors.

They also captured a priest and an associated witch alive. The corpses of church members are normally unresponsive to Speak with Dead or raising, and that's still the case with the ones from this fight. The living captives are being kept unconscious under really high-quality medical attention while their memories are read in fine detail for years back. And yes, we're alert to the possibility the information in them might be planted false leads. The priest's mind has clearly been significantly modified, and he was, after all, serving an illithid for at least a few years.

 

[John Dallman]

Ogre magi steal 3,000,000 gp.

Monday's Avalon session.

We'd been asked to head north to an area we know well, because there's a really severe winter happening (10' of settled snow), we have good travel and weather-protection magic, there have been attacks by the likes of dire wolves and bugbears, and the Breston Army are a bit busy with all the other things going on.

We'd reached the centre of the area we're looking after when in the middle of the night we were called out to the northernmost village in the area (and in the realm) which is mostly populated by dwarves and mines precious metals. Our fastest sub-group got there 2.5 hours later via an item of Wind Walk, while the rest of us followed by flying carpet, taking 6 hours.

The fight was over when the fast group (Wizard, ranger and ranger/cleric) got there. Two of the sturdy buildings, a temple and a forge, plus the mine entrance, were blocked by huge masses of ice. Those were cleared relatively quickly via Dispel Magics and Control Temperature 10' radius, revealing the whole population of the village, some injured but none dead.

They had been attacked by 25 ogres, who charged the gate, which was mysteriously unlocked and un-barred. The mystery was explained when an ogre mage was sighted when she did an offensive spell, after which she went invisible again. The ogres had a large supply of snowballs which acted much like Web spells made of ice and incapacitated the defenders who were hit by them. They captured enough of the non-combatants to force a surrender, then blocked them into the places where we found them. They then evidently broke into the treasuries where the metals (and some gems that get found) were stored and made off with the aforesaid 3,000,000 gp (rounded) worth of loot.

The fast group made sure that nobody was in danger of dying and then went after the ogres, using Commune with Nature to get a direction, and spotting them from Wind Walk. The ogres surrendered instantly when the ambush went off, explaining that the ogre magi had required them to make the attack or be frozen to death, but they'd refused to kill anyone because of the reputation of the Breston Army. They had no idea where the ogre magi had gone with the loot, but they didn't have any of it. The characters on the scene let all of them except the leader go, without their weapons, charmed the leader and marched him back, arriving a few minutes before the carpet party.

I'll explain the Breston Army tomorrow.

 

[John Dallman]

I'll explain the Breston Army tomorrow.

The realm of Landcenter occupies the central "neck" of Avalon's only known continent. It has a capital city, Breston, several towns, and many villages. It used to have several larger town, but they were destroyed in a recent event, "Skyfall", which involved orbital kinetic strikes on many large settlements across the continent. The reasons for that require a post of their own.

At the player level, Breston was started as an instance of the old Judges Guild city pack "The City State of the Invincible Overlord." As things usually do in Avalon, it became unconventional fairly quickly. Its armed forces come in three separate groups:

• All healthy young adults of Landcentre do two years of national service in the Breston Militia. This is mostly not a combat force, but provides training in travelling, survival and adventuring skills. If you have the talent to become an adventurer, you'll usually have had your specialist training before doing your militia service, which completes your training to first level.
• The Breston Guard is a professional fighting force, much smaller than the militia, which does patrolling, guarding and backs up law enforcement.
• The Breston Army is composed of adventurers, all name level or higher. They recruit by invitation. If you're a member, you commit half your time to working for them, and the rest of the time you have access to their laboratories, libraries and other high-quality facilities. There are a thousand-plus members. This makes Breston formidable, because among a thousand adventurers, you're bound to find someone with the weird special ability or one-shot magic item to solve almost any problem.

Where does Breston get a thousand adventurers? How can there be enough activity to keep replacing them as they grow old, get killed or lose interest? They don't get killed (without being brought back) often, and Longevity potions are the old-fashioned kind, worth ten years with no backfire. There's also an endless supply of adventuring activity, owing to the fractured nature of the world.

 

[John Dallman]

There's also an endless supply of adventuring activity, owing to the fractured nature of the world.

This is the key weirdness of the setting. Interdimensional portals open spontaneously, and reasonably frequently. Sometimes people or creatures come through them, and are then stuck in Avalon. This provides an endless supply of monsters to kill, and constant infusions of new ideas and cultures.

Supporting features include:

As far as anyone knows, this is how the world was populated. If there were original inhabitants, they are gone, or very well hidden, but see below.

The Great Portal is the best-known of the few that are open all the time. One can teleport safely to it from anywhere in Avalon. Teleporting to anywhere else is dangerous, unless you have an enchanted target portal. One can also travel to it from other worlds by any means that allows inter-world travel, and travel to any world you can visualise. This is occasionally used to discover worlds with specific desirable properties (for example, there's a business that makes good money by storing their Gems of Insight in a world whose time rate is much faster than most so that they recharge on a commercially useful timescale).

There are other portals that stay open all of the time, but they tend to have wizard's towers built on them. If a wizard is willing to tie themselves to a portal, they become much more powerful when near it, but less powerful further away. There is at least one permanently open portable portal, and the wizard who is attuned to it usually keeps well out of sight.

There are significant science fantasy elements, following the Arneson tradition. Avalon is in the universe that the DM used for his FGU Space Opera campaign, and has been visited by characters from that game. Since all the inhabitants of Avalon are unavoidably aware of the existence of multiple worlds, it was amusing to try to avoid blowing the spacemen's minds. The solar system is blatantly artificial. Advanced technology does not work within the planet's atmosphere, except within a few yards of the Great Portal, and in an area on the equator which is populated by kobolds who arrived in a starship a few thousand years ago.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Duke Zalto Rest in Peace

SPOILERS: STORM KING'S THUNDER

Having killed several fire giants and ogres already, the negotiations with a furious Duke Zalto for his Conch of Teleportation failed. He departed the balcony, but not before loudly proclaiming You will not leave this place alive.
He then turned to one of his kin and ordered him to let loose their slave-orcs to deal with the intruders.

The party, already spent somewhat, having dismissed their gnome guide early and in the midst of a forced march, decided to retreat into the safety of the mines - trying to put at least an hour or so distance from the entrance of the forge. They managed a travel rest (1/2 HD recovery) and set off for the yakfolk settlement only to discover the giants had caved in the exit. They returned to the bottom to discover a similar situation leading to the entrance of the forge.

So they sat, discussed and plotted for an hour (real time and game time). They used Etherealness (level 8) so two of them could discover a safe location some 400-500 or so feet from the exit of the mines to forge and then use Dimension Door for the remaining two individuals to teleport there. It is a good thing they did some scouting in their ethereal form for the forge's orc and hobgoblin residents were camped just beyond the cave-in as a welcome party for anyone that dug out. A group of fire giants was also camped outside at the top for a similar welcome. So that is what the Duke meant...

The ethereal party found that their allies could teleport to the room with the colossus (the fire giant's WMD) wherein Duke Zalto, his most elite fire giant (barbarian) and the two drow were discussing their agreement. The party had been late to the fortress and the drow had returned with Maegra (the ancient element of Gauntlgrym) now trapped in the Iron Flask. The dukes personal hellhounds were lying down, despondent bored with the conversation and awaiting the Duke to finish so they could go back to playing with the large black-burnt and many-holed iron-ball.

It was during this negotiation that the rest of the party decided to Dimension Doored behind a pillar, however the movement of the paladin in his heavy armour was enough to catch the attention of the hellhounds which ruined the party's ambush. Combat ensued and Duke Zalto was caught unaware with two Hold Monster spells during the fight. The Eldritch Knight-Diviner's portents and the Sorcerer's metamagic feat ensured the Hold Monster spells took. The drow immediately went invisible and unleashed a barrage of lightning bolts and Counterspelled the Sorcerer's Haste, while the bodyguard fire giant grabbed and dragged the large eldritch knight (Enlarge spell) a fair distance from his paralysed duke so the hero couldn't let loose a pair of critical hits [all hits are considered critical on paralysed foes].
The hellhounds breathed fire repeatedly on a water elemental summoned by a once-off magic item utilised by the Artificer.
In a critical moment of the fight, the large Paladin (Potion of Growth) closed the distance to the paralysed Duke and using 3 Smites yielded a record breaking 170 points of damage on the unsuspecting giant, which was enough, at that point, to kill him [party doesn't know as the giant is caught in a Hold Monster spell].

All light and ambient light within Ironslag was suddenly snuffed out and a cold chilling breeze washed over the enormous chamber mitigating the usual uncomfortable warmth throughout the giants' forge. The only light now emanating within the chamber was from the Paladin's blade and the burning red eyes from the duke's personal hellhounds as small flames twitched and danced from within their terrifying maws.

A pair of giant footsteps running down a corridor ended on the gantry which holds the colossus weapon above them as the still alive bodyguard fire giant gave out an earth-shattering cry of rage.


Are the Duke's words You will not leave this place alive about to come true? Are the effects of the darkness and chilling cold a Legendary, Lair or Mythical action? Is it colour or something else?
[Combat continues next session with round 4]

 

[ichabod]

Session #21, Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

About 10 sessions ago the party went through a portal they found on the second level. They ran into a group of gnome cultists. Their gloomstalker ranger got separated from the rest of the party and went down. The others fled to avoid a TPK.

They recently went up a level and found a raise dead scroll. So the cleric wanted to retrieve the body and raise it. The rest of the party was fine with this, as the ranger had their bag of holding, with all sorts of useful stuff. Including the skeleton of Nimraith, which the (grave) cleric had become rather attached to.

So they go down to the portal again, after going through a brutal fight with two two-headed trolls Halaster left guarding the stairs down to the second level. They get through the portal, taking numerous precautions, including casting aid and using the dust of disappearance they recently found. On the other side, they find the gnomes dead and half eaten. They are then attacked by an invisible creature (at this point, everyone in the combat is invisible, which is a bit confusing). They are having some trouble fighting it, especially after it nearly kills their rogue in the surprise round. The cleric casts spirit guardians, and the paladin gets some good hits in, and the invisible thing is on the ropes.

On the invisible attacker's next turn it fails it's wisdom save and takes 20 points of damage. This kills it. As it writhes in the grasp of the spirit guardians, it's invisibility drops, and it is revealed as a werewolf (a mistake on my part, it should have been a wererat). It drops to the ground dead, and reverts to it's true form: the gloomstalker ranger they had left for dead.

They had forgotten that he had failed a save while fighting a group of wererats who were trying to start a rat infestation in their tavern. It's just that the new moon hadn't happened until after they went through the portal the first time. And when he went down in that combat, he had made his death saves and stabilized. So the gnomes had kept him captive against the adventurers returning. However, he had transformed into a wererat in the middle of the night and killed them all.

Anyway, they took him back to their tavern, revivified him, and removed his curse of lycanthropy.

In retrospect I realize that I really handled this poorly. It doesn't make sense for one wererat to kill a bunch of cultists who nearly TPKed him and his other three buddies. Especially since

Spoiler: stuff about the cultists the PCs don't know

the cultists were a splinter group of the rat god, and would have welcomed a wererat into their ranks.

It should be noted that when the character first transformed, I contacted the player privately. The Monster Manual says when they first transform they get the choice to fight it (and remain a PC) or embrace the lycantrhopy (and become an NPC under DM control). The player felt that the character would totally embrace it.

 

[aramis erak]

Sunday Alien
The developed a viable ender to the Xenomorph (It's something covered in the module, actually), and refined it... And weaponized it as a virus. It unzips the Xenomorph's DNA....
They also fought, nearly to their doom, a bunch of xenomorphs...
it was brutal.

Going into Act III - but it won't be the act III in the book. They're all going to be broken beings.

 

[John Dallman]

Bard solo through stalemate warzone.

This was the Avalon campaign, an extra session out of the weekly cycle. The main Monday night party has a completely unofficial™ new job.

The large country of Greensward, to the south of our home in Landcentre, has been having a civil war for over a year. That consists of two of its northern sub-kingdoms, led by the Temple of Set, against the centre of the country. More recently, one of the southernmost sub-kingdoms, Coastmarch, seems to have taken over its neighbour to the east, Southmarch, and is making war on the centre. Adding to the complications, the city of Petersport, also in the south of Greensward, which spent 40 years with all of its people transformed into undead, has had most of them returned to life.

The form of government in Greensward is . . . repressive. The nobility are in charge of absolutely everything, and have a lot of control over their magicians and priests. Their peasants are bound to the land, and taxed heavily. Landcentre was founded by groups that left Greensward and headed north. They created a much more egalitarian society. So the idea of rebellions in Greensward is appealing. Landcentre has also learned recently that quite a few of the nobles of Landcentre are secretly worshippers of the "One True Church of Evil" which seems like another good reason to remove them from power.

Petersport killed off its nobility after everyone was transformed into undead, and now has a council-based government. It has no interest in being re-integrated into Greensward and is sheltering runaway peasants. They are still growing crops, but they get to sell their produce rather than just have it taken from them.

So Petersport is happy to cooperate with Landcentre in peeling sub-kingdoms away from Greensward. The Monday night party will be assisting with that. The "bard solo" was a PC, not part of the Monday night group, who spent a few weeks travelling through Southmarch and Coastmarch, entertaining anybody who wanted it, and learning what's going on there. The Southmarch troops are largely keen on the conflict, but there are almost no Southmarch nobles around, suggesting they've been eliminated or imprisoned. The stalemate is because there's a severe winter going on, with far too much snow on the ground for military operations. Lots of logistic preparations are going on to get ready for spring.