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Bill T's Second War of the Burning Sky [Spoilers, spoilers everywhere]
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<blockquote data-quote="Bill T." data-source="post: 7794364" data-attributes="member: 6795693"><p><strong>Dramatis Personae</strong></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Basel</strong>, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Dämmek, </strong>a human who can do some really shocking things with her greatsword.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Gusle</strong>, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Jesús Tillamook</strong>, a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle.</li> </ul><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><strong>Up The River (Paddle Optional)</strong></span></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Incomplete session summary from Basel. Yay!</em></p><p></p><p>As the group leaves the temple under the stone tree, Basel recalls that the little blue dracoloid has <em>Ego Whip</em> effect on the dreamer, namely Gusle, which, according to Crystin, explains the damage to Gusle's charisma. After a long and difficult negotiation where Gusle agrees to spread the word of what happened to Innenotdar, Hubert treats her reduced charisma. Gusle also asks Hubert why he didn't use <em>speak with dead</em> to ask the red-headed elf what happened.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Oh my oh my. Now they get to talk to Bhurisrava?! That can really open a can of worms, but at least it gives them a chance to figure out the significance of the Shahalesti soldier.</em></p><p></p><p>Heading away from the ruined village up the side of the river. Gusle sees the temple from her dream, it has an organic shape, like much of the local architecture, but the roof and ground floor have collapsed into the basement. As Gusle climbs the steps to the temple's entrance she spots four small fire creatures, one of whom rushes up the stone steps (up from the basement). The group presume this is an attack and respond accordingly. A brief battle ensues, but the fire creatures quickly figure out that they're just going to get hurt if they keep attacking one at a time.</p><p></p><p>Gusle figures out that the fire creatures are speaking Ignan and are responding to the group's presence.</p><p></p><p>Gusle chats with the fire creatures (which aren't particularly smart <em>[if you'll pardon the elvish understatement]</em>), but persuades them to let her enter the basement. Once in the basement Gusle casts <em>Detect Magic</em> at Basel's suggestion, which lets her detect some magical items buried inside the side wall of the temple. As she leaves the temple to rejoin her allies, she strikes up a stirring fiery song (still in Ignan) that leaves the fire creatures dancing.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>29 on the perform check!? Good heavens, they practically worship at her feet. I figure they need to come around to ask for an encore performance, but I'm wondering where I might go with this. A visit from the king of the fire elementals?</em></p><p></p><p>The group now has 3 pairs <em>feather gloves of Entras</em> (founder of the modern Knights of the Aquiline Cross, a religious order committed to healing) and 3 wands. The <em>gloves of Entras</em> allow the wearer to heal wounds once a short prayer is recited. The wands have 16 charges of <em>cure light wounds</em> each.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>I got some "feedback" about the shortage of healing magic, so I threw in a mysterious temple with the fire elementals that were supposed to be encountered on the river (didn't figure it made much sense there, since fire elementals can't cross water). However, thanks to the way I'd set the place up, the encounter turned out to be trivial. Thankfully, the elementals thought to negotiate rather than all die.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>The gloves of Entras are better known in some circles as a "healing belt". How a belt should let you heal people is unclear to me, and introducing the legend of Entras (who, no doubt, could Lay On Hands) was sort of convenient.</em></p><p></p><p>The group leaves the temple and start walking to the mouth of the White River. Due to the forest fire and the occasional thick cloud of smoke and cinders that covers the whole river like a tsunami of flame and can cause members of the group to catch fire, they decide walk through the edge of the river. That way they can immerse themselves in the water if they catch fire.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly what appears to be a flying goblin's head with no wings and several legs appears out of the smoke. It attacks Jesús after he jumps into the water in an attempt to escape a cinder cloud. Basel, due to a senior moment, (which is odd as he wasn't a senior at Gabal's School of Magic) fails to identify the creature and fails to land a single blow on it with his longsword.</p><p></p><p>Dämmek cleaves the goblin head creature in half, much to the chagrin of Basel.</p><p></p><p>As they continue to walk up river, Basel spots a quartz crystal pop up in the river and zoom towards the party. "Everyone out of the river!", he yells. People start to respond, except Crystin who kneels down in the shallow water and cups her hands. The rock creature jumps into her hands and folds its multiple legs away. Crystin places the rock creature on her shoulder, both she and the rock creature seem happy with the situation. After some puzzled looks and discussion about an appropriate name (which is now called "Crystal") the party proceeds up the river. The party reaches a waterfall with a temple/shrine at the top of it. Basel spots what looks like a unicorn peering around the edge of the temple, so he calls out "Hello" and waves, because why not, it is a unicorn, right?</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Crystin now has a psicrystal, to use the technical term. I've been pumping her spot modifier because, after Leeta's death, the party is pretty unobservant, and the crystal was an easy was to continue said pumping. None of us have ever used a psicrystal before, so it'll be interesting to see if anyone comes up with clever uses for one. Throw it into Lake Seela for a little <span style="font-size: 15px">reconnaissance</span>, maybe?</em></p><p></p><p><img src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsSb8tomI2TLgTJfFY5TWnecOLnrp4MCRl9oknPbjS76OOUYrBag" alt="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsSb8tomI2TLgTJfFY5TWnecOLnrp4MCRl9oknPbjS76OOUYrBag" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable fr-fil" style="" /></p><p>The unicorn responds with "Hello", comes out, and introduces herself as "Nelle". The party talks to Nelle about what they have seen and found at the ruined village, including Bhurisrava's final journal entry. Nelle takes them to a cave behind the waterfall to see the Despairing who are on fire and have been for fifty years since the Burning Forest started burning.</p><p></p><p>Nelle talks about "a child of Trilla" and something about "trillith" which possess(es) the forest and has taken it over as its body. Nelle mentions that she occasionally hears the song of the Seela coming up the river -- the song has healing properties.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>"The song has healing properties"? News to me! I expect Gusle will need to correct that at some point.</em></p><p></p><p>Nelle takes the party into the shrine (the aforementioned Mouth of the White River) and inside there is a large sculpture of a dragon & eagle chasing each other. Nelle invites them to pull some feathers and scales from the sculpture. Gusle, reticent to touch anything, stands aside as Jesús steps forward and does just that. The party now has a some bird feathers and dragon scales with magical properties:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Details elided -- you know what they are.</em></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><strong>Down The River</strong></span></p><p></p><p>Traveling back down the river a chrysanthemum of flame appears about 100 feet in front of the party. The glaive-bearing devil creature the party encountered before has reappeared and proceeds to attack them.</p><p></p><p>Basel cast <em>Ray of frost</em> and the devil resists it and even licks at it as it goes past. The devil does some damage to Dämmek with the glaive and until Basel gets past his senior moment and casts <em>Grease</em> on the devil's glaive which promptly slips out of the devil's hands and into the river. The devil teleports out of the river to the edge of the burning forest.</p><p></p><p>The devil starts chatting and negotiation with the party, in the same way an attorney chats when they are negotiating a contract. He explains that he is bound to the burning forest to prevent anyone leaving the forest and to retrieve the box of military intelligence. Gusle clearly states that we don't have the military intelligence.</p><p></p><p>The discussion changes to the Seela, how they have gone mad over the years, and how their singing is keeping the fire creature in/under the Singing Lake. The devil suggests that if the party can get them to stop singing the fire stag will be released and the burning forest would stop burning. The favorable outcome of this for the devil is that it would no longer be bound to the forest. After some discussion Basel agrees with the devil that the party will try to release the fire stag -- there is some unease in the party about making deals with a devil.</p><p></p><p>Basel tries to use the gloves of Entras to heal Dämmek but fails. Gusle does a better job and heals Dämmek.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Yup, time to introduce the "wounding" property. I'm not sure they understood what was going on.</em></p><p></p><p>The rest of the journey back to the tower on the bridge is uneventful. Though, when everyone is settling down for the night, Crystin touches the bag of dream seeds gets a distant and dreamy look in her eyes and speaks draconic in a very deep voice "Return to the mother; captive in freedom; wake up! wake up!". The dream seeds are quickly removed from Crystin's grasp as no one wants a repeat performance with the dracoloid. Basel is puzzled by this event especially as Crystin denies knowing how to speak draconic and questions out loud to the group if this was related to the fire stag.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Hmm, they seem to have decided that the dream seeds <strong>cause </strong>the dream elemental. That's unfortunate, given how potentially powerful the seeds are.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>More unfortunate is that the notes end here, so they don't have any record of Tiljann's Story. This has been a long break between sessions, so here's to hoping they remember some of those important details.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Edit: Hard grammar is. Speling, too.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bill T., post: 7794364, member: 6795693"] [B]Dramatis Personae[/B] [LIST] [*][B]Basel[/B], an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker. [*][B]Dämmek, [/B]a human who can do some really shocking things with her greatsword. [*][B]Gusle[/B], a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus. [*][B]Jesús Tillamook[/B], a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle. [/LIST] [SIZE=5][B]Up The River (Paddle Optional)[/B][/SIZE] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT][I]Incomplete session summary from Basel. Yay![/I][/INDENT] As the group leaves the temple under the stone tree, Basel recalls that the little blue dracoloid has [I]Ego Whip[/I] effect on the dreamer, namely Gusle, which, according to Crystin, explains the damage to Gusle's charisma. After a long and difficult negotiation where Gusle agrees to spread the word of what happened to Innenotdar, Hubert treats her reduced charisma. Gusle also asks Hubert why he didn't use [I]speak with dead[/I] to ask the red-headed elf what happened. [INDENT][I]Oh my oh my. Now they get to talk to Bhurisrava?! That can really open a can of worms, but at least it gives them a chance to figure out the significance of the Shahalesti soldier.[/I][/INDENT] Heading away from the ruined village up the side of the river. Gusle sees the temple from her dream, it has an organic shape, like much of the local architecture, but the roof and ground floor have collapsed into the basement. As Gusle climbs the steps to the temple's entrance she spots four small fire creatures, one of whom rushes up the stone steps (up from the basement). The group presume this is an attack and respond accordingly. A brief battle ensues, but the fire creatures quickly figure out that they're just going to get hurt if they keep attacking one at a time. Gusle figures out that the fire creatures are speaking Ignan and are responding to the group's presence. Gusle chats with the fire creatures (which aren't particularly smart [I][if you'll pardon the elvish understatement][/I]), but persuades them to let her enter the basement. Once in the basement Gusle casts [I]Detect Magic[/I] at Basel's suggestion, which lets her detect some magical items buried inside the side wall of the temple. As she leaves the temple to rejoin her allies, she strikes up a stirring fiery song (still in Ignan) that leaves the fire creatures dancing. [INDENT][I]29 on the perform check!? Good heavens, they practically worship at her feet. I figure they need to come around to ask for an encore performance, but I'm wondering where I might go with this. A visit from the king of the fire elementals?[/I][/INDENT] The group now has 3 pairs [I]feather gloves of Entras[/I] (founder of the modern Knights of the Aquiline Cross, a religious order committed to healing) and 3 wands. The [I]gloves of Entras[/I] allow the wearer to heal wounds once a short prayer is recited. The wands have 16 charges of [I]cure light wounds[/I] each. [INDENT][I]I got some "feedback" about the shortage of healing magic, so I threw in a mysterious temple with the fire elementals that were supposed to be encountered on the river (didn't figure it made much sense there, since fire elementals can't cross water). However, thanks to the way I'd set the place up, the encounter turned out to be trivial. Thankfully, the elementals thought to negotiate rather than all die.[/I][/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT][I]The gloves of Entras are better known in some circles as a "healing belt". How a belt should let you heal people is unclear to me, and introducing the legend of Entras (who, no doubt, could Lay On Hands) was sort of convenient.[/I][/INDENT] The group leaves the temple and start walking to the mouth of the White River. Due to the forest fire and the occasional thick cloud of smoke and cinders that covers the whole river like a tsunami of flame and can cause members of the group to catch fire, they decide walk through the edge of the river. That way they can immerse themselves in the water if they catch fire. Suddenly what appears to be a flying goblin's head with no wings and several legs appears out of the smoke. It attacks Jesús after he jumps into the water in an attempt to escape a cinder cloud. Basel, due to a senior moment, (which is odd as he wasn't a senior at Gabal's School of Magic) fails to identify the creature and fails to land a single blow on it with his longsword. Dämmek cleaves the goblin head creature in half, much to the chagrin of Basel. As they continue to walk up river, Basel spots a quartz crystal pop up in the river and zoom towards the party. "Everyone out of the river!", he yells. People start to respond, except Crystin who kneels down in the shallow water and cups her hands. The rock creature jumps into her hands and folds its multiple legs away. Crystin places the rock creature on her shoulder, both she and the rock creature seem happy with the situation. After some puzzled looks and discussion about an appropriate name (which is now called "Crystal") the party proceeds up the river. The party reaches a waterfall with a temple/shrine at the top of it. Basel spots what looks like a unicorn peering around the edge of the temple, so he calls out "Hello" and waves, because why not, it is a unicorn, right? [INDENT][I]Crystin now has a psicrystal, to use the technical term. I've been pumping her spot modifier because, after Leeta's death, the party is pretty unobservant, and the crystal was an easy was to continue said pumping. None of us have ever used a psicrystal before, so it'll be interesting to see if anyone comes up with clever uses for one. Throw it into Lake Seela for a little [SIZE=4]reconnaissance[/SIZE], maybe?[/I][/INDENT] [IMG align="left" alt="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsSb8tomI2TLgTJfFY5TWnecOLnrp4MCRl9oknPbjS76OOUYrBag"]https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsSb8tomI2TLgTJfFY5TWnecOLnrp4MCRl9oknPbjS76OOUYrBag[/IMG] The unicorn responds with "Hello", comes out, and introduces herself as "Nelle". The party talks to Nelle about what they have seen and found at the ruined village, including Bhurisrava's final journal entry. Nelle takes them to a cave behind the waterfall to see the Despairing who are on fire and have been for fifty years since the Burning Forest started burning. Nelle talks about "a child of Trilla" and something about "trillith" which possess(es) the forest and has taken it over as its body. Nelle mentions that she occasionally hears the song of the Seela coming up the river -- the song has healing properties. [INDENT][I]"The song has healing properties"? News to me! I expect Gusle will need to correct that at some point.[/I][/INDENT] Nelle takes the party into the shrine (the aforementioned Mouth of the White River) and inside there is a large sculpture of a dragon & eagle chasing each other. Nelle invites them to pull some feathers and scales from the sculpture. Gusle, reticent to touch anything, stands aside as Jesús steps forward and does just that. The party now has a some bird feathers and dragon scales with magical properties: [INDENT][I]Details elided -- you know what they are.[/I][/INDENT] [SIZE=5][B]Down The River[/B][/SIZE] Traveling back down the river a chrysanthemum of flame appears about 100 feet in front of the party. The glaive-bearing devil creature the party encountered before has reappeared and proceeds to attack them. Basel cast [I]Ray of frost[/I] and the devil resists it and even licks at it as it goes past. The devil does some damage to Dämmek with the glaive and until Basel gets past his senior moment and casts [I]Grease[/I] on the devil's glaive which promptly slips out of the devil's hands and into the river. The devil teleports out of the river to the edge of the burning forest. The devil starts chatting and negotiation with the party, in the same way an attorney chats when they are negotiating a contract. He explains that he is bound to the burning forest to prevent anyone leaving the forest and to retrieve the box of military intelligence. Gusle clearly states that we don't have the military intelligence. The discussion changes to the Seela, how they have gone mad over the years, and how their singing is keeping the fire creature in/under the Singing Lake. The devil suggests that if the party can get them to stop singing the fire stag will be released and the burning forest would stop burning. The favorable outcome of this for the devil is that it would no longer be bound to the forest. After some discussion Basel agrees with the devil that the party will try to release the fire stag -- there is some unease in the party about making deals with a devil. Basel tries to use the gloves of Entras to heal Dämmek but fails. Gusle does a better job and heals Dämmek. [INDENT][I]Yup, time to introduce the "wounding" property. I'm not sure they understood what was going on.[/I][/INDENT] The rest of the journey back to the tower on the bridge is uneventful. Though, when everyone is settling down for the night, Crystin touches the bag of dream seeds gets a distant and dreamy look in her eyes and speaks draconic in a very deep voice "Return to the mother; captive in freedom; wake up! wake up!". The dream seeds are quickly removed from Crystin's grasp as no one wants a repeat performance with the dracoloid. Basel is puzzled by this event especially as Crystin denies knowing how to speak draconic and questions out loud to the group if this was related to the fire stag. [INDENT][I]Hmm, they seem to have decided that the dream seeds [B]cause [/B]the dream elemental. That's unfortunate, given how potentially powerful the seeds are.[/I][/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT][I]More unfortunate is that the notes end here, so they don't have any record of Tiljann's Story. This has been a long break between sessions, so here's to hoping they remember some of those important details.[/I][/INDENT] [INDENT][/INDENT] [INDENT][I]Edit: Hard grammar is. Speling, too.[/I][/INDENT] [/QUOTE]
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