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Fralex's Campaign Journal: Princes of the Apocalypse - Session 5 added
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<blockquote data-quote="Fralex" data-source="post: 6639614" data-attributes="member: 6785902"><p><strong>Fralex's Campaign Journal: PotA Session 2 Added</strong></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 22px">Session 2</span></p><p>I haven't decided whether or not to keep the spoilers, but for now I'll leave them as-is. When I have the spare time I'll try going back and changing them.</p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Part 1: In Which We Just Sort of Make Things Up As We Go</span></p><p></p><p>[sblock=The only losers at improv are the audience]So we had convinced them we were traveling performers. And then we got hired to put on a show. Tonight. Well, we were sorta stuck with that story at this point, and refusing might look suspicious, so we just hoped for the best. The tower was apparently called Feathergale Spire. Inside there were a bunch of large eagle statues, one of which hung from a chain near the entrance and looked rigged to swing down and impale unwelcome guests. We were lead up a very long spiral staircase, after which the DM made us all make Constitution saves. I was really worried we had walked into a trap, but it was just to avoid getting tired by the long hike. We all passed, except for the sorcerer (which makes sense, considering "his" predicament). </p><p></p><p>The leader, named Thurl Merosska, welcomed us with a very low bow and said we were welcome to stay in some private guest rooms to clean up and prepare for tonight. We thanked him and accepted his offer. Once we were alone in the room, we discussed what to do. Out-of-character, we were all pretty sure these people were secretly an air elemental cult or something, and we considered betraying them, but in-story they'd been nothing but kind and courteous to us. There really wasn't any reason to make enemies of them when they were so willing to help us. The performance we were expected to put on tonight was something of a problem, but the majority of us had high Charisima and we figured we'd be able to entertain these people somehow. I mean, we're adventurers; between our impressive class abilities and perilous exploits, it didn't sound as hard as we originally thought. And a giant feast would be nice.</p><p></p><p>So we came into the dining hall for the banquet. During the feast, we all got up and attempted to do something approximating entertainment. We hadn't thought to actually discuss what we'd each do, so the whole thing got a bit chaotic and disjointed. The rogue and goliath had jingly jester hats because of course they did (apparently from an earlier encounter in the story...? so many questions), and while the rogue and wizard worked together to tell our stories alongside illusory slideshows, the goliath decided he'd be a mime. Both were violently interrupted by the appearance of the sorcerer, who dazzled the audience with magic (I wish I remembered this part more clearly) and enhanced his performance roll with an application of Tides of Chaos. I got out of needing to put on a show by explaining I was the group's cook, though I offered to help prepare the feast (they declined). The food itself was perfect, to my tremendous jealousy, but I reluctantly ate it and even more reluctantly enjoyed it.[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Part 2: In Which We Turn an Ordinary Encounter into Complete Chaos</span></p><p></p><p>[sblock=Among other changes]My friends had succeed in entertaining the people of Feathergale Spire, and everyone was happily tipsy. It's around that time that a guard came running in, exclaiming that a manticore had been spotted. Thurl promised to reward an ornate ring to whoever brought him the beast's head. The people in the dining hall rushed to get their equipment and we did the same. Thurl even lent us each a hippogriff mount to help pursue the creature. The sorcerer's reaction was... strange. His bottom half lurched forward gleefully, while he shouted at it to stop and that this was a terrible idea. His body bending at weird angles, he eventually steadied himself on the mount, still looking very worried. The drunken observers declined to comment.</p><p></p><p>With that we took to the skies, joining a group of similarly-mounted knights. For the first few minutes we saw nothing, the DM having us roll checks every so often. One of us saw a winged shape dart by, but lost track of it in the clouds. Finally a knight shouted "There it is!" and we all closed in on the snarling monster. I was determined to make a good impression and confidently shouted it down as fiercely as I could. To my surprise, it actually seemed to back down timidly, which gave the goliath an opening. He swooped into melee range, JUMPED OFF HIS HIPPOGRIFF, and TACKLED THE MANTICORE IN MID-AIR.</p><p></p><p>The sorcerer was feeling less brave. He gingerly opened the bottom of his cloak slightly, developed tiny third arm on his stomach, and with a flourish it conjured a swarm of glowing darts that bombarded the monster. It was then that the Tides of Chaos came rushing back in a wild surge of haywire magic. He rolled on the Wild Surge table... and got a 77. Make a Wisdom saving throw to not turn into a sheep. The player nervously checked his Wisdom modifier. To his dismay, it had not spontaneously got any less negative. His upper half began shrieking as his lower half rippled and pulsed sporadically. Miraculously, he passed. Now, this next part I'm a little confused about, because it's sort of a weird way to interpret the rules. But it was pretty fun, so I didn't really care. The DM said that since he passed the save to not become a sheep, but he had still cast <em>polymorph</em>, he now got to choose what the spell turned him into. The effects would take place on his next turn.[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Part 3: In Which I Perform Additional Magic and Remain Confused by it</span></p><p></p><p>[sblock=Definitely less confused than the manticore probably felt, though]The groveling thing was weird, but I pressed on and closed in to give the manticore a taste of cast iron. I didn't notice it, but the frying pan was starting to glow white hot in my grip. When it connected with the monster, there was an explosion of heavenly flames and an inhuman shriek of agony. The goliath, still clinging to the manticore, was unharmed and proceeded to take viscous swings at its hindquarters, apparently trying unsuccessfully to remove its tail. The knights continued peppering it with <em>rays of frost</em>, the other members of the party made their own attacks, and then the sorcerer took his turn. And transformed... into another manticore. With a kid in a cloak still holding on desperately.</p><p></p><p>The goliath was too focused on the first manticore to see where the second one came from (read: his player had been away from the table and we wanted to scare him). He just saw it as it dropped down from the clouds above him and began fighting the first one. He was too unintelligent (his character, I mean) to work it out then, but chose to ignore it and continue attempting to remove that tail. He was <em>very</em> determined.</p><p></p><p>SO. To recap: We had a berserk giant riding a gradually-sinking manticore, engaged in an intense one-on-one battle with just the manticore's tail. I was circling it, bludgeoning the thing with a skillet at every opportunity. And a SECOND manticore was chasing it, pummeling it with claws and teeth, carrying a terrified child on its back. All while the knights, the wizard, and the rogue were taking ranged potshots at it. It held out for a few more rounds, but eventually the goliath sucessfully disarmed the tail spikes, delivered several devastating blows to it, and realized with horror he had just killed the only thing keeping him aloft. He desperately groped at the manticore-sorcerer (manticorcerer?) above him, but grabbed only air.[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Part 4: In Which Solid Ground Offers its Own Challenges</span></p><p></p><p>[sblock=Stupid trees]The goliath braced for impact, positioning himself over whatever part of the dead manticore looked softest, and activated his Stone's Endurance. When the rest of us came down to the impact site, we were relieved to see that he had survived, albeit with half his hit points gone. The knights then returned to the Spire without us, the hunt concluded. The bard suggested we forget about the prize and just make off with the awesome hippocampi we'd been given, but we still didn't want to make unnecessary enemies when we were being offered a place to sleep. Before we could really pull ourselves together, one of our darkvision-endowed party members shouted at everyone to get back in the sky, NOW. The rogue and I did so, and saw several arrows whistle past us as we climbed.</p><p></p><p>We were under attack by a party of gnolls. They were hiding somewhere too dark for humans to see, but the manticorcerer had darkvision so he responded with a volley of tail spikes. He tried to frighten them off with an intimidation check, but he hadn't gotten used to the manticore's weird facial features and ended up just looking uncomfortable. I don't think the wizard had darkvision, but he didn't care and simply cast <em>sleep</em> on the area. There was the faint sound of a few creatures plopping, but evidently that hadn't gotten all of them seeing as the arrows kept on coming. The rogue and I STILL couldn't do anything because we couldn't see into their hiding spot. On my following turn I lit a torch, pulled out a flask of oil, and threw them both towards the source of the arrow fire. Lighting up the area with a burning pool of cooking oil, the others could finally close in and fight the monsters.</p><p></p><p>The apparent leader of the pack responded with a bloodthirsty howl that seemed to invigorate the gnolls still standing, which were promptly knocked out by another <em>sleep</em> spell. Now it was just the leader who was up. It was then that I descended on the gnoll, throwing a burning flask of bacon grease at it. The flask burst into flames at its feet, and the leader decided now would be a good time to get out of here while it could. He got a couple yards away until the wizard put him to sleep ("you rolled the EXACT number of hit points it had left," the DM told him).[/sblock]</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Part 5: In Which a Triumphant Return is Made</span></p><p></p><p>[sblock=On hippogriffs, which we COULD just keep for ourselves, you know]We finished the sleeping hyena-things off, which felt a little cold-blooded but there was really no reason to leave them alive just so they'd regroup later. The leader we were <em>going</em> to interrogate, until it was pointed out that none of us spoke Gnoll and this was almost certainly just an ordinary raiding party with no connection to our main foes. The goliath severed the manticore's head, and the leader's head too, for good measure, and I picked up one of the gnoll minions' longbows, as I had yet to get a ranged weapon. The bard pointed out, once again, that we had been given <em>flying mounts</em> and nothing was stopping us from just taking them for ourselves, look, you guys, unlimited flight is really useful, all Thurl is giving us is a non-magical piece of jewelry, think about it. We said maybe we could negotiate getting a hippogriff instead of his ring reward, but we were <em>not</em> going to commit outright robbery when he'd done nothing wrong to us.</p><p></p><p>And so we returned to Feathergale Spire, two severed heads in the hands of the goliath. Thurl commended us for our service, especially taking out one of the marauding gangs of gnolls plaguing the countryside. We had earned his reward.</p><p></p><p></p><p>We really should've seen this coming. To the bard's dismay, Thurl made his saving throw (and we were all relieved that <em>suggestion</em> is subtle enough that he didn't appear to notice the bard's attempt at mind-control) and regretfully told us they were not his to give. He handed the goliath the ring, worth about 250 gp. He did, however, offer to sell us supplies and gave us a tip about some suspicious monks he'd seen heading towards somewhere I don't quite remember the name for, probably Sacred Stone Monastery. We slept overnight at the Spire, bought some supplies, and prepared to follow his lead.[/sblock]</p><p></p><p>And so my second session comes to a close on the dawn of Day 3. I got another 300XP or so, which means if this keeps up I'll reach level three next session. I thought all of this was pretty entertaining, which is why I decided to share it. I'd love to know what other people think so far! As long as these sessions continue being ridiculous, I'll keep recounting them here.</p><p style="text-align: center"></p> <p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?457971-Fralex-s-Campaign-Journal-Princes-of-the-Apocalypse-Session-3-added/page2&p=6651844&viewfull=1#post6651844" target="_blank"><strong>↓Jump to next session↓</strong></a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fralex, post: 6639614, member: 6785902"] [b]Fralex's Campaign Journal: PotA Session 2 Added[/b] [SIZE=6]Session 2[/SIZE] I haven't decided whether or not to keep the spoilers, but for now I'll leave them as-is. When I have the spare time I'll try going back and changing them. [SIZE=5]Part 1: In Which We Just Sort of Make Things Up As We Go[/SIZE] [sblock=The only losers at improv are the audience]So we had convinced them we were traveling performers. And then we got hired to put on a show. Tonight. Well, we were sorta stuck with that story at this point, and refusing might look suspicious, so we just hoped for the best. The tower was apparently called Feathergale Spire. Inside there were a bunch of large eagle statues, one of which hung from a chain near the entrance and looked rigged to swing down and impale unwelcome guests. We were lead up a very long spiral staircase, after which the DM made us all make Constitution saves. I was really worried we had walked into a trap, but it was just to avoid getting tired by the long hike. We all passed, except for the sorcerer (which makes sense, considering "his" predicament). The leader, named Thurl Merosska, welcomed us with a very low bow and said we were welcome to stay in some private guest rooms to clean up and prepare for tonight. We thanked him and accepted his offer. Once we were alone in the room, we discussed what to do. Out-of-character, we were all pretty sure these people were secretly an air elemental cult or something, and we considered betraying them, but in-story they'd been nothing but kind and courteous to us. There really wasn't any reason to make enemies of them when they were so willing to help us. The performance we were expected to put on tonight was something of a problem, but the majority of us had high Charisima and we figured we'd be able to entertain these people somehow. I mean, we're adventurers; between our impressive class abilities and perilous exploits, it didn't sound as hard as we originally thought. And a giant feast would be nice. So we came into the dining hall for the banquet. During the feast, we all got up and attempted to do something approximating entertainment. We hadn't thought to actually discuss what we'd each do, so the whole thing got a bit chaotic and disjointed. The rogue and goliath had jingly jester hats because of course they did (apparently from an earlier encounter in the story...? so many questions), and while the rogue and wizard worked together to tell our stories alongside illusory slideshows, the goliath decided he'd be a mime. Both were violently interrupted by the appearance of the sorcerer, who dazzled the audience with magic (I wish I remembered this part more clearly) and enhanced his performance roll with an application of Tides of Chaos. I got out of needing to put on a show by explaining I was the group's cook, though I offered to help prepare the feast (they declined). The food itself was perfect, to my tremendous jealousy, but I reluctantly ate it and even more reluctantly enjoyed it.[/sblock] [SIZE=5]Part 2: In Which We Turn an Ordinary Encounter into Complete Chaos[/SIZE] [sblock=Among other changes]My friends had succeed in entertaining the people of Feathergale Spire, and everyone was happily tipsy. It's around that time that a guard came running in, exclaiming that a manticore had been spotted. Thurl promised to reward an ornate ring to whoever brought him the beast's head. The people in the dining hall rushed to get their equipment and we did the same. Thurl even lent us each a hippogriff mount to help pursue the creature. The sorcerer's reaction was... strange. His bottom half lurched forward gleefully, while he shouted at it to stop and that this was a terrible idea. His body bending at weird angles, he eventually steadied himself on the mount, still looking very worried. The drunken observers declined to comment. With that we took to the skies, joining a group of similarly-mounted knights. For the first few minutes we saw nothing, the DM having us roll checks every so often. One of us saw a winged shape dart by, but lost track of it in the clouds. Finally a knight shouted "There it is!" and we all closed in on the snarling monster. I was determined to make a good impression and confidently shouted it down as fiercely as I could. To my surprise, it actually seemed to back down timidly, which gave the goliath an opening. He swooped into melee range, JUMPED OFF HIS HIPPOGRIFF, and TACKLED THE MANTICORE IN MID-AIR. The sorcerer was feeling less brave. He gingerly opened the bottom of his cloak slightly, developed tiny third arm on his stomach, and with a flourish it conjured a swarm of glowing darts that bombarded the monster. It was then that the Tides of Chaos came rushing back in a wild surge of haywire magic. He rolled on the Wild Surge table... and got a 77. Make a Wisdom saving throw to not turn into a sheep. The player nervously checked his Wisdom modifier. To his dismay, it had not spontaneously got any less negative. His upper half began shrieking as his lower half rippled and pulsed sporadically. Miraculously, he passed. Now, this next part I'm a little confused about, because it's sort of a weird way to interpret the rules. But it was pretty fun, so I didn't really care. The DM said that since he passed the save to not become a sheep, but he had still cast [I]polymorph[/I], he now got to choose what the spell turned him into. The effects would take place on his next turn.[/sblock] [SIZE=5]Part 3: In Which I Perform Additional Magic and Remain Confused by it[/SIZE] [sblock=Definitely less confused than the manticore probably felt, though]The groveling thing was weird, but I pressed on and closed in to give the manticore a taste of cast iron. I didn't notice it, but the frying pan was starting to glow white hot in my grip. When it connected with the monster, there was an explosion of heavenly flames and an inhuman shriek of agony. The goliath, still clinging to the manticore, was unharmed and proceeded to take viscous swings at its hindquarters, apparently trying unsuccessfully to remove its tail. The knights continued peppering it with [I]rays of frost[/I], the other members of the party made their own attacks, and then the sorcerer took his turn. And transformed... into another manticore. With a kid in a cloak still holding on desperately. The goliath was too focused on the first manticore to see where the second one came from (read: his player had been away from the table and we wanted to scare him). He just saw it as it dropped down from the clouds above him and began fighting the first one. He was too unintelligent (his character, I mean) to work it out then, but chose to ignore it and continue attempting to remove that tail. He was [I]very[/I] determined. SO. To recap: We had a berserk giant riding a gradually-sinking manticore, engaged in an intense one-on-one battle with just the manticore's tail. I was circling it, bludgeoning the thing with a skillet at every opportunity. And a SECOND manticore was chasing it, pummeling it with claws and teeth, carrying a terrified child on its back. All while the knights, the wizard, and the rogue were taking ranged potshots at it. It held out for a few more rounds, but eventually the goliath sucessfully disarmed the tail spikes, delivered several devastating blows to it, and realized with horror he had just killed the only thing keeping him aloft. He desperately groped at the manticore-sorcerer (manticorcerer?) above him, but grabbed only air.[/sblock] [SIZE=5]Part 4: In Which Solid Ground Offers its Own Challenges[/SIZE] [sblock=Stupid trees]The goliath braced for impact, positioning himself over whatever part of the dead manticore looked softest, and activated his Stone's Endurance. When the rest of us came down to the impact site, we were relieved to see that he had survived, albeit with half his hit points gone. The knights then returned to the Spire without us, the hunt concluded. The bard suggested we forget about the prize and just make off with the awesome hippocampi we'd been given, but we still didn't want to make unnecessary enemies when we were being offered a place to sleep. Before we could really pull ourselves together, one of our darkvision-endowed party members shouted at everyone to get back in the sky, NOW. The rogue and I did so, and saw several arrows whistle past us as we climbed. We were under attack by a party of gnolls. They were hiding somewhere too dark for humans to see, but the manticorcerer had darkvision so he responded with a volley of tail spikes. He tried to frighten them off with an intimidation check, but he hadn't gotten used to the manticore's weird facial features and ended up just looking uncomfortable. I don't think the wizard had darkvision, but he didn't care and simply cast [I]sleep[/I] on the area. There was the faint sound of a few creatures plopping, but evidently that hadn't gotten all of them seeing as the arrows kept on coming. The rogue and I STILL couldn't do anything because we couldn't see into their hiding spot. On my following turn I lit a torch, pulled out a flask of oil, and threw them both towards the source of the arrow fire. Lighting up the area with a burning pool of cooking oil, the others could finally close in and fight the monsters. The apparent leader of the pack responded with a bloodthirsty howl that seemed to invigorate the gnolls still standing, which were promptly knocked out by another [I]sleep[/I] spell. Now it was just the leader who was up. It was then that I descended on the gnoll, throwing a burning flask of bacon grease at it. The flask burst into flames at its feet, and the leader decided now would be a good time to get out of here while it could. He got a couple yards away until the wizard put him to sleep ("you rolled the EXACT number of hit points it had left," the DM told him).[/sblock] [SIZE=5]Part 5: In Which a Triumphant Return is Made[/SIZE] [sblock=On hippogriffs, which we COULD just keep for ourselves, you know]We finished the sleeping hyena-things off, which felt a little cold-blooded but there was really no reason to leave them alive just so they'd regroup later. The leader we were [I]going[/I] to interrogate, until it was pointed out that none of us spoke Gnoll and this was almost certainly just an ordinary raiding party with no connection to our main foes. The goliath severed the manticore's head, and the leader's head too, for good measure, and I picked up one of the gnoll minions' longbows, as I had yet to get a ranged weapon. The bard pointed out, once again, that we had been given [I]flying mounts[/I] and nothing was stopping us from just taking them for ourselves, look, you guys, unlimited flight is really useful, all Thurl is giving us is a non-magical piece of jewelry, think about it. We said maybe we could negotiate getting a hippogriff instead of his ring reward, but we were [I]not[/I] going to commit outright robbery when he'd done nothing wrong to us. And so we returned to Feathergale Spire, two severed heads in the hands of the goliath. Thurl commended us for our service, especially taking out one of the marauding gangs of gnolls plaguing the countryside. We had earned his reward. We really should've seen this coming. To the bard's dismay, Thurl made his saving throw (and we were all relieved that [I]suggestion[/I] is subtle enough that he didn't appear to notice the bard's attempt at mind-control) and regretfully told us they were not his to give. He handed the goliath the ring, worth about 250 gp. He did, however, offer to sell us supplies and gave us a tip about some suspicious monks he'd seen heading towards somewhere I don't quite remember the name for, probably Sacred Stone Monastery. We slept overnight at the Spire, bought some supplies, and prepared to follow his lead.[/sblock] And so my second session comes to a close on the dawn of Day 3. I got another 300XP or so, which means if this keeps up I'll reach level three next session. I thought all of this was pretty entertaining, which is why I decided to share it. I'd love to know what other people think so far! As long as these sessions continue being ridiculous, I'll keep recounting them here. [CENTER] [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?457971-Fralex-s-Campaign-Journal-Princes-of-the-Apocalypse-Session-3-added/page2&p=6651844&viewfull=1#post6651844"][B]↓Jump to next session↓[/B][/URL][/CENTER] [/QUOTE]
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