WotBS MrPereira's WOTBS D&D 3.5 Campaign (SPOILERS IN THE POSTS)

[Mrpereira]

The party

Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 5 / Rogue 2 / Assasin 8
Shaith – Fire elf Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/Druid 5/Arcane Hierophant 9
Killian – Human Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Mystic theurge 10 / frost mage 1

NPC

Lieutenant Waxillian Ricky – Paladin 15
Torrent, Cleric 14, fight 1
Crystin, Sorcerer 6/monk 2/ enlightened fist 7
Guthwulf, cleric 11/thaumaturgist 5
Augustus, fiend-touched ghoulish half-orc rogue 7/fighter 4
Etinifi the longwalker, spontaneous cleric 5/seela paragon 3

July 17 - continued
After listening to what Etinifi has to say about Leska and about the Trilith plans for Gate Pass the rather large party moves towards the shaft leading out of the prison.

DM Note: They are sure that they have quite a lot of time before the Festival of Dreams – December 31 is several months ahead, and they believe that their task will be to protect the city at that day. I guess they will feel rather less than thrilled when they realize that the resistance and the citizens of Gate Pass will define the day of liberty as the date for the party Anyway that will be part of the fun in chapter 9.

They take their time to ensure that no stone golems are around and then Augustus makes the climb. As Augustus climbs up, the party starts to think about whether this was a good plan. Especially the part of sending an evil fiendtouched ghoul ahead, to an antimagic field covered room full of enemies. Enemies, with whom they had made a truce, but had no idea of whether or not they would keep it…

DM note: I decided that Clark and his gang had gotten their full of fighting against the party, and that they would most likely be scared shitless at the thought of the minister of pain and his pet ghoul, so when Augustus appeared, they just kept silent and still.

They did keep the truce and one by one the party climbed out with the help of the lift and chains, except Etinifi who just flew up last, leaving the party wondering why he didn’t do that first, så Augustus didn’t have to take the chance it was scaling the walls.

DM note: They clearly forgot about him, which they do periodically as I have him keep silent in the background.

Finally they arrive at the Obelisk room, finding it full of well-prepared enemies, whose sole goal is to kill them. The fight is one of epic dimensions with the party being on the brink of destruction from beginning to the end. Kreven’s domination spells kept dominating members of the party shifting the balance against them, while his Powerword Stun took out Killian for most of the fight.

DM note: I decided that Kreven could cast his spells through all his allied characters as if he had a project image on each of. It gave the fight the edge I wanted it to have; they were facing off the number 2 in power of the Ragesian empire, the head of the Inquisition now that Leska was Empress.

Both Galion and Torrent fell under Kreven's domination spells, and in Torrent’s case it was late in the combat just after she had summoned three outsiders to help take care of the invisible enemies. Suddenly it meant that they had three outsiders after them as well as trying to keep the remaining enemies at bay.

Guthwulf was killed during the fight, his fight for revenge did not go as he planned.

DM note: After the fight when they divided spoils, Augustus and Guthwulf counted as one share. Augustus used his share, to have Guthwulf resurrected, so he could help the rebellion. Augustus likes Guthwulf quite a lot after all; he is basically his only friend in the world.

Kreven led the fight from safety well behind the fight, never coming close to danger from the party until the very end where he actually caused his own death. Kreven used the Obelisk quite a lot during the fight, especially the quickened version or by throwing the same spell twice.

DM note: Dominate monster on two persons at once is evil… and yeah, I did that .

Kreven did not notice that the Obelisk was not healing itself, and he just took for granted that it would. It was designed to do just that. So in the end he drew on the Obelisk one time too many pushing it past the 200 hp limit, thereby breaking it and releasing the cryoclastic black sludge covering himself with it as he was basically next to the Obelisk.

DM note: So passes Kreven, killed by his own weapon of terror, the Koren Obelisk. Actually quite a fitting ending to an epic fight that the party thought they would not win.

The Sludge spreads quite fast, and the party has to run/fly away quite fast, without getting all the nice loot with them.

DM note: Hey, I was nice once, that has to be enough!

The sludge quickly spreads throughout the facility, in the end killing all the prisoners, who never got a chance of escaping.

DM Note: They wanted to help them, but thought they would put it off until after they had taken care of Kreven.

The party escapes from the fortress and fly towards the rendezvous point with the army and commander Xavious. In the meanwhile the Rebel army has beaten back the assault by the Ragesian forces, by having the better defensive position, and once the players arrive they retreat in orderly fashion and return to seaquen victoriously

DM Note: This would take several hours of marching and then several hours of using a teleportation circle once more. Luckily for us all this boring part was easily paraphrased.

End of chapter

End of chapter musings:
Well my first impression was that this chapter turned out to be a lot harder than I had expected. Both the first fight outside the Eye and the final fight with Kreven were a lot more challenging than I had expected them to be. This was a nice experience, as I felt that some of the earlier fights were a bit too easy.

My second impression is how quickly things have turned from progressing along with sessions matching 1-3 acts at a time to now being measured in fights. The fight with Kreven took almost an entire session, which means it took about 10 hours playing time.

The chapter itself was good, when taking a step back. The first part with the second war council was a fun start and gave us all a good roleplaying experience. The next big part with the fight at the eye and the dungeon crawl in the fortress took up a lot of time but were challenging to the players as well as having some added spice with Velkiss and the antimagic room.

The prison scene did not really do the chapter justice, it was not described with enough meat, so to speak, and we skipped past most of it quite quickly. The meeting with Guthwulf and later Etinifi were positive, especially when Etinifi, in rhyme, called Leska the beautiful queen of his heart, sweet and mellow like the sweetest honey (the rhyming was in Danish by the way ). That description was not what they associated with Leska.

The final fight with Kreven was fun. It was a well thought out puzzle with a quite challenging foe, as long as you could not get close to him. And since the entire fight was a balance along the edge of defeat it had the feel of desperation over it at the end. And it was quite fitting that the Obelisk killed its master. The party had assumed that the Obelisk would run out of fuel, so they did not take it as “save party move” at the end, which it wasn’t. Kreven just drew one time too many from the Obelisk, and he might have won the day if he hadn’t used it one more time.

Now we are looking forward to freeing Gate Pass. At the time of writing this we have had one session (plus a little more as we took the beginning of chapter 9 after ending chapter 8) where Vorax-Hûl was beaten, after yet another marathon fight. But that will be the story of the next update.

And hey... two updates in two days...

 

[Mrpereira]

The party

Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 5 / Rogue 2 / Assasin 9
Shaith – Fire elf Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/Druid 6/Arcane Hierophant 9
Killian – Human Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Mystic theurge 10 / frost mage 2

NPC
Lieutenant Waxillian Ricky – Paladin 16

July 18-19
After having a few days to relax, recuperate and do some shopping, the party is, once again, summoned to the office of Headmaster Simeon.

DM Note: The Seaquen magic store even had a special promotion those days; They were selling life insurances – meaning I allowed them to buy several scrolls of True resurrection, one never knows if/when one might need it. Shaith, Killian and Wax all wanted in and chipped in to buy two scrolls. Gallion did not want part of it, he stated with utter confidence that he would not be in need of such folly. Of course he knows that his souls is forfeit, but the others don’t know that

The Headmaster briefly briefs them about the situation in Gate Pass and that their services are needed to try and free the city, before the population loses all faith. Their job is in short to slay the dragon that attacked Gate Pass seven months ago, and then to aid in the liberation of the city in whatever way the leaders of the rebellion needs them to.

After a period where the players and the leaders of Seaquen communicate with Diogeness by spell the party returns to their chambers to discuss the trip to Seaquen and to get ready for the trip. The plan is that they teleport with 3.000 soldiers to an area close to Seaquen. It is not possible to teleport the entire army into the city due to the Ragesian preparations. Therefore the army will march the rest of the way while the players teleport directly into the city to kill the dragon.

While sleeping Killian has a dream. He is standing on the walls of Gate Pass looking out over the valley, standing next to Crystin. She tells him that there is a Trillith prisoner of war in Gate Pass, called Vigilance, and that he is crucial to the fight against the Trillith invasion, as he is the gatekeeper. She also mentions other trillith, including herself, who will be an aid in the fight

DM Note: They interpreted her words to mean that she is a Trillith, leading to the conclusion, that Haddin also was one.

When Killian wakes up he tell the others about his dream. Several things coincide with Etinifi’s tale and they reach the conclusion that there is more to Gate Pass than meets the eye. They speculate that Gate Pass may have been built upon an ancient portal or Gate to somewhere and that Vigilance is the ancient keeper of the Gate, which would also fit into the name of the city. They are also certain that they will have to solve the puzzle before the next Festival of Dreams in about 5 months’ time. The plan is to take care of the Gate Pass vermin infestation (read Dragon) and then while helping the resistance, find the leads and clues to free Vigilance and protect Gate Pass and the world.

DM Note: Yeah… the next Festival of Dreams is in 5 month’s time…  I even managed to keep a straight face and all

July 20
The first leg goes according to plan. The second leg, however, does not. They find themselves trapped by teleporting pylons, that they did not expect. Luckily for them Rantle and some of his soldiers found out about the trap, and took out the ambush mere moments before the players arrived.

Rantle is very pleased about his own timing and happy to see the party again. After the initial greeting his first reaction is naturally to ask about his sister and whether they managed to find her and deliver the scroll.

After a short moments silence, Gallion curtly states that this is not the time or place to talk about this. The tone and reaction puts Rantle on the edge and he presses on, sensing that something is amiss. Even in though the party tries to postpone the talk, they decide to give in and tell him the truth, that his sister was a Ragesian traitor and that she is dead. Rantle’s reaction is naturally one of disbelief at first, and then with a silent deadly tone asks how she dies and who killed her.

DM Note: I could have had him object for a long time, not wanting to be convinced etc. but I decided that the party has such a reputation by now, that if they state things like they did in this case, their allies really would have no reason not to believe their word, even if they told the cruelest things in the world… which they actually did to poor Rantle.

As to who killed her they party in real life couldn’t exactly recall, it is quite a long time ago now. However for the characters it would be something they would have a clear memory of, so I told them who did it… Shalosha.

Gallion tells him straight that the Elven Princess Shalosha turned on the Ragesians and helped the party defeat them, and in the process she killed Katrina.

DM Note: I imagine his reaction to the news would have been quite a sight, poor man.

Rantles jaw drops even more and mutters quite woodenly… “But… Shalosha, the love of my life… she killed my sister?”

The party members look quite surprised when they hear him speak of Shalosha that way, but decide that the infatuation is most likely not returned.

DM Note: I had the feeling that the two elves thought that he is just a human after all.

As to handling Rantle and how he perceives the players I decided that their honesty and actual attempt to spare his feelings, which he recognized in hindsight, were positive things. Also, on top of that news he was extremely emotional and really felt like smashing something, so he joined them in the fight with the dragon. I did not say he was acting rationally 

They head out to the tower and do some reconnaissance of the area. They are surprised to learn that there are no visible guards, but Rantle can confirm that it is normal. The dragon fears no one in the city, so he does not need them. After some discussion they decide to do the approach silenced and invisible. The silence is cast on a pebble, which is easy to drop. They then start to cast spells and buff up for the fight.

The journey up through the tower is uneventful, but 20 feet from the entrance to the first floor they are all suddenly visible, due to a invisibility purge.

DM Note: The dragon and his liches were well prepared for the party being buffed up as well.

They enter the room, and stand face to face with Vorax-Hûl. The Dragon starts by speaking to them, and they throw the pebble away and spend some time talking to him, noticing the four incorporeal liches standing as far away from the party as possible.

The dragon treats them respectfully and tries to convince them to switch sides and join his side, the winning side. The players try to convince Vorax-Hûl to join their side instead. The dragon tells them a secret of his; that Leska is stronger than him, and that does not wish to cross her. He respects the party so he offers them to leave without any harm done to them, as a sign of his respect for their courage. However, the party declines the offer; they are here to kill the dragon.

The dragon has an antilife shell active around him, so he is not worried at first. Gallion and Wax dimension door to the other side of the room, Gallion just outside the area and Wax just inside, ending up being pushed away. Killian then casts dimension door and moves next to the dragon. He had cast spell resistance, and the antilife shell failed the check.

DM note: Vorax-Hûl had a long history of working with Leska, which I took to mean that not only did he know everything about the Torch; he also knew how much Leska respects/feared it. Having the Torch bearer jump right next to him with the clear intend to kill him with it, made the Dragon feel a tiny surge of panic.

At the Dragon’s turn the Liches take their actions, ending with the last one casting antimagic field, thereby taking out all buffs and bonuses from magic items from the players, except for the artifacts (The Torch and The Living Blade) which are unaffected. A side effect is that the spell also suppresses the mask, thereby talking the liches out of the fight.

The fight is an epic one, with Vorax-Hûl being the strongest, but without magic aid, while the party can withdraw and get healed. Also, whenever the dragon throws someone out of the tower, they can fly again. The gargoyles did not present much threat.

After a very long fight, the dragon is killed, without any casualties on the side of the party, but it is close. They used a lot of healing during the fight, and Shaith saved Rantle, who was not flying.. Shaith was all but out of the fight, as he could not do anything to the dragon, while it was in the antimagic area. Instead he took the form of a big flying beast and caught Rantle as he was thrown out of the tower.

DM Note: I can’t recall which beast he became, but he saved Rantle, who had about 4 hp left when he was thrown out. The fall of 10D6 would have robbed the resistance of their beloved scoundrel.

The players were pretty sure that all in all; the antimagic field was more to their advantage than to the dragons. I think they are right, as he lost a lot of healing. However, the spell also took out the boosted party members. One round with a full round attack from Killian on one side and a sneak attacking Gallion on the other side would have been very painful, especially since they would repeat it .

After the fight the party goes with Rantle to the resistance headquarters and is greeted by old friends; Diognes and Erdan Menash. Erdan gives the party some trinkets as a sign of gratitude, which the quickly divide.

DM Note: Unfortunately for the roleplaying part, both the ring of evasion and the periapt of undead turning both went to Wax the NPC.

The rebellion leaders tell the party about the plans for the next day, and Erdan also mentions the secret prison.

End of Session

DM Note: The time being very late meant that we ended the session here with a teaser. I would tell the all the details again next session. The fight with the dragon took almost all of the playing time from this session.

 

[Mrpereira]

The party

Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 5 / Rogue 2 / Assasin 9
Shaith – Fire elf Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/Druid 6/Arcane Hierophant 9
Killian – Human Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Mystic theurge 10 / frost mage 2

NPC
Lieutenant Waxillian Ricky – Paladin 16

July 20 continued
The rebellion leaders tell the players about the plans for the coming fight. They party is to lead the defense of the gateway between the 7th and 8th district together with Rantle and another hero, Kathor, who will be on the streets on his horse.

Also, the leaders would like the players to make contact with the Shahalesti contingent if possible. Erdan Menash wants the players to find a secret prison. Diogenes does not believe that the prison exists, and if it does, it will be a trap. Erdan acknowledges that it might be a trap, but with the fight the defenders might be distracted, thus eliminating the trap or at least weakening it.

DM Note: Immediately that set off talks about where to search, and whether or not the entire party would be needed at the gates or if they should split up, with the different tasks.

On top of this Gallion added that they would most likely have to take out the wyvern-riding Ragesian envoy (Legate Kolvus) before General Danava would be able to surrender, meaning that they should consider a strike behind the enemy lines.
DM Note: Well, he is not that wrong about having to take care of Legate Kolvus

The party is given control over the defenders and told how they are deployed. After this they head off to bed to be ready and well-rested for the coming fight.

The next morning they stand on the wall getting ready for the fight speaking with Rantle, when Kathor comes up to Rantle. He nods to the players and asks Rantle is he has any last minute additions to the plans. The party members recognize Kathor from their encounters with him in chapter 1, but say nothing.

DM note: Most likely they just thought: “Well, he is on our side now.”

As he turns to leave, Rantle says to him: “Stay save Danava”, and Kathor responds: “You too”. As he leaves the party confronts Rantle about the name Danava, it is the same as the Ragesian General after all. Rantle just shrugs and says that he himself has asked Kathor the same question, and that Kathor had answered, that it is a common name where he comes from.

Killian thinks back to his dream vision from Crystin and stumbles upon the phrase about a son thrown out with nothing but his horse and his sword, and connects the dots to reach the conclusion, that Danava is most likely the son of the general.

DM Note: I told him to read the dream out loud. Again to the character the dream would be crystal clear, so he would have had that thought.

Before the battle is joined one of the soldiers from the flanks comes running. A wraith is lose and is killing off soldiers. It is at this point that the party starts to realize that Wax is having somewhat inappropriate conversations, for a betrothed man, with an invisible woman. Wax gets mad at the party when they pull his leg insisting that they cannot see the woman, and storms off with Gallion to take care of the wraith-problem. Killian and Shaith are left behind wondering what that was all about.

DM Note: That was actually quite fun 

Gallion and Wax take care of the Wraiths, with Wax’s turning powers. As the two of them return to the others the sounds of marching boots can be heard in the distance. Rantle jumps up on the wall and gives a magnificent speech that raises the moral of the defenders, following it up with an inspire greatness talk just afterwards.

DM note: I had taken the text from the story and copied it to a word document, and then extended it a bit and made notes as to where to emphasize something or raise my voice, and then I gave the speech, of course shouting the words HELL NO and GATE PASS just to get the mood going. The players seemed to enjoy it.

They didn’t really enjoy his next speech, but we will come to that 

At the first deployment the heroes stand on top of the gate together with Rantle.

The Ragesians come into sight and the battle begins. The first inquisitor throws a fireball at the players, with the strange consequence that suddenly Wak and Shaith have changed appearances.

DM Note: That did not make them feel more calm about Wax . It stated nowhere how long the duration would be, so I decided that 1 minutte would be fitting, as if the disguise self was cast at level 1.

The defenders manage to deal heavy damage to the initial waves, with an acceptable amount of losses. After that the Ragesians pull back and there is a break of one hour.

DM Note: I had to make sure that it would be around noon, when the Ghaele arrived 

The defenders regroup and Rantle holds his second speech.

DM Note: This one is not really written explicitly in the campaign, but I wrote a few words together to make quite a speech, which made the party look quite stunned. I really recommend writing something along the same lines, if others have party members who think that the Festival of Dreams is coming in several months.

Rantle this time speaks of the dark times under the Ragesian oppression and about a long year that has not yet ended as the last New Year was never celebrated. He then adds that today that long evil year comes to an end and together they will step into the New Year as free men of Gate Pass. Today they fight together, tomorrow they will celebrate the New Year, celebrate the Festival of Dreams they did not have 7½ months ago. And he ended his speech with the following sentence: Today we stand together, so we can make our dreams come true… our dreams of FREEDOM.

DM note: For some reason the party did not feel elated or have their morale raised… It suddenly dawned on them that the Festival of Dreams had just become the event of tomorrow, and they even missed all the nice references to dreams that I had thrown into the speech 

After the first skirmish, the party deploy themselves differently. Wax wants to hold the gatehouse, but he is convinced to join Shaith and Killian 200 feet out on the streets. Gallion remains behind with Gallion

DM Note: That actually just made the next scene more fun 

Out of the blue they spot some teleporting blossoms on some distant roof tops, and a Bearded Devil suddenly teleports in and stands close to the gate. Rantle and Gallion being the heroes at the gates; do the talking.

The devil tells them about the deal it has made and how it would be willing to bend the deal, all it takes is 16.000 gp and three deaths. Gallion being who he is, convinces Rantle that the deal is a good one, especially since the devils most likely will kill at least 3 soldiers anyway.

Rantle hating the choice ends up following Gallions advice and strikes the deal.

DM note: It can be fun with evil characters 

Killian was not happy while Shaith was indifferent, as long as no one expects him to volunteer or actually give his life, if they draw lots. The defenders find their chosen sacrifices and the party pays the devil in adamantine glaives taken from gargoyles. The remaining devils teleport in and true to the deal they only kill the three victims. However, they did not specify how or how much pain they would induce while doing it, and they take very good care of making sure that the deaths are long time in coming and extremely painful.

DM Note: What did they expect, when making deals with devils?

The party returns to their forward positions, not knowing that they are playing directly into the plans of the next wave of attackers.

The Harpy and the Troll almost kills off Shaith in the first round, before the fight is turned. The troll is killed, and the harpy takes flight.

DM note: Gallion kept his wits and ordered the defenders to volley on the enemies, which basically ended the fight for the harpy and troll. I decided that being a mercenary, her loyalty is not the high, and she ran.

I also decided to skip the fight with the Wyverns, letting the defenders take care of them without the party, as at this point I could feel that I had stretched out the defense of the wall for as long as I could while still making it fun.

In the distance wyvern riders are circling, when the party hears a female voice in their heads.

DM note: At first they thought it was the same person as Wax was talking too, until he asked them if they heard that strange voice 

The voice belongs to Metamorphorsis, who wants to make sure that they know she is coming and that she is an ally. She walks towards them and introduces herself. She tells them that she needs their help to find and free her master, Vigilance. She tells them that he is crucial to saving the world, and if he is not freed; decades of children’s nightmares will come into the world. It is not a thought that the party relishes.

She does not know exactly where he is, only the direction.

DM note: I had to make sure that they did not just teleport in and thereby avoiding the moral dilemma of choosing between the Prison and the Elves. Those dilemmas are always fun in our group and they actually never questioned how she could sense him and yet not find him .

They get ready to head out towards the prison, leaving the defenses in the hands of Rantle and Kathor, when a Ghaele suddenly appears. He invites them to a meeting with Lord Shaaladel, King of Shahalesti. The meeting will take place at noon, which means in a about as long as it will take them to get there if they leave now.

And thus the party is stuck in the middle of a dilemma without knowing the consequences of their choices.

DM note: It was a fun discussion, with a great focus on the unknown consequences. They feared that not choosing the elves would mean losing Gate Pass, but that not choosing the Prison might mean losing the Gate Keeper.

I made sure to point out to them, that as they had classes in elven etiquette and diplomacy, they knew how insulting it would be to decline the invitation, but that accepting it would mean wasting at least 5-6 hours on negotiations. Elves do have a lot of time after all.

In the end they decided that choosing the meeting with the elves was the lesser of two evils; Leaving Kathor to handle the defenses as Rantle goes with the players; he needs to see Shalosha.

They head out with the Ghaele and finally get to meet the legendary leader of the Shahalesti. He talks to them about Trillith and they negotiate the terms of the alliance. The king has five points the needs special attention.

DM note: had the party chosen the prison, Rantle would have given Shahalest the first four points. As it was, the party ended giving him three, so the only real difference was that he accepted breaking up Ragesia instead of being emperor.

The final point ended as could be expected. The party did not surrender the torch, and they agreed to talks about it later, but didn’t really mean it. They did not agree internally about whether it would be best to destroy it or keep it safe for the future. But they agreed that Shaaladel would never have it.

DM note: It was like the scene from the Fellowship of the Ring. Destroy it or use it against evil  Anyway, they did not manage to convince Shaaladel about their sincerity, which means that he will most likely have Aurana try to kill them in the waking nightmare.

After the negotiations, they had to observe the elven etiquette and celebrate the alliance with an elven specialty; a glass of sparkling white wine only produced in a very exclusive area of Shahalesti. The wine is called Shahalagne. Shaaladel did however send out orders immediately to his soldiers, so they did not waste any time in coming to Gate Pass. A fact that the party appreciated.

DM Note: Cheesy, I know, but somehow it just seemed fitting for the scene .

After the talks finally end, they party hurry outside the tent and get ready to head off towards the prison. As they exit a messenger is impatiently waiting for Rantle to come out. He hurries to him giving him bad news. While they were negotiating a Ragesian strike force somehow located the resistance headquarters and caught Diogenes and Erdan Menash. They took them towards the old wizard school. As of now Rantle is the only leader of the rebellion left.

DM note: That was the consequence of choosing the elves. And since they know about the players, the torture they experienced resulted in making sure that the parents of the party were tortured as well for any information. I had them roll dices on a table I made. The result was that they ended up killing off four out of five of their parents – and they would go on to face them as wraiths.

Metamorphorsis tells them that her master is in the same direction, and might be held prisoner at the mage tower as well.

As they head towards the tower, they ask Metamorphorsis about Vigilance. They stumble and look quite shocked when they realize that Vigilance is actually Indomitability. She tells them that after he was freed he changed and is now Vigilance the gate keeper.

The information destroy all their thoughts about an ancient Gate Keeper who had kept the trillith at bay for a long time. Shaith asked her about their mother, and she replied to her she was mother.

DM note: I have danced around that answer for a while, but plan on having Vigilance giving them the name. I see Metamorphorsis as a young trillith, and as such she just sees Trilla as Mother.

At the tower Killian attempts’ sending an arcane eye in, but the tower is sealed against it, so they have to do the exploration manually. At the ground floor they open the door, and much to their surprise the find Erdan Menash Spiked to the door with a spear. Dead, but not tortured – he died before. As Gallion steps inside the tower, they suddenly face a lot of wraiths, including four out of their five parents. After the fight Shaith recognize the spell in effect as Guards and Wards and uses his scroll of Mordenkainen’s Disjunction to remove it.

In one cell they find Shaith father, the only survivor of their parents.

DM Note: When I wrote the back stories Shaith’s mother hated Shahalesti blaming them for burning Innenotdar, while his father always blamed Ragesia. Let’s just say that his father’s hate for them did not diminish, now they tortured him and killed his wife.

At the next floor they are attacked by devils that only plan to cast dimensional anchor and then they leave. Killian cast invibility purge to make the devils visible which meant that when they shortly after headed up to the third floor and faced Gabal, he was visible.

DM Note: Not quite the ambush that was expected, no Guards and Wards and no invisibility.

Despite having his ambush foiled, Gabal gives them a fight for the money. He started off with a prismatic ray, which turned Gallion to stone. The fight is tough and Wax took a lot of damage and was finally nocked out. He ended up being stabilized close to permanent death, and the fight ends with Killian delivering the final blow on Gabal while on 0 hp, meaning he dropped to -1 and started bleeding to death.

DM note: Quite Heroic scene.

After a while with healing, and 1 minute to turn Gallion back into flesh, they head up to the last floor, finding a mirror. Killian expects the worst and casts quite a lot of spells readying for the final fight.

DM note: I almost felt sorry for him wasting all those spells. Almost

They explore it gingerly, with Shaith going ahead alone to examine the mirrorbegin with, before the others also move in. Nothing seems to happen until Metamorphorsis looks into the mirror and is drawn into it.

DM note: That almost ended catastrophically. The party thought it was a hint from me that they had to enter the mirror. She really did miss her safe, and I almost ended the campaign with it.

Gallion decides to enter the mirror as well, and wills to miss his safe, and is followed by Killian. Wax and Shaith are about to enter the mirror as well when Shaith suddenly realize what has happened.

DM Note: I let him succeed a spellcraft without a roll, but with his skills, I don’t think he could have missed it anyway.

Shaith suddenly realize that it is not a portal, but a mirror that imprisons people, like the Imprisonment spell. Instead of entering the mirror he breaks it.

DM Note: THAT was close, he was saying that he was entering it as well together with Wax… Talk about anti climatic end…

As he breaks the mirror he frees all the prisoners, including some older heroes of the resistance and of course his party members and Vigilance. Vigilance asks the party for their protection, as he is sure that his brethren will do all they can to kill him.

They leave the tower and head back into a city, where the alliance is getting the upper hand. After about an hour or two, they receive a message from General Danava. He wants to meet and talk about surrender.

End of Session.

 

[Mrpereira]

Phew. Up to date again, barely, as we are playing again on Saturday.

A few questions came to my mind while preparing and I wanted to hear if anyone had any insight to them.

First of all about the Waking Nightmare:
The description states the following: A creature whose physical body is damaged by something outside the nightmare gets a new save to wake up and exit the dream. If I read the correctly it means that anyone who makes the safe exits the dream. However I read the description earlier in the text as players who make the safe enter the dream together with those who miss the safe, but they automatically disbelieve and can choose to move either the dream character or the real life character. It is a bit confusing, so did anyone make any rulings about this?

Second of all about dispel magic. It only works as targeted as I read it. Why would an area dispel not work, if the Waking nightmare was the highest level spell?

Second Question is about Vigilance:
One place it states that Vigilance has stretched his power wide over the city, weakening himself such that he is not useful as a combatant yet later it states Vigilance changes to his stag form to fight them. It can mean that he gets stronger and can fight later, but it does seem a bit odd.

One question I had a long time ago was what to do with Madness. In the end I decided to throw her in at the big fight with the colossus. I might keep her in the distance, or add her, if the fight is too easy for them. I have boosted her to 16 HD making her a bit stronger.

I hope you enjoyed the updates - and sorry for taking so long

 

[Mrpereira]

Wow... has it really been 6 months since my last update here? Sorry... I have been pretty busy with real life and these updates do take a lot of time to write... well enough with excuses for now.

Since my last update we have actually played a bit further on - the update below is the last part of chapter 9, and we are actually about half way into chapter 11, so the campaign is still going strong. I also purchased Zeitgeist and I am doing my best to convince the other three that we should play it when we are done with WOTBS (for the next 3-5 years that is ). The setting (to a small degree) and the amount of investigation that Zeitgeist has initially is the hurdle I have to overcome to convince them - the good ratings do help a lot, so I am hopeful and positive about that outcome.

Anyway... back to the updates:


July 20 continued


DM note: The last session ended late at night, and the long talk with Vigilance was taken at the beginning of this session, even though it technically would have happened before leaving the tower.

After freering Vigilance they spend a while getting a lot of information out of him regarding the Trillith and the festival of dreams. They learn that Trilla is the mother of the Trilliths and that she is kept captive out of fear that when she dies, they all die. Vigilance admits that he helped capture Trilla a long time ago, but now has come to regret that action and now believes that if the Trillith cannot survive the death of their mother, then their existence is unnatural and should be brought to an end.

DM note: Players always feel wary when NPCs show that kind of fatalism.

He also tells them that it is almost certainly a fact that all Trillith who has the chance will come after Vigilance and try to kill him and that he needs their protection.

Also he adds that at the moment he does not know of a way for the players to reach Trilla, but he will try to find a way for them, but since they are not Trillith they cannot use the way he knows of.

After this jump back in time, the story is rejoined at the alliance HQ. The players have a long talk with the alliance leadership about how to handle the situation with General Danava. They decide to bring Kathor Danava with them to the meeting.

At the meeting everything goes smoothly until Legate Korvus shows up.

DM note: I tried to play him a bit like Christoph Waltz’s character in Inglorious Basterds.

Legate Korvus enters the area slowly clapping his hands. He introduces himself to the PCs and smirks at General Danava while saying that he is not suprised that he is a traitor. He apologizes to the players saying that General Danava actually cannot surrender control of the army, as the general is no longer in control of the army and that he will take over negotiations on behalf of Ragesia.

He then smiles and asks the players what they will offer him to withdraw the Ragesian forces. The PCs turn to the traditional approach of sparing lifes to which the Legate just laughs and answer that why should he be bothered with the life of soldiers, they will die sometime within the next 50 years anyway, so why bother saving them?

DM Note: I loved the momentary pause that response gave, but I have to give it to my PCs, they recovered quickly.

It does not take PCs long to realize that their view on the world differs quite a lot from Legate Kolvus’ and the negotiations break down and a fight begins.

Korvus has two bodyguards who turn out to be Trillith, and they try to kill Vigilance, but fail. The combined force of the alliance prevails without much trouble.

DM note: And I got the chance to show that Lord Shaaladel was more than an up-stuck-son-of-bitch.

When the battle is clearly lost, Legate Kolvus politely excuses himself from the rest of the fight, thanks the party for their time and says he looks forward to meeting them again, leaving the player’s a bit annoyed at not being able to get to him.

After Kolvus has left they resume the negotiations. General Danava helped fight the Trillith and got a little goodwill from that action. The two parties reach an agreement. Even though the Party would have wanted to disarm the Ragesian army, it is a point they end up conceding. General Danava tells them that he cannot accept that demand according to his Geas as it will weaken the Ragesian army. Since Kolvus has turned quite a lot of officers only part of the army follow Danavas orders. Shaith turns into a bird and Dominates a colonel who had been turned, and thus helped reducing the remaining threat in Gate Pass.

DM Note: I told the party that the remaining Ragesians keep on fighting for a while until they are defeated. It takes some days and happens in the background of the rest of the adventure.
After a long day and a lot of fighting the party retreat to the safe house and go to sleep, safe and sound… or so they believed.

All of a sudden they find themselves in a kind of dreamworld with an enemy out to kill them. Shaith and Gallion both manage to resist the pull and are able to act in both the waking and dreaming world.

The fight starts out badly for the party as Killian is dominated and told to kill the others. Killian sets out to kill Wax while the unknown assailant takes on Shaith. Gallion chooses to act in the real world to protect the bodies, as he fears an attack in the real world as well. Wax is getting pummeled by Killian and is heading towards a sure death when Gallion decides that the only way to save the party from Killian them all is to kill him in the real world and hope they can bring him back to life later on.

DM Note: And another one bites the dust – and I didn’t even do it this time 

After eliminating the threat from Killian the three remaining players take on the enemy, who is more than a handful for the resource-depleted party.

DM note: This trap is very much a death trap if you don’t watch out as the party has used a lot of ressources

The fight does not go the way the party wants it. Gallion is dominated and Shaith decides to raise and anti-life shell to keep the enemy at bay while he plans to go to the real world.

DM note: I loved Shaith’s face at what happened then. I told him that the enemy moves close to him. He said that he has an antilife barrier up. I said yes I know. Shaith then asked me, isn’t the enemy alive, and I just looked at him and said… no… and now that you realise that you notice those nice fangs that she is baring… for some reason he did not find that situation as fun as his enemy did 

Gallion being dominated and asked to kill the others simply states that he returns to the real world – and all the defenseless bodies.

DM note: And here I had to think fast or end the campaign. Thus enters the high priest of Killian’s order in a moment.

Shaith, being a druid has a large bear that he orders to grapple Gallion, which succeeded, luckily for the party. At this moment the Hieronious highpriest enters to see what all the commotion is about and is shocked at what he sees. With the help of a few dispel evil spells he forces the spell to end and Shaith is able to leave the dreaming on his own.

The highpriest is able to use one of the True resurrection scrolls that they bought and Killian returns to life. Gallion gets ready to start defending his actions, and almost drops his jaw when Killain just looks at him and says thank you for saving me from myself. It was the right thing to do.

DM note: After all this time and all the enmity between the two, all it took for them to become friends was for one to kill the other… talk about tough love

Before going to sleep again, or at least trying to, they talk about the attack. They conclude that they were attacked by a female vampire, but due to the darkness they couldn’t see more and basically end up having more questions than answers. They do agree that it was most likely not Leska.

July 21

The following morning it is time to celebrate the peace and the High Priest of Hieronious remind them of the Gate Pass custom of bringing an urn with a wish

DM Note: They had that gut feeling that it would be bad, but as Killian put it, I owe that man my life, if he wants me to write a wish and put it in an urn, that is what I do.

The festival begins at noon when the sun stands high in the sky. All the urns with dreams are placed around the colossal statue of Coaltongue. The ceremony starts with Lord Shaaladel as leader of the alliance holding a long and winding speech, before the real celebration can begin and dreams are read.

Just as the celebration is close to the conclusion a Trillith suddenly appears among the priest with a handful of urns, they player’s urns. She is sensual, sexy and extremely alluring and attractive. She is Desire. She throws the urns to the ground and chaos erupts.

DM Note: I had Madness reappear here and had her as a stand by addition to the action if she was needed. She wasn’t as you will see in a moment.

The personal nightmares seemed to be pretty much spot on, but they weren’t much of a threat to the party.

The party soon overcame their enemies and focused on Desire. She was clearly on the defense when she suddenly points to the statue and shouts in triumph as a lot of Trillith fly into it and with a screech of breaking metal, the colossus starts to move.

The first thing to colossus does is lashing out at the closest enemy, Galion, and squashes him beyond any hope of survival.

DM note: And that was the end of that friendship between Killian and Galion.

As the colossus lifts its massive torch the party notices something in the air above Galions squashed body; his soul. The soul hovers between the black scimitar and the living blade for what seems to be an indeterminable time

Shaith is staring in horror – he knows that only Galion and his bond with the living blade are keeping the last remnant of Inenotdar alive. Killian stares at the black scimitar that he from the first time he saw it has deemed an item of evil. Both of them already figured out that Galion’s soul was doomed and he would never be able to be resurrected should he die.
With a final sigh, the soul seems release its final grip on the world and chooses which sword to flow into… Galions soul flies into the black scimitar, leaving the living blade as a wooden stick.

DM note: Galion made the choice himself. He said that his reasoning was this: His heart belonged to Ycengled. If he had chosen to flow into the living blade he would have ended up in Innenotdar and never returned to Ycengled. By joining the Black Scimitar his soul at least had some hope of returning to his homeland. Shaith looked on in horror as his homeland was just irrevocably destroyed, barring some miracle. I haven’t decided yet if they can bring it back, but I am mostly inclined to leaving Innenotdar as a black and dead area for evermore, thanks to Galion choosing Rhuarc’s scimitar. But let us see.

The action returns and the colossus keep on rampaging. Vigilance runs away, hidden with the help of Metamorphorsis. True to the theme of this session, things do not really go the way of the party. The only enemy that the Colossus can see is Metamorphorsis, whom he graps and swallows. The party tries to fight to colossus while they hear the death screams from inside it from Metamorphorsis.

And then she dies, granting her boon to Killian, who suddenly grows to be 90 feet tall.

DM note: One could almost hear the them from Rocky, when he is hanging on the ropes, everything looks lost and he suddenly lands a hit on his opponent and turns the tide of the battle.

90 feet Killian is too much of a threat to the colossus and he dismantles it rather quickly. As the head is broken off another Trillith flies out and start to attacking Killian’s companions. Killian just keep on dismantliong the statue, and when he finds the heart he smashes it and the statue. The new Trillith dies with the statue and Vigilance is able to close the way in to Gate Pass sealing out the rest of the Trillith.

A commotion suddenly erupts around the corpse of the last Trillith, it turns out that it is identical to Killian, and if one wouldn’t know better it would be easy to believe that it was him. The last Trillith was Victory, and Killian is the face of just that.

After a few hours Killian returns to his own size and the chapter and session ended.

End of chapter musings: This was one hell of a tough adventure with some pretty hard fights. The fight with Vorax-Hûl was one tough nut for the party and the fight in the dreamspell as well as the fight with the colossus cost a PC life each time.

I loved Rantle’s speeches, even if I had to make a little too much up myself – it should have been part of the adventure. It was so lovely seeing them realize that the festival of dreams, the event they thought they had several months to avert would happen the next day.

The fight with the colossus was not to my liking, it lacked some kind of flow. The idea of having the party need to figure out how to take it out sounded good, but I found it didn’t work that well in our group. Luckily this got fixed by 90 feet Killian who just beat it to pulp.

In general I liked the adventure and the fact that it brought closure to Gate Pass and brought the players full circle and home as heroes.

Now all that remains is to take out the three main threats… easy peasy… right?


I won't make any promises on the next update but as I said in the beginning of the post we completed chapter 10, so I "just" need to write it up...

 

[RangerWickett]

It's great to see a new post from you. Apologies for any weaknesses from the old adventure, but I'm glad it seems to have been exciting for the players. Did Metamorphosis's help feel to the players like a Rocky-style comeback? I'd worry about it being too much of a deus ex machina.

What is Galion's player going to do now?

Let me say that I had nothing to do with the writing of adventure 11. I wasn't available to work on it, so I don't really have the right to complain, and I know I'm terribly biased, but I am not a fan of how the adventure ended up. Aesthetically the airship becomes a bit too much like 'Resident Evil'-style monstrosities, rather than the more chimeric designs I had in mind, and it didn't have enough character interactions for my tastes. I was honestly hoping to do something more like the fortress of Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China, and Pilus would be flying around doing magic kung fu instead of being fused into a wall.

Like I said, I know I'm biased, but I want you to understand why the adventure might not feel quite the same as the rest of the campaign.

I'm exceptionally excited to see how adventure 10 worked out. So few groups get to that point, and it's hard to try to capture a surreal, dreamlike quality in a game. I really loved watching Legion earlier this year with its psychic mindscapes, so I hope adventure 10 had the right feel.

 

[Mrpereira]

Her death had the right effect for my group as the Colossus fight was not really to their taste, so they got a chance to end it in a way they preferred. That means that in my group her presence and powers was a very good thing.

Some of the things we like to fiddle with once in a while are how much can you tweak the PCs without breaking the game. Galion - now Neferitt - has made a Female Seela Paragon/Paladin of freedom built, based around Charisma. Let's just say that he isn't going to fail many saving throws. That said, he does have other weaker spots, so his character is not breaking the game. The backstory is that his character was expelled from the village by Vuhl sometime before chapter 2, as she saw through the disguise, but Vuhl smooth-talked himself out of it. She became a defender of the forest in the capacity she was able to, and spent a lot of time with Nell - whom the party never met. That gave me the option of giving him a little more backstory about Innenotdar, that they had missed and filled a few gaps there.

After the PCs saved the Seela - Neferitt was with Nell at that point - they left the forest. Neferitt returned to the village as fast as she could after the forest stopped burning, but the PCs were gone. She was accepted back to the village, as the survivors now knew that she was right. She heard the story about the PCs and how Galion bonded with the living blade keeping the forest alive. As she is the guardian of the forest her new goal in life was to pledge her life to Galion to keep him safe, and that way keeping her home alive. She joins the game a few days after Galion's death, leaving her heartbroken.

Another fun twist is that Galion was evil, and did not really care one bit about Innenotdar. Neferitt who never met him has a completely unrealistic, somewhat teenage girl-like fascination with him, leading to a few quite fun scenes as everyone knows that he was NOT a saint, but to her Galion was the Light of Goodness in the world.

Chapter 11 has a different feel when you read it. It feels like there could have been a little more something to it. That said I don't mind the Pilus scene that much, apart from the fact that I have to make teleporting impossible, or Killian will just teleport up next to him and kill him in 2 rounds basically. What bothers me most is how little is done with the Ostalin forces. The build up in chapter 5 with the Khagan where they met him - in my campaign it had a very North Korean stereotype feeling - ends quite unsatisfying with him just being thrown into that last fight. The first part of the chapter went ok I think, and they seemed to like the meeting with Longinus.

Chapter 10 had some quite memorable scenes, specially the fight with Freedom was good I also liked the discussion about what to do with Trilla. It also had some abstract moments that I had some problems presenting as they should have, just as you wrote - it is hard to capture the surreal in a game and I am not sure how memorable the chapter was for the PCs. The fight with flight was another scene I had some troubles with, with it being completely 3-dimensional, and I basically needed to translate a map that was several hundred feet vertical as well as horizontally and that ended up being a bit of a mess, so I ended up doing it half fight and half paraphrasing. Luckily the PCs found that to be a satisfactory solution.

 

[Lylandra]

Phew, losing Galion must have been tough. He's been around since the beginning, right?

Neferitt seelms like a reasonable replacement. I'm curious to see where she's headed once she finds out more about her "hero".

Seems like our two groups are at an almost identical point in their adventures (though my own thread is lagging behind hard), so reading your stories provides a great "what-if" parallel. Especially as my group's scimitar-wielding Taranesti picked up the Living Blade as well, but the experience of being connected to the Seela and corresponding responsibility influenced him heavily. Shaalguenyaver is still in Rhuarc's hands though.

For adventure 10: We're just at the beginning and as my players were really into the whole "let's go throught the caverns", I provided a drow (or Droalesti) version of Dreamcatcher as an entry point. I'm really looking forward to the dream world as I *love* surrealistic madnesses and both my players are deeply connected to Trilla. Freedom's choice will be a dilemma for them, as my other player is connected to a Trillith and wants to "save" them. Let's just say, the adventure reads very epic and promising (and I also love staged boss fights), so I believe it will play out this way as well.

For adventure 11: Yep, the feel is totally different and I have my own problems with Pilus' motivations. I just cannot see him make a turn to Leska once again after the Rags are the only people he ever really hated. Still thinking about how to do the final break with the Resistance. And yes, disable teleport. Thanks for the tip It will annoy the hell out of my blinky-boy Nomad/Rogue, but I don't want Pilus to go down in one round either. I don't mind the Resident Evil part too much, as I see it kind of appropriate for a giant biomantic flying shark. I will add more solid rooms for the army though.

 

[Mrpereira]

Yeah, Galion was around from adventure 1. All the players have died at least once, and been brought back more or less - but when Galion gave up his soul to get the black scimitar he lost that possibility. But the scene with his soul hanging in the balance and the look on Shaith's face as he chose the "wrong" option was a perfect ending. The other party members have decided not to try to alter Neferitt's view of Galion, so I am not sure if she will change her point of view of him as she isn't very likely to end up knowing the truth.

Wit Neferitt in the group I have changed the NPC as two paladins wouldn't be fair to Neferitt, but more on that when I write up adventure 10. The fight with Freedom was quite interesting as it took a little while for them to figure out that Freedom/Me was doing all I could to keep them in the first room and thus not figuring out the puzzle until they had fought a while with her her. Before the fight they had a long talk with her, where she tried to convince them of her point of view, which was a quite good scene with a lot of interesting arguments focusing around being alive and free.

I agree with you that his motivation to suddenly ally with Leska i suspect, Pilus hates Ragesia, and it would have been more true to his personality to have him swoop in and attack the weakened winner - but I have built up the campaign around Leska being the main villain, so taking her out before Pilus didn't make sense either.

 

[RangerWickett]

The original idea, I think, was to have the PCs and the army all end up in Ragesia to fight Leska, at which point Pilus assumes they'll beat her, and he hits Seaquen to weaken them so he'll be supreme in the aftermath. It's sorta like if in World War II, the USA sees that Russia is marching on Berlin, and instead of swooping in to try to claim some German territory for themselves, they nuked Moscow, in hopes of stranding the Russian army and leaving them with no rivals.