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MrPereira's WOTBS D&D 3.5 Campaign (SPOILERS IN THE POSTS)
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<blockquote data-quote="Mrpereira" data-source="post: 6727197" data-attributes="member: 6781484"><p><strong>Chapter two – act one</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>The party:</strong></p><p><strong>Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 3</strong></p><p><strong>Shaith – Fire elf fire domain wizard lvl. 3</strong></p><p><strong>Killian – Human priest of Heironious lvl. 3</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>NPCs</strong></p><p><strong>Haddin</strong></p><p><strong>Crystin</strong></p><p><strong>Torrent</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>January – continued</strong></p><p></p><p>The group got to the edge of the forest feeling the heat waves blowing at them. They quickly realized that the potions Torrent had were a pretty limited supply, especially with two more people in the group. Killian of course had the spell on his spell list but did not really like the idea of using all his second level spells on that.</p><p></p><p>The closer they have gotten to the forest the more the others noted Shaith acting differently. He was clearly not behaving as he had the first few days that they knew him. Of course the others did not know at this point, that this was the first time since he fled 50 years ago that he was back at his homeland. </p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: At this point I need to tell a little about how we have moved on from paper & pencil to laptops, dropbox and google chat. Some years ago we came to the conclusion that it was a lot easier to keep track of the characters running modifiers in a spreadsheet, and it also made things a lot easier to edit when people levelled up. We have built our own spreadsheet that we all use, and the DM has a special spreadsheet, that links the skills and saves of all the players, so making secret checks is a lot easier. </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>We roll those secret checks beforehand, actually. Before starting a campaign all players roll 40 or so D20 and the DM records these. Whenever the DM later needs a secret roll from one of the players he takes the topmost unused of these rolls. Whenever a player is getting close to having used all his rolls, the player rolls some new ones that are added to his list. This way the players still roll all of their own checks and saves, they just don’t know when the different rolls will be used. </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>All our sheets are saved in shared Dropbox folders, meaning that we always have access to the characters and notes, and the DM can access these in between sessions if need be, for example it is a big help to be able to read up on their journal, so I can see if/what they have missed.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>We use google chat whenever a player needs to ask something of the DM in secret, or the DM wants to give private information to a player. This was a big help in this chapter as Shaith was at home in the fire forest and knew a lot of things on the fly, things I was sending him on the chat. This gave a very smooth gameplay and his very extensive knowledge really had the others on the edge until they reached his birth village and he told them his story. </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Now that we are on the subject of how we play, we made one very good decision some time ago. The table we use to play at is a standard dinner table, which can be extended to seat 10 people. We used to have a battlemap, but as most people know these are rather limited in size. What we did get was a wax tablecloth with squares of the same size as the battlemaps. It is not hexagons, which would be optimal, but on the other hand, we have a potential battlemap of 120 feet by 550 feet – which came in rather handy in chapter 4. I can recommend this solution to anyone with the same issues of battlemaps being too small.</em></p><p></p><p>Soon after entering the forest they came upon three burning corpses, and got a bit of a scare when one of them called Shaith by his name and begged to be killed. The burning man turns out to be a classmate of Shaith’s. They ran off from Gate Pass before the gates were barred and he tells a gruesome story. He has been lying here for two days burning, without dying. He tells that the other two were his mother and sister and that he killed them, but simply didn’t have it in him to kill himself. Shiath puts him out of his misery, but the group feels a bit uncomfortable as they realize that the fire in the forest doesn’t necessarily kill you, but it might burn you for eternity.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: I used an old trick here to put them on edge. I was telling about the burned bodies and how they lay in the middle of the road. I was standing by the side of the table, drawing the road and where the bodies were lying. I leaned over towards Shaith as if I wanted to look at something at his sheet/laptop screen – and then I suddenly grabbed his arm and called his name “Shaiiiithss, pleeeeeease kill me”. They all but jumped from their chairs <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite6" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":cool:" /></em></p><p></p><p>They went through the forest with a lot of mistrust building amongst the others towards Shaith. Every time they came to a fork in the road he stopped and mumbled a little to himself, ignored their questions and then just moved on.</p><p></p><p>They encountered the Mephit as per the encounter in the book, which tought them another lesson of the burning forest, the enemies might need to be killed twice. The Mephit was not of much help to them at all and just flew off.</p><p></p><p>At some point soon after this encounter, Shaith move passed Galion, who was at point, and turned down one of the lesser trails forking off the mainroad. The others looked at each other but decided that they better follow. Some 15 minuttes later, after ignoring all questions, he stops at a clearing with big burning trees. He pointed at one of the trees and asked the others if they could see the burning house amongst the trees. They of course confirmed that they could, and then he told them in a low soft voice: “I was born there, and I haven’t seen it in 50 years, not since it started burning”.</p><p></p><p><em>DM note: It was a really powerful moment, and big credit has to go to Shaith for delivering such an emotionally strong performance. The other two were seriously sitting speechless looking like they wanted to give him a comforting hug.</em></p><p><em>He told them the story of how the forest was torched by Coaltoungue’s soldiers and how the fire didn’t’ stop. He also told how the fires somehow turned the Innenotdar elves into fire elfs. The others suddenly understood why he had been acting strangely and this experience helped binding the players into a tighter group. I was quite pleased with having given him that link to his backstory and how he really made it his own</em></p><p></p><p>Back on the main road they run into the series of encounters orchestrated by Kazyk who in the end asks for the military papers. The players of course say no, and he disappears for now. At this point they notice that his teleports create a fiery blossom, but have no way of connecting this to the bigger picture yet.</p><p></p><p>As they come close to the city at the center of the woods the party are confronted by Indomitability’s creatures, which are defeated. Following the confrontation, a voice manifests telling them that they shall set it free. It tells them that it is the fire in the forest and if they don’t set it free, then they too will be caught in the forest, forever burning. They accept to free the owner of the voice and get his boon as a reward.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: I must admit, I did not see them accepting another offer blindly like with the Imp, but they did. It also gave the rest of the chapter something I had not anticipated. They started reflecting about how powerful an entity this was, if it could bestow such a boon on them. And if it was that powerful, did they dare cross it? It gave the entire chapter a twist and depth I had not expected.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Act 2</strong></p><p><strong>January 3 continued</strong></p><p></p><p>After the battle they go to the tower on top of the bridge. It is evening and they need a place to sleep. They decide that the tower looks like a good place, easily defended. They searched the tower, and found the journal and the dream seeds. They decided not to test the dream seeds, either despite of or because of Crystin’s premonition. They decided to go to sleep and study the journal in the morning</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: And since they have forgotten about these. They mentioned them at some point later on and forgot about them again, so they never encountered the dream elemental. </em></p><p></p><p><strong>January 4</strong></p><p></p><p>They started the morning reading the journal, and from it they deduced that the stag that Anyariel staked at the bottom of the lake was the creature they had talked to. They also read about Anyariels shrine in the town.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: At this point they were thinking that the Stag was a good guy, but it didn’t really fit in well with Anyariel being a good guy too, based on Shaith’s knowledge of the Innenotdar. It made them wonder about how it all made sense.</em></p><p></p><p>They cross the bridge and head into the village, where a fiery blossom appears with Kazyk holding a white flag. He offers them a deal, they give him the papers, and he will help them put out the fire in the forest.</p><p></p><p>They ask him if he would mind if they copy the papers first, he would not, as long as it could be done within a day. They talked among themselves about their spells and if they could be used. Any way they looked at it, they would need a blank book. Kazyk offered to get one for them, no problems. They looked like they needed to talk a bit more anyway.</p><p>While he was gone they found that their spells could only copy the text, and not the pictures. The party was at a split decision at this point; Killian was willing to give the papers, as he felt that the text would be more and better Intel than none, while Gallion was against it as he believed that the pictures must be there for a reason, and not just to explain the obvious to the reader. Shaith was not taking sides at this point. </p><p></p><p>Kazyk returned at this point with a book, which seemed to have some red-brownish blotches on the cover. Shaith asks if they can wait with the decision until a later point, to which Kazyk answers that at that point they will have to decide to give him the papers, as the copying offer expires when he leaves now. The players agree to the terms and tell him that they will meet him by the lake. Kazyk smiles and nods, and then looks casually at the bloodstained book in his hands: “Oh well, it was just an old shopkeeper and his little girl after all”. He then tosses the book into the flame and disappears again.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: It was a pleasure watching their faces as the realization hit them, their little deal; or rather consideration of a deal had cost some innocent lives. And all for nothing as the book he killed them for was cast into the flames.<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious :]" data-shortname=":]" /></em></p><p></p><p>They search the village and find the shrine under the tree. Here they are suitably awed by the guardian but are allowed entrance to the shrine. In the shrine they find a shattered glass display and two bodies, one a corpse and one seeming like he is sleeping. The guardian cannot tell what happened, as it arrived just after everything had happened.</p><p></p><p>The party spent quite a while trying to understand what had happened and what the priest had hidden and how it could bring justice. </p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: It was very late in the night at this point, and that could have been what influenced the discussion. They did not really understand the significance of a frozen Shahalesti elf in the shrine and how that could be what was hidden. We called it a night after a period of time where they had discussed the room, and searched in repeatedly for what was hidden. In the end I told them that they had found all they would find in the room, and they had already found what was hidden according to the priest.</em></p><p></p><p>It took some time, but in the end they figured that he hidden item would have to be the Shahalesti elf. But what could that mean regarding to justice? Why would the priest have him hidden in here?</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: Again, it was around 3 am, and we were drop dead tired all of us. I decided to tell them that it could only mean one of two things, and the answer would have to be up to their interpretation: It could either mean that it was not the Ragesians who had burned the forest, but the Shahalesti elves, or it could mean that the Ragesians had used elves disguised in Shahalesti uniforms to do the dirty deed. If the first was true, why had Coaltongue never denied being his responsibility, and if the second was true, why had the Shahalest not reacted more aggressively to being framed? </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I ended the session with these questions filling their minds. They have since spent a lot of time thinking it over. It is my belief that Shaith believes the Shahalesti did it and he has an equal dislike for both Ragesians and Shahalesti. Gallion is convinced it was the Shahalesti, and he basically sees them as being viler than the vile Ragesians. Killian is still on the fence, he is not sure what is the truth, he also has less feelings invested in elven conflicts, so he does not jump to the same hasty conclusions on this topic.</em></p><p></p><p><strong> End of session 2.</strong></p><p></p><p>I am going out of town this next week, so it will be a little while before the rest of chapter two will be posted, just to let you know.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mrpereira, post: 6727197, member: 6781484"] [B]Chapter two – act one The party: Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 3 Shaith – Fire elf fire domain wizard lvl. 3 Killian – Human priest of Heironious lvl. 3 NPCs Haddin Crystin Torrent January – continued[/B] The group got to the edge of the forest feeling the heat waves blowing at them. They quickly realized that the potions Torrent had were a pretty limited supply, especially with two more people in the group. Killian of course had the spell on his spell list but did not really like the idea of using all his second level spells on that. The closer they have gotten to the forest the more the others noted Shaith acting differently. He was clearly not behaving as he had the first few days that they knew him. Of course the others did not know at this point, that this was the first time since he fled 50 years ago that he was back at his homeland. [I]DM Note: At this point I need to tell a little about how we have moved on from paper & pencil to laptops, dropbox and google chat. Some years ago we came to the conclusion that it was a lot easier to keep track of the characters running modifiers in a spreadsheet, and it also made things a lot easier to edit when people levelled up. We have built our own spreadsheet that we all use, and the DM has a special spreadsheet, that links the skills and saves of all the players, so making secret checks is a lot easier. We roll those secret checks beforehand, actually. Before starting a campaign all players roll 40 or so D20 and the DM records these. Whenever the DM later needs a secret roll from one of the players he takes the topmost unused of these rolls. Whenever a player is getting close to having used all his rolls, the player rolls some new ones that are added to his list. This way the players still roll all of their own checks and saves, they just don’t know when the different rolls will be used. All our sheets are saved in shared Dropbox folders, meaning that we always have access to the characters and notes, and the DM can access these in between sessions if need be, for example it is a big help to be able to read up on their journal, so I can see if/what they have missed. We use google chat whenever a player needs to ask something of the DM in secret, or the DM wants to give private information to a player. This was a big help in this chapter as Shaith was at home in the fire forest and knew a lot of things on the fly, things I was sending him on the chat. This gave a very smooth gameplay and his very extensive knowledge really had the others on the edge until they reached his birth village and he told them his story. Now that we are on the subject of how we play, we made one very good decision some time ago. The table we use to play at is a standard dinner table, which can be extended to seat 10 people. We used to have a battlemap, but as most people know these are rather limited in size. What we did get was a wax tablecloth with squares of the same size as the battlemaps. It is not hexagons, which would be optimal, but on the other hand, we have a potential battlemap of 120 feet by 550 feet – which came in rather handy in chapter 4. I can recommend this solution to anyone with the same issues of battlemaps being too small.[/I] Soon after entering the forest they came upon three burning corpses, and got a bit of a scare when one of them called Shaith by his name and begged to be killed. The burning man turns out to be a classmate of Shaith’s. They ran off from Gate Pass before the gates were barred and he tells a gruesome story. He has been lying here for two days burning, without dying. He tells that the other two were his mother and sister and that he killed them, but simply didn’t have it in him to kill himself. Shiath puts him out of his misery, but the group feels a bit uncomfortable as they realize that the fire in the forest doesn’t necessarily kill you, but it might burn you for eternity. [I]DM Note: I used an old trick here to put them on edge. I was telling about the burned bodies and how they lay in the middle of the road. I was standing by the side of the table, drawing the road and where the bodies were lying. I leaned over towards Shaith as if I wanted to look at something at his sheet/laptop screen – and then I suddenly grabbed his arm and called his name “Shaiiiithss, pleeeeeease kill me”. They all but jumped from their chairs :cool:[/I] They went through the forest with a lot of mistrust building amongst the others towards Shaith. Every time they came to a fork in the road he stopped and mumbled a little to himself, ignored their questions and then just moved on. They encountered the Mephit as per the encounter in the book, which tought them another lesson of the burning forest, the enemies might need to be killed twice. The Mephit was not of much help to them at all and just flew off. At some point soon after this encounter, Shaith move passed Galion, who was at point, and turned down one of the lesser trails forking off the mainroad. The others looked at each other but decided that they better follow. Some 15 minuttes later, after ignoring all questions, he stops at a clearing with big burning trees. He pointed at one of the trees and asked the others if they could see the burning house amongst the trees. They of course confirmed that they could, and then he told them in a low soft voice: “I was born there, and I haven’t seen it in 50 years, not since it started burning”. [I]DM note: It was a really powerful moment, and big credit has to go to Shaith for delivering such an emotionally strong performance. The other two were seriously sitting speechless looking like they wanted to give him a comforting hug. He told them the story of how the forest was torched by Coaltoungue’s soldiers and how the fire didn’t’ stop. He also told how the fires somehow turned the Innenotdar elves into fire elfs. The others suddenly understood why he had been acting strangely and this experience helped binding the players into a tighter group. I was quite pleased with having given him that link to his backstory and how he really made it his own[/I] Back on the main road they run into the series of encounters orchestrated by Kazyk who in the end asks for the military papers. The players of course say no, and he disappears for now. At this point they notice that his teleports create a fiery blossom, but have no way of connecting this to the bigger picture yet. As they come close to the city at the center of the woods the party are confronted by Indomitability’s creatures, which are defeated. Following the confrontation, a voice manifests telling them that they shall set it free. It tells them that it is the fire in the forest and if they don’t set it free, then they too will be caught in the forest, forever burning. They accept to free the owner of the voice and get his boon as a reward. [I]DM Note: I must admit, I did not see them accepting another offer blindly like with the Imp, but they did. It also gave the rest of the chapter something I had not anticipated. They started reflecting about how powerful an entity this was, if it could bestow such a boon on them. And if it was that powerful, did they dare cross it? It gave the entire chapter a twist and depth I had not expected.[/I] [B]Act 2 January 3 continued[/B] After the battle they go to the tower on top of the bridge. It is evening and they need a place to sleep. They decide that the tower looks like a good place, easily defended. They searched the tower, and found the journal and the dream seeds. They decided not to test the dream seeds, either despite of or because of Crystin’s premonition. They decided to go to sleep and study the journal in the morning [I]DM Note: And since they have forgotten about these. They mentioned them at some point later on and forgot about them again, so they never encountered the dream elemental. [/I] [B]January 4[/B] They started the morning reading the journal, and from it they deduced that the stag that Anyariel staked at the bottom of the lake was the creature they had talked to. They also read about Anyariels shrine in the town. [I]DM Note: At this point they were thinking that the Stag was a good guy, but it didn’t really fit in well with Anyariel being a good guy too, based on Shaith’s knowledge of the Innenotdar. It made them wonder about how it all made sense.[/I] They cross the bridge and head into the village, where a fiery blossom appears with Kazyk holding a white flag. He offers them a deal, they give him the papers, and he will help them put out the fire in the forest. They ask him if he would mind if they copy the papers first, he would not, as long as it could be done within a day. They talked among themselves about their spells and if they could be used. Any way they looked at it, they would need a blank book. Kazyk offered to get one for them, no problems. They looked like they needed to talk a bit more anyway. While he was gone they found that their spells could only copy the text, and not the pictures. The party was at a split decision at this point; Killian was willing to give the papers, as he felt that the text would be more and better Intel than none, while Gallion was against it as he believed that the pictures must be there for a reason, and not just to explain the obvious to the reader. Shaith was not taking sides at this point. Kazyk returned at this point with a book, which seemed to have some red-brownish blotches on the cover. Shaith asks if they can wait with the decision until a later point, to which Kazyk answers that at that point they will have to decide to give him the papers, as the copying offer expires when he leaves now. The players agree to the terms and tell him that they will meet him by the lake. Kazyk smiles and nods, and then looks casually at the bloodstained book in his hands: “Oh well, it was just an old shopkeeper and his little girl after all”. He then tosses the book into the flame and disappears again. [I]DM Note: It was a pleasure watching their faces as the realization hit them, their little deal; or rather consideration of a deal had cost some innocent lives. And all for nothing as the book he killed them for was cast into the flames.:][/I] They search the village and find the shrine under the tree. Here they are suitably awed by the guardian but are allowed entrance to the shrine. In the shrine they find a shattered glass display and two bodies, one a corpse and one seeming like he is sleeping. The guardian cannot tell what happened, as it arrived just after everything had happened. The party spent quite a while trying to understand what had happened and what the priest had hidden and how it could bring justice. [I]DM Note: It was very late in the night at this point, and that could have been what influenced the discussion. They did not really understand the significance of a frozen Shahalesti elf in the shrine and how that could be what was hidden. We called it a night after a period of time where they had discussed the room, and searched in repeatedly for what was hidden. In the end I told them that they had found all they would find in the room, and they had already found what was hidden according to the priest.[/I] It took some time, but in the end they figured that he hidden item would have to be the Shahalesti elf. But what could that mean regarding to justice? Why would the priest have him hidden in here? [I]DM Note: Again, it was around 3 am, and we were drop dead tired all of us. I decided to tell them that it could only mean one of two things, and the answer would have to be up to their interpretation: It could either mean that it was not the Ragesians who had burned the forest, but the Shahalesti elves, or it could mean that the Ragesians had used elves disguised in Shahalesti uniforms to do the dirty deed. If the first was true, why had Coaltongue never denied being his responsibility, and if the second was true, why had the Shahalest not reacted more aggressively to being framed? I ended the session with these questions filling their minds. They have since spent a lot of time thinking it over. It is my belief that Shaith believes the Shahalesti did it and he has an equal dislike for both Ragesians and Shahalesti. Gallion is convinced it was the Shahalesti, and he basically sees them as being viler than the vile Ragesians. Killian is still on the fence, he is not sure what is the truth, he also has less feelings invested in elven conflicts, so he does not jump to the same hasty conclusions on this topic.[/I] [B] End of session 2.[/B] I am going out of town this next week, so it will be a little while before the rest of chapter two will be posted, just to let you know. [/QUOTE]
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MrPereira's WOTBS D&D 3.5 Campaign (SPOILERS IN THE POSTS)
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