The after-action report from last night's 4E game

[On Puget Sound]

Aprilia, when someone puts out a lot of effort to post something they hope you will find either useful or entertaining, and you don't find it so, remember that it was not written with you specifically in mind. If it's not to your taste, that is no reason to slap the writer in the face. It's not as if you paid for the post.

There are many posts in this forum that are crunch-heavy; an occasional fluffy one like this breaks the monotony and helps to remind us that this is, after all, a "medieval fantasy" role playing game, not "Killer Accountants from Greyhawk".

< and I know what I'm talking about....I've been a member here for almost 60 hours! >

 

[Contents May Vary]

*Yawn*, can we have a rundown in something other then Ye Olde English?

Classes, Races, Powers etc etc

Way to make a first impression, dude!

 

[aprilia4life]

Sorry for the hiijackers, less focus on my post count and more focus on the OP please.

Let me rephrase. Can I get a run down of your session by Classes, Races, Powers etc etc

Thanks.

 

[mtheurer]

Sure, here's some info. Will post more after work today.

Siguard - Human Ranger - Two Weapon Fighter (axe/sword)
Oloryn - Human Fighter - Sword and Shield
Copper - Dwarf Cleric of Bahamut
Vivex - Dragonborn Pally of Bahamut
Balthazar - Human Rogue - Sneaky hit and run type
Kincaid - Half Elf Warlock

I'm running the game and Siguard is my character. We're switching off DM's every once in a while so while I'm DM'ing Stewart is telling me what to do with Siguard. When he's running the game I'll dictate what Balthazar does.

Mark
www.fictionalreality.org

 

[Argyuile]

Sure, here's some info. Will post more after work today.

Siguard - Human Ranger - Two Weapon Fighter (axe/sword)
Oloryn - Human Fighter - Sword and Shield
Copper - Dwarf Cleric of Bahamut
Vivex - Dragonborn Pally of Bahamut
Balthazar - Human Rogue - Sneaky hit and run type
Kincaid - Half Elf Warlock

I'm running the game and Siguard is my character. We're switching off DM's every once in a while so while I'm DM'ing Stewart is telling me what to do with Siguard. When he's running the game I'll dictate what Balthazar does.

Mark
www.fictionalreality.org

This is a great post thanks a ton. The battle reports in the warhammer mag used to be some of my favorite articles.

 

[Wormwood]

Thanks for the report, and thanks for going the extra mile and making it fun to read!

 

[mtheurer]

We're playing again this weekend and I thought I'd toss up the backgrounds of each of the characters currently in the party...

Siguard Jarlson - Human Ranger

As told by Siguard Jarlson after imbibing about two dozen ales and a huge dinner at The Drunk Duck. There's a crowd gathered around him, some whispering and questioning the validity of his tale while others look one with wide-eyed wonder.

In the winter of my fifth year I was witness to more carnage and wanton destruction than most see in a lifetime. Many of the older men, including my father, had left in several longboats to go downriver to trade with other peoples who lived in larger towns and cities. Hell was visited upon us a few days after their departure.

By that time of my life I had been taught what berries and mushrooms were safe to eat and which would take your soul. You had to be careful because an ignoble death, such as being stupid enough to eat poison berries, would not be sufficient to gain you passage into Valhalla. On the other hand, falling in battle while fighting proud and strong will garner you entrance after your last breath leaves your body. I had also been told bedtime stories about giants. Fearsome creatures that do indeed grind bones into dust to make the dough for their bread and the certainly do eat all manner of creatures, especially man. I was told these stories to keep me in bed at night, and they certainly did that, but stories rarely match with reality.

A crash and screaming woke me from a deep sleep and as I awoke I could see flames already engulfing several huts and the main lodge was also alight. Soon the few men that were left and the older boys were being rallied to the center of our village while the women tried to gather up the children. I ran. A coward. A fool. The men were quickly cut down by mighty giants easily twice their size. Massive clubs beat some to a bloody pulp while others were crushed by stones flung from the edge of our village. Women were cut down while trying to save the young ones and the, my friends, were gathered up and stuffed into large sacks. Everyone fought, the men, the boys, the women, even the children. I saw Sven bite one on the finger before he was stuffed into a sack. I had heard tales of horrible stews that giants would make but never really believed it. Never wanted to believe it.

I hid in a thick patch of bushes and watched my village burned to the ground. I stayed still as a mouse as a giant set down his writhing sack next to me. I made sure that my shame was complete by doing nothing. To fight and die would be honorable. To sit and bite my lips until they bled to keep from crying out has damned me for sure. I waited until all of the brutes had left. The left in their wake a tide of death and destruction. My village was razed and the earth drank much blood that day. I took what I could and headed south along the river where my father had gone. I found their longboats after two days. Smashed by huge boulders, everyone dead. There were a few giants dead along side my father and his fellows.

How does a boy of five live alone in the wilderness? Raised by wolves? Taken in by a coven of witches? Befriended by goblins? Kept warm with hatred? All of these and none of these. I am a punisher and swordsman. I will avenge the slaughter of my family, my friends and my village and surely I will also burn when my time to die comes. A black wind will follow me all my days.

Siguard then drops a handful of coins on the table and staggers up to his room.

 

[mtheurer]

Tanzanite Copper Alehouse - Dwarf Cleric

The dream is always the same, always exactly as she remembers that fateful night.

The chirping cave lizards suddenly singing out in alarm in the middle of sleep shift as her father buckles on his armor, grabs his pick, moving out towards the main shaft. A harrowing flight with her mother and sister as walls collapse and goblin faces fight in the darkness against warcrying dwarves.



The flight past bodies lying still or moaning in the central shaft, the collapse of the escape ladders and the gleeful laughter of goblin sappers. The horrifying wrench as a scaly hand grabs her mother's hair. Her young sister thrust into her arms and a sobbing half command half prayer from her mother to RUN.



The headlong flight, past the marker for safe tunnels into newly dug and unexplored regions. Sounds of footsteps, cries of fighting, all seeming to follow her into the darkness. Stopping to see if its more goblins coming up behind her, or maybe her mother has gotten free and trying to catch up. The intake of breath at the sight of cruel glowing eyes following her course into the tunnels. Another headlong flight. The fall down a short shaft. The crunch and pop of her collarbone and the sudden crying of her sister. More echoing footsteps and cruel laughter, sometimes ahead of her, sometimes behind, seeming to come from the very walls surrounding her.



The arrow, feathered with the scaly feathers of hook horror, suddenly knocking her to the ground like a giant's fist. A struggle to her feet, warmth spreading through night garments, pooling near her feet, making her slip. Another fall. A cave, and there! A marker in the darkness. It is a deep cave sign, an old one, one she does not know. Then all she knew was it was dwarf, and maybe something familiar. Later she would find out it was Waiting Darkness, one of the most grim and magical of danger signs.



She passes into the cave and finds standing stones surrounding her. She falls again and is afraid she will never get up. Below the stone seems to thrum, with power or with deep running water, or with the approach of goblin feet.



The cruel eyes surround her. Her head swims and she is only vaguely aware of their approach, like she is outside herself and it is happening to someone else. Five of them, grinning with faces full of hatred and the promise of pain, nearing the standing stones, pulling out long curved daggers. Then she notices the blood, and that not all of it is hers. The barbed arrow passed through her shoulder, and has punctured her sister. The baby is still and quiet, her swaddling soaked through.



In that moment, the fear leaves her. The horrible fleeing trek in the dark, the loss of her mother, the deep instinctive feeling that her father is already gone, and now the imminent loss of her infant sister, all are suddenly blown away in the white hot rush of rage that fills her mind. For an instant she feels as if the stones have bent inward towards her, and that fire is rushing up them and into her heart and mind, overflowing her, until in one agonizing and yet joyous moment she screams her hatred at the goblins and lets the fire loose. And then she wakes.



Tanzanite never spoke of what happened after that, she never even told the priests who took her and her infant sister in and raised them. She didn’t need to tell the priests, the fact that the two weary and scared children in blood stained children were unharmed yet bore horrendous battle scars told them volumes. This child could channel divine power.



Now as a grown woman, Tanzanite stands before the Priests of Bahamut with her head bowed listening to the prayers. Many years had past since she pounded on the great doors to the temple. Tanzanite was filled with pride and a bit of sadness. This part of her training was complete, it was time for her to leave the temple. At prayers end she lifted her gaze and caught the eye of the blond acolyte, her sister Amber Electrum, giving her a small smile as she noticed Ambers tear filled eyes.



After the ceremony, Tanzanite and Amber spoke quietly.

“I want to go with you.”

“Amber, I know. We’ve discussed this before. You know you can’t go, your training isn’t complete.” Tanzanite said sternly.

Amber pouted “I know. I just don’t want you to go. We’ve never been apart for more than a fortnight. Now you are leaving forever.”

Tanzanite took her sisters hand, “Not forever, I promise. When your training is complete, I’ll be back, we’ll travel together. Bahamut as my witness. No more tears now.”

Amber smiled slightly. “No more tears.”

“All right then, it’s time for me to go.”



The temple gates closed behind Tanzanite, she knew her real training was yet to begin.

 

[mtheurer]

Kincaid - 1/2Elf Warlock

As with most Half-Elves, Kincaid was the spawn of a union between a Human and an Elf. In this case the father was the human. And as too often happens this marriage was not highly looked upon by either racial community. So, Kincaid was left to his own devices. He studied some of the lore of his mother's people. This knowledge, gleaned from a collection of books belonging to mother and father, entertained him during his early and formative years. Kincaid proved to have at least a modicum of talent in the mystic arts. Alas, all moderately good things must come to an end. In this instance it was in his fifteenth year.
Kincaid awoke to see his home in flames and his father's brother, Damon, kneeling next to him. His uncle had arrived at the house to find it almost fully engulfed in flames. Kinciad was in the front room, unconscious. Damon took him from the house, but could not find his brother or sister-in-law amidst the flame and smoke.
After a time of grieving and a funeral ceremony Kincaid left his world behind and went to live with Damon. Damon was a very wealthy man and a skilled practitioner of the arcane. He took it upon himself to teach his nephew the ways of the Warlock. Kincaid learned of The Pact and the power that would be his when this rite was completed. His uncle was a hard taskmaster. Damon did not accept failure or mistakes well. Corrections were made with a leather riding crop. Under this severe tutelage Kincaid learned to endure pain and to insulate himself from emotion. At this time in his life the constant companions were loneliness and sadness. Alas, all bad things must come to an end...fortunately.
On the morning of this eighteenth birthday Kincaid was awakened by intense pain. Damon's magic held him immobile with dark band of power. These coils were as cold as the darkness between the stars. "Your parents were unwilling to give you to me, so I was forced to use other means to obtain your blood at the right time, " Damon said to him. It was then that Kincaid realized that the worst tragedy of his existence had been perpetrated by the man before him. He screamed through his tears, "My blood? Why do you need it so badly that you would kill your own brother, my father?" Damon proceeded to go into great detail about the ritual he was to perform that night. The main ingredient being the arcane-sensitive blood of an Elven/Human hybrid. The rite was so old that the reasoning behind the need for a half-breed had been lost in time.
Kincaid soon found himself suspended by magic, head down, above a diagram that had been drawn with molten silver. Damon began to recite in an unknown tongue passage from a tome that appeared to be bound in a material that seemed to ooze blackness. Looking too long at the symbols on the floor made Kincaid's mind want to shut down because of their alieness. Signs such as these were not meant for this world. Time passed. Damon's droning went on and on. Light from the windows began to fade. Candles that had gone unnoticed at the edge of the diagram ignited to throw obscene shadows across the insane sigils. Kincaid realized that the ritual was soon to reach its climax. Anger turned to rage at the thought that he was to become a sacrificial lamb so that his uncle, the betrayer, could gain power. Damon had taken his parents from him, the only people that had ever showed a modicum of affection towards him. The hatred he felt towards his
uncle gave Kincaid a clarity of thought. Damon's teachings had impressed upon his erstwhile student the need for precision when dealing with rituals of great power. Kincaid had an idea. It's simplicity seemed almost ludicrous.
Time was growing short for the young Half-Elf. At the center of the diagram Darkness began to form among the shadows cast by the candles. This Darkness was even more painful to perceive than the symbols etched in the floor. There was a writhing presence that was in and at the same time was Darkness. If not now, then never. Kincaid had to act if he was to save his own life and avenge the deaths of his parents. Fueled by grief, terror and hatred, Kincaid willed a sliver of power through the mystic bonds that restrained him. A candle toppled over and was extinguished.
Surprise and fear shown in Damon's eyes. "What have you done?" he screamed. A howl of hunger tore through Kincaid's mind. To preserve his sanity his brain turned itself off. Kincaid's last sight as he fell to the floor was of the Darkness pulling his uncle into the roiling madness that belonged in some place far beyond the stars.
When Kincaid awoke, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and there was no sign of the thing that should not be, his uncle, or of the noxious tome. He set about gathering his few belongings and set off to seek his destiny in the world beyond the walls of his uncle's estate. If one power hungry man could summon horror then so could others. Kincaid would do his best to keep this from happening ever again. He knew firsthand what kind of crawling chaos howled at the edges of our reality, wanting to get in and devour the light.
For three years Kincaid traveled where his feet and meager earnings could take him. That is how he ended up here in Fallcrest with a group of people that he did not know, in the employ of a dwarf that he did not know to retrieve the skin of a dragon. Somewhere a god is laughing at the joke being played out on the life of a lonely Warlock.

 

[mtheurer]

Balthazar "Jack" Hopfinger - Human Rogue

Balthazar "Jack" Hopfinger grew up in a desert trading town. His family had been in charge of the thieves guild there for generations. Young Jack never quite fit in with his family business. Oh he could do a second story switch and run job by the time he was 8. but it was around this time that his life chaged dramtically however. He, his brother, and his uncle were sent on a "free-trading ship" supposedly to a mission on another continent. Jack immediately loved the sea and like many smart kids his age immediately got underfoot, to the point where it was easier for the sailors to just show him what they were doing than to chase him off.



Two weeks into the voyage, his uncle woke him up, saying it was time to do their job. Within moments (after helping pack weapons and dabbing lampblack on his face) Jack realized their true mission was on board this ship, and his fears were confirmed as they stealthily moved past guards to the captain's quarters. This was where Jack's philosophy clashed with his family's. For years they had been theiving less, and accepting more and more contracts on people's lives. Jack found stealing to be worthy and even in his own mind, honorable, a game of wits and stealth if you will. He even had no problems eliminating a foe, just part of the game. But killing in cold blood was not something he agreed with.



On that night, he made a terrible decision. One that changed his life in an instant.



When later he himself banged on the captain's door, he was covered head to toe with blood. He asked the captain permission to join crew, and never went back to his home town. Of his uncle and brother no sign was ever found.



From then on Jack lived the life of a true outlaw, as yes, free-trader also means "pirate". Again he saw the lifestyle as a game, cat and mouse, who was better prepared, and who was better equipped to hang on to their valuables. He learned to sneak aboard a ship in the dead of night, and leave with most of the rum, half the womenfolk, and all the gold. He learned how to float into a guarded port on driftwood, and move like a ghost through the town to the armory, then sail in the morning with new swords and crossobows with the town guard none the wiser. He learend how to hide with the rest of the crew so well that boarders would think they were on a ghost ship. (Well, that is until the signal to attack came.)



Jack has since gone back to dry land (after the captain he was under died and a messy feud erupted between the new bosun and the first mate) to try his hand back at second story work and pickpocketing. He also has begun trying his hand at adventuring, a new game if you will.



Jack Hopfinger can be trusted, as far as your back goes. He'll cover you and fight like a lion to hold his ground. (Of course you would do well to not leave your coinpurse in plain site while he is doing this, as that is fair dinkum, mate.) He has an unusual code about death and fighting, making him somewhat honest. He is however a theif first and foremost, and will steal things just to prove he can (he has long since quit worrying about whether something is "worth it". Again, it is the game, mate.)



Balthazar "Jack" Hopfinger is his pirate name. He stopped using his original name when he fell out with his family. So far this has never been an issue, but he still keeps one ear to the ground in case they ever find him.