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<blockquote data-quote="Jack99" data-source="post: 5144993" data-attributes="member: 53135"><p><strong>Session 11</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>Sonday 6th Nauvambor, Year 599 (continued)</strong></p><p>The drakes were mostly very big, and very scary, but in the end, they were easily dispatched by the party of adventurers. After the drakes were dead, Arpametan examined the creatures and realized he could use both scales and blood for his potions. He would need to test some things before being able to figure out just what potion would benefit from such ingredients.</p><p></p><p>Mavros approached and thanked the party, asking, nay begging them to find the source and reason of the drake attacks and deal with it. Unfortunately, not all of them turned out to be quite the heroes he had expected. Yurk was very focused on the amount of money he would get paid, which as it turns out, was way too little (Mavros estimated he could maybe gather 50-100 gp in total if he asked everyone in the village to turn over what they could spare). Elron thought they should deal with one mission at the time and was also a bit afraid of staying in the village. Maybe that mind flayer had more friends who were looking for them. River just wanted to help the poor villagers, and the two others (Arpametan and Wrek) were pretty indifferent. This divergence in opinion led to a pretty heated debate on how this group was to be run - and perhaps indirectly - who was the leader of the party?.</p><p></p><p>Before they could finish, they were interrupted by a young boy who came running out of the darkness, from beyond the village. He was yelling and screaming, saying that his father was dead and that the beast who killed him was still at their cottage. The party immediately bolted for the cottage. When they arrived, they saw the father laying in the snow, and a drake jumping around, as if trying to catch snowflakes. As soon as they could see it, they opened fire, and it fled in a matter of seconds, bleeding quite a bit from the wounds. As it turns out, the father was not dead, he had merely been knocked out when he accidentally was bumped into by the drake, who seemed slightly out of it.</p><p></p><p>River started looking for a blood trail from the air, but found instead tracks. It seemed the drake had arrived on foot to the cottage. The adventurers followed the tracks west, into a small forest. There they found a dead (white) Dragonborn who had by all appearances fallen off the drake and landed face down in the snow. He had some money and a map of the area. After some musing and thinking, the adventurers concluded that the arrows on the map were aerial routes (via wind currents) around settlements in the area. So, it was a "How-to-stay-hidden-while-flying-in-this-area"-map. On the map was also a place called Morningfall Summit, up in the mountains to the west. They also found a blue tabard with a ice-claw on it. Arpametan said that was the sign of a semi-secret organization called the Sons of Winter. The Sons are affiliated with the Raven Queen, quasi-worshiping her winter portfolio. Inspired by the tabard, but not wanting to copy it, Yurk and the others decided to call themselves the Golden Fist (make a black tabard with a golden fist).</p><p></p><p>The party was curious, but it was getting really late. They still opted to walk the last mile to the mountains, just to see what they could see. As it turns out, there was nothing interesting to see, especially not in the dark, but The Golden Fist did learn that it would be way too complicated to climb without some proper gear.</p><p></p><p>The Fist headed back for climbing kit and some much needed sleep. As they returned to the village, there was however more bad news. Inspired by the ease with which the Golden Fist had dispatched the drakes, a group of 15 teenagers and kids had grabbed pitchforks and the like when they learned that a drake had fallen into the icy lake and was stuck. The adults of the village learned this too late, and by the time they got there, most kids were dead.</p><p></p><p>Mansday 7th Nauvambor, Year 599</p><p>The next morning, the Fist left the village of Sirena and headed west to the mountains. There they climbed up. It proved to be fairly safe, but hard. On the way up, they found a wyvern cave/nest. Fortunately for the brave heroes, Mama Wyvern was out, and only a young wyvern was there, along with his newly hatched brothers. The poison of the young wyvern still proved strong, and Yurk came very close dieing.</p><p></p><p>Up they went, up until the top of the mountain, where a very strange sight met them. A valley, 2500 ft across, 600 ft deep, with bits of rocks floating in the air, including an undamaged tower floating well above ground (100 ft). The architecture of the tower was dragonborn, Arpametan deduced, and the alpine valley had definitely not formed naturally, but by impact. Which would probably explain the thousands of chunks of flying rocks filling the valley. Also, in a circle around the upper ledge, there stood statues of Dragonborns, all the way around the crater-valley.</p><p></p><p>As they got close to the statues, a ghostly spectre emerged and forbade them to enter the valley. When asked why, it told them that it was bound to honor the wishes of the last of it's clan. Using the tabard they had found earlier (and a little help), Yurk convinced the spectre that he was an ally of said relative and a member of the same organization (Sons of Winter) and should thus be allowed to enter.</p><p></p><p>Down they went, exploring the valley, but finding little of interest except for the pyramid of chunks of stone and earth and the tower floating on a big mote roughly 100 ft above the ground. The Golden Fist decided to check out the mysterious floating Dragonborn tower first.</p><p></p><p>They climbed up to the tower via small floating motes, and entered the ancient building. Inside they found 12 Dragonborns waiting for them. A short but brutal fight saw Wreck and Yurk go down towards the end, but in the end, the Dragonborns were dealt with in quick and orderly fashion.</p><p></p><p>After the Dragonborn fight, some of the Golden Fists wanted to explore the tower further, but they feared what they would find further up, as both Arpametan and Yurk were pretty roughed up. They decided to go hide behind the "pyramid" and resume things in the morning.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day passed, and night came. As Arpametan was taking his turn on watch, he suddenly heard something from a crypt-like entrance nearby, that they found earlier while looking for a place to camp. He woke the others, but instead of hiding to see what was coming, they prepared an ambush. Out came 7 Dragonborns carrying a big chest. The ambush was sprung, and the unarmored Fists quickly realized that they might be in way over their heads. A drake joined the fight, making things even harder, and only a lot of lucky shots by especially River and Arpametan turned the battle. Still, at the end of the battle, several Fists lay dying on the ground and it could easily have been a lot more.</p><p></p><p>[sblock=Thoughts]Oh. My. God. This last (and final) fight was so close that just another minion or two would have caused a wipe. They were saved by an absolutely mad streak of crits (including on his daily) by the ranger and quite a few by the wizard as well. Of course, an n+4 fight wearing no armor is never found. Especially with the many soldiers present, since they were hitting most characters on fairly low rolls. Then again, it could all have been avoided, had 1) not camped right in front of a suspecious entrance 2) if they had just moved a tad away when they first heard noise of people coming 3) had camped up in the tower or 4) had not taken a break.</p><p></p><p>This fight also put me in what I call the rail-road dilemma. The rail-road dilemma is when your players are about to do something stupid (in this case doing something that will caused them to fight a very hard fight with no armor) if not shall we say guided in the proper direction. This dilemma always cause me huge head-aches. On one hand, I hate TPK's, but on the other, I also believe that what will be should be, meaning that if players screw up, they should suffer the consequences. I usually end up not rail-roading them, simply because I know most of them do not like when I do that (I did it a fair bit in my first years as a DM). That does lead to some occasional TPK's or near-TPK's, which in turn places me in the same dilemma to a even bigger degree the next time the players put themselves in such a position.</p><p></p><p>We talked about it a bit after the game, and one of the players asked if I could somehow presents the facts again, to make sure all were on the same page and sure of the decision they are about to take. Of course, this is a possibility, but the problem is that the moment a DM (paraphrased) asks "are you sure that this is your choice, the facts are as follows..", it's like waving a big flag saying: "DO NOT DO WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO DO", at least IMO. Maybe the solution is to do it more often, even when the players have made the right decision, so that they can never be sure of anything. On the other hand, this seems a bit of waste of time to me, since asking the players will likely reopen any debate there has been regarding a given decision.[/sblock]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jack99, post: 5144993, member: 53135"] [B]Session 11[/B] [B]Sonday 6th Nauvambor, Year 599 (continued)[/B] The drakes were mostly very big, and very scary, but in the end, they were easily dispatched by the party of adventurers. After the drakes were dead, Arpametan examined the creatures and realized he could use both scales and blood for his potions. He would need to test some things before being able to figure out just what potion would benefit from such ingredients. Mavros approached and thanked the party, asking, nay begging them to find the source and reason of the drake attacks and deal with it. Unfortunately, not all of them turned out to be quite the heroes he had expected. Yurk was very focused on the amount of money he would get paid, which as it turns out, was way too little (Mavros estimated he could maybe gather 50-100 gp in total if he asked everyone in the village to turn over what they could spare). Elron thought they should deal with one mission at the time and was also a bit afraid of staying in the village. Maybe that mind flayer had more friends who were looking for them. River just wanted to help the poor villagers, and the two others (Arpametan and Wrek) were pretty indifferent. This divergence in opinion led to a pretty heated debate on how this group was to be run - and perhaps indirectly - who was the leader of the party?. Before they could finish, they were interrupted by a young boy who came running out of the darkness, from beyond the village. He was yelling and screaming, saying that his father was dead and that the beast who killed him was still at their cottage. The party immediately bolted for the cottage. When they arrived, they saw the father laying in the snow, and a drake jumping around, as if trying to catch snowflakes. As soon as they could see it, they opened fire, and it fled in a matter of seconds, bleeding quite a bit from the wounds. As it turns out, the father was not dead, he had merely been knocked out when he accidentally was bumped into by the drake, who seemed slightly out of it. River started looking for a blood trail from the air, but found instead tracks. It seemed the drake had arrived on foot to the cottage. The adventurers followed the tracks west, into a small forest. There they found a dead (white) Dragonborn who had by all appearances fallen off the drake and landed face down in the snow. He had some money and a map of the area. After some musing and thinking, the adventurers concluded that the arrows on the map were aerial routes (via wind currents) around settlements in the area. So, it was a "How-to-stay-hidden-while-flying-in-this-area"-map. On the map was also a place called Morningfall Summit, up in the mountains to the west. They also found a blue tabard with a ice-claw on it. Arpametan said that was the sign of a semi-secret organization called the Sons of Winter. The Sons are affiliated with the Raven Queen, quasi-worshiping her winter portfolio. Inspired by the tabard, but not wanting to copy it, Yurk and the others decided to call themselves the Golden Fist (make a black tabard with a golden fist). The party was curious, but it was getting really late. They still opted to walk the last mile to the mountains, just to see what they could see. As it turns out, there was nothing interesting to see, especially not in the dark, but The Golden Fist did learn that it would be way too complicated to climb without some proper gear. The Fist headed back for climbing kit and some much needed sleep. As they returned to the village, there was however more bad news. Inspired by the ease with which the Golden Fist had dispatched the drakes, a group of 15 teenagers and kids had grabbed pitchforks and the like when they learned that a drake had fallen into the icy lake and was stuck. The adults of the village learned this too late, and by the time they got there, most kids were dead. Mansday 7th Nauvambor, Year 599 The next morning, the Fist left the village of Sirena and headed west to the mountains. There they climbed up. It proved to be fairly safe, but hard. On the way up, they found a wyvern cave/nest. Fortunately for the brave heroes, Mama Wyvern was out, and only a young wyvern was there, along with his newly hatched brothers. The poison of the young wyvern still proved strong, and Yurk came very close dieing. Up they went, up until the top of the mountain, where a very strange sight met them. A valley, 2500 ft across, 600 ft deep, with bits of rocks floating in the air, including an undamaged tower floating well above ground (100 ft). The architecture of the tower was dragonborn, Arpametan deduced, and the alpine valley had definitely not formed naturally, but by impact. Which would probably explain the thousands of chunks of flying rocks filling the valley. Also, in a circle around the upper ledge, there stood statues of Dragonborns, all the way around the crater-valley. As they got close to the statues, a ghostly spectre emerged and forbade them to enter the valley. When asked why, it told them that it was bound to honor the wishes of the last of it's clan. Using the tabard they had found earlier (and a little help), Yurk convinced the spectre that he was an ally of said relative and a member of the same organization (Sons of Winter) and should thus be allowed to enter. Down they went, exploring the valley, but finding little of interest except for the pyramid of chunks of stone and earth and the tower floating on a big mote roughly 100 ft above the ground. The Golden Fist decided to check out the mysterious floating Dragonborn tower first. They climbed up to the tower via small floating motes, and entered the ancient building. Inside they found 12 Dragonborns waiting for them. A short but brutal fight saw Wreck and Yurk go down towards the end, but in the end, the Dragonborns were dealt with in quick and orderly fashion. After the Dragonborn fight, some of the Golden Fists wanted to explore the tower further, but they feared what they would find further up, as both Arpametan and Yurk were pretty roughed up. They decided to go hide behind the "pyramid" and resume things in the morning. The rest of the day passed, and night came. As Arpametan was taking his turn on watch, he suddenly heard something from a crypt-like entrance nearby, that they found earlier while looking for a place to camp. He woke the others, but instead of hiding to see what was coming, they prepared an ambush. Out came 7 Dragonborns carrying a big chest. The ambush was sprung, and the unarmored Fists quickly realized that they might be in way over their heads. A drake joined the fight, making things even harder, and only a lot of lucky shots by especially River and Arpametan turned the battle. Still, at the end of the battle, several Fists lay dying on the ground and it could easily have been a lot more. [sblock=Thoughts]Oh. My. God. This last (and final) fight was so close that just another minion or two would have caused a wipe. They were saved by an absolutely mad streak of crits (including on his daily) by the ranger and quite a few by the wizard as well. Of course, an n+4 fight wearing no armor is never found. Especially with the many soldiers present, since they were hitting most characters on fairly low rolls. Then again, it could all have been avoided, had 1) not camped right in front of a suspecious entrance 2) if they had just moved a tad away when they first heard noise of people coming 3) had camped up in the tower or 4) had not taken a break. This fight also put me in what I call the rail-road dilemma. The rail-road dilemma is when your players are about to do something stupid (in this case doing something that will caused them to fight a very hard fight with no armor) if not shall we say guided in the proper direction. This dilemma always cause me huge head-aches. On one hand, I hate TPK's, but on the other, I also believe that what will be should be, meaning that if players screw up, they should suffer the consequences. I usually end up not rail-roading them, simply because I know most of them do not like when I do that (I did it a fair bit in my first years as a DM). That does lead to some occasional TPK's or near-TPK's, which in turn places me in the same dilemma to a even bigger degree the next time the players put themselves in such a position. We talked about it a bit after the game, and one of the players asked if I could somehow presents the facts again, to make sure all were on the same page and sure of the decision they are about to take. Of course, this is a possibility, but the problem is that the moment a DM (paraphrased) asks "are you sure that this is your choice, the facts are as follows..", it's like waving a big flag saying: "DO NOT DO WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO DO", at least IMO. Maybe the solution is to do it more often, even when the players have made the right decision, so that they can never be sure of anything. On the other hand, this seems a bit of waste of time to me, since asking the players will likely reopen any debate there has been regarding a given decision.[/sblock] [/QUOTE]
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