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3.5 Scions of Gate Pass (SPOILERS IN THE POSTS)
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<blockquote data-quote="Bill T." data-source="post: 6857549" data-attributes="member: 6795693"><p><span style="font-size: 10px"><strong>Adventure III, Episode I</strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10px">Dramatis Personae</span></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Ari</strong>, a whisper gnome monk/rogue/swordsage mishmash</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Erina</strong>, a human evoker/druid/theurge mishmash</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Fitz</strong>, a human crusader/cleric/RKV mishmash</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Koba</strong>, Erina's owl familiar and urban companion</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Crystin</strong>, a human psion (telepath)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Tiljann</strong></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Torrent</strong></li> </ul><p></p><p>The trek across Dassen turns out more exciting than anyone expected: In Nassamport they learn that no one is willing to sail to Seaquen. Then, in Vidor, Fitz, being from a merchant family of Gate Pass, decides they should try their hand at horse trading, quite literally: They round up the horses hanging loose near Vidor and ride back north, selling the horses to refugees as they go.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>I didn't see any problem with this. The heroes needed more cash anyhow, and it's not like they were in a big rush. It gave me a bit of an excuse to compress the timeline in Seaquen.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p></p><p>Once they return to Vidor after their business activities, they purchase some rowboats and something resembling a map, but Erina dismisses the protective crocodile teeth as fakes. They also hire on a couple of half-orc fighters and a shugenja named Odo, all of whom were stuck in Vidor for lack of funds to buy a boat. They also hear a rumor about Katrina going into the swamp.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>I had forgotten about the redshirts until just now. They parted ways with the party when they got to Seaquen with plans to get back together, but no one followed up. Having a party of nine with three players was getting ridiculous, anyhow.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p></p><p>The H'andreas attack in the night; the wizard uses her <em>darkness</em> ability on a pebble, which makes it look like the lantern on the <em>torchstaff</em> is floating in mid-air. Then she casts <em>cloudkill</em> on the island the party set up camp on as H'andrea the druid sneaks up from the back side and kills Odo with a single blow. The fight has begun!</p><p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Obscuring mist<em> wouldn't move with the boat, so I opted for </em>darkness<em> instead. Having the tip of the torchstaff glowing above the darkness was a spooky effect that got the players' attention.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>That poor shugenja -- thrown together while people were getting dessert, only to get killed off before he can even act.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p></p><p>Erina's gets stuck on the far side of the island from the witches' boat to deal with H'andrea and Crikey -- H'andrea dies quickly, but Crikey tries to drag his mistress away, distracting Erina from the main battle. The rest of the fight is very chaotic, with the witches throwing various clouds and the heroes getting separated into various boats. Torrent <em>enlarge</em>s Fitz, who then feels free to wade up to the boat the other two witches are in. Eventually, Ari traipses from gunwhale to gunwhale of of her allied boats to get close enough to <em>shadow jaunt</em>s her way into the front of the witches' boat, thereby experiencing the dangers of teleportation first-hand. She then uses her <em>silence</em> ability to keep the witches from casting spells. The wizard gives up, but H'andrea doesn't understand that Ari is trying to knock H'andrea unconscious and therefore attacks Ari to defend her sister. Fitz then decides to flip over the boat, dumping everyone in the water. H'andrea eventually flees to a nearby island that she conceals in magical fog, only to be rendered unconcious via <em>shield other</em> when Ari finally manages to knock H'andrea out.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>I should have asked Ari for jump checks rather than balance checks as she made her way towards the boat the two witches were in. As it went, having her skitter from boat to boat was really cool.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>The fight in the witches' boat was extremely confusing for -- the <em>torchstaff</em> and the <em>darkness</em> counteracted each other, so there was this complicated interplay of areas in magical darkness, areas in natural darkness, and areas in magical light that had to be explained both to the gnome (and tieflings, of course) with darkvision and the remaining normal-sighted characters. Worse, H'andrea dropped the stone she had cast </em>darkness<em> on when Ari boarded their boat, so no one was able to do anything about the darkness until Fitz finally up-ended the boat.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p></p><p>The heroes inspect and divide up the witches' possessions. After binding the two surviving witches, the heroes decide to revive the witch to question her. The first thing she says is, "I can lead you to our captive...". Fitz agrees to let H'andrea go so long as she lets the heroes leave after she leads them to their captive, which she agrees to do.</p><p></p><p>The next morning</p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>and the next game session</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p>the heroes follow H'andrea's lead to their soggy island home. Of course, the island's skeletons attack. Fitz blames H'andrea for the skeletons' attack, but since their creator, H'andrea, is still unconcious, there is nothing she can do. Ari knocks H'andrea unconcious while Torrent destroys the bulk of the skeletons. They search the huts on the island and find Katrina and another <em>Tidereaver's Tears</em>. Katrina explains what the witches had been doing and how she avoided the kettle. This gives someone the clever idea to use one of the dream seeds, since the kettle obviously has strong psychic associations. Surprisingly, and contrary to family policy, Erina volunteers.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em><strong>Yikes!</strong> Those dream seeds are <strong>dangerous</strong>! Thankfully, the players decided to pause for a bit (dessert time, again!) to let me gather my thoughts. I quickly realized that I was prepared for the heroes to hear news of Gate Pass when they got into Seaquen, so I grabbed those notes and let them find out about it directly.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p></p><p>As Erina falls asleep, she finds herself soaring on Koba's wings over the cold snowy mountains of home. She is accompanied not by the sounds of the wind but the screams of those fed to the witches' pot. The screams die down but not away, and she arrives in the courtyard of The Castle. There, a line of mourners wait to pay their last respects. As Erina approaches the casket, she sees it is Gabal lying in repose, a look of smug satisfaction upon his still face. She recalls some of Gabal's advice, "Don't trust magic users who rely on charisma rather than studying spell books." As she resumes flight east from Gate Pass, she sees one of her cousins receiving a sledge of supplies from an elf. Food seems to be getting into the city despite the Ragesian army camped outside its walls.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>It was Erina's player who remembered the quote about charismatic casters. She's decided that Erina really doesn't like Katrina. That's going to be fun role-playing, if potentially unfortunate in the long run.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Hurray, once again, for a player with a smuggler in her backstory.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p></p><p>Everyone decides that the surviving witches are a threat to anyone who passes through the swamp. The heroes give Katrina the honor of blowing them to bits. Nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bill T., post: 6857549, member: 6795693"] [SIZE=2][B]Adventure III, Episode I[/B] Dramatis Personae[/SIZE] [LIST] [*] [B]Ari[/B], a whisper gnome monk/rogue/swordsage mishmash [*] [B]Erina[/B], a human evoker/druid/theurge mishmash [*] [B]Fitz[/B], a human crusader/cleric/RKV mishmash [*] [B]Koba[/B], Erina's owl familiar and urban companion [*] [B]Crystin[/B], a human psion (telepath) [*] [B]Tiljann[/B] [*] [B]Torrent[/B] [/LIST] The trek across Dassen turns out more exciting than anyone expected: In Nassamport they learn that no one is willing to sail to Seaquen. Then, in Vidor, Fitz, being from a merchant family of Gate Pass, decides they should try their hand at horse trading, quite literally: They round up the horses hanging loose near Vidor and ride back north, selling the horses to refugees as they go. [INDENT][I] I didn't see any problem with this. The heroes needed more cash anyhow, and it's not like they were in a big rush. It gave me a bit of an excuse to compress the timeline in Seaquen. [/I][/INDENT] Once they return to Vidor after their business activities, they purchase some rowboats and something resembling a map, but Erina dismisses the protective crocodile teeth as fakes. They also hire on a couple of half-orc fighters and a shugenja named Odo, all of whom were stuck in Vidor for lack of funds to buy a boat. They also hear a rumor about Katrina going into the swamp. [INDENT][I] I had forgotten about the redshirts until just now. They parted ways with the party when they got to Seaquen with plans to get back together, but no one followed up. Having a party of nine with three players was getting ridiculous, anyhow. [/I][/INDENT] The H'andreas attack in the night; the wizard uses her [i]darkness[/i] ability on a pebble, which makes it look like the lantern on the [i]torchstaff[/i] is floating in mid-air. Then she casts [i]cloudkill[/i] on the island the party set up camp on as H'andrea the druid sneaks up from the back side and kills Odo with a single blow. The fight has begun! [INDENT] Obscuring mist[I] wouldn't move with the boat, so I opted for [/i]darkness[i] instead. Having the tip of the torchstaff glowing above the darkness was a spooky effect that got the players' attention. That poor shugenja -- thrown together while people were getting dessert, only to get killed off before he can even act. [/I][/INDENT] Erina's gets stuck on the far side of the island from the witches' boat to deal with H'andrea and Crikey -- H'andrea dies quickly, but Crikey tries to drag his mistress away, distracting Erina from the main battle. The rest of the fight is very chaotic, with the witches throwing various clouds and the heroes getting separated into various boats. Torrent [i]enlarge[/i]s Fitz, who then feels free to wade up to the boat the other two witches are in. Eventually, Ari traipses from gunwhale to gunwhale of of her allied boats to get close enough to [i]shadow jaunt[/i]s her way into the front of the witches' boat, thereby experiencing the dangers of teleportation first-hand. She then uses her [i]silence[/i] ability to keep the witches from casting spells. The wizard gives up, but H'andrea doesn't understand that Ari is trying to knock H'andrea unconscious and therefore attacks Ari to defend her sister. Fitz then decides to flip over the boat, dumping everyone in the water. H'andrea eventually flees to a nearby island that she conceals in magical fog, only to be rendered unconcious via [i]shield other[/i] when Ari finally manages to knock H'andrea out. [INDENT][I] I should have asked Ari for jump checks rather than balance checks as she made her way towards the boat the two witches were in. As it went, having her skitter from boat to boat was really cool. The fight in the witches' boat was extremely confusing for -- the [i]torchstaff[/i] and the [i]darkness[/i] counteracted each other, so there was this complicated interplay of areas in magical darkness, areas in natural darkness, and areas in magical light that had to be explained both to the gnome (and tieflings, of course) with darkvision and the remaining normal-sighted characters. Worse, H'andrea dropped the stone she had cast [/i]darkness[i] on when Ari boarded their boat, so no one was able to do anything about the darkness until Fitz finally up-ended the boat. [/I][/INDENT] The heroes inspect and divide up the witches' possessions. After binding the two surviving witches, the heroes decide to revive the witch to question her. The first thing she says is, "I can lead you to our captive...". Fitz agrees to let H'andrea go so long as she lets the heroes leave after she leads them to their captive, which she agrees to do. The next morning [INDENT][I]and the next game session [/I][/INDENT] the heroes follow H'andrea's lead to their soggy island home. Of course, the island's skeletons attack. Fitz blames H'andrea for the skeletons' attack, but since their creator, H'andrea, is still unconcious, there is nothing she can do. Ari knocks H'andrea unconcious while Torrent destroys the bulk of the skeletons. They search the huts on the island and find Katrina and another [i]Tidereaver's Tears[/i]. Katrina explains what the witches had been doing and how she avoided the kettle. This gives someone the clever idea to use one of the dream seeds, since the kettle obviously has strong psychic associations. Surprisingly, and contrary to family policy, Erina volunteers. [INDENT][i] [b]Yikes![/b] Those dream seeds are [b]dangerous[/b]! Thankfully, the players decided to pause for a bit (dessert time, again!) to let me gather my thoughts. I quickly realized that I was prepared for the heroes to hear news of Gate Pass when they got into Seaquen, so I grabbed those notes and let them find out about it directly. [/I][/INDENT] As Erina falls asleep, she finds herself soaring on Koba's wings over the cold snowy mountains of home. She is accompanied not by the sounds of the wind but the screams of those fed to the witches' pot. The screams die down but not away, and she arrives in the courtyard of The Castle. There, a line of mourners wait to pay their last respects. As Erina approaches the casket, she sees it is Gabal lying in repose, a look of smug satisfaction upon his still face. She recalls some of Gabal's advice, "Don't trust magic users who rely on charisma rather than studying spell books." As she resumes flight east from Gate Pass, she sees one of her cousins receiving a sledge of supplies from an elf. Food seems to be getting into the city despite the Ragesian army camped outside its walls. [INDENT][i] It was Erina's player who remembered the quote about charismatic casters. She's decided that Erina really doesn't like Katrina. That's going to be fun role-playing, if potentially unfortunate in the long run. Hurray, once again, for a player with a smuggler in her backstory. [/I][/INDENT] Everyone decides that the surviving witches are a threat to anyone who passes through the swamp. The heroes give Katrina the honor of blowing them to bits. Nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning! [/QUOTE]
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