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Bill T's Second War of the Burning Sky: Shelter from the Storm [more spoilers than you can shake a stick adorned with ribbons and kerchiefs at!]
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<blockquote data-quote="Bill T." data-source="post: 8046085" data-attributes="member: 6795693"><p><span style="font-size: 22px"><strong>Dramatis Personae</strong></span></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Basel</strong>, an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Dämmek</strong>, a human swordswoman with keen senses and the Living Blade.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Gusle</strong>, a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus. This player has been through the first few chapters already, so she's aware of the seela and can fill Torrent's role as guide.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Jesús Tillamook</strong>, a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle.</li> </ul><p>After a good night's sleep, the heroes discuss where to look for Natalie. They decide to head to the Battle Royale. She's not there, so after some more discussion they head to Roger's Jollies. They decide to send Jesús in alone to see what impact the lover letter had. It turns out Natalie really appreciated it, and eventually the two engage in some NSFW behavior (despite the fact that Natalie was, technically speaking, at work). In the ensuing pillow talk, Natalie explains that she's in hoc to Cernaban and that he is holding the egg until she finds a buyer. She tells him that she's asking 4,000 gp for the egg, 3,500 of which would go to paying off her debt.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>This was a mistake -- having Natalie simply spill the beans made it way too easy, especially since Cernaban had </em>dominated<em> her after he found out the heroes were onto her and was compelling her to spend all her time protecting Roger's Jollies. The note was supposed to be like something a stalker would write, anyhow, so I should have played her much more guarded. Oh well, everyone had fun in the encounter, anyhow.</em></p><p></p><p>So, the heroes go talk to Cernaban. After a short discussion, Ceraban happily and convincingly explains that Natalie is a well-known liar and that he doesn't have it. In fact, Nira searched Roger's Jollies last night and found the egg in a small cellar. Problem solved!</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>I wrote up Cernaban as a tenth-level beguiler. Being convincing is easy when you can cast </em>glibness<em> with no verbal or somatic components!</em></p><p></p><p>Nira shows the heroes where she found (and left) the egg. Natalie is shocked and insists she had no idea it was there. The heroes agree that they find Natalie's explanation more credible.</p><p></p><p>With the egg safely tucked away, the heroes head to the Lyceum to see if there has been any progress on getting them past the blockade. Gilver Fern, head of student affairs at the Lyceum, has taken responsibility for negotiating with the Shahalesti. He starts with handing them a Shahalesti military report on what happened to Thalan's team.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>I'll try to remember to post the report, but what I really found funny is how the players all objected to how slanted the Shahalesti report was. I wasn't trying to slant at all, just write up a factual description as perceived by Thalan's familiar and what an investigator would see at the scene after the heroes had left Thalan's body to rot in the cold rain like a...ahem, sorry, I may have gotten distracted.</em></p><p></p><p>In any case, Gilver provided the heroes with instructions on how they were going to get past the blockade -- in short, they were to use <em>silent image</em> to create a big glowing and rotating sign above their boat that says "sub-elven" (in Elvish, of course) and sail to the beach the Shahalesti had kindly marked ("you'll know it when you see it"). After a quick discussion, Gusle realized that she was going to be stuck concentrating on a rotating sign for <strong>hours</strong> as her landlubber allies attempted to sail. They leave the egg with Professor Steckart overnight so that he could prevent others from divinging its location.</p><p></p><p>The next morning, the heroes obtain the egg after getting a last <em>nondetection</em> on it and then proceed to the south shore. They are surprised to see a sailboat sitting in the bay with a sign declaring "sub-elven" above it! It turns out that Katrina had kindly lent Judson to them, since he'd learned to sail when he stowed away and ended up in Seaquen.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>I noticed while preparing for last session that Judson Stowe is listed as a playtester of the campaign saga. Played a trustworthy bard, right? Besides Lydia Dene, who gets a role as Lady Dene in the next adventure, any other contributors who appear as NPCs? <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></em></p><p></p><p>They sail along the shore without incident and eventually see a beach in a small cove with a big hemisphere of darkness on it. Ah, that must be the beach! The heroes beach their ship on the beach and use one of the dragon scale tokens they got from Nelle to warn Naizelasa that they're on the way. Then they go to sleep for the night.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Sadly, the messenger never made it, and the heroes never thought to ask. No matter, they just wanted to avoid startling Naizelasa, but she wasn't worried.</em></p><p></p><p>They walk up the gorge at the back of the cove and eventually get near the Dragonspire. The area looks different now -- there is more rubble, and what had been a gaudy castle has been replace by what looks like a Shahalesti fort. In any event, Naizelasa promptly arrives. She's carrying a lyre (which Basel recognizes as a <em>lyre of building</em>). She's thrilled that her egg has been returned, takes it from the heroes, and flies off to put them safely away. She then returns and quizzes the heroes all about the war, starting with the Shahalesti fleet. She's a bit puzzled that they seem to have arrived on a Shahalesti sailboat when the Shahalesti are blockading Seaquen. Say what?</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>The players' theories got a little...well, strange at this point -- something about someone replacing the sails, or casting an illusion on the boat, or.... I don't recall if they ever reached the simple explanation (their boat was gone and a different boat arrived).</em></p><p></p><p>Naizelasa is eventually satisfied that she is not going to learn much about the war, so she lets the heroes go. Concerned that there might have been Shahalesti on that Shahalesti boat, Dämmek scouts ahead of the party a fair distance. As she works her way down the gorge to the cove, she notices three armed Shahalesti women hanging out on some rocks. She carefully approaches, trying to better hear what they're discussing (not much) when a hawk -- a hawk she recognizes! -- suddenly joins the Shahalesti. They briefly play charades, and then the hawk suddenly flies directly at Dämmek! She manages to use her bow to get the hawk to veer off and gets away in the ensuing chaos.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Dämmek got pretty lucky. This is the first time she's been scouting, and she made the mistake of closing on the enemy rather than reporting back at first opportunity, which gave the Thalan's hawk familiar time to report on the arrival of the other heroes. If the Shahalesti had been a little more on the ball, they could have prevented her from providing any information to the other heroes.</em></p><p></p><p>Dämmek rejoins her fellow heroes and tells them what she saw. They head cautiously forward and are surprised to discover that the way to the beach is now occupied by a big hemisphere of darkness. They cautiously and separately approach (Gusle becomes <em>invisible</em> and makes her way past the darkness along the stream), while looking for someone or something to react from the darkness. Gusle manages to sneak up on an 8-foot long rattlesnake hiding between the rocks and very carefully moves away.</p><p></p><p>Eventually, they get close enough to provoke at least some of the Shahalesti to attack from within the darkness, swearing to avenge Thalan all the while. Gusle manages to get caught between a rock and a hard place, which inspires the snake and the Shahalesti rogue to attack her from opposite sides. She looks to be in big trouble, but Jesús does come to realize that he can help her fly, so the two of them escape onto the top of a large rock. The snake, undeterred, continues to pursue Gusle.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile arrows are fired, blows are struck, and fireballs are flung. Jesús is frustrated that the Shahelesti are completely unaffected by the torchstaff. Everyone else is annoyed at how very resilient the Shahalesti are in general, considering that two of the three are apparently wizards. The wizards, for their part, manage to do their part to make things difficult for the heroes -- both Basel and, worse yet, Gusle get hit with a <em>touch of idiocy</em> delivered via <em>spectral hand</em>, and are further shocked when the hand touches them again. Dämmek is injured enough at one point to be knocked unconscious, but Jesús again saves the day with a wand of healing and the heroes finally are victorious -- the two wizards, the snake, and the hawk are all brought down (the hawk was killed shortly after it attacked while Basel was casting a spell), and the backstabber surrenders.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>This encounter was much more challenging than the one with Thalan. The Shahelesti had prepared with </em>mage armor, false life, <em>and </em>resist fire<em> -- the latter because they knew that's how Thalan had died -- which made the heroes' attacks much less effective to start with. While the fire resistance was chosen because of they didn't want to die in a fireball, the biggest consequence was that it rendered the torchstaff completely ineffective.</em></p><p></p><p>The Shahalestis' remains are heroically looted. They also manage to find the stone that the <em>darkness</em> had been cast on and take the snake's body as well, and head to the beach to camp for the night.</p><p></p><p>We play again on the 27th -- it should have been the 20th, but someone came down with "the flu". Hopefully that's all it is!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bill T., post: 8046085, member: 6795693"] [SIZE=6][B]Dramatis Personae[/B][/SIZE] [LIST] [*][B]Basel[/B], an Innenotdaran (aka grey) elf evoker who has been attending Gabal's school and previously made his living as a baker. [*][B]Dämmek[/B], a human swordswoman with keen senses and the Living Blade. [*][B]Gusle[/B], a seela bard who recently escaped captivity from a circus. This player has been through the first few chapters already, so she's aware of the seela and can fill Torrent's role as guide. [*][B]Jesús Tillamook[/B], a half-elf cloistered cleric of the Stormbringer Phoenix, a sect of the Stormchaser Eagle that is dedicated to finding the Aquiline Heart so that they can reincarnate the Eagle. [/LIST] After a good night's sleep, the heroes discuss where to look for Natalie. They decide to head to the Battle Royale. She's not there, so after some more discussion they head to Roger's Jollies. They decide to send Jesús in alone to see what impact the lover letter had. It turns out Natalie really appreciated it, and eventually the two engage in some NSFW behavior (despite the fact that Natalie was, technically speaking, at work). In the ensuing pillow talk, Natalie explains that she's in hoc to Cernaban and that he is holding the egg until she finds a buyer. She tells him that she's asking 4,000 gp for the egg, 3,500 of which would go to paying off her debt. [INDENT][I]This was a mistake -- having Natalie simply spill the beans made it way too easy, especially since Cernaban had [/I]dominated[I] her after he found out the heroes were onto her and was compelling her to spend all her time protecting Roger's Jollies. The note was supposed to be like something a stalker would write, anyhow, so I should have played her much more guarded. Oh well, everyone had fun in the encounter, anyhow.[/I][/INDENT] So, the heroes go talk to Cernaban. After a short discussion, Ceraban happily and convincingly explains that Natalie is a well-known liar and that he doesn't have it. In fact, Nira searched Roger's Jollies last night and found the egg in a small cellar. Problem solved! [INDENT][I]I wrote up Cernaban as a tenth-level beguiler. Being convincing is easy when you can cast [/I]glibness[I] with no verbal or somatic components![/I][/INDENT] Nira shows the heroes where she found (and left) the egg. Natalie is shocked and insists she had no idea it was there. The heroes agree that they find Natalie's explanation more credible. With the egg safely tucked away, the heroes head to the Lyceum to see if there has been any progress on getting them past the blockade. Gilver Fern, head of student affairs at the Lyceum, has taken responsibility for negotiating with the Shahalesti. He starts with handing them a Shahalesti military report on what happened to Thalan's team. [INDENT][I]I'll try to remember to post the report, but what I really found funny is how the players all objected to how slanted the Shahalesti report was. I wasn't trying to slant at all, just write up a factual description as perceived by Thalan's familiar and what an investigator would see at the scene after the heroes had left Thalan's body to rot in the cold rain like a...ahem, sorry, I may have gotten distracted.[/I][/INDENT] In any case, Gilver provided the heroes with instructions on how they were going to get past the blockade -- in short, they were to use [I]silent image[/I] to create a big glowing and rotating sign above their boat that says "sub-elven" (in Elvish, of course) and sail to the beach the Shahalesti had kindly marked ("you'll know it when you see it"). After a quick discussion, Gusle realized that she was going to be stuck concentrating on a rotating sign for [B]hours[/B] as her landlubber allies attempted to sail. They leave the egg with Professor Steckart overnight so that he could prevent others from divinging its location. The next morning, the heroes obtain the egg after getting a last [I]nondetection[/I] on it and then proceed to the south shore. They are surprised to see a sailboat sitting in the bay with a sign declaring "sub-elven" above it! It turns out that Katrina had kindly lent Judson to them, since he'd learned to sail when he stowed away and ended up in Seaquen. [INDENT][I]I noticed while preparing for last session that Judson Stowe is listed as a playtester of the campaign saga. Played a trustworthy bard, right? Besides Lydia Dene, who gets a role as Lady Dene in the next adventure, any other contributors who appear as NPCs? :)[/I][/INDENT] They sail along the shore without incident and eventually see a beach in a small cove with a big hemisphere of darkness on it. Ah, that must be the beach! The heroes beach their ship on the beach and use one of the dragon scale tokens they got from Nelle to warn Naizelasa that they're on the way. Then they go to sleep for the night. [INDENT][I]Sadly, the messenger never made it, and the heroes never thought to ask. No matter, they just wanted to avoid startling Naizelasa, but she wasn't worried.[/I][/INDENT] They walk up the gorge at the back of the cove and eventually get near the Dragonspire. The area looks different now -- there is more rubble, and what had been a gaudy castle has been replace by what looks like a Shahalesti fort. In any event, Naizelasa promptly arrives. She's carrying a lyre (which Basel recognizes as a [I]lyre of building[/I]). She's thrilled that her egg has been returned, takes it from the heroes, and flies off to put them safely away. She then returns and quizzes the heroes all about the war, starting with the Shahalesti fleet. She's a bit puzzled that they seem to have arrived on a Shahalesti sailboat when the Shahalesti are blockading Seaquen. Say what? [INDENT][I]The players' theories got a little...well, strange at this point -- something about someone replacing the sails, or casting an illusion on the boat, or.... I don't recall if they ever reached the simple explanation (their boat was gone and a different boat arrived).[/I][/INDENT] Naizelasa is eventually satisfied that she is not going to learn much about the war, so she lets the heroes go. Concerned that there might have been Shahalesti on that Shahalesti boat, Dämmek scouts ahead of the party a fair distance. As she works her way down the gorge to the cove, she notices three armed Shahalesti women hanging out on some rocks. She carefully approaches, trying to better hear what they're discussing (not much) when a hawk -- a hawk she recognizes! -- suddenly joins the Shahalesti. They briefly play charades, and then the hawk suddenly flies directly at Dämmek! She manages to use her bow to get the hawk to veer off and gets away in the ensuing chaos. [INDENT][I]Dämmek got pretty lucky. This is the first time she's been scouting, and she made the mistake of closing on the enemy rather than reporting back at first opportunity, which gave the Thalan's hawk familiar time to report on the arrival of the other heroes. If the Shahalesti had been a little more on the ball, they could have prevented her from providing any information to the other heroes.[/I][/INDENT] Dämmek rejoins her fellow heroes and tells them what she saw. They head cautiously forward and are surprised to discover that the way to the beach is now occupied by a big hemisphere of darkness. They cautiously and separately approach (Gusle becomes [I]invisible[/I] and makes her way past the darkness along the stream), while looking for someone or something to react from the darkness. Gusle manages to sneak up on an 8-foot long rattlesnake hiding between the rocks and very carefully moves away. Eventually, they get close enough to provoke at least some of the Shahalesti to attack from within the darkness, swearing to avenge Thalan all the while. Gusle manages to get caught between a rock and a hard place, which inspires the snake and the Shahalesti rogue to attack her from opposite sides. She looks to be in big trouble, but Jesús does come to realize that he can help her fly, so the two of them escape onto the top of a large rock. The snake, undeterred, continues to pursue Gusle. Meanwhile arrows are fired, blows are struck, and fireballs are flung. Jesús is frustrated that the Shahelesti are completely unaffected by the torchstaff. Everyone else is annoyed at how very resilient the Shahalesti are in general, considering that two of the three are apparently wizards. The wizards, for their part, manage to do their part to make things difficult for the heroes -- both Basel and, worse yet, Gusle get hit with a [I]touch of idiocy[/I] delivered via [I]spectral hand[/I], and are further shocked when the hand touches them again. Dämmek is injured enough at one point to be knocked unconscious, but Jesús again saves the day with a wand of healing and the heroes finally are victorious -- the two wizards, the snake, and the hawk are all brought down (the hawk was killed shortly after it attacked while Basel was casting a spell), and the backstabber surrenders. [INDENT][I]This encounter was much more challenging than the one with Thalan. The Shahelesti had prepared with [/I]mage armor, false life, [I]and [/I]resist fire[I] -- the latter because they knew that's how Thalan had died -- which made the heroes' attacks much less effective to start with. While the fire resistance was chosen because of they didn't want to die in a fireball, the biggest consequence was that it rendered the torchstaff completely ineffective.[/I][/INDENT] The Shahalestis' remains are heroically looted. They also manage to find the stone that the [I]darkness[/I] had been cast on and take the snake's body as well, and head to the beach to camp for the night. We play again on the 27th -- it should have been the 20th, but someone came down with "the flu". Hopefully that's all it is! [/QUOTE]
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Bill T's Second War of the Burning Sky: Shelter from the Storm [more spoilers than you can shake a stick adorned with ribbons and kerchiefs at!]
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