WotBS [Book 2] 'Boss fight' questions

[thom_likes_gaming]

OH, that's what binds him to the forest? In my head it had been an active choice of Indomitability. Right.
Yeah, the blade IS still stuck in his corporeal form, so no escape for now. I read the rules about how to get it out of a moving trillith, so we'll see how this will go.

 

[emeraldbeacon]

OH, that's what binds him to the forest? In my head it had been an active choice of Indomitability. Right.
Yeah, the blade IS still stuck in his corporeal form, so no escape for now. I read the rules about how to get it out of a moving trillith, so we'll see how this will go.

Yup... the Living Blade is a piece of the First Tree, which is bound to the entire forest of Innenotdar. Everything is connected...

• Indomitability is bound to the Sword as long as he remains impaled.
• The Sword is literally a living branch of the First Tree.
• The First Tree sustains the forest, as well as Timbre and the Seela.
• The Seela's song keeps Indomitability corporeal.

Part of that loop - ANY part - must be successfully broken, for the cycle to end... HOW the loop is broken is up to the players' actions, and the RESULTS of such can be quite varied.

Another idea I had for you... if "Big I" does flee, it might be rather cinematic to find a way to make the final confrontation happen at The First Tree itself. Maybe imply that it was Timbre's Champion, Anyariel, who lodged the sword there in the first place... and only "Timbre's Champion" can remove it. Maybe "Big I" captures a notable Seela - Tiljann or Papuvin - and tries to force the dryad to select a new champion to break the "curse" placed upon it, and himself...? Just brainstorming.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

Uuuh, I like it. That would be more dramatic, indeed. Good thinking.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

OK, so after a 4 month, rl-enforced break, we're set to finally conclude Book 2 tomorrow. When I relayed the background story to my wife, to check how well I have it in my head, she asked a valid question: Why did Anyariel die after the fight with Indomitability. Looks like SHE wasn't infused with the trillith's energie then? If it's so selective, could Indomitability just switch his "nothing dies" energy off and, say, have the forest burn down?

 

[emeraldbeacon]

There are different ways to handwave this. You could simply say that the connection between Indomitability and the forest hadn't been fully established yet; Anyariel would succumb to her wounds before his "undying" ability infused the forest via the Living Blade of the First Tree.

Perhaps more tellingly, though, the Indomitable Fire Template is applied to any creature that dies due to FIRE in the forest. The flames were started by Shahalesti agents some years after Anyariel sacrificed herself. Maybe the fire was the catalyst that set off his "protection" of the woods... as the forest burned, so too did he, but his undying nature in turn bled over, through the Living Blade into the First Tree, which in turn infused the entire forest with his powers. As such, it was at that point that things stopped being able to die, and only explicitly when they would die to fire.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

Just to conclude this thread:

We played 2 weeks ago, and it was a worthy finale.
The group had managed to half-free Indomitability, who was grateful enough and just took off towards the shore to finish the seela, while dragging two chars with him. The rest scrambled to catch up, and was ultimately helped by Kazyk and his teleport spell. As Big I started laying into the Seela, the part half tried to stop him, and wasn't overly successful. No attempt to negotiate (they reall didn't have any good arguments, plus rolled crap), no attempt to fight really helped. When Deception popped in to slay the last few seela, it sorta dawned on the party, that they really hadn't sussed out much of the happening, but that was way too late. When the last seela fell or ran off, only Timbre remained, but was taken down quickly too (but at least that was dramatic).

So, ultimately the group was left with the seela perished (leaving me with just enough salt to maybe have one reappear later, should I feel like it), Big I none too happy with them (they all DID stand up to him at one point or another), so no boon, and an ok-by-the-pure-text happy Kazyk, who helped them out of the forest and that's it - it was always only business after all.

I filled the players in with a few tidbits of stuff they missed (as I don't think it matters in the long run if they know more than their chars found out), and everyone was happy with the outcome. At least as far as it was all fair and made sense.

We're now heading into book 3, for which I made a new
thread

 

[RangerWickett]

That's a long gap between sessions.

I'm actually running WotBS for my group now, including one player whose character in the original campaign that inspired the series (back in 2003) was Guthwulf. Now he's playing Guthwulf's brother, who's also the same sort of affable evil, but opposed to Ragesia because he needs to one-up his brother.

Another PC is, um, literally a Sith Lord, because I'm yes-and'ing very aggressively, and the player decided to be an Oath of Vengeance Gith, so he's a space hippo whose sword glows red when he smites. Yo, whatever. We decided gnomes are actually Jawas.

The party just made it into the fire forest, so we'll see how this evil-inclined group handles the 'moral dilemma' the adventure poses.