Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
Clockwork Zeitgeist
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="mcmillan" data-source="post: 6207717" data-attributes="member: 6681949"><p>I've fallen behind with updates, and then put off writing more as I felt I needed more time to catch up. Finally started to get around to writing up a description of the rest of Dying Skyseer, and thought I had it saved as a file so I could finish up, which apparently I didn't. So this is the even more abbreviated highlights. Let me know if anybody wants more details of any sections. I updated the first post with some changes to the party that have occurred. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> When I left off the group had just kidnapped the Danoran Consular, thinking he was tied to Nilasa's death. After leaving his unconscious body outside a bar they continued to their planned meeting with LeBrix. By the time they got back to RHC headquarters word had gotten back to Delft, and he wasn't too pleased. The party managed a somewhat successful bluff based on my (in hindsight incorrectly magical) description from LeBrix about not being able to describe the face of the person that had been meeting the Consular. They brought this fact up as support for their suggestion that someone apparently was interfering with memories, and might be trying to get them off the investigation. Delft wasn't entirely convinced, but it seemed plausible enough not to fire the group. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> After getting involved in the fight between Reynard and the Kell guild fighters, the group had everyone tied up while they sorted out what was going on. When they learned the Kell guild was after Reynard, Darrak suggested they could get some side money by turning them over themselves, and stayed to guard the prisoners while the rest of the group went on to meet with Nevard. After they got on Kell's good side, I had him offer a job to intercept a shipment from the Family, letting me use those encounters since they didn't seem to be following the leads that would take them to the Waryeyes anyway. A complication I didn't forsee, was since this wasn't an official job, they wanted to keep the ships for themselves. At first I was a little skeptical, but Faral's player got really excited about the idea of outfitting the ship with modifications he would build. So instead I'm letting them keep the ships, though they got approached by Cippiano who threatened them with blackmail by letting RHC folks know they were working with the Kell guild unless they'd work for him as well. Since Darrak seemed the only one really interested in the Kell guild, and he has since had to drop from the game, they seem to find that arrangement better anyway. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> While the group was waiting to meet with MacBannin the first time, Blayre got into a good conversation with the messenger/Nicodemus. I could barely contain a smile when he suggested the best way to direct the world in a direction you want was to find others with similar ideals, and try to build up enough of group who can influence things at a bigger scale. Since that player wanted to switch characters when we got a new player who would be our third striker, I got his ok to bring Blayre back as an NPC later on, where I'll reveal he got recruited into the Obscurati (all he knows at this point is I'll be bringing him back later). </p><p> </p><p></p><p> During the trip up Cauldron Hill, Rain was the only one that took part in the ritual to bind herself to Nevard, and was rather disturbed by the shared vision she had of the the city burning. As soon as they got clear from the spirits, the group rushed down the mountain. When MacBannin tried to stop them for the purification ritual, they told him they didn't have time, but suggested if it was that important he get a wagon and do the ritual on the way to the warehouse. In hindsight I wish I had him interfere in the fight some, though I did have him secretly poison the two dragonborn as they were being transported. I was rather surprised the group didn't seem too interested in the fact that their two prisoners ended up dead. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> Before Blayre left he was able to use his kobold messenger network to tail the messenger Recklinghausen was sending to Dr Kindleton and found out where he was hiding out. When they showed up and saw guards were people they recognized as working for Kell, they used their connection to convince them they were there to take over guarding, and thus got to Wolfgang without a fight. After filling him in about what they knew, and getting the notebooks Creed showed up, but died a much less noble death than he deserved, getting dominated by Heskan, when he scored a critical hit using Egal's wand and getting hypnotized to attack himself multiple times by Kris (the new wizard for the player that had been running Blayre) including the final killing attack. When they tried to leave and were stopped by Leone Quital, I was very glad I had statted him up high enough so that when Heskan made a ranged attack, his natural 20 was one less that his Will defense. This intimidated them enough to try a less direct method and found the second tunnel out in the latrine. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> The fight with MacBannin ended up being a bit anticlimatic, with the metagame conversation afterwards even having the players speculating that there must be something else big coming, since he wasn't even statted as an elite opponent. They also killed all the Kell guild guards there to help maintain their cover working with them. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> Once they started investigating the complex below, Faral got distracted by the Golem Lab, leaving Darrak and Corin to move ahead and be the first ones in the engine room. When they opened up the room that was listed as the cell for Wolfgang, I followed the suggestion of having a tech hiding from the jaguars in there since Wolfgang wasn't captured. I had the tech act somewhat panicked about the accidents, and want to leave immediately. Since Darrak and Corin didn't have the knowledge to understand anything about the engine they ran out with the the tech. The rest of the party saw them running, and decided to just run themselves. So without even trying to figure out how the engine was malfunctioning, the complex was left to flood the city with witchoil. Since this was the last session before Darrak's player left, we retconned things so that Darrak was killed by the witchoil flood. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> With that result, I'm running Digging for Lies with the investigation into their background being a result of the incident at the manor, and the party has been temporarily suspended from the RHC while they determine if they could have avoided what happened. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> As a transition, I ran a short filler encounter, where Cippiano hired them for some work with their ship, since they're not currently employed by the RHC. He had been approached by people he had previously worked with, asking for help recovering an item that had been taken from them and was currently being taken on a ship from the Malice Lands towards Crysilliri. In actual fact, this was an artifact from the Demonocracy that had recently been uncovered and the Clergy wanted to be brought to the Crypta Hereticarum (it hasn't come up yet, but I had figured Cippiano isn't high enough to know the Clergy/Family connection, so had been treating the cover story as what he was told as well). </p><p> </p><p></p><p> They caught up to the ship and dealt with all the people on board. Once again, like Creed, an opponent I intended to be more significant died a ignoble death. I had thought up a decent background for the leader of the expedition for this ship, but first round, she was forced overboard. She got back on and was immediately forced off a second time. Then Kris hit her with Sleep, with the Orb of Imposition feature leading to her failing the saving throw and falling unconscious while still in the water and drowning. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> While it didn't come up in the fight, I had looked up possible mechanics to be tied to what they fought being useful in the fight, in case they recovered it before killing the people on board. I got inspired by the alternate reward Asmodeus' Dread Authority, and the item they found would be Egal's crown, which provide similar effects. This fit well with the reaction when Rain picked up the box it was in, but at at first joked about not giving it to Kris when he asked to examine it. I decided to run with that and tell her she was being influenced to be more demanding of deference from others. When Kris eventually got her to let it go by being sufficiently apologetic, he only handled it with his Mage Hand spell. Once the ship arrived in Vendricce and was met by their contacts, the group was really suspicious, and didn't want to hand the crown over at first. I let a really high perception roll from Rain mean she spotted Clergy icons hidden under cloaks, and when she called them out on that, they explained the true reason for hiring them (though not the connection between the Clergy and the Family).</p><p> </p><p></p><p> After this the group got a bit of a vacation in Vendricce. Corin asked to spend some time trying to observe the militant side of the Clergy training to try to learn new fighting techniques. Since they just hit level 5, I offered as an alternate to the normal martial scientist theme power he could choose monk or paladin at-will power to get as an encounter. We also explained Kris' Order Adept theme power being gained here as him spending time with a Order Lodge in Vendricce, and having some character development for Heskan. His player has been thinking of taking a cleric multiclass feat, and already took Pelor's blessing as one of his items. We've been showing this in character by having him get visions of a fight between the person he on the wand of Egal, and another person who seems to be radiating light. I'm planning on having this play out as being eventually being revealed to be Pelor, who played a role in defeating Egal. While in Vendricce he spent a bit of time trying to figure out what these visions might mean.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mcmillan, post: 6207717, member: 6681949"] I've fallen behind with updates, and then put off writing more as I felt I needed more time to catch up. Finally started to get around to writing up a description of the rest of Dying Skyseer, and thought I had it saved as a file so I could finish up, which apparently I didn't. So this is the even more abbreviated highlights. Let me know if anybody wants more details of any sections. I updated the first post with some changes to the party that have occurred. When I left off the group had just kidnapped the Danoran Consular, thinking he was tied to Nilasa's death. After leaving his unconscious body outside a bar they continued to their planned meeting with LeBrix. By the time they got back to RHC headquarters word had gotten back to Delft, and he wasn't too pleased. The party managed a somewhat successful bluff based on my (in hindsight incorrectly magical) description from LeBrix about not being able to describe the face of the person that had been meeting the Consular. They brought this fact up as support for their suggestion that someone apparently was interfering with memories, and might be trying to get them off the investigation. Delft wasn't entirely convinced, but it seemed plausible enough not to fire the group. After getting involved in the fight between Reynard and the Kell guild fighters, the group had everyone tied up while they sorted out what was going on. When they learned the Kell guild was after Reynard, Darrak suggested they could get some side money by turning them over themselves, and stayed to guard the prisoners while the rest of the group went on to meet with Nevard. After they got on Kell's good side, I had him offer a job to intercept a shipment from the Family, letting me use those encounters since they didn't seem to be following the leads that would take them to the Waryeyes anyway. A complication I didn't forsee, was since this wasn't an official job, they wanted to keep the ships for themselves. At first I was a little skeptical, but Faral's player got really excited about the idea of outfitting the ship with modifications he would build. So instead I'm letting them keep the ships, though they got approached by Cippiano who threatened them with blackmail by letting RHC folks know they were working with the Kell guild unless they'd work for him as well. Since Darrak seemed the only one really interested in the Kell guild, and he has since had to drop from the game, they seem to find that arrangement better anyway. While the group was waiting to meet with MacBannin the first time, Blayre got into a good conversation with the messenger/Nicodemus. I could barely contain a smile when he suggested the best way to direct the world in a direction you want was to find others with similar ideals, and try to build up enough of group who can influence things at a bigger scale. Since that player wanted to switch characters when we got a new player who would be our third striker, I got his ok to bring Blayre back as an NPC later on, where I'll reveal he got recruited into the Obscurati (all he knows at this point is I'll be bringing him back later). During the trip up Cauldron Hill, Rain was the only one that took part in the ritual to bind herself to Nevard, and was rather disturbed by the shared vision she had of the the city burning. As soon as they got clear from the spirits, the group rushed down the mountain. When MacBannin tried to stop them for the purification ritual, they told him they didn't have time, but suggested if it was that important he get a wagon and do the ritual on the way to the warehouse. In hindsight I wish I had him interfere in the fight some, though I did have him secretly poison the two dragonborn as they were being transported. I was rather surprised the group didn't seem too interested in the fact that their two prisoners ended up dead. Before Blayre left he was able to use his kobold messenger network to tail the messenger Recklinghausen was sending to Dr Kindleton and found out where he was hiding out. When they showed up and saw guards were people they recognized as working for Kell, they used their connection to convince them they were there to take over guarding, and thus got to Wolfgang without a fight. After filling him in about what they knew, and getting the notebooks Creed showed up, but died a much less noble death than he deserved, getting dominated by Heskan, when he scored a critical hit using Egal's wand and getting hypnotized to attack himself multiple times by Kris (the new wizard for the player that had been running Blayre) including the final killing attack. When they tried to leave and were stopped by Leone Quital, I was very glad I had statted him up high enough so that when Heskan made a ranged attack, his natural 20 was one less that his Will defense. This intimidated them enough to try a less direct method and found the second tunnel out in the latrine. The fight with MacBannin ended up being a bit anticlimatic, with the metagame conversation afterwards even having the players speculating that there must be something else big coming, since he wasn't even statted as an elite opponent. They also killed all the Kell guild guards there to help maintain their cover working with them. Once they started investigating the complex below, Faral got distracted by the Golem Lab, leaving Darrak and Corin to move ahead and be the first ones in the engine room. When they opened up the room that was listed as the cell for Wolfgang, I followed the suggestion of having a tech hiding from the jaguars in there since Wolfgang wasn't captured. I had the tech act somewhat panicked about the accidents, and want to leave immediately. Since Darrak and Corin didn't have the knowledge to understand anything about the engine they ran out with the the tech. The rest of the party saw them running, and decided to just run themselves. So without even trying to figure out how the engine was malfunctioning, the complex was left to flood the city with witchoil. Since this was the last session before Darrak's player left, we retconned things so that Darrak was killed by the witchoil flood. With that result, I'm running Digging for Lies with the investigation into their background being a result of the incident at the manor, and the party has been temporarily suspended from the RHC while they determine if they could have avoided what happened. As a transition, I ran a short filler encounter, where Cippiano hired them for some work with their ship, since they're not currently employed by the RHC. He had been approached by people he had previously worked with, asking for help recovering an item that had been taken from them and was currently being taken on a ship from the Malice Lands towards Crysilliri. In actual fact, this was an artifact from the Demonocracy that had recently been uncovered and the Clergy wanted to be brought to the Crypta Hereticarum (it hasn't come up yet, but I had figured Cippiano isn't high enough to know the Clergy/Family connection, so had been treating the cover story as what he was told as well). They caught up to the ship and dealt with all the people on board. Once again, like Creed, an opponent I intended to be more significant died a ignoble death. I had thought up a decent background for the leader of the expedition for this ship, but first round, she was forced overboard. She got back on and was immediately forced off a second time. Then Kris hit her with Sleep, with the Orb of Imposition feature leading to her failing the saving throw and falling unconscious while still in the water and drowning. While it didn't come up in the fight, I had looked up possible mechanics to be tied to what they fought being useful in the fight, in case they recovered it before killing the people on board. I got inspired by the alternate reward Asmodeus' Dread Authority, and the item they found would be Egal's crown, which provide similar effects. This fit well with the reaction when Rain picked up the box it was in, but at at first joked about not giving it to Kris when he asked to examine it. I decided to run with that and tell her she was being influenced to be more demanding of deference from others. When Kris eventually got her to let it go by being sufficiently apologetic, he only handled it with his Mage Hand spell. Once the ship arrived in Vendricce and was met by their contacts, the group was really suspicious, and didn't want to hand the crown over at first. I let a really high perception roll from Rain mean she spotted Clergy icons hidden under cloaks, and when she called them out on that, they explained the true reason for hiring them (though not the connection between the Clergy and the Family). After this the group got a bit of a vacation in Vendricce. Corin asked to spend some time trying to observe the militant side of the Clergy training to try to learn new fighting techniques. Since they just hit level 5, I offered as an alternate to the normal martial scientist theme power he could choose monk or paladin at-will power to get as an encounter. We also explained Kris' Order Adept theme power being gained here as him spending time with a Order Lodge in Vendricce, and having some character development for Heskan. His player has been thinking of taking a cleric multiclass feat, and already took Pelor's blessing as one of his items. We've been showing this in character by having him get visions of a fight between the person he on the wand of Egal, and another person who seems to be radiating light. I'm planning on having this play out as being eventually being revealed to be Pelor, who played a role in defeating Egal. While in Vendricce he spent a bit of time trying to figure out what these visions might mean. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
Clockwork Zeitgeist
Top