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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1900584" data-attributes="member: 9626">In the Wake of the WarAbove the coliseum, the sky was even darker than normal as a result of the battle being fought above.  Hundreds of undead creatures, from spectres and wraiths to truly powerful entities like bats made entirely out of darkness and destruction, were flying into the coliseum, and the upper levels of dragons flew up to fight them.  However, many of the incorporeal undead simply ignored them, and even the mightiest of dragons were being checked by their magical threats.  Soon the entire stadium was in chaos.  The Head that Rules the Claw was on his feet, fighting back swarms of undead with magical beams of light, and he was so distracted that he didn’t notice The Savior fleeing as fast as she could.  An undead that resembled a mournful elf maiden floated through the audience, wailing in agony, and all around her dropped dead as she passed.  Meanwhile, a skeletal figure riding one of the bats pointed a finger at the battle arena itself, and a beam of green energy struck something invisible midway down.  The protective barrier of force that originally protected the audience from the combat down, swarms of undead began to fly straight towards the surviving members of the party.  Leading the group, however, was perhaps the most repulsive creature of them all.  It was little more than a sphere, but it appeared to be made entirely out of hundreds of corpses!    Not surprisingly, the party decided this would be the ideal distraction for them to use to find and use the tattoo removal machine.  As they fled, the floating sphere shuddered, causing dozens of bodies to dislodge and plummet towards them.  To make the entire scene even more horrific, the bodies were enchanted to scream in fear and misery as the fell!  A few of the heroes were struck by falling bodies as they fled, but they realized time was of the essence, and continued.  The undead were just about ready to get on their feet and pursue them when the party made out of the arena floor.    As they got closer to the machine, things just kept getting worse and worse around them.  As they reached the nearby building it was enclosed in, they saw a blue dragon flying about wildly, apparently burning from the inside out by a fire spirit that possessed it.  As they ran into the building and towards the machine, the stable doors burst open behind them, as a morbidly obese zombie-like undead dashed out, looking for its next meal.  As they passed the armory, six of the swords seemingly rose up by their own power, and then began to spin around in a whirlwind, as another undead in the center possessed them.  Finally, they managed to reach the machine, and Tsine and Elayna got their tattoos removed while the rest of the group stood guard or prepared to teleport everyone away to safety.  As they stood guard, however, Tal noticed a strange book strewn on the floor.  Tal took it for later perusal, and before the undead could reach the room, the tattoos were removed and the party was ready to go.    Of course, before they could leave, they did have one semi-unwelcome arrival.  “Are we ready to go?” Venym asked.  “See, I told you this would be a really unpleasant place to be very soon.”    Galeron tried to protest, but Danae wouldn’t hear it, and she was the one doing the teleporting!  Soon, everyone, including Elayna, Tsine, and Venym, were safely on the outskirts of Methosilang, where unofficial members like Venym could be transported in through physical means without being affected by the divine protection of the city.    So ended the adventure, but for two notable events.  The first came when Tal read the book he found.  It appeared to be a standard history book, perhaps left there by the machine’s operator to alleviate the boredom, but the minor coincidence that led them to find the book turned out to be more like fate when they actually read it.  It was actually a book about the times of the founding of the two empires and Methosilang, and the arrival of the dark moons.  According to the orc scholars who wrote it, Bha-Ael, the head goddess of the pantheon, was once a mortal who willing absorbed some of Nerull’s power to become a goddess.  She used this power to form a new pantheon, opposing Nerull with his own strength.  However, if that was true, that means that their goddesses and the god of death are inherently tied together.  That could mean that if the undead empire was truly defeated and Nerull lost his dominance on this world, their goddesses could be lost as well!    The second notable event occurred that night.  Galeron and Tsine, though with the results of the rescue, were troubled about what they learned from the book.  They were so troubled, in fact, that they were visited that night by Lady Memory again!  She told them that she was indeed responsible for letting the party find the book, and wanted to reward Galeron and Tsine by offering them the chance to serve her directly as more than mere mortals!  Both Galeron and Tsine, though initially reluctant, chose to serve her.  Though happy to see his mother again, Galeron’s faith in his goddess was shaken by all the strange things he learned about her, and he no longer believed they could truly be the salvation of his people.  As for Tsine, he had to admit that he never really felt he was part of this world, as demonstrated by the way he was torn between his martial and magic talents, and the months of illness and captivity just made things worse.    The next day, the party awoke to learn of the loss of their two friends.  Though the church and Tsine’s family were devastated, the members of the party who were also visited by Lady Memory years ago could sense that they were someplace where they were happy.      OOC Notes: This was a very important game, which featured the end of three characters (four if you count Tsine, who had reached NPC status by now,) and two players.  The characters were Keth, who died and whose player opted not to revive him, since he was so similar to Err, Sinael, whose player was getting bored with a rogue at this point, hence his lack of activity in the major battle, and Galeron.  Galeron’s player unfortunately had to move after this game, which was why the game was a little rushed.  Originally, there was going to be a preliminary arena fight before the main event.  And as you might have guessed, the undead fight was rushed as well, as most of the undead mentioned were going to be in the way of the party as they fled and would have had to be fought en route.    The other player to leave left due to lack of interest and inter-party conflict.  He played Damien and Roryn before, but had to leave the group for a while, and never could really get back into the game afterwards.  As a result, expect some new players fairly soon into the plot.    As for the game itself, well, the arena battle went much more easily than I thought it would.  Just as a general hint?  Incense of Meditation is very overpowered for its cost! The original plan was for at least a few of them to be left when the undead showed up, forcing the party and the survivors to form a brief alliance, or at least a three way battle, to survive.  The undead monster at the end, called a Granfaloon, was borrowed from the video game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  And though I couldn’t use one in battle this time, expect me to give it a few more tries later!</blockquote>

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