(Cydra) Great Conflicts

[the Jester]

The Handsome Drelvin

Somewhere beyond the planes

In a timeless non-space a great thing stirs. Rippling like a lake touched firmly by wind, it moves, it wakens.

Something has touched it. Dozens of voices are calling its name, over and over. Xurkrischis... Xurkrischis...Xurkrishchis.... Something is beckoning to it, urging it on. Urging it to follow the voices. Urging it to come.

Like snot dribbling out of a pneumoniac’s nose, the Worm From Beyond begins to extrude towards the voices, towards the beckoning.

Towards the Material Plane.

7/15/370 O.L.G., 10 a.m., a small settlement on Lake Bellurnus, Dorhaus

Sir Maxwell, Sybele, Thrush, Rex, Jezebel and Kagera are walking together, enjoying the morning air. Drelvin is off talking to what local authorities there are- a sort of unofficial mayor- and trying to set up the building of a stronghold. The others are strolling about, looking over the small community. It probably numbers about 150 souls, and though it is so far unsophisticated, it is thriving. The lake gives up good numbers of fish, the surrounding ground is fertile, the wetlands attract fowl, and there are a reasonable sprinkling of trees about, though most are only a few years old. For building materials the folk have so far used stone harvested from the remains of the city of Ostraghan, less than ten miles away.

“This is pretty impressive,” comments Sir Maxwell. “You know, I’ve been thinking about building a church lately- I was thinking Var, but Garnet’s work could be done in a small community as easily as a large.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sybele answers. Thrush beams at her.

“Yes, I was thinking- gadzooks!” Sir Maxwell exclaims.

Our heroes stare, abashed, at another group of adventurer-types strolling down the street. One of them looks just like Drelvin, except much handsomer. And another bears a striking resemblance to him as well- only she is female! The male is dressed as a mage of some sort, and the female elf is carrying a fancy-looking bow. They are accompanied by a large, dark-skinned human with a strange, feline-looking helm on and another female elf (no resemblance to Drelvin) who slinks along behind them. The four of them are in conversation, but they stop as they catch sight of the party staring at them.

“Can I help you?” the handsome Drelvin asks coolly. The big human steps to the front. He has a huge club across his back, studded with rocks, jagged bits of obsidian and shark teeth. Thrush smiles at him and their eyes meet for a moment, each gauging the other as a formidable man.

“You look like a friend of ours, that’s all,” Jezebel says.

“Who might that be?”

“Drelvin, the Baron of these lands!” proclaims Sybele proudly.

“Drelvin!” exclaims the elven sorcerer. “Fantastic! I’m his nephew, Lillamere, and this is my sister N’Sari.”

“Wow, Drelvin’s relatives!”

“We’ve never even met him,” N’Sari sighs. There is hero worship writ large on her face.

“Maybe we can change that,” Thrush grins as everyone relaxes and introductions are passed around. The human is named Inoke Raihana (pronounced EE-no-KAY), and the other elf (no relation to Drelvin) is named Veil Raybender.

“Nice to meet you,” Thrush says to Inoke. “I’m Thrush, the finest swordsman of our age.” Inoke seems impressed but not intimidated, and he’s never heard of Thrush before. “You will,” Thrush tells him with a grin.

Drelvin is unfortunately tied up in working out his stronghold details, and he can’t be found, so the group retires to a tavern to chat over a beer or two. As always, Rex and Kagera abstain. Lillamere and his friends, it turns out, are working to clean up “Uncle Drelvin’s” lands as well; they claim to be seasoned adventurers, so the two parties join forces (at least for the time being) and determine to return to Ostraghan.

Bantering amicably, the large group gathers into a circle outside at Lillamere’s request, and he grins. “Everybody ready? Let’s go!”

He greater teleports them.

***

1 p.m., the ruins of Ostraghan

The party moves into the ruins again, expecting more trouble- perhaps more giants?

Soon enough, one of the deformed giants called fomorians starts throwing spears at them from a considerable distance, using a half-crumbled building for cover. The party starts moving forward, Inoke showing unusual speed, but Kagera gets there first and engages it toe-to-toe. She kicks it, strikes it, smacks it; it roars, swinging its large flail and slamming it into her several times. Blood splashes over the walls of the ruin as Kagera grunts and stumbles, but even though the others are still a reasonable distance away, the monk stays right on top of the giant, slamming her elbow and fists and feet into it again and again!

“Raagh!” the giant roars, and swing its flail again, catching the monk solidly in the left shoulder. She gives a groan of agony as bones crunch and break. Then it draws back, gathering speed on the great flail before swinging it directly into Kagera’s face. Inoke reaches the battle just in time to see the monk fall, her head crushed to jelly.

“Nooo!” shouts Sybele, and unleashes a flurry of arrows. Several rays flash out from Lillamere as he flies forward, wounding the giant with both a puncture and a disintegrate. Growing to huge size, Inoke springs forward, swinging his club Deadly Avalanch at the creature! A series of severe blows finishes the thing off with aplomb... but too late for Kagera.

“Oh, no!” moans Sybele.

“Well, that’s not a good start,” comments Thrush.

Next Time: Fnogghi Chaosi-Hand meets the party! And by ‘meets,’ of course, I mean that they do glorious, 12-round high-level battle!

***

As you can probably tell, the party has expanded. Brain from ENWorld, who plays Timothy in the halfling party, plays Inoke. Veil and Lillamere are new pcs, too, and N’Sari is Lillamere’s cohort/little sis. The party this game consisted of:

Lillamere, elven sorcerer 18 (CG)
Sir Maxwell Norrington, human paladin 13/knight of the chalice 6 (LG)
Sybele (fighter 8/psion 11/warrior of chaos 3) (CG)
Inoke (barbarian 2/psychic warrior 2/fighter 4/warmind 10) (NG)
Kagera (monk 19, now deceased) (LN)
Rex (monk 5/tattooed monk 1/sorcerer 1/dragon disciple 11/ranger 1/fighter 1/half-dragon paragon 1) (LN)
Veil Raybender (actually a doppelganger, though our heroes don’t yet know it; doppelganger fighter 5/mindspy 5) (CN)

And of course the npcs:

Jezebel (half-dragon rogue 5/sorcerer 7/arcane trickster 1)
N’Sari (fighter 6/sorcerer 1/arcane archer 9)
Thrush (fighter 23)

 

[Brain]

Minor nitpick: Inoke's last name has an E (Reihana)

For the other readers, he looks like a Pacific Islander (e.g. Fiji or Samoa)

 

[Sandain]

So he looks like a Pacific Islander but has a Maori name? how interesting

Great story hour, I can't wait for the next update!

 

[arwink]

I gotta say, this is probably one of the most interesting High Level storyhours I've seen so far. The blend of old pulp-fantasy feel works well, and the complexity of the story, world and plotting kicks me in the head every time I drop in and catch up.

Jester, reading this gives me the kind of tingly geek-joy I associate with reading Moorcock and Frietz Lieber, and this is the only storyhour that's ever done that. Thanks

 

[the Jester]

In Battle with Fnogghi Chaos-Hand!

7/15/370 O.L.G., 1:45 p.m., the ruins of Ostraghan

Fnogghi Chaos-Hand has seen enough.

A number of his giants have been slain lately, and all signs, including his divinations, point to one group of little ones. Obviously, these little ones are much more dangerous than your average human or elven adventurers. They have even killed Fnogghi’s little brother. Sorrow and rage are blossoming in his heart like a burning rose. A curtain of blood seems to have descended on his heart. No, these are no average adventurers.

Well, so be it. Fnogghi is no average giant, either.

Angrily, he turns to his surviving guards. The great thing that has emerged from his terrible calling has destroyed or driven mad almost his entire assembled group; and Fnogghi’s hand throbs and tingles, the sure sign that he has been surrounded by sheer entropy, raw Chaos unadulterated by form or shape.

Xurkrischis...

Fnogghi shudders, then shakes off the malaise he feels and addresses the survivors. “There are those who would oppose what we have done, who have killed our friends and brothers!” he snarls. He gestures at the giant corpses on the ground before them. “Many others of our folk perished to bring this moment to pass, but their sacrifice will be for naught if these adventurers have their way! We must take our revenge, and the adventurers must die!”

***

2:40 p.m.

Fnogghi and his giants spot our heroes at a distance of around 600’; and immediately, Andre and Pierre open fire on the party.

Andre and Pierre look perhaps the least deadly of the quintet of giants. They are much smaller, for one thing; they are only fire giants, standing around ten feet in height. The other three are all fomorians, deformed and twisted in body. But Andre and Pierre immediately change the perception that they can be disregarded, hurling polished, throwing-shaped shots of rounded stone and metal at the group. And they’re fast.* Worse, the giants are standing in the shell of a ruined, roofless building; so they have considerable cover from the party by the ruined walls. Fnogghi’s two fomorian guards unlimber humungous bows and start shooting, too; though eager to get the group into longspear range, they are happy to soften the group of adventurers up first. Fnogghi sneers to himself. This should be easy.

Our heroes start diving for cover themselves, trying to move up while staying behind ruined buildings. A few of them fire off arrows, but they are fairly ineffectual. Fnogghi smiles with savage satisfaction. Everything is going smoothly; the adventurers will certainly not be able to withstand his forces! He casts several spells to benefit his giants- first a mass bull’s strength, then a mass spell resistance, then two shield others. His hurlers, meanwhile, have pummeled N’Sari fairly heavily with boulders, dazing her and leaving her temporarily insensate. Maxwell, rushing forward, feels a boulder crash into his chest with crushing force as well, but he keeps going. Blood leaks from his armor.

Lillamere flies up to get a better vantage point. Grimly, he begins incanting, and in moments a terrible whirlwind of teeth forms, ripping into the giants. He glances down at his wounded sister and is gladdened to see Inoke stepping in front of her and expanding to huge size. They’ve adventured together long enough that Lillamere is confident that Inoke will protect N’Sari. Inoke has also manifested a concealing amorpha, which saves him from several shots from the hurlers. He takes a few to the body, too, but he shrugs the punishment off. He hands tighten on his great club.

Sybele has landed a number of arrows in the giants, but finally- as she scampers from wall to crumbled wall- she lands a deadly shot that really counts. One of the boulder-throwers gives an inarticulate cry as the arrow shatters its front teeth. “Aargh!” cries Andre, spitting shards of tooth.

Speaking of teeth, Lillamere forms a second whirlwind of teeth around the giants, and this time it chews into almost the entire group. They shout in dismay and scatter out from under cover; by now some members of the party, such as Jezebel (who is, however, invisible) are only 250’ away.

Fnogghi resists both whirlwinds of teeth thanks to his spell resistance. He frowns, though, as all four of his guards are forced out into the open. Well, he’s had time to cast almost all of his preparatory spells already; though the bastard little ones have seen him, they haven’t been able to tell what he’s doing. That’s about to change.

Fnogghi Chaos-Hand strides forth and calls on Na’Rat’s grace.

And he grows to gargantuan size as he is filled with righteous might.

Next Time: A battle this fun must be told in two parts!


*Andre and Pierre were hulking hurlers. With the combination of Rapid Shot, Quick Draw and a high base attack they would throw 5 boulders per round. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! OWW!!!

 

[the Jester]

Fnogghi Chaos-Hand, fomorian cleric of Na’Rat, grins as he casts divine power. His giants and he will slay these little bastards who have been killing their kin- and feed them to the Worm!

Our heroes, however, are a little less sanguine about their prospects. These giants have been shooting arrows and hurling boulder after boulder at them with distressing speed and accuracy. Most of the party has suffered one or more hits; the blows inflict significant damage, and many of our heroes have had to slow their rush towards the enemy to chug healing potions.

Many, but not all.

Jezebel has moved swiftly to the fore, cloaked by invisibility. Now she sets to work, firing off a succession of spells- a hold monster, followed by slow and then another greater invisibility on herself (as the duration of the one currently cloaking her is about to expire). Neither the hold nor the slow effect any of the giants.

Sybele is having better luck, shooting and then running forward to more cover. Here’s where that ‘manyshot’ trick would be handy, she reflects ruefully as she lands another arrow in one of the hulking hurlers’ arm. Then she sprints forward, ducking behind a thick pile of rubble and a half-fallen house. Ahead of her the others are moving steadily in; she winces as Max takes an arrow as thick as a halfling’s arm. He struggles onward, blood pouring from the arrow lodged in his torso.

I’m close enough, Sybele determines, and steps out to stand her ground. She began her adventuring career with the bow, so long ago on Tirchond. For a moment she flashes back to her early adventures- the Court of Law, Vulker and Borlad Hammerhead, their quest to find the lad a wife- and then she unleashes a barrage of arrows, firing again and again at the massive opponents still almost three hundred feet away. Three of her shafts sink into one of the hurlers, and the boulder-throwing giant grunts.

Then, finally, one of the party’s warriors nears the giants. Inoke’s eyes dance and he grins as he swings his club around his head, moving forward and manifesting offensive prescience. The bowmen drop their bows and whip out longspears- very long longspears. As Inoke moves in on the giants, the spearmen take jabs at him, but he parries both of them as he gains momentum. One of the hurlers is pulling forth a greatsword- a sword of Na’Rat, to be precise*- with which to render an opinion on Inoke’s prowess.

The other hulking hurler leans over to a huge piece of rubble- a fallen section of brick and mortar wall. He shrugs off a disintegrate from the elven sorcerer flitting around, and then his deformed muscles ripple as he lifts it above his head, turns towards Lillamere- and throws it. The elf gives a cry as he veers through the sky and the wall goes wide, crashing into another building that is only half-intact and knocking a great hole in it!

A greater dispel magic from Fnogghi Chaos-Hand ripples ineffectually over one of the whirlwinds of teeth, but it does dispel the other one. Lillamere, meanwhile, blasts one of the spear wielding giants with a lightning bolt, and to Fnogghi’s displeasure, the giant drops. And then Inoke rushes forward- there’s nothing he loves more than a challenge! He activates his chain of personal superiority and chain of defensive posture, then goes into a rage- and he rushes forward and psionic lion’s charges one of the hulking hurlers! His club comes down on the hurler’s hand, crushing several of his fingers!

“Raagh!” cries the fomorian.

Inoke strikes it twice more, for tremendous damage. The hurler stumbles back, and Inoke power lunges forward, smashing it again and again with Deadly Avalanch. The club breaks several bones, and the fomorian looks to have gained a new respect for Inoke. More arrows are peppering it from cover, and the remaining whirlwind of teeth is chewing into the other hurler.

“Come out, you cowards!” Fnogghi cries, invoking his god. A burst of flames shoots up from below Lillamere, and the elf gives a strangled cry and drops, nearly dead!!**

Enough of this, the fomorian giant cleric thinks, glancing at Pierre, his badly-wounded hulking hurler, and unleashes his most powerful healing magic.

Oh crap, thinks Inoke, as all four of the remaining giants heal up completely. Their wounds close. All of their wounds.

“That was a mass heal!” shouts Sybele.

Next Time: The exciting conclusion! Can our heroes beat down an 18th-level cleric fomorian giant and his buff-ass bodyguards??


*For the record, this was a +1 anarchic greatsword.

**Lillamere not only failed his save, he dropped to -9 from the flame strike. As a side note, imc a flame strike whumps down on you from above if the caster is good, or up on you from below if the caster is evil.

 

[Brain]

I must say that Fnogghi used his clerical abilities quite well in conjunction with the formorian natural abilities. Shield other is rough when both parties involved have DR and Fast Healing, and are backed up by mass heal.

 

[the Jester]

The grunts of men and giants... the singing of the great bow string of Sybele... the crackle and hiss of magical discharge...

Blood sprays. The smell of ozone from lightning bolts lingers in the air. Burnt flesh...

Our heroes are having a tough time of it. These giants are formidable, to say the least. One of the spear-wielding fomorians is down, to be sure; but the others are fine. Which is to say, bad news for our heroes.

From Fnogghi Chaos-Hand’s point of view, things are going all right. The little ones are the toughest of their kind he’s ever seen, but he’s confident that his hurlers and his spearmen and he can mop them up. Now that he’s healed all the wounded, things should finish up quickly.

Inoke lunges forward, a rumble rolling out of his throat. He slams into one of the hulking hurlers and hits him again and again with his great club. The human has achieved huge stature thanks to the power of his psionics; he is able to look the fire giant hurler in the eye and then some, and his blows deal an unbelievable amount of damage to the hurler.* Then he forces the giant backwards, almost sending it stumbling over its own feet. Finally, Sybele lands a volley of arrows into it, finishing it off.

Fnogghi cries out angrily. That’s not what he wants to see! He rushes up to the remaining hurler, who is suffering under a withering barrage from N’Sari. The clerical giant casts a heal on his wounded bodyguard, then whirls and tries to hit Lillamere with both an inflict critical wounds and his chaos touch, but the handsome elven sorcerer manages to dart out of the way.

Sir Maxwell has reached the fray. He smacks the remaining hurler in the hand, but it isn’t enough; the giant grabs him and hurls to throw him at Inoke! Meanwhile, the spearman stabs Thrush in the face, breaking his jaw and dealing a grievous wound to the swordsman.

But now that there are only three of the giants remaining, our heroes are no longer pinned down by missile fire. Sybele and N’Sari keep shooting, and though Thrush is knocked cold by one of the tremendous blows of Fnogghi, Inoke manages to slay both of the remaining bodyguards. Then the group piles the damage onto Fnogghi, and at last, after a brief and futile struggle, Na’Rat’s high priest on Cydra falls.

Shaken, our heroes regroup, loot the dead and tend their own wounds. “I think,” N’Sari says afterward, “we should retreat and recuperate for a while.” The others agree, and they return to the small settlement on the lake that serves as Drelvin’s base of operations. A week of rest serves them well.

One of the puzzling things the group found on Fnogghi was a scrap of prophecy. Labeled ‘the Prophecy of the Worms,’ it seems foreboding (don’t all prophecies?), and our heroes determine to investigate it further as soon as they are done resting.

Little do they know that they will find Xurkrischis, the Horror from the Far Realms.

Next Time: Xurkrischis!


*180 hit points of damage in one round. Crikey!

 

[drdevoid]

Am I reading this correctly? Did Inoke outshine Thrush in melee combat? Well done!

I'm not too familiar with Psionics. Was Inoke actually Huge at one point? I'm assuming he was just size large.

I bet it must get old describing a fight with Giants and size altering magic/psionics and then trying to avoid using the size categories as adjectives. There's only so many times you can use the words massive and gigantic, ya know

As always loving it. I actually started with Sound Mind and then read all the threads (accidentally) in reverse order.

I have to admit, I do miss Malford, Horbin, Lester and Orbius. But you always get great PCs, Jester, time after time. And the story keeps getting better.

 

[Brain]

Thrush and Inoke have some friendly competition when it comes to combat. They get along pretty well and respect one another (at least Inoke respects Thrush, I can't say for sure the other way around)

Yes, if you are high enough level, you can become huge with the psionic power Expansion.

Fnoggi was even bigger though, the next category up from there, given that he started at huge and cast Righteous Might.

Horbin is still around. Malford is an NPC now, and Lester and Orbius are in the Pbp game somewhere on ENWorld. I'm fairly new to all of this, but I'm really happy I found the Jester's games to play in.