Defenders of Daybreak - campaign questions

[Piratecat]

Why are the Modrons marching early?

Not telling. Plot point.

What is the deal with that prince that no one can remember? They keep mentioning that, and never investigating, and it's driving me buggy.

Not telling. Plot point.

How many party members have died the final death over the years?

Tagkris. Ranger/cleric at the first session who worshipped Death; ironically enough, died of natural causes (the player had to drop out.)

Maddoc. Fighter at first session or so, didn't have much interest in the game. Sacrificed by the Brotherhood of Night.

Grundo. Everyone's favorite battlerager, died once in a lame manner and again against a dragon. The second time, he earned his stay in heaven.

Jack. A thief/illusionist played by someone who then dropped out for personal problems. Was driven insane by TomTom's psionics - oops - and eventually died.

Alix. Hoo boy. Tried to betray the Defenders to Toraz, the God of Murder, right after he'd finished helping kill a number of Toraz's priests. Toraz agreed to accept him if he'd kill a woman who loved him; he couldn't; and the God cursed him with a wasting sickness. Angels in Mt. Celestia mercy killed him, at his request. Last seen, his soul became a larvae and was rescued by a sadistic cambion.

Rofan Fairfax. Happily insane druid and former PC, Rofan accidentally was leading a cult of abomination-happy Orthyss-worshippers instead of the church of Galanna he thought he had. Killed by the group.

Valdek. Killed by the trillith. A Hero.

Alix, Arcade, Grundo, Nolin, Raevynn, and Tao (twice) have been killed and raised.

 

[Sialia]

Bless you all for all this goodness--both questions and answers. Keep 'em coming!

As I mentioned, getting these answers together is neither quick nor easy for me, and my current flu is not helping. I've been at this webbing for several nights straight now, and I think I'm going to call it early tonight and try to recuperate a bit before I push on.

It is mind boggling how much stuff happens in a world in 10 years.

Madriel got me started trying to put an "episode list" together last July. I've been working at it steadily since then. Its a lot more than an episode list now.

I cheerfully thought I'd finish it all up by the end of December 2003.

Hoo brother. That was optimistic.

No promises about when I will have stuff ready for you to look at, but soon. Soon.

Soon.

But first, I sleep.

 

[Destil]

I have an old question: Why is Nolin higher level than TomTom if TomTom's an original party member and never died (while Nolin was killed once by inch high goblins)?

Is is a conequence of 2e? Nolin only loosing a point of con when he died (or being aged, don't remember which rule that used), rather than XP? Conversion issue because Nolin would be on the faster rogue XP table back then? (Though I've no idea what the conversion guidelins do for psions, or even what table they were originaly on... since I suspect that TomTom's allways been a psionic theif / rogue wuldn't he be on the same table anyway?)

Is is just that TomTom has had some times that (like now) he's missed sessions?

Has TomTom spend a significant amount of XP crafting psionic items since the switch to 3E?

 

[andrew_kenrick]

I have a follow up question to Siala's about Nolin's love interests.

Do/did the rest of the party have any love interests of their own? Or has Nolin taken their share too?

How about love interests in the party? Any of the PCs been an item?

Andrew

 

[Sialia]

Well, some of that one I can answer right off the top of my head. Cadrienne carried a torch for Arcade for a very long time before she figured out that he didn't think of it as anything other than having a handy torchbearer.

She had a brief flirt with Nolin that was strictly a platonic attempt to make Arcade jealous, which both succeeded and failed.

Then Arcade married an NPC Paladin named Adrianna. Another NPC, Peggus, has since proposed to Cadrienne, but she has not yet made up her mind whether she will marry him or not. Probably not.

Tao got Dylrath very drunk one night and tired to fool him the next morning into thinking he had besmirched her virtue. And so he proposed to her because he thought it was the honorable thing to do, and much to his surprise, she said yes. There was a brief while that they actually tried to make this engagement work out, and Dylrath almost did besmirch her in Calphas's Pocket Paradise, but he eventually decided to have the courage of his convictions and chicken out disgracefully. Dylrath has since been known to dally with certain priestesses, but it's strictly reverential. Tao, fortunately still a technical virgin, has since been hanging about with Unicorns.

Valdek and Kiri had a thing for a while, and, although I wasn't present, I understand that Nolin and Shara were in to some heavy spanking.

Claris had a child by an NPC --actually managed to be pregnant by two different NPCs at once, but didn't carry the slaadling to term.

She chose not to marry the father of the child she did keep either.

 

[Piratecat]

I have an old question: Why is Nolin higher level than TomTom if TomTom's an original party member and never died (while Nolin was killed once by inch high goblins)?

An excellent question. It's a couple of things:

- Even before TomTom's player had his incredibly cute daughter and took a hiatus more than a year ago, he attended less sessions on average than other folks. This was never a problem (although we always miss him!), but it set back his XP a fair amount. (This also affected Mara, who went to Grad School for a few years, and thus missed out on xp.)

- He went on one major psionic-item-making binge which knocked back his xp.

- Death in 2e drained constitution, not a level.

- I was sloppy when converting from 2e to 3e, and was not necessarily consistent when switching people over. Thus, classes that had a relatively easy 2e progression rate got effectively a free level. I regret this now, but no real harm done.

 

[aithdim]

I have a follow up question to Siala's about Nolin's love interests.

Do/did the rest of the party have any love interests of their own? Or has Nolin taken their share too?

How about love interests in the party? Any of the PCs been an item?

Andrew

Valdek and Kiri were an item for a while.
Valdek also played around with a few barmaids in his time.
Glimmer was a priest of Alianna, Goddess of Beauty, love, lust and seduction. Temple partys were frequent and hedonistic. He also had a few barmaids in his time.

 

[Morte]

I really want to hear the long version (i.e. DoD - Early Years) of what happened to Alix. I'd also like an example of how you "backstab an entire economy".

And, what's the closest you've come to a TPK?

 

[Piratecat]

The problem with the long version is that it's really a long version. It's the "tell the story over four or five beers" sort of story, not the "sum up in one post" sort of story. Anyways, it still upsets me to review how an incredibly cool PC went down the crapper - in an incredibly cool way - because the player couldn't hold it together. The player (and the character) was an incredibly chaotic person. He needed strong lawfuls in the party to push against, and to have them push back. When Sito and Bandeeto (playing Claris and Arcade, respectively) both moved to the west coast close to the same time, the group was left without any strong lawfuls, and he pretty much self-destructed.

TPK? Good question. I'll have to think about it! Probably the githyanki battle in the astral, although the whole group being buried up to their necks in sand comes in as a close finisher.

 

[Alomir]

I have a follow up question to Siala's about Nolin's love interests.

Do/did the rest of the party have any love interests of their own? Or has Nolin taken their share too?

Apparently, Agar has a love interest that he knew nothing about!

But, saying anything more right now would be a spoiler