OnlineDM
Adventurer
I just finished running my group through a session of the Mad King's Banquet this evening and thought that other EN Worlders might be interested in it.
First, I'll mention that we had one player who had to leave the game back in Seaquen due to real-life schedule conflicts (his character left just before the big diplomatic gathering of all of the ambassadors at Lyceum, prior to the storm). His schedule changed recently and he was able to rejoin the game, so we said that his character had been kidnapped by slavers from Ostalin who wanted him for some gladiatorial pits, but that he had escaped and traveled with another slave (a cousin of Nina Glibglammer, though not evil) to Bresk. Once there, he learned about the assassination attempt on the king and the formation of the Talon to protect the king and investigate the murders, so he joined the Talon. When the party came into Bresk, he saw them and rejoined them, officially leaving the Talon during the audience with Steppengard when the king treated them badly.
Next, we have a gnome in the party who has been flirting with "the deep end of the alignment pool" (a la Belkar Bitterleaf) for a while. When the Ragesian ambassador introduced himself in the castle, our gnome was very intrigued.
After leaving the audience, the party decided they were interested in breaking Proxy Jinis out of prison (even though they haven't actually met him yet) and started brainstorming ways to do it - including the possibility of getting themselves arrested. The Belkaresque character thought that publicly attacking the Ragesian ambassador might create enough of a diplomatic incident to get himself thrown in prison, while other PCs either wanted to talk to the proxies for the friendly lords to get their help in meeting with Jinis or to do research on the prison itself to look for ways in. In the end, they split four different ways. Most of them ended up back at the inn, but the gnome went back to the Ragesian embassy in the evening and got himself invited in.
Here, he had to decide if he wanted to bluff that he was joining their side, or ACTUALLY join their side. He rolled a good bluff, so I improvised an indoctrination scene. The ambassador and the inquisitor took him to a dark room in the embassy, lit a candle, had him kneel in a circle with runes, had the inquisitor slash his hands, let the blood run into the circle, and then chanted a bunch of prayers in Giant (including lots of references to Leska), having him repeat some of them (he doesn't speak Giant), and ultimately welcoming him as a brother in the faith. This should be interesting!
Meanwhile, the rest of the group slept at the inn while the assassin came after Balan (man, that guy has been hard to kill). I ran a souped-up version of Pixis along with a group of soldiers in the street down below (a commander, two infantry and prelate), and the party beat the bad guys up badly enough to get the assassin to flee (I halved her hit points).
This is the point at which I'm having the party enter paragon tier - an exciting moment, but it's really in the middle of things. Too bad the tier transition doesn't take place after the end of adventure three - that was a good time for it from a role-playing perspective. Still, I'm looking forward to running my first paragon-tier game!
First, I'll mention that we had one player who had to leave the game back in Seaquen due to real-life schedule conflicts (his character left just before the big diplomatic gathering of all of the ambassadors at Lyceum, prior to the storm). His schedule changed recently and he was able to rejoin the game, so we said that his character had been kidnapped by slavers from Ostalin who wanted him for some gladiatorial pits, but that he had escaped and traveled with another slave (a cousin of Nina Glibglammer, though not evil) to Bresk. Once there, he learned about the assassination attempt on the king and the formation of the Talon to protect the king and investigate the murders, so he joined the Talon. When the party came into Bresk, he saw them and rejoined them, officially leaving the Talon during the audience with Steppengard when the king treated them badly.
Next, we have a gnome in the party who has been flirting with "the deep end of the alignment pool" (a la Belkar Bitterleaf) for a while. When the Ragesian ambassador introduced himself in the castle, our gnome was very intrigued.
After leaving the audience, the party decided they were interested in breaking Proxy Jinis out of prison (even though they haven't actually met him yet) and started brainstorming ways to do it - including the possibility of getting themselves arrested. The Belkaresque character thought that publicly attacking the Ragesian ambassador might create enough of a diplomatic incident to get himself thrown in prison, while other PCs either wanted to talk to the proxies for the friendly lords to get their help in meeting with Jinis or to do research on the prison itself to look for ways in. In the end, they split four different ways. Most of them ended up back at the inn, but the gnome went back to the Ragesian embassy in the evening and got himself invited in.
Here, he had to decide if he wanted to bluff that he was joining their side, or ACTUALLY join their side. He rolled a good bluff, so I improvised an indoctrination scene. The ambassador and the inquisitor took him to a dark room in the embassy, lit a candle, had him kneel in a circle with runes, had the inquisitor slash his hands, let the blood run into the circle, and then chanted a bunch of prayers in Giant (including lots of references to Leska), having him repeat some of them (he doesn't speak Giant), and ultimately welcoming him as a brother in the faith. This should be interesting!
Meanwhile, the rest of the group slept at the inn while the assassin came after Balan (man, that guy has been hard to kill). I ran a souped-up version of Pixis along with a group of soldiers in the street down below (a commander, two infantry and prelate), and the party beat the bad guys up badly enough to get the assassin to flee (I halved her hit points).
This is the point at which I'm having the party enter paragon tier - an exciting moment, but it's really in the middle of things. Too bad the tier transition doesn't take place after the end of adventure three - that was a good time for it from a role-playing perspective. Still, I'm looking forward to running my first paragon-tier game!
