Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)

[Joshua Randall]

To prevent possible spoiler-izing of the players in Sagiro's campaign, I'll s-block this entire post. I really don't think anything I've posted here is groundbreaking, but just to be safe....

I recently began re-reading this story hour from the very beginning, and I'm wondering the following:

[sblock]Is there a connection among...

• the evil black energy used to create and/or powering the Null Shadows
• the evil black energy used by the Circle in their attempt to bridge the planes at Kallor
• the evil black liquid that sprayed on some of the party when they resuced the third Eye of Moirel

?

A couple of interesting quotes follow.

They are humanoid but featureless, and slightly blurry around the edges. They make no noise, and flail at her with black, fog-like appendages. Where they strike, Morningstar’s skin is left with a horrible, stinging black smear.

At the bottom of that pit are over twenty Black Circle clerics, most arrayed around the perimeter, with half a dozen standing in a black obsidian circle in the center of the floor. That circle, like the large one on the floor between the converging spheres above, is pulsing blackly in time with the loud thrumming sound that fills the entire chamber. Black energy is streaming out of the black circle in the pit, spilling up the wall of the pit, and across the floor above, towards its counterpart.

The Pillar is what immediately draws his attention. It is a tall cylindrical column, stacked alternately with rings of obsidian and transparent crystal. A black liquid moves about beneath the surface of the crystal sections, as if dark oil is trapped between two pressed sheets of glass and is oozing like a living Rorschach blot.

[/sblock]

 

[KidCthulhu]

That's not really a spoiler. They're all connected and the party has put that together.

 

[sniffles]

Wow. I've been slowly reading SteveC's nice PDFs of the earlier adventures, and really enjoying the story. I'm not sure whether to be impressed or bewildered that after 10 years the PCs are just achieving 17th level. I've been in a 3E campaign for 3 years, occurring twice a month, and out PCs are now 12th level. And I thought we were progressing slowly!

As a player I'm not sure how I'd have reacted to being transported to an alternate reality (that's the part I'm just getting started reading now). I'd probably like it for a short-term story arc, but I'm not sure I'd want to spend months of play in that situation. And I know I'd be angry to learn that they had the option to try to prevent that from happening, but if they had then they wouldn't have been able to prevent the invasion. Your players are more patient than I am, I expect.

I'm just full of questions now, which were probably answered somewhere long ago. I tend to skim over the other postings - I'm always impatient to get to the next installment of the adventure.

I'll go ahead and pose a couple of my questions and see where it gets me.
Is Kibi's Earth Mage class a homegrown prestige class, or from some sourcebook? Mechanically how did you incorporate the Crosser's Maze into Aravis?

Now I've got to try to tear myself away from the story and get some work done.

 

[Everett]

Is Kibi's Earth Mage class a homegrown prestige class, or from some sourcebook?QUOTE]

I think it's a mixture, but that's just what I glean from reading the SH. Better have Sagiro or somebody else inside the campaign answer.

 

[Piratecat]

As a player I'm not sure how I'd have reacted to being transported to an alternate reality (that's the part I'm just getting started reading now). I'd probably like it for a short-term story arc, but I'm not sure I'd want to spend months of play in that situation. And I know I'd be angry to learn that they had the option to try to prevent that from happening, but if they had then they wouldn't have been able to prevent the invasion.

I'm glad you're reading it!

None of us felt tricked or taken advantage of. I'm sure part of it was the metagame knowledge that this was going to lead to some great gaming, but we weren't mad at him -- we were mad because we had purposely decided to ignore the Sharshun, since "they weren't doing anything." That'll teach us! The world is a busy place, and lots of people are striving against one another. That's happening right now in the game, too, and I'm worried that we're missing some clues to ongoing badness that are going to seem obvious in retrospect.

Kibi's earth mage class is custom, as far as I know. Since Kibi was 1-2 levels behind the rest of the party (Kodiak had gone to grad school), the class is purposefully designed to be slightly more powerful than average in order to equalize him with the rest of the group.

Aravis never got stats for the Crosser's Maze, and as far as I know Sagiro never wrote them down; he just knew what it was capable of doing. Aravis made knowledge (planes) checks when he actively tried to use it. I suspect the typical DC for those checks was around 25, but I don't actually know.

 

[Gold Roger]

None of us felt tricked or taken advantage of. I'm sure part of it was the metagame knowledge that this was going to lead to some great gaming, but we weren't mad at him -- we were mad because we had purposely decided to ignore the Sharshun, since "they weren't doing anything." That'll teach us! The world is a busy place, and lots of people are striving against one another. That's happening right now in the game, too, and I'm worried that we're missing some clues to ongoing badness that are going to seem obvious in retrospect.

I know, I propably sound like a smart ass for saying this, but reading the compiled storyhour I kept asking myself "When are they going to move against that oasis mage guild- it stinks to hell".

I realise that noticing this was far easier when reading a compilation over the course of a week than doing so throughout years of gaming, but it still kept coming up and stuck out to me.

It was a very understandable oversight, but an oversight nontheless and it's actually this ability to pull through the consequences in such a mercyless but entertaining way that is so great about Sagiro's DMing.

 

[Dawn]

As my father was fond of telling me while I was growing up: "Nobody said life was fair."

Your dad must have known my dad. That had to have been his favorite saying to me. Of course I now use that with my kids too.

Lovin' the story! Keep it coming!

 

[Everett]

I know, I propably sound like a smart ass for saying this, but reading the compiled storyhour I kept asking myself "When are they going to move against that oasis mage guild- it stinks to hell".

What's that?

 

[sniffles]

Thanks for the answers, KidCthulhu! I imagine a lot of the experience is the 'you had to be there' effect. It's not the same just reading it. I don't mind reading about that sort of situation, but as a player I hate being in it.

(edit) Oops! It was PirateCat who answered, not KidCthulhu.

 

[Joshua Randall]

In my continued determination to come up with a realization that won't make KidC look down on me , try this one on for size:
[sblock]What if Archmage Cranchus = Condor, the creator of the Eyes of Moirel? We know that Cranchus was a powerful user of wild/earth magic (like Kibi). We know the Eyes are wild magic artifacts. There's the whole first-letter-of-the-name thing.

Plus, this would just be a damn cool plot point -- what if Cranchus/Condor created the Eyes specifically to prevent the PCs from doing what they are now doing? (i.e. "fixing" the timeline so the Emperor didn't win). There have been hints that the original timeline is the one in the which the Emperor did win (i.e., the one in which the PCs are now present), so I guess that if Cranchus = Condor, it would mean he's... eeevil!

Well, I think it would be cool. Humph.[/sblock]