Shilsen's Eberron SH (Finished - The Last Word : 9/20/15)

[Rackhir]

I'm beginning to think a critical part of an enjoyable story hour is a well-played alienist.

Mostin (from Sepulchrave's SH) is a character so well written (and I imagine well played). He's a nice mix of no-nonsense attitude and humor. One minute he's commanding a number of devils to do his bidding, the next he's cowering from a gaggle of geese. Reminds me of Rackhir's point about fundamental insanity, rather than babbling incoherently and drooling in a cup all the time. That's not a very interesting character, IMO.

Nameless is quite different from Mostin. He's... eerie, is the best way I imagine him.

Thank you very much for your kind words. So in gratitude, when Nameless opens the gates to the Far Realm and let's the Elder Gods back into Eberron, he will make sure that You Will Be Eaten First!

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Elder Gods? Elder Gods.... hmmmm, can't seem to-- ah, now I remember. The Elder Gods! They were delicious.

 

[shilsen]

Yeah, that's what I did with my DM when playing a high intelligence mage... ironically also an alienist... I miss that guy... and his pseudonatural hawk...

Granted, he'd only rarely have useful information for me... he'd often just stare at me quizzically and then go "I don't have a 24 intelligence either."

See - there's the problem. You just needed to find a DM with a 24+ Int.

Like me.

Even better if he's as humble and self-effacing as I am.

Thankfully acid substituted fireballs are the universal intelligent quotient or something.

I guess that's a variation on Luna's approach. When all you have are flame strikess, everything in the world seems like its flammable.

Also shilsen- I've noticed the same thing you described in... pretty much every group I've ever played in- characters functioning as their own autonomous units in battle (for the most part, there are rare exceptions- usually when battle is discussed ahead of time) unless something comes up which forces them to acknowledge their party mates (like the need for healing).

It probably has something to do with the fact that most combats in D&D are over in a few rounds, only a couple of seconds (yet somehow they can take hours of time out of game!)- and in that time, people want to do whatever their character is best at- usually something related to combat. In a campaign with fewer combats, this trait tends to become ever more noticeable (I've noticed).

Just stray thoughts.

Stray or not, I think you're absolutely right.

Personally, the smarter my PC the more I make him think of ways of taking advantage of the entire group's abilities, rather than just his own. I'll give you an example from the smartest PC I'm playing currently - a 22 Int Wiz12 (diviner) in an online game. In their most recent fight, he was stuck in a web spell, while his allies were fighting an equally powerful wizard, bolstered by a heavily buffed fighter-type and a couple of powerful summoned creatures. While in the web, my PC was safe from the melee-types reaching him and he and the spellcaster could have slung spells at each other till someone went down. Instead, what I had him do was cast an antimagic field, allowing him to walk within range of the spellcaster (suppressing a couple of the summoned creatures on the way and freeing up allies). It put my PC (who's an old man with lousy physical stats) in a horribly defenseless position, but with the enemy wizard's defenses down, my allies were able to take him out before he had a chance to do anything. And with him down, his allies were toasted before they could kill my PC. My guy got to do nothing fancy or flamboyant and mostly just stood around, but because he was willing to shut himself down and not focus on what he could do, the PCs got a win without any of them in serious danger.

Edit: Oh yeah- how's this for weird... I'm taking a Tolkien and philosophy course- and in the powerpoint discussing Gandalf, there was a picture of him from the movie. I saw it, and suddenly wondered if Shilsen's story hour had been updated... Crazy icon picture recognition.

Well, here's the update:

* * * * *

Balan greets the Angels and informs them that Silaena has the details on the Burning Ring raid confirmed and will tell them when they meet. Before that, however, he has a small favor to ask. He begins by asking if they know the Mud Caves, the end of the beach area at the bottom of the cliffs on which Sharn’s towers stand, extending eastward from the dock areas.

“Yes. We’ve seen it when coming into and leaving Sharn by ship,” says Gareth. “Looked like people live there. Right?”

“Yes. A lot of the poorest indigents in Sharn live there. There are shallow caves leading into the cliffs, and a shantytown built up around it ages ago, and it has been there ever since.”

“Okay. So what’s the problem?” asks Korm.

“I’m hearing that people have been disappearing from there for a couple of weeks. The Watch would never go there, and I can’t exactly ask for Blackened Book resources unless we know it’s something which concerns us, which I doubt it does. So when I heard about it I thought of you folks. Maybe when you’re done with this Burning Ring issue you could stroll down there and look around?”

“Sure,” says Korm. “Be glad to.” The others nod.

“Thanks,” says Balan. “I appreciate it. As you already know, there are a few places in Sharn where the people don’t get that much help from the Watch, so if people like you help out, it makes a big difference. Though, in all likelihood, I’m probably wasting your abilities here. Still, as I said, I appreciate you checking this out. Anyway, what else have you been up to besides causing mayhem at the Burning Ring?” He glances at Nameless’ glowing blue eyes. “And getting a makeover.”

“Well, we might be having a little situation coming up soon. Saidan Boromar’s put a bounty out on us, thanks to Mr. Diplomatic here,” says Nameless, jerking his head at Gareth.

“Saidan? You sure? How did you find out?”

“Absolutely. And let’s just say I spoke to some higher powers. Anyhow, we might have to do a little damage to disabuse people of the notion that attacking us is a smart idea.”

“Ogre’s eyes! You’re not planning to try and take out Saidan himself, are you? Please say you’re not, because otherwise, there’s going to…”

Six chuckles, in a metallic manner, and says, “No. Nameless suggested it, but I’m not ready to be fleeing Sharn yet.”

“Good,” says Balan. He smiles and adds, “I’m not quite ready to get killed trying to arrest you nuts either. So – what was the damage you were referring to?”

“I thought we could get a couple of not so smart assassins to attack us somewhere in public and wipe the floor with them. Hopefully that would dissuade a few people.”

“Hah! Okay – I’m glad you told me about it, so I’ll know to be prepared when I hear about fireballs and flame strikes going off somewhere. Just promise me to try and not blow up any towers, okay? And not hurt any innocent bystanders?”

“Certainly. We never cause a fuss if we can avoid it.”

“Yeah, right. And Boranel’s dating Aurala.”

The Angels spend a little more time chatting with Balan and then leave, heading for the part of the garrison that holds the actual Watch offices. There, they meet with Silaena Cazal and discuss her plans and their suggestions for the raid. Silaena says that she doesn’t want to wait any longer and has everything ready to occur during their next visit. The Angels explain that they are scheduled to duel each other, and she says that if they inform her as soon as they know the location, she should be there in anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour. Presumably that will be after their duel is over, which means they’ll be healed and ready to help as needed.

“Remember,” Silaena reminds them, “There are two things I’m especially interested in. First, you need to catch Hoas – and alive. Secondly, try to minimize any damage to civilians. I doubt anyone will fight, especially if you can take Hoas down, but people panic and do stupid things.” She pauses, and then adds, “So how are you planning to inform me? Magic?”

“Of course,” says Nameless. “Once we’re in there, I’ll find a secluded spot from which to use a sending to you and let you know where we are.”

“It’ll be a little difficult to find a quiet place there,” points out Six. “Maybe you could use the privy,” suggests Gareth, “But I wouldn’t want to be caught casting spells in there.”

Luna, who’s been sulking slightly since the others made her stay home while they met Hass, grunts from where she sits. When the others look at her, she reaches into her backpack and produces a pair of foot long ebony rods, topped with a bird skull and artificial black feathers. “Remember these?”

“Of course!” says Korm, slapping his forehead. “I’m still carrying around the petrified goblin arm backscratcher.” He looks at Nameless and chuckles. “They took your reference goblin when you got captured, didn’t they?”

Silaena, who has been trying to avoid looking very openly confused during this exchange, finally asks, “What does this have to do with contacting me?”

Nameless explains to her that one of the rods can be used to communicate with the person who has the other, and shows Silaena how they are utilized. “I’ll use one to inform you when we have the location. And do not reply to me, since that’ll make it obvious to anyone near us what’s going on.”

After giving her one, the Angels head back to the Gray House to make preparations and plans.

* * * * * *
Two days later, the Angels are following another halfling guide through the streets of Torchfire, heading towards what is evidently the current location for the Burning Ring, going by the combination of small groups, some of them significantly well-armed and armored, heading for it. Once they are certain, Nameless and Six fall back behind the others.

The guide stops immediately and eyes them suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

“We just need to discuss something. Give us a second. Or you can go ahead and we’ll join you.” Nameless and Six walk a little distance away, staying well in sight, and begin to talk. Unseen by the guide Nameless, who has his back to him, activates the raven skull rod tucked into his belt, and while he seems to be speaking to Six, is actually relaying the location to Silaena.

Less than a minute later, they rejoin the others and continue toward the building, which turns out to a partly filled warehouse. The crates have been set up to form walls and corridors, and the people entering wend their way through them to reach an open area, where two warforged and a pair of humans stand near an open trapdoor and steps leading down.

Below is another of the large chambers that the Burning Ring occurs in, this one with the arena – about 25 feet wide and slightly longer – in the center of the chamber, twenty feet below the audience level. A duel is just ending when the Angels enter, and Hoas soon joins them to discuss their fight.

“You already got my note about the plan for two of you to fight the other two, right? Not you, Nameless, so you other four have to decide who’s taking on who. I’d just like to have you two,” Hoas indicates Korm and Luna, “In separate groups. You throw around the most magic and do that weird bubble healing thingy, so that would even things out, I think.”

“Yeah, right!” says Luna, with a cheeky grin at the others. “You know I’ll murder you guys, right?”

Hoas laughs as the others shake their heads. “So – have you decided already?”

“No. Give us a moment.” Gareth says, “So how do we decide?”

“Let’s roll for it,” says Six, reaching into a pocket. He produces a small bag and pours out the contents into his palm. A number of strangely shaped little objects clatter into his metal hand.

“What’s this?” asks Nameless, picking one up. It is an icosahedron, with a number on each face. “Some kind of die?”

“Yeah. It’s used for this game a lot of children play, called ‘Mazes and Monsters.’ Really interesting and very creative.”

“So what are you doing with it?”

“I bought the rules a couple weeks ago.” Six points at Gareth’s back. “The Endless Blade runs a solo campaign for me at night when all of you are sleeping.”

“Yeah,” speaks up the sword, which finally seems to have developed the ability to stay quiet for long periods. “I’m a rat bastard DM in the making!”

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” asks Luna. “What’s a ‘solo campaign’ and a ‘ra…”

She doesn’t get to finish, as Hoas coughs meaningfully from behind them. “I’ll explain later,” says Six. He takes the die from Nameless and says, “1-10, Luna gets me. 11-20, Korm gets me, okay?” As the others nod, Six rolls. “All right. Korm, it is.”

“Excellent,” says Hoas. “You’re on in two more. By the way, you obviously can’t be betting on yourselves, since it would be too easy to … well, throw the fight, so I’m going to pay you guys a thousand galifars each. That’s more than fair, I think.”

“Agreed.”

“All right then – best of luck.” As Hoas walks away, the Blades walk over toward the ring and discuss among themselves how best to get through the fight without any risk of damaging each other too much.

* * * * *
Fifteen minutes later, having cast a plethora of preparatory spells, the two pairs face off against each other. Once they enter, Luna predictably transforms into a bear. This time, her form is significantly larger, at least a quarter longer and much thicker, huge muscles roiling under the clearly thicker hide, covered in dark blackish-brown hair. Spiked bony ridges decorate her brow and sickle-sized claws dig into the ground of the arena as she stretches and growls.

While the crowd promptly goes wild, Korm looks up at the beast. “Damn! I didn’t know you could turn into a dire bear yet.” Luna simply responds with a toothy, ursine grin.

And then, from the level above, Hoas says, “Ready? Fight!”

Six is the quickest to respond, leaping to the side and hurling one of the two nets he had picked up from the armory of available weapons. It wraps around Gareth, entangling him. While he irritatedly chops at the net, shredding it quickly, the druids charge into each other.

For the time being, the Angels are not pulling any punches, and the audience, already cheering Six’s move, erupts into bloodthirsty howls as Korm sets his feet and chops away at an onrushing Luna, sending blood spraying across the arena. Ignoring the pain, Luna rears up and then crashes down on him. While her teeth scrape off his magical protections, her claws bite into his shoulder and she pulls him into her chest.

And that’s when Korm realizes what he forgot to do. ! No freedom of movement! I could really use one! With no magical way to escape, there’s no way even the powerful orc can escape the eight thousand pounds of bear wrapped around him, and Luna shakes him back and forth and batters him.

Gareth, having managed to chop his way free of a second net that Six had hurled, takes the opportunity to ignore the warforged and smack Korm over the head while Luna holds him. Though Six attempts to distract Gareth and Luna, there is little he can do besides land a couple of painful blows which they shrug off.

Realizing that Korm is on the verge of unconsciousness, Luna suddenly releases him and brings a shield-sized paw down on his head, knocking the Gatekeeper senseless to the ground. The audience cheers again, as both she and Gareth turn to Six. He temporarily manages to evade her grasp, but after a few seconds, she has him too. The fight seems to be heading to an obvious conclusion.

Above them, Nameless has been watching the crowd and especially Hoas as much as the fight, and he notices half a dozen people around the arena quietly unslinging bows amidst the commotion. Before he can speak, the alienist feels the prick of two weapons against his back, and a hoarse voice whispers, “Don’t make a move, mage!” Nameless turns his head slightly. His glowing blue eyes gaze into the warily watching face of a slender man. And then Nameless smiles broadly, winks and begins to cast an incredibly quick spell.

To the surprised pair of mercenaries, the mage has just made a reflexive, and fatal, error. But for Nameless, it is a perfectly well-reasoned and tactical choice, coupled with a certain degree of mad certainty in his personal prowess and invulnerability. Just as Nameless expected, even as he begins to cast, two daggers sink deep into his back. The alienist focuses, despite the pain, and after a moment of inhuman concentration* – accompanied by a mad gibbering deep within his skull – completes his spell. With a cheerful wave, he rises into the air, rising above the surprised crowd, while ignoring the blood streaming down his back and legs.

“Heads up, people!” Nameless yells to his allies in the arena below. “These morons are trying to kill us!” Gazing across the room, the alienist locks eyes with Hoas, who is standing next to a half-open door guarded by two warforged, and begins to cast another spell.

Unknown to Nameless, Hoas has planned ahead for exactly this eventuality, and from behind him, a waiting mage casts a spell and sends three magic missiles streaking at his back. Unfortunately for the latter, however, the cheers and sounds of the roaring crowd prevented him from hearing the spell Nameless just cast. The missiles flash out of existence as they hit the shield protecting Nameless.

Nameless smirks triumphantly and completes his spell. Hoas, just about to leap through the door, goes stock-still. His eyes widen for a moment as he tries to resist, and then the alienist punches through his mental defenses and captures his will, utterly dominating it. Tell your men to stand down – now! commands Nameless.

Meanwhile, down in the arena, Gareth, Six and Luna have looked up at Nameless’ warning, only to see a hail of arrows. Unfortunately for the archers, all of them have layered on multiple protections in preparation for the duel, so most of the arrows simply bounce off harmlessly, only Gareth taking a shallow cut from a lucky shot.

“I told you so!” says Six. “This was too much of a coincidence!” As Luna releases him, the warforged reaches into his back and retrieves a specially prepared smokestick and tindertwig. He strikes them together, and billowing smoke envelops him. Beside him, Luna turns and quickly casts a rejuvenation cocoon to protect Korm. Gareth casts another protective spell. As they are doing so, three of the portcullises in the sides of the arena open, and half a dozen mercenaries rush through two of them, weapons swinging.

The rain of arrows ends swiftly as Hoas, obeying Nameless’ instructions, yells to his people to stand down. Even as he is doing so, there is a sound of rushing feet and yelling above, and multiple voices calling out, “This is the City Watch! Nobody move!” Immediately, shouts of “Raid! It’s a raid!” break out in the crowd and pandemonium reigns.

With a sigh, Nameless orders Hoas, Come over here. Even as he pronounces the mental command, the desperate hired mage casts a scorching ray at him. Or rather, tries to. Before he can complete the spell, Nameless speaks a word and gestures, blasting his partly-formed dweomer into nothingness**. With the sort of expression a tiger might give a cat that attacked it, the alienist drops a solid fog on him and half the room around him. Then, raising his voice, Nameless shouts, “Everybody shut up and don’t move – and nobody’ll get hurt!” Flying over the arena, he looks down. Luna, Gareth and Six stand next to the smoke cloud Six created, surrounded by bleeding and unconscious men. Well, almost nobody.

With Hoas under control and most of his men either unconscious or unsure what’s going on, wrapping up matters takes little effort. Once Korm emerges to learn what he missed, the four Angels make their way up to rejoin Nameless. They enter the chamber no mercenaries emerged from and discover the reason, namely the warforged gladiator Steel and the ogress Korrla, who have four groaning men lying around them. “We thought it was a little unfair of them to jump you like that,” explains Korrla, “So we took a hand. Not as if you needed any help, it seems.”

“Nevertheless, thank you,” says Gareth. “I hope you’re not too disappointed about us closing this place down. If we can ever help you with work…”

“No problem. We’ve got jobs. And this’ll open up some other time, I’m sure. Anyway, good fight.”

Once they reach the upper level, they check with Nameless about exactly what happened and help the Watch raiding party and Silaena to deal with whatever needs to be. That includes arresting the enemy spellcaster, who has made an abortive attempt to throw away his pouch of material components and pretend to be another patron. Amusing as that is, what makes the Angels completely crack up is when the disgruntled man grumbles that he only accepted the job because he’d spoken to one of the three mages who had ‘defeated’ Nameless in their duel and been told that the alienist wasn’t anywhere near as effective as he is made out to be.

Once the main details have been taken care of, Silaena asks the Angels to return to Warden Towers with her and Hoas. There, Nameless has Hoas explain everything he can about the Burning Ring and anything else that Silaena is interested in. With the mental control still in effect, there is nothing that the erstwhile ringmaster can do but sit there and recite in painstaking detail whatever his interrogators want.

Six also checks whether the attack on the Angels was a result of the bounty on their heads. Hoas explains that he had planned to kill them anyway, since he had quickly figured out that they were there for some reason besides what they said, and the bounty had just been an added bonus.

After the interrogation is accomplished, Silaena thanks the Angels profusely for their help. “Without you, we would have been trying to achieve this for months, and even if we had, it would never have been with such success. We didn’t lose a single person and none of the audience, guards or gladiators were killed, except the ones fighting you.” She looks at Nameless. “I don’t know what that spell you used on Hoas was, but it was brilliant. How long before he comes out of it?”

Nameless smirks. “Twelve days.”

“Twelve?! Bloody hell! How many people in Sharn can cast that?”

“Maybe two or three.”

Silaena shakes her head. “I’m glad you’re on our side. Anyhow, if I can help you in some way in return, let me know.”

“Well,” says Six, “We were supposed to be making a thousand galifars each off that fight.”

Silaena smiles and says, “That can be arranged. In fact, why don’t you stop by tomorrow morning and we’ll take care of it?”

* * * * *

Early the next morning, the Angels return to meet Silaena. She hands over five thousand galifars and then produces what is clearly a handy haversack. Opening it, she begins to produce multiple items, such as a pair of gloves, a cloak, a couple of rings, and a finely made chain shirt. “These are a few things that we recovered and I thought you might find useful.” She pushes across a sheet of paper. “I had them identified, and this is what they are.”

The Angels go over the paper and find that while the items are all significantly more minor than the ones they carry, all of them can be used. They quickly divide them amongst themselves and, after thanking Silaena and telling her to contact them if they can ever help, leave Warden Towers.

“So,” asks Luna, “What’s the plan of the day?”

“We should pop down to these Mud Caves and check out the disappearances Balan mentioned.”

“All right. I could use some exercise.” Luna looks sideways at Korm and grins. “Korm’s not as much fun in a clinch as I expected.”

Gareth laughs. “Maybe we could polymorph him into a gnome. That way you’d be able to feed your gnome fetish and have a powerful Gatekeeper to mate with, all in one.”

While the Endless Blade laughs uproariously from Gareth’s back, Korm mimics shoving him off the skybridge they are on. “Thank you, Gareth,” he says bitterly, “Thank you very much.”


* Natural 20 on the concentration check for a DC 39 check
** Used a swashbuckling card to counterspell as a free action. That poor mage really had a bad day!

 

[Vorput]

“Yeah. It’s used for this game a lot of children play, called ‘Mazes and Monsters.’ Really interesting and very creative.”

“So what are you doing with it?”

“I bought the rules a couple weeks ago.” Six points at Gareth’s back. “The Eternal Blade runs a solo campaign for me at night when all of you are sleeping.”

“Yeah,” speaks up the sword, which finally seems to have developed the ability to stay quiet for long periods. “I’m a rat bastard DM in the making!”

Hehehehehe... Started laughing out loud at work... people looked at me strangely. Classic...

 

[Solarious]

It's worth taking a few minutes to reply to this update. It's one of the best yet!

Gareth laughs. “Maybe we could polymorph him into a gnome. That way you’d be able to feed your gnome fetish and have a powerful Gatekeeper to mate with, all in one.”

Looks like Gareth is finally growing a sense of humor. Fits in with the current trend of teasing Korm, and all things considered, completely appropiate. Even the Endless Blade agrees!

Speaking of which...

While the Eternal Blade laughs uproariously from Gareth’s back...

Endless Blade, ENDLESS!



See you crazy dudes next update.

 

[shilsen]

Hehehehehe... Started laughing out loud at work... people looked at me strangely. Classic...

It's worth taking a few minutes to reply to this update. It's one of the best yet!

Glad you guys liked it. I have to admit, the bit about the Endless Blade running D&D (well, M&M) games for Six was a bit of creative interpolation while writing, but I think it fits.

Looks like Gareth is finally growing a sense of humor. Fits in with the current trend of teasing Korm, and all things considered, completely appropiate. Even the Endless Blade agrees!

That was actually a table comment, and actually OOC, but it made sense as an IC comment. Poor Korm has been suffering recently ever since Luna said she wanted to find a high level Gatekeeper, bring him back and have her way with him. Actually, I should say the entire group is suffering. As Korm put it, IC and OOC, "I need to Flame Strike my eyeballs to get that visual out of my head!"

Speaking of which...

Endless Blade, ENDLESS!

You enjoyed that way too much Anyhow, thanks for the catch.

See you crazy dudes next update.

Will do. May take a while, since I don't have enough from the end of last session for a complete update, so it'll only come in after we play tomorrow. And I'm grading all next week, so it may take a while. We'll see.

We're expecting some action as the PCs head into the Mud Caves (into a very suspicious 20 ft square tunnel that seems eaten/dissolved into the rock) in search of kidnapped people, so there should be something to look forward to.

And to that end, I'll let you guys decide - how badly should I hurt them?

 

[Solarious]

Well, they've had a few good runs, as it's been a little while since they escaped the Daask fiasco, nothing terribly lethal, and somehow managed to kick utter ass in the Burning Ring.

You do know what this calls for.

 

[Furby076]

Well, they've had a few good runs, as it's been a little while since they escaped the Daask fiasco, nothing terribly lethal, and somehow managed to kick utter ass in the Burning Ring.

You do know what this calls for.

Tea and crumpets.

 

[Solarious]

Tea and crumpets.

Only if they're both nailed down and on fire.

 

[Rackhir]

Well, they've had a few good runs, as it's been a little while since they escaped the Daask fiasco, nothing terribly lethal, and somehow managed to kick utter ass in the Burning Ring.

You do know what this calls for.

I hate you...