ZEITGEIST The affirmative action racial recruitment team of the RHC

[RangerWickett]

several players note that she just switched to using the first person.

Ryan Nock is glad someone noticed his heavy-handed symbolism of a prisoner pursuing liberation.

Damn you have a big climax on the way. And I'm curious to see how the world the party decides on compares to the 'default' version for the upcoming setting guide.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

The world configuration is definetly going to be different as they are going to make use of at least some of my custom worlds, however I should have the final arrangement sometime next week, although I won't be absolutely certain until the ritual is completed.

I always knew I was going to end up doing something with Ashima-Shimtu but her and Nevla's romantic link meant I really had to do a redemption with her finally committing to act and change the world. There are still a couple of minor revelations I intend to slip in when I get to the wrap up,

I am looking forward to the finales, the battle with the Voice of Rot is a straight forward fight and I want to kill at least one or 2 pc's to make it a real contest. The Axis Island ritual is going to be more of an epic with less of a critical combat. Kasavarina will go over to them immediatly, if they make any effort they can get Lya to defect so the Ob forces will fall apart but Nic still has somethings up his sleeves.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

One thing we did discuss last week was the idea of no Axis island ritual, the players had never discussed it so I asked them about it. They were univerally certain it was a terrible idea, the best result they could hope for in their opinion was going back to the world of the ancients and that had not worked out well. They thought it could be worse no sun, no magic and no technology were all they thought strong possibilities they considered it crazier and riskier than Manuels Thrag plan.
The reason it had never come up was each of them had thought of it and decided it was too bad an idea to suggest.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

The Voice of Rot is dead. He died feeling betrayed by his computer software and time pressure leading to the initiative order and then the map all wrecking themselves and the hassled GM forgetting several key abilities making the fight easier than it should have been.
The players seemd to enjoy the fight though

 

[RangerWickett]

. . . yay victory?

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Getting the technical problems out of the way first. We started late due to Nevla's player having serious connection issues and not being able to join until late, at one point I was considering cancelling for the week but fortunatly she connected almost as soon as I started thinking about that. Then at the end of the 1st turn of combat the system I was using to track initiative decided that initiative should be rolled every round and wiped out the initiative order which caused me confusion and stress trying to keep things organised and then moving the Voice of Rot around on Roll20 proved very difficult , I went with freedrawing his body in after movement rather than 60 counters, but problems with the interface meant that when I deleted his previous body it also took out the counters for most of the party and there was no undo option.
So I lost track of a lot of what was going on and partly because of this confusion and time pressure I forgot several things which would have made the fight more difficult but overall it worked out the issues annoyed me much more than the players.

We started off with a logn discussion of spells and tactics, which eventually I cut short because it seemed to be obsessing on trivial issues and if we did not start the fight there was no way we were going to get it done this week but that is normal.
They cast a huge amount of pre-battle buffs the most important being layered death wards which shut down a lot of the bad guys attacks and spell immunity vs the other dangerous spells. I also used spell immunity to shut down Named Bullet (the most dangerous spell in the world) and disintigrate.

As they approached the Voice of Rot explained his ineveitable Victory, they considered blasting him with the Coaltongues main weapons but decided Reida looked too fragile to use the big guns so they engaged him in conversation while landing on Reida carefully deploying Nevla into an age where Risur existed so she could draw upon the power of the monarch, they had complicated plans to split up across the arc which never gor fully implemented. They asked the Voice why he had not already destroyed the world and he proclaimed his Victory would not be complete without destroying the Heroes of the Age , Manuel asked why he did not include Nicodemus as worthy of defeat and the Voice dismissed him as a cog in the machine. They made a note to share with Nicodemus the Voice of Rots contemptous dismissal.
The heroes started first Manuel shot the former professor with a cannon saying 'That's for stealing the best office' and noting that the university administration was too far away to stop people using artillery and deadly necromancy in academic disputes. William dimension doored Padme and himself next to the professor and he was stabbed to destruction, El Kevin blaster a rider with a huge volley of revolver fire nearly killing him. The GM activated the emergency reserves and a magma dagon crawled out of the present day a shadow of the near destruction of Alais Primos, Nevla hit 2 more riders with a sunburst spell. The riders hit El Kevin with a volley of Eye beams, the Voice of Rot Bit Manuel and the dragon charged towards Nevla and missed biting her only due to her Queenly benefits, Ulvaar slow as usual killed the injured Rider with a blade of positive energy.

The initiative order deleted itself and chaos reigned. Nevla Mazed the dragon which sadly was using Linnorm stats and had a low intelligence so never came back. William teleported over next to another Rider and Padme rolled a brilliant attack routine killing it, Manuel shot the Voice of Rot with a Nock gun, it bit him, El Kevin used a telporation gate prepared by Nevla while the Voice was monologing to teleprot across to the far side of Reida and shoot a rider leaving it badly hurt, the rider blasted El Kevin leaving him on the verge of death, Manuel was not much better. The butler (Creed) usntealthed behind Manuel and failed to hit him, Ulvaar badly hurt the butler.

To be continued

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Before the Final battle the Final until they have to implement it planar configuration
Manuels Configuration 2: Many Worlds United


This is an attempt to build an open world, with many great civilisations and incentive to cooperate between them

The key pillars are
Great Civilisations
Our World, Wulfendyne, Glorianna, Celestria, Evermeet, Iratha ket, Av, Hendreiki, Ammrou. Winghome are all either powerful civilisations, or contain powerful people. These provide natural allies against cross planar invasions. Additionally most of them have common enough ground to interact peacefully, ideally leading to a planetary federation
A world fit for heroes
The planar traits provide civilisation (Glorianna, Celestria), Altruism (Iratha Ket), Patience (Etherax), Independance (Hendreiki), personal mastery of technology (Wulfendyne), Exploration (Fourmyle) and 2nd chances (Ostea). Its a world where people and civilisations can achieve great things.
Why can’t we all get along?
The planar traits are designed to allow cooperation without resorting to mind control, patience, altruism, civilisation and independence are all good traits.

There is an attempt to balance technology and magic, Wulfendyne is a more “magical” tech plane than Jiesse, and should not cause the AV problem.

Bathoy & Ostea should combine to make undead more human and further reduce the problems of being human.

Ammrou, provides a counter to outsiders while not blocking planes. Fourmyle may make interplanetary teleportation easier, allowing contact with the other civilisations.


Planes
Air ( DC 50 )
1st: Winghome (for Dragons & Flight)
2nd: Hendreiki (For the Runequest world and to counter balance Celestia)

No strong planar synergy (air & earth, air & fire, air & time) but no opposition.
No strong concept synergy.

These are 2 strong civilisations with useful traits, (easy flight & independence)
Earth ( DC70 ):
1st Glorianna (for the Glorianna World & civilisation truimphant)
2nd Celestia ( for the Forbidden city world, & natural order of things)
3rd Dunkelveiss (for healthy beer)
No strong planar synergy (earth & time, earth & water, earth & life) but no opposition

Strong concept synergy of great empires, possibly Glorianna will introduce motion & diversity to Celestia, and Celestia will mitigate Gloriannas conquer everyone impulses.

Dunkelveiss for public health.

Andrew has said opposing Celestria with Hendriki will counterbalance the possible lack of free will in Celestria and will leave a world prone to order in the natural world. This should be good for farming and things like that, without the problems of Mojang, which causes the natural world to become barren.
Fire ( DC 50)
1st Wulfendyne (For very advanced technology & a great empire)
2nd Etherax (Possibly, patience would be a great virtue with so many strong civilisations added, fire magic might also be handy)
No strong planar synergy (Fire & Air, Fire & Life, Fire & Time) but no opposition
Etherax may be useful for the patience component.

This is intended to power our plane technologically, the Wulfendyne empire is another strong ally against the Devils & Gheddim.

Etherax is useful for the patience trait, and while the Goblin civilisation is not strong it is nice to save them.

An enhancement to fire magics is useful to help maintain the magic / technology balance and will be culturally useful to the Eladrin. (as there goddess has a fire attribute).
Water ( DC 50 ):

1st Ostea: The Beating Heart (Stabalises on 0HP, reduce unintentional death) life & water
2nd Bathory (Undead are more alive) death & water

There is an antiapathy here (death & life) but a synergy in concept (both talk about blood).
Ostea is just great for keeping people alive, which is handy in reducing violence and useful for planar invasions.

Bathoy makes the undead more alive, removes the mandatory evil bit of their alignment and I hope makes them more subject to change and human emotions and reactions. There will always be undead in D&D worlds, lets try and get usefully civilised ones.

I'm hoping the synergy may reduce vampires need to feed or make blood more nutrious to vampires. Bathoy vampires already seem civilised if we can take there feeding requirements down to a cosmetic nibble occasionally we have improved the world for them and made vampires far less of a menace elsewhere.

I would like feedback on this. I don't want to combine the two and have people come back as vampires after hitting 0 hit points. But I don't think that fits the Ostea / Bathoy synergy.

Life (DC 40) :
1st Av (Get the Fey back)
2nd Iretha Ket (Alltuisim, is a great trait, particularly when we are bringing so many big empires together, musical theater is a very fey thing)
Very Strong planar synergy (both Life & death)
Very Strong concept synergy (both are a bit whimsical)

This is a great synergy, making it easier to setup, I think Altruisim is a useful trait and Iretha Ket will just improve Av.
Death (DC 30)
1st Amrou (Mundane counters to supernatural threats are strong)

Amrou could be useful in mitigating the Devil invasions, as it inflicts damage on devils and hopefully evil outsiders in general. Plus we might get a reincarnated egyptian society, with strong magic use.

Bathoy making the Undead more alive removes some of the potential negatives of their use of undead champions.

Space Open World (DC 30):
1st Fourmyle (Teleportation)

I don't have a strong candidate here. The teleportation thing is useful though so why not keep it}?
Time (DC 40):
1st Evermeet (From the Seeds of the Old New Civilisations grow)
2nd Ascetia (People are more aware of History)
Very Strong Planar Synergy (All these are Life & Time)
Comcept Synegy, (awareness of the past moving to the future)

Evermeet is a useful society, the planar trait is useful. Ascetica has a useful trait, they have a strong planar synergy and a concept synergy, why not put them together?
Rolling Order.
Assuming we can decide the order they are put in, here are the requisite checks.
Multiple planes are done first to optimise availability of rerolls, completed multiple adds +7 to roles for other multiple planes only, which is factored in. * indicates systems we could drop to 1 plane.
Civilisation Reborn (Open)

Planet	Planes	Base	Modifier	Total
Earth	3	70		70
Air	2	50	7	57
Fire	2	50	14	64
Water	2	50	21	71
Life	2	40	28	68
Time	2	40	35	75
Space	1	30		30
Death	1	30		30

Manuel can manage Knowledge planes 39 with only his own buffs, adding a 20th level bard (ashima shintru or Rock Rackus for +4 competence,), greater heroism and moment of greatness, and 4 assistants would take this to DC69 meaning with rerolls this is doable.

Most of the 2nd planes can also be dropped in emergencies.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

(My order of events may be a bit mixed up as I did not make notes)
At the end of the previous round a Spectral image of Ulvaar appeared dressed as a wizard and blasted Ulvaar with a Meteor Storm spell lightly injuring him

This bit is confused
Manuel shot the Butler killing him, Nevla cast mass heal healing manuel and blasting a Rider and the Voice of Rot with positive energy. Padme and WIlliam attacked the Voice of Rot William using the Arsenal of Dhbisu and Padme borrowing the Sword of Ssramma, El Kevin finished off the last but one rider , the last rider being finished off by Nevla's mass heal however at some point during this time a Rider hit El Kevin with its eyebeams and killed him.
The Voice of Rot hit Manuel so hard he went flying into the void.

Only for the Aural Pleasure to sweep in, Rock Rachus singing his ballard of "Rock, Rock , He' here to save everyone of us" swung on a line grabbed Manuel and landed both of them on the Arc. As the Aural pleasure moved to hide behind the Coaltongue with a selection of beustiful dancing women acting as a chorus for Rock. Manuel Thanked Rock profusely declaring him a hero, and even William mutterred that Rock had done a good thing.

The whole group turned on the voice of rot , forcing it to kill off the dragon with damage passed to it via the Bonds of Forced Faith, it was still inured so bad it sithered forward qucikly calling up the dead and managed to get to the modern age with no PC in the area and utterred a sussurrus of decay destroying the zone, Nevla acting next raced ahead of it via the gate to the ancient past giving up the power of the monarch but preventing it moving forward and destorying the time of the ancients next turn. Finally a version of Manuel wearing beetle shells and wieling two stabby blades appeared behing him screeching "Death to the Wordy person" and landed a lethal stabbing killing Manuel and sending his body spinning into the Gyre

Much violence was applyed to the Voice of Rot and little slithering snakes tried to emergy from each pc but they all made their will saves. Finally Nevla unsleashed a Mass Heal and destroyed the Voice of Rot. As it crumbled into the Gyre, William felt a power passing into him and the team lept into the Gyre to save the world(s) for their otherselves.


Mistakes
I forgot the VOR had DR20/- Everywhere except its head, Padme and William could not overcome that and the VOR would have lasted one more round .
I should have upgraded the VOR moreit needed more attacks, probably should ahve channelled entropic energy of the Gyre like Nevla wwhich would have overcome their death ward, and some sor tof Eyebeam doing Force and negative energy damage , or some sort of bone scythes attacking out of its flanks. Would have put more hurt on the pc's and icnreased time pressure.
Should have had the initiative track on paper and learned to use Roll20 Better

Next week is the Battle of Axis Island which should have a lot more talking and a less violence until Nic calls in his allied and the players start gaining theirs

 

[RangerWickett]

Y'know honestly, having your initiative tracker go wrong during a battle where the villain is literally trying to destroy Time is kinda apropos.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Perhaps it was the voice of rot who set Herolabs to use an optional alternative rule as its default. It makes as much sense as any other explanation