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The chronicles of Team Big-hearted And Determined (B.A.D.)
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<blockquote data-quote="Echolocation" data-source="post: 8269968" data-attributes="member: 7011911"><p><strong>Session 56</strong></p><p><em>Written by Ella's player</em></p><p></p><p>Our constables last found themselves standing on a shattered hillside, watching an enormous freaking construct rampage through Flint on a childlike quest of curiosity and wonder! One that was getting thousands of people killed… As Captain Dale explained the situation, Delft Dad contacted us via Sending and told us to get our still-living butts to Hotel Aurum to help formulate a plan.</p><p></p><p>Kasvarina convinced Asrabey to help with the evacuation, and the rest of us dragged Ella’s hapless father through his first taste of sunshine in thirty years and into a carriage. As our constables traveled into the city, we the players found ourselves traveling through time: flashes of recent events slipping past almost too quickly to follow. Dale drinking coffee as Cauldron Hill erupted... A black-bearded member of the Battalion committing suicide deep in the bayou... Governor Roland secretly encouraging Avvakir to break workers out of locked factories once his guards were absent… The mayor of the Cloudwood dead in a morgue… and Nathan Jierre and Conrad Keppler studying the colossal construct through a shiny new telescope.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER='"Travelling through time"']</p><p>I gave the players a narrative montage of the Collosus' time in Flint. If people are interested, I can post the whole scene.</p><p></p><p>I will say this, though. Unbeknownst to the players, Roland had an ulterior motive for sending Avvakir out to save workers from Parity Lake. He was hoping the ex-constable deva would die. And he did. Roland has now begun to groom the Avvakir into an Ob agent. Avvakir will fight the party in Adventure Nine, but the players will have a chance to remind the deva of his past life to turn him to their side.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>We eventually arrived at Hotel Aurum to find a much smaller but equally terrifying foe awaiting us: Aunt Maya.</p><p></p><p>She wasted no time laying into Ella and her long-lost father: scolding Marcel for the terrible job he’d done raising his daughter and Ella for not coming home in several days and did she know how much stress and grief she’d caused her great-grandmother? It finally ended when Maya realised that one of the people she was scolding was, in fact, someone who’d been dead for thirty years.</p><p></p><p>Ella took advantage of the momentary lapse in yelling to rush Marcel past the confused gnome and inside. There we found many important and influential people but only one that really mattered: Delft Dad.</p><p></p><p>Okay I lied, Pete was there too.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Pete"]'</p><p>A constable who regularly works out of the break room. The skald bakes goods in hopes to lure colleagues in, which he then traps with captivating stories.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Delft apologised for the lack of pastries and King Aodhan took over: asking for our report, questioning Marcel, and informing us of The Plan.</p><p></p><p>The Plan - spearheaded by Frank [the royal technologist/aussie wizard] - was to shoot off a bunch of fireworks and hope the colossus followed them. Then once it was hopefully in the harbour we could distract it with boats while the king banished it to the Dreaming. You know: like giving a kid a bunch of rubber duckies at bath time and hoping they don't squirm too much while you wash them.</p><p></p><p>This sounded like an excellent plan with absolutely no chance of failure and really, what else were we going to do with a giant robot? Use it to fight giant kaiju battles with the fey titans?</p><p></p><p>...Apparently not. (Much to my disappointment.)</p><p></p><p>We unanimously agreed that leading the construct along the route that would kill more buildings than people was the best option, and with that decided headed off to the docks. Although not before Ella dumped her dad with Aunt Maya: figuring that if anyone could keep him safe from a giant witchoil monstrosity then it would be her.</p><p></p><p>The docks were… absolute madness, as hundreds of people tried to evacuate the city by any means necessary. Thames Grimsley was unsuccessfully trying to calm them down but it wasn’t until Lisandra made an inspiring speech that they actually started listening. They listened so well that they actually decided to join in the military’s efforts rather than obstruct them. Good job, Lisandra!</p><p></p><p>Even the Coaltongue wasn’t immune to all the commotion though: with the captain having apparently died to a heart attack at the sight of the colossus. Angharad recognised the sailor who informed us of this as none other than the Old Stag himself: also known as Rear Admiral Morris Dawkins.</p><p></p><p>The Cipith didn’t bother to inform the rest of us of this though, so we remained blissfully unaware that the head of the Vekeshi assassins I mean Mystics was present, as we nominated Lisandra as stand-in captain and prepared for the events ahead.</p><p></p><p>Fireworks were fired... spells were pre-cast... the king began his ritual… and the Coaltongue pulled out into the bay as the colossus approached. Naturally, mother nature decided this was the perfect time for a thematically appropriate thunderstorm.</p><p></p><p>Rain bucketed down as we began our game of chicken with the enormous metal-baby: struggling to keep the king out of his reach but close enough for him to complete the ritual. Borne swatted at ships like the aforementioned child throwing a temper tantrum at bath-time and left shining trails of witchoil glistening on the water’s surface.</p><p></p><p>The oil began to bubble, and rise, forming oddly, gruesomely familiar shapes: Angharad with melted features and stakes through his limbs, and John’s former partner with an oily explosive device in her hand.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Horror from the Deep"]</p><p>Arianrhod, a fey tormentor/lover from Angharad's past was allied with Ekossigan. Honestly, the party did her a favour by killing the herald of seasons. Arianrhod wants Ekossigan's chair at the Court all to herself.</p><p></p><p>However, she has seen Angharad grow in power. Knowing he seeks vengeance and has powerful allies, she worries her seat at the Court will be shortlived. She hopes to kill Angharad so she may rule in peace.</p><p></p><p>An enchanter, Arianrhod must rely on allies to defeat the party. Using the residual torment of the souls embedded in Witchoil, and the party's greatest fears and regrets, she shapes the oil into forms that specifically disturb the party. Each emits an aura of a different emotion, to which the PCs occasionally succumb. Eventually, Arianrhod draws on Harkover's fear of his old tyrannical self to shape the oil into a massive dragon that encases her.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Angharad and John immediately turned on Ooze-gharad: annihilating it before it could act; and the eschat-oil-ogist blob only had enough time for a single attack before it was likewise destroyed. Something about the witchoil figure had managed to plant a seed of anger in John and Lisandra’s minds though, and as Ella walked away from Lisandra the oracle lashed out and stabbed the tiefling straight through the back.</p><p></p><p>Lisandra barely had time to apologise to Ella and heal her before more witchoil figures appeared: these ones shaped like Connor and an awful amalgamation of Ella’s family. Lisandra felt a much more natural anger overcome her as she looked at the face of her dead lover, and cut the doppelganger to pieces in a single full-round. Meanwhile Ella had to be saved from her Demetri-ooze family by John and Angharad - the gnome utterly unable to attack even semblances of her family.</p><p></p><p>There was one final horror left to endure though: as a nymph with twig-like figures emerged from the stormy waters and mocked Angharad. The Cipith had no time to respond to Arianrhod’s taunts before streams of witchoil rose up and surrounded the fey: forming a reptilian shape not seen in Risur in centuries. A dragon.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]136730[/ATTACH]</p><p><em>Things getting messy</em>.</p><p></p><p>Looking upon this legendary terror, John, Lisandra and Ella all immediately fell prey to confusion: leaving Angharad alone to fight the fey. The witchoil wyvern turned to the confused constables and began to breathe in their souls, taking wisps of their very beings into the witchoil making up its form.</p><p></p><p>Ella dropped unconscious as Angharad lashed out at Arianrhod with a ferocious flurry of attacks: trying but failing to pierce her oily hide. The kineticist’s skin blackened as he put his all into the combat: destroying his own body even as he ripped apart Arianrhod’s. Witchoil melted off the dragon and pooled on the deck like black blood, and lightning flashed all around as the Coaltongue pivoted away from the rampaging colossus.</p><p></p><p>Green light gathered around the construct in the bay as on deck Arianrhod’s draconic form melted away. She sneered down at Angharad even as the oil dissipated: “You can’t defeat me. Why don’t we stop playing this game?”</p><p></p><p>The Cipith tried to respond but found himself stuttering as memories of his tormented childhood returned: filling him with fear. Lisandra was quick to remind the Cipith that he was not alone though: casting Remove Fear and giving Angharad a second chance to denounce his abuser.</p><p></p><p>As the Cipith stood tall - no longer a vulnerable, stolen child - his words had a visible effect on the nymph: shrivelling her body and leeching away her power as he formally rejected her for the first time. The fey fell to the metal deck of the Coaltongue and began to burn, her flesh melting away as she tried to flee. She never made it to the edge of the deck though: Angharad’s final words catching her and unravelling her on the spot.</p><p></p><p>The king’s ritual reached its climax as the fey vanished, and Borne turned to the ship with fury in its eyes. Before it could breach the Coaltongue’s defenses though, green vines of light wrapped around the colossus and dragged it into the Dreaming: leaving Flint bay suddenly, startlingly calm...</p><p></p><p>As the storm died down and the surviving ships limped back to shore, the king turned to us and asked our opinions. Should he tell the truth, and tell his people of this new, vague threat posed by the Obscurati? Or should he unify them against the familiar enemy of Danor and lay the blame for recent events at the other nation’s feet?</p><p></p><p>The truth, we all agreed. Tell your people the truth.</p><p></p><p>When the Coaltongue finally docked it was greeted by cheering crowds, and as we gazed out at these thousands we had saved the king commanded us to kneel. Taking his sword, he bestowed upon us our reward and our new responsibility: official knighthoods of Risur.</p><p></p><p>And thus rose Dame Eleanora Cassia Arista Demetriou of Flint.</p><p>And Sir John Price-hill of Flint - not Slate.</p><p>Likewise Sir Angharad Cipith of Flint - not Garrick.</p><p>And Dame Lisandra Arvantis of Flint - no longer Lyrie.</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Knighthoods"]</p><p>To recap, <strong>Garrick</strong> is the birthname of Angharad (the fey called him Angharad), and Cipith is the surname given to humans taken by the fey.</p><p>John was originally from Slate, merely travelling to Flint for a gun expo. Now he calls Flint home.</p><p><strong>Lyrie Ward </strong>was the name assigned to Lisandra by her adoptive father, Father Otis. Lisandra Arvantis was an alternative name she used for high class grifts. In one such grift, the RHC used her crime as leverage to force her to gather evidence on her mark. She joined the RHC as Lisandra.</p><p></p><p>I gave the player a few boons the moment they were knighted. Firstly, they immediately leveled up. Secondly, their wounds began to close. They all gain fast healing 1 whilst within Risur's borders.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>As we stood, the magic of the land rose with us: healing our wounds and wrapping us in its warm embrace.</p><p></p><p>Home.</p><p>Imperfect. Conflicted. Soot-stained. And half-destroyed. But ours. And safe.</p><p>For now.</p><p></p><p>So. What lies ahead for our new-made knights? In this land haunted by shadows and plagued by inequality... how will our futures unfold? Is there some prophecy yet hidden in the stars - far beyond our soot-stained skies - that even Nevard had not seen?</p><p></p><p>Well… I suppose there’s only one way to find out.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Echolocation, post: 8269968, member: 7011911"] [B]Session 56[/B] [I]Written by Ella's player[/I] Our constables last found themselves standing on a shattered hillside, watching an enormous freaking construct rampage through Flint on a childlike quest of curiosity and wonder! One that was getting thousands of people killed… As Captain Dale explained the situation, Delft Dad contacted us via Sending and told us to get our still-living butts to Hotel Aurum to help formulate a plan. Kasvarina convinced Asrabey to help with the evacuation, and the rest of us dragged Ella’s hapless father through his first taste of sunshine in thirty years and into a carriage. As our constables traveled into the city, we the players found ourselves traveling through time: flashes of recent events slipping past almost too quickly to follow. Dale drinking coffee as Cauldron Hill erupted... A black-bearded member of the Battalion committing suicide deep in the bayou... Governor Roland secretly encouraging Avvakir to break workers out of locked factories once his guards were absent… The mayor of the Cloudwood dead in a morgue… and Nathan Jierre and Conrad Keppler studying the colossal construct through a shiny new telescope. [SPOILER='"Travelling through time"'] I gave the players a narrative montage of the Collosus' time in Flint. If people are interested, I can post the whole scene. I will say this, though. Unbeknownst to the players, Roland had an ulterior motive for sending Avvakir out to save workers from Parity Lake. He was hoping the ex-constable deva would die. And he did. Roland has now begun to groom the Avvakir into an Ob agent. Avvakir will fight the party in Adventure Nine, but the players will have a chance to remind the deva of his past life to turn him to their side. [/SPOILER] We eventually arrived at Hotel Aurum to find a much smaller but equally terrifying foe awaiting us: Aunt Maya. She wasted no time laying into Ella and her long-lost father: scolding Marcel for the terrible job he’d done raising his daughter and Ella for not coming home in several days and did she know how much stress and grief she’d caused her great-grandmother? It finally ended when Maya realised that one of the people she was scolding was, in fact, someone who’d been dead for thirty years. Ella took advantage of the momentary lapse in yelling to rush Marcel past the confused gnome and inside. There we found many important and influential people but only one that really mattered: Delft Dad. Okay I lied, Pete was there too. [SPOILER="Pete"]' A constable who regularly works out of the break room. The skald bakes goods in hopes to lure colleagues in, which he then traps with captivating stories. [/SPOILER] Delft apologised for the lack of pastries and King Aodhan took over: asking for our report, questioning Marcel, and informing us of The Plan. The Plan - spearheaded by Frank [the royal technologist/aussie wizard] - was to shoot off a bunch of fireworks and hope the colossus followed them. Then once it was hopefully in the harbour we could distract it with boats while the king banished it to the Dreaming. You know: like giving a kid a bunch of rubber duckies at bath time and hoping they don't squirm too much while you wash them. This sounded like an excellent plan with absolutely no chance of failure and really, what else were we going to do with a giant robot? Use it to fight giant kaiju battles with the fey titans? ...Apparently not. (Much to my disappointment.) We unanimously agreed that leading the construct along the route that would kill more buildings than people was the best option, and with that decided headed off to the docks. Although not before Ella dumped her dad with Aunt Maya: figuring that if anyone could keep him safe from a giant witchoil monstrosity then it would be her. The docks were… absolute madness, as hundreds of people tried to evacuate the city by any means necessary. Thames Grimsley was unsuccessfully trying to calm them down but it wasn’t until Lisandra made an inspiring speech that they actually started listening. They listened so well that they actually decided to join in the military’s efforts rather than obstruct them. Good job, Lisandra! Even the Coaltongue wasn’t immune to all the commotion though: with the captain having apparently died to a heart attack at the sight of the colossus. Angharad recognised the sailor who informed us of this as none other than the Old Stag himself: also known as Rear Admiral Morris Dawkins. The Cipith didn’t bother to inform the rest of us of this though, so we remained blissfully unaware that the head of the Vekeshi assassins I mean Mystics was present, as we nominated Lisandra as stand-in captain and prepared for the events ahead. Fireworks were fired... spells were pre-cast... the king began his ritual… and the Coaltongue pulled out into the bay as the colossus approached. Naturally, mother nature decided this was the perfect time for a thematically appropriate thunderstorm. Rain bucketed down as we began our game of chicken with the enormous metal-baby: struggling to keep the king out of his reach but close enough for him to complete the ritual. Borne swatted at ships like the aforementioned child throwing a temper tantrum at bath-time and left shining trails of witchoil glistening on the water’s surface. The oil began to bubble, and rise, forming oddly, gruesomely familiar shapes: Angharad with melted features and stakes through his limbs, and John’s former partner with an oily explosive device in her hand. [SPOILER="Horror from the Deep"] Arianrhod, a fey tormentor/lover from Angharad's past was allied with Ekossigan. Honestly, the party did her a favour by killing the herald of seasons. Arianrhod wants Ekossigan's chair at the Court all to herself. However, she has seen Angharad grow in power. Knowing he seeks vengeance and has powerful allies, she worries her seat at the Court will be shortlived. She hopes to kill Angharad so she may rule in peace. An enchanter, Arianrhod must rely on allies to defeat the party. Using the residual torment of the souls embedded in Witchoil, and the party's greatest fears and regrets, she shapes the oil into forms that specifically disturb the party. Each emits an aura of a different emotion, to which the PCs occasionally succumb. Eventually, Arianrhod draws on Harkover's fear of his old tyrannical self to shape the oil into a massive dragon that encases her. [/SPOILER] Angharad and John immediately turned on Ooze-gharad: annihilating it before it could act; and the eschat-oil-ogist blob only had enough time for a single attack before it was likewise destroyed. Something about the witchoil figure had managed to plant a seed of anger in John and Lisandra’s minds though, and as Ella walked away from Lisandra the oracle lashed out and stabbed the tiefling straight through the back. Lisandra barely had time to apologise to Ella and heal her before more witchoil figures appeared: these ones shaped like Connor and an awful amalgamation of Ella’s family. Lisandra felt a much more natural anger overcome her as she looked at the face of her dead lover, and cut the doppelganger to pieces in a single full-round. Meanwhile Ella had to be saved from her Demetri-ooze family by John and Angharad - the gnome utterly unable to attack even semblances of her family. There was one final horror left to endure though: as a nymph with twig-like figures emerged from the stormy waters and mocked Angharad. The Cipith had no time to respond to Arianrhod’s taunts before streams of witchoil rose up and surrounded the fey: forming a reptilian shape not seen in Risur in centuries. A dragon. [ATTACH type="full"]136730[/ATTACH] [I]Things getting messy[/I]. Looking upon this legendary terror, John, Lisandra and Ella all immediately fell prey to confusion: leaving Angharad alone to fight the fey. The witchoil wyvern turned to the confused constables and began to breathe in their souls, taking wisps of their very beings into the witchoil making up its form. Ella dropped unconscious as Angharad lashed out at Arianrhod with a ferocious flurry of attacks: trying but failing to pierce her oily hide. The kineticist’s skin blackened as he put his all into the combat: destroying his own body even as he ripped apart Arianrhod’s. Witchoil melted off the dragon and pooled on the deck like black blood, and lightning flashed all around as the Coaltongue pivoted away from the rampaging colossus. Green light gathered around the construct in the bay as on deck Arianrhod’s draconic form melted away. She sneered down at Angharad even as the oil dissipated: “You can’t defeat me. Why don’t we stop playing this game?” The Cipith tried to respond but found himself stuttering as memories of his tormented childhood returned: filling him with fear. Lisandra was quick to remind the Cipith that he was not alone though: casting Remove Fear and giving Angharad a second chance to denounce his abuser. As the Cipith stood tall - no longer a vulnerable, stolen child - his words had a visible effect on the nymph: shrivelling her body and leeching away her power as he formally rejected her for the first time. The fey fell to the metal deck of the Coaltongue and began to burn, her flesh melting away as she tried to flee. She never made it to the edge of the deck though: Angharad’s final words catching her and unravelling her on the spot. The king’s ritual reached its climax as the fey vanished, and Borne turned to the ship with fury in its eyes. Before it could breach the Coaltongue’s defenses though, green vines of light wrapped around the colossus and dragged it into the Dreaming: leaving Flint bay suddenly, startlingly calm... As the storm died down and the surviving ships limped back to shore, the king turned to us and asked our opinions. Should he tell the truth, and tell his people of this new, vague threat posed by the Obscurati? Or should he unify them against the familiar enemy of Danor and lay the blame for recent events at the other nation’s feet? The truth, we all agreed. Tell your people the truth. When the Coaltongue finally docked it was greeted by cheering crowds, and as we gazed out at these thousands we had saved the king commanded us to kneel. Taking his sword, he bestowed upon us our reward and our new responsibility: official knighthoods of Risur. And thus rose Dame Eleanora Cassia Arista Demetriou of Flint. And Sir John Price-hill of Flint - not Slate. Likewise Sir Angharad Cipith of Flint - not Garrick. And Dame Lisandra Arvantis of Flint - no longer Lyrie. [SPOILER="Knighthoods"] To recap, [B]Garrick[/B] is the birthname of Angharad (the fey called him Angharad), and Cipith is the surname given to humans taken by the fey. John was originally from Slate, merely travelling to Flint for a gun expo. Now he calls Flint home. [B]Lyrie Ward [/B]was the name assigned to Lisandra by her adoptive father, Father Otis. Lisandra Arvantis was an alternative name she used for high class grifts. In one such grift, the RHC used her crime as leverage to force her to gather evidence on her mark. She joined the RHC as Lisandra. I gave the player a few boons the moment they were knighted. Firstly, they immediately leveled up. Secondly, their wounds began to close. They all gain fast healing 1 whilst within Risur's borders. [/SPOILER] As we stood, the magic of the land rose with us: healing our wounds and wrapping us in its warm embrace. Home. Imperfect. Conflicted. Soot-stained. And half-destroyed. But ours. And safe. For now. So. What lies ahead for our new-made knights? In this land haunted by shadows and plagued by inequality... how will our futures unfold? Is there some prophecy yet hidden in the stars - far beyond our soot-stained skies - that even Nevard had not seen? Well… I suppose there’s only one way to find out. [/QUOTE]
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