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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
The Doomed Bastards: Reckoning (story complete)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Brogarn said:
That's what I was referring to as well.
If you look it up in the MM -- as I did at lunch -- then they are Lawful Evil... until you look at the Afflicted Table (reproduced in the SRD link you posted) where they are listed as Chaotic Evil.
I took that to mean that natural wererats are lawful evil and afflicted wererats are chaotic evil. Apparently, not everyone reads it the same way.
Regardless, I'm using the whole rules debate as a way to keep my mind in denial: Dar was the character I kept coming back for! Hopefully he doesn't stay dead for long.
Lazybones
Adventurer
RE lycanthrope alignments: after reading all the sources I can see where it would be confusing. I obviously operated under the assumption that the shift would move him to Lawful Evil. Since all the other alignments provided in the second table match those in the stat blocks, I am going to assume that the wererat entry in the table is a typo. I don't see the logic in having afflicted and natural lycanthopes having a different base alignment, if one accepts that the sickness causes the alignment shift.
Another twist in today's post.
* * * * *
Chapter 84
THE HAND OF FATE
As he fell into the power of the narzugon’s gaze, Talen could feel his life force ebbing away. He tried to fight it, but it was as if he was punching against shadows; every counter he tried was absorbed into the spreading black.
And then he heard a voice cut through the darkness.
“Fight it, my son. Fight it... the fate of worlds will rest upon your strength. Fight it, and bring the strength of the Dragon’s line back to Camar.”
Somehow, the voice was like a lifeline, and Talen found the darkness drawing back. Reality came rushing back like a surge.
He found himself looking up at a sword that was rushing down toward his head.
Instinct preceded thought, and somehow he brought his sword up to block. He blocked the cut, then another, dimly aware of a gurgling scream behind him as the injured soldier at his side went down. He could not manage an attack; everything he had was in keeping himself alive.
Sobol was not attacking, but he smiled as his warriors did the dirty work for him.
“Your will is strong, but it will not matter,” he said.
The he heard the loud crash, echoing behind him. He could not turn; the enemy did not relent. But then a greater drama took hold as the Duke resumed his true form, and took up the struggling form of... what the heck was that? The melee came to a temporary halt as both sides watched the cornugon deliver its death blow. Talen belatedly realized what had happened, recognizing the wererat as his former companion. But it was too late. He started forward, swinging his sword at a half-fiend to drive it back, but the creature easily deflected the strike with its own blade. Its fellow smashed its own sword across Talen’s chest, knocking him back, pain exploding through his body as a rib gave way.
That was it. He was done. He could not even lift his sword to defend himself; he could only wait for the foe to finish him. He looked at Dar’s body, as it shifted back to its natural form.
Sorry, chum, he thought.
He realized that the half-fiends were not attacking. The enemy warriors were standing there, weapons raised, but they were not coming forward. Rather, they were waiting... for what?
And then something big leapt over him, and fell upon the half-fiend warriors, tearing and clawing and biting. Feathered wings flashed through the air; a deep thump sounded just an instant before an infernal warrior staggered back, half its face torn away.
And then Talen’s entire understanding of reality shifted, as an oh-so-familiar voice sounded behind him.
“Take them down!”
He turned, not believing that he would see what his mind had told him was there. He couldn’t believe it even as he saw Marshal Velan Tiros charging forward. Could not believe it when he saw Shaylara a step behind him, a longsword in her hands. And others... the mad elf from Rappan Athuk, looking haggard but otherwise fully sane and lucid, clad in a soft green robe that covered his emaciated body. And finally, the familiar face of Licinius Varo, who pointed behind Talen and shouted a warning.
“Captain, look out!”
Talen spun to take a downward strike on his sword. The half-fiend warrior lunged forward, seizing the captain’s elbow in its jaws. Talen tore free before the thing could get a firm grip on him, but he could feel blood running down his forearm from the wound. The infernal warrior lifted its blade to attack again, but Shaylara leapt into its reach, driving her sword to the hilt into its body. The enemy screamed and collapsed, blood gushing from its pierced lung.
“Shay... what’s happening?”
She turned to him, a wry grin on her face, but suddenly looked alarmed. “Look out!” she said, pushing him roughly back.
Talen felt his battered ribs scream out as he hit the ground, but the alternative would have been far worse as another lightning bolt ripped through the air where he’d been standing. The blast incinerated the celestial griffon that had been tearing through the half-fiend warriors, continuing through the doorway, passing through Varo before discharging harmlessly out into the outer chamber. The cleric staggered against the doorframe, but Talen knew he was tough—he’d live.
That was more than he could say for the rest of them. Shay had rushed to Tiros’s aid; the marshal was fighting Sobol. The narzugon seemed quite skilled with its unholy sword, and its first struck almost took off the marshal’s left arm, cutting through the steel shield that Tiros wore.
One of the half-fiends, knocked down by the griffon, rose and picked up its sword. It came at Tiros from behind. Talen started to shout a warning, but then the creature just withered, shrinking down into the form of a tiny white mouse.
The captain looked over his shoulder, and saw the elf holding a familiar-looking wand.
Sobol hissed as Shay impacted it from the side. Her sword seemed to have no difficulty piercing its infernal hide, finding a gap in its armor and biting deep. Tiros came at it from the opposite side, but the narzugon called an unholy blight upon itself, staggering both its foes, sickening them. Talen, on the edges of that blast, felt his stomach twist, but he kept his footing.
When the blight cleared, however, he saw the Duke coming forward to destroy them.
The cornugon still carried the greatsword, which seemed like little more than a long dirk in its massive fist. It vaulted the table with a powerful beat of its wings, lowering its head to clear the ceiling fifteen feet above. It looked like Death itself, and Talen felt the sudden stirring of hope bred of the unexpected appearance of Shay and the marshal wither and die. He’d seen the thing slay Dar, almost effortlessly... how could they hope to stop it?
All he knew was that if Tiros and Shay were going to die here, he would join them at their sides.
“False Duke, creature of the Hells!” came a shout from behind them. It was Varo, holding a scroll in one hand, and a collection of several objects in the other: a glass flask, a silver dagger, and a burning torch. The captain could see that the priest wore the tattered mantle bearing the sigil of Orcus, one of the prizes taken from the ogre horde in Rappan Athuk, the symbol faint but clearly visible across his chest. His own divine symbol blazed with a violet light upon his chest.
“Your fading god has no sway here!” the cornugon roared, its voice deafening.
“I deny you!” the cleric replied. “With silver and blessed water, and the symbols of the gods that hate you, I bend my will and the will of Dagos upon you! By the Light, and the Shadow, and the Darkness, I BANISH you back to the pit from whence you came!”
The scroll in Varo’s hand burst into white flame. The devil shrieked, and its body shimmered as ripples of released energy swept through the center of the room. The spell, augmented by the items of anathema that Varo carried, penetrated its infernal resistances and its own considerable will, and with a final shriek of defiance, the fiend was cast back across the border of planes to its own realm.
One of the half-fiends still standing was sucked into the vortex with it, but Sobol, whether because of the limits of the spell or because of some lingering resistance of its own, was left standing alone. The narzugon, which had turned to witness the departure of its master, screamed and spun around, no doubt readying some dread power either to attack its foes or seek escape. But it only got as far as Tiros’s sword, which crushed into the side of its face. The devil spun around, taking hits to its body from both Talen and Shaylara, and collapsed.
The last half-fiend warrior tried to break for the door, but it too was polymorphed into a harmless mouse by the elf. As the room fell silent, the last enemy defeated, Talen turned to Shaylara and crushed her in his arms.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
“I know,” she said, holding him tightly in return.
Tiros looked around the bloody chamber. In addition to the bodies of the slain half-fiends, and the dead narzugon, the hacked figures of almost a dozen men and women, all of whom he had known personally, lay scattered about the chamber. Varo was already tending to those who looked as though they might still be alive, but Tiros could see at a glance that most of those down on the floor would not be getting up ever again.
“Can you restore them to life, cleric? As you did me?”
“The cost is great,” Varo said.
“No cost is too great for such as these,” the marshal said. He turned, and saw Dar’s body lying half-hidden behind a fallen chair. He walked over to it.
“A long path, to find you here,” Tiros said, softly, looking down at the mangled corpse of the mercenary fighter.
“Marshal.”
The voice drew him around; it was Varo. Talen and Shay were watching too. The elf was a mysterious shadow behind them.
“There will be time for grief and recovery later. Right now, Camar lacks a leader. There will be those who will seek your death for what was done here tonight, even if the truth of the Duke’s nature is revealed. You have witnesses, and evidence, of a sort.” The cleric glanced at the bodies of the half-fiends, and at the hacked form of Sobol. “In the absence of the cornugon, I would suggest that the narzugon stand in as the ‘Duke’.”
“At least let us clean up,” Talen said. His clothes were seared with fire, and soiled with his own blood and that of the monstrosities he had slain. Shay and Tiros were somewhat better off, but none of them were anything approaching presentable.
“No,” Varo said. “No, you should remain as you are. Let the people see what has been sacrified on their behalf.”
Tiros nodded. “And what of you, cleric?”
“I think you are better off without being seen in my company. Preserve the bodies of the slain, especially that of Corath Dar. I will be in touch.” He nodded to the elf, and the two departed back through the foyer.
“That man gives me a cold feeling in my gut,” Shay said, once he had departed.
“Nevertheless, we owe him our lives,” Tiros said.
“Your sword is in safekeeping,” Talen said. “Dar kept it, but now that you have returned to us...”
Tiros nodded. He suddenly looked his age, but as he turned to them, his eyes blazed with intensity.
“Come, we have much to do ere this night is done,” he said.
Another twist in today's post.
* * * * *
Chapter 84
THE HAND OF FATE
As he fell into the power of the narzugon’s gaze, Talen could feel his life force ebbing away. He tried to fight it, but it was as if he was punching against shadows; every counter he tried was absorbed into the spreading black.
And then he heard a voice cut through the darkness.
“Fight it, my son. Fight it... the fate of worlds will rest upon your strength. Fight it, and bring the strength of the Dragon’s line back to Camar.”
Somehow, the voice was like a lifeline, and Talen found the darkness drawing back. Reality came rushing back like a surge.
He found himself looking up at a sword that was rushing down toward his head.
Instinct preceded thought, and somehow he brought his sword up to block. He blocked the cut, then another, dimly aware of a gurgling scream behind him as the injured soldier at his side went down. He could not manage an attack; everything he had was in keeping himself alive.
Sobol was not attacking, but he smiled as his warriors did the dirty work for him.
“Your will is strong, but it will not matter,” he said.
The he heard the loud crash, echoing behind him. He could not turn; the enemy did not relent. But then a greater drama took hold as the Duke resumed his true form, and took up the struggling form of... what the heck was that? The melee came to a temporary halt as both sides watched the cornugon deliver its death blow. Talen belatedly realized what had happened, recognizing the wererat as his former companion. But it was too late. He started forward, swinging his sword at a half-fiend to drive it back, but the creature easily deflected the strike with its own blade. Its fellow smashed its own sword across Talen’s chest, knocking him back, pain exploding through his body as a rib gave way.
That was it. He was done. He could not even lift his sword to defend himself; he could only wait for the foe to finish him. He looked at Dar’s body, as it shifted back to its natural form.
Sorry, chum, he thought.
He realized that the half-fiends were not attacking. The enemy warriors were standing there, weapons raised, but they were not coming forward. Rather, they were waiting... for what?
And then something big leapt over him, and fell upon the half-fiend warriors, tearing and clawing and biting. Feathered wings flashed through the air; a deep thump sounded just an instant before an infernal warrior staggered back, half its face torn away.
And then Talen’s entire understanding of reality shifted, as an oh-so-familiar voice sounded behind him.
“Take them down!”
He turned, not believing that he would see what his mind had told him was there. He couldn’t believe it even as he saw Marshal Velan Tiros charging forward. Could not believe it when he saw Shaylara a step behind him, a longsword in her hands. And others... the mad elf from Rappan Athuk, looking haggard but otherwise fully sane and lucid, clad in a soft green robe that covered his emaciated body. And finally, the familiar face of Licinius Varo, who pointed behind Talen and shouted a warning.
“Captain, look out!”
Talen spun to take a downward strike on his sword. The half-fiend warrior lunged forward, seizing the captain’s elbow in its jaws. Talen tore free before the thing could get a firm grip on him, but he could feel blood running down his forearm from the wound. The infernal warrior lifted its blade to attack again, but Shaylara leapt into its reach, driving her sword to the hilt into its body. The enemy screamed and collapsed, blood gushing from its pierced lung.
“Shay... what’s happening?”
She turned to him, a wry grin on her face, but suddenly looked alarmed. “Look out!” she said, pushing him roughly back.
Talen felt his battered ribs scream out as he hit the ground, but the alternative would have been far worse as another lightning bolt ripped through the air where he’d been standing. The blast incinerated the celestial griffon that had been tearing through the half-fiend warriors, continuing through the doorway, passing through Varo before discharging harmlessly out into the outer chamber. The cleric staggered against the doorframe, but Talen knew he was tough—he’d live.
That was more than he could say for the rest of them. Shay had rushed to Tiros’s aid; the marshal was fighting Sobol. The narzugon seemed quite skilled with its unholy sword, and its first struck almost took off the marshal’s left arm, cutting through the steel shield that Tiros wore.
One of the half-fiends, knocked down by the griffon, rose and picked up its sword. It came at Tiros from behind. Talen started to shout a warning, but then the creature just withered, shrinking down into the form of a tiny white mouse.
The captain looked over his shoulder, and saw the elf holding a familiar-looking wand.
Sobol hissed as Shay impacted it from the side. Her sword seemed to have no difficulty piercing its infernal hide, finding a gap in its armor and biting deep. Tiros came at it from the opposite side, but the narzugon called an unholy blight upon itself, staggering both its foes, sickening them. Talen, on the edges of that blast, felt his stomach twist, but he kept his footing.
When the blight cleared, however, he saw the Duke coming forward to destroy them.
The cornugon still carried the greatsword, which seemed like little more than a long dirk in its massive fist. It vaulted the table with a powerful beat of its wings, lowering its head to clear the ceiling fifteen feet above. It looked like Death itself, and Talen felt the sudden stirring of hope bred of the unexpected appearance of Shay and the marshal wither and die. He’d seen the thing slay Dar, almost effortlessly... how could they hope to stop it?
All he knew was that if Tiros and Shay were going to die here, he would join them at their sides.
“False Duke, creature of the Hells!” came a shout from behind them. It was Varo, holding a scroll in one hand, and a collection of several objects in the other: a glass flask, a silver dagger, and a burning torch. The captain could see that the priest wore the tattered mantle bearing the sigil of Orcus, one of the prizes taken from the ogre horde in Rappan Athuk, the symbol faint but clearly visible across his chest. His own divine symbol blazed with a violet light upon his chest.
“Your fading god has no sway here!” the cornugon roared, its voice deafening.
“I deny you!” the cleric replied. “With silver and blessed water, and the symbols of the gods that hate you, I bend my will and the will of Dagos upon you! By the Light, and the Shadow, and the Darkness, I BANISH you back to the pit from whence you came!”
The scroll in Varo’s hand burst into white flame. The devil shrieked, and its body shimmered as ripples of released energy swept through the center of the room. The spell, augmented by the items of anathema that Varo carried, penetrated its infernal resistances and its own considerable will, and with a final shriek of defiance, the fiend was cast back across the border of planes to its own realm.
One of the half-fiends still standing was sucked into the vortex with it, but Sobol, whether because of the limits of the spell or because of some lingering resistance of its own, was left standing alone. The narzugon, which had turned to witness the departure of its master, screamed and spun around, no doubt readying some dread power either to attack its foes or seek escape. But it only got as far as Tiros’s sword, which crushed into the side of its face. The devil spun around, taking hits to its body from both Talen and Shaylara, and collapsed.
The last half-fiend warrior tried to break for the door, but it too was polymorphed into a harmless mouse by the elf. As the room fell silent, the last enemy defeated, Talen turned to Shaylara and crushed her in his arms.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
“I know,” she said, holding him tightly in return.
Tiros looked around the bloody chamber. In addition to the bodies of the slain half-fiends, and the dead narzugon, the hacked figures of almost a dozen men and women, all of whom he had known personally, lay scattered about the chamber. Varo was already tending to those who looked as though they might still be alive, but Tiros could see at a glance that most of those down on the floor would not be getting up ever again.
“Can you restore them to life, cleric? As you did me?”
“The cost is great,” Varo said.
“No cost is too great for such as these,” the marshal said. He turned, and saw Dar’s body lying half-hidden behind a fallen chair. He walked over to it.
“A long path, to find you here,” Tiros said, softly, looking down at the mangled corpse of the mercenary fighter.
“Marshal.”
The voice drew him around; it was Varo. Talen and Shay were watching too. The elf was a mysterious shadow behind them.
“There will be time for grief and recovery later. Right now, Camar lacks a leader. There will be those who will seek your death for what was done here tonight, even if the truth of the Duke’s nature is revealed. You have witnesses, and evidence, of a sort.” The cleric glanced at the bodies of the half-fiends, and at the hacked form of Sobol. “In the absence of the cornugon, I would suggest that the narzugon stand in as the ‘Duke’.”
“At least let us clean up,” Talen said. His clothes were seared with fire, and soiled with his own blood and that of the monstrosities he had slain. Shay and Tiros were somewhat better off, but none of them were anything approaching presentable.
“No,” Varo said. “No, you should remain as you are. Let the people see what has been sacrified on their behalf.”
Tiros nodded. “And what of you, cleric?”
“I think you are better off without being seen in my company. Preserve the bodies of the slain, especially that of Corath Dar. I will be in touch.” He nodded to the elf, and the two departed back through the foyer.
“That man gives me a cold feeling in my gut,” Shay said, once he had departed.
“Nevertheless, we owe him our lives,” Tiros said.
“Your sword is in safekeeping,” Talen said. “Dar kept it, but now that you have returned to us...”
Tiros nodded. He suddenly looked his age, but as he turned to them, his eyes blazed with intensity.
“Come, we have much to do ere this night is done,” he said.
GrolloStoutfoam
First Post
Had to de-lurk and just say you have talent my man! I can see each scene so explicitly I swear I hear bone crunch. Your characters are fully breathed to life, each with their own particular voice. Just wonderful.
As for the favorite character Dar, he's good, but Varo is far and away the best. I even started a new campaign with my group and I jumped at playing the cleric which surprised everyone. CN cleric of trickery and destruction!![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Big, bad, intimidating and will inflict wounds as an interrogation method. Of course then he heals the prisoner, telling them this will last for days if he wants. Scared the hell out of my group when I did that. (I'm usually the lawful good, by the book one 
)
Edit: Okay, so he is a cross between Varo and Dar.
As for the favorite character Dar, he's good, but Varo is far and away the best. I even started a new campaign with my group and I jumped at playing the cleric which surprised everyone. CN cleric of trickery and destruction!
Big, bad, intimidating and will inflict wounds as an interrogation method. Of course then he heals the prisoner, telling them this will last for days if he wants. Scared the hell out of my group when I did that. (I'm usually the lawful good, by the book one ) Edit: Okay, so he is a cross between Varo and Dar.
You sir, are an inspiration - I hadn't even thought of that as an interrogation tactic. *punches self in head* Use Inflict Minors ... still hurt, but ya don't need to worry about the low level punks dying on you. Psionic power => Remember Pain or something like that is practically custom made for this tactic!GrolloStoutfoam said:Big, bad, intimidating and will inflict wounds as an interrogation method. Of course then he heals the prisoner, telling them this will last for days if he wants. Scared the hell out of my group when I did that. (I'm usually the lawful good, by the book one
Edit: Okay, so he is a cross between Varo and Dar.
Back to teh story, so, what class is the elf? Ninja?
Edit: Stupid not reading char thread. When did the elf get ranks in UMD? Are you going to post an updated char sheet for him?
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