The Risen Goddess (Updated 3.10.08)
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incognito
First Post
(contact) could write a story hour called "The obsevations of two blades of grass as the liberators of Tenh tread on them" and I would STILL give it a once over. I simply like his style and humor.
Characters like Indy make story hours worth while. By blithely insisting the PCs ARE heores, it makes it easier to juxtapose the day to day hack, with roleplaying goodness. I'll not soon forget Indy crying over his new halfling proportions when reincarnated.
PS: Vognu as a psuedodraon with a toad's personality: brilliant!
I assume (contact) that you are caught up to present day, then?
Characters like Indy make story hours worth while. By blithely insisting the PCs ARE heores, it makes it easier to juxtapose the day to day hack, with roleplaying goodness. I'll not soon forget Indy crying over his new halfling proportions when reincarnated.
PS: Vognu as a psuedodraon with a toad's personality: brilliant!
I assume (contact) that you are caught up to present day, then?
(contact)
Explorer
Oh, not even close, I'm just being lazy about updating.
Indy is the classic trickster figure, a clown who tells the real truth. He is also a crafty player's way to undermine the entire meta-plot by turning the "lynchpin" characters into the straight-men for a comedy scene that's only funny from a meta-game perspective.
Does that make sense?
Gorquen is a high-minded, grand old knight, but when she's adventuring with Indy, she becomes the foil for dick jokes. Kyreel is the faithful holy warrior and woman of vision, but with Indy she's the foil for pimp jokes. Indy is the only one of the PCs who acts like "we are the only people in existance", which is of course a meta-game truth. There's only four real characters in the whole game, but only Indy behaves like he knows that.
Indy is the classic trickster figure, a clown who tells the real truth. He is also a crafty player's way to undermine the entire meta-plot by turning the "lynchpin" characters into the straight-men for a comedy scene that's only funny from a meta-game perspective.
Does that make sense?
Gorquen is a high-minded, grand old knight, but when she's adventuring with Indy, she becomes the foil for dick jokes. Kyreel is the faithful holy warrior and woman of vision, but with Indy she's the foil for pimp jokes. Indy is the only one of the PCs who acts like "we are the only people in existance", which is of course a meta-game truth. There's only four real characters in the whole game, but only Indy behaves like he knows that.
incognito
First Post
I think what makes Indy so special in his role as the trickster though, is the uncanny ability not to derail the story completely, and turn the campaign into a farce. This may be due to some masterful GMing, or it maybe Indy's player knowing when enough is enough.
Although physically much different, I played a character who had a very similar personality to Indy, named "Solomon Grundy." He was a big meaty guy, built to withstand a lot of punishment (hard to damage, etc, etc). Instead of being the tough combat guy, however, he had this crafty, sneaky streak, which often failed utterly. If you can imagine an 8 or 9 foot tall, 500lb tank trying to hide beind water coolers, or talk his way past security - with a french maids outfit on - trying to pass himself off as the cleaning service, you get a clear picture of what his deal was.
God I miss that character...
And I miss Indy too - get this story hour back online, or I will be forced to compliment you in other threads, making the other writer's angrily accuse me of hijacking thier Story Hours!
Although physically much different, I played a character who had a very similar personality to Indy, named "Solomon Grundy." He was a big meaty guy, built to withstand a lot of punishment (hard to damage, etc, etc). Instead of being the tough combat guy, however, he had this crafty, sneaky streak, which often failed utterly. If you can imagine an 8 or 9 foot tall, 500lb tank trying to hide beind water coolers, or talk his way past security - with a french maids outfit on - trying to pass himself off as the cleaning service, you get a clear picture of what his deal was.
God I miss that character...
And I miss Indy too - get this story hour back online, or I will be forced to compliment you in other threads, making the other writer's angrily accuse me of hijacking thier Story Hours!
(contact)
Explorer
Chapter 41
41—All Things Known and Unknown Bow Before Time.
Thelbar and Taran stand within the mountain valley, marveling at the sight before them. To the south, directly above the passage from Kovas’ kingdom, the mountain peaks give way to an unworldly structure of worked crystal. Parapets and towers rise from the mountain face, buttressing huge landings and gardens, the whole of it reflecting the afternoon light into a thousand star-like beams. Several winged serpents cruise the skys, drifting in lazy circles on the thermal currents high above the ground.
Thelbar fixes one of the landings with his eyes of the eagle, and teleports the duo to the spot. Within seconds of their arrival, one of the winged creatures dives toward them, and the heroes spot a rider on its back, leveling a crossbow. Taran fires arrows into the beast, and Thelbar blasts it with a disintegrate spell, sending its rider crashing to the rocks far below.
Thelbar gets a glimpse of the rider as he whistles past the duo on his Icarus descent—an elf to be sure, but a pair of vestigal wings sprouting from his back along with thick gray scales covering his skin bespeaks a fiendish ancestry. As the demonic figure bounces from the rocks below, another rider dives from out of the midday sun and places a horn to his lips.
“Now this really pisses me off,” Taran says, as he removes Black Lisa from her sheath. “Tell me why in all the Hells known to man would you have multiple guards flying an equidistant patrol pattern over a lost temple that’s already in the center of a gods-cursed hidden valley, the only passage into which is guarded by Fire Giants and a dragon?”
Thelbar regards his brother’s outburst with a silent expression.
“Oh yeah,” Taran says. “Magic.” The burly ranger tightens the straps on his haversack. “The sons of bitches knew we were coming.” An answering horn-call comes from within the archway facing onto the terrace the heroes are standing on. Taran looks at the archway. “Won’t save ‘em.”
Taran and Thelbar move across the terrace, and through an archway cut into the mountain face, weapons at the ready. They pass thirty feet down a wide, low-ceilinged passage, and are met by several scrambling fiendish elves at the entrance to a larger cavern. Taran steps into their charge, and strikes one of them dead with a single blow, slowing down the charge of the group long enough for Thelbar to send a chain lightning arcing through the assembled mass of elven warriors.
From the other end of the passage, a pair of wizards appear from thin air, and level tortured-looking scraps of wood at the brothers. A pair of gut-wrenching globes of dimness burst in between Taran and Thelbar, and while Taran opens up a pocket for his brother against the press of demonic foes, Thelbar turns his attention to the wizards, first dispelling their protective magics, then feebleminding the stronger of the two. Taran finishes the last of the warriors with emphasis, literally obliterating the creature’s upper third with a single mighty swipe of Black Lisa.
After the second mage teleports away, the brothers are alone in the corridor with the bodies of their enemies. From within the complex they can hear shouts and the noise of more elves moving toward them at a run, and from the outside, the screeches of several more wyverns ring through the air.
“Hold still, brother,” Thelbar says as he also calls upon the teleport spell to pull them to a place of safety. It is just now growing dusk in Mistledale, and the streets are empty.
Taran touches the familiar wood of his own front doorway. “That was . . . ” he begins, then falters.
“Not entirely unexpected, eh?” Thelbar finishes. “But did you mark their lack of religious regalia, brother? Interesting, is it not? It seems to me that fiendish elves living within the former temple to a dead goddess should have some sort of religious foci to their society, hm?”
Taran squints at his brother. “I’m pretty sure those were wizards, not clerics, Thel.”
Thelbar stares at Taran for a moment, then smiles. “So they were.”
Juron and Glim are raised from their slumber, and put to work helping Taran stow his adventuring gear. They have barely scraped the worst of the gore from the gaps in Taran’s armor when Juron notices a shadowy figure moving through the area just outside the window.
“Hey, Glim,” he begins, but is interrupted as Taran tears through the half-opened front door, splintering the wood, and begins laying about himself, Black Lisa making soft thapping sounds as she bites into the flesh of his foes. Grey-scaled elves, their eyes seeming to give off a yellowish cast when seen in the half-light, begin to maneuver around Taran. They work in tight formation, and attempt to hinder his mobility with polearms.
Juron and Glim snatch up weapons and join Taran, fighting knee-deep in a freshly planted herb and vegetable garden. The combatants undo in a moment the patient work of a tenday and obliterate the garden, along with the imported decorative woodwork along the windowpanes. Thelbar emerges from a second-story window, and flies into the night, using his wands of fire and lightning to reveal and destroy any lurking enemies.
After the battle, the trio of fighters are bloody (mostly not their own) and exhausted, Taran having fought two long protracted melees within an hour of each other. Thelbar applies healing magic to the wounded victors, and after Taran summons a quintet of Mistledale Riders to catalogue and remove the bodies, Thelbar shares what his scrying spell just revealed to him about the elves’ master and commander.
The fellow is a grey elf, dressed in exquisite clothes, including ceremonially barbed masterwork chainmail. It appears male, and is attractive, even by the elven people’s high standards, with thick coarse hair, and splotches of scales that seem to accent the angularity of its face. Most disturbing, the creature immediately recognized Thelbar’s scrying eye, and addressed it directly, speaking to Thelbar through unknown sorcerous means.
Thelbar addressed the thing courteously, which seemed to please it, and after naming the goddess Palatin Eremath, the fiend nodded, and agreed that Thelbar should have access to the place he wished to go, providing no further hostilities are instigated. Thelbar took the beast for its word, and the creature gave him a description of a specific location deep within the crystalline mountain that should be specific enough to target a teleport spell.
“Did he apologize for making me smash the f--king door, then?” Taran demands angrily, put off by Thelbar’s obvious awe and respect for his enemy.
“Taran,” Thelbar says softly, “you must control yourself. This beast is not a thing to be trifled with. Our goals are not mutually exclusive, after all, and we came to terms. That is a victory of sorts, is it not?”
Taran says nothing, but glares at the floor. After an uncomfortable silence, Taran turns toward Glim. “We go in the morning,” he says as he gets up to take his leave. “Have my things ready by dawn.”
41—All Things Known and Unknown Bow Before Time.
Thelbar and Taran stand within the mountain valley, marveling at the sight before them. To the south, directly above the passage from Kovas’ kingdom, the mountain peaks give way to an unworldly structure of worked crystal. Parapets and towers rise from the mountain face, buttressing huge landings and gardens, the whole of it reflecting the afternoon light into a thousand star-like beams. Several winged serpents cruise the skys, drifting in lazy circles on the thermal currents high above the ground.
Thelbar fixes one of the landings with his eyes of the eagle, and teleports the duo to the spot. Within seconds of their arrival, one of the winged creatures dives toward them, and the heroes spot a rider on its back, leveling a crossbow. Taran fires arrows into the beast, and Thelbar blasts it with a disintegrate spell, sending its rider crashing to the rocks far below.
Thelbar gets a glimpse of the rider as he whistles past the duo on his Icarus descent—an elf to be sure, but a pair of vestigal wings sprouting from his back along with thick gray scales covering his skin bespeaks a fiendish ancestry. As the demonic figure bounces from the rocks below, another rider dives from out of the midday sun and places a horn to his lips.
“Now this really pisses me off,” Taran says, as he removes Black Lisa from her sheath. “Tell me why in all the Hells known to man would you have multiple guards flying an equidistant patrol pattern over a lost temple that’s already in the center of a gods-cursed hidden valley, the only passage into which is guarded by Fire Giants and a dragon?”
Thelbar regards his brother’s outburst with a silent expression.
“Oh yeah,” Taran says. “Magic.” The burly ranger tightens the straps on his haversack. “The sons of bitches knew we were coming.” An answering horn-call comes from within the archway facing onto the terrace the heroes are standing on. Taran looks at the archway. “Won’t save ‘em.”
Taran and Thelbar move across the terrace, and through an archway cut into the mountain face, weapons at the ready. They pass thirty feet down a wide, low-ceilinged passage, and are met by several scrambling fiendish elves at the entrance to a larger cavern. Taran steps into their charge, and strikes one of them dead with a single blow, slowing down the charge of the group long enough for Thelbar to send a chain lightning arcing through the assembled mass of elven warriors.
From the other end of the passage, a pair of wizards appear from thin air, and level tortured-looking scraps of wood at the brothers. A pair of gut-wrenching globes of dimness burst in between Taran and Thelbar, and while Taran opens up a pocket for his brother against the press of demonic foes, Thelbar turns his attention to the wizards, first dispelling their protective magics, then feebleminding the stronger of the two. Taran finishes the last of the warriors with emphasis, literally obliterating the creature’s upper third with a single mighty swipe of Black Lisa.
After the second mage teleports away, the brothers are alone in the corridor with the bodies of their enemies. From within the complex they can hear shouts and the noise of more elves moving toward them at a run, and from the outside, the screeches of several more wyverns ring through the air.
“Hold still, brother,” Thelbar says as he also calls upon the teleport spell to pull them to a place of safety. It is just now growing dusk in Mistledale, and the streets are empty.
Taran touches the familiar wood of his own front doorway. “That was . . . ” he begins, then falters.
“Not entirely unexpected, eh?” Thelbar finishes. “But did you mark their lack of religious regalia, brother? Interesting, is it not? It seems to me that fiendish elves living within the former temple to a dead goddess should have some sort of religious foci to their society, hm?”
Taran squints at his brother. “I’m pretty sure those were wizards, not clerics, Thel.”
Thelbar stares at Taran for a moment, then smiles. “So they were.”
Juron and Glim are raised from their slumber, and put to work helping Taran stow his adventuring gear. They have barely scraped the worst of the gore from the gaps in Taran’s armor when Juron notices a shadowy figure moving through the area just outside the window.
“Hey, Glim,” he begins, but is interrupted as Taran tears through the half-opened front door, splintering the wood, and begins laying about himself, Black Lisa making soft thapping sounds as she bites into the flesh of his foes. Grey-scaled elves, their eyes seeming to give off a yellowish cast when seen in the half-light, begin to maneuver around Taran. They work in tight formation, and attempt to hinder his mobility with polearms.
Juron and Glim snatch up weapons and join Taran, fighting knee-deep in a freshly planted herb and vegetable garden. The combatants undo in a moment the patient work of a tenday and obliterate the garden, along with the imported decorative woodwork along the windowpanes. Thelbar emerges from a second-story window, and flies into the night, using his wands of fire and lightning to reveal and destroy any lurking enemies.
After the battle, the trio of fighters are bloody (mostly not their own) and exhausted, Taran having fought two long protracted melees within an hour of each other. Thelbar applies healing magic to the wounded victors, and after Taran summons a quintet of Mistledale Riders to catalogue and remove the bodies, Thelbar shares what his scrying spell just revealed to him about the elves’ master and commander.
The fellow is a grey elf, dressed in exquisite clothes, including ceremonially barbed masterwork chainmail. It appears male, and is attractive, even by the elven people’s high standards, with thick coarse hair, and splotches of scales that seem to accent the angularity of its face. Most disturbing, the creature immediately recognized Thelbar’s scrying eye, and addressed it directly, speaking to Thelbar through unknown sorcerous means.
Thelbar addressed the thing courteously, which seemed to please it, and after naming the goddess Palatin Eremath, the fiend nodded, and agreed that Thelbar should have access to the place he wished to go, providing no further hostilities are instigated. Thelbar took the beast for its word, and the creature gave him a description of a specific location deep within the crystalline mountain that should be specific enough to target a teleport spell.
“Did he apologize for making me smash the f--king door, then?” Taran demands angrily, put off by Thelbar’s obvious awe and respect for his enemy.
“Taran,” Thelbar says softly, “you must control yourself. This beast is not a thing to be trifled with. Our goals are not mutually exclusive, after all, and we came to terms. That is a victory of sorts, is it not?”
Taran says nothing, but glares at the floor. After an uncomfortable silence, Taran turns toward Glim. “We go in the morning,” he says as he gets up to take his leave. “Have my things ready by dawn.”
incognito
First Post
Yeah! Taran has a slight temper. Like a tropical storm causes a little 'dampness.'
I wonder, does Taran have levels of Barbarian?
Thanks for the triple update across all story hours (contact). That's will keep me satisfied until...uh...when are you posting the next instalment, did you say?
Cheers,
I wonder, does Taran have levels of Barbarian?
Thanks for the triple update across all story hours (contact). That's will keep me satisfied until...uh...when are you posting the next instalment, did you say?
Cheers,
incognito
First Post
And he's definitely become more grumpy with age, (contact) old boy!
Aside:
...I know I'm not the only one reading this story hour and usually there is no shortage of posters to a (contact) thread. So, where is the running commentary?
I'm not looking for bumping, but seems to me posting to a story regularly is somewhat of a time consuming affair...
maybe we should see a show of some hands to indicate whether (contact) should keep posting here (which is what I want) - or maybe the guy needs one less thread to update, and he can post a compliation (mmm...compilation...!) thread once he has some time to do some more write ups?
Any thoughts on that subject, (contact)?
After all - I want pictures to go with my RtTEE thread, and sketch take time too!
Aside:
...I know I'm not the only one reading this story hour and usually there is no shortage of posters to a (contact) thread. So, where is the running commentary?
I'm not looking for bumping, but seems to me posting to a story regularly is somewhat of a time consuming affair...
maybe we should see a show of some hands to indicate whether (contact) should keep posting here (which is what I want) - or maybe the guy needs one less thread to update, and he can post a compliation (mmm...compilation...!) thread once he has some time to do some more write ups?
Any thoughts on that subject, (contact)?
After all - I want pictures to go with my RtTEE thread, and sketch take time too!
thatdarncat
Overlord of Chat
Raises his hand then reaches over to the couch where his gf is asleep and raises her hand as well
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