To War Against Felenga (FINAL UPDATE POSTED!)
- Thread starter the Jester
- Start date
the Jester
Legend
pogre said:
Both!
This thread is barely over a game behind right now; likewise the Politics thread, but that one's harder to update since there's a lot more... well... politics.
And of course, the Early Years has about 400 games or so to be caught up to my previous story hours...
the Jester
Legend
Down and Out the Hatch
"Urgh," Lester gargles as he's crushed in the gizzard of the great slaad Vuivui. He can't even really move; worse yet, his friends are crammed in with him. Many of them, maybe most... Then the muscles around him constrict, squeeze, and force him and the others down... down... through warm intestines and out Vuivui's palpitating anus. The L falls onto a hard surface, shaken. An instant later Malford is squeezed out on top of him.
"Are you all right?" Thrush calls tensely. "Sybele?" His blade is naked in his hand; he looks frightened. He's standing next to Vuivui, and they are not where they were. Indeed, they are in a wooded area.
Vuivui grunts as Orbius drops from within him, then an instant later with a convulsion he passes Sybele forth. Coughing and gagging, covered in suspect liquid, our heroes struggle to their feet.
"We should be called the poop party," Malford grumbles, thinking to all the sewers, fecal worms and worth that he's encountered over the years. And now he's been pooped out by a slaad.
"What happened?" Lester demands of Thrush.
"The- the slaad thing ate you all, and then they appeared- the Bile Lords, and their golem- and then Vuivui teleported us away." He gulps. "He didn't eliminate the curse- he triggered it."
"And now hopefully it's done," Malford muses. Vuivui makes an affirmative motion, and our heroes cry out in gladness.
"If there's anything we can do for you," Sybele starts, and suddenly there's a wrenching sensation as the entire group finds themselves plane shifted. Sybele halts her sentence.
The group stands upon a weathered surface of remarkable flatness. Debris, including bones, is visible almost everywhere. Most of it seems to be the detritus of war machines and soldierly equipment. The sky is black, with neither stars nor moon nor sun, but there are numerous fires on cubes in the sky, providing a strange dim lighting that pervades the place. In the distance the sound of clashing armies can be heard.
An image appears before Vuivui of a strange, clockwork creature. "It's some kind of inevitable," Orbius exclaims.
Destroy, Vuivui demands. And he vanishes, leaving our heroes in Acheron.
Next Time: A Deadly Dragon
"Urgh," Lester gargles as he's crushed in the gizzard of the great slaad Vuivui. He can't even really move; worse yet, his friends are crammed in with him. Many of them, maybe most... Then the muscles around him constrict, squeeze, and force him and the others down... down... through warm intestines and out Vuivui's palpitating anus. The L falls onto a hard surface, shaken. An instant later Malford is squeezed out on top of him.
"Are you all right?" Thrush calls tensely. "Sybele?" His blade is naked in his hand; he looks frightened. He's standing next to Vuivui, and they are not where they were. Indeed, they are in a wooded area.
Vuivui grunts as Orbius drops from within him, then an instant later with a convulsion he passes Sybele forth. Coughing and gagging, covered in suspect liquid, our heroes struggle to their feet.
"We should be called the poop party," Malford grumbles, thinking to all the sewers, fecal worms and worth that he's encountered over the years. And now he's been pooped out by a slaad.
"What happened?" Lester demands of Thrush.
"The- the slaad thing ate you all, and then they appeared- the Bile Lords, and their golem- and then Vuivui teleported us away." He gulps. "He didn't eliminate the curse- he triggered it."
"And now hopefully it's done," Malford muses. Vuivui makes an affirmative motion, and our heroes cry out in gladness.
"If there's anything we can do for you," Sybele starts, and suddenly there's a wrenching sensation as the entire group finds themselves plane shifted. Sybele halts her sentence.
The group stands upon a weathered surface of remarkable flatness. Debris, including bones, is visible almost everywhere. Most of it seems to be the detritus of war machines and soldierly equipment. The sky is black, with neither stars nor moon nor sun, but there are numerous fires on cubes in the sky, providing a strange dim lighting that pervades the place. In the distance the sound of clashing armies can be heard.
An image appears before Vuivui of a strange, clockwork creature. "It's some kind of inevitable," Orbius exclaims.
Destroy, Vuivui demands. And he vanishes, leaving our heroes in Acheron.
Next Time: A Deadly Dragon
the Jester
Legend
Kobolds on the Wing
Our resourceful heroes quickly and magically ascertain that the creature they seek is in "the Cells of Urthgor, within the Cube of Drakos." Drakos, Malford tells them instantly, is one of the elven gods of Gorel- an oppressive, iron-fisted deity of an island with two elven peoples, constantly trying to destroy each other. Glancing around at the myriad cubes of all different sizes in the sky, Orbius announces that they seem to be on the plane of Acheron. It's one of the Outer Planes, he informs them; a plane of endless, pointless war.
Our heroes fly about under a mass fly for a time, not sure which way to go at first, looking for an inhabitant. They find two orcs sitting at a cook fire. In the conversation that ensues, they claim to have gotten separated from their unit, which has now moved on to another cube. When Malford offers them a lift up to their people, the two orcs gladly accept, and soon the captain of the orcish forces has pointed the way to Drakos' Cube. "You'll know it; it's littered with war machines," he tells them, and thanking the orcs for their unusually good behavior, the group camps for a rest period, and then Lester creates an airboat and they head off in the direction they've been told that the Cube of Drakos lies in.
For several hours they travel without event. There are small bits of misshaped metal that float in the void around them, an occasional arrow or bolt, even once or twice large rocks or boulders. And bodies- most especially bones; they are commonplace.
As our heroes move along, Sybele reflects on glad she is that she sent Jezebel away. This place is not good. In fact- what's that? "Look!" she calls, pointing.
In the distance, a zone of blackness is moving across the sky, obscuring objects and cubes as it passes before them.
Orbius casts clairvoyance, and hears a voice in Draconic. "Send in the flyers," it growls arrogantly, and an instant later small winged-looking specks pop from the darkness. "Kobolds! Kobolds on glider wings of some kind!" cries the sharp-eyed wizard. And they're coming in fast, moving with the kind of great speed that allows only a moment's preparation.
Rushing up onto the deck of the ship of clouds, Thrush prepares for battle. Sybele follows him up, manifesting an extended displacement. Malford's already up there, casting haste and blink. Then, from within the darkness comes a deep intoning voice, and an eyeblink later a chain lightning shoots out at the three of them. Several of the kobolds pull out wands and hurl a multitude of fireballs at the ship. Fortunately for our heroes, Malford's gauntlets of absorbtion suck them away, glowing red with power, and start fuelling the gnome-king's strength.
"These guys mean business!" Horbin shouts as he clambers up on deck. Thrush nods fiercely as he stands ready to break their charge when they arrive, probably only seconds away. Malford fires a pair of flame arrows at the kobolds, dividing up his shots between two of them; but to his surprise, none of the targeted kobolds fall. Their gliders do catch fire, however. Sybele fires arrows out at them, and one of them jerks and goes still, his form still plummeting towards the deck of their airboat.
Then, from the darkness, now some 50' away, a cone of shadowy darkness shoots out, catching everyone in the ship. There are a chorus of screams as enervating negative energy settles in on them- delivering a telling five negative levels to those who failed their saving throw (which was everyone the first time around).
Suddenly bereft of their most powerful spells and at a profound disadvantage, our heroes are shocked by this unexpectedly deadly attack. They need to get it together and fast, but before they can there's a cone of cold from within the darkness. Terrible damage is inflicted on everyone save Angelfire, who's still below decks activating buffing powers. The same voice that Orbius heard booms out from the darkness, delighted. "Malford! What a splendid prize! Father will be so pleased!"
Not good! thinks Malford, casting a mass flight on the party and then throwing a dispel magic at the darkness. Success reveals-
A dragon.
A dragon towing some sort of... war platform. With catapults, and kobolds, and glider wings... and a dozen of the kobolds are en route to the airboat but there are a few more on the platform; and, of course, the dragon himself. This horror is almost translucent, covered in indistinct midnight-blue or black scales. Its long, sinuous neck has short horns on it, as well as a pair of spiny rows running down to its dark wings. The thing seems to blend with the darkness around it, losing distinction in the darkness. Its chest is a sapphire color so dark as to be almost black. With a grin, he hastes himself, then brings up mirror images.
Two of the kobolds are down, now, but several of them have slowed their charge and turned invisible, though their glider wings remain visible. More- a half dozen- have landed on the deck and shrugged out of their gliders. They rush forward, several attacking Angelfire as he emerges on deck, and one of them- he looks kinda funny, seems to have a longer neck and horns- belches out a cone of shadow! Angelfire resists this one, and thanks to his ring of evasion suffers no negative levels from it.
Then Angelfire and Thrush both are hacking around them. Thrush moves forward and hews one of the kobold's head from his shoulders; Angelfire, seriously beset himself, has four arms thanks to his cloak of embrace and he uses them to great effect, with both his falchion and his scythe working in deadly tandem. There's a hail of blows at all the kobolds around him, and they drop in numbers. Sybele continues to fire her bow. She's directing punishing-looking shots at a sorcerer-looking kobold- though she doesn't know it, his name is Maxxor- and she drops him.
Then the dragon flexes its great wings and descends on Angelfire, smashing him with a wing, a claw and his tail. The blows deal terrible wounds to the Coilite, but when has Angelfire ever fled from a fight?
Then a catapult shot fires past our heroes, missing the airboat by perhaps a dozen paces. The shot whistles past them, but after a moment it explodes! Sybele determines to get to work on the problem of the catapults posthaste. She flies up towards the arm of the v-shaped platform that the catapult shot came from and mind blasts the crew, stunning them.
On the deck, Thrush has gotten into the middle of the enemy that's set down, and in a single motion he kills all of them but one. Once again even our heroes are impressed by his deadliness.
Angelfire tries to use a lesser restoration to fix the huge negative levels sitting on his shoulders, but it doesn't seem to work. He strikes at the dragon, hitting one image and dispelling it; with his scythe he misses entirely, and since he's hasted he dimension doors to the lower deck so as to deny the dragon its attack on him.
Malford casts true strike on his sun blade, then flies in, rolling, diving, and dodging to avoid the dragon's threatening teeth. Then he burns all the power in his gauntlets, boosting his strength for a moment to truly ludicrous levels, and he attacks, using his sun blade to great effect. He strikes a blow that deals a wound to the great beast- the first damage our heroes have inflicted upon him.
In reply, Sautix (for that is the dragon's name) snaps his teeth at Malford, snatches him, and with a great pumping of the wings, flies off with him.
Next Time: The rest of the battle against Sautix, and we'll check in with an old enemy!
Our resourceful heroes quickly and magically ascertain that the creature they seek is in "the Cells of Urthgor, within the Cube of Drakos." Drakos, Malford tells them instantly, is one of the elven gods of Gorel- an oppressive, iron-fisted deity of an island with two elven peoples, constantly trying to destroy each other. Glancing around at the myriad cubes of all different sizes in the sky, Orbius announces that they seem to be on the plane of Acheron. It's one of the Outer Planes, he informs them; a plane of endless, pointless war.
Our heroes fly about under a mass fly for a time, not sure which way to go at first, looking for an inhabitant. They find two orcs sitting at a cook fire. In the conversation that ensues, they claim to have gotten separated from their unit, which has now moved on to another cube. When Malford offers them a lift up to their people, the two orcs gladly accept, and soon the captain of the orcish forces has pointed the way to Drakos' Cube. "You'll know it; it's littered with war machines," he tells them, and thanking the orcs for their unusually good behavior, the group camps for a rest period, and then Lester creates an airboat and they head off in the direction they've been told that the Cube of Drakos lies in.
For several hours they travel without event. There are small bits of misshaped metal that float in the void around them, an occasional arrow or bolt, even once or twice large rocks or boulders. And bodies- most especially bones; they are commonplace.
As our heroes move along, Sybele reflects on glad she is that she sent Jezebel away. This place is not good. In fact- what's that? "Look!" she calls, pointing.
In the distance, a zone of blackness is moving across the sky, obscuring objects and cubes as it passes before them.
Orbius casts clairvoyance, and hears a voice in Draconic. "Send in the flyers," it growls arrogantly, and an instant later small winged-looking specks pop from the darkness. "Kobolds! Kobolds on glider wings of some kind!" cries the sharp-eyed wizard. And they're coming in fast, moving with the kind of great speed that allows only a moment's preparation.
Rushing up onto the deck of the ship of clouds, Thrush prepares for battle. Sybele follows him up, manifesting an extended displacement. Malford's already up there, casting haste and blink. Then, from within the darkness comes a deep intoning voice, and an eyeblink later a chain lightning shoots out at the three of them. Several of the kobolds pull out wands and hurl a multitude of fireballs at the ship. Fortunately for our heroes, Malford's gauntlets of absorbtion suck them away, glowing red with power, and start fuelling the gnome-king's strength.
"These guys mean business!" Horbin shouts as he clambers up on deck. Thrush nods fiercely as he stands ready to break their charge when they arrive, probably only seconds away. Malford fires a pair of flame arrows at the kobolds, dividing up his shots between two of them; but to his surprise, none of the targeted kobolds fall. Their gliders do catch fire, however. Sybele fires arrows out at them, and one of them jerks and goes still, his form still plummeting towards the deck of their airboat.
Then, from the darkness, now some 50' away, a cone of shadowy darkness shoots out, catching everyone in the ship. There are a chorus of screams as enervating negative energy settles in on them- delivering a telling five negative levels to those who failed their saving throw (which was everyone the first time around).
Suddenly bereft of their most powerful spells and at a profound disadvantage, our heroes are shocked by this unexpectedly deadly attack. They need to get it together and fast, but before they can there's a cone of cold from within the darkness. Terrible damage is inflicted on everyone save Angelfire, who's still below decks activating buffing powers. The same voice that Orbius heard booms out from the darkness, delighted. "Malford! What a splendid prize! Father will be so pleased!"
Not good! thinks Malford, casting a mass flight on the party and then throwing a dispel magic at the darkness. Success reveals-
A dragon.
A dragon towing some sort of... war platform. With catapults, and kobolds, and glider wings... and a dozen of the kobolds are en route to the airboat but there are a few more on the platform; and, of course, the dragon himself. This horror is almost translucent, covered in indistinct midnight-blue or black scales. Its long, sinuous neck has short horns on it, as well as a pair of spiny rows running down to its dark wings. The thing seems to blend with the darkness around it, losing distinction in the darkness. Its chest is a sapphire color so dark as to be almost black. With a grin, he hastes himself, then brings up mirror images.
Two of the kobolds are down, now, but several of them have slowed their charge and turned invisible, though their glider wings remain visible. More- a half dozen- have landed on the deck and shrugged out of their gliders. They rush forward, several attacking Angelfire as he emerges on deck, and one of them- he looks kinda funny, seems to have a longer neck and horns- belches out a cone of shadow! Angelfire resists this one, and thanks to his ring of evasion suffers no negative levels from it.
Then Angelfire and Thrush both are hacking around them. Thrush moves forward and hews one of the kobold's head from his shoulders; Angelfire, seriously beset himself, has four arms thanks to his cloak of embrace and he uses them to great effect, with both his falchion and his scythe working in deadly tandem. There's a hail of blows at all the kobolds around him, and they drop in numbers. Sybele continues to fire her bow. She's directing punishing-looking shots at a sorcerer-looking kobold- though she doesn't know it, his name is Maxxor- and she drops him.
Then the dragon flexes its great wings and descends on Angelfire, smashing him with a wing, a claw and his tail. The blows deal terrible wounds to the Coilite, but when has Angelfire ever fled from a fight?
Then a catapult shot fires past our heroes, missing the airboat by perhaps a dozen paces. The shot whistles past them, but after a moment it explodes! Sybele determines to get to work on the problem of the catapults posthaste. She flies up towards the arm of the v-shaped platform that the catapult shot came from and mind blasts the crew, stunning them.
On the deck, Thrush has gotten into the middle of the enemy that's set down, and in a single motion he kills all of them but one. Once again even our heroes are impressed by his deadliness.
Angelfire tries to use a lesser restoration to fix the huge negative levels sitting on his shoulders, but it doesn't seem to work. He strikes at the dragon, hitting one image and dispelling it; with his scythe he misses entirely, and since he's hasted he dimension doors to the lower deck so as to deny the dragon its attack on him.
Malford casts true strike on his sun blade, then flies in, rolling, diving, and dodging to avoid the dragon's threatening teeth. Then he burns all the power in his gauntlets, boosting his strength for a moment to truly ludicrous levels, and he attacks, using his sun blade to great effect. He strikes a blow that deals a wound to the great beast- the first damage our heroes have inflicted upon him.
In reply, Sautix (for that is the dragon's name) snaps his teeth at Malford, snatches him, and with a great pumping of the wings, flies off with him.
Next Time: The rest of the battle against Sautix, and we'll check in with an old enemy!
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This seems like the biggest fight the party has had in a while! I was wondering when that half-half dragon would poke his head in 
I'm not sure I got the imagery right, was the dragon pulling a big thing through the air (which held kobolds) like a flying aircraft carrier cart? Anyway, thats what it seemed like to me.
At any rate, I hope to see him (her?) in the rg soon, along with one of those kobold gliders
Great job juggling all the story hours (as usual) Jester, as always wishing I could be in there...
Technik
Brought to you by the organization against seeing this story hit page 2.
I'm not sure I got the imagery right, was the dragon pulling a big thing through the air (which held kobolds) like a flying aircraft carrier cart? Anyway, thats what it seemed like to me.At any rate, I hope to see him (her?) in the rg soon, along with one of those kobold gliders
Great job juggling all the story hours (as usual) Jester, as always wishing I could be in there...
Technik
Brought to you by the organization against seeing this story hit page 2.
the Jester
Legend
Technik4 said:This seems like the biggest fight the party has had in a while! I was wondering when that half-half dragon would poke his head in
That's about right... funny image, eh?
the Jester
Legend
~Interlude~
"Fah!" roars Tamult the Bile Lord, and storms from the room.
He strides quickly to his own chamber, slams the stone door shut, and sweeps a collection of glassware from atop some of the new wooden furnishings. The glasses shatter, the pitcher breaks into many shards, but the plate survives. He brings his foot crashing down onto it, destroying it as well.
"Wait, wait, wait!" he roars. "Now they've defeated the spell, and still wait, wait, wait! No more!"
Fuming, he takes up his staff and a strange rod, then goes to the prison. He turns the rod on first one, then another of the prisoners, lip curled in a sneer as they howl in agony while bile sprays across them. Then he seizes control of them and, growling deep in his throat, drags their writhing forms with him.
He'll wait no longer than necessary for the two of them to change. Vengeance cannot wait forever.
Meanwhile, on the plane of Acheron, where a horrible dragon besets our heroes....
"Fah!" roars Tamult the Bile Lord, and storms from the room.
He strides quickly to his own chamber, slams the stone door shut, and sweeps a collection of glassware from atop some of the new wooden furnishings. The glasses shatter, the pitcher breaks into many shards, but the plate survives. He brings his foot crashing down onto it, destroying it as well.
"Wait, wait, wait!" he roars. "Now they've defeated the spell, and still wait, wait, wait! No more!"
Fuming, he takes up his staff and a strange rod, then goes to the prison. He turns the rod on first one, then another of the prisoners, lip curled in a sneer as they howl in agony while bile sprays across them. Then he seizes control of them and, growling deep in his throat, drags their writhing forms with him.
He'll wait no longer than necessary for the two of them to change. Vengeance cannot wait forever.
Meanwhile, on the plane of Acheron, where a horrible dragon besets our heroes....
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the Jester
Legend
The Halfbreed
Where were we? Ah, yes. Our heroes are on Acheron, being attacked by what appears to be a very powerful shadow dragon. The dragon, one Sautix, is flying away with Malford. Behind him our heroes are routing the dragon’s kobold servitors, though one spellcaster is proving fairly tenacious. Things don’t look too bad, other than the bit about Malford- but he’s blinking, so he gets free of the dragon’s mouth quite easily, taunting the dragon wickedly as he does so. Then he casts a vampiric touch and siphons some of the creature’s energy, then tumbles away. Where have I seen this thing before? he wonders. Who is its father? I’ve never met a shadow dragon before! Behind him, Horbin, in flying pursuit of the dragon, casts destruction, but to no avail. The dragon shrugs it off.
Thrush, meanwhile, is caught by the kobold sorcerer’s spell even as he drops the last kobold on the airboat our heroes are traveling on. He turns to Sybele and cries, “Sybele! We must hooble the driplewaple, mungle morsh!”
Angelfire, meanwhile, is moving through the kobolds that Sybele stunned with her mind blast, cutting them almost in two with his falchion. His eyes blaze angrily as he does so, kobold blood splattering all up and down his body. Then, eyeing the catapult that hasn’t yet been fired- the stunned kobolds were ready, but hadn’t yet had their shot- he smiles grimly, swings it in line to fire at the dragon, and cuts the rope, releasing the shot. It flies wide, exploding off the dragon’s side. Arrows are whizzing out at his dwindling shape, missing it; however, he’s turning to come in for another pass, casting bull’s strength on himself first. It isn’t over yet, and still only Malford has managed to hurt Sautix. Steadying himself in the air, Horbin casts lower resistance at the monster, now flying back towards them.
Then Sautix breathes again, another cone of shadowy negative energy, and our heroes groan in agony as they suffer another round of negative levels.**
Twisting to avoid the shadowy breath, Malford reaches the airboat, but once there he’s surprised to find himself the victim of a sudden savage full attack from Thrush. Fortunately, he’s both blinking and displaced, so only one blow hits- but it’s still quite a blow!* Thrush cries, “Malford! Warfle de bliglig! Ulmor, rigo pa!” Noting this, and deducing that Thrush is likely confused, Angelfire targets a dispel magic from a wand at the hapless warrior, and in an instant he shakes his head and comes back to himself. “Sorry!” he calls to Malford, realizing what he’d just done.
Sybele moves forward and hurls her new blade, Snakebite, which has the throwing property. It whizzes out, smacks the dragon but fails to penetrate his hide, and falls. Snakebite, alas, does not have the returning property, and it vanishes into the dark sky below them in an instant. Sybele gives a cry of dismay, and the dragon laughs heartily. Malford manages to penetrate Sautix’ spell resistance with a phantasmal killer, but the dragon sneers at the puny magic. Then, opening his mouth in a huge grin, Sautix breathes again- but this time, it’s a bolt of lightning, arcing out into Angelfire***, which he follows immediately with a charge and a bite, tearing along his ribs and side! An arrow of acid shoots into the beast from Malford, scoring a hit, but Sautix seems almost as strong as ever and turns contemptuously to face his foe.
And then Horbin cries a strange word, a word of such primal Chaos that it causes the very fabric of reality to quiver, and it seems to echo for a moment before the surprised-looking dragon; then he is gone, banished back to his home plane. “Thank Dexter!” Horbin cries, and whatever god you name, that sentiment’s pretty well shared.
Our heroes gather together, shaken, and do what healing they can. “We’ve got to go get my sword!” Sybele insists, but she’s reassured by Malford that if they wait until they have a chance to recover from the negative levels, they’ll be in much better shape.
“What if we run into trouble?” Horbin points out. “We’re in no shape to deal with anything right now.” Sybele reluctantly accedes, and they turn to the flying V the dragon had been towing by a great chain. With some experimentation, they determine that it can be pulled by Sybele, and with great satisfaction they determine to keep it. Malford declares that he’ll use it for the defense of Var, and everyone agrees to the wisdom of that proposal.
They also find a great deal of loot, which includes many minor magic weapons and armor, a few wands of invisibility and fireball, and a pair of very interesting longspears (graven with the names Dragon-Tongue and Broken Wheel). Maxxor, the tenacious kobold sorcerer, had among his things a wand of enervation, bracers of armor +4, and a number of scroll with interesting spells on them, including lightning bolt, protective shock, chain lightning, circle of death, globe of invulnerability, dispel exhaustion, horrible wound, teleport, summon monster VII, and the infamous puncture. He also has a minor spellbook of first-level spells.
Sybele puts away her dorje of identify, happy once again to have it.
“A lot of this stuff can probably go into the arsenal,” God-King Malford muses. The party agrees; with a few exceptions, they don’t really want the minor weapons. After a short division of spoils (Sybele and Thrush take the two long-spears), Horbin casts a gate spell and the party maneuvers the war machine through it. Horbin and Malford take a quick trip to Var to dispose of the items they don’t need or want with them. While there, they run into Gorlon Gallad, on of Malford’s ‘agents’, who’s shown a lot of promise in his operations over the last year or two. Malford invites him along, and he joins the party****. While they finish their preparations for their return to the rest of the group on Acheron, they run across a sheepish Telemundo, who offers his apologies for his earlier foolishness and sweet-talks his way back in as well after offering his assurance that he won’t start trouble. Then Horbin conjures another gate and the four head back to Acheron.
After introducing Gorlon around, Malford watches warily as the aged Telemundo approaches Angel. “Look, I just wanted to say, no hard feelings about earlier, okay?” the sorcerer grumbles, offering his hand to the Coilite. Angelfire takes his hand, gives his a good hard squeeze, and smiles.
“Don’t cross me, or I’ll kill you,” he warns, releasing Telemundo’s hand. And he smiles...
*47 hp of damage.
**Now ranging from 7-10 each. Yikes!
***At this moment, Malford’s player said, “Can you apply the half-dragon template to a dragon?” (Yes you can, they talk about it in I think it’s Savage Species.)
****Gorlon Gallad is a bard 9/ranger 7, and his player’s an old friend of most of the group’s. It’s good to have him- here’s hoping he can play regularly!
Next Time: Against the Inevitable! Also, I'll be posting Lester's stats in the Rogues' Gallery thread sometime soon- his player finally emailed them to me!
Where were we? Ah, yes. Our heroes are on Acheron, being attacked by what appears to be a very powerful shadow dragon. The dragon, one Sautix, is flying away with Malford. Behind him our heroes are routing the dragon’s kobold servitors, though one spellcaster is proving fairly tenacious. Things don’t look too bad, other than the bit about Malford- but he’s blinking, so he gets free of the dragon’s mouth quite easily, taunting the dragon wickedly as he does so. Then he casts a vampiric touch and siphons some of the creature’s energy, then tumbles away. Where have I seen this thing before? he wonders. Who is its father? I’ve never met a shadow dragon before! Behind him, Horbin, in flying pursuit of the dragon, casts destruction, but to no avail. The dragon shrugs it off.
Thrush, meanwhile, is caught by the kobold sorcerer’s spell even as he drops the last kobold on the airboat our heroes are traveling on. He turns to Sybele and cries, “Sybele! We must hooble the driplewaple, mungle morsh!”
Angelfire, meanwhile, is moving through the kobolds that Sybele stunned with her mind blast, cutting them almost in two with his falchion. His eyes blaze angrily as he does so, kobold blood splattering all up and down his body. Then, eyeing the catapult that hasn’t yet been fired- the stunned kobolds were ready, but hadn’t yet had their shot- he smiles grimly, swings it in line to fire at the dragon, and cuts the rope, releasing the shot. It flies wide, exploding off the dragon’s side. Arrows are whizzing out at his dwindling shape, missing it; however, he’s turning to come in for another pass, casting bull’s strength on himself first. It isn’t over yet, and still only Malford has managed to hurt Sautix. Steadying himself in the air, Horbin casts lower resistance at the monster, now flying back towards them.
Then Sautix breathes again, another cone of shadowy negative energy, and our heroes groan in agony as they suffer another round of negative levels.**
Twisting to avoid the shadowy breath, Malford reaches the airboat, but once there he’s surprised to find himself the victim of a sudden savage full attack from Thrush. Fortunately, he’s both blinking and displaced, so only one blow hits- but it’s still quite a blow!* Thrush cries, “Malford! Warfle de bliglig! Ulmor, rigo pa!” Noting this, and deducing that Thrush is likely confused, Angelfire targets a dispel magic from a wand at the hapless warrior, and in an instant he shakes his head and comes back to himself. “Sorry!” he calls to Malford, realizing what he’d just done.
Sybele moves forward and hurls her new blade, Snakebite, which has the throwing property. It whizzes out, smacks the dragon but fails to penetrate his hide, and falls. Snakebite, alas, does not have the returning property, and it vanishes into the dark sky below them in an instant. Sybele gives a cry of dismay, and the dragon laughs heartily. Malford manages to penetrate Sautix’ spell resistance with a phantasmal killer, but the dragon sneers at the puny magic. Then, opening his mouth in a huge grin, Sautix breathes again- but this time, it’s a bolt of lightning, arcing out into Angelfire***, which he follows immediately with a charge and a bite, tearing along his ribs and side! An arrow of acid shoots into the beast from Malford, scoring a hit, but Sautix seems almost as strong as ever and turns contemptuously to face his foe.
And then Horbin cries a strange word, a word of such primal Chaos that it causes the very fabric of reality to quiver, and it seems to echo for a moment before the surprised-looking dragon; then he is gone, banished back to his home plane. “Thank Dexter!” Horbin cries, and whatever god you name, that sentiment’s pretty well shared.
Our heroes gather together, shaken, and do what healing they can. “We’ve got to go get my sword!” Sybele insists, but she’s reassured by Malford that if they wait until they have a chance to recover from the negative levels, they’ll be in much better shape.
“What if we run into trouble?” Horbin points out. “We’re in no shape to deal with anything right now.” Sybele reluctantly accedes, and they turn to the flying V the dragon had been towing by a great chain. With some experimentation, they determine that it can be pulled by Sybele, and with great satisfaction they determine to keep it. Malford declares that he’ll use it for the defense of Var, and everyone agrees to the wisdom of that proposal.
They also find a great deal of loot, which includes many minor magic weapons and armor, a few wands of invisibility and fireball, and a pair of very interesting longspears (graven with the names Dragon-Tongue and Broken Wheel). Maxxor, the tenacious kobold sorcerer, had among his things a wand of enervation, bracers of armor +4, and a number of scroll with interesting spells on them, including lightning bolt, protective shock, chain lightning, circle of death, globe of invulnerability, dispel exhaustion, horrible wound, teleport, summon monster VII, and the infamous puncture. He also has a minor spellbook of first-level spells.
Sybele puts away her dorje of identify, happy once again to have it.
“A lot of this stuff can probably go into the arsenal,” God-King Malford muses. The party agrees; with a few exceptions, they don’t really want the minor weapons. After a short division of spoils (Sybele and Thrush take the two long-spears), Horbin casts a gate spell and the party maneuvers the war machine through it. Horbin and Malford take a quick trip to Var to dispose of the items they don’t need or want with them. While there, they run into Gorlon Gallad, on of Malford’s ‘agents’, who’s shown a lot of promise in his operations over the last year or two. Malford invites him along, and he joins the party****. While they finish their preparations for their return to the rest of the group on Acheron, they run across a sheepish Telemundo, who offers his apologies for his earlier foolishness and sweet-talks his way back in as well after offering his assurance that he won’t start trouble. Then Horbin conjures another gate and the four head back to Acheron.
After introducing Gorlon around, Malford watches warily as the aged Telemundo approaches Angel. “Look, I just wanted to say, no hard feelings about earlier, okay?” the sorcerer grumbles, offering his hand to the Coilite. Angelfire takes his hand, gives his a good hard squeeze, and smiles.
“Don’t cross me, or I’ll kill you,” he warns, releasing Telemundo’s hand. And he smiles...
*47 hp of damage.
**Now ranging from 7-10 each. Yikes!
***At this moment, Malford’s player said, “Can you apply the half-dragon template to a dragon?” (Yes you can, they talk about it in I think it’s Savage Species.)
****Gorlon Gallad is a bard 9/ranger 7, and his player’s an old friend of most of the group’s. It’s good to have him- here’s hoping he can play regularly!
Next Time: Against the Inevitable! Also, I'll be posting Lester's stats in the Rogues' Gallery thread sometime soon- his player finally emailed them to me!
the Jester
Legend
Re: Re: Down and Out the Hatch
Er, it's not that I'm obsessed with these things, just that the party has been in the wrong place at the wrong time a lot lately. And with the incident above, it was a matter of triggering the 'sorely beset' clause....
My homebrewed campaign has tons of cool spells. Here's the 3.5 version of puncture:
PUNCTURE
Transmutation [Force]
Level: Sor/Wiz 8
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Long (400’+40’/level)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fort partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
This powerful spell blasts a small hole, about 2” in diameter, in anything it hits. The power of this puncture is such that the rest of the object or creature is often shattered as well; regardless of the saving throw the target suffers 6d12 damage. An object that fails its saving throw is shattered into pieces and all parts of the object within 1’/level of the targeted area is destroyed. A creature that fails its saving throw must roll on the following chart to determine the exact effects:
01-20- Random arm blown off
21-40- Random leg blown off
41-50- Head shot! Knocked unconscious, lose 1d6 each permanent Int and Wis; 50% chance to lose an eye
51-60- Neck: head blown off, killed
61-80- Torso: stunned 3d10 round
81-00- Torso: internal damage is extensive, permanent loss of 1d6 Con.
Casting this spell is so taxing that you immediately suffer 3d4 points of subdual damage.
Welverin said:
Er, it's not that I'm obsessed with these things, just that the party has been in the wrong place at the wrong time a lot lately. And with the incident above, it was a matter of triggering the 'sorely beset' clause....
My homebrewed campaign has tons of cool spells. Here's the 3.5 version of puncture:
PUNCTURE
Transmutation [Force]
Level: Sor/Wiz 8
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Long (400’+40’/level)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fort partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
This powerful spell blasts a small hole, about 2” in diameter, in anything it hits. The power of this puncture is such that the rest of the object or creature is often shattered as well; regardless of the saving throw the target suffers 6d12 damage. An object that fails its saving throw is shattered into pieces and all parts of the object within 1’/level of the targeted area is destroyed. A creature that fails its saving throw must roll on the following chart to determine the exact effects:
01-20- Random arm blown off
21-40- Random leg blown off
41-50- Head shot! Knocked unconscious, lose 1d6 each permanent Int and Wis; 50% chance to lose an eye
51-60- Neck: head blown off, killed
61-80- Torso: stunned 3d10 round
81-00- Torso: internal damage is extensive, permanent loss of 1d6 Con.
Casting this spell is so taxing that you immediately suffer 3d4 points of subdual damage.
