Valanthe the Sleepless
First Post
Val is Rogue 10 / Shadow Dancer 10 / Void Incarnate 5.
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Wizardru's Story Hour (updated 11/21)
- Thread starter Zad
- Start date
- Status
dravot
First Post
Dravot is Cleric 7/Radiant Shadow of Pelor 10/Shadowed of Pelor 6/Divine Agent 1
Radiant Shadow of Pelor is from Dragon Magazine and Shadowed of Pelor is a homebrew variant of Hunter of the Dead (more of a caster than hybrid as a PrC).
I have stuff that I need to write up from last week's session, but work has been pure H-e-double-toothpicks this week...I hope to get something on paper soon.
In the meantime, we're playing tonight. Heck...we're playing right now!
Radiant Shadow of Pelor is from Dragon Magazine and Shadowed of Pelor is a homebrew variant of Hunter of the Dead (more of a caster than hybrid as a PrC).
I have stuff that I need to write up from last week's session, but work has been pure H-e-double-toothpicks this week...I hope to get something on paper soon.
In the meantime, we're playing tonight. Heck...we're playing right now!
Zad
First Post
A Fool's Errand- Chapter 2
A Fool's Errand– Chapter 2
OOC Notes:
Exp for 25th is 1875, for 24th is 2400.
And I’d like to point out that never can I recall an evening of play where so many times the phrase “Wow, Bolo would be really handy to have here right now,” was uttered. The irony of course being that Bolo couldn’t join us for this session.
This Week’s Adventure:
We still hadn’t heard anything from the Silverring on this grand plan, and I was in no mood to sit around waiting. On top of that, I was in the mood to stir things up. So what was left? Well Chavram was, as always, a mystery, but one who managed to make himself seem less significant than others. There were demons on the Prime hunting us but that was hardly anything new.
And then there was the Shadow King. We hadn’t really done much about him lately; perhaps it was time to make him a little nervous.
I had to go back to an older journal to refresh my memory: The Shadow King is the shadow cast by Therizdun. This manifestation is “leaking” out of Therizdun’s prison. In order to destroy him, we must obtain the three theerparts and use them to “re-scramble the lock” on his prison. (The prison was created by Sehanine, Pelor, and Heironeous and we would need a powerful follower of each to do the deed.) We had one theerpart in safe keeping, and a second was believed to be with the Red Lord, formerly of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Last information had him in Rauxes but the information was dated.
So that left one part that we had no knowledge of – the neutral part. (The three parts correspond to law, chaos, and neutrality.) So where to start?
Aethramyr mused “How about the ShadowTaker? He had information on everything. Maybe his notes have something about it.”
That elf is truly brilliant.
He and I spent the day going through the ShadowTaker’s extensive system of notes and records. It was slow going at first and I began to suspect that a key cross-referencing book was missing. It turned out Scorch had it tucked away and once I had it, things started to fall into place. The old worm’s network was impressive and I began to make notes on how we could turn some of it to our own uses. We have always relied on getting our information from other groups and I fancied the idea of having our own independent streams of intelligence. Of course may of the methods of the ShadowTaker were rather unsavory, but there were still plenty of ethically salvageable parts of his network. Best of all, since they never knew who they worked for, there was no need for them to know the boss had changed.
By the end of the day, we had come to a conclusion and cross checked it enough to be confident of it: the neutral theerpart is in the hands of Acererack, a lich of legendary status.
[OOC: For those of you scratching your heads, I’ll just save you the trouble. Riddle me this: What lich was waiting at the bottom of the legendary module “Tomb of Horrors”? I should point out that Dravot recently came across some information that also pointed him at the Tomb of Horrors for a completely different reasons. All roads lead to Rome (or in this case, TPKs).]
The entrance to the tomb is in the Vast Swamp, but it moves every day. Only the Hopping Prophet Wastri would be able to direct us to the entrance. He was a demi-god who roamed the Vast Swamp with a cult of mostly bullywug followers. I was a bit disturbed at this, until I dug a little further and found the ShadowTaker had notes of at least a hundred demi-gods on the Prime – most were associated with some particular location.
So how do we find a demi-god in a swampland that ran for hundreds of miles? Well certainly a druid would help. But Bolo was out of touch, called away on some important druidic business. So failing that I sent a message to another druid we knew. Granted, there weren’t many these days but at least there were a few.
Certimo responded to my message and we arranged to meet. The centaur druid was looking well and we exchanged pleasantries before I got down to the heart of the matter.
“We have a need to speak with a being called ‘The Hopping Prophet’ – a demi-god in the Vast Swamps. Are there any druids you know of familiar with that area who can be of some assistance?”
Certimo thought for a moment. “The Vast Swamp is well named. But there are no druids who walk those paths. We have all but seceded it to him. He was once human you know. I am not sure how he became a demi-god but he has a particular hatred of dwarves and gnomes and the like. He’s not a prophet with any ability to see the future you understand – more that he simply preaches to his followers of the downfall of the demi-humans and so on.”
I nodded, expecting the response. “Hm. So no suggestions eh? Well, I suppose it didn’t hurt to ask. I guess that leaves us the other plan: go down there and poke around and see what happens. Perhaps he’ll be drawn to us when he notices us in his demesnes.”
We assembled the next day and traveled to Brindinford and then by air to Eyedrinn. After spending a quiet night there we set out the next day to explore the swamp, hoping to just get lucky. While we were in Eyedrinn, Meepo informed us over the scales that an ambassador from Bissel had arrived and wished to speak to us. We told Meepo to tell him we were engaged and would return in some days’ time. (In this case “we” does not include me, as I prefer to keep my hands clean of Ruun’Khazai.) Meepo replied later that the ambassador took the message as if expecting it, and then promptly packed up and left. Valanthe seemed troubled by this but said nothing else.
In the morning we explored the swamp, using wind walk to start randomly wandering generally south-east. After some hours we came across a small bullywug village of a few dozen residents. An old frog spoke for his people, and we told him whom we sought.
He considered for a moment. It was clear that they had considered violence as an option, but decided against it. I thought it just as well; killing them would help neither us nor them. Only a fool would delight in senseless slaughter, and while I had little knowledge of these creatures, I had no wish to destroy them.
The frog finally spoke. “We are not of his cult. But I can tell you where to look. His followers have a place to the north of here.” And he added a few more directions to make sure we found it.
------------------------------------------
I just shook my head. “Was it really necessary to kill them all? I mean are they insane? I suppose I can understand some zealotry, but they were clearly over-matched. What were they thinking?”
Aethramyr shrugged at the dozen bodies around us. “Who can say? Maybe they were mad. I even tried to spare a few but they’re rather fragile in addition to being not very bright and decidedly evil.”
“And now this lead is a dead end,” I sighed.
Valanthe called from inside the single thatched structure “I found some prisoners! Looks like they tortured them.”
The prisoners were reasonable creatures and happy to be freed. They were also helpful – they told us of a larger temple to the northeast. With any luck, we won’t have to kill them all.
---------------------------------------------
I glared at Scorch.
“What?” he asked, with only half-feigned confusion.
“Was that really necessary?”
Scorch harrumphed. “You saw them. They were crazed. There were dozens of them.”
I sighed hard. “I was hoping to avoid another bloodbath, not to mention irritating the Hopping Prophet. I thought ‘Oh look, Scorch turned into a dragon! Brilliant! They’ll see our power and realize what foolishness it is to attack us. What a great demonstration!”
“So what’s the problem?” he shrugged.
“The problem was that you didn’t have to breathe fire across their ranks and kill nearly all of them. A bit over the top, wouldn’t you say?”
“Eh. They’re evil cultists. What can you do?”
The good news was that at least there were a few left alive this time. The bad news was none of them knew anything useful about where the Wastri was or how to get his attention.
The “temple” itself was a stone building rather than thatch. In the center of the main chamber was a statue of the Hopping Prophet – a large frog standing upright with more human-ish feet, his tongue hanging out.
“So what do we do now?” Valanthe asked.
Dravot had an answer. “We pray.”
He knelt before the statue and prayed. I’m not sure how Pelor would feel about all this but it didn’t bother Dravot. After a minute, brackish water began flowing into the temple. A breeze blew up, and the stone statue cracked and shattered from the inside out.
And revealed was the Hopping Prophet. Wastri was twelve feet tall if he was an inch, and moved as if in a drunken state. His face was covered in blood and his hands were stained red. He looked at Dravot expectantly.
“Greetings my lord,” Dravot began simply.
Wastri replied with a slow, croaking voice. What…do you….want…
“We seek the entrance to the Tomb of Acererack and humbly seek your wisdom to find its location.”
Why… should I tell… you..
Dravot quickly asked me mentally “Do you have an answer to that question?”
I replied “Well we can either try the carrot or the stick. But we don’t know what he wants.”
Dravot said “We are strong, and determined, and we will find the entrance. But we wish to do so with the least amount of impact on your lands.”
Stick.
Not…good enough. Kill my cultists….they are…only human.
Dravot sensed an opportunity. “What could we offer that would please you?”
The Prophet came a few steps closer. It looked down and then its tongue swiftly lashed out and snapped the neck of one of the surviving cultists. After reflection he said You…are not capable…of what I desire… Perhaps…a price…could be found. There are…things…in my swamp…that I wish to remove. Slay some of them…then access to the tomb…I will give you.
But cause me…further harm…and I will send…an avatar.
Bribery was perfectly fine with us though. Dravot asked “What are these things you would have destroyed?”
Hunters…from the south. From the Brotherhood… Very fast… problematic for me to destroy. The are abominations… somehow protected. Hunting them…tiresome. I have killed their army…but these things remain. Have killed more of my followers…than you. They are human…like you…but they summon…their snapping machines. They kill my followers…their way north…to go.
Wastri was either unable to destroy these things, or unwilling to expend the necessary effort. It also seemed he was more interested in gauging us than actually destroying them. But it was still a reasonable offer to us.
They wear circlets…of nonswamp rock. They summon snapping machines. Find them…and destroy them… and I will allow you to find the place of your…destruction.
We agreed, and went south. It made sense that there would be continual skirmishes with the Scarlet Brotherhood to the south. If what Wastri said was true, he had destroyed their army except for these machines. So now we just had to find them.
Finding the battlefields was easy enough. We found several villages that had been destroyed by some kind of large creature. But the creatures seemed to appear just outside of the village and never leave it. But in a turn of luck, Bolo finished his business and returned. His eye saw what ours could not – there were humans who came to the village. They summoned the machines, and un-summoned them afterward. The humans then left. It was a simple matter for Bolo to track the humans handlers and in no time we had found three of them, all wearing red coral circlets.
A stealthy approach was out of the question – they had some way of sensing our approach and already had summoned their “snapping machines”. They were something like a crab, if a crab were metallic and thirty feet across. And most crabs don’t look that mean.
A Fool's Errand– Chapter 2
OOC Notes:
Exp for 25th is 1875, for 24th is 2400.
And I’d like to point out that never can I recall an evening of play where so many times the phrase “Wow, Bolo would be really handy to have here right now,” was uttered. The irony of course being that Bolo couldn’t join us for this session.
This Week’s Adventure:
We still hadn’t heard anything from the Silverring on this grand plan, and I was in no mood to sit around waiting. On top of that, I was in the mood to stir things up. So what was left? Well Chavram was, as always, a mystery, but one who managed to make himself seem less significant than others. There were demons on the Prime hunting us but that was hardly anything new.
And then there was the Shadow King. We hadn’t really done much about him lately; perhaps it was time to make him a little nervous.
I had to go back to an older journal to refresh my memory: The Shadow King is the shadow cast by Therizdun. This manifestation is “leaking” out of Therizdun’s prison. In order to destroy him, we must obtain the three theerparts and use them to “re-scramble the lock” on his prison. (The prison was created by Sehanine, Pelor, and Heironeous and we would need a powerful follower of each to do the deed.) We had one theerpart in safe keeping, and a second was believed to be with the Red Lord, formerly of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Last information had him in Rauxes but the information was dated.
So that left one part that we had no knowledge of – the neutral part. (The three parts correspond to law, chaos, and neutrality.) So where to start?
Aethramyr mused “How about the ShadowTaker? He had information on everything. Maybe his notes have something about it.”
That elf is truly brilliant.
He and I spent the day going through the ShadowTaker’s extensive system of notes and records. It was slow going at first and I began to suspect that a key cross-referencing book was missing. It turned out Scorch had it tucked away and once I had it, things started to fall into place. The old worm’s network was impressive and I began to make notes on how we could turn some of it to our own uses. We have always relied on getting our information from other groups and I fancied the idea of having our own independent streams of intelligence. Of course may of the methods of the ShadowTaker were rather unsavory, but there were still plenty of ethically salvageable parts of his network. Best of all, since they never knew who they worked for, there was no need for them to know the boss had changed.
By the end of the day, we had come to a conclusion and cross checked it enough to be confident of it: the neutral theerpart is in the hands of Acererack, a lich of legendary status.
[OOC: For those of you scratching your heads, I’ll just save you the trouble. Riddle me this: What lich was waiting at the bottom of the legendary module “Tomb of Horrors”? I should point out that Dravot recently came across some information that also pointed him at the Tomb of Horrors for a completely different reasons. All roads lead to Rome (or in this case, TPKs).]
The entrance to the tomb is in the Vast Swamp, but it moves every day. Only the Hopping Prophet Wastri would be able to direct us to the entrance. He was a demi-god who roamed the Vast Swamp with a cult of mostly bullywug followers. I was a bit disturbed at this, until I dug a little further and found the ShadowTaker had notes of at least a hundred demi-gods on the Prime – most were associated with some particular location.
So how do we find a demi-god in a swampland that ran for hundreds of miles? Well certainly a druid would help. But Bolo was out of touch, called away on some important druidic business. So failing that I sent a message to another druid we knew. Granted, there weren’t many these days but at least there were a few.
Certimo responded to my message and we arranged to meet. The centaur druid was looking well and we exchanged pleasantries before I got down to the heart of the matter.
“We have a need to speak with a being called ‘The Hopping Prophet’ – a demi-god in the Vast Swamps. Are there any druids you know of familiar with that area who can be of some assistance?”
Certimo thought for a moment. “The Vast Swamp is well named. But there are no druids who walk those paths. We have all but seceded it to him. He was once human you know. I am not sure how he became a demi-god but he has a particular hatred of dwarves and gnomes and the like. He’s not a prophet with any ability to see the future you understand – more that he simply preaches to his followers of the downfall of the demi-humans and so on.”
I nodded, expecting the response. “Hm. So no suggestions eh? Well, I suppose it didn’t hurt to ask. I guess that leaves us the other plan: go down there and poke around and see what happens. Perhaps he’ll be drawn to us when he notices us in his demesnes.”
We assembled the next day and traveled to Brindinford and then by air to Eyedrinn. After spending a quiet night there we set out the next day to explore the swamp, hoping to just get lucky. While we were in Eyedrinn, Meepo informed us over the scales that an ambassador from Bissel had arrived and wished to speak to us. We told Meepo to tell him we were engaged and would return in some days’ time. (In this case “we” does not include me, as I prefer to keep my hands clean of Ruun’Khazai.) Meepo replied later that the ambassador took the message as if expecting it, and then promptly packed up and left. Valanthe seemed troubled by this but said nothing else.
In the morning we explored the swamp, using wind walk to start randomly wandering generally south-east. After some hours we came across a small bullywug village of a few dozen residents. An old frog spoke for his people, and we told him whom we sought.
He considered for a moment. It was clear that they had considered violence as an option, but decided against it. I thought it just as well; killing them would help neither us nor them. Only a fool would delight in senseless slaughter, and while I had little knowledge of these creatures, I had no wish to destroy them.
The frog finally spoke. “We are not of his cult. But I can tell you where to look. His followers have a place to the north of here.” And he added a few more directions to make sure we found it.
------------------------------------------
I just shook my head. “Was it really necessary to kill them all? I mean are they insane? I suppose I can understand some zealotry, but they were clearly over-matched. What were they thinking?”
Aethramyr shrugged at the dozen bodies around us. “Who can say? Maybe they were mad. I even tried to spare a few but they’re rather fragile in addition to being not very bright and decidedly evil.”
“And now this lead is a dead end,” I sighed.
Valanthe called from inside the single thatched structure “I found some prisoners! Looks like they tortured them.”
The prisoners were reasonable creatures and happy to be freed. They were also helpful – they told us of a larger temple to the northeast. With any luck, we won’t have to kill them all.
---------------------------------------------
I glared at Scorch.
“What?” he asked, with only half-feigned confusion.
“Was that really necessary?”
Scorch harrumphed. “You saw them. They were crazed. There were dozens of them.”
I sighed hard. “I was hoping to avoid another bloodbath, not to mention irritating the Hopping Prophet. I thought ‘Oh look, Scorch turned into a dragon! Brilliant! They’ll see our power and realize what foolishness it is to attack us. What a great demonstration!”
“So what’s the problem?” he shrugged.
“The problem was that you didn’t have to breathe fire across their ranks and kill nearly all of them. A bit over the top, wouldn’t you say?”
“Eh. They’re evil cultists. What can you do?”
The good news was that at least there were a few left alive this time. The bad news was none of them knew anything useful about where the Wastri was or how to get his attention.
The “temple” itself was a stone building rather than thatch. In the center of the main chamber was a statue of the Hopping Prophet – a large frog standing upright with more human-ish feet, his tongue hanging out.
“So what do we do now?” Valanthe asked.
Dravot had an answer. “We pray.”
He knelt before the statue and prayed. I’m not sure how Pelor would feel about all this but it didn’t bother Dravot. After a minute, brackish water began flowing into the temple. A breeze blew up, and the stone statue cracked and shattered from the inside out.
And revealed was the Hopping Prophet. Wastri was twelve feet tall if he was an inch, and moved as if in a drunken state. His face was covered in blood and his hands were stained red. He looked at Dravot expectantly.
“Greetings my lord,” Dravot began simply.
Wastri replied with a slow, croaking voice. What…do you….want…
“We seek the entrance to the Tomb of Acererack and humbly seek your wisdom to find its location.”
Why… should I tell… you..
Dravot quickly asked me mentally “Do you have an answer to that question?”
I replied “Well we can either try the carrot or the stick. But we don’t know what he wants.”
Dravot said “We are strong, and determined, and we will find the entrance. But we wish to do so with the least amount of impact on your lands.”
Stick.
Not…good enough. Kill my cultists….they are…only human.
Dravot sensed an opportunity. “What could we offer that would please you?”
The Prophet came a few steps closer. It looked down and then its tongue swiftly lashed out and snapped the neck of one of the surviving cultists. After reflection he said You…are not capable…of what I desire… Perhaps…a price…could be found. There are…things…in my swamp…that I wish to remove. Slay some of them…then access to the tomb…I will give you.
But cause me…further harm…and I will send…an avatar.
Bribery was perfectly fine with us though. Dravot asked “What are these things you would have destroyed?”
Hunters…from the south. From the Brotherhood… Very fast… problematic for me to destroy. The are abominations… somehow protected. Hunting them…tiresome. I have killed their army…but these things remain. Have killed more of my followers…than you. They are human…like you…but they summon…their snapping machines. They kill my followers…their way north…to go.
Wastri was either unable to destroy these things, or unwilling to expend the necessary effort. It also seemed he was more interested in gauging us than actually destroying them. But it was still a reasonable offer to us.
They wear circlets…of nonswamp rock. They summon snapping machines. Find them…and destroy them… and I will allow you to find the place of your…destruction.
We agreed, and went south. It made sense that there would be continual skirmishes with the Scarlet Brotherhood to the south. If what Wastri said was true, he had destroyed their army except for these machines. So now we just had to find them.
Finding the battlefields was easy enough. We found several villages that had been destroyed by some kind of large creature. But the creatures seemed to appear just outside of the village and never leave it. But in a turn of luck, Bolo finished his business and returned. His eye saw what ours could not – there were humans who came to the village. They summoned the machines, and un-summoned them afterward. The humans then left. It was a simple matter for Bolo to track the humans handlers and in no time we had found three of them, all wearing red coral circlets.
A stealthy approach was out of the question – they had some way of sensing our approach and already had summoned their “snapping machines”. They were something like a crab, if a crab were metallic and thirty feet across. And most crabs don’t look that mean.
Last edited:
Zad
First Post
I feel obligated to point out that we learned a few things during this session, the foremost being it's hard to keep a straight face when negotiating with a giant frog. The actual conversation at the game was a lot more humorous than what you see here.
My favorite would have to be Aethramyr at the start of the discussion with the Hopping Prophet.
"It's a nice temple you gots here. It'd be a shame if something....happened to it."
My favorite would have to be Aethramyr at the start of the discussion with the Hopping Prophet.
"It's a nice temple you gots here. It'd be a shame if something....happened to it."
Argent Silvermage
First Post
Somehow it sounds like Bolo was there after all. 
By the way... Certimo is a tiefling. Ashberry is the Centaur.
By the way... Certimo is a tiefling. Ashberry is the Centaur.
WizarDru
Adventurer
Zad also deleted the "buuurr-rup"s at the end of most of Wastri's sentences.
I think the foremost thing we learned was that the DM shouldn't underestimate what lifting a ton of bricks will do to his personal energy.
The funniest part for me was when Dravot and Kayleigh are debating on how to talk to the Hopping Prophet.
D: "Carrot or Stick?"
K: "I don't know...I don't think I want to fight this guy."
D: "You don't think we can take him?"
K: "Maybe we can...but why bother if we don't have to?"
D: "OK. Carrot it is, then."
D: [To Wastri]: “We are strong, and determined, and we will find the entrance. But we wish to do so with the least amount of impact on your lands.”
K: "That was STICK."
D: "Really? Oh, I thought that was carrot."
=)
I think the foremost thing we learned was that the DM shouldn't underestimate what lifting a ton of bricks will do to his personal energy.
The funniest part for me was when Dravot and Kayleigh are debating on how to talk to the Hopping Prophet.
D: "Carrot or Stick?"
K: "I don't know...I don't think I want to fight this guy."
D: "You don't think we can take him?"
K: "Maybe we can...but why bother if we don't have to?"
D: "OK. Carrot it is, then."
D: [To Wastri]: “We are strong, and determined, and we will find the entrance. But we wish to do so with the least amount of impact on your lands.”
K: "That was STICK."
D: "Really? Oh, I thought that was carrot."
=)
LordVyreth
First Post
So what exactly did the two really easy fights consist of? It sounds like they went pretty quickly. Oh, and did the party bring any allies with them, or is that era pretty much over and done with? What level is Meepo and the party's various familiars/shadows/companions/cohorts at now?
Oh, are you playing again this saturday? If so, Dru, you have to get back to me in the other thread by tonight if you want me to finish up by this deadline.
Oh, are you playing again this saturday? If so, Dru, you have to get back to me in the other thread by tonight if you want me to finish up by this deadline.
Argent Silvermage
First Post
Unfortunalty this is a skip week. :\
The two combats consisted of an indeterminite number of lvl 1-4 Evil Frog cultists. The exact fight went along the lines of the DM saying "They're lvl 1-4, Evil Frog cultists. They attack you, and we're just going to hand-wave it since they have zero chance of doing anything more than inconvenencing you. Zad, feel free to pretty it up for the Boards"
Aethramyr
Aethramyr
- Status
