Wizardru's Story Hour (updated 11/21)

[WizarDru]

Wow, that was fast! I appreciate your effort; that should be very helpful. I might have to go over it to see if there's anyone missing or that I would like more information, but it looks pretty complete. The only name that comes to name so far is the Khrel Hr’dad.

It's pretty amusing to me the way the Circle of Eight is so margianalized in your campaign. They sort of jumped from "awe-inspiring heroes" to "don't even get invited to the meetings" somewhere mid-campaign. I actually half-expected them to have been wiped out in the Githyanki Incursion at this point.

Well, when they were 2nd level characters, they had already met two members of the Circle of Eight...one was odd and the other arrogant. The others they eventually met were already tainted by Mordankainen's first impression. Originally, the Circle consisted of 17-20th level wizards. Post-ELH, a few got a boost to Epic Levels. Those characters survive. One thing I try to strive for is the impression that the world is bigger than just the party's actions; other people are up to their own agendas and plans, which may not always make sense. Some things develop in complete separation of the party's involvement or because of their presence/absence from particular events.

In some cases, NPCs take up the slack; the party can't defend the whole Flanaess. Folks like Melf, Aran'gel and the Celenian defend against the forces of Turrosh Mak, for example. The party has known of the Mak's aggresion since prior to the Forge of Fury...but then they weren't capable of dealing with the problem, and now they'd be wasting their time unless they did a full-on assualt against the Mak's assembled war machine. And so it goes.

The Circle have become basically a drastically weakend power-group. However, they were never on the ins with the Scaled Council, since they are primarily agents of neutrality...very aggresive agents of neutrality, in fact. Mordankanien is capable of evil acts, if it maintains his prescious balance. The party most likely would dislike him more than some of their enemies, if they don't already. Case in point: when the party freed Gelban, they held the ancient Blue dragon with respect; he was direct, to the point and neither asked nor offered quarter. He was an adversary with no hidden agenda; "Kill me if you can!" Mordankanein, on the other hand, is all about hidden plots and such things...so Scorch would probably slap him and call him Susan, if given half a chance.

Oh, and the post of Jonathan? It's been filled.

 

[Zad]

The Krel Hr'dad are a new element. Mostly I did this by skimming the 650 pages of old stuff. I was mostly trying to capture the beings (or terms) that came up over the long term. I'm not entirely sure they'll be a long-term plot element but next time I'm in there, I'll add 'em.

The Eight are... odd (out fo character) and I'd probably say "irrelevant" in character. They were really awe-inspiring and it was a "wow" thing when we first met the ones we did. Then they just didn't invovle themselves for a long time. When finally we were much more powerful and had a big problem and tried to contact Mordenkainen, he blew us off totally and that's when I think we just started ignoring them. Too many global threats have popped up where they did absolutely nothing (githyanki) and I think we consider them marginal players at this point. Certainly that could change if they bothered to involve themselves visibly, but I'm not counting on it.

I was looking at the same "The players and the world around them" entry that you were looking at, and it's dated March, 2003. I considered updating it but when I started I realized it's just more of the same trend. In the beginning, the party was a lackey and hired hand. Then they became "trusted lieutenants", then a powerful force on their own, and occasionally "right hand of god".

As of today, I'd say they are probably seen as one of the most significant power blocks on the Prime. Not in a political or network sense of course, although we've been trying to become more like a real power in that regard. But they are like a wing of very powerful strike fighters - if they chose to pay you a visit, you will have problems and things will be different afterward. Our biggest weakness is we have to rely on outside intelligence to know where to point ourselves.

Factions we used to work "for", we now work "with". We are, at the very least, seen as equals (by us and by them, at least I think so.) To gain our cooperation, we must be asked and engaged and convinced, not simply sent. In that respect, we're something of a wildcard - if you're a bad guy, it's hard to know what we're going to go after next. Your best hope for control is to continually place large, evil breadcrumbs in our path so we go after those each time we think "what next?" If we're left to decide on our own, anything could happen.

There are some groups we will take direction from - our respective gods of course, Queen of Celene for me, etc. But anyone else is usually better served to entice rather than order.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Bolo does what ever his pipe weed tells him to do.

 

[LordVyreth]

So how was your weekend? Did you get a game in for the regular campaign or take advantage of Labor Day and have a more regular vacation?

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Sorry I wasn't able to make it so they played the beta game. Alpha this weekend. Bolo has draconian butt to kick.

 

[LordVyreth]

Excellent. My game's still in a "online D&D is hard" hiatus, so your game helps fill the gaps.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Sorry I wasn't able to make it so they played the beta game. Alpha this weekend. Bolo has draconian butt to kick.

I'm either prophetic or in trouble. Wizardru wants my copy of the Draconomicon.

 

[Len]

I'm either prophetic or in trouble. Wizardru wants my copy of the Draconomicon.

Rip out the toughest ones.

 

[dravot]

Game night!

Will the Silverring die?

Who's Jonathan now?

What else is happening on the Prime?

 

[Graywolf-ELM]

Has scorch, seen the contest at castlemolds? Some of his work, shown here is quite worthy of the contests as far as I remember.

http://www.castlemolds.com/hadd/hadd.html

Anyone have a ready link for his discussion of creating these pieces of art?

GW

PS: Oops, looks like this contest is over, it was in August, and I am yet again behind.