Let Me Tell You About My Game, session 6
Oct. 11th, 2012 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brushwolfWith trying to pace games, I figured that I would have some adventures which would be really compact little modules, and others which would last several game sessions.
The last time we met our paladinic heros, they'd just returned from finding an ooze cult deep in the hills, wiping it out, and finding the mind-warping journal of the cult's chief priest. The journal talked about how the priest had a religious awakening at a much older cultic site, and about how he'd been commissioned by a "Red Lady" to revive two particular people as terrifying undead as well as finding information from their brains.
The PCs resolved that they'd set out for this old ooze-temple and wipe it out, but when they returned to their home base in Baltwell, they were confronted by a half-orc who flung herself on their mercy.
This was "Grandmother Mush." Probably not her real name. If she ever had another name time and the residents of Baltwell had completely forgotten it. A large axe scar down one side of her face, and her particularly well-kept collection of weapons suggested that she didn't start out running the town's orphanage, but it was what she'd been doing for as long as anyone could remember - there are a lot of orphans in Baltwell and Grandmother Mush was pretty much the only person to protect their well-being.
Which means that when a giant construct of bone, scroll and wood burst through the orphanage wall and kidnapped a (literal!) handfull of children, Grandmother Mush handed the oldest and strongest kids all the weapons she had and went to get help from the most sympathetic people in town, the paladins.
Our heros took off at top speeds despite the rapidly falling temperature to make sure the construct's prints were still there to track. They followed the tracks deep into a much swampier part of the area, a natural moisture catchment between hills.
They were quite surprised when they were ambushed by nasty little gremlins known as pugwampis. Pugwampis aren't very tough, but they're surrounded by an aura of bad luck and with lots of cover all around and while trying to avoid a pit full of punji sticks, the paladins fought a much tougher adversary than they'd expected.
Even though the watery ground really ruined any tracking ability the characters had, it wasn't hard to figure out where the construct had gone - a small keep apparently lying on its side in the swamp. Sometime during the great war to the south between the magic-throwing countries of Nex and Geb, this place had once been a great sky-fortress sailing the skies on arcane energy, practically unassailable from the ground. What sort of mighty magic was required to bring the place crashing to the ground? Centuries later, it was just a huge ruin, but far from lifeless.
Our heros clambered into the wrecked fortress, avoiding the shards of glass from once-beautiful windows in the entry hall, and made their way down a ramp into what was once the keep's great hall - now turned so that the former floor was one high wall, and passage along the "floor" was difficult thanks to alcoves and balconies turned to big pits. As the characters explored, they noticed that someone had refurbished the interior of the great hall with a rickety ladder leading to a now-sideways door about halfway up the "wall," and a batch of worktables with constructs in various forms of repair.
As they explored they were beset by huge bone constructs - artificial giants like the ones they were chasing - and things got worse. Combat was joined by the constructs' creator, a tiefling witch.
At this point the players insisted that instead of being a silent character sniping at the characters, the villain needed a monologue. So... the tiefling introduced herself as the great Turibyala Andorat, flew into midair, cloak billowing, and promptly hit Yland with the effects of her evil eye. Most of the rest of her spells and abilities were easier to save against, so most of what she did in combat didn't hurt the characters at all. Instead, her most effective attack was summoning up hellhounds to attack the party. But as constructs and hellhounds fell before the paladins' holy might, Turibyala decided that whatever she was getting paid wasn't worth dying for, and she took off flying - literally.
The heros searched the rest of the keep. They found a magical helmet - once a possession of the keep's captain of hippogriff cavalry - which was basically one of those "nice extra" items (wearer can't fall out of saddle, can breath air freely in any environment, has feather fall several times daily). In a high, high chamber that used to be a tower, accessible easily to a flying witch but not so much to anyone else, the paladins found four of the five frightened children.
The kids were able to tell their rescuers that Turibyala talked to herself about how she'd been hired by a Red Lady to kidnap a specific child, even though being too specific wasn't possible until that batch of kids were captured. One of the boys - a 10 year old with a big, stylized eye marking on his shoulder, similar to Paiva's mark only in black where hers is golden - was handed over to Mournhorn slavers, who whisked the child off to the Citadel of Three Brothers.
So that's where the party decided to head next.
Next time; obnoxious railroading gamemaster! The Citadel of Three Brothers! And lots of monsters!
The last time we met our paladinic heros, they'd just returned from finding an ooze cult deep in the hills, wiping it out, and finding the mind-warping journal of the cult's chief priest. The journal talked about how the priest had a religious awakening at a much older cultic site, and about how he'd been commissioned by a "Red Lady" to revive two particular people as terrifying undead as well as finding information from their brains.
The PCs resolved that they'd set out for this old ooze-temple and wipe it out, but when they returned to their home base in Baltwell, they were confronted by a half-orc who flung herself on their mercy.
This was "Grandmother Mush." Probably not her real name. If she ever had another name time and the residents of Baltwell had completely forgotten it. A large axe scar down one side of her face, and her particularly well-kept collection of weapons suggested that she didn't start out running the town's orphanage, but it was what she'd been doing for as long as anyone could remember - there are a lot of orphans in Baltwell and Grandmother Mush was pretty much the only person to protect their well-being.
Which means that when a giant construct of bone, scroll and wood burst through the orphanage wall and kidnapped a (literal!) handfull of children, Grandmother Mush handed the oldest and strongest kids all the weapons she had and went to get help from the most sympathetic people in town, the paladins.
Our heros took off at top speeds despite the rapidly falling temperature to make sure the construct's prints were still there to track. They followed the tracks deep into a much swampier part of the area, a natural moisture catchment between hills.
They were quite surprised when they were ambushed by nasty little gremlins known as pugwampis. Pugwampis aren't very tough, but they're surrounded by an aura of bad luck and with lots of cover all around and while trying to avoid a pit full of punji sticks, the paladins fought a much tougher adversary than they'd expected.
Even though the watery ground really ruined any tracking ability the characters had, it wasn't hard to figure out where the construct had gone - a small keep apparently lying on its side in the swamp. Sometime during the great war to the south between the magic-throwing countries of Nex and Geb, this place had once been a great sky-fortress sailing the skies on arcane energy, practically unassailable from the ground. What sort of mighty magic was required to bring the place crashing to the ground? Centuries later, it was just a huge ruin, but far from lifeless.
Our heros clambered into the wrecked fortress, avoiding the shards of glass from once-beautiful windows in the entry hall, and made their way down a ramp into what was once the keep's great hall - now turned so that the former floor was one high wall, and passage along the "floor" was difficult thanks to alcoves and balconies turned to big pits. As the characters explored, they noticed that someone had refurbished the interior of the great hall with a rickety ladder leading to a now-sideways door about halfway up the "wall," and a batch of worktables with constructs in various forms of repair.
As they explored they were beset by huge bone constructs - artificial giants like the ones they were chasing - and things got worse. Combat was joined by the constructs' creator, a tiefling witch.
At this point the players insisted that instead of being a silent character sniping at the characters, the villain needed a monologue. So... the tiefling introduced herself as the great Turibyala Andorat, flew into midair, cloak billowing, and promptly hit Yland with the effects of her evil eye. Most of the rest of her spells and abilities were easier to save against, so most of what she did in combat didn't hurt the characters at all. Instead, her most effective attack was summoning up hellhounds to attack the party. But as constructs and hellhounds fell before the paladins' holy might, Turibyala decided that whatever she was getting paid wasn't worth dying for, and she took off flying - literally.
The heros searched the rest of the keep. They found a magical helmet - once a possession of the keep's captain of hippogriff cavalry - which was basically one of those "nice extra" items (wearer can't fall out of saddle, can breath air freely in any environment, has feather fall several times daily). In a high, high chamber that used to be a tower, accessible easily to a flying witch but not so much to anyone else, the paladins found four of the five frightened children.
The kids were able to tell their rescuers that Turibyala talked to herself about how she'd been hired by a Red Lady to kidnap a specific child, even though being too specific wasn't possible until that batch of kids were captured. One of the boys - a 10 year old with a big, stylized eye marking on his shoulder, similar to Paiva's mark only in black where hers is golden - was handed over to Mournhorn slavers, who whisked the child off to the Citadel of Three Brothers.
So that's where the party decided to head next.
Next time; obnoxious railroading gamemaster! The Citadel of Three Brothers! And lots of monsters!