Quill (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} quill18) wrote,@ 2009-07-02 10:07:00 |
|
D&D, Part the Third
I really want to keep documenting this campaign because I'm sure that I'll want to re-read all this stuff down the road, so here's a third posting about the ongoing campaign.
- Astreia: Noble human warblade
- Ophelia: Brash tiefling artificer
- Khaled: Skeletal eleti rogue
- Ember Burningblade, the Dragonslayer of Q'barra: Dashing and popular and witty human flame-throwing wizard extraordinaire
- This is a pre-made adventure called The Eyes of the Lich Queen, though I am incorporating more and more custom content. The players are now level 7.
- The general plot is that the Sword of Damocles hangs above the head of the PCs, and they are searching for the cure to their affliction. To that end, they are searching for the only known person who has ever survived this particular condition. Specifically, they are searching for his tomb (he lived 1,500 years ago).
- Apparently an explorer found his tomb 2 years ago, and while they don't know where he is (or if he lives), they know that his journal of the trip was recently acquired by a rich noble.
And so when we left off last time, the PCs were on the way to the noble's house to get the journal, though the Emerald Claw were also racing to do the same thing.
The players weren't able to reach Vorgard's estate (where the journal is) before the Emerald Claw. When they finally arrived, the cultists had already attacked the mansion and one wing of the building had even been set afire during the battle. The party was confronted by some guards left outside the building and were again told to surrender the Dragon's Eye (the players have no idea what this item is).
Since diplomacy wasn't an option, the players charged in to battle and easily dispatched the lesser fighters. Khaled took some time to check the bodies in case one of the cultists already held the journal and Ember stayed to guard him. Astreia and Ophelia charged directly into the burning building to check for survivors and to begin the search for the journal in there.
God, I love it when the players split up. Especially when two of them charge directly into an epic set-piece encounter.
Waiting for the party in a large museum-style room was a high-ranking devote of the Blood of Vol who was leading the forces of the Emerald Claw. The powerful cleric was guarded by a pair of Karnathi zombies (far more agile and dangerous than the average kind). But to make things more interesting, the cleric immediately animated Vorgard's most prized possession: an enormous alchemically preserved squid that hung from the ceiling of the room. While it was unable to move, the squid's long tentacles were able to strike at the party and it easily grabbed Astreia and pulled her farther into the room.
Luckily, Astreia and Ophelia were able to fend off the worst of the attacks (including what would have been a campaign-ending Hold Person spell). By the time Khaled and Ember joined the battle, the ladies had already started to stem the tide against the animated squid. Khaled immediately leaped the railing and charged at the cleric to prevent her from further impairing the party, while Ember did what he does best: burn things.
And so, against every expectation that I and the players had, the party was able to overcome this challenge despite starting in such a terrible position. After that, it was a simple matter of overcoming the last few cultists that were left in the library and to secure the journal. Escaping the burning building could have been a challenge, but the party was able to make good use of their aberrant dragonmark powers to grant resistance to the elements (Ophelia and Khaled) or teleport out (Ember) or just generally soak up all the damage with gargantuan hitpoints (Astreia).
Happily successful, the party made their way back to the their ship and left dock to study the journal safely at sea.
And then they discovered that several key pages in the journal were missing. A later entry informed them that a gnome artificer named Thraxis, a traveling companion of the journalist, had stolen the pages.
It was quickly decided that they would return to Port Verge and see if Volus could supply them with information as to Thraxis' location. He was all to happy to "help", but this time there would be a price -- not in gold but in something that "Astreia had plenty to spare." In exchange for information on Thraxis, Volus would drain one point of Astreia's strength into a magic gem.
I need to do a little aside here. As a DM, there are three things that quickly become evident:
1) PCs will never run away from an encounter no matter how ridiculous it is. Maybe it's a kind of inherent trust in the DM, that he wouldn't place something unwinnable in the path of the players. Sometimes the DM intends something to be too difficult without solving some other puzzle. Sometimes the DM made a mistake and made a challenge too hard. Either way, the characters must run away. Usually it results in a dead party and angry players.
2) PCs will never do what you expect.
3) The exception to #2 is if you give them an obvious prompt to follow -- they'll go along with it thinking that this is what they're "supposed" to do. They believe this is a hint from the DM, that this is what you have prepared and that the path to success is down this road, even if it seems sketchy. I suppose this is related to point #1: They are confident that you are leading them in the right direction.
This offer by Volus, information in exchange for a stat point (not "permanent", but not healable through normal means) was meant to be so ridiculously over the top that the players would look for another way to get what they wanted. And yet, it still looked like Astreia was considering the offer until Ophelia interjected with the idea that the gnome should go fuck himself (I'm paraphrasing).
Even with that, they still just put the offer on hold - not outright refusal - while they went to investigate other avenues.
After some failed Gather Information checks, there was some fear in the party that they'd soon be returning to Volus. Luckily, some creative thinking was able to dig up some better contacts and they soon knew a few things:
- Thraxis did indeed used to spend a lot of time in Port Verge, specifically in the company of the Sea Wyvern pirate gang.
- He hadn't been seen for about six months now.
- The Sea Wyverns like to hang out at the Bilge and Bulwark inn on the docks.
And here's the part I love: Astreia feels that perhaps a seedy pirate bar is not the sort of place she wants to be associated with...so THE PARTY SPLITS UP. Muahahaha. Ember and Astreia go to the docks to watch some boat races that are happening for the day while Khaled and Ophelia go into the bar (though they enter separately).
Stay tuned to find out about all the trouble that goes down at the tavern...
I really want to keep documenting this campaign because I'm sure that I'll want to re-read all this stuff down the road, so here's a third posting about the ongoing campaign.
Recap
- Astreia: Noble human warblade
- Ophelia: Brash tiefling artificer
- Khaled: Skeletal eleti rogue
- Ember Burningblade, the Dragonslayer of Q'barra: Dashing and popular and witty human flame-throwing wizard extraordinaire
- This is a pre-made adventure called The Eyes of the Lich Queen, though I am incorporating more and more custom content. The players are now level 7.
- The general plot is that the Sword of Damocles hangs above the head of the PCs, and they are searching for the cure to their affliction. To that end, they are searching for the only known person who has ever survived this particular condition. Specifically, they are searching for his tomb (he lived 1,500 years ago).
- Apparently an explorer found his tomb 2 years ago, and while they don't know where he is (or if he lives), they know that his journal of the trip was recently acquired by a rich noble.
And so when we left off last time, the PCs were on the way to the noble's house to get the journal, though the Emerald Claw were also racing to do the same thing.
Getting the Journal
The players weren't able to reach Vorgard's estate (where the journal is) before the Emerald Claw. When they finally arrived, the cultists had already attacked the mansion and one wing of the building had even been set afire during the battle. The party was confronted by some guards left outside the building and were again told to surrender the Dragon's Eye (the players have no idea what this item is).
Since diplomacy wasn't an option, the players charged in to battle and easily dispatched the lesser fighters. Khaled took some time to check the bodies in case one of the cultists already held the journal and Ember stayed to guard him. Astreia and Ophelia charged directly into the burning building to check for survivors and to begin the search for the journal in there.
God, I love it when the players split up. Especially when two of them charge directly into an epic set-piece encounter.
Waiting for the party in a large museum-style room was a high-ranking devote of the Blood of Vol who was leading the forces of the Emerald Claw. The powerful cleric was guarded by a pair of Karnathi zombies (far more agile and dangerous than the average kind). But to make things more interesting, the cleric immediately animated Vorgard's most prized possession: an enormous alchemically preserved squid that hung from the ceiling of the room. While it was unable to move, the squid's long tentacles were able to strike at the party and it easily grabbed Astreia and pulled her farther into the room.
Luckily, Astreia and Ophelia were able to fend off the worst of the attacks (including what would have been a campaign-ending Hold Person spell). By the time Khaled and Ember joined the battle, the ladies had already started to stem the tide against the animated squid. Khaled immediately leaped the railing and charged at the cleric to prevent her from further impairing the party, while Ember did what he does best: burn things.
And so, against every expectation that I and the players had, the party was able to overcome this challenge despite starting in such a terrible position. After that, it was a simple matter of overcoming the last few cultists that were left in the library and to secure the journal. Escaping the burning building could have been a challenge, but the party was able to make good use of their aberrant dragonmark powers to grant resistance to the elements (Ophelia and Khaled) or teleport out (Ember) or just generally soak up all the damage with gargantuan hitpoints (Astreia).
Happily successful, the party made their way back to the their ship and left dock to study the journal safely at sea.
And then they discovered that several key pages in the journal were missing. A later entry informed them that a gnome artificer named Thraxis, a traveling companion of the journalist, had stolen the pages.
Finding Thraxis
It was quickly decided that they would return to Port Verge and see if Volus could supply them with information as to Thraxis' location. He was all to happy to "help", but this time there would be a price -- not in gold but in something that "Astreia had plenty to spare." In exchange for information on Thraxis, Volus would drain one point of Astreia's strength into a magic gem.
I need to do a little aside here. As a DM, there are three things that quickly become evident:
1) PCs will never run away from an encounter no matter how ridiculous it is. Maybe it's a kind of inherent trust in the DM, that he wouldn't place something unwinnable in the path of the players. Sometimes the DM intends something to be too difficult without solving some other puzzle. Sometimes the DM made a mistake and made a challenge too hard. Either way, the characters must run away. Usually it results in a dead party and angry players.
2) PCs will never do what you expect.
3) The exception to #2 is if you give them an obvious prompt to follow -- they'll go along with it thinking that this is what they're "supposed" to do. They believe this is a hint from the DM, that this is what you have prepared and that the path to success is down this road, even if it seems sketchy. I suppose this is related to point #1: They are confident that you are leading them in the right direction.
This offer by Volus, information in exchange for a stat point (not "permanent", but not healable through normal means) was meant to be so ridiculously over the top that the players would look for another way to get what they wanted. And yet, it still looked like Astreia was considering the offer until Ophelia interjected with the idea that the gnome should go fuck himself (I'm paraphrasing).
Even with that, they still just put the offer on hold - not outright refusal - while they went to investigate other avenues.
After some failed Gather Information checks, there was some fear in the party that they'd soon be returning to Volus. Luckily, some creative thinking was able to dig up some better contacts and they soon knew a few things:
- Thraxis did indeed used to spend a lot of time in Port Verge, specifically in the company of the Sea Wyvern pirate gang.
- He hadn't been seen for about six months now.
- The Sea Wyverns like to hang out at the Bilge and Bulwark inn on the docks.
And here's the part I love: Astreia feels that perhaps a seedy pirate bar is not the sort of place she wants to be associated with...so THE PARTY SPLITS UP. Muahahaha. Ember and Astreia go to the docks to watch some boat races that are happening for the day while Khaled and Ophelia go into the bar (though they enter separately).
Stay tuned to find out about all the trouble that goes down at the tavern...
