30 DODND Day 14: Favourite NPC

           

         His name was Deceito, and I hated him.  Yes, the clue was in the name, but I just heard Desuto and thought nothing of it.  He was supposedly an old school friend of my wizard Kuraileon.  His favourite 4^th ed. ritual?  Explosive Runes.  He managed to get me with that spell a good 3 or 4 times within a single session.  He infuriated me, but I managed to get the ritual out of him, which was useful.  But he provided a lot of fun for the party.

            I think the most interesting thing about Deceito was that he wasn’t a villain, nor was he an ally.  He was just a random prankster who had decided to make my life a pain.  It’s difficult to know how to handle an NPC like that.  Villains are to be punished, but old friends who are just having a laugh by repeatedly using Explosive Runes on you?  What’s the protocol?  It was just fun to have a character who had really very little to do with any plot or side quest.  He was just a pain.

30 DODND Day 8: Favourite Character You Have Played

        I’ve been slowly posting up pieces of the story of a campaign I played a year or more ago on this blog.  I think the last post I put up was of my wizard, Kuraileon’s spectacular, sunset-framed death by the hands of the city guard.  The character that I brought in after that, though, was by far my favourite character out of any I have ever played.  His name was Robin Talespinner, and he was a Doppleganger Bard.

       The party was all supposed to have known each other before hand, so the DM and I decided that Robin had been late to the meet-up, and had to do some detective work to figure out where they had gone.  Upon learning the sad fate of his old friend, Kuraileon, and the role his fellow party members had had in it, and also knowing that the rest of the party had never found out that he was a shapeshifter, he decided to take revenge.

      He joined the party as his familiar bardic form, as planned, but he also appeared occasionally as Rowena, the travelling dwarven blacksmith.  Robin had been using Rowena to set up a crafting business for a long time, and so he had the skills for it.  Throughout the campaign, he offered the party a good business, crafting items for them regularly.  As it costs less to make items than the standard market price, it meant I could give them a discount and still make a massive profit for myself.  But getting 22,000 gold from the party wasn’t my revenge.  Oh no.

     I bought some robes and a wand and turned into Kuraileon.  I appeared before the party repeatedly at night and terrified them.  I particularly focused on Gotrek, the dwarf most responsible for Kuraileon’s death, and began to use illusions and shapeshifting to convince him that Kuraileon’s ghost was gathering an army of Gotrek’s enemies in the afterlife to wait for his death.  Ultimately, I had him framed for the attempted murder of Robin.  Good times.

     My favourite character therefore is the one that managed to get a semi-psychotic, possibly clan-murdering dwarf to approach the cleric in the party to find out how to apologise to vengeful ghosts.

XL Post! The Kaldahar Chronicles: Session 1, Parts 3 & 4

Extra long post today, accompanied by a few motivators...

Part 3:  THE BATTLE

We came that night to a large encampment.  Seraphim and I scouted it, he with concealment and I invisible.  After some close calls with the sentries, we determined that a large number of prisoners were being kept there.  There was a large circle of rocks, within which were three tents, one which was quite large and fancy, the cages, including one suspended with a single figure in it, and a campfire in the middle.  All in all there were about 20 people that we could see.

We discussed options.  Two of us were reasonably stealthy, though the warlock had had some difficulties, but Dalziom couldn't pass a stealth check if he was carried in a soundproof bag.  Were the prisoners our concern?  Were they the people we were searching for?  Were these even the bandits we wanted?  Eventually, we decided that the cleric would simply walk forward and try the diplomatic approach, while the pair of us followed closely whilst hidden as backup.

He walked up, and the berserker guard stopped him and asked him what he was doing.  He was given permission to pass through, but nothing more was forthcoming.  After failing to make small talk with a guy of single digit intelligence, Dalziom was forced to start walking or start the fight.  So we walked VERY slowly around the edge of the camp, by the cages.  I remembered that I can still cast cantrips whilst invisible, so I started asking yes/no questions to the guy in the suspended cage via Ghost Sound. We discovered that he was the captain who had led the convoy, and these were all his soldiers in the cages. That pretty much settled things.

With 20 against 3, we figured the caged men needed freeing.  Seraphim with his criminal tendencies was left on one corner of the field by the cages to unlock them once the rest were distracted.  Dalziom and I took care of that with a beautiful surprise round, prefaced by a pair of extremely useful buffs from the cleric (I think consecrated ground did over 100 damage by the end of the battle). 

 

I opened with an action point and both my daily spells, trapping the nearest 4 guys in the camp in a large web, and then engulfing them in a stinking cloud of poison, planning on spreading it around the battlefield as things progressed.  The cleric engaged the nearest berserker, and they started a duel that would last a long time.  Not sure what to do, Seraphim started an infernal eruption within the fancy tent, which proved to be quite potent.  It meant that the bandits had a fire in their boss’ tent on one side, and a poison cloud on the other.

A pesky wizard dispelled the cloud, and a second struck Dal and I with a lightning bolt.  A horde of bandits charged us, though a fair number got stuck in the web.  They thundered past me and into the cleric, thinking to take him down before the mage.  This was not a good idea, in my opinion.

Seraphim barely failed to pick the lock.  This was perhaps his least productive round.

I created a sheet of ice to trip up some of the charging bandits, including one who was already in the web - his day did not go well.  I don't think he ever stood up.  A wizard quickly dispelled it, but the damage was done, and a group were on the floor.  Dalziom got ready to begin his counter attacks to the onslaught on him with a quick heal and a hammer blow that dented the side of the berserker.  Everyone around him crackled with the energy of the consecrated ground he stood on, and the pain they were feeling just from being near him was visible.

Seraphim decided to try lockpicking one more time, and failed again.  Determined to make a difference, he spun around and inflicted his most powerful curse on the large dragonborn warrior who was emerging from the burning tent.  The half-dragon was lifted into the air and frozen whilst pain racked his body, fueled by the warlock's anger.

The bandits continued charging.  The swarm around Dalziom was getting ugly now, and the web had more occupants than ever.  Thankfully, the wizards failed to dispel it.

Seeing Seraphim's difficulty with the lock, and, to be honest, craving safety away from my exposed position, I teleported into one of the cages with the prisoners, ignoring the DM's threats of a percentage dice to determine if I got stuck in the bars instead of the cage itself.  I blew out the door with a thunderclap and handed both of my weapons to the warriors who surged out of the cage.

Dalziom, surrounded, pulled out the big guns.  Lightning surged around him and ripped the ground apart, striking all his attackers plus the obvious hammer blow.  Then he struck again, throwing a cascade of lightning into the face of another assaulting berserker, dealing nearly as much damage again.  All the while everyone around him was being worn down the consecrated ground beneath them.

Seraphim, either following my lead or just because he'd had enough, blew in the door to the second cage with an eldritch blast, injuring a prisoner.  However, the others surged out and joined what was now an almighty melee.  The dragonborn remained helpless, suspended in midair by his curse, and his berserker guards watched on helplessly.

It should be mentioned at this point that Seraphim had cursed a passing bandit earlier.  When he had been killed, the curse had passed onto all of those surrounding him, on the other side of the battlefield.  Rod of Corruption is a stunning item.

The bandits kept running around, but between the web, the vastness of the arena, the general confusion, and Dalziom's awesome presence, not a lot happened.

Our turn.

I remained in the safety of the cage and cast a lightning bolt at the nearest berserker, who'd knocked out the warrior holding my beautiful longsword.  It struck him full in the chest and arced out in two directions, one striking the already dying dragonborn, and the other striking down a bandit attacking the cleric.

Dalziom kept on laying down the pain, striking around him and bringing Kord's might true glory as he single-handedly took down a mob of no small prowess.  Seraphim, seeing him surrounded, shot off a fiery bolt that incinerated a handful of bandits down to ashes.  Coincidentally, most of these bandits were those with his warlock's curse upon them.  As those who die under Seraphim’s curse granted him HP, his health nearly doubled because of this, and this vitality was reflected in his face.  The web ignited from the flames and all those caught within it were burned as well.  Seraphim, clearly, was making up for lost time.

The battlefield was now strewn with bodies, mostly still alive, but maimed and burning, or crippled from lightning.  Blood ran thick over the sands.  The freed warriors were hacking bandits down but were being cut down in turn as well.  Had a warlord been there to lead them into battle, perhaps they might have fared better.  However, such was not their fate.  *cough*Gotrek*cough* The 3 burly guards of the dragonborn, spotting the warlock, decided to try and save their leader by charging him, though their attacks were almost in vain, with the combination of skilful dodging and the life blood stolen from their comrades sustaining Seraphim.

Spying the mages, readying spells on the other side of the battlefield, I opted for intimidation.  I projected my voice across the fray to right behind their necks.  "I'm coming to kill you now," I whispered to them.  "Run."

As they saw me striding through the flames and blood towards them, they decided that I had a compelling argument and obeyed, fleeing into the night.

Dalziom, with a triumphant flourish, struck down the second berserker of the battle, only to be tackled to the ground and trampled by the remaining few bandits, who managed to practically flatten the dwarf in their desperate need to escape the bloodbath.

Seraphim backed into the cage (again imitating me?  I was flattered), and reached out and drained the life out of one of the warriors before him.

The remaining warriors, who were only the ones attacking the warlock, made some futile attempts, that did little against him.  Seeing that the battle was essentially over, I went looking for my sword.  Eventually, I found it under Dalziom, who was standing up.  It was caked in blood and sand.  It will require cleaning.

The last warriors were swarmed by the freed prisoners and a final swipe from Seraphim's scythe drained the life out of the dragonborn.  The battle was ours.

3 vs 20.  We are awesome.

Part 4:  EPILOGUE

The convoy leader was freed and told us of further prisoners in the tents who had been tortured.  I investigated and found a group of people who'd been pushed past the edge of sanity by torture.  Calling for Dalziom to tend to them, I went into the next tent and found the chest we had been sent to find.  It was locked and sealed.  Realizing that the leather case was not there, and that the other tent was currently burning to ashes, I ran out and fixed up the larger tent somewhat.  Inside were the leather case and a number of interesting locked chests.  After some issues trying to blast open the lock of the first one, I found some beautiful, magical, slightly burnt clothes.  The other chests I resolved to leave for the criminal zealot to open, and dragged them out.

Outside, an argument broke out.  Seraphim had a deep hatred of the wizards who had sent us on this quest and steadfastly refused to let us give them back the case and chest.  The convoy leader quickly planted a dagger in his neck, but that did nothing but make the warlock angry, and he knocked the leader out with a flick of his hand.

There was a very heated discussion, with Seraphim arguing to keep the objects and Dalziom arguing to stick to the contract, and in the end, it was more or less resolved that we should at least find out what is in the chest and case before giving them back.  The case was easily opened, and I privately looked inside to find a very impressive staff inside.  Shame I don't use a staff really.  I'll have to test it's abilities.

And there we left it.  Probably heading back to Kaldahar to try and figure out what the chest contains.

The Kaldahar Chronicles: Session 1, Part 2

Two days of hard riding found us ambushed in the night by camouflaged bandits, and everyone took some serious damage from crossbows before finally crushing them and interrogating one of them.  We took some of the sand-covered blankets they were using as camouflage capes and carried on by foot, as the horses had bolted.  Then we arrived at Kaldahar.

We met the captain of the guard there, who thought we would be dead soon and were of little consequence, but sent us in the right direction for the last known sighting of the convoy, several weeks back.  Seraphim, keeping a low profile due to his criminal connections, managed to find a corrupt quartermaster who would prove useful later when we had more gold, but as it stood he had little of value.  We spent two days resting, where on the second day we staked out a tavern for some information, and found a fair bit out about the details of the convoy complement.  Then we left, heading out on the East Road to find the convoy.

By Gallows Wall, a wall with a hundred bodies of bandit victims hanged in a row, we found the convoy, with a peculiar sunburst symbol on that we couldn't recognize.  It was burnt to pieces though, apart from a diary that told us nothing.  I suspect it belonged to the head of the convoy.... I should have given it back to him, thinking about it now.  We slept in the cover of the convoy.

Seraphim decided to summon a Hand of Fate to help us decide our path (oh, this is all 4th ed D&D if I hadn't mentioned), which quickly pointed us to the correct fork in the road.  That was helpful.  We found a long stretch of road covered in a caltrop trap, with sand covering thousands of caltrops.  We walked along beside it, avoiding the problem.  I still think that will come into it eventually.

We slept the next night in a cave where I kept watch.  A few kobolds threw rocks at me until I spotted them, then left a note apologizing (which, being suspicious of explosive runes, I spent about 5 minutes decided whether or not to read).  They also left a small magical rock with a glyph on the bottom that said "See me."  I studied it for a while, and found very little interesting about it, except that for the rest of the day, I saw shadows on the edge of my vision that freaked me out.  Again, that will likely be important next session.

The Kaldahar Chronicles: Session 1, Part 1

So this is an old game that I played last year and loved.  I wrote up every session in a fair bit of detail, and I thought it would make a good addition to things to stick up a section every so often.  Please note: I wrote all of this from the perspective of my character, if I remember rightly, so events are often... slightly biased.

Session 1:

Eladrin Wizard=Leon (Me)

Dwarven Cleric=Dalziom

Tiefling Rogue=Ika

Human Warlock=Seraphim = Local criminal

Dwarven Warlord=Gotrek=Absent=Failure=No XP 4 U

DM=Sir=Stays up too late playing Assassin's Creed

Part 1: THE CITY

Our heroes met in a tavern in the capital city, beneath the Crystal Palace that floats above the city with a spell I want to either learn or dispel, I haven't decided.  We'd adventured together some years back and had decided to renew old acquaintances and have a bit of fun.  We overheard talk of a convoy that had been raided in Kaldahar, and decided that this was just the hook we adventurers needed to get ourselves a job.  So we asked around and were directed to Pep, servant to a High Mage Lord Man.

At the same time, a crafty wizard planted an Explosive Runes on me.  He was an old 'friend' of mine called Desuto (pronounced Deceit-o).  When asked about admissions to study with the wizards of the city, he directed me to a High Lady of the college.  When I got there, I found it deserted, and quickly found out that the Lady had died.  I was thrown into a sewer for asking.  Wandered around and tracked down Desuto, who was in the library, who gave me the Explosive Runes spell, not without casting it on me again first.  Very.  Annoying.  Man.

Dalziom decided to train at the local Temple of Kord.  In the meantime, our rogue and our maniacal, criminal warlock went off to find Pep.  They found the house eventually, and were told he wouldn't be back for a few hours.  Instead of waiting, they walked in and looked around, found nothing, and then waited.  Seraphim, using his criminal connections, waltzed into the thieves’ area in the meantime and bullied his way into getting some information on a rogue hired out after the convoy by the High Lord and a pair of oranges.  When Pep returned home, he decided to, as an icebreaker, try and persuade Pep that the orange was a special delivery for his lord master and that it was really a secret special magic enhancing drug. 

That failed, and Ika was left to try and get the job for us.  She went to meet the Lord, who somewhat dismissively sent us on a long trail of mercenaries after a chest and a leather case for the flimsy reward of 10k gp.

Dalziom had managed to gather intelligence about the nature of those both on the convoy and those who'd gone after it.  We all reconvened in the tavern for a meal and to discuss what to do.  Then the trouble started.

My wallet was stolen, and I saw a halfling running off with it.  Seraphim grabbed him and a band of warriors jumped to their feet, claiming he was with them and they'd defend him to the death.  So a fight broke out in an (apparently) extremely crowded tavern.  5 big burly warriors charged Seraphim and Dalziom immediately, and hacked into them.  I decided to end things quickly, and spent my action point to knock them on their feet and to blast them across the room with a thunderclap.  Unfortunately, area effect spells, no matter how well targeted, always hit civilians.  Everyone was deafened and a lot of patrons were on their backs.

Now, there was still a pair of crossbowmen and a mage in the far corner, but they couldnt' be bothered to join in the fight, though the crossbowmen did manage to get a shot off each.  Ika decided the fight didn't look like fun, so she walked out, making an excellent, and out-of-the-box start to her D&D career.  The cleric and warlock made a quite valiant stand, and Dalziom especially was smacking people with moderate success with his hammer.  I tried to freeze a pair of the warriors in place, but missed with both, and with the damage I did, managed to freeze two civilians and propel their icy corpses through the back wall, upon which they shattered at Ika's feet.  Good times.

I ran.

Dalziom, obviously deciding that now was the time to take things seriously, started laying about him with lightning strikes, making the situation decidedly deadlier.  Ika decided that with the convenient hole in the back wall, she would nip back in and KO in the mage in one hit, which she did with complete success.  Upon realizing that I, an eladrin mage, had just killed two civilians, and that Ika had just killed an eladrin mage, and that there was a troop of guards coming, I decided to blame everything on the dead guy.  Dalziom finished off the head warrior and they all surrendered, taking their dead with them, and giving us the mage's purse in recompense.  It had nearly 4 times the amount of gold in it that I had lost, so that worked out well.

The guard, for some reason, bought our story, and sent people out after them.  I probably want to keep a low profile if and when we return there, though. Seraphim smuggled me out of the city, and we rode off to Kaldahar in search of the convoy.  Ika had to stay behind to take care of some things, so it was just the 3 of us.