It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at home

[Romaru Darkeyes]

Spoiler: Downtime research, wha?

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(Quick aside, the GM has a system in place where we can research anything. He comes up with a number and we have to keep making craft rolls. We add the total of our craft rolls up until we reach the number he set for us, then we've figured out that item. However, if we roll a one then we end up losing part of our progress in the ensuing damage)

I like the idea of characters being able to generate their own stuff within reason. I read once about a rogue who with their GM's help created that boot knife that featured in James Bond, and then later in Kingsman.

(as an aside, Kingsman is a premise that is in desperate need of a sourcebook)

So during downtime the players can make craft rolls to consecutively build up over time. So if I determine an item is 1,000 research points then the players can roll for their 8 hours work each day of downtime and their rolls are then added together. Once they then hit 1000 points they've successfully researched the item and can craft it normally.

Yolan takes one look at this masterful creation, then remembers he has some of those already. He needed them for a spell to protect him from gunfire, so he pulls out the 25 adamantium bullets he had on his person, even offering to share 10 with him so there on an even playing field.

This is admittedly my mess up... There was a point at which Yolan/Sim was swapping over to their new sheet and they were trying to resolve some points on their character. I didn't keep a close eye on it and that happened.

We resolved it by saying that the ones that Ocelot researched are unique to his weapons, and that the ones currently available are only for simple firearms. He had to adapt them to work for his rifles which are currently one of a kind.

Vex meanwhile has spent her week training her bear
I hope she keeps going with it. I love the look she had on her face when this bear popped into existence. The idea that everyone else in the room went pale, and the stoic half orc paladin broke down in girlish squee's squeaking 'OOOOHH CUTE!!!! I MUST HAVE IT'

Okay... Serious post here...

Spoiler: Draspher and the ring

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OOG draspher has been fretting constantly about the wild-magic field messing him and his ring of sustenance up.

I know you visit here Draspher's player, so I'm going to level with you.

I am baffled by the way that you get whenever anyone jokes about that ring of sustenance. I understand that it would be an annoyance to reattune it for seven days if it's removed but the way you react it's like you are Gollum with the one ring...

The most inconvenience you will have is that you will have to eat and sleep for a week like the rest of your party.

And if you are suggesting that you are preventing me from attacking the party during the night because you are able to stand guard, consider this.

You have, the worst perception score of the entire party. I could walk a character like Jaune past you in the night, slit everyone's throat, and walk out again and odds are you wouldn't notice.

You are also the party mage... Even if you raise the alarm they are still going to take at least 1 round to rouse themselves and YOU are going to have to hold off the attackers yourself.

To say nothing of people having to take time to don their armour.

I'm not saying that it's not a noble act that you do for the rest of your party, but frankly you are the worst character to be tasked with the job, and the rest of the party should perhaps consider a proper guard detail, or maybe even some alarm spells? Heck Yolan's character has a wand of alarm...

Okay, serious post over :p

Spoiler: Darned kids

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On his third day, after his antlers have fallen off, he walks back through the city not noticing he's gone off the main roads, or that the street he's on is unusually quiet. Suddenly draspher feels something bounce of the back of his head. At the same time someone charges in front of him and smacks him, only for it to bounce off his armour.

This is frankly a failure of the whole party but once again it happens to poor Draspher...
Should explain.

They've been in this city for a matter of days now. The only one with in character knowledge in Jaune, and even he doesn't recognise the entire city nowadays.

Draspher has no ranks in Knowledge (local) and is wandering the streets alone. He's at least able to navigate between the college and the barracks as he's done it a couple of times, but he doesn't know any of the places to avoid in a city like this. This is also a character who so frequently botches his wisdom rolls that it's almost become a class feature, he wanders down a bad alley.

Now I have setup encounters to trigger in certain circumstances. This particular one is a group of ragamuffin types who are too weak to take on anything other than magic user types, thanks to them being basically kids. Anyone with martial skills would kick the tar out of them.

The head kid in this group is fairly wily. He knows that they have the best chance of beating up magic users. He also knows that magic users means good magic gear, as well as good coin (usually). There are 3 colleges within this city so it's not like they only have to stake out one area, meaning that the city guard can't just protect one spot.

He also knows that the city guard have means to stop magic thanks to the anti magic items that they carry. So he's been able to acquire one by a lucky break of pickpocketing. This is his symbol of power within this gang; it's what enables them to do what they do.

In the end It's agreed that the fact he's made himself look like a Rasputin like old man in a large cape coming out of the mage school with a dragon on his shoulder looks enough like a mage to count for an attempted mugging

Two magic rings
Headband of alluring charisma
Amulet of natural armour
Cloak of resistance
Darkleaf armour
Handy Haversack
Heavy Crossbow
Quarterstaff
Aforementioned faerie dragon perched on shoulder

He looked like a walking payday to a bunch of thieves.

Now a level 1 mage would probably have had their proverbial lunch money stolen, but Draspher is a level 9 character.

We then find out from the GM that those kids were 9 level 1 commoners.

To be fair, 1 actually had a class level in rogue but he's the one with the amulet, and why would he do any of the work himself?

draspher gets slightly annoyed at being stuck in this situation where he's useless without magic and the GM quickly explains he had this scenario planned alongside a couple of others as a possible event we could have triggered.

Don't blame me... Blame the fact that you were walking round on your own without any support from your party.

If you had been able to get the pendant off the guy and throw it as far as possible you would have got your magic back. And literally the only way these guys were hitting you was with 19's or 20's and they never managed to confirm, AND it's was all non lethal damage. They might be thieves but they aren't willing to do a stretch for a murder. And if you'd have got one of them on the ropes the rest would have legged it...

He grabs a potion of spider climb, ignoring the rain of blows from the kids giving another 10 damage, and then scales the wall behind him, laughing as they try to stop him. This plan is so out of no-where and so impressive the GM forgot that potions weren't supposed to work in the anti-magic field, but he let him have it.

Not out of nowhere but it was a good use of what he had available. I was expecting him to sic his familiar on them.

The kids keep throwing stuff at him, and one or two pieces hit him for another 4 damage but theres no way he's coming down now.

You forgot when he got onto the roof, turned back to them and then said, "hmmm. wonder if a fireball would be excessive force..."

One guard irritably asks him if the dragon is his, mainly because Mee's method of getting help was simply to fly over shout out something about someone needing help, biting him and running away.

What's that Lassie?
Timmy's in the well?
Show me!

They ask for a description but draspher fumbles his roll something awful and can't remember a thing.

Seriously pants perception score...

After clearing that up he manages to make his way back to the barracks and tells us what happened. after we stop laughing we simply suggest keeping to the main streets from now on.

This was entirely the party's fault for abandoning the party mage in a town on his own...

Spoiler: Meeting royalty

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draspher immediately pipes up to get things started and gets shot down. This is enough to get the king to remember his face from all those posters, he's that mad bomber person, right?

I don't think I got this across properly but the King is utterly bemused by 'the mad bomber'. They found out later that he used to adventure with the guild master and to give them OOC knowledge, he's probably remembering his own past experiences quite fondly.

The king then tries to get down to business and asks us about Southwater. He shoots down drasphers attempts to talk about what happened, he's more interested in what we found out.

What actually happened.....



Also, yes, he is aware he is a dragon, something that Ninja-san has a double take at. I swear since we found out his names is Bernard he's become so much less badass

Now he has a character sheet as opposed to just the DM's NPC...

I come up with a plan:

(In the voice of Baymax) Oh no....

• Telon and draspher will go after the kids.

Our heroes ladies and gents....

• Yolan and Vex are new to the group, so they will approach Mr Quinn from the legal side, finding out as much about his business as possible

I approve. Yolan has skill points in merchant and Vex is a paladin. A good party legal approach team

• Ocelot and I will approach this from the Underworld angle, find out about the criminals in the city and try to see what we can find out

I also approve. Jaune has the connections and Ocelot has a gun...

So we have team lightside, team darkside, and team child murder...

Pity that the next session I spoilt all their plans. Will wait for RPF update.

[Draspher]

So during downtime the players can make craft rolls to consecutively build up over time. So if I determine an item is 1,000 research points then the players can roll for their 8 hours work each day of downtime and their rolls are then added together. Once they then hit 1000 points they've successfully researched the item and can craft it normally..

Come on Anti-Anti-MetaMagic

I know you visit here Draspher's player, so I'm going to level with you.

I am baffled by the way that you get whenever anyone jokes about that ring of sustenance. I understand that it would be an annoyance to reattune it for seven days if it's removed but the way you react it's like you are Gollum with the one ring....

Filthy Hobbitses.

I may have miss heard that after one fail roll the magic items stop working then on a second the magic is gone from the item.

I'm not saying that it's not a noble act that you do for the rest of your party, but frankly you are the worst character to be tasked with the job, and the rest of the party should perhaps consider a proper guard detail, or maybe even some alarm spells? Heck Yolan's character has a wand of alarm....

Fireball is an amazing alarm.

On his third day, after his antlers have fallen off

I miss the antlers they let me gain more pets and use gore on my enemy's... not that i did that.

We then find out from the GM that those kids were 9 level 1 commoners.

I got no description of these guy because i flubbed the perception and thought they had flubbed their rolls as far as i knew they were the mob again or mercenary's trying to claim a bounty on the mad bomber... not that i know anything about that person.

Don't blame me... Blame the fact that you were walking round on your own without any support from your party.

Ok i will blame the party and myself.

If you had been able to get the pendant off the guy and throw it as far as possible you would have got your magic back.

Draspher is winding up the pitch he throws and it lands 2 ft in-front of him as the crowd go wild stabbing him to death.

He grabs a potion of spider climb, ignoring the rain of blows from the kids giving another 10 damage, and then scales the wall behind him, laughing as they try to stop him. This plan is so out of no-where and so impressive the GM forgot that potions weren't supposed to work in the anti-magic field, but he let him have it.

He said i was just out of the anti-magic field at the time.

You forgot when he got onto the roof, turned back to them and then said, "hmmm. wonder if a fireball would be excessive force..."

Crossbow not fireball.

draspher immediately pipes up to get things started and gets shot down. This is enough to get the king to remember his face from all those posters, he's that mad bomber person, right?

What i don't know what your talking about.. hides face behind newspaper with mad bombers wanted photo on the cover.

Also, yes, he is aware he is a dragon, something that Ninja-san has a double take at. I swear since we found out his names is Bernard he's become so much less badass

Sorry you found out this way Bernard but i think most people who seem like bad-asses become less so the more time you spend with them. Keep in mind John mcclane has a terrible home life.

• Telon and draspher will go after the kids.

Our heroes ladies and gents....

They have Anti magic equipment better than a military base they must have got it from somewhere or someone that we should look into and an Anti-magic amulet to study would be a nice cherry.

Note to self get lead lined box.

Pity that the next session I spoilt all their plans. Will wait for RPF update.

don't fireball the roof.. don't fireball the roof.. don't fireball the roof..

[Romaru Darkeyes]

Come on Anti-Anti-MetaMagic

Nope. Next question

I may have miss heard that after one fail roll the magic items stop working then on a second the magic is gone from the item.

No. It disrupts the items connection to the magical plane but it's not a permanent disruption. The only one that causes long term issue is your ring because of the 7 day attunement. It doesn't stop it from working but it does interfere with the atunement on the ring.

Fireball is an amazing alarm.
Inside a closed space like a dungeon or cavern. No. No it is not.

Crossbow not fireball.
I stand corrected. Tell me. What would you have done when your familiar returned with the city guard to find you standing over a dead child with a crossbow in your hands...

They have Anti magic equipment better than a military base they must have got it from somewhere or someone that we should look into and an Anti-magic amulet to study would be a nice cherry.

What? This is literally the same device that the party had in Southwater but the kid put it on a chain round his neck... If you want OOC knowledge he literally stole it from a guard.

[rebelpyroflame]

It occurs to me. We have three teams:

1. one consisting of a smarter technical one (Yolan), and a battle nut (Vex)
2. one consisting of one with a dark backstory (me, Jaune) and a gun nut (Ocelot)
3. and one with a wrong detective (draspher), a comptent one (Telon) and an annoying flying one (Mee)

don't you see. We're team Sonic, Shadow and Chaotix, WE'RE SONIC HEROES!

[rebelpyroflame]

Ok i will blame the party and myself.

At this point, I no longer care what happens to the nut who GLUED A CRAZY WOMAN TO MY CHEST. I realised that draspher is going to do something stupid to get in the line of danger. Why fight it, I might get lucky and it actually finshes him off ;p

[Draspher]

It occurs to me. We have three teams:

1. one consisting of a smarter technical one (Yolan), and a battle nut (Vex)
2. one consisting of one with a dark backstory (me, Jaune) and a gun nut (Ocelot)
3. and one with a wrong detective (draspher), a comptent one (Telon) and an annoying flying one (Mee)

don't you see. We're team Sonic, Shadow and Chaotix, WE'RE SONIC HEROES!

[rebelpyroflame]

This week Vex couldn’t unfortunately make it, so this session we are playing without her and vex is just following as an observer. I guess the adventures of Vex and Ozzy Ozbear (she named the bear Ozzy Ozbear) will have to be put on hold for now.

Session 25 Part 1, a possible lead

Spoiler

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Since last week we had all been getting exited about our plans. The GM decides to throw a spanner in the works. We get approached by Ninja-san and a new guy. He’s quickly introduced as the royal spymaster Lennard. At this point, I’m actually missing “Noun Verb-Noun” naming convention. He explains that he’s had reports of something happening in the ruins outside of town. He’s already sent some of his own people to investigate, but they haven’t returned so something is really wrong there. We all start asking questions about the mission, but I feel my questions about “how important are these ruins” – AKA just have draspher blow them up – were the most pertinent. He explains that he thinks they might have something to do with the coup, so he wants us to go and investigate, hopefully finding more leads for us to go on.

We head back to the barracks to gear up and roll initiative. We decide the best plan is to get close then recharge using telons swift sleep speel. We head out of the city towards the location marked and review what we know. Four different people went in independently: a fighter named Talgen, the Wizard Aharwyn, a paladin called Sir Bradford and a ranger called Karakas. Over the last four days they were all sent to investigate, and none of them have been heard from since. We head east out of the city and eventually start finding large pillars by the roadside just as it goes by a large Ravine. Its pretty big, several miles long, 30’ wide and so deep we can’t see the bottom in the darkness. Its along here that the map points us, or to be more accurate its down IN the Ravine. We initially send Mee down to investigate and he rolls a natural 20. We quickly ask draspher if he needs a light spell, he asures us that he has dancing lights, he’ll be fine. We then argue about how exactly dancing lights works and how far it can go, but it’s all rendered mute when he gets down there and draspher points out he has darkvision:

Jaune – then why did he need dancing lights?

Mee spots a knotted rope going down to a sandy platform 80’. While the rest of us argue how to get down (draspher volunteers to go down first, Ocelot suggests the people with cat boots jump down and I still say we bomb the canyon and bury them) Yolan notices the pillars have lots of graffiti. A quick check he realises that there dwarfen runes, all giving general warnings to stay away.

Part 2, down into the dark

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We finally decide to go down the rope, first Telon, then me, then draspher, then Ocelot and finally Yolan (he stayed behind to keep casting guidance on everyone to help with climb rolls). Luckily, we all make it down safely. Looking around we notice the bones of small animals dotted around the place. We quickly spot a set of stairs going down in the dark. Ocelot picks up a rock and, after getting someone to cast a light spell on it, he tosses it down. It makes a few bounces before going down a crack but its enough to see several staircases going back and fourth down the side of the ravine. Before our arguments about the best course of action gets too far Telon spots footprints going down the stairs in the sand and goes down himself. We go down in the order of Telon first, then Myself, draspher, Ocelot then Yolan at the back.

As we go down, we start hearing a squeaking/hissing sound coming from somewhere around us. Suddenly a shape leaps out at Telon at front, one comes out of the wall by me and draspher and a third from behind attacking Yolan. Yolan immediately identifies it as a dire rat. Not that it really matters, one activation of a destruction judgement and a swing of 11 damage leaves it a smear on the floor. draspher follows up by firing an adhesive spittle and rolling a one. I somehow manage to dodge out of the way on a narrow staircase. Fortunately, Ocelot blows the rat away before draspher can try to kill me by “helping” more. Telon up front shows off why he’s the group muscle by smacking a rat with a vital strike for 17 damage. So much for that encounter.

With that done, I get to the most vital job. Slapping draspher for nearly hitting me with his spells AGAIN. He responds with a joke about being thankful he didn’t throw out a burning hands or fireball. I tell him that if he pulls that crap again, I’ll throw him over the edge, and for good measure take the scroll of feather fall he’s been boasting about first. We go down the stairs, and Yolan ends up slipping up on the loose sand and stumbles onto the guard rail. Unfortunately, an ageing guard rail can’t hold up a figure wearing plate mail and it snaps like matchsticks. Ocelot makes a risky jump down to grab on him, but he just can’t hold his weight and Yolan drops. This means he has a first row seat to seeing Yolan tumble down to the bottom, taking 16 points of damage:

Ocelot – are you ok?

Telon – I’ve had worse, but this is not my proudest moment

Looking out, Ocelot catches sight of a steeple off in the darkness, and the vague shape of some kind of fortress dug into the rock. Seeing this, he scrambles down the rest of the stairs to catch up with Yolan. Telon jumps straight down with his boots of the cat, while I combine my own set with a graceful leap to only take 1 damage from the fall, and draspher decides against taking the tricky climb to instead dimensional door straight to the bottom.

Now we are all down the bottom, which is to say Ocelot is actually on the staircase while the rest of us have landed behind it, we take a look around. We are in a small courtyard just outside of some kind of Battlement. Judging by the look of it, it must have been above ground on the surface before sinking to the bottom of the ravine. Telon decides to try and bypass our usual arguing and goes straight for the door. He is rewarded for his forward thinking attitude with a trap door at his feet, falling 20’ into a pit for a grand total of 2 damage. Pulling himself up, he checked out his new surroundings. At least he’s not alone down there, he’s got a couple of skelitons and a dead goblin with him to keep him company. I quickly go help him out with a rope, and Yolan comes to actually pull him out, on account of my abysmal strength. Of all people, its draspher who checks for and realises that theirs’s something moving down there (aside from Telon). Telon turns just in time to see a dwarf skeleton moving slightly. Suddenly something springs at him from his eye socketed, ANOTHER RAT! Too bad for it, Telon is still in metal armour, and his sneak attack does nothing. Luckily Ocelot runs over and opens fire. Unluckily his gun immediately jams on the first shot. It was all for nothing anyway as Telon literally just smushes it with 15 damage against a wall. I disable the trapdoor, keeping it open while the others keep watch. Ocelot hears something in the rubble surrounding them. Looking closer, he can see that there are multiple rats moving throught the rubble, we might want to leave this area at some point soon. Yolan finally finish pulling Ocelot up, and a quick examination of the trapdoor hole shows a small ledge we can use to get into the door. While Ocleot fixes his gun, I disable the door and back off, as drasher uses mage hand to open the door.

Part three, the investigation begins

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We move in to see the scene of a fight long past. Three goblin bodies lining the walls, one of them pinned to the wall with a spear. Telon leaps the pit and takes a closer look. The room has two doors leading further in, and a fourth body that was previously out of sight. He takes a quick look at the spear impaled one and realises the spear was thrown with incredible strength. I jump over the pit as well (not one to be shown up) and I quickly realise, with what the GM calls my “ninja-senses” I realise there is a hidden door in the wall, which I immediately investigate. Yolan goes across the pit on the safe part as “he’s happy with the size of HIS penis”, and goes to the right door, finding a blank corridor.

draspher announces “Mee and I have a plan”. This immediately upsets Telon – not the fact he has a plan, he’s upset that that sentence is grammatically correct, and it really shouldn’t be. He then comes out from under the stairs, shocking the GM that he never moved out from under there and laments he hadn’t realised as he would have had him be eaten by rats. He immediately tries to pull the spear out of the wall with mage hand, but even with Mee helping he fails to move it. Ocelot goes in and prepares to shoot anything coming into the room from the outside. He then reluctantly adds a stipulation that he won’t shoot draspher (I think a part of all of us was disappointed he added that). Telon goes to the other door and checks it out. He sees a corridor with another door down with a stone dragon statue next to it, and the corridor is blocked off by collapsed with rubble.

I check the secret door, and realise the thing has a needle trap hooked up to the keyhole. I disable the trap and I realise that the poison on said needle has long evaporated. I open the door, and see the skeletons of three archers. Three skeletons that don’t stay still, but instead jump up and attack me. The first lashes at me but doesn’t stand a chance of hitting me. The second tries to grab me, but I dive back just in time. Ocelot immediately see me dive back and puts a bullet in the new head that appears, hitting for 13 damage and dropping it as his head turns mostly to dust. Yolan moves up to the gap I left, and smashes one with his Morning star for 15 damage, leaving him without a head and dropping him instantly. draspher, like any good party member should, ignores the fight and starts casting identify to figure out what the spear is. Ocelot decides to secure the prerminter and closes the door behind draspher, just in time as he hears screeching and scuttling approaching the door.

Telon goes down the corridor he found (he’s deaf, so he can’t hear us. That’s his reason/excuse for not coming) and examines the door and statue. He finds a keyhole in its mouth, figuring that must be the mechanism that opens the door. He’s so intent on examining it, he doesn’t notice the creature attacking him from behind. His first realisation is the feeling of teeth breaking on his iron boots. He turns to see the rat nursing its jaw. He just gives it a boot, smearing its guts over his boot and the wall.

Meanwhile I, like any good leader, immediately retreat from the attacking skeletons, and go behind my personal meat shield aka draspher. This is so that I am not between the spellcaster and the things that need to die (or at least that’s my excuse on the official report, truth is I don’t want to get hit, and by this point I honestly don’t care what happens to him). Yolan moves further into the room and quickly identifies that it as a skeleton, and tires to kill it with a bane strike. Unfortunately, with a roll of 1 he misses and gets his Morningstar stuck in the wall. Unfortunately, said meat shield decides to just go and help Telon with the door, figuring we’ve got the skeletons covered. Ocelot moves in for an angle on the skeleton that’s attacking Yolan, and he gets to a point where he has a 50/50 chance to hit. He manages to hit it for 7 damage killing it. He then follows on his highest priority, and yells to Yolan “any decent loot?”. Yolan checks, and with a natural 20 he finds 16 silver pieces, 9 gold pieces and each skeleton had a +1 crossbow bolt each. He gathers it up and then goes to put an alarm on the door, just in case something tries to get in.

Part 4, advancing to future failure

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As there finishing off, I decide to check out the other corridor. Since it’s a big table, I make the mistake of letting Yolan move my mini. This is the last time I make this mistake. I go down, lighting a torch to light the way. I get about half way down the corridor before I walk into something that smothers my torch. It then eats my torch. It then eats my arm. It then eats me.

Luckily, while Yolan retrieves his mace, he notices the light in my corridor disappear, and goes to investigate. He notices a shape making its way down the entire hallway, and a blurry shape in the middle. With a chill down his back, he realises what it is, and shouts out “A cube just ate Jaune”. Yup, I walked into a transparent gelatinous cube. At the same time, draspher hears a noise from that direction, and comments to Telon:

draspher – I hear something, should we investigate?

Telon – you can, I have a key to find

So draspher runs out of the corridor, through the room and next to Yolan. As we point out, he’s managed to move into range to be eaten next turn. Ocelot contributes by moving into range and tossing a grenade into the slime. Ocelot moves up, throws grenade in, uses precise blast to exclude me from getting hit. He deals 9 damage to it, but it’s not enough to free me. Meanwhile I fail my fortitude save and take 10 damage. I am also paralysed for the next 7 rounds.

The slime notices more people come into to corridor and decides to eat them too. It surges down the corridor, pushing Yolan and draspher out of the room by it’s sheer mass. It then starts forcing it’s way through the doorframe to try and slam draspher. Telon feels the bomb detonation and the slime impacting the doorway, so comes out the corridor to yell at the three stooge’s

Telon – what are you idiots doing?

Ocelot – [signs at telon] something is eating jaune

This is enough to motivate him to help, so he goes over to pull draspher out of the way of the slime. Draspher rolls a natural 20 to realise what he’s doing, disappointed as he was planning on burning me out with burning hands. Once again, I am so thankful that Telon is here. I can’t do anything except for check for traps in the slime. The only thing I can to is argue what’s getting damaged by the acid I’m stuck in. In the end we decide the only thing that’s really going to be damaged are my clothes.

Yolan yells out “Jaune, close your eyes. I hear him, but am still completely paralysed, so I can’t even close them. Yolan blasts the slime with a searing light spell for 18 damage. Its now damaged to the point its no longer a cube. Draspher follows up with a burning hands spell, burning it for 16 damage, and Ocelot tries to let loose, but it misfires, then has a near misfire which would have caused it explode. Fortunately, its enough damage to cause it to fall apart. The good news is that I’m free, the bad news is now I’m face down in a puddle of slime.

Part 5, water way to go

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Now that’s the dangers over, Telon’s going back to figuring out the door. He tells Yolan to deal with the healing while he looks for the key, with no luck. I still can’t move, and takes another 10 damage from the acid I’m covered in. Yolan pulls me out of the puddle, then gets to casting restoration which manages to remove my paralysis, while draspher cleans me up and Ocelot scoops up some of the slime to experiment with. Once I’m up Telon yells at me to unlock the door for him and I go far more cautious about the dangers of this place, so I drag Yolan with as a bodyguard. I’m still shaken from the slime, so I end up rolling a natural 1. I decide it’s safer to just take my time and take 20.

While I struggle with the lock Ocelot fixes his gun. I also take a second to realise my “ninja-blade” is showing so I use my sleeves of many garments to get a change of clothes. After much trying I find it’s no good, I can’t break the arcane lock, we’re going to need the key. Ocelot gets bored of this nonsense with the door and goes down the slime-freed corridor and finds the first door on the left, choosing to just kick it down. Yolan leave me (Traitor, your supposed to be my bodyguard) to help Ocelot, checking the door on the right to find just an empty room.

After failing to kick it down, Ocelot takes note of the door. Like the previous door, it has a stone relief but this one is shaped like some kind of dragon/fish creature. He calls me over, and I try my luck with this door, finding it easy to crack. Howerver, after my experience with the slime I back off and tell Yolan to open the door as I’m not risking it. He does and finds a large metal keg, with pipes going up into the ceiling from it. Ocelot takes a look as well and believes it must be the old castle water reserve. Checking it over he taps it and finds its still full of water, and the top is blocked by some kind of metal bung that’s so rusted over he might be able to break it open. He asks Yolan for help, but he just passes the buck onto Telon.

With a single swing, Telon smacks the bung apart with the butt of his weapon, and water spills everywhere. Telon quickly checks the water flowing everywhere, but its not poisioned. In face its in pretty good quality considering how long it must have been in there. The pipe starts making an awful rattling as the water pours out, way too loud to just be water pouring out, even as the force increases. Soon the entire corridor is filled with water and we have difficulty moving through it. Then a creature makes its way out of the pipe.

With an angry scream it fires a cone of acid, hitting everyone (except for me hiding well out of the way in the corridor), Ocelot dodging out of the way for half damage taking 4 while everyone else takes 9. I take a look and decide the corridor is too crowded for me to go down, so I leave it to the others for now. Yolan realises it’s a water Mephit and shouts out a warning that only magic can affect it. draspher casts haste on us to speed us up, and Yolan uses another searing light, hitting it for 17 damage. Telon then gets his turn, and slashes it twice beheading the creature with 25 damage and is quickly disintegrates into water, seeing it leave behind 5 small sapphire he grabs. This also causes the water to stop flowing like crazy. Yolan heals up telon while Ocleot checks out the empty room finding nothing. He does realise it would be a perfect place to set up a camp for the night. We decide to leave it there before taking the stairs up to the next level.

Embarrassments to the guild – 5, the bear, draspher getting mugged, draspher growing antlers in a magic school, meeting the king (2), falling down a pit,

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 11, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner, from the skeletons

Times draspher did good – 3, The enlarge person spell, taking out a dragon, mending train tracks

Times draspher did bad – 7, ghost sounds through the glass window he had previously been told was too thick, nearly giving away the groups connection to southwater to a complete stranger, the antlers, getting mugged, announcing he was mugged by kids, announcing he was going after kids to beat the crap out of them, nearly hitting me with adhesive spittle AGAIN

Team members drilled over – 10, Vex getting shot in the back, Yolan getting a dragon dropped on him, draspher and Yolans spells backfiring, draspher getting mugged, Telon down a hole, I find a secret door filled with skeletons, getting eaten by a slime, ocelot misfires (2)

Terms confused/forgotten – 4.5, the guild name, the fact we had papers (.5), the collages, the tournament name, mr Quinn link

[rebelpyroflame]

Session 26, It always come back to DRAGONS

Part one, I’ve had it with these monster killing teamsplitters in this monster filled cave!

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We get started and I decide enough is enough. We’ve had training, time to use it and start working as a team. Its time we started going in formation. I go in front to check for traps with Yolan at my side to assist as he’s the most perceptive front-line fighter. Ocelot will take the back, he’s a ranged fighter so anything in front will be in his ideal range. He’s also perceptive enough to spot anything attacking from behind, while having enough health to deal with an ambush attack. Alongside him is Telon, he’s got enough armour to deal with attacks, a good fighter as well and fast enough to rush anywhere there a fight. In the middle is draspher, he’s protected and more importantly, he’s kept in sight and out of trouble. Ocelot really likes this position, as his figure is now pointing his gun at drasphers head.

We go upstairs and find a door. It’s not trapped so Yolan starts trying to force the door. He finds it barricaded and difficult to push aside. draspher ‘helpfully’ pipes up asking if he wants to “get big” to do it better. He gets shot down as the rest of us point out aside from everything else Yolan would crush me and Yolan in the small corridor. Telon eventually rugby tackels the door open half a foot and we get a better look in the room. The room is faintly lit by embers in a fire pit, but nothing else can be seen in the dark. Yolan finally gets the door open (Ocelot noting now the whole group has lined up, he could take out the entire party with one bullet) and we get in.

We get in and I start looking around for traps. As I start looking I hear whimpering from the far side of the room. Yolan walks over and checks for evil, he doesn’t find any evil but he does find a form in a corner. We both go over and find a form hunched over on a filthy bedroll whimpering and crying. I start slowly making my way over reassuring it while the others check the room.

The rooms are covered in signs in various languages and against one wall is a metal cage. A metal cage with a large hole in the bars, and a table in front of the cage. On said table seems to be a collection of knickknacks, a paintbrush and green paint (evidently what was used to paint the signs), a few “offerings” of various kinds and a couple of small dragon figures made of jade. Ocelot wonders if these figures are the key to the dragon room we had seen earlier and shows them to Telon. Yolan checks the cage, and with a sinking feelings identifies them as White dragon droppings, just as draspher identifies the signs as being written in draconic all saying “here be dragons”. The bedsheet starts falling away and draspher shouts out “he’s a dragon”, and everyone panics when a snout appears. Luckily for us, it wasn’t a dragon, but a kobold. I start trying to cautiously talk him reassuringly as I approach him slowly. It quickly becomes clear that he’s in a bad way. He’s covered in various cuts and bruises alongside the filth he’s covered in.

I manage to get close and start talking with him:

Jaune – it’s ok, we’re not going to hurt you, we’re just traveling adventurers
draspher – (in dragonic) are you a dragon?
Jaune – Ocelot, the next time he talks shoot him
Ocelot – got it
Jaune – by him I of course mean draspher
Ocelot – yeah, I understood the first time

The guy introduces himself as “Meepo”. Turns out that he was the local Kobold in charge of looking after their “God”, a White dragon they had captured. They had been keeping it in the cage, and the table is there altar with offerings to said God (I sign at Ocelot to leave it for now, steal it later). However, at some point the local goblins managed to steal the dragon from them. Meepo got the blame for this, and was banished from the group and has been the subject of ridicule and abuse ever since, mostly getting stuff thrown at him.

Seeing an opportunity, I offer him a chance for redemption. What if he brings us adventures to his leader, we can talk with him and go get the dragon back. He’ll be a HERO for finding and bringing us to him, he’ll be welcomed back with open arms:

Meepo – your smart
Ocelot – thank god he’s not talking to draspher

While this was going on Ocelot looks around, and checking the bonfire realises that there’s something at the bottom. He starts asking for someone to help him pull it out, before I ask him why doesn’t he use mage hand. After arguing he doesn’t have it I point out he does, he insisted on getting the mage hand amulet ages ago. Sure enough, he pulls out another jade figurine and presents it on the alter, greatly pleasing Meepo and further reassuring him to our good intentions.

(I only mention the mage hand because later I had to go to the toilet and asked Ocelot to write notes while I was gone. He decided the best course of action was to put a note saying he used mage hand to do unsanitary things to Meepo. Quote “he uses mage hand to give Meepo a happy ending and Meepo is happy so takes us towards a door that will take us to the leader”)

We set off, Meepo leading the way, cad in a glowing bedsheet (draspher decided to take a spare bedsheet and cast light on it before wrapping it around him, I question if he’s trying to turn him in kobold Jesus or something?) and he takes us to a series of corridors. Filling them is a large gathering of kobolds in various ages going about their daily business (fires, children playing, tanning racks). At the end is a large throne, artfully thrown together from various bits of rubble. This, Meepo tells us, is “the dragon throne”, and the guy in the throne is there leader, flanked by six guards. I immediately try to go up to him and work my charms, but he doesn’t seem happy to see us and I get stonewalled with “who are you?”. It turns out that that that’s the only common he knows. That means that the only one who can negotiate with him is someone who speaks dragonic. The only person who know it is draspher. Our hopes of resolving this peacefully lies with draspher. No sentence has ever filled me with MORE RAGE THAN THAT ONE!

Though draspher as ‘interpreter’ I manage to get the deal negotiated. It seems the Kolbods have lived here for generations, but a few years ago the goblins moved in to another section of the fortress. They have been at war ever since, and recently thanks to someone (dras…I mean Meepo) they took their sacred dragon. He wants us to get there dragon back from the goblins and I agree to but with two stipulations. Firstly, safe passage through his territory to the goblin territory, Secondly information on the four missing adventurers. Naturally none of us can remember there names or races, but we manage to cobble together they were the short hairy one (dwarf), the tall pointy ears one (elf), a tall curvy eared one (human) and one in hunting gear (ranger). Seems they had all gone off to fight the goblins at some point or another and not come back. He also tells us to take Meepo with us as a guide.

Part two, damnit draspher

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We set off through the camp and get to a door leading down a corridor guarded by another kobold. He gives us a look over then lets us through. We start going down the corridor in formation again, except Meepo is in the middle with draspher. As we walk down I roll a natural 20 and dive backwards, Telon following after and we both avoid the trapdoor at our feet. A quick check shows that it was built for the weight of multiple goblins, not enough to drop a scout but enough to drop an attack force. If we cross one by one we should be fine so long as we’re not wearing heavy armour (too bad for Yolan). I cross first, and Yolan dimension doors over behind me. We start checking the rest of the corridor while the others carefully cross, and find a large old door. We check it for traps as the others catch up and we find nothing.

I get the door unlocked, but just as we are preparing to charge we hear a shout of “NOW” from inside, and the door opens. From inside a flask is flung at us and Yolan and I only just manage to avoid it but now the floors on fire. Seems like they heard us coming. I resort to the first half of the Dupre family technique. I turn invisible but instead of running away I dive into the room to scout out the threat. I see a large number of goblins taking cover behind upturned tables. They’ve set up an ambush for us.

draspher immediately starts giggling, he has a plan. This fills me with dread. He charges through the fire and lets off a black tentacles spell, hitting every goblin in the room and wrapping them up in a hentai lovers dream. Just as I’m about to congratulate him on ACTUALLY doing a good job on being a spellcaster, I look over and suddenly realises there’s four figures I hadn’t spotted before. Four figures chained to the wall. One of them being a Dwarf. Before I can shout out a warning the tentacles smash the occupants of the room into pulp. He dismisses the spell and we look at the damage. Three captured Kobold and the Dwarf we were looking for have been caught up and killed along with the goblins. As a group we are all in agreement we don’t tell Meepo we got kobolds killed….oh and the royals about us killing the dwarf. As team leader I decree that drasphers share of the gold will be spent on resurrecting the dwarf. Ocelot helpfully suggests we just split his share among the rest of the party.

Telon teleports in (doors aren’t good enough for him it seems) while Ocelot keeps Meepo back. Telon and I get to looting, and I manage to grab six bottles of alchemist fire while we “look for clues”. Once the room is clear Ocelot starts going in with Meepo. As he goes in he checks out the room, then suddenly tenses. He calls out a warning to us that the ceiling is unstable. Like the professionals we are, the three of us immediately panic and dive into the next room for fear of a cave in. We dive into an old archery range, with targets to the right of us and the range to the left. draspher immediately dives to the floor. Unfortunately, this isn’t an automated arrow trap, this is a shooting gallery filled with crossbow wielding goblins. Luckily, I never actually dropped my invisibility so they don’t even realise I’m there. One gets a lucky scrape on Telon, but the prone squishy wizard is far easier, and he takes two arrows in the back for 7 damage total. Telon (not hearing anything about the celling, stupid deaf curse) walks in just in time to see draspher get shot and starts laughing at him while trying to figure out what’s going on. Yolan simply turns to his attackers and gives them what they deserve: Two Middle fingers and a call of “F### YOU!” so angry and offensive they catch fire. That’s right, with a single blistering invective spell every one of them on fire, so much for their ‘ambush’.

Hearing the sounds of laughter and goblin screaming Ocelot cautiously moves under the unsafe roof and checks what’s going on only to find draspher on the floor with two crossbow bolts in his back and Telon laughing his head off (makes sense, draspher getting hurt is the single greatest form of comedy after all). Yolan notices that the goblins are really burning well and they smell really funny. He can’t figure out what it is until draspher pipes up with the fact the smell is burning liquor. Once they finish burning we get back in formation and start exploring. After doing the checks Yolan opens the next door, finding a dark room with a fire pit. One of the doors out of the room has been replaced with a half wall. While we start investigating draspher decides to wonder off through another exit in the archery room. He employs his own door checking skills (getting Mee to use magic to open the door from afar), razing questions from the gm about why the rest of us keep trap-checking when that was an option. Yolan starts going after him and I am forced to decide that it’s best to stick together and go after the team splitting morons.

Yolan decides to check the other corridor rather than the one draspher went down, but suddenly stops. He signs a message to draspher and Telon who passes it to the rest of us “I think the dragon’s here”. I immediately get the others to group up, while Yolan starts checking out a side passage. He finds a corridor with multiple doors, one of which he’s certain he can hear the dragon coming from, but decides against going further down after smelling something really weird in the air. So he turns back, but not before putting an alarm spell on the door just in case.

Part three, the best day EVER!

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We start going down. While the rest of us are catching up to regroup draspher, naturally, goes off down the corridor himself. The then starts using ghost sounds to start making it sound like their people there. This potentially alerts whoever is down there to our presence AND I fail my will roll to disbelieve it so once again DRASPHERS HIT ME WITH ONE OF HIS SPELLS. At this point I am pretty sure he’s hit ME with his spells more than he has actual enemies.

Ocelot follows carefully with Meepo. He’s really taken a shine to the little guy, and it’s really disconcerting for me as a player. I’ve played games with him before where he’s been a sadistic f###. One game he was a paladin that ended up taking a goblin king as a slave. The fact he’s actually taken to the squeaky voiced guy is just disturbing for me. Anyway, he starts following after draspher with Meepo (tucked behind so he can push him out of the way of any breath attacks) hoping he has insight on the dragon. He peeks around the corridor and sees a door. He then hears something and panics, rushing back to the rest of us. As we’re trying to help Telon over the half-wall in the archery room (which is to say watching and laughing as he falls flat on his face trying to cross it) he dashes in and informs us he hears the dragon behind that door.

We get back in formation. Slowly. We have to do it in initiative order. So, while Yolan alarms more doors and Telon stumbles over to join us, Ocelot gets sick of waiting and goes to investigate the door. He then proves that the formation works by demonstrating what happens to those of us who go off on there own by setting off a spear trap for 11 damage (he made the save) and nearly being impaled. The rest of us move up and I get them to cover me while I figure out how to disable the wall of spears blocking us getting through the door:

Jaune – ok, you guys protect me from goblins and crud while I get the door open
draspher – AND DRASPHER!
Jaune – yes and draspher

None of us protested this addition.

Draspher moves up (I yell out you were supposed to protect me from him) and yells out in draconic “we’re here to help”, once again ruining the element of surprise. The others panic at this, Ocelot considering sending Mee in first while Yolan signs to Telon what happened then moves to positions next to me in case it blows the door down. Luckily nothing happens and I get the spears down and quickly check, no more traps.

We carefully plan out our next move. I realise Ocelots joking suggestion is actually a pretty good one. Mee is small, agile and can fly so he’s hard to be hit, he can see in the dark, can talk to the dragon in both dragonic and telepathicly and if he dies (almost) no-one will miss him! IT’S THE PERFECT PLAN! So, we grab him and punt him into the room before slamming the door. Ocelot positions himself to push Meepo out of the way just in case and we wait with bated breath for either A. Mee’s death by dragon, B. Our deaths by dragon or C. no wait there is no C. Mee looks around the room. The room has multiple heads mounted on the walls. There not really impressive though, mostly cow heads and other minor animals, although there are a few Kobold heads mixed in with them. In the centre of the room is a large pole with a broken chain attached, and several patches of ice around the room. With an all clear we cautiously start entering the room.

Yolan goes in first cautiously and looks around. Mee casts dancing lights to light up the room and he can’t find the dragon anywhere. Meepo sneaks in and looks around and looks around, asking us to help him look. I go in and check one side of the room draspher comes moves in and starts looking around with detect magic near the pole. He fails to notice a form move from underneath a table. He hears a hiss, turns and a shape charges for the Sorcerer and he is completely powerless to stop it. It dives straight up his trouser leg, and he flails about as the cat sized baby white dragon we were looking for scurries around under his armour. Mee tries to talk him down:

draspher – Ok, I get Mee to talk to it in dragonic to it
GM – it won’t work, it’s a baby
draspher – ok, then I get it to use telepathy
GM – it’s a baby
draspher – it’s telepathy, so it can talk to anyone in any language
GM – it’s a baby, it can’t understand any language
draspher – no, no, telepathy works, it says it can communicate with any language
GM – IT’S A BABY! Its just not developed enough to understand anything

It starts biting him under his armour and he desperately tries to rip his ropes apart to pull it off him, but fails. Ocelot then walks up, turns to me saying “this is for you”, then hits him point blank with a tanglefoot shot.

………KARMA KICKS IN BABY, THANK YOU WHATEVER GOD HAS GIVEN ME THIS MOMENT, HE GLUES A PSYCHO TO MY CHEST, NOW HE’S GOT A DRAGON GLUED TO HIS, WOOOOOOOO!

Its hard to believe, but it gets better. Yolan comes over and tries to punch the dragon:

GM – OK, so roll your attack, if you roll too low then you’ll hit draspher. You’ll only get stuck if you roll a one
[Yolan rolls}
Jaune – [looks over] HAHAHAHAHAHAH
GM – what?
Yolan – guess what I rolled

YUP, YOLAN FALL ON TOP AND GETS STUCK TOO, SURELY THIS CAN’T GET ANY BETTER CAN IT?

Well outside Telon (completely in character) gets board, goes back through the other corridor and starts trying the other door. This triggered both of Yolan’s alarm spells and he starts panicking, screaming about the goblins coming as Telon starts trying to open the other door. I do as any good friend should in a situation like this. I go over to the mess, still laughing my ass off, and tell draspher “karma’s a b#### ain’t it, not so funny now is it”. The dragon takes this as a challenge, bursting out of drasphers shirt ridly scott style and fires a cold blast at me that skims me for 3 cold damage icing the tips of my hair.

draspher starts getting desperate, unable to cast spells glued to the floor with a guy in heavy armour glued on top of him. So, he yells out (over the sound of my laughter) for Mee to hit him with a grease spell. The two of them get covered in grease and the entire area becomes difficult terrain. Seeing the dragon sticking its head out, Ocelot decides to stun it with a flare round

IT GOT EVEN BETTER, NOW HES STUCK UNDER A DRAGON AND A GUY IN HEAVY ARMOUR, ALL THREE GLUED TOGETHER AND COVERED IN GREASE, AND LIT UP LIKE A CHRISTMAS TREE!

Telon manages his disable device roll (never knew he had that skill) and comes in to see draspher with a dragon head sticking out of his chest firing ice blasts around the room, Yolan on top kicking and screaming and both covered in a combination of what appears to be tar and grease lit up like a Christmas tree while I am bent over double laughing next to them saying over and over “I was wrong, it gets better”. Yolan manages to Dimension door free with a nat 20 concentration check, and starts panicking about the alarms but only finds a disinterested Telon and a bent over laughing Jaune, so he goes off to look for the “invading goblins”. Telon has OOC come up with a plan that should deal with the dragon. He grabs his scarf and tries to wrap it around the dragon. To bad he slips up and gets stuck on draspher, but at least he wrapped the dragon up. This is too much for me, I can’t move, paralyzed still laughing unable to stop laughing whishing I could record this.

The dragon is pretty annoyed at this treatment, and tries to dominate Mee to help him, only to find nothing in his mind worth dominating, so resorts to flailing more, getting even more stuck and receives a smack in the face from Ocelot for his troubles, so he starts firing of ice breaths everwhere (failing to hit anything).

Telon is finally in a good position to enact his plan. He manages to get a good grip, rips himself and the dragon partially off off drasphers chest, wraps the scarf around the dragon and then he uses his ability to make his scarf from cloth to metal, trapping it in a steel shell. The dragon is furious at this indignity and does everything it can to avenge its honour, blasting out frost breath and direction it can until Telon gets a good hold of its head. Ocelot turns to Meepo:

Ocelot – is this the dragon we’re looking for?
Meepo – yes
Ocelot – any way to calm it down?
Meepo – feed it rats

Part four, DRAGON GUN!

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Yolan has gone back to the archery room looking for the “goblin invaders” from his alarm spells. He doesn’t find them, but he does find the six goblin patrol examining the burnt bodies of there friends. They charge him, which is to say one of them runs up to him and his little sword bounces off his armour and another tries to jump over the wall and falls on his face. Yolan decides to show them what happened to the last set of goblins to satisfy their curiosity, and with another middle finger casts another blistering invective, burning them all to death before they even get close.

Telon manages to rip himself and the dragon off drasphers and he secures the dragon properly, with his mouth pointed away (to the walls away from anyone so he can’t ice up the floor or damage the roof of the cave/fortress). He gets quite attached to carrying this thing around as a “dragon gun” firing cold breaths at anything that comes our way. draspher just about manages to stand up once the glue has dried and starts looking around for loot. Like a good friend I spot him looking and look myself, beating him to it. I find the little dragons’ little horde, which is mostly trash. There’re a few coins, but the big thing is another jade dragon statue similar to the others. Ocelot hears the screaming coming from where Yolan went, and dashes of just in time to shoot one before it burns to death while the rest of us follow. draspher (once again) gets distracted by several barrels he passes. He starts investigating them, reading a sign on the side of one of them titled “pudding”.

While draspher ‘investigated’ the barrels we struggle to get Telon over the half wall in the archery room. Ocelot and Yolan both try to help him over, and while Ocelot falls on his face Yolan manages to act as a support/stepping stone for him. draspher finally figures out these barrels are a desert called ‘elven pudding’, obviously stolen by the goblins at some point. We start making our way back through the rooms, careful to aim the dragon away from the weak ceiling. Ocelot wonders if we should collabs it but I tell him to save if for later. With the dragon in hand we can take a commission from the Kobolds to eliminate the goblins WHILE continuing our investigation (side note Ocelot, grab some of the dwarf for resurrection later) and collapse the tunnel as part of the security measure.

We end it there, having already screwed up part of the mission but possibly performing our first genuine altruistic act to a tribe of savage cave dwellers by murdering another group of savage cave dwellers.

Embarrassments to the guild – 6, the bear, draspher getting mugged, draspher growing antlers in a magic school, meeting the king (2), falling down a pit, killing one of the guys we were supposed to find

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 11, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner, from the skeletons

Times draspher did good – 4, The enlarge person spell, taking out a dragon, mending train tracks, taking out a room of goblins with a single spell

Times draspher did bad – 14, ghost sounds through the glass window he had previously been told was too thick, nearly giving away the groups connection to southwater to a complete stranger, the antlers, getting mugged, announcing he was mugged by kids, announcing he was going after kids to beat the crap out of them, nearly hitting me with adhesive spittle AGAIN, killing the guy we were supposed to find, wondering off (2), getting me with ghost sounds for no reason, costing us the element of surprise when faced with a dragon, getting a dragon in his trousers, greasing himself

Team members drilled over – 20, Vex getting shot in the back, Yolan getting a dragon dropped on him, draspher and Yolans spells backfiring, draspher getting mugged, Telon down a hole, I find a secret door filled with skeletons, getting eaten by a slime, ocelot misfires (2), ocelots warning sending us into a shooting range, draspher dropping to the ground to get shot, Ocelot and the spear trap, dragon in trousers, dragon glued to chest, dragon and Yolan glued to chest, dragon and Yolan glued to chest and greased, Telon triggering Yolans alarm spells, dragon and Telon glued to chest, Yolan wondering into a room full of enemies by himself

Terms confused/forgotten – 4.5, the guild name, the fact we had papers (.5), the collages, the tournament name, mr Quinn link

Friends made – 1, Meepo (who has already proved himself more likeable, trustworthy and helpful than draspher ever will)

[rebelpyroflame]

Session 27,

Part 1, YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN

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As we walk back, reality suddenly ripples and Vex was suddenly with us the entire time. We finally make it back to the Kobold camp, the little guys looking in awe at Telon’s “dragon cannon”. He’s walking, swagger in his step, smirk on his face. I big up our profession, announcing to all that could see and hear “behold, we have brought back your god”, all in an effort to further ingratiate ourselves to the locals. I am forced though, to get *shudder* draspher to translate for me (I had hoped the GM had forgotten that little detail).

The chief is overjoyed at this news. He announces that for his good deed in finding and helping us, Meepo has officially redeemed himself in his people’s eyes, and is welcome to re-join the tribe. Telon then makes careful phrasing as he “passes the chief the dragon, just like he asked me too”. Of course, the second he does this he’s not holding onto the scarf anymore and it turns back into cloth and the dragon is free. Funny that, who could have seen that coming………..

The dragon starts hovering and hissing, getting ready for round two. draspher responds immediately. Which is to say he has a reasonable idea in hitting it with an adhesive spittle spell, and messing it up with a natural 1. Needless to say, the chief doesn’t take GETTING GLUED TO THE FLOOR VERY WELL. He tries bluffing, telling him “don’t worry, that armour should protect you” but he doesn’t buy it, pissed as hell at getting glued to the floor by the “heroes” he was just congratulating. Ocelot is torn, OOC, between his desire to shoot the dragon to stop it or shoot draspher for what he did to appease the Kobolds. As his team leader, I approve both of those options.

Meanwhile the rest of us get to work dealing with the dragon. Yolan uses his lock gaze ability to force the dragons focus to him, while I turn invisible and get in place, grabbing something from my bag to deal with it. draspher finally gets his act together and uses haste to speed us up, just in time for Vex to charge it and grab the dragon before it can try to fly away. Ocelot runs in and grabs his head, aiming it away from anyone in case it starts trying to use its ice breath again, ‘coincidently’ aiming it in drasphers direction.

It might not have been too bad if it had gone off though. The royal guards have gone after the double-crossing sorcerer that attacked their leader. They both leap him, one of them getting a good grip, making the poor spellcaster flail in panic at the fact a dragon midget is wrapped around his head. Seeing this I have a moral crisis like I’ve never had before. On the one hand, I could throw the tanglefoot bag at the dragon while Vex is holding it keeping it in place. On the other hand, draspher is right there, with another dragon on him. This is my big chance to pay him back for the time he glued a psycho to my chest.

Yolan starts trying to defuse the situation. He carefully makes his way to the chief and gestures that he wants to help. He manages to cross the language barrier, and convince him he’s on the up and up. He then uses his great strength to peel the chief off the floor. Meanwhile the dragon has started blasting the floor with its icy breath, prompting me to pick stopping it before things get worse. I reappear, dash over to vex and tell her to hold it still. I then slather the dragon in the condense of the tanglefoot bag to stop it moving and keep its mouth closed. I also coved its mouth and nostril, its starting to suffocate. His lungs should have enough air to keep from dropping dead immediately, but we’re going to want to get him caged soon before the glue wears off.

Ocelot grabs the dragon from Vex and charges out of the room, yelling at draspher to hurry up and fix the cage. Draspher suddenly remember he has a dragon himself, and gets Mee to cast sleep on his hanger on, then dashes after Ocelot to use mending yelling apologies to the chief as he runs. Vex quickly follows after, tripping over the two Kobolds on the floor, leaving me Yolan and Telon behind. Telon starts gesturing to me to steal the key since I’m team rogue/ninja. I, being the SMART ROGUE, sign back my reluctance to ruin things entirely with the only group we’ve ever met and genuinely helped, and tell him to wait until there’s no option of us getting it legitimately getting the key off them before stealing it as we leave rather than in front of a huge crowd keeping an eye on us. He might have the rest of them fooled, BUT I KNOW WHAT HE WAS UP TOO. DRASPHER MIGHT BE DUMB ENOUGH TO DO THIS, BUT TELON IS SNEAKY, HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING. HE PLANNED ALL THIS, PROBABLY TO STEAL THAT KEY!

During this the leader starts yelling at Yolan, using Mee’s telepathy as a translator. I quickly go over, apologising for our idiot, not wait I mean….no wait idiot works fine. The one Kobold guard starts getting up, clearly showing signs of a broken arm. Yolan suddenly realises the other one isn’t moving at all, and realises Vex accidently killed him when she stepped on him. With everyone’s focus on me he silently moves over and casts invisibility on the body so no-one will notice.

While I negotiate with the chief/keep an eye on Telon to stop him stealing the key. This is what I’ve been reduced to, the rogue keeping the others on the straight and narrow. YOU SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME TELON! DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME! Despite this he still goes to the key, but a quick check shows that he’s still being watched. I explain to the chief my predicament, that “I am intelligent man stuck babysitting fools, but I swear that just as we brought your god back, we will do right by you”.

Anyway, as I’m doing this the others deal with the dragon. Ocelot manages to stick the dragon to the cage floor and use a dagger to cut the dragons nostrils free so it can breathe. He then dives out of the cage before it can free itself and yells at draspher to fix it quick. Vex charges into the cage to hold the dragon still, but trips over the bars and ends up falling into it, getting stuck to it. Meepo runs in after her, desperate to do anything to help in his duty to guard the dragon. This heroic charge leads head first into the pile, getting literally “stuck in”.

Part two, moving forward

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10 minutes pass and the others manage to fix up the cage while I fix up our relations with the tribe. For the record, draspher has managed to become the enemy of an entire culture with a single low level spell. How is this THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED. I swear at this point hes turning out to be the final boss of this campaign.

I negociate a future aligance with the Kobolds. At some point we will need there help with something, and they will help us out. We will also help them out in turn, and part of this is us dealing with the goblin problem for them once and for all. In truth, it’s not that hard for us to deal with the goblins, and we needed to go further into there territory to find the other adventurers anyway, its win win. First step to this is get draspher to collaps the unstable tunnel with a fireball. We then get Vex to heal us up and the chief gives us a place to stay for a few hours to recharge.

Once we are fully rested we set off on the long way around. We find a door, untrapped, but unable to be opened. draspher manages to find runes on the door, reading “channel good to go through”. This sparks one of our signature massive argument on whether a cure wounds spell would do it, or would it only work with a channel energy. We finally get Yolan to try a cure light wounds spell, but it only has a mild effect, so we have to get vex to channel for us. We decide to get her to keep two lay on hands in reserve to open the door on the way back, then start heading in.

Inside we find 5 sarcophagi, each with a noble, almost elf like human inscribed. draspher is convinced its vampires, so he draws his crossbow. He then immediately realises he’s terrible, so he puts it away immediately after. Ocelot want to jury rig a torch with a light spell, a rock and a tube but I point out I have a bulleye lantern and give him that instead. He now holds it up with his third arm to light up the room.

We go in order, first I go in checking for traps as I go. Yolan follows after, then Vex. She checks the door and realises that it’s slowly closing on us. We have about 10 minutes before it closes fully, but it’s closing. Annoyed at how slow Vex is in getting out of the way, he uses his boots to literally jump over her in the small gap in the doorframe. She gets the hint and goes in the room, Telon and draspher head in the room. Yolan gets straight to checking the door:

Yolan – looks clear
Jaune – give it a try
Yolan – do you want to come closer?
Jaune – no, we’re good here

He gives it a try, and a blade slices down, dealing 19 damage to him. See, this is why none of us got close Yolan. Just then the door slams shut, knocking draspher aside for 2 damage.

Part three, difficulty spike

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Ocleot checks out the room. He finds a couple of items on a small table (a flask and a glass wistle) and goes to grab it. The sarcophagi then burst open, Vex and I just manging to avoid the slabs flying across the room. One goes to attack me and draspher summons three giant spiders in the holes. Yolan gives a bless to the party, and Ocleot checks the vial but can’t figure it out, so he just opens fire at the one attacking me for 13 damage.

The skeletons then crawl out, cutting down the spiders in a single blow, not even slowed down by their presence. The Gm points out that they didn’t even have to roll, there base attack bonus is such they could hit and kill them easily with there damage dice. I use kage bonshin no jutsu, but I only manage to create a single copy. A single clone that is immediately a critical hit by the skeleton attacking me, and gets two more hits on me for 18 damage, nearly half my health in a single round.

This gets the group moving. Telon tries to bulrush the one attacking me but fails to move him an inch, while Vex moves to hold off two before they can get out of there holes. Yolan gets his destruction judgement and swings for 23 damage on the fifth one. draspher finally gets to doing something useful and gets haste on everyone and Ocelot uses this speed to unload on the fourth one rolling 3d8+48, getting 68 damage. The thing is that after that it’s still standing not looking that worse for wear. This has us all worried. What’s even worse is when the second one gets into flanking to attack me.

I step out of that flank to start one of my own. I get into position with Yolan and get a full attack, two hits for 26 damage. That is also the first time I’ve ever actually been in a flank to full attack in all the time I’ve been playing with these guys. They all either die too fast or my teammates never set me up, so this is the first time I’ve been able to play to my strengths, *sniff* sorry I’m getting emotional.

The skeletons start their counterattack. Yolan takes a graze for 5 damage. draspher gets the idea to cast grease on the floor so it would trip one up, and the skeleton comes out on top of the patch, only to not be affected in the least. Turns out the dc to beat is 14, but these guys have a reflex save of 12. The GM is pulling out the big guns to give us a challenge. That one moves to hit me but the GM finds out just how good my new Confounding blade ability giving me a temporary +10 to my AC until the next round.

Telon moves, taking hits from the first and second skeleton for 8 damage, and goes to attack the fifth zombie, getting a crit for 28 damage. Vex activate her weapon charge to get holy on her sword, hitting one for 17 damage. draspher checks the glass whistle, thinking that it might be the key to getting rid of them. It has nothing to do with anything as far as he can tell. So instead he just casts enlarge person on Yolan. My good position ends as Yolan ABANDONS ME to go attack the fifth skeleton for 30 damage. Fortunately, Ocelot intercedes saving me from the fourth skeleton with one bullet reducing it to ash with 18 damage as he aims the other two shots at the first, hitting for 22 and 19. One takes a swing at Vex while the first attacks Ocelot for 10 damage.

Seeing a chance, I move off and draw my bow, getting a shot at the fifth one for 20 damage. Yolan gets raked by him with 2 claws for 18 damage, as Telon dodges an attack from the Third one. Vex starts laying into the second one, getting two hits for 40 damage total, while draspher does the only thing he can do to help and enlarges Telon. At the same time Mee tries opening the door, but without a channelled energy he can’t open it. Telon tries to attack but misses, oddly managing to roll three 6’s.

We start making headway, Yolan lays into the fifth one and hits three times, with 73 damage reducing them it into dust. Ocelot steps back to reload, leaving draspher vulnerable. The first skeleton moves to attack him, taking a couple of attacks for 20 damage from us as it moves to him. I get a shot off on him for 27 damage, joining in the *shudder* rescue attempt.

Despite their amazing stats, there is no accomidating for sheer bad luck. Or in our case, the GM’s frankly terrible rolls. Despite constant attacks, its only now one of them managed to get a hit on Vex for 8 damage, while the third one misses Yolan. draspher retreats, taking a hit for 9 damage but the rest of us finally get this sorted. Telon gets two hits on the second skeleton for 32 damage, killing it, while Ocleot does the same with the one attacking draspher with 67 damage. Vex gets three hits and a crit for 61 damage or to be more accurate 2d8+12+3d6+12+4d6 damage. Needless to say she kills it.

Part four, wrap up

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With the skeleton’s dead, we finally have a chance to assess the situation. draspher finally has a chance to examine the whistle, and figures it must be some kind of summoning whistle, but he can’t tell what kind. I check around and while the bodies have nothing on them, the sarcophagi are filled with gems and platinum, which ocelot and I just pile into our respective bags of storage. draspher looks around and realises that the candle on the wall is an ever burning one. He suggests putting it in a candelabra until we point out Ocelot has a bull’s eye lantern and he replaces the light spell rock with it. Ocelot also figures out the flask this all started with was just a potion of fire resistance. We also leave the Kobold in the hall, and I find well aged “elf jerky” in the sarcophagi as well.

Now we’ve finished looting, we start trying to work out how to leave. As I start trying to disable the trap Ocelot starts feeling drowsy, noting something wrong with the air. We realise the oxygen is running out in this air tight tomb. I borrow drasphers amulet of adaptation so I can’t lose consciousness before getting the door open. After ages I get the door untapped and unlocked, but it still won’t open. The vacuum effect is keeping it closed. All together we push and push, and it’s only after 10 minutes and Telon remembering his rage that we get the door open.

We finish there. The gm admits he nerfed the zombies from there original, taking way their damage and magic resistances. If we had done it right, then the reduction/good, and reduction/piercing would have meant only Vex and Telon could have hurt them, possible a celestial summon as well.

Embarrassments to the guild – 6, the bear, draspher getting mugged, draspher growing antlers in a magic school, meeting the king (2), falling down a pit, killing one of the guys we were supposed to find

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 11, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner, from the skeletons

Times draspher did good – 4, The enlarge person spell, taking out a dragon, mending train tracks, taking out a room of goblins with a single spell

Times draspher did bad – 15, ghost sounds through the glass window he had previously been told was too thick, nearly giving away the groups connection to southwater to a complete stranger, the antlers, getting mugged, announcing he was mugged by kids, announcing he was going after kids to beat the crap out of them, nearly hitting me with adhesive spittle AGAIN, killing the guy we were supposed to find, wondering off (2), getting me with ghost sounds for no reason, costing us the element of surprise when faced with a dragon, getting a dragon in his trousers, greasing himself, sticking the kobold chief to the floor

Team members drilled over – 21, Vex getting shot in the back, Yolan getting a dragon dropped on him, draspher and Yolans spells backfiring, draspher getting mugged, Telon down a hole, I find a secret door filled with skeletons, getting eaten by a slime, ocelot misfires (2), ocelots warning sending us into a shooting range, draspher dropping to the ground to get shot, Ocelot and the spear trap, dragon in trousers, dragon glued to chest, dragon and Yolan glued to chest, dragon and Yolan glued to chest and greased, Telon triggering Yolans alarm spells, dragon and Telon glued to chest, Yolan wondering into a room full of enemies by himself, draspher getting the blame for the dragon incident

Terms confused/forgotten – 4.5, the guild name, the fact we had papers (.5), the collages, the tournament name, mr Quinn link

Friends made – 1, Meepo (who has already proved himself more likeable, trustworthy and helpful than draspher ever will)

[Draspher]

Hi everyone i know we haven't posted in a while but we haven't had a session in a while so a couple of us put together a group that has 2 hour sessions once a week.
Im DM joined by Vex and juan as well as some other friends.
We start off playing a couple one shots then start the main game with the stolen century for character creation followed by ROTRL.
Have a look if you want and hopefully we will get back to should have stayed home soon.
Link:http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...-was-out-voted