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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    rebelpyroflame's Avatar

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    Apr 2017

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

    Here's the Journel of our groups continuing adventures. It all started so normally, but a single level 1 spell completely changed the entire campain. I had been posting this on funny stories but every session is something crazy so I made a thread for it.

    The players
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    (all guys just for clarification, but I will refer to them by character genders)
    Jaune (me) – human ninja. I originally made him to as backup/base coverer to the rest of the party, having skills in trap finding, stealth, interactions and sneak attacks but I ended up becoming one of the only capable melee fighters

    Ocelot – human gunslinger and the only player with any real experience. Decent enough guy, but often way to “fair”, making choices and actions with a refusal to metagame. Doesn’t sound too bad at first but he has at times made deliberate bad actions or attempted to punish us for not remembering certain things. Still my most reliable teammate most of the time

    “Sim with an e” – a female human druid with a cheetah companion. Originally just a backup fighter/caster but has become the highest strength party member and our go to girl for melee/utility casting. She also developed an affinity for wrestling after our initial short campaign had a fight she trounced simply by grabbing the brownies and tossing them into various wood-chippers. She is Yurions boyfriend IRL and girlfriend in game

    Yurion – a female human lore oracle. The party healer/buffer in combat and has a mastery of every knowledge skill outside of combat. Take a very “hands off” approach to combat, as in she doesn’t do anything when it starts, mostly because she doesn’t want to be in range of anything but most of her buff spells are touch and we have already waded in. That said, she isn’t just doing nothing, she is one hell of a planner and schemer, and often has several plans she made with the DM by passing notes. She is also Sim boyfriend IRL and girlfriend in game

    Draspher – human sorcerer focused on summoning and the only good aligned character (everyone else is neutral in some way) which makes what happens all the funnier. He built himself as a controller, without a single offensive spell initially but that ended up backfiring. Has a “mischievous” raccoon familiar we like to threaten/torture called fumbles. This is his first time playing a game like this and so he often makes mistakes or needs advice. Unfortunately thanks to a combination of bad rolls and poor planning he ends up in the worst situations imaginable

    Swaggy – a dwarfen paladin of “the force”. He was our melee frontline/tank/healer. The biggest problem was his player. He hadn’t played that much roleplay games before, but he had played a lot of balders gate and similar RPGs. This meant he only ever saw any problem as something to smash through brute force style. He also kept arguing game mechanics, trying to compare them to video game ones when we were trying to explain how things worked to him, constantly dragging down the game into arguments about how things should work. He also wasn’t into any kind of roleplay aspect, let alone as a paladin, so he would spend most of his game time bored until his turn, rolls a dice then goes back to the book he was reading. He started to wind some of us up but in the end, he stopped coming due to other commitments and things picked up for us


    the setup is a magic/steam punk world, standard pathfinder world but a lot of emerging steam punk tech and pistols and such.

    we work for a guild, the white lotus (It was months before we asked for the name in game) set up in a massive airship. The setup is that it takes in various types, particularly talented orphans, people who lost their home etc. When they are old enough they are assigned to teams and sent off on missions. This would give us a regular wage and the other big advantage of this setup was a rental system. Any tools or equipment they find is sold to the guild and can then be rented out to different teams for a reduced price, or bought outright by individuals, with whatever team that brought them in having first dibs. To accommodate this, we were started off at half gold at level 5, but this system has yet to be used due to circumstances

    Our first mission was the carnival of tears. The DM had not thought of anything yet and had just gotten it offline as he thought it would be fun to put us through the ringer as he liked the horror parts. Unfortunately, as we had started off with half gold to match the frequent gold we’d get as wages AND we were still mostly new players wanting just a quick adventure to get used to things. It just ended up a slog fest with the mages unable to do much as they needed to save spells and we were very poorly matched against the cold rider at the end as none of us could get close enough to hurt him and he just kept regenerating. That’s not where this story truly starts though. It starts at the debriefing from that.

    Session one, part one, the day off
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    The guild master had given us the day off, and we decided to spend our gold in town, apparently there is a fair on today and a party that evening. Draspher wanted to get a magic item or two with his share. As we go through town our DM is constantly rolling dice. (he does this partially to keep track of tons of side plots happening all the time but also to make us paranoid)

    When we reach the shops Draspher checks his pack for his gold. It turns out that, thanks to an abysmal perception score, has been pick pocketed. The small amount of gold he had brought with him wasn’t so bad, but the big loss was his wand of cure light wounds. So, we set off to find our thieves.

    Thanks to Sim’s Cheetah we track down the scent to a dirty block of flats. Deciding against breaking down the door on the place so I knock. A slit in the door opens and I attempt to bluff our way in. Unfortunately, the guy recognises us as guild members and I attempt to negotiate/intimidate our way in, pointing out that no matter how much he took from us, it’s not worth the amount of damage to his home and business we would cause trying to get our stuff back. Again unfortunately, he has already left. We eventually get in by sim turning into a beetle to get under the door and we start exploring.

    After much searching we eventually find a lift that leads to an underground MASSIVE room with all these crates and boxes in it. We find the wand and start investigating and find one full of swords. Just then we hear knocking on the door upstairs so we panic and run through a corridor that leads to a sewer, because it always leads back to the sewers eventually.

    To avoid completely grouping up, I decide to use my ninja skills to cross the sewer and walk on the other side, I could always just cross again if anything happens to them. Unfortunately, all the giant sewer rats thought was “one of them is alone, rush him!”. I dash back to the others and Yurion shows of her planning skills. As part of the reward from the last mission we got a wand of lightning and we decided she should have it in the hopes of having more to do in combat. Sure enough, she dips the tip in the sewer water and fries all 7 rats about to attack us.

    Part two, party time
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    When we get out we decide to split up. I will go with Draspher to report to the guild master and pick up his gold to buy the items. The rest will party. The guild master is quite worried about these weapons being in the city and tells us he will sort it out, just don’t mention it to anyone unless they say a code phrase. We head back, I’m caring Draspher’s gold for security this time (with only a 10% fee for carrying it). This is an example of Ocelot’s “fair play”. He immediately upon seeing us in a large crowd starts loudly yelling to us about “how crazy it is that all those swords were there in the secret room under the city” (he even admitted he wanted to deliberately punish us for not remembering to tell us in character we weren’t supposed to tell anyone, stupid anti-metagame crap). The only thing worth mentioning is that, thanks to a fancy magic machine brought in as an attraction I failed a will save and was made to do the chicken dance (this and the wood chippers from the carnival has sparked a personal hatred of any kind of machinery, I intend to sabotage the next mechanical device the DM throws at us regardless of function). Eventually we make our way to a pub and start chatting with a girl called “angel” (probably a red herring from the DM as the code phrase mentioned angels to trip us up). As we are sitting we see a man look at us, get up and make to leave. A quick perception roll shows us this is the man who was behind the door before. To stop him, Ocelot throws a glass at his head starting a barfight, I turn invisible to grab him and sim sends her cheetah to attack him. To help stop him, Draspher makes an illusion of the city guards to try and calm everyone down. Unfortunately, this starts a stampede of drunks that crushes the unconscious guy, losing us our best lead.

    And that was the note we finished that session on.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    rebelpyroflame's Avatar

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    We are released by the actual guards who turned up as there is nothing except sims cheetah sitting on the dead guy that pins it to us. We meet up with the guild master who explains what’s going on. He believes that the weapons are part of a coup, and that he has been able to trace the weapons to another town/city. He is sending us in undercover to find out who is responsible. We can’t let this be traced to the guild so we are on our own except for a local contact.

    Session two, part one, The Tree
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    As Swaggy had been feeling board, the DM puts him in charge of this mission. This was a mistake on several levels. First, he starts kicking up a fuss about following a cliché spy mission route and compares it to several games he’s played and had to be persuaded that the DM had his own take on things. Secondly, he didn’t understand he was in charge and could choose what plan we took. We must have spent at least an hour arguing amongst ourselves as various plans get thrown out (including one the DM was very keen on that involved flying us over then parachuting into the city on rented rings of feather fall, swaggy vetoed it just because he didn’t see the point of having the rings on the mission and believed Draspher or the DM would make us loose them and get a massive fine) and in the end, he has us take the slowest route possible short of walking, the guild bus.

    Along a cliff route we find a toppled tree. It’s decided to move it with strength checks (no-one listens to me about using magic to help) with me, sim and swaggy by the tree, Ocelot behind us Draspher by the bus and Yurion and the driver refusing to get off the bus.

    Sure enough, it was an ambush, Draspher gets jumped by two guys, knocked out, tied up and a bag over his head. I immediately run over to try and stop them, ocelot starts shooting and Yurion doesn't get off the bus. A few turns in she decided to help by levitating Ocelot so he can get his snipe on from a higher vantage point.

    Our brave paladin, upon seeing his teammate being kidnapped by two assailants nobly decided he’d rather do nothing than waste two move actions moving as he has ridiculously slow run speed, and only gets involved when a perception check tells him there are three guys the other side of the tree and a small gap he can get through. Sim follows suit and climbs the tree, getting into a swordfight with one on top. This leaves the only person taking on two guys to get our friend back the ninja without anyone to flank with for sneak attacks. I have two weapon feint, but the point still stands.

    Something you must understand for the next part, my back-story is that I somehow survive total party wipes a bunch of times and the guild master doesn't trust me, so he sent Draspher, the guild librarian, to document my behaviour to make sure I'm not deliberately doing this. As I kill the one guy, the other tries to run with Draspher over his shoulders. Draspher has been failing every roll given, only just about waking up at this point, so he can’t help. Seeing no other way to stop him, I go to tackle him. Sure enough, I get him to the floor and Draspher fly’s off his shoulders, fails his reflex save and so, tied up and blindfolded, goes over the cliff.

    So, to reiterate, the guy in charge of keeping an eye on me gets rolled off a cliff thanks to me. He lives, outcropping tree their but still does not look good for me. Even more luckily, his raccoon fumbles is still with him and gets him loose from his bonds.

    We start mopping up the others including a druid who tried to summon a lighting cloud but was killed before he got his first bolt of. Draspher meanwhile has gotten free and is now engaging one of the bandits with a bow lower down on the cliff from afar while he is still in the tree. Fumbles, his raccoon, made his way up the cliff and is gesturing to us to help him up. Although Glitter-dust didn’t help, he decided to summon a giant bat behind the guy. At this same moment Ocelot has an idea.

    He picks up fumbles, calms him down with handle animal and attempts to use him as a drop bomb on the last bandit. He rolls a 1.

    The last bandit feels a huge set of teeth enter his neck behind him, just as he starts screaming a separate scream is heard as a raccoon falls past him directly down the cliff, all the while Draspher looks on in horror.

    Part two, the fight
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    Fumbles makes his save, but is ticked at Ocelot for this. We loot the bandits and the only item worth anything is the cat boots the druid was wearing. I, as the most athletic, take them.

    We get to a fluff town half way and stop for the night. Yurion has a slight bit of trouble when the haunted curse damages a local church she was visiting and she had to offer some (stolen) apples as a penance. We sleep at the inn and Draspher unfortunately decided, in character, to try and let fumbles have his revenge. Ocelot had been getting more and more frustrated with swaggy this entire session, disliking his disruptive, un-invested attitude and poor Draspher was the one who received this rage when he seems him passing notes to the DM trying to mess with him. It was just going to be a harmless prank where he gets a bad haircut but the damage was done. We carried on and they made amends later but it wasn’t pleasant at the time.

    Part three, arrival
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    We finally make it to the town. We go to the bar where we are supposed to meet our contact and book a room for the month for all of us. While we are in the room the contact leaves a note in the plant pot outside the window without any of us noticing him. We christen him Ninja-san.

    It lays out that there are three ways to go about this. First, help the town guard out until they involve us with their operations. Second, join the local guild under false names and do the same. Third, involve ourselves with the mob until we find out their big plans. We also find out the name of a rough bar where there are organised fights going on in the rough part of town.

    We ended that session there
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-07-01 at 08:44 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #3
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    here is where things go completely crazy

    Session three, part one, shopping and thievery

    Swaggy (who was put in charge of this mission to get him more involved) decided to go pray to the force (he thinks he's a Jedi paladin) for guidance (ill so couldn't make that session). This was the last we ever saw of him and it did cause some gameplay problems (our melee/tank/healer was gone and we were struggling to fill the void in straight up fights) things went a lot smoother for us overall.

    We pick Yurion to go be our leader (she had been a little quiet and withdrawn in all our sessions) and this ultimately really paid off. The following all takes place in one session she is in charge.

    group a
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    Me, Ocelot and Draspher (they had made up and all was forgiven and forgotten) all go shopping/sell the stuff off the bandits. The first place we try is a high-end weapon warehouse. After stopping fumbles from stealing anything, we try to sell the bandit’s armour and I try to get a kusarigama (I wanted a finesse-able weapon with reach and I was proficient in it) and some masterwork thief’s tools (finally had a bit of extra cash and went to the wrong place back home before we were shipped off). The guy refuses us on all accounts. Firstly, the armour was still blood covered and full of holes and although he believed us when we said it came from a teammate, he couldn’t risk doing that kind of business. Secondly, he couldn’t sell us anything until we got a licence from the town guard or the local guild.

    We leave, get Draspher to tidy up and fix the armour and find a blacksmith who will accept the armour. We then come up with the idea to make the leather armour into armour for the cheetah and the raccoon. The DM was incredulous, but agrees to make it in a few days, once the guy gets the measurements and consult experts. We then head to the police station, as previously agreed with the others but now we knew we could get licences from there.

    group b, aka the library incident
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    Yurion and sim decide to hit up the library to get as much info as possible. We make sure they look for details about the city sewer layout (this was the one thing we knew about their base locations, it really paid off knowing this), how that elevator worked (to try and identify how to spot it) and any knowledge the local crime groups.

    They found that just like us they can't do anything without being registered, especially as an important series of talks and lectures is happening. so first they try to talk their way in. Doesn't work. Just then Yurion’s haunted curse kicks in and throws stuff in the guard’s hut. Masterfully using this distraction, they try to sneak past and fail, horribly. The Guard confronts them and Yurion attempts to convince him of her overwhelming love of knowledge (I pass around a note to the others saying, "books get me wet”) and DM lets them in. Where to begin with the next part.

    As they begin looking round the DM start rolling again. Sure enough, his roll for Yurion haunted curse goes off a second time and sends a bookshelf flying. They decided the best way to remain in the library is to hide and leave the cheetah sitting on a bookshelf to take the blame. Cue off-screen Scooby do chase/yakety sax scene.

    With the heat on they decide they need to steal a bunch of the books to research later. Sim turns into a rat and hided in Yurion’s robes. Yurion then uses her natural intellectual looks to blend in with the rest of the academics. A young researcher takes notice of the pretty woman who just joined the que starts hitting on her. Sim, not likening someone hitting on her girlfriend, even as a rat, climbs up her sleeve and bites him. We all have a scare until we double check the rules that his strength is reduced as a rat so he’s just bitten instead of instantly dying to Sims enormous strength value.

    As they are leaving sim the rat realises that there is a spell on the door that detects stolen books. Quickly alerting Yurion through a combination of bites and the tongues spell, she comes up with a plan. Yurion tears a page out of one book, gives it to sim the rat who sneaks into another guys robe. As he passes through the field Yurion goes at the same time and sim bites him, so he starts screaming about something being in his robes and stripping, giving enough time for Yurion to leave with her books. Sim also escapes when he throws the shirt he was hiding in off with her inside.

    Part two, 0.25 Henderson night
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    We meet up and facepalm over the ocean 11 style heist these two pulled. We decide to split again, with Ocelot taking Yurion and Sim to get her cheetah measured for armour, waiting outside and myself and Draspher, to get licences for us all.

    We go in and start talking with the guard. I tell him how I need some replacement tools *hold up thief’s tools* and so we’d like some adventurer licences while we’re in town. He tells us that it could take several weeks for the paperwork to go through. Draspher offers to “grease the wheels” and so he agrees to meet up with us later to get the licences on the sly. We meet up with the others at the hotel, get some rest and head to the police station.

    We decided to keep it low key, so only Draspher and I meet with the guard and the rest follow behind. Thanks to their masterful stealth (DM kept rolling 1’s on perception) he leads us to the bad part of town and down an alleyway. Apparently, an obvious thief (I flashed my thief’s tools) and a sorcerer look like an easy pair to rob, so him and two friends down one side of the alleyway, two on one roof and one on the other and three behind us demand we give us their gold and they’ll let us live. I extend the same offer and make a boast about they think we came alone before both Draspher and I turn invisible just as the others begin attacking the three at the back.

    I move in to ambush the traitorous guard while Draspher stays exactly where he is. It was months later I find out that he didn’t know that he could move. He had only cast summons up to that point and so had no idea that not every spell is a move action.

    One of the guys on the roof clearly dislikes the idea of who knows how many invisible enemy’s running around, and so starts chucking down alchemist fire. As he hadn’t moved, Draspher gets one right on top of him. He dodges most of it and jumps to the other side of the alleyway to get one right in the face. Not liking this course of action, he runs to the others so that Yurion could heal him and, in a fit of spite, throws a grease spell on the guy throwing the alchemist fires.

    The guy flubs his roll, falls of the roof and every vial on him goes up. He must have been carrying some serious firepower as he goes up IN A THIRTY FOOT FIREBALL THAT WRECKS THE ALLYWAY AND THE NEARBY BUILDINGS.

    I quickly search the guard, find his keys, and run as well.

    The others start to hear the city guard marching in numbers to the site of the huge explosion. They plan how to use Yurions levitate spell to get into the sewers and shut it after them when this happens:

    Draspher – can I roll wisdom?
    DM – Sure?
    Draspher – *rolls* (gets something low) oh never mind
    DM – what were you rolling for
    Draspher – I wanted to see if it was a good idea to stay and explain what happened to the guards, but since I…
    DM – NO, you rolled for it, you’re doing it

    In any other time, it would have been fine, they would have grabbed him and dragged him with them. The problem is that he is still invisible, they don’t know where he is and think he’s gone already. So, they leave him behind.

    The guards turn up and start investigating. Suddenly they hear a voice from no-where. It starts thanking them for getting here so soon, he was just minding his own business when the fight broke out so he turned invisible to hide, then there was an explosion and they ran off down the sewers (everyone pales/facepalms at him giving them away). The guards turn to each other, nod, then ask him to drop the invisibility so they can talk:

    Draspher – can I roll to see if their telling the truth
    DM – Sure
    Draspher – *rolls* (gets something low) oh
    DM – *sarcastically* you think it’s a great idea

    The second he drops invisibility he gets grabbed, cuffed, gagged and bagged and taken down to the station.

    Draspher is convinced he’s gotten himself killed and needs to roll up a new character and most of us are thinking the same at this point.

    Part 3, Interrogation expert
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    Next scene, he gets debagged in an interrogation room. They ask him what happened and he blurts out the truth, only just remembering not to tell the guards he knows who we are. They don't believe him for a second. They think he's a psycho who followed a guard, killed him and bunch of other innocent people in a massive fireball. DM announces his lawyer enters, obviously giving us all a chance to decide who would represent him:

    Me – Oh god
    DM – what?
    Me – None of us can do it
    DM – ?
    Me – Well I was seen with him talking to the dead guard, we were both seen around town with Ocelot. All three of us visited the blacksmith to get armour for a raccoon and a cheetah. The only cheetah in the city was seen at the trashed library, accompanied by a druid and an Oracle. Don’t you see, we have all been implicated with him at one point or another. The only one who possibly could do it is swaggy, and he’s both not here and really sucks at roll-play
    DM – ….

    So instead a man in a fancy suit walks in. He clears the room out and starts explaining himself. This is the lieutenant of one of the crime families. They were his men in the alleyway and they were supposed to bring us to him for the deal, but they got greedy. When he heard what happened he decided he would spring us as we might be useful to him. “That was one heck of an explosion, do you think you could do it again, say with a bank vault”.

    Draspher doesn’t get the message, he starts denying it was him, and for the thirds time that night we pale/facepalms at him. When the lieutenant starts making assertions that if it wasn’t him then he might as well let him rot he backpedals, and accepts the deal. The Lieutenant smiles to himself, thanks him for his co-operation and goes out to finalise the paperwork.

    At this exact moment, the wall to the cell explodes. It’s one of Ninja-san’s men who decided to break him out. He picks him up, gets him loose, tells him to run off the concussion and leads him down a corridor before throwing him out the window into the canal. Draspher swims out and uses the rest of his spells constantly casting invisibility on himself to get back to the hotel.

    During this, we are discussing options and panicking, thinking we might have to cut our losses and leave the city. Just as we are in the middle of a complicated plan of packing our stuff and steaking out the room in case he turns up and keeping an eye out in case he was followed in bursts Draspher, shouting about how we won't believe what happened to him. Ocelot panics and shoots him. If he hadn't gotten healed during the fight he would have died. He informs us on what happened as Yurion heals him and the rest of us explain why we fired a gun indoors to the manager.

    To summarise, we went to get proper papers, and now the whole city, including the guard and the mafia, think that Draspher, the ineffective in combat summoner, is a COP KILLING MASS MURDERER (there were a few innocents in the buildings killed) WHO BROKE OUT OF POLICE PRECINT BY BLOWING UP SEVERAL WALLS, AND NOW THE MAFIA WANT TO RECRUTE HIM TO BLOW MORE STUFF UP. IF THEY TWIG THAT THEIR MISTAKEN, THEY WILL PROBABLY KILL US AND SO OUR ONLY OPTION NOW IS TO BECOME THE BIGGEST BADASS CRIMINALS THIS CITY HAS EVER SEEN, AND THE GUY IN CHARGE OF THIS DECEPTION IS DRASPHER, AKA THE GUY WHO CAN'T TELL LIES OR STORIES VERY WELL DESPITE A HIGH BLUFF SKILL.

    So, things are not looking up for us as we ended that session

    Days in City – 1
    Explosions blamed on Draspher – 2
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-07-31 at 01:36 PM.

  4. - Top - End - #4
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 4, part 1 Noises in the night
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    Last time Draspher made his way back to us after becoming the most wanted criminal in the city. we all start making plans. Ocelot and Sim will start making hand grenades out of "wood shaped" firewood and his barrel of gunpowder, and we're planning on robbing the library again before we go to the fight club to get some street cred. ocelot stay up and makes these grenades while we all sleep.

    It's here we find out one of our DM’s nasty habits. He refuses to just let us rest between sessions and will often arrange something bad to happen at the start of every session.

    Ocelot hears a noise and checks the corridor, seeing two figures in black looking in different rooms. we all get ready while I set up some caltrops in the room, some by the door some by the window. After a few minutes when they haven’t come to our room ocelot decides to check again. It's at this point I find out that the caltrops I set up get swept aside by the opening door, making those ones pointless. As ocelot looks out, he sees two girls at the end of the corridor arguing. He shouts out "can I help you with anything?". Both turn to him and one shouts out gleefully "see I knew he was on this floor" and charges towards us.

    He slams the door and we all prepare for combat. It turns out that we don’t have to worry about the caltrops being brushed aside. Why? Because this girl doesn’t open the door, she smashes it so hard that the caltrops get knocked all over the room and the door smacks me across the face before imbedding in the wall. She then shouts out "Kitty!" before reaching for the cheetah. We go to fight this girl while Draspher summons a stone elemental in the doorway and every round after that we keep hearing a "whack" followed by it being tripped and smashing into the floor.

    It's at this point I start panicking. Between sessions I had helped the DM come up with a few characters. They were three girls based on batman villains. There was rose (a green skinned half elf cleric of plant and charm domain who could turn any spell into a charm person or a heal with a monk’s spade as a holy symbol), Isis (a human scout archetype rouge with a whip and sap mastery's so she could hit with the force of an 80 foot drop with 8d6 nonlethal whenever she moved 10’ with a 15’ reach weapon) but the one to worry about was Jess. She was a cross of a barbarian and a martial artist monk (martial artist can be any alignment) and was broken beyond all hell. She could punch hard, tank like crazy and so fast with double fast movement and boots of speed and striding that, combined with her high constitution, could run at around 50mph for way too long. She was so fast she didn’t need a ranged weapon, she’d run up, smash you face in and run back before you reloaded. Combined with scorpion style she could keep kiting us while reducing us to 5’ movement speed and there would be nothing we could do. Any one of these girls would be a challenge for our party, but the DM had set all three of them on us presumably.

    I desperately try to come up with an in character reason why we need to run but luckily Jess demonstrates by escaping a three-way flank to the wall by running up the wall, back flipping over us and chucking a portion of sneezing powder down.

    We start disengaging and grabbing our stuff when Isis finally gets in by leaping over the Stone Elemental. Yurion gives us cover by casting obscuring mist over the two enemies and the elemental moving to engage them. The Cheetah smashes through the window and a round or two later I follow. I then find out that there are six guys in the alleyway waiting for us, surrounding an unconscious cheetah that had knocked itself out from the fall. With a masterful twirl, I summersault out of the window and land silently without alerting any of the guards. Sim follows, flubs her roll and I somehow dodge out of the way still not noticed by the guards, as she lands face first into the floor where I was standing just a second before. Yurion comes up with a plan to cross the gap to the next roof with Ocelot. She takes a running leap and casts a self-targeted levitation spell, granting just enough to cross the 15’ gap between her and the next roof while ocelot just makes the jump across, catching the edge and getting Yurion to help pull him up.

    Draspher comes up with a decent escape plan, turning invisible during this and tries to go out of the front door. He makes it past Jess and Isis. However, when he gets in the corridor his invisibility wears off (probably a purge invisibility spell), sees rose. Calm as anything he tries to walk past her. She just grabs him and rebuffs his assertions they have mistaken him for someone else. She knows he’s the one they were sent for and proceeds to charm person his gullible ass

    While I sneak off, Harley leaps across this gap like its nothing, getting father than Yurion and Ocelot had gotten, cutting off their escape. Seeing no way out, Yurion surrenders and instructs us to do the same while I watch from around the corner, trying to come up with a way to save them.

    Part two a, the social club
    Spoiler
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    Jess just flips from smashing our faces in to "ok, sure". This huge fat half-orc (He was using a double sized marker for this guy. It’s only later we find out he used enlarge person on himself to intimidate people rather than being 10’ wide) then strolls into our room and from my vantage point at the end of the alleyway I can see a crap ton of grunts guarding the front. This guy introduces himself as the lieutenant Draspher had met before, and tells Yurion he had a deal with Draspher. The others agree to go with him to the club to talk business, with Yurion and Draspher go in a steam punk limo while everyone else gets in a cart. Not wanting to split the party, I jump on the back hitch a lift on the outside (I was not going to surrender myself no matter what) and they begin talks.

    The lieutenant explains that he wants our help to break into a vault to secure funds. Yurion nearly blows our cover by going in to hard about wanting to overthrow the system (I face palm so hard at this, I swear I am the only person on the table with IRL face skills to see how dumb that was) but some bluffing from Draspher about how she paid a lot of money for this info and Yurion explaining that she really hates the system and will do anything to help overthrow it.

    it is at this point I fail my strength roll, fall of the cart with a cry of "son of a *whack*" but catch up. The DM has me roll a wisdom roll and I realise I could just hold on the roof without constant checks. Not relevant but it was funny.

    Finally, we make it to the bar we were told about before. I jump of the roof and hide while everyone else is escorted into the club and told to occupy themselves until called for. Everyone goes into the club and they start splitting into separate things. Draspher starts using predisposition to make cards to stack (he really likes that spell and tries to solve any problem with that one first) while ocelot sits in a chair, orders a drink and starts throwing small stones to knock his tower over. Sim goes with Rose to heal his cheetah and Rose proceeds to try and intimidate her with a mixture of healing and aggressive groping (she "layed her hands" on a very sensitive area on sim while staring at her straight in her eyes the entire time) and the others chat with Jess next to a huge cage for wresting fights. Two thieves are fighting to the death as punishment for stealing from the boss, winner gets to live.

    I meanwhile decide to infiltrate the club. I pull out one of my spare outfits and dress as a cleric. When I try to get in I am accosted by the bouncer who demands 10 gold entry fee. Not wanting to start a fight and since I need to get in there despite him fleecing me, I give a sob story about how I need a drink as my girlfriend cheated on me with the head priest. He relates his own girl problems and so he lets me in for 5 (rip-off anyway) and I promise him a drink next time I see him off duty.

    While the others are chatting watching the fight with Jess I make my way to the bar, sit a seat or two away from Draspher and order a drink. During their conversation, they start discussing their group dynamic and jess goes "ow, so she's the brainy one (points at Yurion), he's the sploody guy (points at Draspher) and he's the sneaky one (points at me, still disguise buying a drink)". No one in the bar took notice but that girl is sneakier than she looks.

    sim joins us again and decides she want a fight in the ring. Jess says we can fight Garry, points at a skinny guy, we see a slab of muscle behind him, but it is the skinny guy. They get taken off and get ready, Gary in Speedos and sim in a leotard as per rules. They are introduced as Jess "angel wings" (an attempt to get in contact with other agents using the key phrase) and Garry "bane"

    Then the buffing rounds starts, sim has no buff spells prepared but bane does. So, Draspher greases her and Yurion gives her a blessing and guidance spell. Despite being unprepared she is damn good at grapples and manages to win despite being knocked out once and reduced to 1 HP afterwards, successfully choking out bane and nearly dislocating his arm. Ocelot is thrilled as he had a 10-gold bet on her, with 5/1 odds and promises the bar free drinks until 10am.

    Finally, the others are told to rest up there, there is much to talk about in the morning (it's 3am at this point) so they rest up. I let Draspher know to meet me at the blacksmiths tomorrow.

    Part 2 b, My night on the town
    Spoiler
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    While the fight was going on I got the sitrep off Draspher. I then proceeded to play the part of a depressed drinker. As I leave a little while later some guys try to follow but I ninja vanish away down a dark alleyway, not wanting to break cover with a fight. I make it back to our starting Inn and find tons of city guards. I check the side alleyway, yup more guards so no getting to the room. Just then I feel a dart hit me and I start getting sleepy.

    I wake up tied to a table with a dark figure over me. It's ninja-san, our main contact. He demands to know what's going on, so I inform him about how we've been hired, and how they need cash from the vault for something. He tells us we can't let the heist go off and he can't contact us directly as the main building monitors magic and can shut down magic they don't like, but he can send his apprentice to keep an eye on us and no, he will not itch my nose for me, time for more knock out drugs.

    I wake up in a common room and proceed to itch my nose like crazy to the bewildered looks of those around me. IRL Draspher came back into to room from the toilet, and was very confused about my sounds of joy and satisfaction from itching my nose. I make my way to the blacksmith, successfully negotiate a corner to sleep in while I wait and I get him to make me a masterwork kusarigama based on my own.

    The others wake up and meet with the lieutenant. He tells them the details of the plan, but they don't like just trying to blast their way in, and suggest espionage to sneak in. He tells them it's impossible, the plans are held in the library, and no-one can possibly break in there. Yurion pulls out the books in her bag she stole, and the lieutenant jaw hits the floor. He tells us that if we can get info great, or else we go ahead without it.

    Draspher passes on the message and we all meet up at the blacksmiths and inform each other what has been happening. We then begin to plan our heist of the library.

    Part 3, the heist, phase one
    Spoiler
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    We all dress up as scholarly types and infiltrate the library. The talks were still ongoing and as such we succeed in getting in with the rest of the academics coming back from lunch. We try to split off from the group but a guard follows us. We explain we are going to the toilet before talks begin and he helpfully says he’ll wait for us. We all go to the toilet on the first floor, and Draspher distracts him so I can get to the third floor, the restricted section. Before me is a huge door that I guess is probably magically alarmed, so I’ll need the spellcasters help to fully unlock it.

    Meanwhile, sim calls out that Yurion has fallen and she needs help. When he goes in Draspher turns invisible and heads up the stairs. The guard reluctantly goes in and sim grapples him while ocelot, and Yurion flail about trying to knock him out. They finally succeed despite ocelot at one point punching sim in the face. They decide to tie him up, lock him in the toilet with sims panties in his mouth and his "manhood" pulled out and covered in lipstick.

    They make it to the second floor and I pop my head down, wondering what’s taking them, and tell one of the spellcasters to come up and help me disarm the door. Yurion comes to help me while ocelot and Draspher (went invisible to escape the previous guard) decide now is the time to steal books on engineering and wand making. After much ado, ocelot get the book and meets back up with us, Draspher despite distracting two guards with a summoned dog he is now stuck in the lecture, so he starts coping from his book.

    As ocelot and sim go up the stairs, they get spotted by guards previously distracted coming back up. Sim goes down distracting them while ocelot joins us upstairs, saying she needs the toilet and go to the previous toilet with one of them. The other guard previously tied up has woken up and trying to call for help with a pair of panties in his mouth. Sim tricks the guard in there to see if "that woman" needs help, and woodshapes the door locked behind her, finally joining us upstairs.

    Part four, phase two
    Spoiler
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    The entire top floor has a minor anti-magic field up. Minor spells and certain types of magic work but any active use spells will trigger something. I get the door open and spot several rune traps. I go with Yurion, using detect magic to mark off all the pressure plates I can see until we get to a giant iron door. We desperate try to come up with a way inside. Plan after plan gets thrown out while the DM keeps rolling dice. Finally, I get desperate. I go up to the door and press the tannoy button:

    Guard: Hello, who's this
    Me: city secret guard, open up
    Guard: what's going on?
    me: we believe that some documents have been stolen from here, and we need to investigate without causing a panic
    guard: I don't know, there is no record of you on the timetable
    me: yes, what part of not causing a panic do you not understand
    guard: I don't know, I think I should call this up with my manager
    me: do you really want to be the one to call him, breaking the secrecy of this theft and spreading panic across the city
    (guard opens the door)
    guard: who's the city guard?
    me: I am
    Guard: you don't look like a guard
    me: good eye (flurry of shuriken, three shuriken smashes into him (one missed from four thrown) for 30 damage)

    the others jaw hit the floor at this but we get to work opening the door. We find the document but we come a cropper when we discover the room is full of knockout gas, there was a procedure to vent it but we messed it up by killing the guard and opening the door. We shut it but I'm unconscious, ocelot and sim are drunk and Yurion is woozy. Then the tannoy starts, it's the guard’s downstairs, they want to talk to Garry, he's missed his check-ups. Ocelot crawls over:

    guard: Garry, where are you, you missed your check-ups
    ocelot: riggght heere
    guard: are you ok
    ocelot: yeah, found a botttle of wissssky in ma draw, stonger thn a tought
    guard: do you need help
    ocelot: yeaah, could ya seeend up a replacement, I dun feel to goood
    guard: well we're having some difficulty, jerry's gotten himself locked in the girl’s bathroom, but we'll send someone soon.

    We all try to leave but sim flubs an acrobatics roll to jump over one of the pressure plates and the alarms and the anti-magic field go off.

    Part four, phase three, the escape
    Spoiler
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    ocelot starts rigging up a barrel of gunpowder and a few grenades with Yurion to blow thought the wall. I meanwhile fill up my hand haversack with as many old books as possible. They succeed in making a small hole and we sneak through to a small recess under the roof. I guard the hole while sim and ocelot both keep failing to break the roof tiles to get out. The guards arrive, see the hole start arguing about who goes in first so ocelot shoots through the hole making them panic. Sim during this flubs a roll and gets her foot stuck in the wall. Ocelot finally tries lighting his powder horn and throwing it down the hole as a grenade, but messes up his roll. He misses the hole, bouncing off the top and only my reflex save kicks it through but I take some damage and become slowed down due to my injuries. Sim realise she's a druid so she turns into a gorilla and finally smashes a hole through the shingles. We grapple down the building on a rope, me going last. As go I start to lose grip on the rope, but I just let go. Since I still have cat boots I land perfectly on my feet and take nearly no damage. Just then a guy comes up out of the bushes. Sim the gorilla throws a punch just as he starts saying "an angel.." being punted across the courtyard into some bushes.

    This guy was one of ninja-san guys trying to help. We decide to take him with us, stone shape the wall and escape. after healing up he has amnesia with no idea who he is or where. So, we leave him with a note to give to the guards warning them about the heist and head back to the club

    Supplement Draspher’s day out
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    Draspher has spent this entire time in the lecture hall happily copying from the book he stole. Then the anti-magic field activates, and the guards come in tells everyone to keep calm. With a bit of coaxing Draspher then starts riling up the crowd, talking about why we need to escape now (helped by the explosions going off) and eventually a riot breaks out, with the wizards charging out of the gates. He avoids getting trampled, gets given a blanket and a cup of soup by the concerned nurses before using an invisibility to escape the afterwards


    Days in City – 2
    Explosions blamed on Draspher – 3
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-03 at 04:45 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #5
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 5, part 1, reunions and updates
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    So, last time we just robbed a library and made our way back to the mafia bar. On the way, we notice people are panicky and the city seems busy while the bar is virtually empty aside from the local drunks

    We go into the bar and see Jess. She tells us about how the boss seems mad about something, and is being yelled at by Mr Quinn, so we’ll have to wait for him. We also finally learn his name is Jose’ (spelt with a j, pronounced with a h). We all find this hilarious and can no-longer take him seriously. Draspher at this point finally makes it back to us, still holding the soup that he got from the medical tent. Ocelot immediately panics and wastes one of his only shots left trying to shoot him. He misses him but this is enough to get Jose’ to come down. Seeing Draspher, he immediately lays into him about what the hell he thinks he’s doing blowing up the library, and is completely nonplussed when he finds out he escaped the police by walking out the front door (apparently it is common that no-one thinks to stop people doing this according to Draspher)

    He is pretty ticked with us thought and starts explaining that thanks to this the guard are panicking and are thinking of calling in the city guard to declare martial law. This is until he finds out we succeeded in stealing the plans, and a crud ton of restricted section books.

    We then decide to discuss what we have available for the heist now that we can plan it better. He explains that aside from Jess, Rose and Isis we are the most competent guys that work for him. He also explains that thanks to the two massive explosions, all gunpowder in the city HAS NOW BEEN OUTLAWED. All gunpowder has been ceased and it is illegal to make or sell it until further notice. This is especially bad since Ocelot used up all but two shots of his powder to enable us to escape.

    He is also terrified by Drasphers insistence he needs white bedsheets (worried that he has hired a second unstable psychopath alongside Jess). We also find out that the guard I bribed to get in the other night has quit and retired, and I comment I should buy him a drink when he explains about his girl just having left him.

    We find out that the only places with black powder are the police station (he also does not appreciate my contribution of asking if he wants us to knock over the police station as I have a set of keys (He also wants to know where I got them from later)) the local guild and the warehouses they’ve set up to mass store it.

    So, we all decide to get some sleep and try and steal some powder tomorrow.

    Part two, the wakeup call
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    We all go to bed. Draspher stays up for the first part and starts making copies of the plans, I swap with him to keep watch the rest of the night.

    Early morning, we wake up to Jess smashing open the door and telling us to hide (as a side not it looks like the doors have been reinforced to prevent them flying off again). She reveals a trapdoor under the rug and we hide in a far too small a space for that many people while Jose’ and four guards come in and start combing the room. It is at this point we realise no-one took their stuff down with them, and there are THREE SETS OF PLANS FOR THE CITY BANK VAULT, AND A HANDY HAVERSACK FULL OF STOLEN BOOKS UP THERE. We have no choice but to rush the guards, knocking three out and the fourth surrenders. Jose’ can’t understand why we did that until we explain as we tidy the room, tie up and gag the guards and hide them along with myself, Draspher and jess and all our gear in the trapdoor. When the rest of the guards turn up, Ocelot somehow convinces them that the guards never came in, and they eventually leave.

    We open the trap door and Jess literally starts tossing them out while we discuss what to do with them. Several plans are thrown out (including our offer to dispose of them and the bodies, which causes our GM to facepalm at our mostly good group agreeing to do this) and we decide to just strip them and leave them to the girls to interrogate.

    Part three, we split the party (why did we split the party)
    Spoiler
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    Ocelot and I go off to scope out the barn, then come back at night with the others. We can’t see much, but two heavy armed guards patrol once around it, swap with two inside, on constant repeat.

    We ultimately decide the best option is just to have me and Ocelot disguise ourselves with the guard uniforms, have Draspher use invisibility on us, sneak in and hide in a corner while sim sneaks in as a rat, then when she steals some barrels in Ocelots bag of holding, change back and we all leave. As the others have no stealth or combat skills, they should hang far away just in case. This will turn out to be a terrible idea.

    We send sim, who has turned into a rat, inside and plan to use tongues to get intel from her rat form afterwards. There is a bench where the two other guards sit, a wizard behind him, two more guards patrolling the small walkway that is the second floor along with a second wizard. As she leaves to tell us, the two patrolling guards decide to shoot the large rat, and are surprised at how resilient it is.

    Just as Ocelot and I get to the door the DM has us role a reflex. It turns out there is a magic field on the archway. As a ninja, I don’t have trap-finding so I can’t deal with magic traps, and sim has read magic instead of detect magic and NO RANKS IN SPELLCRAFT for some reason.

    Everyone else in the group at this point is convinced that it is an instant kill spell that can only be walked through with a crystal the guards keep swapping. Ocelot wants to try and pick pocket it with me, but I decide that rummaging around two heavily armed guards hoping they don't notice me and yell bringing a battalion of armed city guards, especially if I don't know what pocket it is even in is a terrible idea.

    We run back and eventually come up with a plan to have Draspher re-apply the invisibility, and have Yurion levitate us to the first story window. We three (Jaune, Ocelot and sim the rat) get in but the DM makes it clear, our Invisibility is running out, we only have a few rounds left. Struck for ideas we decide to take out a guard each and keep the rest occupied while Sim gets to stealing then run. So, Ocelot lines up a shot with a borrowed heavy crossbow on the first wizard, I jump down and prepare to shank the second wizard (both of us deciding we can’t stealth it in such a small area and we might as well take out the tricky yet guys first. Also, I thought that the spell negation stuff the DM has been using will be done by them)

    Part 4, Things go bad
    Spoiler
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    Ocelot shoots, but messes up the shot hitting him in the shoulder instead. I successfully kill my wizard in one surprise round, but everyone now is looking at us. One guard shoots me for 11 damage, and since I forgot to ask for healing before, I decide to turn invisible and move to a better position. The second wizard runs from Ocelot and attempts suggestion while jumping a small wall, but fails both while the guard on that side shoots at Ocelot, breaks his crossbow and draws his sword. Sim changes back behind cover (still unnoticed) and decides to use a call lightning spell IN A BARN LINED WITH BARRELS OF GUNPOWDER. The DM rolls a D100 every time she uses the spell, on a 95-100 stray powder on the floor will ignite and kill us all. After one rolls in the 90’s she changes her mind about using the spell. Ocelot drops his crossbow, forgetting when he chose to use it that it takes a full round action to reload, and uses his last shot on the guard WHILE STANDING ON A BARREL OF GUNPOWDER so DM rolls for him. D100 succeeds but he rolls a 1, wasting his last bullet.

    The big problem came when one of the guards smashes a crystal on the table, activating the spell negation effect. Although the call lightning still works, my invisibility instantly dissipates and I am left exposed. I realise that I can’t fight in the armour I am using to pretend to be a guard and without shadow clones they will rip me to shreds. The only help I have is the two outside, who decide they don’t want to get involved as they suck in combat anyway, sim on the floor above me, and Ocelot on the floor above me with no ranged weapon and only a dagger pistol to melee with. What’s more the rest of the guards will be coming soon from the farmhouse and I have very little health left after two days of heists without remembering to ask for healing. Draspher does come to try and help, sending an earth elemental to assist, but as the two who were patrolling come in to flank me, I shout out that it’s a bust and run as fast as I can past them and out the door, hoping the others find a way out as there was nothing I could do. Things look bad. Things are so bad, the DM has his head in both hands, thinking we’ve managed to TPW ourselves, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

    Part 5, The Turn around
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    From the very start, Draspher has been having issues. Our first scenario turned into a major length battle and he had to stick to healing with a wand of cure light wounds until the last battle. Even then, his summons has a hard time hitting most things, and he often comes up with questionable plans. Combined with the incredible bad luck and magic ability to get into bad situations has lead him to become the most wanted criminal in the city without a single offensive spell. We even had to dissuade him from a plan involving floating a while bedsheet with mage hand while invisible, then summoning a fire elemental inside the cloth as a distraction in this heist (as bedsheet ghosts do nothing in a setting with real ghosts) and sending a fire elemental inside the building with gunpowder. So, when he announces he has a plan to save us, we all think he’s full of crud.

    Draspher casts silent image on the side of the building and through the window next to sim of a huge fire. He then charges into the building screaming “I’ve set the barn on fire, I’m going to blow you all up just like AT THE LIBRARY”. Since it was Ocelot who made that explosion, sim and Ocelot realise the ruse, but the rest of the guard don’t. The guards who were charging to support stop, and tell the one guy who tries to convince them it’s fake that he can go first. Only a single guard and the surviving wizard realise the deception, and the rest all flee as fast as they can. Ocelot goes after the wizard; the earth elemental takes on the last guard and sim steals as many powder kegs as that bag of holding will take. The wizard jumps over the guard rail, lands in a heap and flees to the back of the barn, Ocelot pursuing. He opens a door way with a spell and runs. Just as Ocelot is shouting to sim there is another way out now, he starts preparing a spell.

    Part 6, Fireworks
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    Ocelot realise what’s happening and shouts a warning to sim as he runs for all he’s worth out the front door. After successfully stealing nine barrels of black powder, sim jumps down and runs, shouting at the other guards that their wizard is about to blow the place up, they need to run. They just make it to the edge of the blast radius when the spell completes, and most of the gunpowder from the city goes up. And that last guard, despite being abandoned, despite his sword breaking on the elemental and despite the warnings of his attackers, never abandons his post even as the earth elemental starts throwing barrels at him (like good old DK) and is obliterated instantly. Most of the other guards were just in range and they suffered for it, many losing limbs or taking huge damage. Draspher and Yurion are still running when they hear a ginormous explosion Yurion status spell goes off, and she turns back to help.

    As for Ocelot and Sim. Ocelot was further away and with more health so he took less damage, while sim manages to hang on with just 2 health left. Both are knocked senseless until Yurion and Draspher turn up, and they get healed while they run back to base. As for me, I never stopped running from before. Some (particularly Ocelots player) say it was cowardice but there is a reason my back-story involves surviving so many team wipes.

    Afterwards our DM told us why he had us rolling wisdom rolls at various points. Firstly, the spell on the door was an alarm spell, and Ocelot and I nearly triggered it and brought down the entirety of the city guard on us. Secondly, while we were being lifted to the second floor, no-one thought to have Yurion cast detect magic.

    last time, we made our biggest explosion yet, I'm running off back into the city while the others drag their collective beaten asses back to down

    Days in City – 3
    Explosions blamed on Draspher – 4
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-03 at 04:47 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #6
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 6, part 1a, the journey back, Jaune's tale
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    I made my way into town. Everyone has been woken up and is milling about. I sneak into an ally to change from the guard’s uniform. One close call I get changed, make my way to an inn for the night. I "explain" how I got kicked out as the place I was staying at was next to the blast, so I need a place to sleep. I get a seat in the common room, wake up early and head back to the bar. On the way, I see wanted posters for me and ocelot in our guard uniforms and Draspher in his genuine appearance. I make my way back with little or no problems.

    so, boring for me, but nice and safe. Looks like it pays to run when things go bad.

    Part 1b, The journey back, the rest of the crew part one – failings and failures
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    Since they were still fairly bloodied from the whole exploding barn thing, they decide to head north away from the city before heading in through another entrance. Unfortunately, they run into a whole battalion of guards. It turns out they had been called in and were marching towards the city entrance they were heading too. When they saw the massive explosion, they diverted to help.

    They try to hide in a nearby field. Ocelot and Sim successfully hide, while Draspher and Yurion IMMEDIATELY fall over each other and get spotted. They leave two guards behind to take them back to the barracks while the rest march on.

    Ocelot and Sim decide to do all they can to save their comrades. Using their years of experience with stealth and espionage, Sim sneaks up and get spotted immediately. Using skills and tactics developed by foxhound, attempts to crawl on his belly behind Sim to sneak closer, gets spotted immediately. The other guard panics at more people being here starts smacking the hell out of Draspher to knock him out. He tries summoning a silent image of a huge troll to scare them off. Neither guard believes it for a second. Yurion decides she’s LITERALLY going to sit down and watch all this happen.

    Now the previously mentioned battalion are still close by, any loud noise like a gunshot or the guards shouting could bring all of them back darn quick. So, they need to take these guys out quickly and quietly, so ocelots guns are right out (besides he hasn’t had a chance to get a powder horn ready yet). It also does not help the two best fighters are bloodied near death while the guards are still at full health. Sim decides to fight the guard, but they both end up flailing ineffectually. Draspher tries to bluff the guard by asking “why are you hitting me?”. It does nothing. Yurion is still sitting on the grass watching Draspher get beaten up. Finally, Ocelot decides now is the time for dramatic action, and runs like a small child. Draspher, glad to finally have a plan, casts grease on the guard hitting him and runs as well. Yurion decides now is a decent time to contribute and casts obscuring mist over the guard and the grease before running herself. Sim decides to cast entangle, and is shocked at just how far the radius is, trapping both guards and running freely over the difficult terrain.

    Not going to lie, this entire time I was thinking that they had found a way to team wipe on two basic grunts, and that in character I would have to explain to the guild master how I had survived yet another team wipe.

    (side note, HAHAHAHA Ocelot kept giving me crap for bailing from six guards with 30 on the way in a barn full of gunpowder, next session he runs from two)

    Part 1b, part 2 – trespassing and infiltration
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    They successfully run and decide between them that they are not making it back to the city tonight. They also turn down Draspher’s suggestions of crossing essentially the river Thames on the back of a six round summoned dolphin, or the same with a raft pulled by said dolphins. So, they all find a barn in a nearby orchard to sleep in after healing up. When they wake up, Draspher has a crossbow shoved in his face (DM rolled randomly for it, he’s just that unlucky) and the old farmer angrily demanding why they’re in his barn. One quick story about coming from afar to town and needing a place to sleep, and a few silver pieces, they have got themselves a nice homemade breakfast. He even offers them a ride into town on the back of his cart, with Sim riding shotgun.

    As they approach Sim’s obscene perception score spots the wanted posters and the checkpoint coming up. A quick bit of planning later and Ocelot and Draspher go invisible when they arrive. Sim then starts chatting to the guard as they inspect the wagon, finding only one passenger (Yurion, who does not have a wanted poster yet) and he start relating about how “close they came to catching them, he was THIS close to them last night but they got away from him and…...” he suddenly starts looking at Sim in a scrutinizing way. Turns out this was the guard who was smacking Draspher, so he sorts of recognises her but not enough just yet. They just about manage to fill out paperwork and get into the city, carefully avoiding the farmers questions about weren’t their more of us, what happened to them.

    They start making their way down to the bar, keeping to alleyways to avoid being spotted, but find their way blocked by another checkpoint. They decide the only way is down, back in the sewers, but they must wade through “the murky depths” to get out. They then find themselves close to where the first explosion was, with several builders nearby. After several overly-complicated plans are suggested to distract them, OOC I point out that this world should be fairly used to hiring groups of adventurers to deal with any little problem, like say an overpopulation of giant rats, so they just pop out, turn to the builders and say, “giant rats, am I right?”. After all this they finally make their way back to the bar where I have been happily waiting since early morning, I got through town before the checkpoints were installed.

    So finally, we were all back together AND we could begin planning the heist.

    Part 2, The big Plan
    Spoiler
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    The building consists of four stories, two above ground, two below.

    *First Floor – offices and management
    *Ground floor – Reception, meeting rooms, elevators/stairs to basement one
    *Basement one – Low security, several store rooms with safe deposit boxes inside for basic level security. In the centre of the room there are areas filled with Gems, Gold, Silver and Copper Pieces, but they are all magically marked and traceable. At the back is the elevator to Basement two, which can only be operated by guard stations on both floors simultaneously
    *Basement Two – several maximum-security deposit box rooms line the walls and in the centre, is all the gold bullion they keep. There is also a printing press for making coins that also mark them with a magic seal, guaranteeing their authenticity.

    Our objective was the Bullion on basement two, with a bonus for getting our hands on enough of the machines to start printing out the cash. Mr Quinn would send his three girls with us, but he could not be implicated in anything illegal. He had some basic supplies, but only a bag of holding version 4 for storing the loot in, no magic items. The girls:

    *jess – martial artist/barbarian, immature, crazy but nearly unstoppable in a fight
    *Isis – rogue, good at disabling traps and incredibly nasty with a whip
    *rose – cleric, great at charm and healing spells

    Ocelot finally had a chance to inspect the Crystals he stole from the barn. They could activate an anti-magic field when knocked, but could also change into four colours:

    *white – acts as a light spell
    *gold – allows the user to activate spells in an anti-magic field
    *blue – acts as a passkey for certain alarm spells, but only the ones they are attuned to
    *red – the DM forgot, he may remember at some point

    Without wasting time FOREVER trying to map everything out over a period of months IRL, we decided on a basic plan. Isis, rose, Yurion and Draspher would pose as a group of wizards. Jaune, Ocelot, Jess and Sim would be their body guards. The “wizards” would want to deposit a large collection of rare and valuable tomes (the books I stole from the library) into the maximum-security vault. Once down there, we would find a way to get some members away from the main group to loot what they could, then leave.

    (By this point we had turned down many plans from Draspher including getting his hands on a glitter disco ball rock to mage hand as a distraction, getting his hands on a wizard with corpse shape to make a body look like his then set up an over the top scene to make it look like a guard had died while killing him to help relieve city tension and finally blowing up a nearby building to draw the guards away from the bank for a short time while they dealt with it. I think a large part of his plans involved somehow making everyone think he was dead so his own reputation would be restored)

    Part 3, The heist, part 1 – getting in
    Spoiler
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    We all dress the part, wear proper disguises to conceal our identity’s, go through the sewers to avoid the checkpoint (we have a better way this time that does not require going though sewage water) and make our way there. We notice two large statues either side that a quick spellcheck conforms are stone golems, so we really need to get this right without starting a fight. We are quickly greeted and Draspher does well at playing the part. We are sent to a meeting room, complete with a scrying crystal security camera, and jess quickly gets bored. Draspher finds a book to give her to read about myths and legends (why it was in the meeting room I have no idea), she immediately announces that she can’t read, shrugs and starts absentmindedly tearing pages out. We are met by a gnome bank teller, and we begin are tale of coming to deposit rare magical books. We ask for a tour, to see the service we are paying for before buying, and so he takes us to the first security check point. Unfortunately, we know just how heavy the security will come down on us so we hand over all our weapons and equipment.

    Part 4, The heist, part two – stupid midgets
    Spoiler
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    The gnome takes us downstairs and after getting thought the first security door maned by a dwarf he takes us to a small room to check what we are depositing. I hint at rose now would be a good time to do her stuff (charm him), but she either didn’t understand or didn’t care.

    A bit of background to understand what is about to happen. I stole these books from the forbidden section of the library we had robbed previously. Our DM was very keen to punish me for this and so had lined these books with various traps, explosive runes, so that the first time I tried to read my spoils he’d get me. I never read them, why would I, I’m a ninja not a wizard. Once he had to stop Yurion from reading them off hand when he asked us what we were doing before we went to sleep so he could keep the trap set for me.

    The gnome opens the book and the first page is a giant glowing rune. Thanks to a combination of reflex saves and high health, we all survive. The gnome however has now been splattered all over the room and us. I proceeded to start yelling at rose why didn’t she charm him when I said to, a small argument back and forth breaks out between us until I get her to channel energy to heal us after the blast. Draspher starts using magic to clean us and the room.

    Ocelot goes to get someone to help/replace our tour guide. He finds the dwarf and tries to explain that our guide hurt himself because he didn’t listen to us, could he go get the manager so we can complain. The dwarf is confused and doesn’t know what to do until he suddenly starts looking dopey, rose has followed and charmed him so he couldn’t mess things up for us. We tell him to go find us a new bank teller to take us to basement two.

    While we wait a second gnome comes with a rich woman to use the room. We bluff him, telling him about the accident, the gnome is injured, we have our cleric looking after him and we sent someone for the manager. The dwarf comes back. He got confused and has no idea what he was doing. Rose claims dwarfs are resistant to her spells a little more than others, so we lure the other gnome back and tell him to take us to the second elevator. We get to the lift, but the gnome is pretty out of it. We try bluffing that thanks to his incompetence he got mind scrambled, and that it is lucky we disabled that rune of insanity quickly or he’d be trying to eat people. Still he can’t provide the word of the day but the guard calls the manger. We are all prepared for things to go bad here but then the manager comes UP from the basement two level. He’s another gnome but he doesn’t dress like a bank manager, he dresses like a farmer.

    Part 5, The heist, part three – deeper depths
    Spoiler
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    There is something immediately suspicious about this guy. He clearly knows we’re up to something, but he takes us down with him, heck he even sends everyone down their back up, he needs the room for a bit. He then casts a spell we identify as an anti-scrying spell before telling us we can drop the act, he knows why we’re here but he’s surprised that we’re such a mixed sort doing this. Draspher is a good guy (he is ecstatic some has noticed he’s the only good aligned party member), while that one (jess) particularly nasty. I challenge him “if you know so much about why we’re here, why don’t you show us your hand first, why aren’t you just turning us in”. First, he casts a sleep spell, leaving only Draspher (left alone since he detects he’s actually an alright guy), Isis, Yurion and ocelot awake. Then he casts another spell. Ocelot goes in for a punch, not liking this guy’s moves, but he brushes it aside.

    DM – “he starts changing, growing scales”
    Ocelot – (in head) “oh crud, oh crud, oh crud”
    DM – “they are copper coloured”
    Ocelot – (in head) “oh thank god”

    YEP, THE BANK MANAGER IS A COPPER DRAGON. WE ARE SCREWED IF WE TRY TO FIGHT HIM. Ocelot is crapping himself, Isis is so far out of her depth she can’t comprehend it, Yurion is unphased and Draspher couldn’t care, he’s too enthralled by the thought of a dragon owning a bank/in love with this hunk of fire breathing lizard to care. Luckily as a Copper dragon he’s not evil so he won’t just kill us out of hand. It’s at this point that Yurion and Draspher remember that they can both speak draconic, so they explain we can’t talk in front of the girls. So, he wakes up our group (not the girls) and asks us to get out of the way, he can deal with Isis he just needs a line of sight. Sure enough, he knocks her out and we explain everything. It turns out he’s had experience with our guild (the guild of the white lotus, this is the first time any of us had heard it named) but he knows our guild master. Turns out, he’s also a dragon, what you thought one small guild master would be consulted about a coup like this?

    He introduces himself properly as Bartholomew (we call him Barty, he likes it). He tells us he won’t directly help us, but we amuse him so he will help us with our mission. He says that he will hold the girls for now (something about how they are not such bad sorts, he knows them and doesn’t want to just kill them. I say it’s because the DM and I spent too long making their sheets and characters to just kill them) although he refuses to let me take their equipment (the DM knows I know they have about 30K of magic stuff EACH and he refuses to let me exploit this) and he will call some of his boys to makes some new printing plates (we had between us decided to steal this part, as that’s all the mafia needed to start making magically tagged gold pieces for racketing the gold) with a different seal so the gold could easily be tracked rather than impossible to track, and a small portion of the gold. The problem is he needs to make a show of our escape, make it look convincing. “Tell me, how do you feel about explosions?”

    That’s where we ended that session. Side note, Draspher rolled about six 20’s that didn’t count for one reason or another (skill checks, joke rolls, rolls he didn’t need to make) but he kept rolling low or 1’s constantly throughout the game.

    Days in City – 5
    Explosions blamed on Draspher – 4/5 (we blew up the gnome but we haven’t gotten round to blaming Draspher for it yet)
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-03 at 04:49 PM.

  7. - Top - End - #7
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 7, part 1, unsubtle stealth tactics
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    We decide that I (Jaune), Ocelot and Draspher should change out of the guard uniforms. We need to put on a show and since we’re wanted by the city this is our best way of doing so. Since the others are not know to the city yet, we can use them as “hostages” with the possibility of them escaping separate to us if need be. Barty tells us he is willing to do an explosion for us in the anti-magic field for flavour so long as it is in such a way that no-one gets hurt. After much discussion, it is agreed that Draspher will speak in draconic while Barty watches us over the scrying sphere security system telling to explain where he wants it followed by a SHAZAM. As the sneakiest member, I take the bag of holding with the gold and the printing plates inside.

    We ride the lift up, with sim and Yurion tied up in rope as our “hostages” and get to the guard operating the lift security doors. Draspher forgot the plan in the two minutes going up the lift, so goes completely against the plan blurts out something about us being the police, we found out that these two were trying to rob the place and we are arresting them. I attempt to assist the bluff by telling the that we as the “secret police”. Unfortunately, due to a low roll on my part, the guard is a bit incredulous about the “secret police” part, and there is talk on both sides about calling the manager. The DM has to point out that Barty said he won’t help us, so I take the problem in hand. I reach through the view hole, grab the gnome by his hair and smash his face into the table. Ocelot jumps through and proceeds to let us out.

    We start to sneak out and along the corridor. Ocelot peaks around the corner and sees a gnome, a dwarf and a human walking along chatting (insert bar joke here). As we start panicking the DM realises he forgot to tell us that Barty told us that we had to do this NON LETHALY. Ocelot sees the Gnome go into one of the vaults while the other two starts walking this way. We all dash silently for the guard room, but Ocelot and Sim get spotted. Carefully weighing up his options, Ocelot calmly and thoughtfully fires the entangling shot he had prepared at the two, sticking them to the wall while Sim charges over and slams her hand over their mouths, just succeeding in not getting her own hand trapped to them in the sticky goo. Unfortunately, the Dwarf starts screaming so Ocelot charges over and knees him in the head, again only just succeeding in not sticking himself to the wall as well

    The rest of us quickly start moving down the corridor, I shout out a “sorry, my fault I saw a rat” to try and explain the noise. The Gnome from before sticks his head out to see what is going on. Draspher helpfully goes up and asks for some help, there has been an accident. The gnomes face pales as he shouts out “IT’S THE MAD BOMBER!”

    Part 2, screw subtlety
    Spoiler
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    To help Draspher player out (this campaign is his first) I pass him a note saying, “silent image some flames”. What I meant was to make a fireball or flames in his hand to scare and intimidate the guy, maybe grab him as an extra hostage. Instead, he makes a wall of flames along the back of the vault while telling him “you might want to run before you burn, heheheheh”. This vault was full of about 8 bank workers, who all panic upon seeing the fire and the mad bomber, and start running out as fast as they can, all screaming at the top of their lungs.

    I spot an opportunity and reverse roles with Draspher relative to the library. I run with the crowd, shouting out “run, run for your lives, the mad bomber is here!”, hoping to start a panic to help us get past the guards. The others catch on quickly, running with me while we leave Draspher at the back to create atmosphere. Except for Yurion, she was getting way to into the “hostage” thing and was only running with us because of Stockholm syndrome.

    The next part is going to get complicated as we are all taking our turns in order while the events are happening simultaneously. I will label each section 1. For me, 2. For sim, 3. For Ocelot, 4. For Yurion, 5. For Draspher.

    The anti-magic field goes up due to the fire alarm, and everyone starts evacuating the building in a calm and orderly manner.

    1.2.3.4. We make our way past the guards storming towards Draspher with the crowd while I am trying to get everyone panicking. The rest of the guards are keeping calm everyone calm and orderly despite my efforts and start giving me the evil eye. Unfortunately, as the guards are giving me the evil eye, one of them realises he might recognize me.

    5. Draspher really gets into the swing of things, cackling like a madman and using draconic to communicate with barty to set off an explosion in the freshly emptied vault to intimidate the hell out of the guards in his path while trying to piss himself in fear both in and out of character. Say what you will about his performance so far, he has finally come into his own. He may not be a planner, no fighter and his own schemes may be crap, but my unholy gods, does he play psychopath well.

    1. Using this moment of distraction, I shout out “I told you, he’ll kill us all now run” and charge up the stairs after everyone else

    5. The initial guards have all fled, leaving four guards in the hall and another 4 past the security gate leading people up the stairs. He gets barty to set off another blast behind him and the guards, clearly terrified, start shuffling back

    3. I pass Ocelot a note and he gets the message, dropping a smoke bomb right at Draspher to help keep up the illusion of fire magic while he’s running up the stairs

    5. Although a little shocked, he realises what’s going on and comes out of the smoke slowly, cackling like a madman

    Part 3, Et tu Ocelot

    1. As I get to the top of the stairs I realise that the elevator next to me leads downstairs and to the first floor, meaning that I could retrieve Draspher, make our way to the roof/first story window and escape that way (this was the closest we had to an escape plan). Barring that, the room next to me leads straight to the wall with only a much thinner wall connecting blocking the stairs from it directly. I attempt to grab Ocelot and Yurion to help me as they have great knowledge engineering checks to get the lift working, and Ocelot has 8 barrels of gunpowder to blast open the wall. Ocelot, thanks to a combination of having his own plan, receiving information due to having a much higher perception and his own sense of “no meta gaming” runs off regardless, refusing to tell any of us what he has realised due to note passing. Yurion, thanks to her hands-off approach to any kind of combat encounter and the strange obsession she has with being tied up just follows Ocelot, her “captor”. This leaves me with just sim to help me, and Draspher downstairs with a large group of heavily armed guards, both of whom have their spells blocked by the anti-magic field

    2. Sim, having heard me attempts to follow me into the room. Unfortunately, there is still one guard keeping everyone going, and he helpfully tells her “that the wrong way miss, exit is that way”. So, she fakes tripping to avoid leaving and he goes to help her up, not wanting her to be trampled to death by the gnomes still running out

    5. Conferring with Barty again, Draspher gets the guard room door to slam, finally breaking the will of the guards and sending them running up the stairs. He attempts to negotiate a series of small, firecracker explosions and one to break a wall open, but he hears a magical whispering in his ear. Barty has had enough, no more explosions he was only going to offer one, he’s not wrecking his own bank for him, he’s on his own now. Extremely worried, he makes his way up the stairs

    3.4. Ocelot and Yurion have been making their way out, Yurion finally ditching the rope bondage. As they get to the main hall, they see something they refuse to tell the rest of the group, but Ocelot drags his top-hat (he originally thought he had a Stetson, but the figure he bought to represent himself had a top hat so he went with that) to disguise himself further and begin to make their way out (coincidentally, this is more proof of drasphers theory that the best way out of a building when in trouble is the front door)

    2.5. Draspher makes his way up the stairs after the last of the people and comes across the guard helping Sim up. The guard nobly, but still terrified, buts himself between the woman and the madman. As thanks, Sim tries to knock him out, but gets knocked by one of the gnomes running away and ends up falling on top of him.

    1. I realise the room I’m in is a filing room, and it goes up to the first floor. I examine the room, and after a while chatting with the DM realise that my only useful skill is perception to find a weakness in the wall. I find that although I can’t break out the building from here, I can manoeuvre one of the filing cabinets to smack into the first story wall to make a hole to get out. I climb the ladder and try to move it, but due to being a ninja I have very poor strength and keep failing. I shout down what the hell’s taking them so long, and when sim sees Draspher grab him and get in here

    5. Draspher kicks the guard in the head, only just succeeds in not hurting his foot, and tells the guard he should run now. He makes his way into the room I’m in, but can’t do much to help me

    3.4. Ocelot and Yurion finally make their way outside, and it is revealed what they know. The army has been called in and a group of them have come inside to storm the place. Meanwhile around thirty of them have lined up outside in firing lines, all aimed at the door. Ocelot, following through his plan from before, goes with the others then runs down a side alleyway, offing an excuse about how “he doesn’t want to die” and the guards decide it’s not worth following him. Yurion spots something and goes the exact opposite way, bluffing her way past by pretending to be, essentially, autistic. Ocelot announces he’s going to go through the side streets until he gets to behind the guards, but that will take a few turns

    2. Sim, hearing the march of boots, knocks out the guard (giving him a kiss on the cheek for his bravery and kindness) and charges into the room, slamming it shut before the guards come along. We wait till they have gone downstairs and with sim’s help, I finally get the wall smashed so we can get up to the first floor, which Draspher and I immediately charge through while sim gets her breath back

    1.5. I immediately ask are there any roof access points. The DM takes five minutes to reboot (he had not thought of those at all when planning the building) before deciding no, that is too much of a security hazard, no access. The only windows are the ones in the manager’s office overlooking the ground floor reception and the large ones in the meeting rooms facing the courtyard. Draspher and I check the manager’s office and we check for the anti-magic field generator. The field is weaker here so with Draspher detect magic we find the orb that controls the field and disables it. Sim joins us and I have a plan

    3. Ocelot has made his way to an alleyway behind the guards and his plan is finally revealed. He’s going to take a fuse, attach it to one of his barrels and use it as a donkey Kong style explosive. Along the way he notices the wizard from the barn, THE ONE WHO TIRED TO BLOW IT UP WITH HIMSELF AND SIM INSIDE. He makes him his immediate target

    1.2.5. The first part of our plan is to have sim summon a creature in the courtyard to distract the guards while she turns into a rat and hides in Draspher cloak. Meanwhile Draspher casts invisibility on both himself and me

    Part 4, an explosive climax
    Spoiler
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    Here is what happened next.

    The wizard realises that the anti-magic field is down and alerts the guards. Suddenly a Giant Centipede appears in the courtyard, and the first line of soldiers open fire, blasting it to bits. The second line get into position as the first line are reloading when an almighty explosion goes off behind them. Although Ocelots aim was a little off and the wizard simply blocks the fire blast with his hands, preventing his own injury, the distraction works. The shockwave is such that all the windows are blown out and Yurion, on a nearby roof, loses balance and starts falling down the side. At the last second, she is saved by none other than NINJA SAN! She had spotted someone on the roof and realised it must be him, hence why she went that way. He turns to her and gives the passphrase “the angels wings are brightest in twilight”. I immediately exclaim, OOC, “ow that’s what it was”. It quickly comes to light none of us had written it down and had completely forgotten what the phrase was. The DM was ticked at this, saying he should have just said anything and we would have believed him.

    Getting back on track, ninja san is not too impressed by all this and demands to know what’s going on. While this is happening, Draspher and I recover from the glass shards and I get him on my back. I jump out of the window, trusting my Cat Boots to cushion my fall but unfortunately, I failed to prepare properly for Draspher’s weight on my back, and failing a strength check I drop him half way through my jump, him landing and cracking his knees on the floor. A quick healing from sim the rat and we start running. Ocelot ran as soon as he had thrown the bomb (still seeing the wizard block the spell) and so we had all made it out without a single fatality this time.

    (during all of this, I point out that the guards don’t know that ocelot had done this, all they know is the anti-magic field went down, a giant centipede appeared and there was a huge explosion. After today, there is no possible way Draspher will ever redeem his name)

    Part 5, searching and explanations
    Spoiler
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    4. Ninja san is understandably ticked at us. We went completely dark, the guy he sent to find us ended up unable to remember anything for three days and now the bank has been raided. Yurion gets him up to speed and he tells us that circumstances have changed, we need to get out now so he’s pulling us out. Jose’ (the lieutenant) has been killed and the guard have seized his businesses. Yurion tells him that’s where we are all probably heading to and ninja san sends his men off to collect us, with Yurion warning him we will probably attack on sight as we are running.

    1. Ninja san and Yurion both catch up to me, and aside from some funny looks from the whole group when I say, “ow no, not again, can I please keep my pants on this time” I join them

    3. Ocelot is confronted by one of ninja san’s agents. When asked to “halt friend” he attempts to shoot the agent. He misses and the agent is completely unflinching about his. As he goes to reload he finally gets the message and come with him

    2.5. At some point while we were running, Draspher and I have both ended up losing each other. Draspher has been burning his invisibility’s and with only one left has made it to the sewer without being spotted by the guards or by ninja san. They make it all the way back to base when they discover that it has been overrun with guards. They luckily find their respective animal companions and decide to try and find somewhere else to wait. After shooting down Draspher suggestion of going to the first building he exploded they go to the first hotel. They find a single city guard and what looks like a guild member standing guard. They eventually decide to hang around on the roof. Draspher comes up with the cunning plan of drawing angel wings on one side of the roof and disguising himself as to be unnoticed. Eventually one of the agents happens to come across Sim sitting next to a poorly disguise sorcerer wearing a cloak wrapped around him with soot smeared across his face, gives them the code phrase and brings them in

    We all finally meet up and discuss the situation. After hearing our explanation (during this Draspher is IC and OOC crying in the fetal position in the corner about how badly his reputation has turned, and how he’s really a good guy, none of it was his fault) Ninja San explains what’s going on. Hose’ is dead, he was killed by Mr Quinn as he was getting too noticeable. His operations have been seized but the coup is still ongoing. The fact that we were successful means that we have an in with them. The guild master will cover the gold himself and ninja san will return the gold we took (Draspher for a long time had made his intentions know of giving his share back to barty, undermining the DM’s attempt to get us back on a proper gold level after starting us at half gold, this was literally the only way he would allow himself to keep it) and we would deliver this and the marked printing plates to them in the capital. We couldn’t go immediately, we would have to wait a few weeks and then go in when their getting desperate. Although we couldn’t leave the safe house, we could buy stuff through his contacts. You know what that means….



    Days in City – 5
    Explosions blamed on Draspher – 7, and the last three had a bunch of witnesses so his reputation is ruined forever
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-03 at 04:50 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #8
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Interview tape 1165234:

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    1# - ok, let’s begin
    2# - you know this is complete bull...
    1# - you know why your here because
    2# - I keep telling you all that wasn't my fault!
    1# - Like the other, what was it now, three times?
    2# - six
    1# - ok, how is bahamuts sweet ..(breath) ok, let’s just get this started. Beginning Guild member
    review with accompanying recording, stat your name for the record
    2# - Jaune Dupree, yes like the old house of Dupree and all the stories and legends blar blar bar
    1# - yes, I remember many of those stories from when I was growing up as a child, you come from a
    'notable' family, let's start with them
    2# - well my parents were Alexander and Joana Dupree. My dad was a knight of the realm, noble
    hero, champion of the helpless, all around great guy
    1# - so what went wrong?
    2# - was that a jab at me, thanks for be professional you assho..
    1# - NO, No I didn't mean it like that, I mean what happed next, clearly this didn't go well considering
    how you came to join the guild in the first place
    2# - well just because my dad was a great guy doesn't mean the higher ups were. Our family was
    sworn in service to the king, but he was an inbred tool sworn to serve himself. Between the stupid
    ideas and the cruel treatment of his people they decided that they had had enough. And the first
    one's against the wall were, guess who, the guy who had been crusading in his name
    1# - so what happened to you?
    2# - well my dad made sure I could get away. I ended up spending a few months on the streets,
    constantly running and hiding. In the end, I didn't run fast enough
    1# - oh?
    2# - Someone found me and they knew who I was. He was an agent for one of the noble houses,
    don't know which one but that's how they wanted it. They had this plan for me. They figured
    'someone is going to put this kingdom back together at some point, lets exploit it'. They would train
    me up, make me the perfect sleeper agent and then send me to some royal kingdom, either that one
    or whatever one seemed promising if the reconstruction never came around. I would 'reclaim my
    birthright' and be in a perfect position to do whatever they wanted. Assassinate a rogue element,
    manipulate trade deals or laws made to their own ends, you name it
    1# - so they were responsible for your training?
    2# - yeah, and not much else, psycho made the training gruelling to try and break me, you know he
    made me live rats? Do you have any idea how hard it is to eat rats from a swarm while they try to
    eat you?
    1# - moving on, how did you come to join the guild?
    2# - Well, after a few years turns out the guys in charge weren't as cunning as they thought. Don't
    know exactly how they found out but sure enough the guild raided his facilities. All the guys in
    charge were killed or ran and me and the other kids. I guess the boss saw something worthwhile in
    me since I hadn't been there as long so I wasn't as brainwashed. And that proves I can't possibly be
    a traitor or a team killer, the boss saved me and I will do anything to help him to repay that
    1# - That does not actually prove anything, speaking of team killing, let's go over that starting with
    your first team
    2# - Well we were hired to escort some noble girl to her fiancée as a part of some arranged
    marriage. We get their ok, they check her over and I get the horses while the others sort out the
    payment. Turns out the girl was real nervous about her wedding night and decided the fighter
    would be a much better "first-night" than the mystery groom, and the fighter obliged the night
    before we arrived. The second they find out we screwed the deal AND the girl, the guards go nuts, I
    only get out since I was in the stables. I go back that night but by then they had been dealt with.
    And by dealt with I mean beheaded and the heads stuck on pikes. I couldn't steal the whole heads
    since that would have alerted them, so I took the best thing I could cut off that wouldn't be noticed
    1# - How did report call it, oh yes "a burlap sack full of ears"
    2# - Well I had to improvise something!
    1# - yes and you followed that incident by doing the same but with a bag of human jerky
    2# - again, not my fault, we were flying back from a mission over a desert when it turns out it had
    been sabotaged. It’s hardly my fault I was the only one who kept the mission supplied ring of
    sustenance on because I hated the inflight food. Those things take a week to activate so they just
    ended up dropping like fly’s while I had to carry the bag of their equipment and remains for reviving.
    I had no idea the fact it was an old salt bag and the heat would literally turn their remains into jerky,
    I was just thankful it hadn’t started to smell yet
    1# - from what I hear your reaction at the time was suitably surprised, although I don’t think anyone
    found it appropriate that you were literally rolling on the floor crying with laughter at your
    teammates corpse being presented to you
    2# - I was taken by surprise, my nerves were shot to hell after a week walking through a desert, I was
    1# - the review afterward that has already made it clear and on the record you were, as they say,
    ‘not in the right frame of mind’
    2# - you don’t have to say it that way…
    1# - it’s hard not too when two weeks later you come back with another bag of pieces
    2# - well maybe if you didn’t keep giving me morons to work with
    1# - and its comments like that…
    2# - no, they were idiots, we were asked to check out an old castle when they ran head first into
    carnivores sleeping moss
    1# - bad fortune hardly makes them
    2# - then the two elves in the middle of this patch who were the only one’s immune spent so long
    arguing about which path to take they ended up getting covered and eaten by said moss
    1# - where were you during this
    2# - at the back, no-one trusted me after the jerky incident so they wanted me out of the way and as
    far away as possible. No matter how much I shouted the two elves wouldn’t listen to me and I had
    to go back to town, get some supplies, come back and kill the moss before coming home with a bag
    of hedge trimmings. Stupid jerks made it hard to get a team after that
    1# - not that it stopped you from coming back with bags constantly
    2# - I am getting a lot of personal attacks here I do not appreciate
    1# - and I don’t appreciate having to, over the space of a couple of years, explain how one team was
    ‘barbequed’
    2# - they went after a dragon in the open and no ranged attacks between them aside from the cleric
    with a bow. Do you know how long I had to hide in a river breathing through a reed until it got
    bored and left?
    1# - a bag of ashes
    2# - guy got his hands on a single wish spell and wished for the most powerful weapon of all, got
    some fancy tech wand that he broke the first time he used it and disintegrated everyone in a 60’
    radius
    1# - a bag of dried up, wait, am I reading this right?
    2# - that team hated me a decided to haze me by not inviting me to the room with the several hot
    barmaids they picked up, their own fault they were succubus. After they were finished, those were
    the only parts of them left in any good condition, guess they had a sense of humour leaving charred
    skeleton with a bon..
    1# - and last, but certainly not least, the bag of human marbles
    2# - I was acquitted of that one, the guys were chumps trying to use my reputation to blame me for
    their wrongdoings. I didn’t tell them to rob a church during a major religious gathering. Can I really
    be blamed that many of the head priests were high level clerics with implosion, it was all I could do
    to politely ask them for the remains so I could get them ‘punished’ back at the guild without being
    killed myself. Look is there a point to this aside from yelling at me again over this
    1# - yes, we are here to try and access you suitability for fieldwork again in the
    2# - wait, I’m getting a team again? Your finally letting me out!
    1# - depending on the results of this review, yes. We are just starting a team and there is a need for
    someone of your skillset and experience. We only ask that you actually keep this one alive
    2# - I keep telling you it’s
    1# + 2# - not my fault
    1# - yes, yes, you have made this comment perfectly clear
    2# - any info on whose on it?
    1# - you’ll learn soon enough
    2# - so I passed
    1# - more like I got sick of talking to you and just want you away from the guild for a while to save
    me from constant headaches
    2# - don’t hold back on me, tell me how you really feel
    1# - GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!
    1# - (sigh) end Guild member review
    3# - your thoughts old fried
    1# - GUILDMASTER, sorry, I didn’t hear you come in
    3# - that’s quite all right, I have ways of getting around quietly when I need it. What are your
    thoughts on the boy
    1# - inconclusive, he doesn’t seem to be lying directly, but his past training could have involved
    conditioning for such tests or indoctrination and programming so he doesn’t realise he’s doing it.
    The fact remains he has survived so many team wipes he’s either sabotaging them or he really is that
    unlucky. I could take him in for more extensive testing if you…
    3# - No, that quite enough for now, I have own way of testing, and some immediate plans for him. I
    am assigning Drashper as part of his team.
    1# - my boy! But he’s just a librarian and he’s already under scrutiny, isn’t that why we’ve kept him
    off missions so long?
    3# - We’ll never get an answer about if he does hold the same spark of chaos and destruction his
    parents had cooped up here. This team will sort out several of my problems at once. If Jaune is lying
    Draspher will have his own written account as evidence. If Draspher is too dangerous then we can
    act to ‘mitigate’ his threat and it will just be blamed on Jaunes bad track record
    1# - I don’t like the fact you’re playing with my boy’s life with this ‘test’
    3# - you knew it would someday come to this the day you took him in. We both agreed he would
    need to be properly tested should the need arise. Besides, these are only the worst-case scenarios.
    I have faith in them both, as should you. Now come, I could do with a drink, and I ‘have faith’ that
    you need one too old friend
    1# - that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-07-31 at 03:27 PM.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Interview tape 3365:

    Spoiler
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    Knock knock
    1# - come in.
    2# - There is someone downstairs in the waiting room to see you.
    1# - Does he have a meeting booked.
    2# - No but he has this letter with one of our seals I don’t quite recognise it though.
    1# - That’s the dreads seal I haven’t seen this in a while.
    2# - dread do we need to get ready for a fight.
    1# - no no he was a member of the guild about 30 years ago.
    2# - I have never heard of him.
    1# - ha I would be surprised if you had Sylvester, that man was discrete unstoppable but discrete. he
    was the Inquisitor that single handed took down the purple foxes guild back in the day.
    2# - The purple foxes I have herd of them aren’t they a criminal guild.
    1# - Not the copy cats that have shown up over the years. At the time they were a real adventures
    guild most people knew they were dirty but couldn’t prove it. I actually found out about Sylvester
    because I was investigating them and all of a sudden the lowlife in charge suddenly became a
    financial expert. ha ha I was panicking but turns out Sylvester was handling the finances as while he
    was .. interrogating the purple foxes’ leader. Then he sent all he had gather to the authority’s and
    walked away the guild collapsed in less than a week.
    2# - How did he join us.
    1# - I asked him to and our finances have never been in as good a state as when he was in charge of
    them.
    2# - Why did he leave?
    1# - it was about a baby.
    2# - oh he had a kid.
    1# - cha him no no, you ever hear the expression planning for a pyromancer.
    2# - is this to do with the inferno duo didn’t our guild
    1# - yes we killed them but we didn’t expect them to have a new born.
    2# - what!
    1# - most people there wanted to snub out the baby… oh ****
    2# - what?
    1# - oh no
    2# - what is it sir
    1# - the baby Sylvester didn’t want anyone to .. it was against his code to kill a baby even if it was
    granted to be an unstoppable demon so he took it and raised it.
    2# - then the man downstairs.
    1# - that’s our unstoppable demon we may need to get ready for a fight after all. Bring him up I will
    set some things up.

    A FEW HOURS LATER
    2# - Sir how did the meeting go?
    1# - I need a drink a strong drink.
    2# - is he that bad.
    1# - bad ha bad hahahaha ha
    2# - sir?
    1# - for years I was expecting to see that thing a terrifying unstoppable monster and instead what I
    met was a giant man baby.
    2# - what?
    1# - what I got out of the conversation was that the boy is a descent sorcerer with no real combative
    skills he is a good liar despite not being able to think up believable lies and last but not least enjoys
    reading and transcribing. (Chuckle)
    2# - are you sure he isn’t deceiving us.
    1# - its possible but my magic says he is chaotic good.
    2# - Sylvester must have been carful in how he raised the boy.
    1# - I doubt it from what the letter says.
    2# - what does the letter say?
    1# - he wants us to look after the boy that the boy will think that dread is dead that this may or may
    not be true. That he tried to teach the boy how to be an expert at torture but he didn’t have the
    stomach for it. Oh and lest I forget the boy believes that dread took him as collateral for a bill his
    parent’s couldn’t pay. I suppose in a manner of speaking that’s true.
    2# - I’m sorry but why would he say any of that.
    1# - you would know if you met him.
    2# - right what should we do with him?
    1# - Stick him in the library and have him transcribe all the books.
    2# - we don’t have a library.
    1# - no but we have a magic cancelling room and a rare collection of books that could fill it.
    2# - but sir how would we
    1# - when was the last time we used that room or read any of those books.
    2# - very well sir I will get on that.
    1# - and bring me something strong to drink I think I am going to need it.
    3# - two glasses
    1# - I knew you weren’t dead im not that lucky
    3# - need anyone to look after you finances seems my shop burned down.
    1# - yes yes
    3# - just keep that kid thinking im dead and if you have any bad apples I will be happy to sort them
    out.
    1# - I doubt that.
    3# - like that kid with the burlap sack full of ears.
    1# - ha ha ha ok you can handle him however you want but only after interviewing him.
    3# - I’m sure I will get the truth out of him
    1# - I doubt that.
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-08-27 at 10:03 AM.

  10. - Top - End - #10
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Last time we had just escaped the city for now and were hiding out in one of ninja-sans safehouses until we were all set to go to the next city as part of our ongoing mission to prevent a coup. We had spent this time buying new equipment, training new skills aka levelling up stuff.

    Session 8, part one, the level up
    Spoiler
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    I (Jaune) gained my next level in ninja and had gotten my hands on various supplies such as various alchemical weapons, a few potions, and plenty of new clothes for disguise purposes. For more magical equipment I finally got my hands on a ring of protection and an amulet of natural armour to bump up my AC, a masterwork kusarigama for twf/reach, a belt of dex and headband of Cha for stats and a sleeve of many garments for more outfit choices. My most important item was the circlet of persuasion, which combined with my level seven feat of deceptive meant that my face skills went through the roof.

    Occelot had gotten his hands on an endless bandoleer and a beneficial bandoleer covering most of his gun needs. He also got his hands on a revolver and rifle (home ruled advanced firearms with only one range increment touch AC) meaning he could finally fire multiple times a round without reloading and have some ranged options respectively. Aside from these he got a hand of the mage (in another game this item ended up breaking the game slightly so he really wanted it) a set of boots of leaping a striding (making his jump in the 20’s) and ammunition. As for his level seven feat he chose far shot, meaning he could shoot at ridiculous ranges with his rife and still get pluses on his rolls.

    Draspher had initially really wanted to get craft wondrous items, but upon reflection he found that the list of items he could make was really limited as a sorcerer, so he instead went for lifeless gaze, both for the boosts and in character the horrors he had both seen and been blamed for had taken their toll on him. He went for a ioun torch, the travellers any-tool, a ring of spell knowledge (to get unseen servant), bracers of Armor +1, a hat of disguise (to hide the mad bombers face), a ring of sustenance, a headband of Cha and a handy haversack. As for spells, he finally got his hands on some fire spells in fireball and burning hands with summon swarm for more harassing spells. He also still has most of his cash to the DM’s annoyance.

    Yurion retroactively got the noble scion feat giving her Cha to initiative. She also got a few pieces of equipment, most notably a ring of revelation, giving her, the brain drain ability for interrogation, and the lore keeper ability from oracle level up giving her Cha to knowledge checks.

    Sim got a few items. She followed my lead with a set of boots of the cat, a belt of str and a headband of wis to boost her stats up, a handy haversack for storage and a cloak of elvenkind to help her stealth score. Most of her focus went to her new feat, brew potions. She spent most of her free time making cure potions and any other ones we requested (for the cost of making of course).


    Part two, the setup
    Spoiler
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    One morning about a week after we had arrived ninja-san approached us at the breakfast table. He was in the awkward where he had been asked for help but all his own operatives were too busy to do it themselves. The fact that he was approaching us, as I pointed out, despite our track record was a sign of how desperate he was. A short trip from the safehouse was a mountain with a nature preserve protected by a few druid sects. The problem is that the druids had seen the signs of poachers but despite their best efforts they had not been able to locate them, nor how they had been getting in and out. Ninja-san wanted us to go in and try to sort the problem out. We would also not be going in alone


    A new Player has entered the game!
    Spoiler
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    Draspher IRL had gotten a new girlfriend. She is a nice girl, a bit anxious but with a perverted sense of humour. Needless to say, we all immediately took a shine to her. Our DM had a few sheets prepared (so that we could just pick one and jump straight back in if he did kill us) so she chose one she liked and got stuck in. Introducing, for your reading pleasure, Vex Shinesword, Half-Orc Paladin/Samurai. The DM made this character initially as the samurai class, but after deciding that its class features sucked so badly he just made him a paladin with samurai armour, and a katana and wakizashi for twf. She is also notable for being the only party member aside from Draspher who likes fumbles the raccoon. IRL I got Draspher a raccoon plush and he has enjoyed taking this with him to the sessions. This time it spent the entire session alternating between sitting on Draspher head and being cuddled/petted by Vex. She also has a perverted sense of humour. Although she is but a Padawan in comparison to my mastery of the perverse side, we played off each other well (to the horror/irritation of the rest of the table).


    Part three, steam boat Ocelot
    Spoiler
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    After re-acquainting ourselves with our old guildmate, we get to logistics. We decide that, as we will be mostly dealing with nature and druids, Sim should be in charge for this mission. We find that the best way to the mountain is to take the boat upstream directly to a lake at the base of the mountain. (Truth is I don’t think this lake or river was originally supposed to exist. When the DM drew the mountain Draspher started pointing out that the way he had drawn it there should be a lake there. I think the DM just added it then ad-libbed it into the story). As we are riding along we quickly spot dark shapes in the water. We ask the captain and it turns out there have been sahaguin (water lizard/frog people) attacks recently, but we should be fine. Don’t start killing them unless something happens. Ocelot spends this entire trip staring down the sights of his new rifle. At one point an eye looks out above the water, so he takes a pot shot. Unfortunately, one passenger was on the poopdeck, by which I mean two planks of wood off the edge of the boat with a gab in between and a guard rail enabling them to “relive themselves” directly into the water. This guy was not expecting the gunshot, and falls straight between the gap into the sahaguin infested waters. Sim and Draspher try throwing a rope to him, but flub there rolls. Just then a dark shape comes up under the water, grabs him and they both disappear.

    Occelot, immediately upon seeing this holsters’ his rifle, pulls out his dagger pistol and uses his insane jump score to dive in after him, downing a potion of water breathing he got off sim. Vex uses her +1 enchanted +5 compound longbow to fire upon the creatures in the water and hits one. I decide to run over to the captain to let him know what’s happening, (since, as I jokingly put it, what kind of idiot would jump in the water to fight opponents that have such huge advantages over them in such conditions) and he stops the boat and engages the man overboard protocols. Yurion decided it’s not worth bothering over and never looks up from her book the entire time and Sim starts planning.

    Upon jumping into the water Ocelot is confronted by two regular sahaguin’s, one with an arrow through his shoulder and one diving down lower with the poor guy heading towards the bottom. The two healthy ones engage Ocelot while the shot one decided to go after the annoying people on the boat, jumping up onto the deck. Draspher successfully summons a dolphin which charges past the first two sahaguin, going after the one with the one with the captive and successfully knocks him out of his grasp. Sim seizing her opportunity, jumps off the boat and transforms mid fall into a giant squid, then uses it jet ability to charge 100’ straight at the poor sap, grabbing him in her tentacles before just managing to stop herself hitting the riverbed. Seeing this, the first two sahaguin break off their planned attack on the one in the water and go after the squid stealing their captive. Luckily Draspher still has spells and uses one to summon a smaller squid to occupy them. Ocelot meanwhile has just had a great idea, and positions himself for next turn.

    Meanwhile the first sahaguin is eying up the weak and squishy crew when he hears a voice shouting at him “hey you stupid calamari, why don’t you try picking on someone who can fight back”. Turning to face the ninja running towards him, he fails to notice the large samurai half orc come up behind him before his head is removed from his shoulders in what you could call a single ‘critical’ blow. As his head hits the floor, the last thing it hears is the ninja saying “well I didn’t necessarily say that meant me”.

    Thing do not look good for the captive though. It was shocking enough when he was dragged under, being punched out of the sahaguin grip by a dolphin didn’t help and then being grabbed and dragged by a giant squid was the last straw before he lost consciousness and began to drown, so the heroes are going to have to act quickly. Realising Ocelots plan, Sim angles herself before launching full force at him. Thanks to a slight miscalculation though, rather than passing by him, grabbing him and leaping clear of the water, she instead slams into his stomach before launching him and herself out of the water. Ocelot, pulling back his composure, lands gracefully on the floor in a daring pose. Behind him, the unconscious man falls with a thud, followed by a giant squid with a splat. We all gather round and all utterly fail at CPR. Taking matters into her own ‘hands’, sim slithers over and uses her tentacles to perform chest palpebrations and brings him round. Upon one look at his rescuers oversized squid pupil he immediately faints, but he is alive.

    The trip back is relatively quiet after that, except for Yurion deciding she wants to dissect the sahaguin for any information she can gather about it (none) and Jaune standing alongside with a bucket, picking out any good-looking parts to cook afterwards. Ocelot realises his powder and ammo is wet, and so Draspher offers to dry him with magic. Vex turns to ask her old friend Draspher a question, but sees him rubbing his hands all over Ocelots body, and decides to ask later. A little while later, Ocelot realises he should check his guns, make sure nothing got water damaged and Draspher offers to magically repair them. Vex goes looking for Draspher, deciding that he must have had enough time to finish whatever he was doing before. She now finds Draspher rubbing his hands up and down Ocelots ‘shaft’, and turns away.


    Part four, the wooden bar in the wood
    Spoiler
    Show

    We finally make it to a small town at the base of the mountain next to the lake. We decide the best place to start is the inn. We go in and find the place mostly empty. It has an unusual style, the bar is a tree chopped in halve vertically, and the only person in there is a barmaid with a spring of mistletoe in here hair. I had previously mentioned to sim that we should try to keep on the down low and find out as much as we can about the druids without letting anyone know we were here about the poachers. Ocelot immediately announces we need to meet the druids since we are here to stop the poachers. (OOC he apparently is just enjoying being the one to get us in trouble this time round rather that Draspher, I have decided to go for him in his sleep one day). This actually works out for us, turns out the barmaid is a low-ranking druid in one of the local groups, and she recognises that we must be the guild they requested help from. She doesn’t know all that much, just what we had heard before, but also that some of the druids were setting up to look after nests near the top of the mountain.

    She can contact one of the other members to escort us up there though, so we wait around for a few hours. Draspher keeps pestering the barmaid about whether she has any cups or other items to mend (he wants to feel useful, failing to realise that as a druid she can do it herself) until I walk over, take a wooden mug and smash it on the floor, telling him he can repair that. Ocelot get bored and:
    Ocelot – I shoot the eagle
    DM - ……..
    Ocelot – ok, not really
    DM – the eagle flies down and lands, shapeshifting into a woman
    Jaune – oh, hahaha, you nearly shot the druid
    Turns out that it would have been a terrible idea, since the eagle lands and turns into the druid, also the barmaid’s sister. With that crisis barely averted, we set off up the mountain.


    Part five, mountain scaling encounters
    Spoiler
    Show

    As we begin the trek Ocelot has an idea. Sim has now gained the ability to turn into large creatures, so she turns into a giant vulture to scout above us. The DM turns down his plan of ferrying us two by two up the mountain as the transformation wouldn’t last that long and splitting the party like that is a bad idea. Instead, he uses rope to tie himself to the back of Sim while he carries his revolver so he can shoot freely from his back. This works for the most part except for one thing. We are all traveling up a mountain so high that the top is constantly covered in snow and blizzards. We haven’t gotten that high yet, but the two of them are traveling much, much higher so Ocelot starts getting dex penalty’s for not having warm enough clothes. Luckily, he had a dex boosting potion that sim gave him, so he chugged that to compensate.

    We end up approaching a small cliff in a sparse woodland area, with the only way forward being a small valley that leads to the higher area, only about 20-30’ long. As we come out of the bottle neck, two arrows smack into me and the druid who were at the front of the party. Luckily Sim had spotted six figures in the tree above us and made to attack (Ocelot failed his roll, mostly distracted by how cold he was starting to get), three to the right, two to the left and one right at the back. Combat had begun.

    I turned invisible and went to ambush the nearby archers on the right I could see while Vex decided to shoot back after dropping a lay on hands on the wounded druid. The first archer is very satisfied with his shot, up until a giant vulture and drops on him, tearing out a huge chunk of flesh before getting grazed by the bullets of the top hat wearing guy on his back. Just as Sims cheetah moves up to join in Yurian drops an obscuring mist on their position helping stop further arrows from coming in.

    By this point, the other two on the right gather their wits and start shooting at the massive bird, so Sim starts to take a beating, but she kept on ripping into the guy while Ocelot just keeps firing at them. Draspher meanwhile has some trouble deciding the right thing to do. After both my own and the DM’s reassurance that starting a wildfire up here is virtually impossible (IRL I start playing psychotic jiminy cricket to him, telling him “this entire game you have been ridiculed and had the crud kicked out of you, its time you started kicking back”) he strides out of the mist, takes careful aim at the bandit at the back and proceeds to blow him to hell with his newly acquired fireball spell. He is both horrified at what he is becoming and astounded at how big a blast he pulled off. I just carry on the jimmy cricket part, “Pinocchio, you want to save your friends and family don’t you? The only way is to burn the whole world down”. He survives but the tree he was in sure didn’t, and getting blown away by a fireball into a 10’ drop certainly makes an impression. As the second bandit on the right turns to see this massive explosion, he gets one of his own in the form of a flask of alchemist fire to the face, curtesy of the already disappearing ninja.

    Vex also decides now is the time for action. She charges at one of the trees to the left and in a single, you could say critical, blow she rends the tree and the bandit has to leap to safety from his now falling cover before facing the samurai. It’s at this point the DM realises what he’s done. When the DM made this samurai, he wanted to give him some damage output in combat, so he decided to, against my own advice when we were talking about it, give her a +1 keen katana and a +1 wakizashi for duel wielding. He failed to realise the effect giving someone a 15-20 critical range, especially a strength based fighter, would have on combat prowess and damage output. This is made even clearer when her next blow on the bandit is a non-confirmed critical. Every attack roll she has made so far with this sword has been a crit, and it doesn’t look like it will be ending any time soon.


    Part six, you have got to be kidding me
    Spoiler
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    The DM starts asking for perception rolls. Sim and I are the only ones who get high enough, and so he passes us both a note with only one sentence written on it. “You hear a loud rumbling in the distance”. Turns out that he had rolled survival rolls for both Sim and Ocelot but both had failed to realise any loud noise could set off an avalanche, and the combination of gunshots and fireball explosions had been enough to do it. Sure enough, over the last few turns, a few of the bandits start breaking off and just legging it along the mountainside. I shout out “run for it avalanche”, and make to follow them. Only a wisdom roll tells me that I won’t make it, and the bandits won’t either. Our best bet is to get to the bottom of the cliff, let the initial part of the avalanche flow over the top of us thanks to the lip, then try and dig our way out afterwards.

    I shout this to the others. Yurian takes the druid down the valley and starts planning. Myself, Draspher and Vex quickly follow. Ocelot cut himself loose of the ropes, and leaps for the very damaged bandit we had been attacking previously. He tells him that if he comes with them he will live, hoping to use him for interrogation purposes. He and his new friend also follow us down the valley to the cliff. Ocelot, Draspher and myself all pull out equipment and latch ourselves to the cliff. Yurian pulls off her own plan, to levitate the druid, sit on top of her then use the extra Hight to get grabbed by Sim and flown over the avalanche.


    Days on mountain – 5
    Disasters blamed on Draspher – 1, DM gave some lip service about how it was Ocelots rapid gunfire that did it, but we all know who still has blame on his plate
    Incidents caused by Ocelot – 3.25, he got a guy dragged overboard, he blurted out our plans immediately to the first person he met (.75, malicious intent but it worked out), nearly shot down our guide (.5, malicious intent but didn’t go through with it) and helped start the avalanche
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-13 at 01:52 PM.

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Interview tape 3399:

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    1# - welcome back Cyril. The guild has been in quite the flurry over the stories of your latest mission. I haven’t been able to get the full stories yet, just a lot of tall tales about dragons, necromancers andsomething called a “heeby jeeby juju bugs”, I can’t quite make head nor tail of if so as the group’s leader could you walk me though what happened.
    2# - of course my most esteemed guild master, this glorious tale started with the mission you requested, ‘THE CASE OF THE DISSAPEARING NOT QUITE DEAD’. we went to the town group that you had advised to investigate this odd illness that left the corpses fresh. What’s more, the bodies tended to go missing shortly after they were reported.
    1# - Yes, that’s the one, what was going on exactly?
    2# - WELL it turns out the town mayor had come under the power of a group of necromancers, lead by a particularly powerful lich, no match for I, CYRIL MONTIQUE ESQUIRE but certainly far more than the locals could handle by themselves. The bodies were disappearing because they had agents all over town masquerading as official city services, snatching them up to prevent ‘panic or the spread of diseases’ but really for storage before they could be examined and the truth revealed.
    1# - So I take it the ‘illness’ was their doing?
    2# - WHY YES, it turns out the plague wasn’t an illness but was really a ‘plague’ of magically altered insects.
    1# - oh really?
    2# - YES, these little pests had been modified to first paralyse the victim before it multiplied in the body. Some would go out to find more victims while the rest SIMUTANIOUSLY killed and preserved the body by filling the veins with a potent poison that seemed based on an unguent of timelessness.
    1# - that seems like a lot of trouble for the necromancers to go through just to kill people, I take it there is more to it.
    2# - Well the locations the bodies were key points all throughout the country. The venom also acted as a magical focus, allowing a mass resurrection spell of sorts, allowing the bodies to come to life all at once across the kingdom. WHAT’S MORE THEY would become semi intelligent zombies, able to use the victim’s memories to lure or tick others. We saw a few of the tests they ran, some of the city guard with us even tried to stop us hurting them, thinking that they could be cured
    1# - that sounds truly horrifying
    2# - EXACTLY, turns out an undead army is even more effective when they look and sound like your friends and family rather than regular corpses. I’m just glad between Sir Evans holy authority and dear Gwendoline bardic charms we had enough loyal royal guardsman to keep collateral damage down to a minimum
    1# - sounds like you had quite a fight on your hands
    2# - personally no, I COULD HAVE TAKEN THEM ALL SINGLE HANDED FOR I CYRIL MONTIQUE ESQUIRE AM MORE POWERFUL THAN ANY UNDEAD ARMY, but I suppose the others helped speed up the process.
    1# - I received billing from the town, something about the local mine being demolished
    2# - yes, the mine, the necromancers had resurrected a number of buried miners to dig it out into a temple they were using as headquarters, dedicated to a miss ‘Urgathoa’, whoever that is
    1# - this certainly sounds like one of her schemes, what about the dragon though
    2# - the lich in charge had made himself a new body. He’d found a black dragon somewhere and converted its body into a hive for the insects, even planting his phylactery as the power source in its forehead. It proved to be his undoing though, for I CYRIL MONTIQUE ESQUIRE, WITH BUT A SINGLE SPELL NEUTRALIZED THE STONE and my loyal assistant FUMBLES THE MAGNIFICENT was able to TAKE THE GEMSTONE OUT, DESTROYING THE ABOMINATION ONCE AND FOR ALL
    1# - I received a couple of complaints about your ‘assistant’ but we’ll deal with that later, what happened to the gem?
    2# - oh its right here guild master, I have been keeping it safe in my satchel to present to you directly as another trophy of what I, CYRIL MONTIQUE ESQUIRE, have achieved for your guild. Yes, truly another great treasure the guild has thanks to I, CYRIL MONTIQUE ESQUIRE, perhaps it’s time you stepped down dear guild master, and let a worthy successor run things. Why think of all the things that this guild could accomplish if I CYRIL MONTIQUE ES……
    [HISSSSSSSSS]
    [Thud]
    ……….
    3# - we have found the raccoon, where’s the body?
    1# - your standing in it, or what’s left of it.
    3# - how?
    1# - the idiot forgot that the magic nullifying effects of a mages disjunction spell only lasts a certain amount of time. Only reason he survived this long was that he had kept the thing in a bag of holding. It might look like a gemstone but it’s still a phylactery and the lich wasn’t keen on disappointing his goddess like that. Part of me wants to say it was strategy and tactics to strike when he was back in safety and didn’t have his wards up, part of me wants to say he valued Cyril’s death more than his own existence for his potential for good, but if I’m being honest with myself I think he had just gotten sick of listening to him from inside the bag and took the first chance he had at shutting him up forever
    3# - then we can’t bring him back?
    1# - no he was one of our best, even if he didn’t know when to shut up, and he’s gone I want that rock destroyed and make sure no one touches it with their bare hands. Typical the one thing left of him is that thieving rodent, maybe I could give it to the shops he keeps robbing from to finally settle the endless complaints and paperwork I must fill out whenever it leaves. Where is it.
    3# - the library.
    1# - oh yeah that little hellion used to live in there
    3# - back when it was the magic celling room to give us some peace and quite, but now it’s the library with a specific person in it.
    1# - what are you getting at
    3# - the raccoon met him and ..
    1# - no
    3# - yes sir they made a contract
    [Smash]
    3# - He now Drasphers familiar sir
    1# - great, put all my headaches in one basket why don’t yo……
    3# - sir?
    1# - put both of them under further surveillance maybe the .. fumbles chose the boy for a reason hopefully it’s just because he reminds him of Cyril. Meanwhile, I have some member files I have to look through, this has given me an idea

    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-08-09 at 02:19 PM.

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Interview tape 1166005:

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    1# - this is a disaster
    2# - yes, yes, I know, I understand tha..
    1# - they had one job, keep their heads low and scout
    2# - I understand, but we..
    1# - what do they do, they blow up the town AND rob Bartholomew, I am not going to hear the end of this from him
    2# - I understand old friend. Don’t worry though, I have a plan, that’s why I called you here
    1# -you mean you’re going to?
    2# - no, not yet, I still need more information before I commit to such an act. We have an interview to run, SEND HER IN PLEASE
    3# - Hello Guild master, mr, um, I don’t think we’ve met?
    2# - Don’t worry, he’s just our accountant, I wanted him here to assist me with some minor details. How was your last mission, you just got back the other day did you not?
    3# - Yes, Sir Evans took me for a training in the field with him, he says I’m really coming along in my studies under him
    2# - I hope it wasn’t too hard on you
    1# - no sir, Sir Evans has been a great teacher sir.
    2# - How is he doing these days, I know he always has a hard time near the anniversary of the “accident”
    3# - He’s doing ok sir, he might drink a bit more on the day but he tries to take it in stride. We help each other out though, we both miss Mr Montique a lot though
    1# - Cyril was the one who first brought you to the guild was he not, and recommended your apprenticeship to Sir Evan, you were very close to him, weren’t you?
    3# - Yes sir, I always liked talking to him, hearing stories of his adventures while I played with fumbles
    1# - speaking of the little [cough, cough], you looked after him alongside m…the boy Draspher afterwards did you not
    3# - yes sir
    2# - would you say your close with him, Draspher I mean?
    3# - well sir, he never really socialised with anyone outside the library, so I think I was the one closest to him in the guild, aside from maybe yourself sir
    2# - good, good, we have a new mission for you involving him
    3# - is he in trouble sir? I notice he’s been gone from the library longer than usual
    2# - no, no, nothing like that. He has recently been assigned to his first team, but they have had some complications in their mission. I feel they could do with some assistance, and your friendship with Draspher and Fumbles makes you the perfect candidate.
    3# - what are the mission details sir?
    2# - I’ll have a full briefing ready for you to read as you head out. I just need you to pack your things for first thing tomorrow, but I need to ask a favour from you as well
    3# - Sir?
    2# - This is Draspher’s first team, and the first time he has spent so long away from his library. I was hoping you could make a report on how he’s doing, just so I can evaluate if he’s doing alright
    3# - Of course sir, anything else
    2# - No, that’s all, thank you for your time
    ………………
    1# - you sneaky sod
    2# - I told you I needed more information, and if that group really has gone off the rails a paladin should spot it easily. Her connection to Draspher will also endear her to them and make her less suspicious. Hopefully having a paladin around will help keep them on the straight and narrow a bit more

    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-08-11 at 02:38 AM.

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Interview tape 1165996:

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    1# - Right tell me what happened.
    2# - yes guild master we left on the carriage but there was a tree in the road.
    1# - I assume you mean on the journey to south water city.
    2# - yes we got out to move the tree except for the oracle. Then the wizard was grabbed.
    1# - wizard? Oh you mean draspher he is a sorcerer
    2# - yes the rouge went after him and pushed him off the cliff.
    1# - the nin-he what!
    2# - I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention to them, wasn't worth my time, I was in the middle of a stirring battle with three of the bandits. I did see the crossbowman threw the badger over the cliff after him
    1# - no its whatever please tell me the “badger” is dead
    2# - no. I finished the enemy single handed there and pushed the tree off with the floaty magic.
    1# - right then you went to south-water.
    2# - yes but the archer got in an argument with the badger and walked. We got there and rented a pub room.
    1# - he's a gunman, but anyway, so you got to town then what
    2# - I went to the temple to meditate and get guidance from the force on what to do
    1# - what did this have to do with the explosions.
    2# - well after meditating for two days
    1# - you were sleeping for two days
    2# - meditating!
    1# - how did you 'meditate' for two straight days
    2# - the temple has an excellent selection of fortified beers
    1# - I thought dwarfs had an iron constitution, what the heck were they fortifying it with?
    2# - holy water vodka
    1# - WHY WOULD YOU EVER NEED HOLY WATER VODKA, LET ALONE HOLY WATER VODKA BEER
    2# - zombie keggers
    1# - WHAT IS THAT, WHY IS TH...no, no, we are getting off topic, what happened after the 'meditation'
    2# - I was approached by a member of my order who offered me a job with the guards
    1# - right what did the others say?
    2# - I don’t know when I went back to tell them the pub had been attack and guards say that the rest of the group were no ware to be seen. They suspected the mad bomber to be responsible
    1# - the mad bomber. Right so what did you do after that.
    2# - I worked with the guards to help protect the town. My first assignment was the local library. Turns out there had been some incident just after we got to town, something about a spotty tiger and a guy with a huge rat in his pants
    1# - [sigh], go on
    2# - the guards ask me to check the roof when suddenly the alarm goes off. I hear lots of noise so I go over to check.
    1# - what did you see
    2# - a foot, going straight through the shingles knocking me off the roof. I fell two stories, got my beard stuck on a gargoyle and had to wait six hours for one of the guards to find me, then another two for them to figure out how to get me down
    1# - why did I expect something out of...what happened next then?
    2# - after that I was assigned to a farmhouse. Something about preventing forest fires, so they needed me to protect a said barn.
    1# - that must of been where they were keeping all the gunpowder seized from the city after all the explosions
    2# - Is that why I was there.
    1# - [SIGH]
    2# - well me and the boys were having a great time raiding the farmers cider cellar, then there was a ruckus in the barn. We get down there and sure enough the mad bomber had arrived and set it on fire. You know if it was full of gunpowder that might explain why no-one went anywhere near him. So I ran over to vanquish him with a single blow, but he must have known I was coming as he caused a huge explosion sending me flying like a hairy flaming cannonball
    1# - and you survived, do you need me to call the medics? are you ok?
    2# - oh yes we dwarfs are a durable bunch. By sheer luck I get blasted straight back to the farmhouse and I go through the window into the farmers bed to break my fall. Would have been even better if the farmer and his wife weren't in the bed at the time. So after cleaning off my armour from the worst bloodstains, I ran straight back to the crater that used to be the barn luckily one of the wizards in the barn had survived and he had seen one of the bombers friends.
    1# - did you recognize the person he described?
    2# - no it could have been anyone it even could have been that archer you sent us with
    1# - do you mean ocelot?
    2# - I didn’t realise he was a cat.
    1# - NEVER MIND! what happened next?
    2# - I was awarded for my bravery and asked to help with the anti-bomber assault squad. Nothing happened until two days later.
    1# - what happened then?
    2# - Well we got word something was happening at the bank. We set up outside the bank with a whole battalion of guys at the front door. Bunch of weirdoes came out and we start to prepare our offensive. The wizard from before casts invisibility on me, you know, for a sneak attack so I can outflank them. Just as I'm getting ready to storm the place, I hear something behind me, and there is another blast that knocks me out. I wake up 10 minutes on fire to discover that the bomber and his accomplices had set of the blast and had gotten away in the confusion. After that incident the bank manager spoke to me he told me that you and he were friends and to give you this letter so I returned today.
    1# - I see thank you. You have done well despite abandoning your party I think you have earned a vacation for a few days and don’t worry I will take care of this mad bomber one way or the other.
    2# - thank you guild master I will feel much at ease knowing you are on the case.
    3# - why did you put him in charge
    1# - he is a paladin I thought he would take care of our problem if it showed its ugly face I never thought he would abandon them first chance he got.
    3# - If you had remembered to read the reports on him you would have realised that despite being a paladin he was a battle crazy nut who kept putting party members in dangerous situations without care or remorse. That's why you assigned him to this team in the first place. Putting a paladin in charge was a good idea you just picked the wrong one maybe we should start interviewing some more responsible candidates.
    1# - Fine but this time you are going to sit in on the interview.
    3# - Fair enough. I don't suppose you have any of that fortified beer on hand old friend?
    1# - I'm not going to like it, but why?
    3# - I received a message about what's actually going on from our local contact there. We are going to need more than a few glasses of the stuff.

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 9, part 1, snow trouble for jaune snow
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    Last time an avalanche had managed to bury the entire party save for Sim, Yurian and our wounded guide. While they searched for us we all had different reactions to our predicament.

    Vex managed a high survival roll, so she had a decent sized air pocket. Using this, she was able to dig herself mostly out, before being helped out by the others.

    I initially start suffocating before I use my ninja training to calm myself and make a small air pocket by moving my head around. I gather up all my focus and skill and attempt to swap places with a log on the surface. The only problem with this plan was that this is not a real power I have, I was starting to hallucinate from a lack of air and the blood flowing to my head. Luckily the others figure out where I am from the status spell Yurian had on me and so used levitate to move 700 pounds of snow from above me and Sim the giant vulture pulled me out. I then spot movement in the snow near me. I go to help but get knocked over by the cheetah, falling into the hole it just dug itself out of. On the plus side, I spot some cloth down there and I pull out the captive poacher.

    Ocelot managed to make a small air pocket by his head, then started puzzling out how to get out. He finally decides to try using his massive jump score to force his way out of the snow. Unfortunately, he forgot that he was currently at a sideways angle and proceeded to jump his way further into the snow. Delighted at this, he proceeds to keep doing the same each round. Yurian finally tracks him down and levitates the snow off him as well.

    Draspher and fumbles find themselves upside down with a decent air pocket around their heads. After a few rounds and some tunnel collapse, fumbles manages to get Drasphers hands free enough to use burning hands to try and melt his way out. Unfortunately, this results in a 15’ cone of freshly melted snow water pouring down the freshly made gap and he begins to suffocate/drown, but we spot this and, after a round or two deciding who cares enough about him to get wet, pull him out.

    After we get out we decide it is time to go set up camp. Ocelot builds a snow wall complete with snowmen guards and with my help he sets up a basic alarm system with rope and a few pots.


    Part two, midnight blues
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    Sim and Ocelot decide to keep watch, which was a good thing for us. As Sim is patrolling the wall, two arrows smack into her for 12 damage (it seems as though every time they hit us it’s 12 damage, that number keeps popping up) and she makes out a few shapes in the darkness. The rest of us wake up and spend a round suiting up (DM said vex had slept in her armour so she wasn’t completely drilled due to spending several minutes putting it back on, but we will have to sort out a proper solution to this in the future).

    We start combat fairly decently, Vex moves ready to charge, I go in waiting behind her, Sim takes the left flank, Ocelot starts shooting and Yurion comes out of the tent, yells “you kids get off my lawn” and fires her wand of lightning off in a random direction.

    Draspher has at this point suddenly realised that summon monster spells can summon more than one monster at a time. Our Sorcerer everyone. He summons two fire elementals to help illuminate the area. There are 5 elves with bows with 4 dogs. He immediately follows this up with attempting to use diplomacy, thinking these might just be elves looking after their land, nothing to do with the elf poacher we have tied up in the tent or the fact we know the mountain is under druid protection. IRL he then leaves to go to the toilet after his turn is over. The elves respond by shooting him with a critical. The look on the DM’s face when he realises that the second Draspher left the room he has taken him to single digits health was priceless.

    While he turns invisible to hide and heal the rest of us move in. Vex and I move in on the central elf and start going to town. For the first time in this campaign, I have a flanking buddy so I can fight like a ninja/rogue and not a substitute fighter. Sim summons a call lightning and charges the left with her cheetah and a summoned constrictor snake. This snake was immediately shot on its summoning and taken to single digit health. The two on the right are mostly distracted with shooting at the elementals, but they still take pot-shots at us as well.

    Sim starts taking shots from one of the spare archers so Yurion decided to act. She blasts the archer with her wand and we realise a problem. We had gotten the wand from a previous adventure as our reward, but all of us (including DM) had failed to take proper noting of the wand spell level or charges. To improvise we used Yurions current stats and she realises just how powerful a 7D6 line of lightning is. Following the first blast Sim uses a create water spell to douse the archer and his dog before dropping a call lightning bolt on his head. The dog bursts into flames and dies while the elf curses his bad luck, crispy but still alive until a final bolt hits him the following round. Yurion also realises that she could hit three of them at once with the wand if she moved up. She didn’t but the DM’s face when he realised the poor placement was funny.

    Meanwhile, on the central side Vex and I had taken care of the first elf, I took care of his dog and vex moved up to finish of the wounded guy to the right who had been Ocelot’s main target. The last guy to the right finished off the last fire elemental so Draspher decided to get back into the action. He (still invisible) moves into position and launces a bat swarm at him. This resulted in two problems.
    1. The last dog on the right smelt the huge amount of blood coming off him and follows its instincts and training, and moves to take out the wounded party.
    2. The elf decided not to stand still in the swarm and so ran to the snow wall, hoping he could do more damage closer to us, followed by the hungry bat swarm that also smelt blood.
    Although we managed to finish off both elf and dog before they could do any damage, the bats still smelt blood and could echolocate so they chased Draspher for a while until they finally dissipated. Draspher honestly feared for his life as he was on single digits and the bat swarm would deal D6 damage, possibly enough to kill him, but Yurion could have cured him if needed to.

    Sim also finishes her fight with the last guy, with Yurion getting a Brain Drain off on him to see what she could find out.


    Part three, noting of notes
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    We decide to take inventory of our situation. Ocelot and I loot bodies, vex joining us afterwards and the DM passes us a note with everything they had on them. Aside from masterwork equipment and various alchemical/magic arrows they all had a potion of cold resistance on them. Why is made very clear once Yurion finishes looking through the stolen thoughts.

    After reading the note given to her, she gives us the low down. Turns out these elves are part of the group of poachers we had been asked to find. There were around 15-20 total, and their leader is a druid himself. They were here for two things. Firstly, the Roc nest at the summit (the reason we were on this increasingly complex side quest to begin with) and more worryingly, the local WHITE DRAGON.

    Turns out that the dragon had set up home near the top of the mountain. The head druid had battled it to a stalemate, and they had a deal set up. The druids would look after the mountain and keep anyone from going into its territory, and the dragon wouldn’t go on a rampage. This druid had gone off on his own adventures a while ago, leaving low-level underlings in charge. This leaves us in major problems either way as either the poachers kill the dragon and make off with a huge profit, or they get killed by the dragon and with the agreement broken it will go on another rampage. What’s more, as all the druids are fairly low levelled, Sim is the highest-level druid on the mountain so it’s up to us to stop the poachers with pretty much no backup. Also, at the start the DM had us roll perception on the boat. Sim and I were the only ones who could see a giant flying shape. He revealed to us it could have been either the Roc’s, or the dragon so we might be too late already.

    The other problem was that halve the party became really excited about the thought of killing a dragon. I had to point out:
    1. No Vex, dragon blood does not have those kinds of properties in this game
    2. Ocelot, the last dragon we met really outclassed us, what makes you think you can take this one
    3. Draspher, the first thing the dragon will do is attack the one throwing massive fireballs at it
    4. Draspher, you just failed in casting fireball when covered in snow, what makes you think you will succeed when pinned in its teeth or going down his oesophagus
    5. Draspher, setting yourself on fire will do nothing to make it not eat you
    6. I know the DM has seen the same spoony video that I have, what makes you think the dragons going to stand still and let us attack it with swords. It will just keep flying overhead and strafing us with its dragon breath

    No plan on what is happening with the dragon was made yet, but we decided to get some sleep. When we got back to the tent we found that our captive had escaped during the confusion. We decided we would use the stolen memories and his trail to try and find the camp first thing in the morning, as no-one fancied the idea of tracking him in the dark at 2am. We also discovered the druid had been poisoned, so Sim made one of here spells neutralise poison for the next day.

    In the morning we set off, following the trail. We eventually get to a fork in the road, losing his trail but having two ways up. A direct, faster path which had no real options for a stealthy approach, or the side paths for better concealment, but which would take longer getting up. A discussion on party order led us to discussing the druid guide. It turns out that she was an incredibly low level druid, used alongside her sister as gofers for the more important druids. Ocelot rued not shooting her at the start when she was an eagle when he realised that it actually would have killed her.

    A discussion then broke out over should we keep the druid. I argued for, saying that she could identify local druids, that she could contact them, navigate the area and it was better to have her around and not need her than need her and not have her. Ocelot and Yurion both argued that she was far too weak to be of any help, (after a spell craft check) we could do the sending spell to her and her barmaid sister to pass messages on and they would rather she left and lived than stayed with us and probably die. We differed to sim as current group leader, and she voted to send her off. We finally set of down the faster path, with Sim and her cheetah up front, Ocelot and Yurion behind her, Draspher behind them and Vex and Myself at the back of the party.



    Days on mountain – 6
    Draspher Suicide attempts – 3, the avalanche, attempting diplomacy on the guys shooting us and summoning the swarm of bats
    Incidents caused by Ocelot – 4, he got a guy dragged overboard, he blurted out our plans immediately to the first person he met (.75, malicious intent but it worked out), nearly shot down our guide (.5, malicious intent but didn’t go through with it), helped start the avalanche, decided to dig himself deeper because he wanted to use his jump score (.25) and captured a guy only for him to escape and probably warn his friends about us (.25), and openly lamented not killing the druid in front of the druid (.25)
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-06 at 05:13 PM.

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 10, part 1, hole lot of trouble
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    We were heading down the faster path up the mountain in an attempt to find the bandits. Sim and her cheetah took the lead, Ocelot and Yurion behind her, Draspher behind them and Vex and Myself at the back of the party ready to guard against any ambushes.

    We are all doing our checks, no-one spots anything and Draspher tells us he can’t detect any magic. The second he finished this thought, the ground gives way under Sim. Sim, he cheetah and Ocelot all fail their reflex rolls, Yurion (despite having her head in a book) effortlessly jumps back avoiding the same fate. Whoever built this trap really put their effort in, since it was a 50’ drop onto spikes. Sim manages to land gracefully thanks to her cat boots, and her dragon scale half-plate armour makes her bounce off the spikes avoiding damage. Occelot just falls flat onto the spikes, but thanks to a high con just tanks the damage. The cheetah though, has no such defence. It breaks most of its bones from the fall, and is impaled on several spikes. It dies instantly.

    Up top things are not that much better. Three elves make themselves known, each taking a point on a triangle to surround us, and begin shooting. Yurion drops an obscuring mist to make things harder on them. Unfortunately, this made problems for us too. Within a few seconds I had a plan in my head. I would get Draspher to summon a bunch of creatures to keep them busy, I would get vex to guard Yurion while she tried to get the others out while I went out to take out our attackers one by one, using the summons as flanking partners. However, I rolled poorly on initative so I ended up going last. Vex went first, stumbled forward in the mist and ends up knocking Draspher into the hole. Draspher falls screaming into the hole, alerting ocelot who fires a tangling shot upwards to try and slow him down. Although he is falling too fast to be stopped so easily, it does slow him down. He crashes onto the spikes and is left with around 5hp left. After pushing one of her oldest friends down a large hole, the paladin shrugs, turns to the left and goes to wonder out of the mist, catching one of the elves off guard and begins to hack into him. With my own plans firmly scuppered, I gave Yurion my rope and positioned myself to stand guard while she tried to pull them up.

    At the bottom of the hole Sim prepares to transform into a giant vulture to carry the two out of the hole. At the last second she realises that turning into a 20’ bird with a 30’ wingspan in a 25’ wide hole would not help. So, she and Ocelot down potions of spider climb. While this was going on Yurion had lowered the rope, but was forced to lie prone to get the 50’ rope down to the bottom of the 50’ hole. Seeing the rope, Ocelot ties Drashper to it and begins to scale the wall while carrying him, with Sim slightly above him as she did not need to carry anyone. They get about half way up when they hit a problem. The tangleshot Ocelot shot previously is still lining the walls, and Ocelot has just gotten his hand stuck in it. He quickly decided that the single best idea in this situation is to throw Draspher to Sim. I repeat, the not very strong gunslinger will throw the nearly dead man to the not very dextrous Druid. Aside from both using their weakest scores for this, they also both completely botch their rolls, as Draspher begins falling to the spikes once again, Yurian being unable to hold on to the rope with the sudden force. Luckily, Ocelot was able to redeem himself by grabbing onto the rope before Draspher hit the spikes again. He was not fast enough, however, to prevent Drasphers head from hitting the wall, taking him down to 1hp.

    With our only rope gone, I begin to make a new plan. I explain to Yurian that our best hope now is to take out the elves while the others work their way up. I then go on to say our best hope is us tag teaming the one on the right as flanking buddies before moving on to the last one, reassuring her that I will do most of the work and that I will be with her every step of the way. Just as I turn invisible as we get ready to move, we hear a thud behind us, before an explosion sends shrapnel into us, one of them is throwing grenades into the mist.

    Back in the hole Ocelot reluctantly decided leaping from one wall to the other, despite his massive jump score, would not accomplish much due to carrying a heavy weight on a rope, so he passes the rope to sim (successfully this time) and with the tangleshot drying out he is able to finally able to get out the hole. Yurian dispels the mist just as he’s getting out, and he shouts out a warning. The guy who was on our right has moved around behind us, and he has a grenade in his hand. Seeing this immediate threat, I moved up and attacked him from behind. Seeing that he was being taken care of, Yurian decided to do something about the last elf. Imitating Drasphers summoning movements, she creates a minor illusion of a couple of wolves, snarling and growling at the third elf. At the same time Vex had finished of the first and charged towards the third. Panicking, the elf wastes his shots on the illusionary wolves before the angry half-orc samurai paladin lays into him.

    Sim finally pulls herself out of the hole, and with Yurian’s assistance pulls Draspher up. Ocelot attempts to use his mage hand amulet to pull the pin out of the guys grenade, only to find it’s already been pulled, the guys cooking it for a faster blast. He shoots at the guy, shouting out the one liner “your grenades hot and so are my bullets” to alert me about the grenade. To the surprise of the DM and everyone at the table, I decide to knock it out of his hand. To be fair, I was able to explain that I had three teammates next to the hole pulling the fourth up, I didn’t want to risk him throwing it and them falling in again. Besides which, I was still at nearly full health so I could easily tank the blast, and it would hurt him as well, preventing him from throwing it in a way that he could protect himself.

    While being pulled up, Draspher finally got to some level of coherent thought, and summoned a giant spider to help push him up. Once he was out of the pit the spider and sim went to help me deal with the second elf. Just as Vex slices the Third elf in half, the second gets webbed up. Just as we are planning to interrogate him, Ocelot walks up and shoots him in the head.

    Part two, post battle complications
    Spoiler
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    Just after the battle, as we are gathering our wits, Ocelot and Draspher realise that they feel terrible. Turns out the spikes were lined with poison. A Con affecting poison. This is particularly bad for Draspher as he already was at deaths door. He drops below 0hp a couple of times, only a lot of healing keeps him in the land of the living. Through many knowledge checks we figure out that the poison is based on local plants and fungus, but we don’t have the skills to make an antidote. None of the bandits have an antidote on them, and none of us have any way of curing them. We eventually remember that we can still contact the druids via the mistletoe sending spell, and beg them for help. We find out that there is a nearby sanctuary, so sim transforms into a giant vulture to carry the two there quickly. Meanwhile myself, Vex and Yurion are all trying to plan what to do next. I outline that we can’t go forward as another ambush like that at lower power could finish us, we can’t turn back to the sanctuary since we don’t know where it is and we can’t stay there just in case the poachers send replacements/check up on the three we just killed. I then realise that neither Vex nor Yurion IRL or in game had been paying me the slightest bit of attention, resulting in my talking to myself for 5 minutes. I then decide to just wait just off the path for Sim to get back, so she can lead us to the druids.

    We come across a camp surrounded by trees, so much so there isn’t an entrance, the trees just open and close for guests. We meet the head druid, the highest-level druid on the mountain. She’s level 5. In a straight fight, we could take every druid on this mountain with no problem. She tells us that our friends are undergoing treatment in the medical tent and they should be alright by the morning.

    While Sim goes to bury her cheetah (ocelot had taken the body in his handy haversack) I suddenly remember that Yurion still has the memories of the one poacher, and ask if with the druids help we figure out where their camp is. The good news is that we now know exactly where their camp is, and scouts have reported they are still there. What’s more the druids are more than happy to make a full assault the next day, but they do still want our help with it. The downside is that, as previously mentioned, every druid on this mountain is low level, we will still have to do the lion’s share of the work to make this work without suicidal levels of casualty’s. Secondly, the poacher camp is right below the dragons keep, an area the druids are very reluctant to enter due to the existing truce. If we cause too much trouble, the dragons’ going to wake up and go for us.


    Part three, no escape in the night
    Spoiler
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    We are told that we are free to say the night. The DM even tells us that with the druids standing guard, we should be able to sleep the full night without problem,
    HA, although there is supposed to be heavy snow during the night. Ocelot, Draspher and Yurian are sleeping in the medical tent on the left, Vex and Sim are in the second tent in the middle and I am sleeping in the last tent on the right. As we are sleeping, the DM has us roll perception scores. Ocelot and Fumbles (Draspher kept insisting on rolling for his raccoon for most of these kinds of checks, mostly because the raccoon had better scores than he did) are the only ones to make it.

    Ocelot gets woken up in the medical tent by fumbles. He seems panicked and worried. A quick check outside shows that it is around 2am, there is a heavy blizzard, and he can’t see anyone. He goes to wake the others in his tent before deciding what to do. Ocelot decided the best course of action is to tie a rope around his waist and go wake everyone in the other tents up. He then finds out just how cold it is, and quickly dashes to the girl’s tent. After wakening them up, sim decided to go get me and regroup in their tent. She makes her way over and is unpleasantly shocked to discover I have taken to sleeping in my mitral chain shirt, and just that. We make our way back and try and work out what’s going on

    Meanwhile Yurian spots the outline of a person while looking outside. She can’t tell anything about them, and she only saw them due to the fire behind them briefly showing a blurred outline, so she decided to check outside to see what she can find. She goes out and investigates the fire, still active during a blizzard. Her research shows it’s a magical fire of some sort, but even with that there is something wrong, she can see logs burning but she can’t feel heat but she’s starting to feel drawn towards it.

    As Sim and I are going to the tent, Sim spots her girlfriend staring at the fire in the middle of a blizzard, and decided to go get her. Ocelot also decides to go see what happened to the druids, so he ties the rope around his waist, downs his protection from cold potion and charges out, running a loop around the fire while screaming and shouting to see what he can see. Just at this moment, Yurian decides to experiment with the fire, creating water to extinguish it to see what happens. It goes out, robbing us of our one light source and leaving ocelot stumbling in the dark. At this point Draspher starts trying to metagame like crazy, trying to justify his eccentric nature would mean that he’s cast light on the tent by this point, but the DM clamps down on this.

    Ocelot goes to the medical tent to pick up Draspher only to find it completely empty. He meets back with us and we start discussing what’s going on, in particular that Draspher is missing and that Ocelot found that the other druids were missing as well. Ocelot and I have an argument, he’s convinced that it’s the dragon as everything we seem to do relates back to dragons. I say that if it was the dragon, it wouldn’t waste time with this nonsense it would just stamp/eat us to death, and that the fact the fire has no heat might mean it’s some kind of heat-vampire, a creature that feeds on heat from other sources.

    We decide to hide in the medical tent while we figure this out and we eventually figure out we must be in some kind of dream realm. Ocelot takes this to mean we are in the ‘upside down’ from stranger things. The only clue that we can find about what happened to Draspher is a pillow he IRL keeps insisting on telling us is still enchanted with a light spell. Yurion then tries using locate object to see if we can find Draspher that way, only to find he’s not in range. We deduce that he can’t possibly have gotten that far away in such a short time, so he must be on another plane. If we are in a dream realm, then he might even have woken up. Yurion then tries nicking herself with her weapon to see if that will work and sure enough, she disappears. Ocelot puts his gun in his mouth to do the same, but is stopped by a wisdom roll at the last second, and he nicks himself to. I try and stab Vex, but fail to get through her armour. I try again and fall flat on my face with a natural 1. I explain to the others I’m sending them through first before I go, and blindside Sim with a surprise stab before trying one last time on Vex. When I still can’t get through her AC, I give up and just nick myself to get out, telling her beforehand to do the same. Just as the last of us are about to leave, it goes quiet outside (DM felt the need to tell us that, it probably must have to do with something but we never found out at the time)

    Sure enough, we all wake up in our beds the next morning with a small wound where we nicked ourselves. Draspher franticly checks all over himself to try and figure out how he got injured to escape, but finding nothing we all assume there was another reason. Top ones so far are:
    • The not-yet fully attuned ring of sustenance made him only sleep for two hours
    • He injured himself somehow
    • Fumbles tried to tear his throat out
    • He’s possessed (Drasphers theory, we promised to take him to a church and cover him in holy water when we’re finished on the mountain)
    But the simple fact is that we have no idea.

    As vex wakes up, she turns to her bunkmate to find her pale with sheets covered in blood. Turns out that since I stabbed her rather than nicking a finger, her wound was far more serious than the others and she has bled out 21hp of damage in the night. Whoops.

    We head out and ask the druid what the heck happened last night, but she has never heard of anything like this before. We ended there, and next session we will hopefully get to the bandit camp.


    Out of the game the DM explained that we had gotten farther than he thought we would have. He was a little under-prepared and hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night. The dream stuff was supposed to happen later (he keeps a timeline of events going on in the background) but a combination of us spending longer in the mountain on a side-quest to get Sim a pet Roc and the lack of other materials meant it was happening now. I have personally sworn to find a way to get a decent night’s sleep by any means necessary.

    Days on mountain – 6, starting day 7 next session

    Draspher brushes with death – 7, the avalanche, attempting diplomacy on the guys shooting us, summoning the swarm of bats, falling down the hole, getting dropped, twice below 0hp due to con damage, and he disappeared from the dream when we weren’t watching

    Incidents caused by Ocelot – 5.6, he got a guy dragged overboard, he blurted out our plans immediately to the first person he met (.75, malicious intent but it worked out), nearly shot down our guide (.5, malicious intent but didn’t go through with it), helped start the avalanche, decided to dig himself deeper because he wanted to use his jump score (.25) and captured a guy only for him to escape and probably warn his friends about us (.25), helped trigger the hole (.25), dropped draspher, shot our interrogation prisoner (.1), tried to blow his own brains out to escape the dream (.5)

    Mutiny’s by Jaune – 2, I took field command during the hole incident and I did technicaly stab Sim and nearly cause her to bleed out
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-06 at 05:19 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    interview tape 33291:

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    1# - let us begin, yes. Beginning member review, sate your name for the record yes
    2# - Sim with an e
    1# - so, sime yes, you have been a member since you were a child, a recruit from one of the city orphanage runs yes?
    2# - it's sim,
    1# - with an e, sime yes
    2# - [sigh] yes I came from up north.
    1# - yes, from your psychological profiles I understand you had difficulty connecting to your peers yes
    2# - so the guild made a profile on me, little cree...wait profiles, as in plural?
    1# - yes, it is customary to make additional profiles for difficult cases or after exceptional circumstances yes. You should see the draw we have for the one ninja, but I digress on private guild information, you had difficulty with your peers, yes
    2# - yeah....I always felt a little out of place, like I didn't belong there
    1# - do not worry, yes, this is perfectly normal for child in your situation, as well as the years of wanton sexual activity with many partners both in and out of the guild yes
    2# - HEY!
    1# - again, yes, do not worry, such activities are perfectly natural and within acceptable guidelines yes. You have done nothing that you should feel ashamed of, or that your peers will look down on you for, yes
    2# - I am starting to really dislike you
    1# - anger towards figures of authority, again perfectly normal yes
    2# - now I definitely dislike you
    1# - I will make a note in your next profile, yes
    2# - CAN WE GET ON WITH THIS ALREADY!
    1# - yes, so poor little orphan years aside, we are here to discuss your last mission, in particular,who you brought back, yes
    2# - if you start talking crap about my angel I swear I'll...
    1# - nonono, yes, I wouldn't do something like that yes, I don't have a profile on her yet, that's why we're having this meeting, yes. As guildmaster likes to say, let's start at the beginning....
    2# - ......
    1# - yes
    2# -well the team had been asked to sort out a land dispute between two towns. The problem was that hostilities had gotten so bad that we couldn't get from one towns to another. We really need to though, so we start brainstorming ideas...we started getting desperate
    1# - is that why we received so many creative complaints, yes, tell me, who came up with plan to charge boarder by riding prize pig yes?
    2# - ......
    1# - it's ok, yes, stupid ideas are common amongst unwanted orphan baby recruits as well, yes
    2# - I really hate you
    1# - yes, noted, yes
    2# -so, this hadn’t worked and the rest of the team were all having a laugh at me for trying it. They even decided to wait until morning to heal me “just so that I learn my lesson properly”, jerks. So, we get back to the bar and I collapse at the first seat I can find. [sigh], little did I know that was the greatest decision of my life. As I lay there, my angel, in her infinite kindness, used her blessed touch to restore me. I will never forget looking up and seeing her heavenly face in a look of divine concentration
    1# - according to her report, yes, she took pity on the bleeding idiot flopped next to her and decided to heal her so she would stop making a mess near her books, yes. She didn’t even look away from the book she was reading, yes
    2# - from the first moment, I knew she was my forever girl, and I swore myself there and then to always be by her side
    1# - Her report did note her stress and duress and first being proposed to, yes, then being dragged behind for several days by previously mentioned ‘bleeding idiot, yes. In fact, according to the reports you violated guild policy by taking said civilian into combat AND showing her private and confidential documentation, yes.
    2# - When she asked to have a look, why I knew that her divine wisdom and intellect would surely see us through the eldritch scribblings and see the truth hidden beneath. And it payed off too, for only her wisdom and beauty could have gotten both sides to ease their aggressions and come to a peaceful conclusion
    1# - Yes, she was the only one amongst your entire braindead party who cared enough to read the documentation being argued over, yes. In fact, if you had not dragged the unqualified, uncertified, unregistered, underequipped, uncaring civilian along, then none of your weak minded, addle brained assassinates or your own hormonally shanked pitiful excuse of a cerebellum would have realised neither village owned the land in question, that as per the original documentation all the land in the area belongs to the king and as such is merely ‘rented out’ so all talks of land rights are null and void.
    2# - why with her divine foresight and brilliant mind
    1# - she filled out proper paperwork, yes?
    2# - we quickly resolved the issue in its entirety without further bloodshed. I knew the signs when I saw them, and asked my angel to join the guild immediately
    1# - and she accepted, yes. I guess your pathetic bleeding puppy routine must have really worked, yes
    2# - you know, you’re really starting to…
    1# - yes, I am sorry, let me rephrase yes. Little bleeding puppy orphan is far more accurate, is it not yes?
    2# - seriously, I am going to…
    1# - anger, stemming from feelings of inadequacy, yes. Tell me, it is shown being proven wrong affects the same part of the brain as being punched, how well do you operate with feeling like being punched constantly due to pitiful poor brain ability’s, yes?
    2# - I don’t know, how about I help you see how well you work WHILE BEING PUNCHED CONSTANTLY!
    1# - quick to violence as well yes, as expected from unwanted orphan puppy with loose standards yes.
    2# - OK THAT’S IT, YOU ASKED FOR IT YOU SON OF A……
    3# -THAT IS ENOUGH YOU TWO
    2# -Guildmaster, I’m sorry I..
    3# - could you give me a minute with Sim?
    1# - yes guildmaster, yes
    3# - privately
    1# - do not worry, yes, I will not say a word speak as you will, yes
    3# - I guess I had forgotten who I was talking to, leave the room for two minutes. That is an express order
    1# - very well, yes
    2# - I’m sorry guildmaster, I just..
    3# - it’s ok, I completely understand. He may be very good at getting all the facts and details, but people are not his strong point
    2# -so you don’t mind that I got mad at him
    3# - let me put it this way. During one mission, he was interrogated and placed under a truth field. Before they even had a chance to ask a question, he ‘truthfully’ deconstructed everything about everyone there, complete with evidence and references. He went on for 3 hours, systematically explaining that everyone at the station was a degenerate failure, and proved that the captain’s wife had or was sleeping with nearly every officer there. The truly shocking things is that they had deactivated the truth field 5 minutes into his rant in the hope of shutting him up. Now run off little one, I believe someone is waiting for you in the canteen
    2# - MY ANGEL, don’t worry my love, I will be with you soon!
    3# - you can stop hiding now
    1# - I was not hiding, yes
    3# - then why did you use an invisibility potion the second you left so you could listen in
    1# - it is my duty, yes, to properly examine, interrogate, profile, assess, analyse, categorise, catalogue, classify, inspect, inspect,observe and study all members of the guild, as you requested yes
    3# -although that is true, I do wish that you would show more tact about it. Maybe I need someone else in charge of the actual interviewing process.
    1# - regardless, time for my recommendations, yes
    3# - that was barely an interview, how do you expect to…
    1# - you think my investigation only started just yes, no I have spent much time studying the two in question already, I just needed to talk in person to confirm what I already knew, yes. I think those two should be put under immediate long-term investigation
    3# -really, but there doesn’t seem to be any problem with either of them
    1# - to untrained eye yes. Consider though what happened on the mission yes, Sim immediately attached herself to a complete stranger who only showed her the most minimal care or attention, yes, and then disregarded all guild protocol by bringing her on their mission and letting her have full access to private city records yes. This suggests an emotional vulnerability that could easily be exploited by outside forces in the future, a risk we cannot allow to go unchecked, yes. Yurian as well is worrying, yes. She is intelligent, yes, able to sort out information and think of plans rather than relying on brute force so she would be useful to the guild yes. In turn, though she seems to have very little, if any yes, interest in combat itself, even when the situation calls for it she seems reluctant to contribute unless unavoidable yes. Also, she has joined the guild on a whim, based on a random act of kindness from another whim yes. Without proper reasons to remain loyal, who is to say what she would do on a future ‘whim’ yes? Alone these are worrying, yes, but now they are together they pose an easy target for future anti-guild espionage, yes, such a weakness must be addressed before it can be exploited with no doubt, yes
    3# - you know you have the most astounding habit of whenever I start to question why I brought you in you immediately show just how capable you truly are
    1# - who said this was coincidence, yes
    3# -that doesn’t surprise me. Write this all up and send it to my office. The amount of problem cases I have seems to be building up, I need to figure out some way of keeping an eye on all of them without them realising
    1# - there is fresh bottle, yes, in third draw down from right, my compliments yes
    3# - you know me so, so well
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-09-07 at 03:31 PM.

  17. - Top - End - #17
    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    Apr 2017

    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    session 11, part 1 poor preparations
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    last time we had just woken from one heck of a bad dream and of course by dream I meant being mentally kidnapped by an unknown force. We got out by cutting ourselves, we most of us did. I stabbed sim and she nearly bled out in the night. We woke up annoyed and ready to kill something. Luckily there is a whole poachers camp waiting for a good old-fashioned hero beat down.

    Before I went to sleep (between sessions but whose counting) I came up with a battle plan. First, Myself, Sim and Yurion would sneak into the camp. Our goal would be to take out a few guards and set up smokescreens/distractions. Then Vex would lead the druids into a charge. Draspher and Ocelot would provide interference from the outside while Sim, Yurion and I would take down threats from the inside. The druids would use interference spells, in particular Sim and the other level 5 druid would both use warp wood to ruin their bows and use heat/chill metal to make them drop their swords. The big danger was the druid in charge, so the second he appeared Yurion would drop a silence spell on Vex and she would keep him busy while the rest of us finished off the rest of the archers.

    It was a great plan but as kryton from red dwarf would put it, there are three problems with that. Firstly, we don't have an army, we have 4 level 2 druid redshirts, two, the druids can't prepare new spells so no warp wood or heat metals and finally three, Yurion didn't have silence spells. The rest of the plan was workable though. Sim, Yurion and I would sneak in at one side of the camp under invisibility and begin sabotage. The rest would sneak around to the other side of the camp and wait. When the alarm had been set off, they would assault the other side of camp. Little did I realise how naive I was being about what our DM had planned, or my teammates ability to make any situation much, much worse.

    Part 2, the poachers really strong-hold
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    we go down to the location we have identified as their base, and their protection methods are actually pretty good. They have some kind of combination of an illusion and a perception filter over their camp, making it both hidden and hard to even look at. Draspher turned Yurion invisible, Sim turns into a rat and we head over to the entrance while the others go around the back. I turn invisible as we cross the threshold, and I am so glad I did. What we were expecting was a bunch of tents for the 10-15 archers left. What we find is a fully organised base, with way more than a few archers and a druid. Heck, the DM ran out of regular counters to use, he had cardboard cut-out numbers just placed down since he ran out of bases. To my memory, there were:
    • 1 elf commander in charge of
    • 9 archers in formation going down the path
    • 4 guys represented with a goblin counter
    • 2 gunslingers with weird looking guns that glow blue
    • 2 spellcasters
    • a cleric
    • 3 something in cages to one side
    • 2/3 guys in the bunks
    • 1 caster off board (I'll explain soon)
    • and one guy in a hut keeping an eye on the barrier
    said guy immediately looks up at the barrier telling him that someone has entered the camp, only seeing a rat. He immediately twigs the rat is a druid considering that they have been worried about the local druids. Seeing the rat scurry off, he calls out 'hey guys, I think the druids have found us' and the elf commander tells all his elves to spread out and find them. I go off to the right to hide around the tents while sim and Yurion go to the left.

    while this is going on the others have gotten to the other side of the camp, gotten through the barrier but found a problem. The whole thing is built into a boxed off trench. There is only one entrance, a 30' wall of rock and ice surrounds the place. The only entrance was the one at the front, the one we had entered from, meaning that when the others tried to get in via the back they found a 30’ cliff. While this suited Ocelot just fine, the others couldn’t get down the cliff to engage in melee.

    Making the most of the situation, Ocelot scans the area while attaching a silencer to his rifle. As he does so, he notices a couple of guys dressed in robes and deduces they must be wizards of some sort. He signals with hand-gestures to Draspher about the wizards being there. Draspher immediately shoots of a fireball, only to see it bounce of something and the fireball crashes into a nearby tent. Everyone at the table falls silent and stares at him in abject shock, and every poacher in the canyon turns to the figures at the top of the cliff all lined up like ducks at a shooting range. Ocelot has never regretted not killing someone so much in all his life until that moment.

    Part 3, it all goes to hell
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    From here things immediately go crazy. Every eye in the camp turns to them and starts going for them. Fortunately, Ocelot had gone prone to snipe and had a spare spider climb potion for Vex to use to get down the cliff and begin fighting back while the druids knew to keep their head down. Unfortunately, the idiot who just fired a fireball was still standing in plain view, so immediately became their main target.

    Whilst Draspher is being made into a pincushion, Yurion decides to get investigate and brain drain the elf commander. Unfortunately, he makes the save, and worse he doesn’t like being psychically assaulted, and moves to track his attacker down. Sim meanwhile has scurried behind the tent and gotten a call thunder spell going. The conversation goes something a little like this:
    Beware, for invisibility will not help you against a superior opponent such ashurkdudududuudud. Ok, but such things arehurkdududududud. AH! SUCH MOVES WILL NOT SAHURKDUDUDUDUDUDUD. OK YOU KNOW WHAT, SOD THIS, I’M OUT
    The Elf commander in the space of two turns gotten two blasts of Yurions lighting wand and a call lightning bolt, and decided just to bail. I found out later he had been taken down to 8hp, so the DM just had him run rather than loose a recurring NPC so easily. Each of said lighting wands blasts also ended up hitting multiple other enemy’s, frying a couple of dogs and poachers. The funny thing is that it was supposed to be a wand of call lightning initially, but the DM wanted to get Yurion more involved in combat, so changed it to lightning. He has come to rue that decision.

    During this, I went to the tents. While investigating a poacher comes out and nearly knocks into me. I grab him, drag him back into the tent and kill him, leading to many jokes about what I was doing to the body while the fight was going on. This is pretty much my only contribution to the fight, a combination of long turns due to the sheer number of creatures on the board and the destructive power unleashed meant it only lasted a few rounds.

    The wizards at the back of camp all start preparing various spells. Seeing this Draspher successfully figures out what spells they are casting. He then shouts out warnings about the spells to Ocelot as loud as he can, all while preparing more fireballs that keep getting deflected. This has two results:
    1. the fireballs are being counter-spelled by an unseen spellcaster. Apparently, the best way of counter-spelling a fireball is to fire another fireball at it and have them bounce off each other, so there are expositions everywhere
    2. every poacher in camp can see and hear the nutjob screaming “he’s casting x” while throwing fireballs everywhere. They know who to take out first
    sure enough, draspher continues his disturbing new trend of shouting and getting shot. He tries complaining to the DM but he just points out what an ass he’s making of himself and that’s why he’s the best target. The truly sad thing is it’s actually helping since they are just beating him up rather than ganging up on the ones in their midst.

    Vex has made her way down the cliff, slices her way into one of the tents and begins chopping into the wizard relaxing inside. The fight leads out of the tent and the first wizard turns invisible and runs, leaving her with the cleric, the second wizard and the two gunslingers. She looks like she’s in trouble at first since the gunslingers damage straight through her armour, but she quickly puts one down, Ocelot engages the other in a long range firefight and both the wizard leaves via invisibility.

    Part 4, AOE for everybody
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    Sim decides now is the time to do something about the large group of archer elves surrounding the fire pit. Still as a rat, she charges up and fires a modified create water spell, using it as a super soaker to covers a couple at once before dropping a lightning bolt on them. One of the nearby elves spots her and tries to impale her but thanks to her small size he just catches the whiskers only.

    Draspher meanwhile tired moving to a new spot to fire from, but got an ice storm dropped on his head curtesy of the cleric, so he retreats to heal up. As he’s moving to cover, he sees the druids accompanying us trying to scale down the cliff, and a fireball heading straight to them. He successfully bounces it off his own fireball, the two flying off in random directions. One smashed into the wall sending two of the druids falling off, and the other one falling at the edge of the group of poacher’s sim just hit, killing two of them. Draspher turns his gaze and thanks God for letting him feel useful. God turns back to him and asks "how are you still alive?". Seeing this, Ocelot realises that there must be another caster on the left-hand cliff of the camp, and tries to spot them but finds nothing.

    Inspired by this spell, Sim decides to follow suit, moving away from the attacking elf and losing a few more whiskers in the process, she drops an ice storm right on the group surrounding the fire. They don’t last for long. There is a single elf near the front who just missed the first blast and just missed the second, and is now terrified to move anywhere from the safe spot he found. After firing this off, Sim hears something in a tent and so transforms back into human and goes inside, not even stopping or looking as she drops a lightning bolt on the guy who had been attacking her.

    At this point the cleric decides to cut her losses and drops an obscuring mist. Draspher almost attempts to fireball her out of the mist, but at the last second realises that it would just be counter-spelled and two fireballs would hit the cliff he’s standing on, so he summons a giant bat to look for the last spellcaster. Ocelot decides he really wants the gun that first gunman dropped, so he just jumps off the cliff tanking the damage and wonders over. At that exact moment Vex accidently knocks the tent over onto herself and the gunslinger. Deciding to try and help, Ocelot takes a pot-shot at one of the lumps, shooting vex in the back. It’s at this point that the poachers decide enough is enough. One by one they surrender.

    (Oddly enough, despite all that was happening one of the elves doesn’t get up from the bench and, thanks to the way the drawing looked, we decided he was playing the piano the entire time, and the group nicknamed him ‘elfen john’)

    Part 5, cleanup
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    We all make our way to the centre of the camp and gather up prisoners. There is no sign of the spellcasters who turned invisible, but we commence with stripping the camp and its former inhabitants down for goodies.

    The tent Sim entered seems to be where they are keeping all their ill-gotten loot, including tons of fur pelts and at the back a very large egg. This egg is hatching and as sim approaches it, a chick the size of a person breaks out and looks at sim with derpy eyes. Yes, we had finally succeeded in getting Sim her Roc, introducing to the party Dwain “the roc” Johnson.

    We will have to wait until next session to find out what we got, so we try to decide what to do about the camp itself. As we are discussing, with Ocelot really wanting to leave quickly for some reason, Draspher realises his dear fumbles is missing. Turning, he finds him being held by his tail by Dwain, who is swinging his new toy around with great enjoyment. You really have to pity poor fumbles at this point. He spends all his time hanging around Draspher, getting involved in all his messes, his best friend (the cheetah) dies and now his replacement thinks he’s a chew toy, the universe seems to hate that raccoon.

    Just as we are preparing to leave, we hear a loud chuckle behind us. We all turn and see the white dragon on the cliff, looking down at us.

    Part 6, synchronised soiling
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    This thing is huge, powerful and laughing at us. Whether he finds this all funny or he wants to enjoy killing us we don’t know. Needless to say, about 90% of everyone there has been frozen in abject terror.

    Occelot predicted that he might see us when the barrier went down earlier in the fight (he of course neglected to tell anyone this) and so goes into a carefully prepared speech about how we had been hired to deal with the poachers on the druid’s behalf. What comes out of his mouth is mumbled ramblings, sobbing and desperate pleas for him not to be eaten (rolled a one on diplomacy and had failed the fear roll before). Yurion decides to try and negotiate in draconic, but has little success.

    Luckily, it turned out he didn’t care about us at all, and dismissed us with a cursory “get off my lawn”. We ran back to the druid camp with our prisoners as fast as our rapidly freezing urine covered trousers would let us. Once we dropped them off, we decide to just leave this place and go home. We got to the base of the mountain and even to the bar we found at the first day here. We all hit the sack and Yurion is drawn into a familiar place.

    (I am thankful that the rest of us weren’t considering thanks to some good rolls with the barmaid according to the DM she let me “do butt stuff”. If I had been taken there this time I would be taken with what I was wearing (nothing) and possible whom I was wearing)

    Part 7, when one mystery is revealed another presents itself
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    Yurion meets a figure with black hair dressed in a business suit. There is something off about him though. He can’t tell us his name, or even show us his face, he’s dressed in a modern business suit and made a casual reference to an airport (starting an in-character quest/joke to discover what an airport is). He explains that he was the one who brought us there before, but he’s not trying to hurt us. He can’t interfere or communicate with anyone normally, but everyone in the party has some connection to death, and combined with the magic of the full moon he can draw our minds to this place to discuss things. He wouldn’t bother with us normally, but we are the only ones with this connection directly involved with events that could influence things. He tired talking to us before, but we all woke ourselves up too soon so he decided to single out Yurion, figuring a divine spellcaster is more likely to listen to him, heck the ghost haunting her is “one of his guys”.

    Apparently, something is coming, he can’t say what, but it’s bad. The conspiracy, the coup we are trying to stop isn’t what it seems.

    He says that normally any kind of contact is impossible, it’s only the unique circumstances that let him communicate. Apparently, everyone in the party has some connection to death, and combined with the magic of the full moon he can draw our minds to this place to discuss things. What’s more,.

    He also agrees to answer some questions:
    • no, he is not a dragon
    • do you really want a list of dragons? I mean the only one’s you’ve met are the guildmaster, the prankster banker and the mountain hobo, they really aren’t that important
    • no, he is still not a dragon
    • draspher is not possessed
    • no, he is still, still not a dragon
    • the raccoon’s celestial nature is what dragged him here with draspher the first time
    • why do you keep asking that, I’m not going to spontaneously turn into a dragon
    • the reason draspher was kicked out early? He managed to tick of the raccoon and it attacked him
    • ok, seriously stop asking that
    • he can try contacting us again next full moon, but he doesn’t know of any way to make contact aside from this

    When Yurion woke earlier than usual, she was greeted by a pair of derpy eyes and an oversized beak holding fumbles by the tail about three inches from her face. The rest of us wake up later, with vex distraught to find her favoured bed-mate fumbles was kidnapped in the night. We all set off back to ninja-sans hideout and on the way, we see the guild fast-travel airship parked outside covered in a tarp (there were no hubcaps so we didn’t have to worry about them being stolen). Seems as though a guild representative is present. And that’s where we ended that session.


    Days on mountain – 7
    Draspher brushes with death – 10, the avalanche, attempting diplomacy on the guys shooting us, summoning the swarm of bats, falling down the hole, getting dropped, twice below 0hp due to con damage, and he disappeared from the dream when we weren’t watching, starting the fight when no-one was expecting, constantly shouting out every spell he could see making him a human pincushion (2)

    Incidents caused by Ocelot – 7, he got a guy dragged overboard, he blurted out our plans immediately to the first person he met (.75, malicious intent but it worked out), nearly shot down our guide (.5, malicious intent but didn’t go through with it), helped start the avalanche, decided to dig himself deeper because he wanted to use his jump score (.25) and captured a guy only for him to escape and probably warn his friends about us (.25), helped trigger the hole (.25), dropped draspher, shot our interrogation prisoner (.1), tried to blow his own brains out to escape the dream (.5), accidently gave draspher the signal to fireball (.4), shot Vex in the back

    Mutiny’s by Jaune – 3, I took field command during the hole incident, I did technically stab Sim and nearly cause her to bleed out and I tried to direct a battle plan that went no-where without her say so
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-13 at 01:58 PM.

  18. - Top - End - #18
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    interview tape 33295:

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    1# - guild master you called for me, yes?
    2# - there you are, perfect. I need you to help me go over the reports from the team near southwater
    1# - ah, yes, the suicide squad, yes
    2# - wait, what, since when were we calling them that
    1# - for quite a while yes, I thought you knew? Yes
    2# - NO! why would we ever call them that, I don’t want them to die. If I did I would just do it myself, who called them that anyway, was it you?
    3# - actually, old friend, it was me
    2# - when did you get here?
    3# - I have been in hear for the last three hours, fact is I was in here before you were
    2# - what, how…never mind that, why would you go along with calling them that? Might I remind you that the man you raise since he was a child is part of that group you so casually condemn
    3# - who did you think named them called them that in the first place?
    1# - yes, you forget guild master that between the two of us, yes, we have interviewed every member of that group. It is our professional option, yes, that entire group are maladjusted nincompoops unsuitable for any task, yes
    3# - I’d argue against that old friend, but the one did shoot me
    2# - back to the matter at hand, the reports
    1# - you are mistaken, yes
    2# - what?
    1# - yes, this less of a report and more a bill of damages
    3# - he’s right
    2# - how would you know, you haven’t even read it yet
    3# - I’ve been in here for three hours, I have been going through the small mountain of paperwork that’s been building up, I’ve read every report on your table twice, and filled out the appropriate paperwork three times
    2# - so what have they been doing then? It can’t be that bad
    3# - you underestimate my boy old friend
    1# - yes, judging by the amount of fire damage, yes, so did our agents
    2# - fire damage! I thought he was a summoner?
    3# - according to the report, at “the ninja’s insistence” draspher has been experimenting with them, with mixed success
    1# - he is still summoning, yes. A number of the complaints were his attempts, yes, at mastering some kind of trick involving invisibility, a bedsheet, several fire elementals and a large swarm of bats, yes
    3# - certainly sounds like something he’d do. At least he’s not stopping anyone from doing their jobs, unlike Yurion
    2# - why, what has she been doing that’s so bad, most of the time she has her head in a book
    3# - apparently, she’s been experimenting with a new power that lets her literally rip the thoughts out of someone’s head. About six different missions have all been put in jeopardy as she keeps testing it on returning agents who forget the vital messages they were supposed to be delivering
    1# - better than, yes, the man named after a man, named after a cat yes. He has been shooting them for doing their job, yes.
    2# - explain
    1# - multiple reports, yes, of agents being shot at yes. Sometime when leaving or returning, other times when they are performing mundane tasks, yes.
    3# - he goes into great-detail in explain how one agent nearly died from his wounds from three different bullets.
    1# - yes, apparently, he was shot bringing the requisitioned supplies, once upon delivering Ocelots new guns, with the newly acquired revolver might I add, yes, and finally once when he was far away from the compound. I theorise that cat man was testing the freshly delivered rife on a faraway target, yes. Then there are the poison victims, yes
    2# - Jaune I take it
    3# - only on the last victim, the rest were Simms work. Apparently, she has taken to potion brewing, and needed test subjects
    1# - yes, apparently, yes, multiple cases of unwanted orphan baby failed first batch potions left the base in a terrible state.yes
    3# - what baby?
    2# - never mind, and Jaune’s victim
    3# - when the agents clamped down on the testing Jaune offered to help her in their place. What he failed to mention is that he had no intention of drinking the potions, and helped drug most of the agent’s drinks
    1# - luckily, they were mostly healing potions, yes. The captain just got unlucky with semi-working water breathing potion
    2# - semi working?
    3# - the potion did let him breath underwater, it just failed to let him breath out of it
    2# - that just leaves Jaune himself. What chaos has he been spreading?
    3# - surprisingly nothing
    2# - really?
    1# - Not true, yes, the team killing ninja has been stalking commander yes,
    2# - please don’t call him that
    1# - no, yes, the team killing ninja has been asking, “teach me ninja-san”, yes
    2# - what did I just say
    1# - Unusual, yes, though I find it odd that you would dislike that word, very well I shall not call him that. The Team killing backstabber has mostly been well behaved. He shut up when the commander threw a book of “deception for dummies” at him and apparently, he thought that was the first lesson yes. Yes, they shouldn’t have much problem with new mission yes
    2# - THAT NOT THE WORD I MEANT AND YOU KNO…wait new mission, what new mission?
    1# - yes the contact has sent them on mission yes to assist half leaf druid sect’s nature preserve yes
    2# - please tell me you are making this up
    1# - yes not making this up no other people available close to
    2# - when was this decided
    1# - you sent confirmation an hour ago, yes
    2# - but I never authorised this
    3# - actually that was me
    2# - WHAT,
    3# - what did you think I meant by filling out the appropriate response paperwork three times
    2# - when did you start authorising these things without consulting me
    3# - since you started dumbing paperwork on me old friend. You said to fill it out and take appropriate action based on my own judgement and I have done exactly that. Besides, it not like you weren’t going to send them anyway
    2# - if that is the case, why didn’t you tell me about all this?
    3# - I have, this is the first time I’ve seen you since I authorised the mission
    2# -on that matter, how do you know about this before me
    1# -is it not my job, yes, to know everything about everything happening everywhere, yes?
    2# - have you been going through my mail?
    1# - don’t be foolish yes, I go through everyone’s mail
    2# - you know what, I need to discuss this in private, if you don’t mind
    1# - certainly yes
    2# - I meant in private
    1# - I understand, yes, I will not say a word
    2# - please leave
    1# - but this would interfere in my knowing everything happening, yes
    2# - now
    1# - yes, this is an unwise course of action, yes
    2# - NOW
    1# - very well guild master, yes
    2# - ok, so….I meant actually leave, not stand in the doorway
    1# - of course, yes
    2# - I meant actually, actually leave, not hide behind furniture
    1# - yes, yes
    2# - ….
    3# - ….
    2# - stop hanging round the corridor trying to listen in, I know your still there
    1# - you can’t prove that yes
    2# - [sigh]
    3# - I don't know why your letting that get to you, he's always been like that
    2# - I know, it's just all this coup business has been stressful recently, especially the mess that team left behind, the last thing I need is him adding to my headaches proving that I still have security flaws within my own airship. Maybe I should give them another review and update...
    3# - you know it won’t do any good old friend. He will just find new ways of breaking them
    2# - that’s true and….taking an invisibility potion and sneaking in still counts
    1# - yes
    3# - you know things aren't as bad as they seem. Even with that mess we have more leads to follow up, and they proved that they can work together.
    2# - true, although I don't appreciate your sending them off without asking me first, especially since they are crucial to our next leads
    3# - like I said old friend, I only did what you were going to do. They were causing problems being cooped up, so I gave them a harmless mission that needed doing anyway. A few days in the mountains, following tracks, finding a camp then reporting back so we can send a more experienced team
    2# - I just worry about what they'll find. Running into Barty and then going to the home of another dragon, I wonder how much of my list they'll encounter. Not to mention Barty was always a wild card, who know what secret he leaked to them simply because he thought it was funny
    3# - ....
    2# - he’s still here, isn’t he
    1# - no, yes
    2# - GET OUT OF MY OFFICE

    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-10-11 at 05:04 PM.

  19. - Top - End - #19
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 12, part 1 the trip back
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    We start off the session with a quick explanation what happened on the journey back. We investigated the equipment we had gotten off the poachers and found:
    • a large quantity of various pelts and firs
    • many sets of snowshoes and warm winter clothing
    • several vials, including a vial of sparkly dust and a vial of black sludge
    • 20 sets of elven rations
    • A double sided cloak
    • 2 “laser” pistols
    We investigated the best we could and found that the vial of sparkly dust was diamond dust, while the guns had some kind of crystal on the end that allows them to cast a scorching ray like attack. Ocelot hands me one of the guns for me to figure out how it works (and even lets me keep it afterwards) and I proceed to teach him what the activation while we both aim at the cover Draspher is hiding behind, and much fun is had by all.

    We also do all our levelling up on the journey:
    I (Jaune) use my ninja trick to learn improved two weapon fighting, and as we had hit level 8 I place the point to boost my intelligence to 14, spending the extra skill points in intimidate and sense motive to make myself an even better party face

    Occelot boosted his dex to 19 and spent the combat feat he got as a gunslinger to get twf. He now had a gun in each hand, using his belt to reload the single shot pistol in his left hand while relying on the extra revolver cartridges in his right to keep up the rate of fire

    Draspher got a level 1 and a level 4 spell. He decided to go with Adhesive Spittle and summon monster IV

    Yurion got a silence spell as her new learned spell

    Vex took another level in paladin and upon receiving her new sheet was surprised to realise the range of feats and abilities she had, and the fact she was a spellcaster

    Sim got another level in druid and here ability to wildshape has now improved. I fully intend to milk her for all the poison I can get at the first downtime opportunity. She has also decided to follow her true life calling by taking ranks in profession courtesan.

    After the last session the DM considered how he had been running things and had realised a huge flaw in what he had been doing. For our HP he had just given us all the maximum roll for our hit dice every level. This meant that that every party member had a HUGE number of hit points and it was ridiculously hard to take us down (see last entry with Draspher the pincushion as evidence of this). To remedy this, he decided to have everyone roll new HP values, leaving everyone at about half their previous values (funnily enough, I now have 1 more HP than the paladin and the same AC).

    Part 2, call to action
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    As we get back to the hideout we see a flurry of activity. By the looks of it there packing up shop ready to move out fast, with ninja-san arguing with someone outside the building. We go over and ask ninja-san what’s going on.

    It turns out that thanks to reports of the “mad bomber” being seen in the area (whole group glares at Draspher who claims innocence on account of his hat of disguise making him look nothing like himself) he’s having to close up shop and move to a new safe house. Unfortunately, despite my questioning on whether Draspher was spotted, or if it was a copycat Ninja-san doesn’t have time to investigate. That also means he doesn’t have anyone who could help the fellow he’s talking to. As a group we decide to volunteer our services, so long as it didn’t interfere with the other mission. Ninja-san thinks about it and reluctantly acknowledge that although it’s not ideal, we are the only free agents and having us away from the safe house was actually useful when the authorities came around. He agrees to send us out and introduces us to Sayid.

    Sayid is a merchant from . He had been making his way home from a long trip when he felt a terrible presence approaching the place. He came to the guild for help, but found that ninja-san had no free agents until we arrived. Ninja san warns us to take supplies and water with us. We take the rations captured from the poachers, give Sim the vials and leave ninja san with most of the rest. Ocelot also takes the captured snowshoes, thinking that they could be useful in crossing the desert sands.

    We head off in the guild glider (a small faster airship that the guild uses mostly as a taxi service) and soon arrive on the outskirts of the desert. We will walk along one of the main roads and arrive into town by the afternoon.

    As we are walking we notice a number of corpses lining the roads. We examine them and Draspher becomes increasingly paranoid zombies throughout this, insisting on casting detect magic constantly to try and spot them early while throwing out various theories about everything he hears. All we can tell about the bodies is that there not magic, they were running from town, and they seem incredibly malnourished. We see more bodies in fresher conditions the closer we get to town, and we hear noises just ahead.

    Part 3, under the same sun
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    As we approach, we start to plan as we roll initiative. Yurian decides she wants to cast silence on Ocelots guns so he can snipe quietly, and I attempt to outline a plan where he flanks one side away from us (so our casters can still cast), Draspher casts a fireball in the middle of them and Sim immediately after summons something big to distract them before we move in. Unfortunately, a combination of no-one caring and the silence spell going up makes this pointless. This single silence spell messes up a lot of our actions in this coming battle.

    Our targets are three Giant Scorpions feasting on a body. Ocelot does go to one side and opens fire with his new laser gun (which he and I insist on calling them despite the DM frequently saying that there not) and it’s pretty effective. I go out on the other side and prepare my shadow clones for defence, hoping to move into flanking afterwards. One of the scorpions immediately goes for the guy who shot it with lasers, just falling short of hitting him until the DM shows us that the claws have reach, slashing Ocelot quite painfully. Seeing this, Vex charged in for a bull rush, getting in between Ocelot and the Scorpion.

    Following this a second Scorpion goes to the first one’s side and both engage Vex, while the third decides the 4 or 5 guys who look a lot alike are good enough targets. Draspher desides to test out his new spell, and summons a salt mephit behind the scorpions, and Yurion moves up to cast a bless spell while Sim summons a constrictor behind the first scorpion giving Vex flanking. Unfortunatly, Vex had completely forgotten that Ocelot’s pistols still had a silence spell cast on them, completely negating her own spell as she moved behind him. At the DM’s suggestion, Vex decides to try out her twf and tw cleave feats by drawing her wakazahi alongside her keen katana and, alongside a volley of fire from Ocelot, devastates the first scorpion in a single round.

    I re-manoeuvre myself, one of my shadow clones taking a scorpion stinger to the face, to get behind the second scorpion in flanking. This messes up Drasphers plan, so re re-positions his salt mephit so it is in range of the second and third scorpion and tries to use its special ability. The DM asks him to roll wisdom.

    He gets a 0.

    The group collapses in laughter.

    So, he uses the mephit’s ability to draw all the moisture from other creatures around itself against the scorpions. Unfortunately, either (as the DM had tried to say) such abilities are ineffective against creatures who live in the desert, or he just rolled terribly, as it has virtually no effect. For his turn he tries out ghost sounds to make the sound of a dragon focused on the mephit in an attempt to intimidate them. Luckily most of the party was inside a silence spell, so only Sim and myself were affected.

    Yurion happens to look across the giant scorpion to see me turning pale, and start shouting and gesturing wildly, unable to hear a word about “the damn desert dragons are here”

    The next few rounds were very disappointing for me personally. Just as I am about to try out my new twf feat on the scorpion vex and ocelot have an encore, finishing it in a single round. Just as I position myself next turn behind the last scorpion, Ocelot has his first Critical roll in the entire campaign, and devastated it with a x4 critical pistol shot.

    We clean up after the battle, the scorpions feasting on a body with no major traits separating it from the previous bodies. Despite my best efforts I was unable to get even a drop of poison out of the scorpions stingers. The only thing of note was that even the scorpions seemed malnourished like every other body here. We re-convene with Sayid and head to town.

    Part 4, bust up at the mediocre camp- corral
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    As we are headed into town, we pass by a couple of camps that line the city and we hear a commotion. We see one guy being held back by two others while a third is trying to talk him down. As we approach, we hear the three begging there “captain” to please pull himself back together and stop this, before he throws off the two holding his arms and jumps on top of the third, raining blows down while yelling frenziedly.

    Immediately we dash over. I try shoulder bashing him off, but he barely notices I’m there. Draspher uses his adhesive spittle to bind the guy, but he breaks out of it in a moment and attacks again. Ocelot pulls of a fairly acrobatic leap over everyone to get behind the guy so we can start flanking him, but one of the others gets between him and the captain. My own attempts to knock him out prove pointless. Yurian ideally ponders the point she could stop this whole encounter with a single command spell, then goes back to reading her book. The conflict finally ends when Vex comes over and in a single motion grabs and restrains him. We drag him over to a tree and tie him up. While we talk with the other men, vex decides to heal the fallen guy.

    It’s at this point OOC that vex decides she wants to play a lesbian. The DM gives her a look, then continues, explaining that the guy vex saved is actually a girl, and she looks up at her with an awestruck expression. (nothing to do with anything really, but it was a funny/odd moment I felt worth documenting)

    While this was going on, the rest of us start trying to get answers about what’s going on in town. The guys are mercenaries and have only been in town a few weeks. It turns out that the whole town is built around an oasis run by the “white-water” group. The town used to be doing really well, up until the point where the group started raising the price of water. Slowly but surely the town started to decline as people and companies couldn’t keep up and had to move elsewhere to live. The farmers couldn’t produce crops properly due to costs and everywhere started feeling the effects of the famine.

    Then A couple of weeks ago people started getting this new sickness. They are hungry all the time but they just can’t eat, and soon they just snap losing all coherent thought and attacking anything and anyone around them just like with their captain. The white-water group locked themselves in their main base, and now the entire town must get water from the public troughs. This illness is spreading and no-one know how or why and the town guard is doing all they can to prevent a panic. The only person who claimed that they could cure it was the minister of the local church, but he went missing about two weeks ago.

    We suddenly hear a noise from the tree we tied the captain to. He’s regained some rationality, and now he’s begging us to kill him. Things have certainly taken a dark turn indeed.

    Part 5, town sights
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    We decide to head to the church on the other side of town, but upon looking at the map we decide to drop by the white-water compound and see what’s there first. Along the way we see the town crazy person. She’s and old woman who is ranting about how we have all angered the “scarab king” and this illness is his punishment on us. We start trying to ask her more about it, but Ocelot tells her “I was also sent by the scarab king, and he told me to tell you that if you don’t knock it off then I’ll kill you” so we didn’t get much out of her.

    As we approach the massive walls of the white-water group, two guards accost us with crossbows. They tell us if we get any closer they will shoot, so I try and tell them “we’re the new hired help”, “of course you haven’t seen us before, your running out of guys in the town to hire” but there suspicious and one goes in to check while the other just keeps us covered. A passer-by comes up to us and flat out tells us “it’s no use, they’ve locked themselves in there for weeks, no-one comes in and out. Last person anyone saw go in was that priest, and that was two weeks ago”. Seeing this as a dead end, we decide to head up to Sayid’s shop. Just as we’re going down one of the streets, we see tons of city guards piling body bags into a ditch. Next to them are several very large barrels of oil. Some of the bodies are still moving. We approach the captain in charge of this to ask what’s going on. The moment she realises we’re new in town, she has every guard surround us, and utilising all the military power she can bring to bear, she tells us to strip.

    As a group we all a little reluctant to start stripping in public surrounded by heavily armed guards. Draspher biggest worry is that they will force him to remove the freshly attuned ring of sustenance making him wait another week for it to work. The captain tells us that there is an area we can strip in private, and that the sorcerer can keep the ring on. As we are stripping she explains that she’s in charge of trying to keep the infection contained, so she needs to check us for bite marks (she doesn’t know that that’s what’s spreading the illness, but it’s all she’s got to go on for the moment). The body’s outside are the dead/infected that she has no choice but destroy in a hope of preventing the continued spread of the illness. Fortunately, none of us have bite wounds, unfortunately Ocelot did get wounded by the scorpions, so he needs more examining. As we wait outside, we here voices from the pit, and amongst them are a cry for help

    Part six, dispose with caution
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    We immediately try and figure out who said that, but calling out to the person results in six bodies starting to wriggle. So I shout down that if the person is still sane stop wriggling, and two oblige. An argument breaks out in the group over what to do. I tell Yurion to just levitate the two still ones and we’ll examine them, unable to bear the thought of leaving someone to burn to death, but she and Draspher are both reluctant to do anything, figuring that they might be infected and not wanting to risk any contact with them. Ocelot and the captain come out of the tent, and the men start pouring the oil onto the bodies. As we are arguing more and more intensely as time runs out, Ocelot takes things into his own hands, and jumps into the pit, Sim quickly throwing a rope down to help him out.

    (as the DM noted at the time, the lawful Neutral character is arguing for saving people’s lives, and the chaotic good/rest of the party is arguing to just stand back and let them burn, even if there mistaken)

    We pull them out (draspher summoning a giant bat to grab one that Ocelot dropped) and Yurian goes over to examine them. One of them, probably the one we heard, says “please help me, I’m so hungry” so she slices his throat and drops the body back in. The second one though just seems manic, and a charm person spell from draspher just makes him quiet. It’s pretty clear he’s not infected, just ill with something along the line of Alzheimer’s. We all decide to take him to the church previously mentioned, as the captain mentioned that this would be the best place to take him.

    When we arrive, we find the whole main area filled with bodies tied to stretchers, all writhing and a tired looking nun with arms covered in bite marks taking one look at us before complaining about us bringing another one.

    Part seven, nun trouble, nun worries
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    We drop of our recued homeless guy and start trying to get some info out of her. She’s a bit annoyed at the interruption at first, a quick examination showing the bites on her arms are starting to go septic and she apparently has barely slept since this whole thing began. Luckily Vex has the fatigue curing mercy, so a quick lay on hands from her and our promises that we are here to help leave her in in much better spirits.

    Our interrogation reveals a few interesting points. The first incident of note was a traveller coming into town. He had several STD’s, and became extremely irate when told he would have to wait for treatment, then left town with Sayid’s son on some kind of expedition. Shortly after that the first person with the illness was a girl from the brothels. Aside from that there seems to be no rhyme or reasoning behind who gets infected (we deduce from the wounds old enough to become infected on her arms, yet lack of the illness that it can’t be the bites). The priest who said he could cure people was summoned by the white-water group, he went in and never came out leaving the nun and the other sisters to run the increasingly manic situation by themselves. After a bit more prodding, she leaves and comes back with a box. Yurion, Sim and I go with her into a small private room, while the others examine the other patients. The only thing they find is that they seem to be completely immune to Drasphers charm person spell.

    In the room the nun shows us what’s in the box. It’s a human bone, covered in glowing carved runes. Yurian notices that the runes are a language close to abyssal but not quite. Apparently, there have been more than a few people who have been infected carrying bones just like this one. They have been storing them because they are obviously evil but they don’t know what they are, what they are for or how they are used. She’s willing to let us have this one to study in the hopes of learning what they are and if they are connected to the illness, but she denies Yurians request to have all the bones to compare differences in the symbols between bones.

    As we leave the room one of the patients has a particularly violent struggle against her bonds, and breaks loose although breaking an arm in the process. As she makes a break for the door Ocelot and I run in pursuit of her. Ocelot attempts to pull out his dragon pistol to slow her with an entangling shot, but the sprint makes him fumble and drop the pistol. Draspher picks up the gun and makes to pursue as well, with vex following after (slowed down by her weighted armour) as we all chase the girl running with breath-taking speed down the street.

    Part eight, beating for everyone
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    We pursue, but she is fast. Luckily, I can tap into my ki, allowing me to move far faster than my normal speed. Although this isn’t quite fast enough to grab her, 10’ away is still close enough to hit her with a tanglefoot bag. It works, tripping her up and letting the two of us catch up, but she manages to break out a moment later. Ocelot then attempts a stunning trick shot by throwing one of his tanglefoot cartridges at her, then shooting that cartridge with a bullet to spread the gunk over her. However, running at that kind of speed tends to mess up your aim something awful, and he ends up killing a civilian, sending everyone watching the scene running and screaming.

    I attempt to knock her out, but feints don’t work too well against crazy people and I don’t hit all that hard. But it does get her attention solely on me, and she jumps on top of me, sitting on my chest as she rains down blows taking a fifth of my health in one round. Ocelot decides his priority is covering up his tracks, so leaves me at the mercy of the crazy woman:

    Occelot – I’ll be right back
    Jaune – Ocelot you ####er, where are you going?
    Draspher – Don’t worry, I’m coming to help
    Jaune – NO! DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE WITH HIM!

    And Draspher lives up to his hard-earned reputation. He tries to stop the mad-woman by firing off an adhesive spittle. Say what you will about his intent, the results fully justify my actions. We both get covered in the stuff, unable to move. Then she breaks out of her bonds. I am trapped under the crazy woman, now literally glued to my chest, who took out a fifth of my health in one turn, unable to move and completely helpless against her.

    Just as death seems inevitable, Vex charges in and successfully knocks her off me. Ocelot finally finishes PLANTING A DAGGER ON THE CIVILIAN HE KILLED, and seeing the commotion sends a double tap into the woman’s back, killing her instantly and covering myself and vex in blood (draspher having be shielded by my body).

    Draspher attempts to defend his actions, saying “at least I didn’t abandon you, would you rather I did nothing and leave you to die?”. I show him EXACTLY how much I appreciate his help. I punch him, and I don’t stop till I’ve knocked his foolish ass out (in a single round too, thanks sneak attack dice and improved twf). The DM thinks this is both appropriate, and the funniest thing he’s seen, so he allows it.

    And that’s where we ended that session. No hard feelings between me and Draspher, although this may come back to bite me in the ass later.

    Days in city – 1
    Lives saved – 2.5, the Girl being mauled by his commander, the crazy homeless person that almost burnt and the nun we healed (.5)
    Lives killed – 3, the one guy we pulled up to stab, the civilian that got shot (she went at him with a knife) and the broken armed escapee that got shot
    Vex’s Harem – 2, the Girl being mauled by her commander and the nun
    Times Drilled over by Draspher – 2, he convinced me there was a dragon in the desert and got me glued to the ground with a crazy infected woman ready to beat me to death
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-13 at 02:14 PM.

  20. - Top - End - #20
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    This is fantastic! Can’t wait for the next update.

  21. - Top - End - #21
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    rebelpyroflame's Avatar

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    part 13, checking in and checking out
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    Draspher wakes up groggily after having had the snot beaten out of him. He looks around at me fuming while pacing around the dead crazy woman's body, Vex keeping a general watch out for trouble and Ocelot finishing off planting a knife one the civilian woman he shot. It's at this point the town guard run up. Draspher goes to meet them and explains how "he got roughed up by this crazy woman while we were chasing one of the escaped infected, don't know why she went for us with a knife but luckily Ocelot managed to shoot her". As one everyone around the table goes silent and stairs at him, and then I start clapping. That is the single first actually convincing bluff he has ever come up with. It's so good the DM just gives it him without rolling for it. The guards take pity on us and give potions of cure moderate wounds to the wounded.

    Back at the temple, Sim decides to make chase. She calls her new mount for their first ride. Sure enough, we see a derpy looking bird carrying Sim and Yurion on his back, and a very disgruntled raccoon by its tail in his beak.

    As we start to leave, draspher calls me over. He explains about how he’s sorry about what happened, and that he won’t interfere with me in future fights unless I directly ask him to. But now that that is past us, he feels we can both agree that mistakes were made on both sides, that we both have had moments of unreasonable actions but forgive and forget and let's move on, what do you say?

    Jaune(me): ………. You glued a psychopath to my chest…………

    The DM just breaks down at my complete deadpan tone, and despite some bickering (mostly on my part about how does he equate my knocking him out as equal to the constant getting us in trouble, which I'm usually the one trying to save him, and the fact he glued a psychopath to my chest as "we're even now")

    We make our way to sayid library. The DM has us roll initiative, and I finally get a high roll, typically not in a combat scenario. I go over to the woman at the desk and ask where sayid is. Apparently, he hasn’t made it back yet, so I ask where the smut section is while we wait. Of course, this immediately razes alarm bells, we came to town with him and he went straight here, so somethings going on here. OOC Vex expresses and interest in hitting on her. Then immediately afterwards, Sim then come up and starts hitting on her, and she reciprocates (to vex's outrage and ire). The librarian reciprocates the advances really, reciprocates, unusually quickly and sim was initially only bluffing, but now she's really getting into it. A quick spellcraft roll from draspher reveals she’s casting some kind of spell on her. Ocelot waits by the door, Yurion starts reading books (fuming about her girlfriend hitting on a stranger) and vex goes, specifically to push sim out of the way so she can flirt, but something is really setting off her paladin senses, and eventually she gets the idea and a quick detect evil confirms it, she is evil as all heck. The librarian turns, recognising a holy servant she realises the jig is up, and screeches in an inhuman wail, her hair withering, and her skin and face turns corpse like



    Part two, counter strategies
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    She immediately lunges towards Vex and Sim, claws out, but Vex wasn't completely taken by surprise while Sims armour saves her. The two girls and myself are the ones closest to the counter, so we all take pot shots at her but the counter provides her cover that blocks us. Yurion looks up from her book and using her vast knowledge skills, she recognises her as a greater ghoul, and as such is vulnerable to healing spells. She immediately comes up with a plan to use the link spell to pass a healing charge through the gold bangle someone else is wearing to hit the ghoul. Unfortunately, no-one is close enough to pull this off but the DM approves of her strategic thinking, so instead she moves in and decides to 'cook' a healing spell. Not cast a healing spell when she attacks you understand, but cast one now and have to keep making concentration checks to hold onto it without losing the charge. Ocelot immediately latches onto this idea, trying to take off his own bangle and use mage hand to levitate it over. The DM immediately put a stop to that nonsense, so instead he just shoots and hits the counter.

    On Drasphers turn summons a Compsognathus to pen her in while completely preventing Yurian from getting to her. Seeing her exit blocked, the Ghoul drops further behind the counter top and casts glitterdust on her location. This immediately blinds myself, vex and the dinosaur.

    I spend my next turn blind, helpless and yelling out like a three stooges sketch. Vex spends hers kicking out to try and find anything (she only manages to find me for 7 points none-lethal damage) and sim tries to punch through the counter but has no luck. I stumble back from the kick, now panicked about something trying to attack me. Draspher asks the DM "Would a grease spell clear off the glitterdust" to the groups horror, and we as one shout out "NOOO".

    At this point three of us are surrounding the counter, I've stepped off in a blind stumble so I'm near some bookcases, Ocelot is still in the doorframe and Draspher has finally realised his mortality and is hiding far away between two bookshelves. Unfortunately, an unseen force decides now is the time to act, and slams him into a bookshelf for nearly 20 damage (most of his health). Realising something invisible is attacking him, he immediately casts glitterdust. The question then comes up (to my horror), since he's casting it between two narrow bookcases, does that mean that Jaune (myself) is in the range of it? Luckily for me (and drashers freshly fixed face) the DM decides that it doesn't and the form of a large air elemental becomes clear. Not that any of us go to help him.

    Ocelot decides that guns aren't any good at all, so he decides to holster the gun, yell out a warning to Sim to duck, and proceeds to use his boots of springing and jump of Sims sholders to tackle the ghoul to the ground. He succeeds but has a very nasty surprise. Previously he mentioned to sim that she wants to be careful about touching the undead when she's casting a healing spell on it. The ghoul reaches us and with one touch paralyses Ocelot, before pushing him off and getting up.

    Yurian takes this opportunity to push the blind and useless dinosaur aside to smash a healing spell in the ghoul's face (to the theme of shining finger from G gundam, curtesy of myself on the ipad). Enraged by this, she calls out for her allies, and the door next to Yurion opens up to reveal three more zombies coming through. Yurian manages to get a second healing spell off, reducing the ghoul to dust but not before she gets one last touch attack on her in retaliation, dropping her next to Ocelot while the zombies shamble towards them.

    Luckily for Yurian her girlfriend Sim was there to save the day. With a single flame pillar spell, she reduces all three zombies to ash. She also sets the back of the BOOK SHOP on fire. Draspher, upon seeing this immediately despairs. He's so worried about burring the books he cares nothing for the giant air elemental that slammed him for almost all of his health. He immediately comes out with "I use burning hands to put out the flames".

    After clarifying that burning hands only extinguishes the flames IT CREATES he instead summons three water elementals to put out the fire. With that out of the way the party finally decides to deal with the air elemental. As I go in to flank the DM has to assure me that this thing is part of the adventure module, he didn't design this to counter me but it's immune to flanking, sneak attacks and critical hits

    Ocelot: .......DM

    DM: Yes?

    Ocelot: ......we've been rolling for Vex's criticals against that thing

    DM: [head hits the table]

    We quickly kill the thing. Afterwards, Yurian and Draspher go to check the bookshelves for anything to do with the scarab king, Ocelot and Sim check the backrooms to the left and to the DM's surprising panic, vex and I go to check the back room on the right



    Part three, only himself to blame
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    inside there are two gigantic figures. The DM tells us they look like demonic bears (half the party insists on calling them bears after this) and they just happened to be in the middle of killing two of drasphers water elementals. I fight my natural instincts (the paladin's aura of bravery helped) and we position ourselves at the door hoping to make a chokepoint. Hearing our screams, the others race in, and Yurion rolls a 20 on the identify roll. The DM describes the massive amount of resistances and damage reduction the two demons have, although in character she only has enough time to shout out "demons" and that’s enough for me. I stand up, I face those demons, and I said "NOPE! NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE" and I make for the door, attempting to drag the paladin with me. IRL I even enact this scene, leaving the room, then re-entering to quickly "NINJA VANISH" before leaving again. Unfortunately, said paladin is now fully stoked to go slaughter some demons, and charges towards the first demon.

    During this the DM is shaking his head, these things are way too strong for the party, he was expecting us to heal after the last fight or just run. Not only have we as a group gone after them, we bunched up. He's expecting a total party wipe at this point. While he was panicking I remembered something, and after checking vex's sheet I point out one of her class features she hadn't used yet. As his head lies in his hands, Vex charges up takes out half the first demons health in a single swing. For all their resistances, their DR is beaten by good aligned weapons, and I remembered that she had two smite evil's left today, as well as the divine bond weapon with just enough enchantment to give it holy. It sliced through it like butter.

    Sim follows this initial shot with a volcanic storm, just managing to hit both of them without hitting vex, and rolls a perfect 18 on the bludgeoning damage (6, 6, 6 against demons) and even gets 11 on the 2d6 fire damage (just gets over their resistance for 1 extra damage). As I'm running out of the door I pass Yurion and Ocelot coming the other way. It's around this point that it comes out that both of them are suicidal. Both of them are tired of their characters (ocelot didn't use his skills or equipment properly so he kept using the revolver for around 4 damage a shot instead of his dragon pistol or his feats, Yurion was built for Knowledge skills but we had gotten fairly battle heavy and she felt left out) and want to re-roll, and they both came to the conclusion the best way of doing this is to throw themselves in front of danger until they die. This means they are the only one's happy about this situation.

    In the next round vex slays the first beast, and draspher has been spamming summoning spells to the point there are around 7 giant spiders in the room. Every round he has them fire webs at this demon, never seeming to get the idea that they won't work at all, just like the tanglefoot bags. (Every round looks like something out of one of his hentai's, a massive demon covered in sticky white fluid). The second demons finally gets his go, and he makes it a nasty one. He releases his breath weapon, which hits everyone (aside from me, I was one square out) for 6D6 damage. The DM rolls surprisingly low, a few 1 and 2's in there, but it's enough to drop draspher into negatives and give everyone a chunk of damage. (funnily enough, most of drasphers spiders survived when he didn't)

    Vex heals herself and charges in while Yurion heals Draspher back to full. The demon responds with a great cleave with his 10' reach claws and almost the entire party within range. He slices through two spiders and vex, but flubs it when he tries to hit Ocelot, who was disappointed in failing to achieve his own death again. While this was going on, I had run out of the door, noted some sparkly stuff in the ghoul ash, summersaulted over the counter and went out to the street. My flight was not solely based on saving my own skin, I was looking for re-enforcements. Unfortunately, a curfew did not mean the city was being regularly patrolled, so I had to keep running looking for help. I eventually meet the captain and a few officers at the camp we had been at before, and I quickly get there help.

    Just as we were setting off back to the store, vex had started slicing into the demon. He evidently decides a re-position was in order and uses dimensional door to jump to the other side of the room. Ocelot then comes up with an idea. Pulling out his spare powder horn and the laser gun (The DM describes it as a wand of scorching ray that also happens to be a gun, but we all know what it is) and tosses the powder horn under the demon's feet. As he goes to look down at what that is, Ocelot shoots it and the explosion opens a hole in his stomach his organs fall out of. You do have to remember though he has to spend a few minutes working out the flaws with his other plans with the DM so it wasn't quite the flash of brilliance. His other plans failed because:

    a. you don't have a fuse on you to light it,
    b. you don't have anything to light a fuse
    c. lighting a powder horn with a dragon pistol will leave you with one hand
    d. you can't shoot gunpowder to explode with a regular bullet

    The DM is simply gobsmacked about how easily Vex has torn through those guys, and I point out "remember, you made her sheet, I warned you giving her a +1 Keen Katana was too much to just start off with, you only have yourself to blame"



    Part four, cleanup
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    Once the demon's dead, the others all start looting the place in the age-old adventurer tradition. Yurion and draspher both get to looking through the books, Sim and Ocelot check the back rooms we didn't go into and find a trap door underneath a water barrel and Vex finds some masterwork artisans tools for the printing press she decides to pick up as a gift for draspher. They find some notes about research regarding the plague, in particular questioning whether or not it could be the feast of dust, but disregarding it as the "sword" is still in place.

    At this point OOC I realise something. The demons were summons and there remains are going back to their own realm, the air elemental has no remains, the three zombies got burned up by fire and lightning and the ghoul is a pile of ash. There is no evidence about any of this and I am bringing the captain of the guard and two guards straight to them. We end the session as I am walking into the door.

    Later on, the DM let me know that the demons pretty much failed there initiative rolls and missed a turn. Had they rolled better, Vex's charge would have been met with two attacks of opportunities, they would both have used greater cleave/breath weapons to smack the entire party as we had bunched up and could dimension door to cut off our retreat/pin us in. It's only sheer luck that vex got in and killed one before it could do anything which left the other wide open. I can think of so many scenarios that that encounter could have gone differently that would have killed all of us. Also, fun fact elementals can't be flanked or critted, and both the ghoul and the demons could see invisibility, it's like this adventure path hates me.



    Days in city – 1
    Lives saved – 2.5, the Girl being mauled by his commander, the crazy homeless person that almost burnt and the nun we healed (.5)
    Lives killed – 3.5, the one guy we pulled up to stab, the civilian that got shot (she went at him with a knife), the broken armed escapee that got shot and the libarian, who was a ghoul but I'm not sure how the city guard will take it
    Vex’s Harem – 2.25, the Girl being mauled by her commander, the nun and a librarian who was really a ghoul
    Times Drilled over by Draspher – 2, he convinced me there was a dragon in the desert and got me glued to the ground with a crazy infected woman ready to beat me to death
    Times Drapher got drilled over (both his own and others fault) - 20, his adhesive spittle keep breaking (2), I knocked him out (his own fault), he got assaulted by an air elemental and no-one cared, nearly killed by demon breath, his spider webs did nothing (15)
    Jaunes brave advances towards future victory - 3, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-13 at 02:23 PM.

  22. - Top - End - #22
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Just caught up. Good read!
    ,,,,^..^,,,,


    Quote Originally Posted by Haldir View Post
    Edit- I understand it now, Fighters are like a status symbol. If you're well off enough to own a living Fighter, you must be pretty well off!

  23. - Top - End - #23
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    rebelpyroflame's Avatar

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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Session 14, part 1, split objectives
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    I arrive with the guards while the others are searching the shop. Yurion (quickly hiding the book she was reading inside another) and Draspher come up to me and quickly we fill in the town guards. Three of the guards seem incredulous but the captain seems to believe us, so we set about looking for clues.



    Meanwhile Ocelot and Sim had found a trapdoor under a water barrel, and decide to investigate. Ocelot goes down first and finds nothing. Sim follows after, actully thinking to light a torch so they can see. Vex soon joins them, having finished looting artisan tools from the other room, and they investigate the pitch-black hole. Ocelot opens the door and they find a room carved out of sandstone (it's always sandstone in these deserts, would it kill them to import some marble, have a bit of class people) and there's a door down there that seems to lead into some sort of training room, with one side lined with training dummies and weapons all over the walls and which is also in pitch black darkness. Sim has a lit torch, and goes in first. She has to pass Occelot who first check out the room in the doorway and promptly asks the DM if he can roll to get a grope on Sim as she passes. Upstairs the connection through the bangle tells Yurion that she needs to kill someone.



    Almost as soon as Sim enters, she steps on a pressure plate and is struck by two darts, taking two strength damage. Then a figure drops down from the ceiling. Vex immediately charges in there, and finds a trap door that drops her 30' down, and Ocelot tries to shoot at her, but finds that the darkness is messing up his aim and misses completely. ocelot then contemplates exiting the door and sealing it with an entangling shot. (At this I helpfully suggest burning the ladder and sealing the trapdoor as well.)



    While this was going on I jokingly make comments to the guards about how we need to check out the library completely before we go anywhere else, we don't want to rush off into anything, but the sound of screaming and gunfire finally get our attention and we rush to join them. We all find the trap door and go down, but struggle to get into the room with ocelot standing in the doorway, on account of his refusing to move due to the traps. One of the guards finally squeezes through, goes to one side and immediately gets killed by another trap. The captain sadly comments that poor ibriham had two days left until retirement. Vex manages to get half way up the sandstone (ugh) walls, but gets stuck when she can't open the doors. The other two guards manage to get in at that point, and they move up just in front of the trap door, so the Creature moves up to engage them. Yurion gets in and finally identifies that it is a wind ghoul, and sim moves in to attempt to grapple it. Ocelot finally enters the room properly and opens fire with his revolver, doing a fair amount of damage. It seems he had completely forgotten he had spent the last few weeks re-training himself to use a revolver instead of a dragon pistol (DM gave him a re-speck to deal with the fact he had been doing no damage at all in every fight due to insiting on using the revolver and not the dragon pistol). Seeing an opportunity, Draspher decides to be helpful.



    Vex has to brace herself as suddenly the trap doors open and a celestial dog falls through, just missing her and snaps its neck as it hits the bottom of the pit, killing it instantly. Fortunately, she was able to hold the doors open this time, meaning she should hopefully be able to climb out soon. Seeing that the doors are open I leap across the gap and flank the ghoul just in time to kill steal sim.



    I then immediately order everyone (aside from sim who is still holding the torch) to leave while I disable the vast number of traps I've spotted in the room.

    Ocelot – why don't you just trigger the trap with a stick or something?

    Jaune (me) - because I don't know what it triggers, I don't want to send a dart flying at me or someone else or set off an explosion or anything like that

    Ocelot – how about we dumb the body on them then, set them off like that?

    Jaune – because I don't want to desecrate the guards body in front of his comrades and his captain, in fact, [turns to the captain] HEY, DO YOU MIND IF WE USE YOUR OFFICERS BODY TO SET OF TRAPS

    Captain – I'd rather you didn't

    Jaune – [turns to ocelot] well, there you go then

    Ocelot – yeah, but she can't stop us

    Jaune – [stare of disapproval]

    Ocleot – yeah, see he's thinking about it

    Just at this point Vex pulls herself out of the hole. She declares she's ticked off at this point and wants to go kill something, so decides to walk around the pit next to the training dummies to go find something to kill. Unfortunately, these dummies are made to be very life-like. This includes springing forwards at anyone who goes near them to simulate an opponent better. After being knocked down a 30' hole and climbing out, she then gets sucker punched by a training dummy and sent flying across the room, sprawling out on the floor. The thing is that if she had moved diagonally instead of straight down, she would have been knocked straight back down the hole.



    Part 2, the set up
    Spoiler
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    I finally finish checking the room and removing traps, and so we decide to move forwards. After positioning ourselves properly (almost everyone in the back rooms, I was hiding behind Vex) Ocelot opens the door. He sees a dark narrow corridor going left and right, and there seems to be light coming from the right. As he gets to the end, he gets to a large underground private library. And inside are three of the same type of ghoul we just encountered, and this giant man like creature with the head of a jackal looking right at the passage he just came through.

    Jaune – OH CRUD, IT'S SET!

    Ocelot - that’s Anubis you idiot

    So, ocelot takes a leaf out of my own book, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE but unfortunately as he's turning to leave, he sees sayid tied and gagged at the table. After a moment deliberating if he could just get away with picking him up and running, he decides "nuts to it, time to fight" and pulls out his gun.



    I run up to help him, and fight down my own instincts to run to join him in helping sayid when anubis addresses us "do you have any idea what you've stumbled into?". His words must have been some kind of spell, as we both feel overwhelming fear wash over us. This time around I didn't have a paladin to inspire me with courage, but at least I'd have an excuse as to why I ran away. Fortunately, Yurian ran up and used her bangle to deliver an aid spell to give me courage and some temp HP before I abandoned them a second time.



    The rest of us pile into the room, Sim and Yurion to the left, Vex and the in the middle by the exit, the two other guards, myself and ocelot take the right and draspher hiding way in the back of the corridor.



    Part three, underground library knife fight
    Spoiler
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    The fight begins in earnest, one of the ghouls going for me, vex and sim respectively. Draspher opens up with summoning 4 small earth elementals on the one attacking sim. Ever round following this they fail to make any sort of headway, failing to hit the thing once. OOC draspher just cannot understand why a level 1 summon which might be able to hit on a 18-20 just can't get attacks on these very powerful monsters. They don't even do a very good job as meat shield as it quickly becomes apparent all these creatures have great cleave, so they each start taking a fair few hits.



    I move into flanking on the one attacking me and the table has a moment of panic when it looks like I put myself into flanking, until we establish that I just got uncanny dodge so I can't be flanked by them. The demon, which Yurian identifies as a herald of famine, starts casting darkness to blind us, so draspher has to "waste" turns casting dispel magic Sim then decides the best offensive is a big offence, so transforms into a rhino to charge through the ghoul and go for the herald. She pulls this off but the big guy's DR means she's having a hard time getting hits in. What's more he's surround by a aura of famine, and so she quickly becomes fatigued due to it.



    More rounds go by and we start to make headway. Between myself, Ocelot and the guards we drop the first ghoul and help vex finish off the second. Yurion runs off to give Sim healing, leaving the captain to face off against one of them, but it's too much for her. She falls and quickly starts bleeding out while we are fighting. I move in to try and distract him, and Ocelot finally sees why I don't do much most combats. While I may have a lot of sneak attack dice, I don't do much damage without them, and a blow from the ghoul deals a fair chunk of my health.

    Jaune – oh my god

    Everyone – what?

    Jaune – I am such an idiot

    DM - …...?

    Jaune – why have I been fighting these guys regularly, I have shadow clones. All this time I could have been protecting myself with kage bunshin jutsu and I completely forgot



    Seeing as our new friend was about to bleed out, draspher decides to risk moving from the safety of the corridor to move up and heal her with his wand of cure light wounds. Seeing this I enquire about getting healing myself (having taken a few nasty blows during this) and he refuses. Turns out he's keeping to his word and not directly interfering with me in combat from now on, even to heal me. He has now gone from troublesome but sometimes useful to troublesome and indifferent to me. I will have to plan out preparations and/or his murder to accommodate this in the future. Luckily for me the DM pointed out to Vex that she should channel energy to heal everyone, so we all got a bit of extra healing.

    (Just before this Vex had been complaining that she wanted healing too, and didn't want to waste a turn on the captain, our paladin everyone (side note still the best paladin I have ever played with))



    Seeing the exit clear and figuring that the big guy is too strong for us, he grabs sayid and runs for it. Just as he gets to the training room sayid gets his gag of and yells out "NO, we can't let them get the dagger". With a sigh Ocelot drops sayid off, yells at draspher to look after him and runs back into the room to look for it. Yurion then remembers he default tactic when she wants to contribute, and so pulls out her wand of lightning. The DM then asks for the spell range.



    It turns out this is sayids personal library, containing many rare and valuable books. Books he has placed special magical protections on in order. So, when a lightning bolt spell hits the books, it bounces off at an angle, bounces off two more walls, hit Anubis and Sim before bouncing off another two walls and shorting out just before it hit the entire party gathered around the exit. (If it had of been longer ranged it probably would have hit Ocelot, Vex, the captain and kept bouncing down the corridor to hit draspher)



    As a whole the party decides now is the time for action. Vex charges against Anubis, but without her holy blade or her smite evils she just can't break through the demon's resistances. Draspher finally realises small earth elementals do nothing, so summons a medium one right behind him. With his first roll he gets a 20, but fails to confirm, still finally, a hit! He rolls for damage and discovers that the creatures DR has reduced his damage to nothing. I'm left fighting the last ghoul by myself and Ocelot tries to move to a spot on the wall which looks like it might have the sword behind it, but gets caught in the aura of famine and starts puking.



    That’s where we ended it, we will hopefully finish up that fight next time. The DM later told me each of those ghouls had 100hp each, and there was no instruction on where the monsters were supposed to be. He was originally going to have 2 in the room and one in the other side of the corridor to block off our escape. If he had done that, draspher would have been stuck at the back with no-one to help him, again.



    Lives saved – 4.5, the Girl being mauled by his commander, the crazy homeless person that almost burnt and the nun we healed (.5), the captain and sayid

    Lives killed – 4, the one guy we pulled up to stab, the civilian that got shot (she went at him with a knife), the broken armed escapee that got shot and the city guard (he only had 2 days left till retirement)

    Vex’s Harem – 2.25, the Girl being mauled by her commander, the nun and a librarian who was really a ghoul

    Times Drilled over by Draspher – 3, he convinced me there was a dragon in the desert, got me glued to the ground with a crazy infected woman ready to beat me to death and now refuses to heal me

    Times Drapher got drilled over (both his own and others fault) - 25, his adhesive spittle keep breaking (2), I knocked him out (his own fault), he got assaulted by an air elemental and no-one cared, nearly killed by demon breath, his spider webs did nothing (15), the dog that fell to its death, the earth elementals that did nothing (3) and the medium earth elemental critical that did nothing

    Jaunes brave advances towards future victory - 4, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons and the fear from anubis (I started this one as a joke, oh god it's come true)
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-13 at 02:26 PM.

  24. - Top - End - #24
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    interview tape 33300:

    Spoiler
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    1# - Got another pile for you captain
    2# - seriously rookie, I haven’t gotten past halve-way of the last pile yet
    1# - you did say you wanted all the mad bomber sightings brought straight to you
    2# - that was before I found out just how many of them I’d be receiving
    1# - well surely more information on him is good news?
    2# - it would be if any of this were useful. Leave the papers on the desk and listen to some of these, they have to be heard to be believed
    1# - I thought you were working?
    2# - I need a break, and with this sheer number of reports 5 minutes won’t kill me. Besides, going over this from the start will help me clear my head
    1# - very well. What did you mean that all this information is useless? There must be something?
    2# - True there are bits and pieces. Locally, the hysteria hasn’t helped. Everything from murder, petty theft, vandalism and a few cases of adultery are all suddenly being blamed on the mad bomber.
    1# - so do we know anything about him.
    2# - Well I’ve been able to get a reasonably accurate timeline so far. His first sighting was when he was caught red-handed at that alleyway. Probably would have been the end of it if he hadn’t escaped the holding cell.
    1# - I thought there were anti-magic fields in effect over the precinct?
    2# - In the cells sure, but only the negating manacles are used everywhere else. My current theory is the lawyer who visited him must have had something to help negate his cuffs so when he left he was free to make his move. I would have more, but I haven’t been able to find the lawyer since then. I checked his credentials and found they were very similar to one’s we seen involved in mob cases, so it’s likely our bomber has links to the mob families, if not directly working for one. A few guard reports suggest he was around the library when it was robbed, but his confession at the warehouse proves that he was the one behind it.
    1# - what happened to him after that?
    2# - Best I was able to find was that after the warehouse exploded he must have made his way into town the next morning. There’s a couple of conflicting reports but one about a farmer who found a group in his barn seems noteworthy. He claims he drove to town with some in the back, but when he got to a check point half of them had disappeared. The descriptions he and his wife gave match those of the guards at the warehouse, and those of a group fleeing from that direction that ran into the reinforcements from the capital.
    1# - they didn’t stop them?
    2# - they had no idea who they were at the time, but their reports helped us with getting the profiles down. Then there was the bank incident, which proves our bomber must be something else. The bank’s anti-magic fields are even stronger than ours, so the fact he was so easily able to cause those explosions means he’s either got incredible magic power to overcome it, some magic artefact that can enable him to bypass it or he’s got connections good enough to let him have authorised access in said field. No matter what way you look at it, he’s trouble. After that, the trail gets messed up by all these reports
    1# - you think he’s giving us false leads, covering his tracks
    2# - I would if any of them were half way intelligent. I’ve seen it before, whenever something big like this happens. Part of it is hysteria, people making connections that don’t exist or getting jumpy and acting panicked. I have a report here that the third town over saw a figure with a flame in its hand looking sinisterly over the town late at night, so they gathered a mob to capture him. Too bad it turns out it was the local crazy cat lady who lived near there. One of her pets was missing so she’d gone out with a lantern in hand to look for it and ended up getting jumped
    1# - well that must have been embarrassing when they realised, right?
    2# - When did I ever say they realised? They tied her to a tree, stoned her then brought the body here, hoping to cash in the reward
    1# - SWEET IOMEDAE!
    2# - yeah, and that’s a legitimate one. The second town over had a guy claim his shop was burned down by the mad bomber as part of an insurance scam. Would have worked if he’d worn any kind of disguise when he’d bought all the alchemist fire the shops had the day before.
    1# - so I guess there’s lots of people who claim they saw him for different reasons
    2# - yeah, and there’s just as many trying to claim they are him
    1# - WHAT, there is no way anyone has pretended to be the mad bomber. Why would someone pretend to be a known criminal?
    2# - Why don’t you ask Jake Filbar. He’s a fresh out of mage collage graduate who got drunk and started going around trying to pick up women claiming he was the super badass criminal everyone was talking about. Too bad for him the woman he offered to “set off his biggest explosion in her beef portal” happened to be an off-duty officer.
    1# - wait, I heard about that from the others, I thought it was messier than that
    2# - it was. Turns out the barkeeper had a moonflower distribution ring going on. When Jake started resisting arrest, he threw around a bunch of weak fire spells and managed to set fire to a hidden stash worth around 6000GP. We had to cordon off a whole section of the city to deal with the simultaneous fires and the mass rioting cause by the hallucinogenic smoke spewing out of the place. At least we busted a drug ring out of all that though.
    1# - ok, so drunken idiots might pretend to be him, but no sober and sane person would
    2# - Kasandra Millientop did. Used it to try and apply for a magical university
    1# - could you repeat yourself, I seem to have misheard you, I thought you said someone applied to a university as a known mad criminal.
    2# - from what I gathered she was trying to get her foot in the door. A lot of these schools tend to be extremely presides and hard for the common people to access. She hoped by using the name it would get her noticed long enough to show she had the power and skill needed to enter
    1# - how did it turn out?
    2# - well the old dean decided to be cruel and give her a chance to fail in front of everyone. So, he positioned himself and the grading panel behind an anti-magic field of his own casting and told her to give him his best shot after all, and I quote “the mad bombers skills are well known to all here. A field like this should be no problem for you who use his name”.
    1# - permission to speak freely
    2# - permission granted
    1# - the man sounds like a complete ass
    2# - yes, he was. There were some complications, turns out she had been trying to boost the effect of her magic to replicate the mad bomber by mixing gunpowder and alchemist fire, and her first attempt nearly killed herself
    1# - poor girl, I can’t imagine the dean would have let her in after that
    2# - yes, the old dean wouldn’t have. Fortunately for her she did succeed the challenge of hitting him through the barrier.
    1# - Really, I assumed the deans magic would have been far more powerful than anything she could have cast
    2# - Indeed, that barrier would have blocked even the greatest of magical feats the world has ever known. Fortunately, the spell was made solely to block magical power, and so failed to simple logic and force
    1# - you mean she?
    2# - Beaned him with a rock, yes. Coroner’s report says he was dead before he hit the floor. For a mage that girl has one hell of an arm
    1# - wait, she killed him! Shouldn’t she have been arrested for that?
    2# - no one pressed charges, and the new dean apparently approved of her ingenuity. They enrolled her in their alchemist course and she became the most popular girl at the school from what I hear
    1# - so the new dean approved his predecessor’s murders ingenuity
    2# - while he was prising the official hat of leadership off his predecessors freshy caved in skull, yes
    1# - so all this paperwork and there are no leads, just random stories?
    2# - it’s not that cut and dry. I’m sure at least one of these reports is the real one, but I’m going to have to go over the crazy ones just to find it. There not all this bad, like for example I just finished going through. A bunch of poachers were brought in by some druids. Although it doesn’t initially look like much, there descriptions of some of the adventurers that took them down sounds a lot like the mad bombers gang. What’s more apparently their wizard got in a commotion with the adventurers spellcaster and they started bouncing fireballs off each other
    1# - I’m no wizard, but I don’t think counter spelling works like that. Surely there must be more to it than that
    2# - your right. At one point the wizard starts yelling out about what spells their group are casting, causing everyone to start shooting at him. That sure sounds like our mad bombers MO, getting a lot of attention pulled straight towards him while the rest get on with other things. A couple of leads like that one and we might just pin enough down to find him, or at least get a scrying spell on him
    3# - Well, I’m glad to hear the investigation is going well
    1# - sir, you’re not supposed to…
    2# - stand down rookie, its fine. Might I introduce you to the guild-master of the order of the white lotus, the adventuring guild we called in to help us with the investigation.
    3# - you know captain, when you said you had some leads to investigate I wasn’t quite expecting this much
    2# - well that’s the city guard for you, we don’t do anything in half measures
    3# - you know dear, you really don’t look to well, have you gotten any food or rest recently
    2# - I had a donut with my extra strong coffee at 3AM if that counts
    3# - Well this won’t do. Tell you what, how about you let me have a go with those leads, it is my guild who is supposed to be tracking him down after all. Why don’t you take the rookie to the canteen and finish your stories there?
    2# - thank you! But I couldn’t possibly leave all this to you to finish by yourself, it’s far too….
    3# - you don’t get to my position in life without learning a few tricks to deal with paperwork, no go get some rest and unwind, leave finding this bomber to me
    1# - thank you sir, that’s very generous
    3# - come on rookie, I’ll tell you the one about the bomber and the teacup
    ……
    3# - yes, you don’t get to this position without learning to deal with paperwork
    [whoosh]
    3# - there, all ‘finished’. It’s my job to ‘track’ you down, and when I do I’m going to wring your neck for all the trouble you’ve caused me. And to think I left him to keep a track of the others, what was I thinking
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-01-13 at 02:29 PM.

  25. - Top - End - #25
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    session 15, part 1, disco electric boogaloo
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    Last time we had to end a fight part way through. After nearly an hour setting up, we resumed, with sim the rhino, vex, a large earth elemental tackling Anubis/set. Yurian was backing up her girl, two guards moved in and one became useless due to the famine aura. Ocelot had gone to investigate a secret door while a small earth elemental tires to stop the last ghoul from killing the captain unconscious on the floor while draspher looked on.

    Yurian decides to use her scheming wits and the rooms reflective properties to super-blast Anubis with a bouncing shot. The dm asks her for a into roll. She gets a 1.

    What was supposed to happen was that the bolt would bounce off the ceiling and floor blasting him around 16 time, who knows maybe even kill her in the process. Instead she hits the magical epicentre of the reflective spells. The room lights up like a rave, hitting everyone in the room for 21 damage. At least the ghoul died, but the captain is dying again and we’re all looking worse for wear.

    Drashpher starts dragging the captain out and ocelot starts waving me over. Just as draspher finishes dragging her, vex channels a healing surge, fixing most of the damage but missing the captain. He gets to healing her with his wand while I dash over to ocelot and the door. While I run open and start to get the door open he decides to distract Anubis with a smoke bomb. The main group are all covered by the cloud. just as I get the door open, Anubis turns to us. He problems that this smoke does nothing to a creature like him, and I get a blow, reducing me to low hp. Yurian has her turn. due to the cover, she can’t see me, she decides to go with her initial plan, blast him with a lightning bolt. I am at very low hp at this point. I can’t convince her not to shoot out of character, and I fail my reflex save this time. I am the only one around the table who doesn’t have/seem to have a death wish, and I’m about to die.
    DM – roll for your shadow clone
    This saves me. Just as I open the door a lightning bolt smashes into my last shadow clone. The good news is I don’t need the toilet, either kind, anymore. Ocelot pushes my babbling screaming form aside, and pulls open the door. He sees a rune circle, and in the middle a sword in sheath, bound in chains and covered in seals. He goes to grab and run, but his hand goes straight through it. The bound sword that’s supposed to stop the feast of dust is gone.


    Part two, explanations and exposition
    Spoiler
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    Anubis sees this and screams in rage, vanishing in a cloud of dust. Sayid comes in (having been freed by draspher and takes one look at ocelot still trying to grab the illusion and he just drops to his knees a broken man. I make my way over to yurian, and angrily demand to be healed, especially after the damage she did. I get promptly ignored as she goes past me to investigate what's going on with the sword. She identifies the runes as a permanent image, but the sword is one of the oblivion keys.
    Jaune – how can a sword be a key. What kind of an idiot uses a giant key as a weapon
    Ocelot – what about a keyblade
    Jaune – that’s a dumb idea
    Draspher – what if it’s just a sword that sometimes works like a key
    Jaune – maybe it’s always a key, and when you stick it in someone you unlock their death

    These keys supposedly were set up to seal away several very powerful demons.

    As vex comes over her paladin aura helps sayid pull himself back together. We finally start asking him what's going on. Sayid explains that his family have been guarding the blade for generations, each one keeping one of the four demons of something sealed away. He doesn’t know when the sword was taken, the only other person who knew about was his son, whome he had been training to take his place some day. The disease is this demons signature curse, he must have gotten free when all this started. Also of note is that the son had been falling in with a distrust-worthy foreign trader. The same trader who slept around the brothel, the one reported to have been one of the first locations of the disease the symptoms fist and the girls from the brothel had the symptoms first.

    We slept the night there. Which is to say sim and yurian slept in sims collection of firs, draspher spent two hours in the morning in a sleep roll thanks to the ring of sustenance, the captain spent the night in sayids son’s bed, I spent the night in sayids bed and sayid spent the night restlessly, both with the burden of failing his duty and unable to relax while I spooned him in his own bed.

    The dm has us roll fortitude rolls, and we all fail our saves. The next day we wake up and go down for breakfast. We are all properly parinoid after the failed fort roll. Sim decided that sayid is probably distrustworthy, or at least something might have happened to the food since he was gone and the ghoul was staying here. she decideds to stealthily cast a purify food and water spell to nutrilize the poison. she rolls a 1.

    sayid - what are you doing
    sim - ....cleansing the food......
    sayid - oh good idea, carry on

    after draspher starts getting parinoid, wanting to roll to make us eat first incase it is poisioned. After much depate we can't decide whether or not ro roll initative or to syncronise eathing.

    Ocleot - I love that our party goes 3, 2 ,1 eat

    We all go to eat but find it revolting. We’ve ended up with the same curse that is affecting the town. What's more, this takes place every time we eat or drink, giving us the fatigued condition. One of the party is wearing something that provides constant nutriment. Draspher will have the condition constantly re-applied, and once again the dm has to swear he did not make this campaign, he just found a path and ran with it. Once we finish we discuss the situation. The only cure we have is the white spring water, but it’s not permanent. We’d have to find the demon and finish him, but the water will do for now while we figure things out. Problem is the guards have still got the compound in lockdown. Our best hope is the letter from sayid that ocelot had found before, and the unconscious captain. We make a makeshift stretcher for her, and sim and sayid take each side. We set off to the compound, to see what we can negotiate.


    Part three, it’s a jackal
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    We head off, vex and I in front, sim and sayid carrying the captain behind us, Dwain carrying fumbles to the side of them, ocelot and yurian behind them and draspher right at the back. The dm initially questioned that we left the sorcerer right at the back again after what happened last time. At this point we’ve decided to stop fighting the inevitable and let fate have him. As we head through town we notice a commotion by some of the tents set around town. We make our way over, and we find six jackals surrounding a half collapse tent. Inside is a woman's body being defended by a child with a stick. We roll imitative and draspher charges ahead from the back of the group to the front. he decides the best course of action is an immediate fireball
    Dm – roll wisdom
    Draspher – I thought you weren't doing that anymore?
    Dm - I'm not, just roll
    [gets a 0, again]
    Dm - …....
    Draspher – I don't know how that happened
    What the dm was trying to warn him about was that there are several other tents all dotted around the first tent, a fireball would easily set fire to them
    Draspher – ok, I cast burning hands then
    Jaune – your 20' away
    Draspher – yeah, I should be in range
    Jaune – it's a 15' cone
    Draspher – yeah, I'm in range
    Jaune – your 20' away
    Draspher – yeah, I should be able to catch them with the edge of it
    Jaune – it's a 15' cone
    This went on for a while until we finally pulled out my copy of the rulebook and showed him exactly what squares it covers. for some reason he could not understand what a 15' cone actually was. So as a last action he just uses ghost sounds to make it sound like a dragon roared next to them. That might have worked against normal jackals, but there was something off about these ones. All the roar did was draw their attention to us. I then get a stern gaze of disapproval from vex when I suggest we both back off and leave draspher to it.

    The fight begins in earnest. Yurian got a bless spell off and Vex charged up and started taking on the three to the right, killing one instantly and drawing the other two to her while I moved to flank with her. Dwain decides to jump right in and start clawing up one on the left while draspher decides to start with the big guns and summons a bison to flan the one Dwain went after. The rest hang back, with ocelot contributing by helping shoot two on the right and one on the left. It around this point vex notices one of the jackals she's fighting doesn't seem quite right. I think it's mostly to do with the smoke/dust coming from its nostrils. It then opens up with a sand blast breath attack that's aimed for vex and myself. I luckily dodge, but vex isn't so luck and takes the hit, getting disorientated and unable to see next turn. I move in (the first jackal died) to flank this sand and draspher starts giggling to himself about the plan he has
    Draspher - I summon a squid!
    [Table is silent]
    Jaune – you can't do that
    Draspher – yes I can
    Jaune – no, you can't summon a water creature on land
    Draspher – oh
    [DM breaks down laughing and nearly falls off his chair]
    So as a group we have to explain that a. water creatures won't summon out on land, b. this game rule is regardless of any real-life occurrences and c. you just tried to summon a water breathing sea creature to the middle of a desert. He then changes it to a frog (say what you will about appropriate environment, at least it can move and breath) and it goes to attack the other dust breathing dog.

    With the paladin distracted the dog decides to go for the guy who just stabbed it in the back. In one bite it rips through half my health, knocks my con down 2 points and my cha by 1 point. I do what I think any brave adventurer would do in this situation. I turn tail and run to yurian for healing. I promptly get a clip around the ear, she's ticked I'd forgotten she can heal me at a distance. She quickly regretted that action when she actually examined me. It turns out these dust jackal things can inflict instant bubonic plague upon with their bites. That’s right, I'd managed to lose half my health and get the black death. She, and everyone else in the party, now no longer wish to touch me.

    Vex gets pretty annoyed at this, and decides to take her frustration out on the dust jackal. it does not survive this, and the second decides this really isn't worth it. It's pretty fast, and gets virtually out of sight within a round. Doesn't stop ocelot from pulling out his rifle and sticking a bullet straight into its ass as it ran. I think the DM only allowed this a. because he rolled high for it, and b. he was just happy he used his rifle for once.

    we make our way over to the kid. during the fight draspher at one point tired to save the kid, and when he didn't come he uses a charm person spell to get him to come along (both a creative and good way to use a spell, so thumbs up from me draspher) and I guess he left an impression on the kid. he goes to his moms body and removes the amulet, offering it to draspher. he then immediately tries to offer the kid the +1 chainmail he got from the first ghoul (he had looted the body without telling us). as a group, we are of all disgusted at this. I think nearly everyone at that table had a plan to steal the shirt back, and in a couple of cases steal the pendent off him. the kid doesn't take it/draspher changes his mind and gets to examine his new pendent.

    A bit of backdoor. when we first made our characters draspher had (and still has) a bit of a thing about unusual magic items, particularly in unique (not necessary effective) ways. he initially wanted to spend almost all his gold on a pendent of adaptability, but the dm didn't want him to a. spend so much on one item and b. waste the gold that's supposed to be used to round him out on one gimmicky item. needless to say when he identifies the amulet as said pendent of adaptability he needs a new set of trousers. we decide to take the kid with us and see what happens.

    We finished the session there. draspher left me a cure disease potion on the floor and backed off so I'm good on that front. now the only thing we have to worry about is what happens when we finally get to the white water base.

    Our dm also told us about his plans for the game. after this we're going to have a side session so to speak. we've been playing this group over a year, so he's going to give us a chance to play something else. He's going to give us sheets initially, then mix we can mix things up, that way we can get a party role before we customise and try to fill that role, rather than just everyone coming along with a mash-match sheets that don't blend well. it's still related to the overarching plot, and later we can mix up who we play as based on the mission, e.g. one mission might need a rogue, another a cleric, another a really good fighter etc. This will also give some of us a chance to retire characters on a better note. Yurian really has been getting sick of doing nothing every combat, but she's ended up with a couple of important plot hooks stuck in her.


    Lives saved – 5.5, the Girl being mauled by his commander, the crazy homeless person that almost burnt, the nun we healed (.5), the captain, sayid and the kid
    Lives killed – 6, the one guy we pulled up to stab, the civilian that got shot (she went at him with a knife), the broken armed escapee that got shot, the city guard (he only had 2 days left till retirement) and the other two guards
    Vexes Harem – 2.25, the Girl being mauled by her commander, the nun and a librarian who was really a ghoul
    Times Drilled over by Draspher – 3, he convinced me there was a dragon in the desert, got me glued to the ground with a crazy infected woman ready to beat me to death and now refuses to heal me
    Times Draper got drilled over (both his own and others fault) - 30, his adhesive spittle keep breaking (2), I knocked him out (his own fault), he got assaulted by an air elemental and no-one cared, nearly killed by demon breath, his spider webs did nothing (15), the dog that fell to its death, the earth elementals that did nothing (3), the medium earth elemental critical that did nothing, the fireball, the 15' cone that can't go 20', the dragon roar (got the jackals attention) and the squid
    Jaunes brave advances towards future victory - 5, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2018-05-06 at 03:51 PM.

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    Apr 2017

    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    A slight change in the regularly scheduled update. Yurian couldn't make it to this game, so we decided to do a one-shot. Ocelots player is a big fan of the game "shadow of the demon lord" and runs another session that myself and the GM play in. He decided to run a quick session to introduce the others to it.

    Normally I wouldn't put this up, but the session was so completely insane the story just had to be shared. I curse you draspher, you couldn't just have a nice normal quiet session, you had to mess this up in such an entertaining way I had to do a write up didn't you. I didn't take my laptop for notetaking since I thought these events weren't important but I guess we all know how that turns out, don't we audience.

    We are playing a group of outcast kids, a gang who stick together. Our players tonight are:

    Jaune(me) will be playing Fagan valjean, a human fighter who happened to be the head of this little group. I was also annoyed that I had gotten almost the exact same type of character I play on the other game. Some oddities include: I was a student of law, medicine and a murderer, I was a student of said topics but could not read, my personality was someone looking out for themselves yet I was the one in charge of the group, I randomly had a brain in a jar as an item.

    Sim will be playing Grub, an orc wizard and pick pocket. He was the one who found the map when he pick-pocketed a guy in robes.

    Our GM will be playing Snotrag, a goblin rogue and also very similar to what he plays on the other game

    Draspher will be playing Cumberland, a dwarf fighter with a two-handed Warhammer and skills as a forage/gatherer

    Vex will be playing Victoria Waterfield, a changeling rogue who looks like a child

    Occelot will be playing as the sessions DM


    Part 1, x marks the spot
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    We start off with Grub presenting me with a map he lifted off some wierdo in robes.

    Fagan – alright guys you know what we have to do, the only responsible thing and hand this in to the proper authoirpsh hahahahahahah I'm sorry I couldn't finish that with a straight face, let's go treasure hunting

    We set of and find the doorway indicated. We send Cumberland off to open the door. He gingerly takes his Warhammer and carefully pushes it. After a few minutes of trying he finally finds out it’s a pull door. We make our way inside and the door seals behind us, showing a thin and dark corridor. We set of, Victoria up front checking for traps, Cumberland with his better sight beside her, Snotrag pushing Cumberland ahead of him and grub and I at the back.

    Just as they get to the end of the corridor Victoria botches her perception roll and steps right on a pressure plate and darts shoot out of ether side, hitting both herself and Cumberland and knocking them out. Grub tries to use his masterful medical skills by kicking Cumberland awake, but it doesn’t work so we have to wait a few minutes for them to get up.

    When the other wake up we send Cumberland to open the door. He tires pushing on it with his Warhammer and it turns out it's another pull door. We make our way in and find a set of stairs leading down and a set of three pillars at either side of the room. Cumberland decides to use his Warhammer to check how stable they are. The good news is that they are pretty stable, so stable in fact no-one can see the cultist hiding behind them as they guard the stairs. One comes out and goes to stab him while another the other side of the room shoots at him with a crossbow and two make themselves known at the back of the room.

    Cumberland strikes the one next to him but he's still standing. Victoria throws her dagger at the one with the bow but she botches it so badly he just catches it, leaving her disarmed. That does not stop her rushing in to try and get her dagger back though. Snotrag charges to the other side of the room and manages to stab one in the eye killing him outright before charging the second one. I mock Cumberland about how Snotrag is doing properly, and I demonstrate by killing the one with Victoria's dagger in a single blow. I then move to help Snotrag, only to fall down a trapdoor into a pit. I use the rest of my turn to struggle out of the pit, only to get out directly on top of another dart trap, and I fall unconscious. Victoria picks up her previously lost knife and jumps over the pit to get at the last guy and between the two of them he falls quickly. When I wake up I ask Grub for a health potion. Cumberland decides now is the perfect opportunity to use his once a day heal ability to top himself back to max, against the rest of the groups better judgement.


    Part two, I'm not fat
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    We make our way past down the stairs from before in the previous formation. A strange rivalry starts up between Snotrag and Cumberland. Snotrag keeps licking things to claim them as his, and after he lost a beard-comb to him cumberland starts nicking things back by licking them as well. It is at this point Snotrag has decided to call Cumberland fatty. He delines the invitation to call him jew to make the referance complete so he calls him ginger.

    At the bottom of the stairs is a room filled with barrels and boxes. As we leave the stairs they retreat back into the ceiling, trapping us down there. We quickly check the room and decide that since most of the boxes and barrels seem to be empty its best if we just move onto the next room. Cumberland then tries the door with his same trick, and the DM has him roll a D6. Turns out this is the third time in two minutes he has tried to push open a pull door, and so he just gained some insanity points for that. As we leave Grub decides to magically lock the door. We then hear scratching on the door as we make our way down the corridor. Turns out there was a giant spider in the room, and Grubs locking the door prevented it from coming after us. Doesn't stop us from charging down the corridor to get away from it though.

    At the end of the corridor is a room as large as the whiteboard we were using, and it is completely pitch black. we make our way in, with Cumberland at the front since he has the best eyesight, and the rest of us take each other's shoulders so we don't get lost. Or at least most of us do. Snotrag immediately runs to the wall by himself to be stealthy without us. We can faintly see a figure standing at a lit alter right at the back but we soon realise we are not alone in the room. There are around a dozen zombies wondering about in the dark. We decide to stealth our way to the lit alter at the back where we should be able to see, and Snotrag gets annoyed that we immediately go to the wall where he ran, forgetting that was our plan in the first place. We all make our stealth rolls but unfortunately, as a human my night vision is pretty terrible, so I immediately roll a 1 and alert the entire room to where we are.


    Part three, thriller in the dark
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    As the horde move in, Snotrag immediately does a runner along the wall, in his players own words "looking for a place to cry". I attempt to follow him, but am less successful in being graceful, first running face first into the wall, then tripping on stuff as I run along the wall. The first zombie gets to us and starts attacking Victoria. Cumberland moves in and between them they take it out. However, Cumberland decides to "double tap" it by smashing the dead body just to make sure, and gets both of them covered in goo. Grub drops a speed boost spell on both himself and Cumberland before using an invisibility spell on himself and running off into the darkness to get to the alter. I small tear goes down my eye as I look on, turning invisible and running away, he's learnt so much from Jaune.

    As the horde approach the main group Snotrag masterfully sneaks past. Fagen attempts to do the same, but trips over a body and creates a huge cacophony of noise before picking himself up and finally getting a good stealth roll. This means that Cumberland and Victoria now have the entire horde coming towards them, with around 9 zombies total. Cumberland, prepares his nerves, hardens his resolve, and runs like crazy, using the speed boost to make it to the other side of the room. This leaves the rogue Victoria to deal with 9 zombies. She tries to run, but they keep managing to catch up to her, and every time she tries to run she just sets off more attack of opportunity's. Luckily three manage to trip up over the gore/body of the first zombie, so they just crawl after her, but they still prove a difficult challenge. Especially when one gets a critical, which in demon lord means they infect her, killing her in three turns and turning her into a new zombie. Or at least it would have if she wasn't a changeling and immune to diseases.

    Meanwhile on the other side of the room Fagan keeps running along the wall, hoping to get round the back of the figure on the alter. What he fails to notice was Snotrag curled on the floor crying in the fetal position. Unfortunately tripping over him alerts the guy on the alter to their location, and he summons 5 more zombies to attack us. I get up and try to rouse Snotrag with a motivational speech, but the impact is lessened why the alter guy casts self-canalise on me, and I start eating my own arms. Realising his importance, Grub moves in under the cover of the invisibility spell. Unfortunately, although he is invisible his shadow is still visible, and as he gets closer the torches reveal his shadow, so the alter guy uses a bone-shatter spell on him.

    Seeing that he was in need to get physical the alter guy pulls out a green knife and goes for Grub. On a side note, at the time I had to comment about how I liked this guy. He may be a mage but he's not afraid to get stuck in when the time calls for it. My comment was made before I saw his proficiency, or more rather lack of, in using said knife. The guy missed. Infact he missed so badly that he slips on the step and the green knife that literally glows with a desire to draw blood rams itself straight into his chest. Seeing this Cumberland charges up and smacks him round the head with his Warhammer.

    Meanwhile things do not look good for the rest of the party. Victoria is still being chased and is on virtually no HP and surrounded by 5 of them. Snotrag and Fagan both charge the group of zombies heading towards them, but Fagan takes a critical in the first round and unlike Victoria has no immunity to disease so he's dead in three rounds. The round following this Snotrag takes several blows at once and gets killed. Victoria meanwhile finally figures out a way to lose them. She uses her changeling abilities to look like a zombie, and since they are so stupid 4 of them believe her. She manages to put enough distance between her to escape the last one, so she's safe for now. Back at the alter Grub comes up with a plan. Just as the guy is pulling himself off his own knife, Grub hits him in the back with a wind blast forcing him back onto his own dagger again, this time killing him. He then charges over to help me finish of the group attacking me.


    Part four, turns out I'm turning
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    Cumberland examines the alter and finds a bowl full of liquid. He decides to smash it but somehow nearly misses (if I hadn't of reminded him to add his Strength to the attack roll, he would have missed the inanimate bowl on the table). The zombies all immediately die, leaving me with only about a minute before death. Cumberland searches the alter guys body and fails to find anything by rolling a 1. I spend my last few moments alive (to the tune of my immortal on violin curtsey of my iPad) giving Grub my health potion and trying to make him my replacement. The DM has Grub roll and intellect roll, but he gets a 1 as well. Turns out that just as I shove a healing potion is his hands and take him by the shoulder to look him in the eye, I turn and now he is in no position whatsoever to defend himself as I sink my teeth into his neck.

    He desperately tries to throw me off, but he never was a strong sort and I end up forcing him to the ground. Cumberland charges over and attempts to prise me off Grub, but thanks to a roll of one somehow gets himself judo thrown by the mindless abomination, so he falls over both of us prone on the floor while I reduce Grub to 1HP. By this point I've found the situation so hilarious I ask the DM to roll my own attack rolls. I roll for damage on Grub, 1D6 and I get a 1, leaving him unconscious instead of dead. I then turn my attention to Cumberland who has just gotten up beind me.

    The DM laments to us at this point that yes, the guy did have a flask of potion that could cure the bite, problem was Cumberland had rolled so low he overlooked it. He also questions how he's so successful at killing the player in this game, when he hadn't even been trying that hard, yet his other game with us we've only had 1 death.

    I fight against Cumberland (I'm not trying to fudge my rolls, I think this scenario is far to hilarious that I end up wiping the party once I'm turned, I'm disappointed when I fail to roll a critical to infect him) but a mindless zombie against an actual fighter with a weapon can't hold its own and I ultimately fall. Cumberland decides to neck his health potion and confirms what he suspected earlier on. Early on, around the time he was knocked unconscious, Grub hands the DM a note, then hands it to me. He planned to steal Cumberlands health potion with his pickpocket skills. I approved it and the DM allowed him but he'd take a corruption point for doing so. Cumberland suspected something, but in his fashion he manage to roll a 1 again as he was patting himself down. When I asked for a health potion earlier I was asking for the one he'd stolen of Cumberland, and combined with the fact my own was broken when I gave it to Grub and attacked him meant there was no spare one for him to take.

    The problem remains that Grub needs a potion. A quick check of Snotrags body provides the potion and Cumberland gets to admisterng it. Grub suddenly wakes to a pair of lips on his, and his mouth being filled with a combination of potion, tongue and beardhair. This is such a shock to him he immediatly takes 5 points of insanity damage, and spends the next 5 minutes choking up dwarfen hairballs. Cumberland has also looted Snotrag's body for his precious beard-comb.

    Everyone regroups and takes stock of the room. They find two prisoners tied up behind the alter.


    Part five, new sheets
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    Fagan will be replaced by Patrick Fitzgerald, a crossbow wielding mercenary who tried to retire as a miner before being captured and held here for six years. He's a good guy, always trying to do good because it’s the right thing to do, and he has two pet mice (mini and mighty) who unbeknownst to him keep whispering into his ears at night.

    Snotrag will be replaced by Slipknott, an orc who duel wields axes and has unusually shining eyes.

    These to lead to an interesting change in power dynamic. While the original group were all kids, these two are way older, so they pretty much take command. We examine the room and find a trough on a wall surrounding the room filled with oil, it seems to be a lighting system. The only reason none of us saw it was that only the short (Snotrag) or the blind (Fagan) went near the walls and couldn't make it out. The problem is that none of us have any form of torch or match to light it. I (Patrick) as Grub to borrow his shortsword (stolen off Fagans body) but he refuses. I go over to one of the bodys, rip of a section of cloth and go back over, telling him that I intend to make a torch by rapping the cloth around the blade, lighting it off the brazier at the alter then lighting the room up. When he refuses a second time I smack him around the head and take it.

    With better light we examine everything. The zombies had nothing on them and the green dagger the alter guy had has fused itself into a tattoo on his skin. Without the command word we can't retrieve it. Cumberland also takes an insanity point for wanting to "steal the cultists bloody robes to use as pyjamas". We can't find an exit but what we find is a mess of bodies. There are piles of cultists all surrounding the body of an orc, an orc holding a green sword. KLEAVE, NOOOOOO!

    Some background on to why this is a shocking image. In the other game I rolled up an orc fighter named KLEAVE to balance out the lack of frontline fighters in that group. The first personality trait I rolled was "KILL!" And everything after that just seems to blend with that. I was a sarcastic former solider kicked out of the army after I fell in love with a human woman, and also a raving nutter. My accomplishments include:

    • Terrifying two would-be church robbers so badly they tripped on their own urine
    • Accidently killing one of them when I punched him for insubordination
    • Attempting to hide the body and the still living robber in the church broom closet and breaking the doorknob
    • Getting the last hit on a demon, then rolling as character motivation "you came in contact with a demon at some point in your life, and are now possessed" when I went berserker
    • The demon in question is far more refined and cultured than I am, yet I am unable to differentiate its voice from my own
    • I talk in haiku poetry dedicated to murder/death/war whenever I berserk
    • My single greatest accomplishment was when the whole group got captured by beast-men. I was put out in the centre ring for their gladiator entertainment. I killed the first two in one round with one stroke each, then soloed a minotaur that was several times our groups ideal encounter level and held my own. In the last round I stepped back to try and heal, he killed another party member in a single massive blow and I finished him off by throwing my axe into his head, before taking his massive two-handed battle-axe as a memento of my worthy foe.
    • Winning multiple arguments with the group salamander (a replacement for the guy who died to the minitour) then rubbing it in his face that he lost to someone with such low intelligence and wisdom scores.

    Considering this, seeing him dead surrounded by the army of cultists it took to accomplish this was a nice/horrifying nod to our other game. Grub immediately picks up the green sword, while Slipknott respectfully closes Kleaves eyes before moving him to the side to reveal the exit. This act endears Slipknott to Grub, and he immediately starts hero worshiping him and following him everywhere.

    We go through to find a well-lit room made out of polished marble and granite. The is a door straight on and a door to the left, with a large tapestry on the wall. Slipknott and Grub go to check the front door, Victoria and Patrick check the tapestry and Cumberland just kind of hangs around the middle of the room. As we get closer I realise it's not a tapestry, its faces, hundreds of cut off faces sewn together, and then it falls down on top of us. Victoria manages to get out of the way, but I am not so lucky, and get flattened. I manage to jump out from under it and join the others, but it follows us and lands on the three in the centre. DM then rolls 26 damage and our faces turn white. To give us a fighting chance (and save some of his spare sheets) he decides to roll individual damage. Cumberland gets the 26 and dies instantly, Victoria got around 16 but her health was so low she dies instantly, while I manage to get only 10 damage, which considering he was rolling 5/6 D6 is pretty lucky. Slipknott and Grub quickly move in and immediately kill it, but Grub immediately goes insane from the sword, and rolls for the effect. He is now convinced there are bugs under his skin, and must claw and cut at his own flesh unless someone stops him. To repeat, he must cut himself with the sword of major damage that causes you to go insane every turn.

    At this point the others are looking over their new sheets, and Cumberland gets an idea he starts giggling to himself about. The DM approves it and in marches a clockwork and a dwarf. The dwarf immediately introduces himself as "captain Cumberland, here to deal with the cultists. By the way has anyone seen his grandson". The entire room collapses in laughter



    Part six, the peanut buttercup incident
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    The DM decides to give us a one-time boon considering the Cumberland family connection. The Clockwork happens to be a cleric, and as a one-time thing the DM will allow her to attempt a resurrection spell. This will take an hour; any interruption will destroy Cumberland Jr's soul and it only has a 1 in 6 chance of success. She somehow pulls it off and grandfather and grandson are reunited. During this Slipknott quickly realised what Grub was about to do and with my help we take the sword off him and tie him down before he can do anything. He quickly gets over it, and we get introductions out of the way

    Cumberland Sr will be played by the former Cumberland Jr, while Cumberland Jr will be under the DM's control. He's a Dwarfen fighter sent in to deal with the cultists.

    Victoria will be playing N0-N4-M3 (she literally couldn't come up with a name so she went "no name" so I 1337'd up to make it more clockwork) a clockwork cleric. She used to be a cleric in the temple before it was overcome by the cultists years ago. Her soul found it's way inside of the clockwork and she wandered to compound for years until she wound down, unable to find an exit. She happened to be in the room with the empty barrels and boxes, and the two would have made it to us sooner if they hadn't come across a giant spider and the doorway out hadn't been magiclly locked.

    She tells us the way forward is the correct route, but we find a room identical to the first room. We start second guessing ourselves, me in particular pointing out maybe we should try the new door she doesn't recognize if she has been locked here for years. The Cumberland duo lead the backtrack to the room and check it for traps in the Cumberland family way (pushing the hammer against it). They also seem to finally realise they should check if it's a pull or a push door. Inside is an entire room filled with soft fluffy white beds. The two immediately rush in, keen for a bit of comfort down here when there is a flash. Where there were two dwarfs there is now one, with two arms that don't quite match, four legs that don't seem to quite match and two heads, one of an old man and one of a young boy. The two have been forcibly joined together through powerful and corrupt forbidden magic into a horrific abomination against nature. We are all naturally horrified at what has happened to them.

    Cumberland Sr – I'm a super Dwarf!

    Yes, Cumberland just can't seem to understand how anyone would NOT want to be forcibly fused to a member of their family. We carry on down the stairs and find a huge corridor as wide as the whiteboard and a couple of times longer. Slipknott goes up front to check for traps, I walk alongside him to talk, Grub follows Slipknott, N0-N4-M3 after us and far in the back the Cumberlands waddle along with none of us wanting to go anywhere near it. It's at this point Cumberland Jr gets the name "Peanut", named for what he looked like as a baby, and Sr gets named "Buttercup", making this thing "Peanut-buttercup".


    Part seven, a fitting end

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    I am walking with Slipknott primarily to discuss the idea we need to put the Peanut-buttercup out of its misery, let it die a noble death instead of this mangled existence, when Slipknotts trap-spotting method of "smack the floor with a stick" proves how useful it truly is. We both die instantly from a huge burst of flame from either side. As Slipknott burns the truth is briefly revealed. He was never an orc, just a changeling pretending to be one, but it matters not at this point.

    The DM gives us our new and last character sheets. And I do mean last, we have managed to get through the entire pile he prepared for this session. I get Cumberland Jr's sheet. I am now controlling half of the monstrosity that is peanut-buttercup. I play to type:

    Cumberland Sr –We be a super Dwarf!

    Cumberland Jr – I want to DIEEEE, [sniff, sniff]

    My performance as peanut greatly displeased buttercup, mainly he couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't be in this situation and thought I was just being a jerk trying to get his totally awesome new character killed. I mean I was trying to die, but that was more for peanuts sake than spite.

    We head down the corridor, this time peanut-buttercup leading and checking for traps. We had one brief moment where I attempt to throw us on a spike trap to end it all but I couldn't overcome buttercups resistance roll. We eventually start hearing the sounds of combat. Slipknotts new character is fighting 5 zombies by himself. We immediately charge over, but the fact he's taking out multiple enemys on his every turn proves he doesn't need us.

    Slipknott will be replaced by what the DM can coined, "the anti-Kleave". This is a level 7 orc with a completely opposite backstory and motivation to Kleave. Instead of a mad barbarian he's a super awesome, super nice paladin. The DM was originally going to leave this character till far later, but we were nearing the end of the night anyway and we had successfully used up every other sheet by that point. I was more than a little annoyed that I didn't get the guy (they had hinted at an anti-Kleave sheet earlier in the night) considering I am the regular Kleave.

    Just as we get close he kills the last zombie, turns to face us and sees the monstrosity that is Peanut-buttercup and does the only logical action of charging it. the others of course have to make attacks of opportunities to try and protect their fri....comra....teamma...horrific meat shield. The next turn buttercup tries to talk him down and explain what's going on, but I seize my chance:

    Buttercup – no, ya don't understand, I got fused with my

    Peanut – DIE FOUL PALADIN! [swings at anti-kleave]

    We had to end it there but the only way it could have gone is anti-Kleave killing all of us and moving on.



    This was the single most nutty game session I think I have ever been on. And I blame it entirely on Draspher, now hear me out, I have it mapped down to the steps:
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    1. Draspher failed to roll high enough to find the cure, so I turned into a zombie
    2. He also abandoned vex so she had virtually no HP left
    3. Aside from nearly eating the party I had to swap from a self-serving to a goody two shoes character
    4. Because I was a goodie two shoes, I helped look at the tapestry instead of standing back
    5. Therefore, I was directly under the trap instead of standing back where I could have helped kill it before it ate half the party
    6. This meant we went through character sheets rapidly and got the cleric to resurrect Cumberland, which lead to the peanut-buttercup
    7. This also meant we had no rogue to check for traps down the corridor
    8. Since I was playing the goody two shoes I was at the front discussing morals and ethics so I got killed by the trap
    9. This meant I ended up as peanut and I played to character as suicidal
    10. This meant I picked a fight with the anti-Kleave to die, which turned him against the party getting us all killed




    Last session of the year unfortunately, we will try to meet up again for the next session after the new year. Hopefully we will finish the desert stuff and then try out the side session.


    Character killed – 9, 6 seen deaths (snotrag, fagan, cumberland jr, victoria, patrick, slipknott) and 3 probable (cumberland, N0-N4-M3, Grub)
    Draspher getting drilled over – 10, the front door, the first trap, the second door, the third door, insanity for the third door, getting robbed, judo flipped by the undead, the tapestry, dead grandson (.5), fusing with grandson, attempted suicide by half of his body (.5), half his body invoking a paladins rage
    Longest lived character – grub, the only survivor of the initial gang right till the very end
    Shortest lived – N0-N4-M3, didn't even get a scene or a fight
    Last edited by rebelpyroflame; 2017-12-24 at 09:19 AM.

  27. - Top - End - #27
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
    Dec 2017

    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Hi guys - I should briefly identify myself. I'm actually RebelPyroFlames GM for the other game.

    Yes, I have to guide this group of misfits through the world usually and while RPF character assassination of me is probably justified, making it out that the 'D' stands for 'derp', he's easily the best game chronicler I've ever had the pleasure to play with.

    In the particular game that he's referencing here, I'm also the player for Snotrag (poor Snotrag...). I thought that while I had the chance I would elaborate on one or two points that RPF has slightly shortchanged which I personally thought were hilarious.

    Spoiler: Cumberland is not a practiced medical practitioner
    Show
    Cumberland is played, I'll remind you, by the same character as Draspher; our friendly chaotic good sorcerer in the other game. This should clue you in to where this is about to go.

    So when Grub the mage is lying unconscious after mauling by RPF's Fagan zombie heel turn - instead of taking the heal potion and pouring it down his throat, he specifically tells the DM that he wants to drink the potion (cue all of us jokingly saying 'oh wow - that's harsh. You are going to drink it over his unconscious body') but then he explains.
    'No I want to hold it in my mouth, then open his and pass it into his mouth'
    ....... *the table is silent*
    Me(Dead Snotrag): 'Why??????'
    Cumberland: 'Because that's what you do with injured people'
    Me: 'If I pass out from laughing too hard - don't let him anywhere near me'


    Spoiler: Slipknott gains a fanboy
    Show

    Oh wow... That was amusing. I'd helped the DM (also my brother IRL) to roll up the character sheets for this oneshot - so when I had it handed to me I knew straight away he was not an actual Orc, but the background called for a nice guy so I started playing as this noble Orc warrior type. Watching Grub's player immediately take a shine to me was funny and terrible at the same time. To be fair Grub's player played it perfectly too - staying in character. Considering what he was RPing; essentially a child's game of exploring go horribly wrong and kill ALL of his friends, I was impressed that he maintained character.
    When the poor guy started trying to cut himself with a sword that could kill him with a fumble, I had to jump on him to stop him (being the only one who could) and that only endeared him even more to me. Which only made it even worse when I set off the trap.


    Spoiler: Cumberland Senior
    Show

    "The two have been forcibly joined together through powerful and corrupt forbidden magic into a horrific abomination against nature. We are all naturally horrified at what has happened to them."

    "Cumberland Sr – I'm a super Dwarf!"


    I lost my ****ing ****... I could not breathe I was laughing so hard. I was hacking for breath with my head between my knees laughing my arse off. And in some part of my mind my brain was saying to me;

    'For god's sake don't pass out. You know what'll happen if you pass out. He'll try to 'heal' you'

    Draspher's player (as you might have read) has been responsible for some brilliant cockups and hilarious plays while we have been gaming so this was another crowning moment in that ring of glory that is his player's gaming life.

    ...... And then he called him Peanut... That started me off again. And what's worse is I had to show him the advert for Reeses PBC. He genuinely had never seen the advert which made it so much funnier.


    Spoiler: Slipknott - you had a good run. All of 2 rooms...
    Show

    "when Slipknotts trap-spotting method of "smack the floor with a stick" proves how useful it truly is."

    All our actual rogues were dead...

    "As Slipknott burns the truth is briefly revealed. He was never an orc, just a changeling pretending to be one, but it matters not at this point."

    It mattered to Grub... At that point the poor kid literally became a mute, and never spoke again. And again props to Grubs player (Sim with an E from the other game), as he actually RP'd it. The poor kid must have thought - 'Another orc! And he's cool! And worldly! I totally want to be like him! He seems totally invincible! He'll protect me!'

    Woosh!!!

    'Huh...... Wasn't invincible.... or an orc..... Thaaat's interesting... You know what... I don't care anymore....'



    Spoiler: Peanut should not be!
    Show

    So when we prepared for this game, me and the DM rolled up a whole mess of characters, but he did want 'an ace in the hole' so to speak. But we kind of thought that by the time we got to him in the roster that we'd be further along. I think according to the DM's map we weren't even a third of the way along.

    So after passing me the character, aptly named 'God' though it was supposed to be a play on the character from Fallout New Vegas - the super mutant with the split personality, one side being feral, and the other being more reasonable, he then gave the other half of the dwarfen shoggoth to RPF.

    Honestly I thought he played him completely appropriately.
    After RPF took over Peanut I was introduced already in combat - but this character was level 7 and had a ton of buffs and combat feats (or Shadow of the Demon Lord's equivalents).
    Five undead monsters; I just started murdering my way through.

    There's a wrinkle with playing the conjoined character in Demon lord in that both parts get to act independently. One player takes a fast turn (think a single move or standard action in the pathfinder equivalent) and one takes a slow turn (which is both the move action and standard action)

    So in this instance I believe RPF took the fast turn and immediately made for the monsters/me fight. At this point I think he was trying to throw himself on another trap and end his suffering - a private note through the DM said as much to me - but Cumberland senior was all too happy to continue this movement.

    So essentially they managed to get 2 movement rounds, where the other characters only had one. And as they had taken a slow turn they had to wait for all the other fast turns to go before they took their turns.

    So in the middle of combat, I'm murdering undead monsters left and right, and the first thing to lumber up to me is a mutant conjoined mutant looking creature...

    Me: '.... oh no.....'
    Cumberlands player OOC: 'What? I don't get it...'
    Me: 'What am I supposed to think dude... I'm literally fighting undead monsters here and you look like something that should not be. If you had let someone else come first I would have had at least pause to consider things, but you've lumbered straight at me looking like you want to murder me'
    Cumberlands player OOC: '..... Well can't you make a perception roll or an intellect roll to see my intentions?'
    I look at the DM to see...
    DM: 'Make a roll. Try and convince him Cumberland'

    "Cumberland Sr: – 'no, ya don't understand, I got fused with my....'
    RPF as Peanut: – 'DIE FOUL PALADIN!' [swings at anti-kleave] "


    I fell off my chair.... Again.....



    Spoiler: Aftermath
    Show

    After this, the other party members waded in to try and strike me down. But at this point as RPF mentioned I would have murdered them outright.

    My own personal head canon is that he murdered every one of them except for Grub, who at the last moment he realised that this was a child and knocked him out rather than strike a killing blow. Then he took the young child from the tomb and saved him, but tragically though he would recover he would never speak again.

    Poor child must have witnessed such horrors at the hands of those cultists. Good job I saved him from them
    Last edited by Romaru Darkeyes; 2017-12-25 at 06:48 PM.

  28. - Top - End - #28
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2017

    Post Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    interview tape 42318:
    Spoiler
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    1# - Guild master we have just received a priority alert.
    2# - I see what did it say.
    1# - Apparently there has been a jail break from the obsidian-portal penitentiary.
    2# - Great another prison problem.
    1# - Sir?
    2# - Never mind who escaped?
    1# - There were five escapees.
    2# - Who were they?
    1# - Two bards a Freddy Mercenary and an Elfin John.
    2# - Oh they were arrested for poaching rocs in a druid wildlife reserve.
    1# - Yes sir they were how did you know about..
    2# - Who else broke out.
    1# - Oh um a thief named isis apparently, she attempted to steal from the south water bank the day after the mad bomber.
    2# - What! Who else?
    1# - A necromancer name Felix and a witch named Lunara.
    2# - Ok. I see. Thank you please inform our agents in the relevant areas to keep an eye out for them.
    1# - Yes Sir.

    2# - Argh this is going to give us extra work we only have half the group we finalised.
    3# - Its already been three weeks and the mission’s expenses for tomorrow have already been paid we need to get replacements.
    2# - I know but we have lost our master thief we need someone who can open locks. I suppose that witch with a pseudo will have to do.
    3# - She does have the proper training. I would also suggest the monk he has worked well in the past.
    2# - ok that won’t be hard to arrange.
    3# - I didn’t like that necromancer but he was good at being in charge so we will need someone capable to handle them?
    2# - Are you offering that’s funny last time you did one of these missions you killed them all and ran off with a potential hazard.
    3# - I appreciate your confidence in me guild master however I would suggest Khayren. I know you and Khayren have had issues in the past however they are good at this kind of work.
    2# - Fine make contact and get them to the meeting point. We will drop them off at dawn.
    Last edited by Draspher; 2018-01-15 at 11:55 AM.

  29. - Top - End - #29
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    rebelpyroflame's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2017

    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    Just as a quick aside, something funny happened before we even began. I ended up giving the DM, his wife, Draspher and Vex a lift to the DM's place. as I was getting stuff out of the car, Draspher asked if he could take anything for me. I told him to take himself, so sure enough he grabs himself by the lapels and starts walking backwards up the drive. He then promptly slips up and falls flat on his back. I now have physical proof Draspher can't carry his own weight.

    For this session the GM decided to implement a plan he had in the works for a while. This is the longest game he's ever run, and he was worried we were getting character fatigue. To alleviate this, he came up with the idea of giving us a second character. That way we could play someone completely different then swap out characters depending on the mission. It would also give the secondary character plenty of down time to do their own thing. To try and make a cohesive group, he decided to make characters for everyone, play the initial scenario then let players tweak them afterwards to suit their own playstyle. This way, we wouldn't have, say, a party full of support with no fighters, or four different frontline fighters leaving players feeling redundant. This idea was partially derailed when Sim and Yurian both gave him new sheets they wanted to play as, but I'll get into that in a minute.

    session 16, Part 1, the setup
    Spoiler
    Show

    The scenario – spurred on by the idea of putting his bad eggs in one basket, the Guild master decided to expand the idea. Instead of just problem members, what if he used criminals? No one would miss them and they were easier to come by, all he needed to do was put a restraint seal on them and he would be all set. Yes, that’s right, we're the suicide squad.

    Jaune (me) – Lloyd One-shot, slayer, expert marksman and professional hit-man (deadshot)

    Vex – Cereza Hepburn a rogue/witch with a protodragon familiar, magic hair, a gun and time domain ability's (bayonetta, I'll explain)

    Sim – Isaac Whitefire, monk (no-one, I'll explain)

    Occelot – pamala 'rose' lee, a half elf cleric (poison ivy)

    Yurian – Khayren, a magus and the Guild masters plant in the team as secret minder (rick flag/katana)

    Draspher – Jess, a Broken as hell monk/barbarian. Here is how the conversation went when he first got his sheet:
    Lloyd– you know how you normally play draspher?
    Jess – yes?
    Lloyd – dial it up to 13
    Jess – but it's already at 17...
    Lloyd – then keep turning the dial until you break it, and don't stop until I tell you to

    If you're wondering why the group doesn't seem quite right, there is a reason. Originally the three criminals we had worked alongside before (Jess, Rose and Isis) would make up half the group (Draspher as Jess, Ocelot as Rose, Sim as Isis), with the GM making a Felix Foust style necromancer sorcerer for Vex, either a martial master fighter or magus for Yurian to represent rick flag/katana. Before the session though, Yurian started asking for a magus to play as, then provided a sheet. Spurred on by this, Sim provided a sheet for a monk she wanted to play as, leaving the group without a rogue type for trapfinding. Then Draspher sent him a message that vex wanted a protodragon familiar, so, he made a witch with two levels of rogue, then realised that this was essentially bayonetta, so he we went all out and gave her the guns.

    Now you may be wondering why I'm bringing this up. Well I happen to be really good friend with the GM, and I've become a partial confidant of his, sometimes helping him with ideas or builds. We had actually made the builds for Isis, Rose and Jess one afternoon ages ago. He had let me in on this and I had been helping him with character ideas for a while. I have also been painting miniatures of the characters, so I decided to go ahead and prepare a group of miniatures to properly represent everyone. Unfortunately, I didn't hear that there had been changes to the line-up, meaning that I both lacked a miniature for these new characters that was appropriate, and the time I had spent looking for miniatures to represent them was now squandered.

    That aside, time for the session to really begin.

    Part to, tied up
    Spoiler
    Show

    We all woke up, tied to chairs in a dark room. Despite our best efforts, all we can do is jostle the chains. The only thing we can tell is that the room is slightly moving, like we're on a ship or something. Jess looks over and immediately shouts in joy at seeing her "flower friend". Said flower friend tries to convince the rest of us she has no idea who she is, but a roll of 2 on her bluff fails to convince any of us. We all also look in confusion when jess keeps suggesting that "the lizard hobo" had something to do with this situation. Kharyen makes perseption checks and sees what we are all still armed and packing.

    Lloyd - "hey, eyes up here a*****e". Then suddenly we hear a voice in our heads, saying "right, they should be awake, prepare for drop".

    The good news is the chains came undone. The bad news is that the floor opened up. The worst news is that apparently, we were in an airship, and now we are plummeting without parachutes. And the only thing below us is a huge forest, very, very far below us.

    (side note, on the trip over the GM and I were chatting and I successfully guessed first try he was planning the airship drop. We had been chatting for years and he had mentioned he liked the idea of a stealth drop using rings of feather fall as parachutes, and he had tried to implement this right at the start of this campain, but swaggy had refused and draspher kept complaining he couldn't afford to pay back the ring if he lost it)

    Now one of the problems of this scenario comes into play here. As we all had new sheets, none of us knew what ability's we had or what items we had. This resulted in a lot of panicked page turning. Turns out the only party member with a feather fall ability and a featherfall spell was Cereza. She immediately activates it. On herself. The rest of continue to drop, aside from me and Jess. We both had the same idea of grabbing on to her, but unfortunately Jess was the only one strong enough to keep hold. Khayren has cat boots on, so he'll be just fine while Rose takes one look at her HP a decides to just tank the damage. Recovering after losing grip, but too far away to try again I decide to try it again on the only other party member close enough and with an ability to save me. I swoop over to Issac and latch onto his back, hoping against hope that his monk slow fall can save us both. I promise him that if he saves me here I'll make it worth his while, but he rolls a 21 on sense motive. I manage to match it with a roll of 20. I jokingly roll it again, treating it like a critical and I get a second, but the third roll gives me an 8, so not quite an instant kill but still close. Meanwhile, with a new human backpack Issac decides to try and use a spare outfit to slow himself down, and then I roll another 20 on my strength check to stay attached. I somehow rolled 3 20's in 4 rolls.

    Times up for us though, time to see how well we survive. Khayren lands softly only taking 20 damage, nearby rose lands so hard she makes a mushroom cloud for 63 damage, and is now stuck half way in the floor at the bottom of a crater. Issac crashes against a tree and takes 29 damage, but slides to the floor safely. Meanwhile the impact knocks off, then the fall through several tree branches and finally hitting the floor from 50' deals 25 damage total. Some distance away Cereza finally knocks jess off, and she hits the floor for 25 damage, while she lands without any damage, but she now has no idea where any of us actually are. Fortunately, a quick survival roll shows an extremely large mushroom cloud nearby, so we all meet up with rose healing us mostly with her channel energy ability.

    We start asking around as a group if anyone has any idea what we are doing there. We eventually figure out that Khayren and issac are the only ones who have done these missions before. During the conversation Jess also mentioned she misses "the sploady man". I immediately latch onto this realising she might mean "the mad bomber", and propose teaming up to collect the bounty on his head. Khayren also remembers (dm explained through him) that the mission is that there is a compound around this part that has gone silent for a few weeks, so we were dispatched to investigate as we are entirely expendable. Khayren also gets details on what's happening with the group. We all have control tattoos branded on us, but he has an additional one that gives him control over ours. At any point he could activate them to cause us pain, or hit us with a full charge blast to kill us if we get too out of line. The tattoos have a secondary defence, in that if anything happens to him we have a week or two to get back to base to report or we die. Finally, none of us actually know he's the one running us, we all think he's in the same boat so it's up to him to either keep it secret or to reveal himself.

    Just as we start off towards the target, Cereza suddenly seases up in fear, what happened to her protodragon? it was chained up in her lap and A quick roll shows it would have taken 65 points of damage if it just fell. Luckily the GM just rules that the chains came off at the same time, but it was still a "oh crud" moment.

    Part three, the lockup
    Spoiler
    Show


    We eventually get to a huge compound. all the trees within 40' have been cut down, and the walls are covered in some kind of grease. The only way we can see in is a huge set of doors with an equally large lock.

    A quick check shows our best way in is through the front door, so Cereza starts to pick it. It will take about 10 minutes to take 20 on it, so the rest of us explore our options. Jess immediately starts trying to climb the wall, but the grease prevents her from making headway. Isaac realises he has a grappling hook in his equipment, and quickly secures it at the top before climbing up and using a second rope to get to ground level, Jess quickly following. As soon as they get to the other side Jess tries opening the door, but is just as quickly distracted by the chickens running around, and soon chases after them. Noticing Roses irritation at her "friend" I offer to "take a job for her" and she seriously considers it. While she decides I go looking round the edge while we wait for Cereza, but find nothing except more wall. When Jess fails to grapple a chicken, she gets bored enough to use her 60' movement speed to charge to the door on the other side of the compound and Khayren uses gaseous form to slip through to the other side. He teams up with Issac to investigate one of the buildings. Seeing as neither of them are rogues, it's understandable they fail to spot the stinking cloud trap until they open the door springing it, surrounding them both in yellow smoke that leaves Khayren throwing up his guts. Issac drags him out of the cloud just as, after much waiting Cereza gets the door open, and the others head inside, while I run back after having wondered off.

    Jess makes it to the other door, knocks on it, then idly comments "huh, no-one's there", then turns back, deciding to check on a well she saw before. Now done with the door, Cereza scales a guard tower, finding only 2 heavy crossbows and 58 bolts she pockets, and a dried blood stain. Rose meanwhile quickly identifies what kind of trap the two had sprung and sets about healing Khayren. I then get back and rose bent over Khayren's yellow and puke stained form, with Issac standing sheepishly beside them in a similar shade of puke and yellow.

    Lloyd – I leave you guys for 10 minutes and this is what happens huh

    I decide to follow my natural instincts as a sniper and check the other tower, finding similar crossbows and bolts but no blood. I then pull out my rifle and get to scoping out the area. It's at this moment rose and jess hear the sounds of screams coming from a nearby L shaped building.

    Part four, the punch up
    Spoiler
    Show

    Jess charges over and sees a woman holding a door shut as something tries to break through. With a shout of "oh yeah!" She smashes through the window, Issac quickly following through the freshly made jess shaped hole. The woman is terrified at this point, and dives under a table as the doors break, and a large four-armed gorilla enters the room. For a chirstmas present, the GM had bought jess a tray for rolling her and Cereza's dice in as they had a bad habbit of drapping them off the table. Jess's first attack roll she manages to miss the tray and send on onto the floor. Jess can't carry her own weight and can't roll for crud it seems.

    Issac immediately runs into the fight as Cereza gets there, having quickly scaled down from the tower. She decides to go full rita repulsa on us, and makes her monk (issac) grow. Against any other foe the gorilla might have had a chance, but and enlarged issac proceeds to flurry of blows, ORA him so hard his head explodes. (side note, he rolled two 2's and still hit this thing).

    The woman immediately turns to them

    Woman – who are you

    Jess – we don't know

    Seeing the woman is injured, jess decides to try a heal check, and rolls a 1. Rose then enters the room to discover jess has pulled this woman's trousers down and is attempting to jam her thumb up her prostate. She quickly takes over the healing, but something seems really wrong with her.

    Woman – [turns to group] who are you? [turns to the gorilla] AAAA, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT

    It seems like she can't retain memories of what happens to her. Rose quickly identifies she's been poisoned and she's taken a nasty wound to the head which is surrounded by strange markings, but she can't identify what the poison is. Regardless she uses a remove poison spell and the woman's ability to remember starts coming back.

    While this was going on, Jess has started skinning this monkey with her bare hands, and keeps making rolls. The GM starts getting annoyed so I run this plan I've had for a while. I pass him a note saying (giggle and say nothing, when jess rolls I do nothing to her) and then show everyone but jess this note.

    The woman explains she's one of the prison cooks, but she can't understand where everyone is, it's the middle of the day the whole compound should be jumping. When quizzed about the lack of communication, she can't understand they send messages every day, why would they not have heard from them for three weeks? The rising horror and sorrow this scene of a woman slowly coming to grips with the fact she's lost weeks of her life and has no idea what's happened to all her friends is promptly derailed when jess joyfully asks the GM what she found while ripping apart a gorilla with her bare hands. She then gleefully writes down on her sheet the 10 pounds of monkey meat and the gorilla pelt she managed to remove from the battered body.

    A quick check shows us that we are in the kitchen, and the mess hall is connected in the next room, but all we find in there is blood and chicken feathers. we then decide to check the building the woman identifies as the warden's office, jess brining the poor cook with us solely because she wants help cooking the meat she just got.

    Part five, the stich up
    Spoiler
    Show


    We go over to the office, but as we approach Cereza spots a circle on the floor. The cook explains that since the whole place is a prison, certain areas are of limits and are booby trapped to prevent escaped prisoners from activating it. I quickly saunter over, explaining I've seen these kinds of traps before. With a quick wave of my hands and a few magic words, I deactivate it before turning to jess and telling her to open the door. She doesn't believe me for a second and decides to grab a chicken to throw at the door instead. While she fails grapple rolls against poultry, Rose decides she rather likes my idea, so she uses a command spell to make jess walk open and open the door. Sure enough, the four hidden crossbows take aim and fire, two impacting her in the chest and one is a critical hit and gets her between the eyes. In retaliation Jess smashes the crossbows and makes her way inside.

    She quickly identifies this as the house of Elgan Ashford, and looking around she finds a letter describing the day to day mundane activity's that mysteriously stops part of the way through, several medals lining the walls and some gold in the desk. She then takes is all, partially due to greed but also payback for us getting her shot. She then helps herself to all the clothes in his cupboard as well.

    She makes her way back and rose reluctantly heals 15 of jess's 35 damage, but she decides to leave the bolt in, if she takes them out jess won't learn her lesson. We ask the woman more about the site, but the second she mentions a vault we have found our next destination.

    Part six, the hold up
    Spoiler
    Show


    We quickly make our way over to the vault. It's a large granite box of a building with no visible entrances. Surrounding it on all sides are red warning signs in just about every language imaginable. Jess checks all sides and finds nothing, before jumping on top and attempting to punch her way in. While she's banging on the stone Rose uses a truesight spell to check the box herself. The only thing she can find is an outline of a possible door, but it's the barest hint of one even with her spell. What's more, there seems to be some kind of forcefield that is preventing jess's punches from actually making contact with the stone. Jess comes up with the idea of rubbing the medals she stole from the office on the rock to see if that disables it. It doesn't work, and both the GM and Jess are worried about the rest of us spotting her stolen goods. I point out that the crazy girl is still covered in monkey blood and guts and carrying around the remains of a mashed gorilla skull, we've stopped trying to question what she's up too.

    While this is going on the cook gets a dazed expression on her face and makes her way to another building. We all follow, Rose and jess deciding to give up for now to join us, as she makes her way towards a nice small house surrounded by various plants. The woman just sits at a stool, completely devastated as the full reality of the situation occurs to her. It finally occurs to us to ask her name, which we find out is Delbena, as we go snooping around looking for clues/goods to steal. The building appears to be staff quarters, and is probably where Delbena was living before all this started. Rose looks around and finds a cupboard full of homeopathic medicines and Cerezra opens a cabinet and finds 10 healing potions and a healer's kit that she splits 50/50 with rose. I look for clues to what's going on and find a gold coin collection worth 80gp and a platinum broach I pocket while Delbena is still shell-shocked. She is quickly broken out of her stupors by the sound of jess moving her bookcases, trying to see if there is anything hidden behind them. This is the final straw, and she just collapses in tears at the sorry state her life has become.

    We then realise that the miners' office was the first building Khayren and Issac tried. We make our way over to see if we have better luck this time, Jess dragging a weaping Delbena since she stills wants fresh cooked monkey.

    Part seven – the screw up
    Spoiler
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    We head to the offices and try to decide what to do. Rose trys the door and the stinking gas trap activates again. While Rose quickly leaves the area, Jess decides to jump on the roof (which is covered in the gas) and steals the flag off the flagpole. I then suggest to her that she should try breaking in through the roof. She agrees and immediately jumps up to do so. While she does break a hole in the roof and dive in she comes across a problem. The gas trap is pouring fumes inside the house as well as out, and now she has no way out. She manages to hold out one round, but she quickly succumbs the next round. Rose pipes up when she hears the sound of jess collapsing into unconsciousness. She starts taking some major damage so Issac charges in, breaks down the door and pulls her out with only 18hp left. Then she continues to keep taking damage from the gas in her lungs. When she's down to 11hp rose casts remove sickness to save her. She then returns the favour from the demonlord game, mouths a healing potion to spit down her throat. She uses her entire stock to get her back to 45hp

    We ended it on that point. Since our GM was going on holiday soon, we decided to have another session the next week, so I've had to type this session up pretty quick.

    Jess's new friends – 5, us four (rose was already her friend),Delbena

    Times Jess needed healing – 3, the initial fall, taking the crossbow bolts, the gas trap

    Lloyds future contracts – 3, the guy who dropped us out without a parachute, the mad bomber and jess

    Blatant thefts – 5.5, 2 guard towers, wardens office, staff office medical supplies, staff office personal effects, the vault (.5 we tried but couldn't get in YET)

  30. - Top - End - #30
    Ogre in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: It's not our fault - tales of the guild team that really should have stayed at ho

    This is hilarious. Keep it up you wonderful people.
    Princess Celestia's Homebrew Corner
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