Oh just thought I'd ask; since this week is a holiday, who wants to play this weekend? I know a lot of people get both Thursday and Friday off, so its not unheard of to have plans for the long weekend.
I myself will be available, but if we aren't going to have enough people to play I'd rather know early so I can find something else to do Saturday.
Also, since we are nearing the end of this "chapter", I'm starting work on making a map for the stronghold you guys designed. Is the most recent version still up to date? Also, I still don't have anything from NullAshton.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
I -should- be good to play, and I do wanna. I'm actually free from now (monday) until next monday, which is just the tits. Anywho, I know my stronghold is current, I never really got a chance to incorporate Galli's basement (i think the drawing is here somewhere), and if Null hasn't done something by now, and can't do something by Saturday, might I suggest we just use his funds for general town improvement? perhaps to fund the marketplace that was suggested?
I can play this weekend assuming I don't have work. also will try and get the stronghold thingie stuff done. Still fairly sure what I want, just been procrastinating on actually doing the work crunching numbers and stuff on it.
my chance at gaminig is up in the air.. will probably be at my uncles place, but will have laptop.. so as long as its not to map intensive it should be ok
Oh, and to answer Oipho's late question: Divine casters pray at a designated hour of the day. Would take a full rest to recharge. It can be delayed if something specifically prevents it - so a Cleric who's interrupted in prayers can resume without issues - but it can't be arbitrarily rescheduled.
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Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
Found a room containing the discarded bodies of those who have challenged the Master Brain over the years. One person there had survived long enough to scrawl a message on the wall describing the fight. He spoke of a Guardian that the MB had, a vicious creature with black tentacles who was making short work of them. However, one member of the party claimed to be an angel (which the writer found dubious) and the monster could not bear to touch her. She fought back, and her touch caused golden ice to form on the beast, nearly defeating it, before the Master itself killed her.
Gathered up the bodies to give a proper burial. Next you found a "gift" left by Felix, which was obviously a trap. Nonetheless, it was triggered when the note left with it was read out loud in Common (one of the words sounded just like the trigger when translated). It was easy enough to defeat; Felix just thinks he's smarter than you, and likes to try to set up situations where doing the "right" thing still results in a victory for him.
Speaking of his machinations, in the next room you found some of his minions summoning more forces to "defend" the Master brain. A fight inevitably ensued, with the party getting a surprise round when you caused an Earth Elemental to appear right in the summoning circle, distracting the fiends who thought their spell went wrong. The weaker devils went down easily, but their leader was a far tougher foe. Rilath threw enchanted swords at him, damaging him considerably before he could act, and Oipho buffed up Madila with some well chosen spells to greatly increase her effectiveness against him.
The fiend saw the threat and fought back with great vigor, stunning and nearly killing the kobold in a single round. But Ornald was able to get in past the monster's chains, and heal Madila just in time to finish it off.
One devil survived, and you decided to interrogate it. It revealed that your actions thus far had all been expected; when the party rejected Felix's deal last session, he wasn't just speaking to them, but to the Elder Brain, who can see and hear through Oipho. The alliance of the devils with the Master was a ruse; they were merely gaining its trust to bypass its guardian, and were more than willing to kill it themselves in return for the Key. After all, why should it trust you with the task when you had already proved too hard to control, and they could offer an entire army to see that the job was done right?
The Elder Brain witnessed this and agreed, mentally ordering Oipho to signal its assent by attacking the party (quite probably sacrificing himself in the process), so that the devils could retrieve the other keys from your bodies as a down payment.
However, neither the fiends nor the Elder were prepared for the fact that Oipho possessed a Disobedience spell that suppresses the ability of the EB to command him, and he was prepared for such a situation. He dropped a note he had prepared when in the antimagic zone, stating his intentions, and fired off spells that both blinded and deafened him. The sudden lack of sensory input convinced the Elder that Oipho had been killed attempting to obey. Madila was able to literally beat the Domination out of him (which sounds a little BDSM when you think about it), and free his mind for good.
XP:
1 Horned Devil and 4 Spined Devils: 1800 for level 14, 1950 for level 13
1 Manyjaws trap: 500 xp
Treasure:
Ring of Protection +3: 18000 gp
Emerald Dragon Fang: 9000 gp
+4 Large Spiked Chain: 32650 gp
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
I got a ton of shopping to do on Saturday, (I have a thousand nieces and nephews, or at least it feels like it), so I don't think I can play this week. Sorry.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
Session closed. Three players in attendance. Not doing loot and xp until you get the Key, just a recap right now.
On their way to confront the Master Brain, PCs encountered a room with books and papers that appeared to have been ransacked (but which still had some salvageable magic scrolls), and another which contained a strange mass of black gooey things that kept changing shape. We also decided to release the captive Harpy at this time, since she would be useless in the next fight, and it was amazing she had lasted this long anyway.
Finally met the Master, who was very unlike the calm and collected Elder in personality: it was completely insane, and seemed to speak with multiple voices and personalities, all fighting for control. It summoned its devilish reinforcements to slay the party, but they did not arrive, and it concluded that it had been betrayed (and that the devils might be on their way to the Elder that very moment).
Instead, it summoned its Guardian, the black swarm-like thing (which a knowledge check revealed to be from the Far Plane), which coalesced into a creature with multiple eyes, mouths, and tentacles. The Brain was not too formidable a combatant itself, but still capable of dealing out a fair amount of hurt, as well as perform both a Mental and Physical attack each round. It could also submerge itself in its acidic pool to increase the rate of its Regeneration, and recover quickly from the wounds it took.
The Guardian itself was nightmarish, able to fire devastating Eye Rays and make powerful attacks with its tentacles, all in the same round. It also had an absurd amount of Damage Reduction, which made it extremely hard to even scratch.
Rilath nearly killed the Brain, but it was hovering above the pool as it fell and soon returned. Madila and Oipho (who gave Madila a powerful buff to make her a Were-Bear) concentrated mostly on the Guardian, but were unable to significantly harm it. Ornald (played by myself) provided buffs and healing.
Madila eventually figured out the meaning of the message found in the room full of bodies, as well as that from the Hags before that said the PCs already had what they needed to win. She broke the talisman acquired all the way back in Chapter 1 and summoned the Astral Deva. It's attacks not only caused ice to form on the beast, draining its dexterity, but also reduced its DR slightly with each hit, eventually enough that the Madila and Oipho could finish it.
Rilath meanwhile took the Keys of Fire and Death and used the combined spell to destroy the MB's pool, evaporating the acid within and removing the Brain's ability to accelerate its healing. This caused an Acid Fog, and the nearly dead MB pulled the also nearly dead Rilath into it, in an attempt to take him with it. However, he was able to teleport to safety, and the party emerged victorious.
NOTE:
Two weeks from now is Christmas Eve. Three weeks from now is New Years. I'm sure people have celebrations and family get-togethers for those days, so I assume we won't be playing.
Which still leaves next week open, but its a busy time of year in general. So I'd like to know as much in advance as possible who wants to play one more session this year. I'm game, if enough if you are. If not, I will see you guys in 2012.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
We might just want to wait until next year though, with people busy.
Yeah, I'm starting to agree with you. It's Thursday now, and I haven't really had any time to plan anything, it's been so busy. So even if we did play, it would probably be a short session. No reason to interrupt peoples' holiday celebrations and wake up early on a Saturday if I'm just going to have to kludge something together at the last minute.
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
Yeah, I'm starting to agree with you. It's Thursday now, and I haven't really had any time to plan anything, it's been so busy. So even if we did play, it would probably be a short session. No reason to interrupt peoples' holiday celebrations and wake up early on a Saturday if I'm just going to have to kludge something together at the last minute.
I'll probably use the time to change the oil in my car this saturday, then. Supposed to be sunny.
Yeah, I'm officially out, too; my sister spontaneously decided to fly in from Philly and I have to pick her up. Also, since I haven't seen her in 4 years, pretty much means I'm gonna spend my whole weekend with her and family.
Well, we have the permanent antimagic field on the plane of shadow - and that's the location we're going next, apparently - so we stone him, and then have a place to store him where the curious won't attempt to revive him.
We also grind him to pebbles, so that anyone trying to revive Felix has quite the puzzle...
Oh yes, and he's not technically dead, so he doesn't revive in a while on his home plane.
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Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
Session closed. Three players in attendance. Story stuff here, crunch in the next post. Lots of stuff to recap.
Returned to the realm of the Elder Brain to collect your reward for destroying the Master. Felix was there with a counter-offer; he'd give the Elder all of the Master's research notes, including the formula for Paragon, in return for the Key. The Elder however claimed it had no interest and would instead honor its agreement to give the Key to whoever killed the Master.
Felix claimed that responsibility ultimately lay with him. A trial was called, and Felix insisted that he deserved the Key because A) he had convinced the Master to dismiss most of his forces in favor of the devils with a contract that stated they would serve him "until the end of days" (which means nothing on the sunless Plane of Shadow) and B) he had sent the Hags you met to hint at the role the Deva's talisman would play, allowing you to beat the Guardian.
The players countered that A) it was the destruction of the Master itself, not its other forces that the deal stipulated, and B) the message the PCs found in the oubliette was far more helpful than the Hags. Felix realized that the only reason the party had the talisman to begin with was that he had convinced them not to use it back in Chapter 1, and that therefore responsibility for the victory still lay with him.
At which point the Deva itself turned up, along with the ghost of the adventurer who had written the message on the wall. He revealed that the message had been a partial fabrication; there hadn't been an angel physically present during the fight. Instead it was a being channeled by someone else, summoned by the party's dragon with the aid of a magic item. The dying man had tried to protect this secret, knowing that the Master could not properly read his thoughts, but that it would learn of the message and think it to be the truth, and thus not find the dragon's tool for summoning the angel.
The item in question turned out to be the emerald fang found in the dragon's skeleton. By doing the noble thing and bringing the bodies to be properly buried, the party had unwittingly had the means to defeat the Guardian with them anyway, without Felix's help. In fact, without the hints to use the talisman, they probably would have assumed that there was another way and discovered it for themselves.
Felix realizes that his arguments are getting him nowhere, and desperately claims that he is still responsible for the PCs winning, since his forces did not try to stop them with all their ability; they were holding back. He even boasts that the least of his troops could have done the job.
The Elder detects that this is a lie, and threatens to hold Felix in contempt (i.e. eat his brain) if he can't prove the veracity if his statement. It demands that a lowly Lemure face the party and win. Felix reveals that he has concocted some of the Paragon formula, and gives it to the Lemure in order to make it more powerful. During the fight he tries to flee, but is prevented by Oipho.
The PCs win, the Elder rules in their favor, and demands that they bring him Felix to consume. In desperation, Felix reveals to the PCs that if his brain is eaten, the Elder will possess his knowledge of the Keys, and seek them for itself. He demands that the mortals kill him themselves, knowing full well that he will come back eventually.
Oipho convinces the Elder to release Felix into their custody by agreeing to accept a Geas from the Elder (who is sick of Oipho's treachery), to keep his bargains from here on out. Oipho likewise demands that the Elder will not return to this universe (which is has no intention of doing anyway). Oipho, of course, has every intention of getting out of this contract, but will need a very powerful spellcaster to do so.
The party gets the Key, and they decide to use it to petrify Felix, smash him to bits, and leave him in the Antimagic Field they found on the Plane of Shadow (to make retrieving him extremely difficult).
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
Crunch time. Each fight involved 3 players. Take experience according to which you were involved in. Story xp is for everyone.
XP:
*The Master Brain and its Guardian: 3000 xp if you are level 14, 4200 if 13
*1 Paragon Advanced Lemure: 2250 xp if you are level 14, 2800 if 13
*Story reward: 3000 xp
Treasure:
* Several scrolls found outside the Master's lair. These turn out to be scrolls of Wish. And there are 4 of them. Value: 28,825 gp each, but you'll likely not sell them.
* Furon's Emerald:
Spoiler
This is the essence of an angel named Furon, suspended in an emerald shaped like a fang. Once per day, for 1 minute, she can be called to allow one of you to Channel her. Activating the emerald requires a standard action. This has the following effects:
1) While channeling Furon you take on the Half-Celestial template, with all the effects thereof.
2) Any evil creature you hit with a natural attack has Golden Ice start to form on their body. They must make a fort save of DC 10+ 1/2 your HD + your (improved by the template) Wisdom modifier or suffer 1d6 Dex damage. Outsiders with the evil subtype take 2d6 instead. This can only affect a given enemy once per round, even if they are hit multiple times. If you don't want to do this as part of a natural attack, you can make a touch attack instead, but in that case the dex damage will be the only effect. This can even affect creatures normally immune to dex damage, such as undead and constructs, as it represents physical ice crystals growing on them and impeding their movement.
3) Furon is finicky, and refuses to have her powers used cruelly or selfishly. Only Good characters can channel her. If an enemy loses more than half its dexterity to her Ice, and is then defeated, the ice will unleash a small amount of healing magic into it, causing its HP to remain at zero. She will then request that the creature be spared. She will make an exception if the creature is an undead or construct (they are not alive to begin with), a fiend (they will respawn in their own realm) or she considers them irredeemable for some reason. If the creature is killed, she will refuse to allow the killing PC to channel her until they have performed a truly good and unselfish deed to redeem themselves.
4) By holding the Emerald, you can talk to Furon. While she has no physical presence, she has a +19 on Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (the Planes) and Knowledge (History), and is willing to use those skills on your behalf. However, she will usually demand some payment in the form of a good deed or a charitable donation in return.
And of course the Key of Earth:
Spoiler
Physical Description: a small four sided pyramid made entirely of Tiger's Eye, about three inches on a side. The sloped sides have small grooves that may allow it to fit together with other similar shapes objects, to form a cube. The surface is deep brown, and it looks like there are seams of other minerals within it.
Cosmetic Effect: When in possession of this pyramid, the wielder's skin takes on a somewhat stony appearance, and little clouds of dust come off of them as they move. Their hair turns crystalline and solid, resembling gemstones. This has no in-game effect, it just looks cool.
Game Effects:
* The bearer gains immunity to acid, as their composition is now mineral. However, they also possess vulnerability to electricity, as their bones now contain metal, which conducts it.
* The bearer gains +4 strength, as Earth is the most solid and massive element.
* The bearer gains +2 natural armor, as their body becomes rocky. However, their mass also doubles. They are treated as one size larger for the purpose of bull rushes, overruns, and grapples. They take a -4 to Climb, Swim, and Balance checks.
* The bearer has a burrow speed equal to half their land speed, like an earth elemental. This does not leave behind a tunnel.
* The Key acts as an antenna pulling in energy from the earth around it. Once per day this can be discharged as either a Flesh to Stone or a Stone to Flesh spell, with the caster level equal to the HD of the user. This pyramid can be combined with others to produce additional, more powerful spell effects, each of which can also be used once per day.
* Key of Earth + Key of Life = Giant Size.
* Key of Earth + Key of Death = Earthquake.
* Key of Earth + Key of Fire = Haze of Smoldering Stone
* Key of Earth + Key of Fire + Key of Life = Transmute Rock to Lava
* Key of Earth + Key of Fire + Key of Death = Crushing Fist of Spite
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Terrible avatars throughout the ages! (All by me.)
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