Fortu: 38,342 (9th!)
Liga Bur: 36,201 (9th!)
Rifkin: 21,941 (7th!)
Fortu: 38,342 (9th!)
Abbathor smiles greasily, with his thin, tight lips never once revealing his yellowed teeth.
“I told you that swapping out the temperamental Elf; Arowe for our seemingly dull but steadfast Dwarf; Banaal would throw an unexpected pickaxe into Zartak’s carefully planned, long-term machinations.”
Moradin strokes his thick beard and nods begrudgingly.
“I’ve never liked your… underhand ways, but I have to admit you were right. I suppose my way, the way of order and honour, is easier to anticipate and therefore counter and abuse, if the enemy has no such scruples… Which he obviously doesn’t..”
Finally, fully grinning at the back-handed praise, Abbathor Agrees.
“I told you Brother; It takes evil to understand evil. Understand it and therefore, undermine it. Banaal’s unforetold inclusion and Arowe’s altered path will muddy the fates and disrupt the future as writen. The Demon Lord; Zartak needn’t win this struggle. There is still hope for the Dwarves of Fissa.”
Moradin frowns.
“And Solonor of the Elves was happy to go along with this plan?”
Abbathor continues smugly smiling.
“The Elven gods are even more arrogant and conceited than their people. Not only did I persuade him to alter the board and exchange some of the pieces, he left our meeting thinking that the whole idea had been his from the beginning!”
Running his manicured fingernails through his luscious, salt and pepper gray hair, Captain DeLeón takes a moment to laugh at himself.
A hundred men had been sent to him from the capital. A hundred good men and a hundred more to follow, with orders to travel through the Halfling strip into the Fey lands. His instructions are to form the first line of defence against the possible, Sir Briefadel led, demon incursion. To act as the protectors of the Fey Demi-goddess called Estrid, her entourage and the ‘Eternal pool’!
As a man… an admittedly vain man in his forties, he’d been sorely tempted, since having it’s existence confirmed by the Eighth-Elf; Rifkin, to travel there and search for it himself, just to sample its age retarding waters and stop the lines at the corners off his eyes spreading ever further or deeper.
Now though, despite the accuracy of the map he’s just been handed alongside his new orders, he suddenly finds himself a lot less eager. This is more like a suicide mission than an assignment. If the demon army does come via the dimensional portal beneath the magical pool, he and his two-hundred men will probably be no more to them than a bump on their path to Cottis.
The irony that he’ll almost certainly die defending a pool that he hoped would extend his life, isn’t lost on him.
Still, an order is an order and, if he’s anything, it’s a loyal soldier and he’ll do his very best to hold that line. With enough preparation time, perhaps he can even make the battle legendary and his death and the deaths of his men… costly.
Perhaps his name will live on in heroic stories, even if he himself, does not?
Another looooooong and unresolved all combat session, but you’re painfully close to victory.
Will ‘is-he-or-isn’t-he-there’ Banaal be able to save his own stubborn ass?
Will ‘I’m the door!’ Fortu continue ‘Great cleaving’ through whoever/whatever advances toward him.
Will Liga Bur ever sacrifice the warm and cuddly protective cover of his nigh indestructible hound and risk actually getting injured?
Will Rifkin’s ‘Alarm stone’ ever stop its annoying shrieking?
Will Locket ever manage to hit anything with his crossbow?
Did his brothers; Ringo and Chape, go overboard by boarding over the first floor windows?
Is Deo being a good doggy and comforting poor frightened Rebecca in the attic?
With vast area spells, freakishly high Armour classes, massive damage output and incredibly high Hit points, you may just pull through…
Below are all my currently available dates over the next two months.
Check your diaries and let me know when you’re free to resolve this bloody mess of an encounter. Next session will hopefully be more talky-talky, less choppy-choppy.
October
24th Saturday
25th Sunday
November
7th Saturday
8th Sunday
21st Saturday
22nd Sunday
28th Saturday
29th Sunday
Edit: We have an early winner!
Sunday the 25th of October. 9am start.
(I’m currently available for that date but I’ve got a possible, personal hiccup. We’ll say it’s on until/unless I say otherwise.)
A few unknown questions came up during the last session and I mostly hand-waved them away, but now that I’ve a little more (out of game) time…
(Core book reading and internet sleuthing.)
Banaal’s almost forgotten ‘Cloak of Etherealness’.
Although it’s a magical item and requires no material components or somatic gestures, it still requires a Standard action to activate AND deactivate.
The activation command word is: ‘Otherworld’ as you raise the hood over your head.
You become both invisible, inaudible AND ethereal.
You exist simultaneously in both worlds. Gravity doesn’t affect you but momentum still does.
You can move (half base speed) in any direction; up, down, left and right etc.
You can only hear and see sixty feet, and only then in muted… tones.
Force effects spells from the material plane (such as Magic missile) can still affect you but it doesn’t work in reverse.
You can use the cloak for a total of ten minutes a day but you can break that up into ten one minute blocks.
If you ‘solidify’ inside a solid object, you take 1d6 for every five feet you’re shunted to safety.
Fighting defensively.
If you use this style, you gain +2 to your Armour Class but suffer a -4 to hit with all attacks that round. You can combine this with ‘Combat expertise’ if chosen. Henshaw exploited this tactic fanatically.
The ‘Total defence’ action.
Total Defence means putting all your effort into protecting yourself at the expense of attacking. It’s a ‘Standard action’ so you’re still able to take a single ‘Move action’. +4 to your Armour Class but not attack. You cannot combine this with ‘Combat expertise’ or ‘Fighting defensively’. You also can make no ‘Attacks of Opportunity’.
Dispel magic.
Scott/Liga Bur tried this (experience bonus) nice idea against the possession of the Red-eyed Orcs. I was impressed with the thought process AND the fact that you were actively trying to liberate the Orcish slaves.
Good job!
Sadly for you and the Orc meat puppets, this is a (Spell-like effect) deeper magic by a Creature with a caster level of twenty! This means (even if I allowed it) you’d have to beat a Thirty-one!
Holy Smite
Fourth level Cleric spell that does 4d8 damage to evil creatures and characters in 20’ radius burst AND it blinds for one round. 180’ range for centre. Will save for half damage and no blindness. Good characters are unaffected and Neutral characters take only half damage (a quarter if saved).
Cleave and Greater Cleave.
I muddied the water by adding regenerating creatures and allowing you to use the cleave action on them, with the proviso that taking them down to -10 would activate a further cleave. I was mistaken. If you down an opponent, you activate the cleave but you do not get one for killing an already downed opponent. You can target a downed opponent but killing him won’t trigger a further cleave action.
High Armour Class protects against critical hits.
With three Party ‘Armour Classes’ in the twenties, I was statistically hitting you guys about one in five attempts. I also realised on my occasional natural twenties, that even when I critical hit, I would generally miss on my ‘confirmation' hit. Meaning that a high Armour class also offers a pretty decent protection from those double and triple damage attacks!
Bardic ‘Inspire Courage’ ability.
Sadly, this bonus moral +1 applies only to Melee Attack and Damage rolls within hearing range (300’). It does not affect spells. :(
Anything else I’ve forgotten?
As the sun dips down below the mountains and the veil between worlds weakens, the six, deliberately dismembered, Orc bodies are swallowed up by dark shadows and the pools of sticky blood start to stir. The decapitated torsos and severed limbs shudder and twitch but they’re incapable of housing any form of life now. Broken vessels beyond repair.
Instead, in silent frustration, the dark red blood rises like vapour from the useless corpses, coalescing into an unsettling red mist before slowly, deliberately, creeping up the mountain path in search of fresh hosts.
Battling a hundred Red-eyed, demi-demons and having a divine encounter with multiple gods is, apparently, just enough to push you all over t...