|
Post by Iakus on Dec 19, 2018 22:04:17 GMT
So, does anyone play D&D here?
I'm a player in one tabletop game, and have been trying my hand at DM-ng a group on Roll20.
Might use this thread to post stories of (mis)adventures in either.
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Dec 21, 2018 16:40:15 GMT
So in recent sessions, my party has been exploring a network of teleportation rings. Think a fantasy version of Stargate SG-1. Most recently, we've been investigating an area we've come to refer to as "the silent forest" There appears to be no animal life here whatsoever. Not even insects. And all the plant life appears to be toxic as well. We've also been jumped several times by ambulatory plant life: everything from twig blights to assassin vines to shambling mounts and even some sort of corrupted treant type of monster. Our most recent session, our party wizard flew up to get a look at the forest as a whole, to get an idea as to how big it is and if there is any indication as to what's up with this place. She learned that this is a sizable forest, and that the region we are in seems to have some sort of "shadow" over it, and it's putting out tendrils, spreading out. So, being adventurers, we of course headed for the darkest, most corrupt part of the forest we could find As we headed in that direction, we felt a chill go through us, like something walked over our graces/ And of course, we got jumped again. More blights. More vines, Another corrupted treant and the trees it could animate. We walked right into an ambush and it got touch and go there until the wizard really brought the fire and blew all her higher level slots on fireballs. What made this fight more difficult was the discovery that something was inhibiting our healing capabilities. Any type of healing, mundane or magical, that had a random factor to it (ie dice rolling) was automatically considered the minimum roll. After the fight, we tried various cleansing magics. But no attempts to remove poisons, diseases, or curses helped. As we took shelter to rest, we briefly caught a glimpse of something. A unicorn, but black. Unicorns are supposed to be gifts from the gods, guardians of nature and of life, who's presence can aid in healing. Could this be the source of the corruption? Could its presence be inhibiting our ability to recover from wounds? Or is this another victim of whatever's going on here? Even if we d need to kill it, how can we bring it down? It can magically mask its train, and can teleport. Stuff for us to consider.
|
|
|
Post by novatrex on Dec 23, 2018 5:16:37 GMT
Iakus, Sounds like that black unicorn may have something to do with it, or maybe the forest corrupted it? What is the make up of your party like?
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Dec 23, 2018 16:40:27 GMT
Iakus , Sounds like that black unicorn may have something to do with it, or maybe the forest corrupted it? What is the make up of your party like? Yeah we're not sure about the unicorn, if it's a chicken-or-egg thing. But an Arcana check by our wizard did determine that being in the presence of a unicorn is supposed to enhance healing (all dice are maximized) so we think the presence of the unicorn is what's suppressing our healing, given it's been minimized. Our party, assuming everyone shows is six characters: 7th level elf wizard 7th level elf ranger (me) 7th level orc barbarian 6th level halfling bard 4th level half orc druid 4th level dwarf barbarian
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Dec 23, 2018 16:41:46 GMT
In addition I run a game on Roll20 that's currently playing through Storm King's Thunder adventure. Tonight will see what hijinks they get into...
|
|
|
Post by novatrex on Dec 26, 2018 6:33:46 GMT
Iakus, Any new details about the forest and what's behind it that you've learned?
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Dec 26, 2018 14:31:49 GMT
Iakus , Any new details about the forest and what's behind it that you've learned? We're not meeting again until tomorrow night. Fairly certain the unicorn is a homebrew though. My Sunday group was flying around in an airship gathering giant relics to offer as tribute to an oracle so they can learn the location of a giant lord with the plot coupon they need. In the mean time, the party cleric hired a sage in Waterdeep to investigate a secret society they are pretty sure is involved in what's going on. I'm planning on having him assassinated while the party is away. Just trying to find an appropriately dramatic way to bring that to their attention when they return...
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Dec 28, 2018 17:10:15 GMT
Okay, here's what ended up happening:
We couldn't figure out a way to track the unicorn, so we concocted a plan to draw the unicorn to us.
Being adventurers, that plan ended up being "torch the forest"
Not as easy as it sounds. Another aspect of the unicorn's presence was that open flames are also suppressed. Not that things don't burn, but such fires are quickly snuffed out and don't spread. Still there were enough fire based cantrips to get some wood a-burning. And those with axes also got in on the fun.
And yes, that drew out the black unicorn and another one of those corrupted treants, which animated two nearby trees, and battle was joined.
Turned out, the unicorn was the least of our problems. It went down pretty easy after the wizard critted it with a spell. The treant, with its buddies, was more of a handful.
And it got worse when a SECOND, much larger treant showed up, animated three more trees, and got in on the fun. One of the barbarians, who hadn't completely recovered from the last fight, went down when he took two hits and a rending attack. The bard and druid were isolated and went down to animated trees. The ranger (me), finding his bow less than useful in this fight, ended up running around patch-healing those he could so nobody bled out. The wizard went through all her higher-level spells launching fireballs at the big treant, and it just kept coming.
Fortunately, we had a seventh player that evening. Someone who had to leave the group for a while, but was in town this week. So her 6th level paladin joined us for the session. And she was able to tank the treants AND deal respectable damage with her magic axe. Without her, there almost certainly would have been character deaths that evening.
Once the dust settled, we took the unicorn horn as a trophy. We also noted that the flesh of the creature was already starting to rot. The paladin magically determined that the creature was somehow both a fey creature AND a fiend. The treant's "body" was also completely rotted on the inside, it detected as undead, and had somehow been "desecrated". Even stranger, within the roots, near the base of its trunk, was a metal band (brass), like what you'd find encircling a barrel or a chest. There were also old human bones and a sharp point of wood (ash, if that matters. The treant was an oak) which detected as faintly magical and undead.
We burned the bodies and the stake, and took the horn to an ancient silver dragon who has been acting as a patron of sorts to us (he's been grooming us to help him eventually face down Tiamat and free Bahamut from his imprisonment. Long story) He had never heard of such a thing as a black unicorn, and that fey and fiends do not go together naturally. He promised to research this and get back to us. And that's where we left it.
|
|
|
Post by novatrex on Dec 30, 2018 8:06:14 GMT
Iakus, Hmm, so still no solid answer of what's behind this evil forest? That ancient silver dragon ought to be able to find out. Is this created from a quest generator online or what? I'm totally unfamiliar with online role-playing, and it has been ages since I last played any tabletop RPG.
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Dec 30, 2018 17:19:14 GMT
Iakus , Hmm, so still no solid answer of what's behind this evil forest? That ancient silver dragon ought to be able to find out. Is this created from a quest generator online or what? I'm totally unfamiliar with online role-playing, and it has been ages since I last played any tabletop RPG. Not yet, no. I don't think this quest was created from a generator. I believe he developed it himself. This is our DM's home-brewed campaign world and we've been playing in it for literally decades. Seriously, I joined this group in late-2nd Edition and the campaign predates me by a number of years. Stuff sometimes has to be changed to fit into new rulesets, but the setting remains. The basic outline for this world: {Lizardworld} Over a thousand years ago, Tiamat rose up and imprisoned Bahamut. She and her minions (a collective of mostly homebrewed reptilian humanoid races collectively called "saur") then allied with orcs and golinids to overthrow the other races. The orcs and goblins were then betrayed and enslaved as well.
Metallic dragons have been virtually wiped out. Our own patron, Sheon Awain ("One-Wing") who was a young dragon at the time of the war, survived by assuming the form of an eccentric Chosen (one of the top-tier saur, ten foot tall winged humanoid dragons with spellcasting and other dragony abilities) and has been secretly working on how to free Bahamut.
The other humanoid races have since languished as slaves and food for the saur. Society under the dragons has regressed into a feudal-like Dark Age. Tiamat doesn't allow anyone to get too powerful for fear of a rival emerging. Magic, literacy in general, is no longer common. Magic items even less so.
Currently the saur are at war with the sahaguin. And that is, in fact how the campaign started. Our own characters are slaves who managed to free themselves. The first of us escaped when the "sea devils" raided the caravan that was transporting us. We then set up our own community, freed others, and then met One-Wing, ho told us a bit about our past, and now sees us as his last chance to save the world from Tiamat's reign. He wants us to explore this network of teleportation circles for him, find "dragonbane weapons" (weapons made from the bones of a dead dragon god which could actually hurt Tiamat) and find other potential allies allies.
To that effect, we have found evidence that there is at leat one giant community out there. Giants, we are told, are ancient enemies of the dragons. We have not approached them yet since we were told that giants only respect strength, and we may not be tough enough yet to impress them.
|
|
|
Post by novatrex on Jan 1, 2019 17:47:21 GMT
Sounds like a neat world. Where did lizard come from, nothing in particular? I played Traveller a little bit a long time ago, it was fun. Iakus, have you ever played Gamma World? I never got around to playing it.
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Jan 1, 2019 18:31:18 GMT
Sounds like a neat world. Where did lizard come from, nothing in particular? I played Traveller a little bit a long time ago, it was fun. Iakus , have you ever played Gamma World? I never got around to playing it. The inspiration, as I understand it, came from Planet of the Apes. I played Gamma World once. It was...strange...
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Jan 5, 2019 1:49:48 GMT
:
|
|
|
Post by novatrex on Jan 5, 2019 10:32:30 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Jan 13, 2019 20:00:40 GMT
Okay, after a couple of weeks, we got some answers.
According to the research, a "black unicorn" is a semi-legendary being, a product of a ritual mating between a regular unicorn and a nightmare (implications unpleasant on how THAT is brought about) They were typically created by evil cults.
A nightmare, it is said, is created by an evil ritual in which a pegasus is tortured and its wings removed while it is still alive.
So yeah, this thing was the product of some pretty freakin' EVIL.
One Wing didn't think the black unicorn was itself the source of the forest's corruption, but was likely aiding it. What we are not certain of, however, is whether it was the remnant of an evil long past, or something comparatively new. Unicorns are virtually immortal, and there is no reason to think black ones any less so. A couple of weeks have passed, and the forest is beginning to show signs of life returning to it, so we may have cleansed it by destroying the unicorn and the corrupted treants.
A cool think our DM did in our last session: We acquired an old book. Upon examining it, we learn it is the journal of another player character who was in this campaign way the hell back in the early 2nd edition days! We already interact with an NPC who knew that party back in the day (an old dwarf) So our next adventure is going to be to find out what happened to this old group.
|
|
|
Post by novatrex on Jan 19, 2019 4:52:12 GMT
Iakus, So I guess that's it with the mystery of the forest it looks like, or perhaps we can assume that's it, that it's not more fleshed out than that.
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Jan 19, 2019 5:46:21 GMT
Iakus , So I guess that's it with the mystery of the forest it looks like, or perhaps we can assume that's it, that it's not more fleshed out than that. Actually, no. Last night we revisited the forest to see if things really were settled there. We headed for the center of the corrupted area, And there we found a small hill with the ruins of an ancient building on top of it. We started looking about for any signs of recent activity. And out popped a pair of wraiths and a pair of nightmares from the ground (the fight was actually scaled down since there were only four players present that night. Still, the fight was kinda brutal with only one real melee fighter in our party. After the battle we looked around for signs of a basement or subterranean chamber. We found a stairway and a partially caved-in tunnel. The brawnier members managed to clear a path wide enough for us to navigate, and we came across a smelly, nasty, long-abandoned place of dark magic. There was a burial chamber, with a number of bodies laid out. And a couple of bodies NOT laid out as well. There was a teleportation circle, which we have not activated yet. There was another ritual circle. We're not sure what it's for exactly, but there was also a serrated bloodstained bronze dagger, a number of skeletal remains nearby, including what appear to be the wing bones of several pegasi, so our wizard wants to find a way to safely disenchant that circle. Finally, there were a number of ancient texts dealing with unholy rituals. Stuff about creating nightmares, black unicorns, and other strange, unwholesome beasts. At this point it seems pretty clear this while matter was a holdover of the old world, and not something the dragons were dabbling in. We ended up taking the texts back to One-Wing to deal with. Oddly, he asked us if we had encountered any reference to a group called 'The Scarlet Brotherhood" It was apparently a human-supremacist religious/political group from back in the old days. Not sure what woul dhave brought them up, such a group would be a thousand years dead at this point, unless some of them became undead like those wraiths we fought.
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Jan 22, 2019 21:52:07 GMT
In other news, I'm getting ready to run a Curse of Strahd campaign for my Roll20 group. Should be interesting, this will be our first foray into the Ravenloft campaign. One player is eager for it, one skeptical, and two had never even heard of Ravenloft before it was brought up.
|
|
|
Post by Iakus on Feb 22, 2019 16:23:01 GMT
Update on our campaign:
WE went back to that subterranean lair to investigate the circles. First we destroyed the summoning circle, figuring it was used to create black unicorns and nightmares. We ended up unleashing a couple of air elementals on us that were guarding it from such tampering (I assume) but that was nothing we couldn't manage.
Next we went through the teleportation circle so we could further map the network. We came out in a hot, humid jungle with so much foliage that we couldn't see very far into the distance. WE also saw that some of the odd shapes of plant were actually plants covering ancient walls. WE were in a ruined city! Then the gorillas attacked.
Well, large four-armed white gorillas. Four of them attacked screaming. We killed one and scared off the others. Especially when the party wizard cut loose with a Fireball. WE retreated a bit to study the circle before pressing any further in. The wizard send her familiar up to scout around while the barbarian kept watch (and "dug for relics")
A few discoveries were made:
Removing some of the plant life from the walls revealed faces carved on them. They were ancient and quite worn, so it was impossible ti determine if these were human, elf, lizardman, demon, or mutant-gorilla. They were of a primitive style, but skillfully done.
The teleportation circle lacked the complexity of others we have encountered. Specifically, while it serves as a trget to me reached via teleportation, it is not keyed to any other. This might be the first circle in the chain.
Streya, the wizard's owl familiar, came back reporting "hairy men" all around us, with a large building nearby.
The barbarian got jumped by two more gorillas while on watch. With five attacks each (four arms and a bite attack) he was in bad shape by the time we reached him and drove them off with more fire.
After healing the barbarian up a bit, we decide to try sheltering in the building we were told about. It wasn't far, the dense foliage is what kept us from noticing it right away. Before heading out, the wizard and bard each cast Comprehend Languages on themselves We weren't certain if these four armed gorillas were intelligent or not. But if they were, this could tell us if they had a language, should they attack us again.
And they did. They heard "They come" and "Hold sticks" translated through the ape calls as ten gorillas armed with clubs poured out of ruined buildings and crashed through the underbrush.
Kobi the wizard, knowing their fear of fire, tried to intimidate them with a Fire Shield spell on herself. She figured them seeing a being wreathed in flames yet unharmed would convince them to back off. This had he exact opposite effect. Four of them immediately rushed her striking out with fists and clubs even as they took fire damage in doing so. The rest of us desperately tried to hold the tide back.
Finally with only two hit points left, she managed to Misty Step away and drop a fireball on hr attackers. As my own ranger character used what healing magic he had to keep her alive. The reaction of the gorillas was different this time, though. With cries of "Got it!" the burned gorillas, now with burning torches instead of clubs, ran off into the jungle. They were after fire, and attacked us so we'd use fire against them! AS I put it, ""We were quest monsters for them!"
Or as Kobi's player said: "They were trying to strike a match, and I was the gods-damned match!"
We decided to go back to the teleportation circle to rest, and hit the ziggurat the next day
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0 Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2019 4:28:59 GMT
Iakus, are the white gorillas possessed by demons or super intelligent?
|
|