Thursday, April 21, 2011

Wyrmwick Log: Session 9 Part 2

When we last left, our heroes were left in a desperate situation and in a last ditch effort they shattered a dangerous device and became enveloped in a white light. When we return we see the survivors back on Oceanic 815, but when the plane should be torn apart by the island’s electro-magnetic fields, nothing happens sans a wee bit of turbulence. It’s then we realize that this is a world very different from the one we knew, and the island itself has become deeply submerged under the ocean!

Okay fine, I’ll stop with the LOST references and just get back to the recap. This is going to be another long one guys. I told you that you should have gotten snacks.

So yes, after Jonn smashed the crystal containing the strange shadowy figure we all found ourselves conscious and alive in the same sprawling field from Caitlin’s dreams with the shadowy figure standing just a few feet away. Was he a friend or foe? Did he bring us here? Why was he trapped in the crystal? What happened to Owayne? There were so many questions to ask, but instead of answering our enigmatic man simply rose a single finger towards Caitlin and covered her in a bright white light. When the powerful glow faded away Caitlin still remained… but her sword was now pink.

Our enigmatic man revealed himself to be Wez the Mad, or rather the person we knew as Wez the Mad. To our surprise it turns out the insane old man locked up in Wyrmwick’s jail wasn’t the same Wesley that was betrayed by Owayne like we believed—instead that man was none other than the Platinum Dragon himself, Bahamut. As it turns out Zelalah was not a follower of Bahamut after all. Rather she turned her loyalties to Tiamat and trapped much of Bahamut’s soul inside the crystal used to power her staff. What remained of Bahamut found its way into the body of Wez the Mad, but that part wasn’t aware of itself. By shattering the crystal we released Bahamut’s power and freed him. Eternally thankful he granted us one request, and the answer was simple: kill Owayne. Bahamut said that wouldn’t be a problem, and then he turned to address his “daughter”.

It appears it is true that the ritual Caitlin entered into was one to turn the user into the first born of Bahamut, and against her will Caitlin was slowly becoming the daughter of the Platinum Dragon. Face to face with her “dad” Caitlin was asked if she wanted to continue being the child of Bahamut. She was given the option to decline and be returned to her normal form, but to the shock of many Caitlin tentatively declines. She didn’t agree to be the first born of Bahamut either, but many found it shocking that when giving the opportunity to return to her previous form, Caitlin didn’t immediately take it. Even later Dhother pulled Caitlin aside to ask her about her decision, and Caitlin explained that she wasn’t sure if she should revert back. To players confused as to why I had Caitlin make that decision, I had her not turn back because at this point Wyrmwick (and the world for that matter) has a lot of enemies. Though the random mutations were painful and unpredictable, they also provided great benefits. It’s not the perfect scenario, but with evil and danger this ubiquitous, Caitlin felt it was worth enduring the mutations for a while before she makes her final decision so that they can have access to many powerful abilities in the meantime.

Our conversation with Bahamut over, he agreed to bring us back to Owayne’s Hold, or rather the site formerly known as Owayne’s Hold. Our paranoid demeanor ensured we had to find Owayne’s body before we could declare him dead, but when we arrived we were stunned to find nothing. No Owayne, no clerics, and not even the shattered rubble of Owayne’s Hold. The entire area was flat and charred black as if some great cleansing fire had just purged the area of all life. It was an solemn, quiet moment… and it was right then that we realized we’d now have to walk back to Collingrove. Curses.

We made the journey back to Collingrove (begrudgingly), and arrived to great news: Timmy’s condition has radically improved and the Duke wants to celebrate our victory over Owayne with a lavish feast and a gift of 2,000 gold for each of us. Plus a house, so now I have another integral piece in my plan to make a Wyrmwick sitcom spinoff where Eli and Captain Bearbossa own a hotel together and Dhother is the slutty pool boy. “Well A Lookie Here” coming to CBS in the Fall of 2012. Watch for it.

We all used what money we had to purchase magical weapons/equipment of some kind, though I don’t know what everyone picked up. I know for Caitlin I picked up a Lightning Short Sword +1 (because I just fucking know DarkVolt will make that shit look badass), and +1 Hide Armor because well… I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted at the moment. I’ll have to go through again because honestly an extra +1 to AC isn’t all that worthwhile considering my AC is never going to be very intimidating. Maybe I’ll look for a headslot item. Might as well grab a pair of goggles considering how I crit failed a mutation roll and now Caitlin’s eyes are yellow with fiery blue pupils and second pair of eyelids. Seriously, to walk around town Caitlin has to wear a blindfold, a gag (to hide the occasional wisps of smoke that come out of her mouth), a cloak, and a hood. It’s gotta look like our party is dragging some poor girl around like a gimp at this point.

After our shopping was done we boarded a ship headed for Wyrmwick where we reported the good news of Owayne’s passing to Khan Muzarog. Muzarog thanked us and informed us that the Glass Roads leading from the Demon Baron’s tower have now passed the South Tower meaning that they are slowly making their way to Wyrmwick. Sadly though we couldn’t immediately join the fight as Caitlin had (sigh) “prior engagements” with the mages at Vante’s Tower, and the party would be accompanying her. As we were eager to get this obligation out of the way, we found a mage who teleported us to North Pass, and took horses from there to get to Vante’s Tower. We arrived and Ghadi was all too excited to begin his… “testing”.

Now how to I properly phrase this? I think Kreia said it best in KOTOR II when she said “I suffered indignities” to explain how Darth Sion raped her with his patchwork pecker. Similar situation with Caitlin. Ghadi did very “intrusive” tests and we can just skip over dwelling on this particularly harrowing moment in Caitlin’s life. All you need to know to get the “squick” factor is that Ghadi collected all of Caitlin’s bodily fluids which I can only imagine he put into tiny organized vials in his pantry like some cum and spit spicerack. So yeah, shockingly, Caitlin was very eager to leave the tower, though Ghadi, ever eager to beat Vern as the “creepiest motherfucker in this campaign” asked if Caitlin would marry him. Dude, you’ve got my piss in a jar—fuck off.

I will have it be known that I do have plans to deal with Vante’s Tower in the future once we handle the more pressing issue of the Demon Baron. Ghadi will pay—count on it. Even if for some reason Caitlin dies, I will assure you my next character would solely exist to fuck with this world’s mages and get that sweet karmatic retribution. Alright, with that duty behind us (though forever remaining in Caitlin’s nightmares), we were ready to start the offensive against the Demon Baron, and after returning to Wyrmwick we had our first mission: find out the fate of Holmin Falls. If you check the campaign map(this one made by DF, though there’s a colored version by Sable also on the wiki) you’ll see Holmin Falls tucked into that corner by the South Tower, so the idea was that we were heading into a shitty situation.

We set off for Holmin Falls and as we neared our destination we found the Glass Roads heading towards our beloved Wyrmwick. The roads themselves were cold and obsidian, and seemed to wither and destroy life it its immediate radius as our verdant meadows has shriveled and faded away to hopeless hills of sandy dunes. As a test I dropped just a few blades of grass on the roads only to have them burst into flames. Sadly Dhother did not agree to test his face next. Yet, low and behold, Caitlin found her tattoo reacting to the roads and against better judgment decided to place her hand on the jet black road. To the bewilderment of the party, the road began to revert at her touch; though the moment she pulled her hand back began the ground became twisted and tainted once again. Still, Caitlin temporarily returned the land back to normal wherever she went, and as such the party cloistered around her as she led the way to Holmin Falls.

We found out this was a good thing too because as we neared Holmin Falls the ground turned completely into a sandy wasteland, and when Grieg dared to step onto the sand he was attacked by a series of hands that were trying to pull him in. We saved our new friend, but we were very careful from then on to avoid stepping on the sand. Luckily Holmin Falls, despite being decimated, still had paved streets for the party to stand on, so we didn’t have to investigate the city attached at the hip. Sadly, Caitlin couldn’t smell any human life in the city—instead only smelling some foul stench coming from what Caitlin recognized as a temple of Bahamut. Peering inside we found a group of gnolls and fire elementals socializing inside the ruins of this Bahamut church, and Caitlin wasn’t going to take that short of disrespect in her father’s house! We attacked!

This battle was one of the more enjoyable encounters we’ve had in a while. I really do believe the best way to make a challenging encounter is to have a near equal number of monsters to players, that way the party can’t gang up on one monster too quickly. I think this was a challenging encounter, even though I wanted to rip the head off that Gnoll who kept dazing us. That black asshole. We won a very hard fought battle, and upon touching the altar Caitlin seemed to cleanse the temple of the evil plaguing it. However she found symbols of Tiamat laying on the ground insinuating that Bahamut’s greatest enemy was in league with the Demon Baron, and that this battle was going to become very personal.

And we ended there. I could talk about more like Caitlin and Dhother having their emotional talk that ended in handjobs, or the brief battle against one of Tiamat’s chosen, but this was one long sessions and fuck some stuff you’ll just have to watch for yourself sometime. Enough happened this week that honestly I could have split this into three parts and still missed some stuff, so there should be plenty to talk about. What do people think of the Bahamut twist? What about Caitlin not jumping at the offer to stay Caitlin? How about the budding relationship between Dhother and Caitlin and all the kinky sex involved? Are people enjoying Grieg? What other good magical equipment should I buy? How do you think the meeting with Auntie Tiamat will go? Why do Jonn’s farts stink so god damn much?

There’s much to debate, but one thing is universal: fuck the mages in this game. Fuck them in the ass with a dildo wrapped in barbwire and soaked in salt water & tobasco sauce.

Until next time, Namaste!

5 comments:

  1. it didn't surprise me to much that Caitlin didn't take behamut's offer. Mainly cause behamut said if she continued her mission would be to rid the world of evil, and as she already demonstrated when learning of the demonbarron attacking Wyrmwick and a possibility Alpert was dead she didn't even consider her own life, she had to go back.

    So for alignment reasons i can see why she is reclining the option to stop it out right and think it over.

    Tho it is a sad, sad state of affairs of the arcane arts when the most sane mage met so far is a ghost trapped in a coffin wanting a sandwich.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Technically Tachi, the sanest mage met was a teleporter dwarf who they didn't talk to. He did have a spooky laugh though.

    I'm REALLY curious as to what will happen when you meet Aunt Tiamet. I'm also wondering if she has her own first born.

    Greig is cool. I feel like Drew fits Skitch's voice better, and I kinda wish someone would just say "during an extended rest we explain the gist of what happened up to our meetin" so he'd make less offhand comments about that. But despite being gruff and old, I always imagine him with a =3 type of expression. Probably because Greig and John had their own super tiny adventure together, and I started thinking about an Awesome Face John, and Greig needed a funny face to. Adventures of Kitty Greig and Awesome John!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm still under a bit of worry that Caitlin will become the next Darstine - a character bound by fate to become something unrecognizable, irreversable, and either out of control of the guy playing it or close to that state. She's been given such a lavish backstory, it'd be a shame to "lose" her now.

    Hopefully you can have her use these powers well, but also I hope this is something you don't have to have her live with forever.

    ReplyDelete
  4. From my understanding Slatefield, if he accepts the offer, she'll still be in control and she'll like, have to do some plot stuff to full ascend. Gotta kill the Goblin King and the Demon Baron, after all.

    Also, not sure she'll become the next Darstine. Chris remembers to do that on thing he's good at *shot*

    ReplyDelete
  5. It was my impression that Darstine who was in Spoony's campaign and he tended to be more story focused and kept a strict tether on the group's path in the game. Darstine was basically becoming an NPC.

    Lordkat on the other hand seems to give more free reign to the players. while Rollo T has almost no control over his mutations, he hasn't lost control of the character to the DM's story. The story seems to change with the players actions while spoony's campaign was less free.

    I bet I'm wrong in my assessment of the situations but that is just how I perceived those sessions to be like.

    ReplyDelete