Hey everybody, I’m going to just go ahead and link all of these videos here for you to use as a soundtrack for this recap. If you haven’t picked up the hint by now, this was a sad session. There were several major deaths and a lot of painful moments to accompany them. And yet, there were some very uplifting moments to counteract them, and of course it wouldn’t be Wyrmwick without a few mind-numbingly derp moments to go along with it. Gentlemen, I suggest you get ready to hold back the man tears, because we’re diving right into the recap!
With the Toothpick Brigade’s victory of the tower of Redwulf, they moved on to what would be the final tower in the Demon Baron’s territory sans his own fortress. Along the way they passed by a sign that led to “Boatmurdered” or “Boat Murdered”. I’m hoping for the former as geez… the latter is just an awful name for a city. This dwarven settlement was interesting, but not necessarily worth exploring at the moment, so our heroes pressed onwards and found the last remaining tower. This tower was still incomplete, but as we peered in on a ritual we knew we had to act now or risk an even greater threat.
Though we did vanquish the forces in quick fashion (Dahl even got to chuck one of his swords like a javelin and kill one!), the ritual was completed and from the ritual raised an enormous fiend who we had to put down—lest we face extermination so close to our goal. We survived this brutal encounter and proceeded to damage the teleportation circle that would allow the Demon Baron’s forces to continue building this structure. Victorious, we went to bed only to be awakened by a familiar mage. Ghadi, from Vante’s Tower.
Ghadi asked what we were doing at the tower stating that we was there to finish building it. We got the jump on him and interrogated him to find out what we could. He told us what little he knew about Caitlin, and then proceeded to demand we let him go. Dhother however was not going to allow this fiend to walk away knowing that all of the towers are his doing. Dhother was ready to execute the guy, but Ghadi was far too powerful for that. He started to tear us apart with his magic, and our party had yet to get a full night’s sleep so our powers were limited. By the time Ghadi finally fell our party was nearly wiped, and to our utter horror a bolt of lightning recharged the life of the fallen mage. Dhother was adamant about killing the mage, but when it suddenly seemed that things weren’t going our way we attempted to retreat. However Ghadi would see to it that we were punished for our aggression.
Dahl was hit with a spell that sent him flying back into the tower, and trapped him there. When the party members attempted to enter they found the floor trapped, and Dahl was sealed off from them. It seemed they would have to leave him behind, but before he died Dahl gave two last requests to the party. The first was to bring Caitlin back home, and the second was to build a memorial to his fallen wife and daughter; a task he never finished in life. Following that he passed out, and the magic trap enveloped the tower remnants in flames. When they finally died down all that remained of the former pirate was a pile of ashes and a lingering feeling of guilt in the heart of Dhother as he knew his brash decision to kill Ghadi was ultimately what cost his friend's life. The death of Dahl hit the party hard, but they were adamant in finishing the task he asked of them and proceeded back to Boatmurdered to try to find the proper equipment necessary to traverse the harsh obsidian roads to the Demon Baron’s tower.
In the tower Caitlin’s luck had finally run dry and the High Priest had begun to torture his prisoner. She was subjected electrocution, stabbing, and even forced vomiting (don’t ask) for weeks as the party slowly made their way to the tower, and she even received the horrible news about Dahl. That night she prayed to Bahamut in order to confirm the truth, and indeed it was correct: Dahl was dead, but he was happily reunited with his family in the Astral Stream. However Bahamut then gave her the somber news that this wasn’t the death he alluded to previously, but rather that Alpert’s life was rapidly coming to an end. Stricken with grief Caitlin spent the night wildly lashing in her cell, unable to cope with these tragic revelations.
The party entered Boatmurdered to find the Dwarven settlement to in truth be a dreary fortress constantly underseige by elephants (don’t ask why), and the party had to venture through the maddened slums of the city to find the proper boots that would allow the adventures to traverse over the superheated rock that surrounded the Demon Baron’s tower. In addition they found a young Dwarven girl known as Harley who was orphaned after the Dwarves accidentally dug into Hell and well… released all Hell on the city. Her parents committed suicide, but the young girl remained blissfully unaware to this fact knowing that they had only “gone swimming” in molten lava. Feeling guilt over Dahl’s death, Dhother took to caring for the girl, and the party took her with them when they left Boatmurderd (still an awful name for a city).
Before making their final advance on the tower the party wanted to drop Harley off on the Mighty Gauntlet, but when they arrived they found their ship nowhere to be seen, and instead only the living headache known as Bomar the Baker was there. Bomar explained how he wanted to surprise us with bread, but he instead ended up burning our ship. Dhother did not take this well. Curse our good-alignment because I seriously want to choke the living crap out of that baker. HOW DID HE EVEN GET HERE!? I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW HE KEEPS GETTING TO THESE PLACES!
Now without a boat the party made (in my opinion) the absolutely horrific decision to bring Harley with them towards the Demon Baron’s towers. As the party approached, the Demon Baron came to Caitlin and escorted her out of her cell and into a new one in a more accessible area with her armor and equipment waiting for her. He warned her that the High Priest would be busy working on a ritual, and before leaving he handed her a letter and he instructed her not to read it until after she was gone. The party arrived shortly thereafter, and freed Caitlin for a touching reunion (y’know up until Caitlin realized they brought a little girl with them). Still, after three long months the party was reunited, and without a moment’s delay they evacuated the tower and headed to Redwulf.
The night Caitlin and Dhother spent the night together sharing their experiences of the past three months. Before the night ended the two shared their first kiss, and finally Wyrmwick has its own official couple! After this touching moment the party took a new ship to Wyrmwick to see on the condition of the dying councilman. Caitlin arrived to find her surrogate father on his last breaths, but he held on long enough to see his adopted daughter one last time. He told how he always saw her as family to him, handed her his last will, and then passed on. Following his death Caitlin finally cried; the first time it had happened in over 15 years.
The next morning Caitlin woke up with a heavy heart before she opened the last will Alpert gave her. Caitlin inherited his estate and 1,000 gold, and the rest of his fortune was to be donated to charity. Following that she opened the letter from the Demon Baron, or rather Daevick Tarkimos, and it started “If you’re reading this, then this means I’m dead.” The letter continued to wish her luck on her quest, but all it did was leave a broken heart even more shattered, and further fueled Caitlin’s desire to see that High Priest and Tiamat suffer for their crimes.
The session ended after Caitlin & Dhother convinced the church of Bahamut to take care of Harley, Bomar showed up again (HOW DOES HE KEEP GETTING TO THESE PLACES!?), and the party was rewarded with 25,000 gold for taking down the towers. The armies of Tiamat are crippled, but the finishing blow still needs to be applied. Next session the party shall travel north to Fort Alewyn to find a way to Bahamut’s realm where Caitlin will undergo the ritual to become the firstborn of Bahamut.
So what did you all think of this session? There were plenty of tragic moments to go around, but a few memorable scenes to balance it all out. Which death hit you the hardest? What did you think of the character development (Dhother, Caitlin, Deavick, etc.)? How about the romance between Caitlin and Dhother? What do you think should be done about Ghadi? We’re slowly approaching the endgame of this arc everybody, so get ready for the inevitable epic showdown between the forces of good and evil for the future of the continent!
Images credited to Kluu and DarkVolt!
Until next time, Namaste!
Showing posts with label Wyrmwick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wyrmwick. Show all posts
Monday, May 23, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Wyrmwick Log: Session 13
Have I ever mentioned how bizarre that we allow Left 4 Dead 2 to make us furious, yet we still continue to play it? It’s baffling to me. I mean we’re aware of this every single time we open the game up too. We’re all very aware that there’s about a 60% that one person in the call is going to get angry and probably rage quit. And yet we still choose to play it. That’s insanity people. Of course, that actually has no bearing at all on recapping this week’s D&D session, but I couldn’t think of a witty opening, so I thought I’d just wax nerd on you all for a little bit.
This was a long session of D&D (around 7 hours I believe), but sessions usually run long only if they are particularly epic. This session had action, drama, triumph, failure, and some very cryptic messages from Corellon, but we’ll get to that in time. For now, let’s get into the recap!
After killing the Goblin King and taking his “epic lootz” as it were, our party ventured back into the Borreal Maze for another run with insanity. This time around we weren’t attacked by any trees (not that that prevented Dahl from freaking out anyway), but we were essentially attacked by the Hunters from Left 4 Dead. Holy crap, my intro suddenly makes sense now! I need to go back and modify it to make it look like this was a brilliant and witty observation discovered on my front prior to writing this article! Ah… but the backspace key is so far way… ah fuck it.
So yes, our party was attacked by these strange monsters that attempted to pounce on us and do us harm, but we fended them off rather well after Denora went all Solar Flare on everybody and blinded the monsters. After that we escaped the maze a little worse for wear, and we began to plan our next move. Dhother was now fully recovered from his time spent at the Demon Baron’s tower (which was our reason for why Dhother was not participating last week, so the party had to catch him up on current events—the biggest of which being, of course, Caitlin’s prisoner exchange. Dhother seemed legitimately shaken by this news especially as he read the letter she left behind for him, and for those still a bit late to all of this Caitlin and Dhother have a crush on one another. So with newfound conviction, the party makes a move to head to Wyrmwick and see if they can find the location of any of the other towers.
Meanwhile in Demon Baron land, Caitlin is still at the mercy of her captors, though despite this she’s doing everything in her power to irritate and antagonize the followers of Tiamat, and Dhother will tell you if there’s one thing Caitlin is great at it’s annoying people. She began by carving a symbol to Bahamut out of a chunk of rock, and used it to pray to Bahamut which she managed to successfully do. After getting the information about the towers from the Demon Baron (who is still trying to convince Caitlin he’s on the up and up), Caitlin asked Bahamut if he could send this information to the party. He agreed, but he could only do it in the form of a dream. Caitlin was pleased to know she still has a way to help the party, even if it isn’t the most direct way.
However Caitlin wouldn’t go unnoticed by the High Cleric for long and one day he came upon her cell with an entire force of guards. Caitlin was her normal, cocky self, and was promptly gagged for her arrogance and dragged off to a chamber where they strapped her down to a table. The High Cleric was preparing to perform a ritual, and just before he began he removed Caitlin’s gag probably on the hopes she’d start begging for her life, but instead she fired off a Disintegration Breath. Sadly, this move did nothing (which makes me worry how BAMF this cleric is), and immediately afterwards a white gem was forced into Caitlin’s chest. As the crystal settled, its magic bonded it to her skin and the magic began to take effect. All at once her dragon mutations began to revert; leaving Caitlin as the same normal elf she had been before entering Zalelah’s Crypt. She passed out from the pain only to wake up hours later back in her cell with the crystal implanted firmly in her chest.
Back to our intrepid heroes, they have finally made their way to Wyrmwick and the first order of business is to inform Alpert of Caitlin’s situation after neglecting to speak with the councilman during their past visits. The party informed Alpert of Caitlin’s decision to surrender herself to the Baron, and the shock of knowing his daughter is a prisoner of the Demon Baron was too much for Alpert’s heart. The poor councilor suffered a heart attack and proceeded to fall into a coma. Denora tried every spell she had to bring the councilman back, but sadly his condition was very poor and the prospects for his future looked grim. Before leaving Dahl let the unconscious Alpert know that his daughter was doing great things and that he should be proud before promising to bring her back home. The party left for Redwulf in somber spirits.
It seemed Bahamut came through for the party by providing our heroes with a dream—or rather one party member. That party member was Dahl as he’s the only follower of Bahamut currently in the party, and these dreams were a doozy. They all involve Dahl seeing his family, then the location of other towers. There would be one to the northwest, and one to the east. Then Dahl’s family would become zombies and try to eat him. Caitlin really does need to scald Bahamut for that one. Like poor Dahl needs anymore stress in his life at this point. Dude’s already paranoid of three trees less than a mile apart. This dream was the guidance that brought us to Redwulf, and there we attempted to find the location of perhaps another tower.
We did find the location of another tower, but the biggest discovery had to be finding out Grieg is worth 100 Platinum for his crimes in the past. Yeah, if you weren’t there when we rolled it up, Grieg used to live in Redwulf, but he took part in several revolutions that got him labeled a revolutionist and had an insanely large price put on his head. Luckily no one in our party is driven by avarice because if they were Grieg probably would have been sold out. Instead we gathered supplies and headed for the tower to take it down before the forces inside could overwhelm the Redwulf army and create an undead legion.
Real quick let’s revisit Caitlin who is now back to being a normal elf. She has continued trying to pray to Bahamut since reverting, but communicating with the Platinum Dragon has been a difficult ordeal for the former first-born due to (most likely) magical interference from Tiamat’s influence. Eventually she did manage to contact Bahamut so that she could show him her new condition. Bahamut was weary on the gem and instructed her not to let anyone remove the gem, or else it would likely kill her. Instead she would need to visit him in his realm and he would remove the device, but until then she’d have to survive as she was. Finally he told her that the party was faring well, but one of her loved one’s was not doing so well. Before he could reveal who, the meeting abruptly ended as Tiamat became aware of it. The High Cleric came down and destroyed the makeshift holy symbol with conviction. In response, Caitlin fashioned a makeshift chisel and began carving prayers to Bahamut on the walls which again prompted the High Cleric to come down to her cell and restore the wall to normal. Caitlin, in response, went back to carving her prayers on the wall as she refused to be broken by these fiends. Until he physically prevents her from opposing him, either by strapping her to a table or breaking all of her bones, the High Cleric is going to have to get used to Caitlin being a bitch.
In another attempt to assist the party Caitlin asked the Demon Baron to send a message to her friends with the remaining locations of the towers and indication that Caitlin was alright. He agreed, and at this point Caitlin is beginning to sincerely trust the Baron. However she will not follow along with his plan. In three months time (two months have passed since), Caitlin is to be taken from the Demon Baron’s Tower to the Realm of Chaos where Tiamat resides as she is become the new second-born of Tiamat. However the Demon Baron’s plan relies on him sending someone else in Caitlin’s place which she adamantly refuses to happen. As it is should the party not arrive in time, she will be heading to Auntie Tiamat’s, and honestly I totally want that to happen as that will be one interesting family reunion.
Switching back to the party, our heroes are greeted in the night by a mysterious messenger bringing them a map of the area. On it are six marks. Two Xs that seem to indicate the towers still standing, three Xs in squares where the demolished towers once stood, and a circle around the area where Vante’s Tower stands. This circle is the most troubling aspect, but a message on the back indicated that while Caitlin was safe, she wouldn’t remain that way for long. This added pressure spurred the party to put this curious marking behind them for the moment and instead head towards the tower closest to them.
This new establishment was different from the past towers in that this was a complex with two towers separated by a small building. On the left tower we could see the standard white orb of evil land destroying, but the right tower had a brand new blue orb. We decided to scout the place out to investigate, but before doing so Dhother received a vision from Corellon. In his vision Corellon stood naked before he jumped on a surfboard. He flew around in a circle for several moments before a tower grew in the center of his rotation. He then landed, pointed at the tower and said “I just had lunch today”. Verbatim. I do wonder how Dhother keeps his sanity in these situations considering the company he keeps.
Taking that new information into account, we attacked. First we went after the right tower to discover what the blue orb might do, and after a quick encounter outside we came upon a hideous mass of assorted goblin parts. This was a very difficult encounter as this mass of parts has to have close to 450 HP. None of our characters are insanely high damage dealers at the moment, so bringing this mass down took quite some time. Luckily our rolls were hot pretty much the entire encounter, and the mass rolled rather poorly so we escaped without too much lost. As we discovered the blue orb seemed to be some type of incubation beam that was growing the mass—likely until it was large enough to stomp all over the Redwulf army. By stopping it now we prevented a potential future travesty! Go Team Us!
The second tower was filled with shadow monsters, and before anyone suggests I make Smoke Monster references, understand that already happened in Dethklok so I got out my LOST fanboy-ism there. These smoke monsters were actually freaking beastly and nearly wiped out depleted resources. We got lucky again with some great rolls, and discovered all the monsters were linked together as one. Just when Dhother and Jonn got hit with an attack that dominated them, Dahl lot loose a final blow that killed all the monsters at once. Following that we weakened the support of the white orb, and then took it out from afar destroying nearly half of the complex. What remained of the forces was quickly taken out by the Redwulf Army, and we, the Toothpick Brigade, were hailed as the heroes of Redwulf. With only one tower left to destroy, our party approached what may finally be the climactic showdown with the Demon Baron! Only time will tell, but stayed tuned viewers as next week promises to be exciting!
Images credited to Kluu, Sighter, and DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
This was a long session of D&D (around 7 hours I believe), but sessions usually run long only if they are particularly epic. This session had action, drama, triumph, failure, and some very cryptic messages from Corellon, but we’ll get to that in time. For now, let’s get into the recap!
After killing the Goblin King and taking his “epic lootz” as it were, our party ventured back into the Borreal Maze for another run with insanity. This time around we weren’t attacked by any trees (not that that prevented Dahl from freaking out anyway), but we were essentially attacked by the Hunters from Left 4 Dead. Holy crap, my intro suddenly makes sense now! I need to go back and modify it to make it look like this was a brilliant and witty observation discovered on my front prior to writing this article! Ah… but the backspace key is so far way… ah fuck it.
So yes, our party was attacked by these strange monsters that attempted to pounce on us and do us harm, but we fended them off rather well after Denora went all Solar Flare on everybody and blinded the monsters. After that we escaped the maze a little worse for wear, and we began to plan our next move. Dhother was now fully recovered from his time spent at the Demon Baron’s tower (which was our reason for why Dhother was not participating last week, so the party had to catch him up on current events—the biggest of which being, of course, Caitlin’s prisoner exchange. Dhother seemed legitimately shaken by this news especially as he read the letter she left behind for him, and for those still a bit late to all of this Caitlin and Dhother have a crush on one another. So with newfound conviction, the party makes a move to head to Wyrmwick and see if they can find the location of any of the other towers.
Meanwhile in Demon Baron land, Caitlin is still at the mercy of her captors, though despite this she’s doing everything in her power to irritate and antagonize the followers of Tiamat, and Dhother will tell you if there’s one thing Caitlin is great at it’s annoying people. She began by carving a symbol to Bahamut out of a chunk of rock, and used it to pray to Bahamut which she managed to successfully do. After getting the information about the towers from the Demon Baron (who is still trying to convince Caitlin he’s on the up and up), Caitlin asked Bahamut if he could send this information to the party. He agreed, but he could only do it in the form of a dream. Caitlin was pleased to know she still has a way to help the party, even if it isn’t the most direct way.
However Caitlin wouldn’t go unnoticed by the High Cleric for long and one day he came upon her cell with an entire force of guards. Caitlin was her normal, cocky self, and was promptly gagged for her arrogance and dragged off to a chamber where they strapped her down to a table. The High Cleric was preparing to perform a ritual, and just before he began he removed Caitlin’s gag probably on the hopes she’d start begging for her life, but instead she fired off a Disintegration Breath. Sadly, this move did nothing (which makes me worry how BAMF this cleric is), and immediately afterwards a white gem was forced into Caitlin’s chest. As the crystal settled, its magic bonded it to her skin and the magic began to take effect. All at once her dragon mutations began to revert; leaving Caitlin as the same normal elf she had been before entering Zalelah’s Crypt. She passed out from the pain only to wake up hours later back in her cell with the crystal implanted firmly in her chest.
Back to our intrepid heroes, they have finally made their way to Wyrmwick and the first order of business is to inform Alpert of Caitlin’s situation after neglecting to speak with the councilman during their past visits. The party informed Alpert of Caitlin’s decision to surrender herself to the Baron, and the shock of knowing his daughter is a prisoner of the Demon Baron was too much for Alpert’s heart. The poor councilor suffered a heart attack and proceeded to fall into a coma. Denora tried every spell she had to bring the councilman back, but sadly his condition was very poor and the prospects for his future looked grim. Before leaving Dahl let the unconscious Alpert know that his daughter was doing great things and that he should be proud before promising to bring her back home. The party left for Redwulf in somber spirits.
It seemed Bahamut came through for the party by providing our heroes with a dream—or rather one party member. That party member was Dahl as he’s the only follower of Bahamut currently in the party, and these dreams were a doozy. They all involve Dahl seeing his family, then the location of other towers. There would be one to the northwest, and one to the east. Then Dahl’s family would become zombies and try to eat him. Caitlin really does need to scald Bahamut for that one. Like poor Dahl needs anymore stress in his life at this point. Dude’s already paranoid of three trees less than a mile apart. This dream was the guidance that brought us to Redwulf, and there we attempted to find the location of perhaps another tower.
We did find the location of another tower, but the biggest discovery had to be finding out Grieg is worth 100 Platinum for his crimes in the past. Yeah, if you weren’t there when we rolled it up, Grieg used to live in Redwulf, but he took part in several revolutions that got him labeled a revolutionist and had an insanely large price put on his head. Luckily no one in our party is driven by avarice because if they were Grieg probably would have been sold out. Instead we gathered supplies and headed for the tower to take it down before the forces inside could overwhelm the Redwulf army and create an undead legion.
Real quick let’s revisit Caitlin who is now back to being a normal elf. She has continued trying to pray to Bahamut since reverting, but communicating with the Platinum Dragon has been a difficult ordeal for the former first-born due to (most likely) magical interference from Tiamat’s influence. Eventually she did manage to contact Bahamut so that she could show him her new condition. Bahamut was weary on the gem and instructed her not to let anyone remove the gem, or else it would likely kill her. Instead she would need to visit him in his realm and he would remove the device, but until then she’d have to survive as she was. Finally he told her that the party was faring well, but one of her loved one’s was not doing so well. Before he could reveal who, the meeting abruptly ended as Tiamat became aware of it. The High Cleric came down and destroyed the makeshift holy symbol with conviction. In response, Caitlin fashioned a makeshift chisel and began carving prayers to Bahamut on the walls which again prompted the High Cleric to come down to her cell and restore the wall to normal. Caitlin, in response, went back to carving her prayers on the wall as she refused to be broken by these fiends. Until he physically prevents her from opposing him, either by strapping her to a table or breaking all of her bones, the High Cleric is going to have to get used to Caitlin being a bitch.
In another attempt to assist the party Caitlin asked the Demon Baron to send a message to her friends with the remaining locations of the towers and indication that Caitlin was alright. He agreed, and at this point Caitlin is beginning to sincerely trust the Baron. However she will not follow along with his plan. In three months time (two months have passed since), Caitlin is to be taken from the Demon Baron’s Tower to the Realm of Chaos where Tiamat resides as she is become the new second-born of Tiamat. However the Demon Baron’s plan relies on him sending someone else in Caitlin’s place which she adamantly refuses to happen. As it is should the party not arrive in time, she will be heading to Auntie Tiamat’s, and honestly I totally want that to happen as that will be one interesting family reunion.
Switching back to the party, our heroes are greeted in the night by a mysterious messenger bringing them a map of the area. On it are six marks. Two Xs that seem to indicate the towers still standing, three Xs in squares where the demolished towers once stood, and a circle around the area where Vante’s Tower stands. This circle is the most troubling aspect, but a message on the back indicated that while Caitlin was safe, she wouldn’t remain that way for long. This added pressure spurred the party to put this curious marking behind them for the moment and instead head towards the tower closest to them.
This new establishment was different from the past towers in that this was a complex with two towers separated by a small building. On the left tower we could see the standard white orb of evil land destroying, but the right tower had a brand new blue orb. We decided to scout the place out to investigate, but before doing so Dhother received a vision from Corellon. In his vision Corellon stood naked before he jumped on a surfboard. He flew around in a circle for several moments before a tower grew in the center of his rotation. He then landed, pointed at the tower and said “I just had lunch today”. Verbatim. I do wonder how Dhother keeps his sanity in these situations considering the company he keeps.
Taking that new information into account, we attacked. First we went after the right tower to discover what the blue orb might do, and after a quick encounter outside we came upon a hideous mass of assorted goblin parts. This was a very difficult encounter as this mass of parts has to have close to 450 HP. None of our characters are insanely high damage dealers at the moment, so bringing this mass down took quite some time. Luckily our rolls were hot pretty much the entire encounter, and the mass rolled rather poorly so we escaped without too much lost. As we discovered the blue orb seemed to be some type of incubation beam that was growing the mass—likely until it was large enough to stomp all over the Redwulf army. By stopping it now we prevented a potential future travesty! Go Team Us!
The second tower was filled with shadow monsters, and before anyone suggests I make Smoke Monster references, understand that already happened in Dethklok so I got out my LOST fanboy-ism there. These smoke monsters were actually freaking beastly and nearly wiped out depleted resources. We got lucky again with some great rolls, and discovered all the monsters were linked together as one. Just when Dhother and Jonn got hit with an attack that dominated them, Dahl lot loose a final blow that killed all the monsters at once. Following that we weakened the support of the white orb, and then took it out from afar destroying nearly half of the complex. What remained of the forces was quickly taken out by the Redwulf Army, and we, the Toothpick Brigade, were hailed as the heroes of Redwulf. With only one tower left to destroy, our party approached what may finally be the climactic showdown with the Demon Baron! Only time will tell, but stayed tuned viewers as next week promises to be exciting!
Images credited to Kluu, Sighter, and DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Wyrmwick Log: Session 12
Well hello there everybody! I hope you all had a fantastic Mother’s Day and spent this cherished holiday celebrating the matrons who made our lives possible. I spent mine swearing at Noob Saibot for being a cheap teleporting whore and crying, so it was a good weekend all around due in no small part to a great D&D session on Saturday. As a quick head’s up Nik was not able to make the session due to prior commitments (I think he was at a gay bar), so we were without our silky haired lead man for the session. No worries though because it’s not like we got our asses handed to us by trees or anything, right?
Picking up from the end of the last session we (Caitlin, Denora, and Jonn) decided to leave the tower standing so as not to piss of the guys holding our friends captive—though it wasn’t an easy choice. Our only attempt at vengeance was slicing up the power box in the basement that enabled the teleportation device on the tower’s ground floor. We truly are the vandals of this world! With our juvenile shenanigans behind us we rode off to Colingrove to give Duke Ned the news. We arrived to see the city nearly deserted with a report left behind that the city’s forces (including Duke Ned himself) marched towards Wyrmwick to help repel a Demon Baron attack from the South Tower—the tower we had just recently destroyed.
We sailed south only to find Wyrmwick fine and Duke Ned drinking himself silly in the bar. Apparently a runner came to Colingrove baring a message with Wyrmwick’s seal that asked for assistance, but after speaking to Kahn Musarog we learned no such message was sent and instead it seemed some shorter man with long red hair and a facial scar was responsible for sending the message. We gave our message to both Duke Ned and Musarog who took it in stride mostly because we explained our position, and following that Duke Ned left for Colingrove. We took it upon ourselves to investigate this mysterious red-headed runner while we waited for the High Cleric of Tiamat to give us a new assignment, but before we set off Caitlin gave Jonn the remaining vials of the ritual liquid used to make her the first born. She wanted him to have it as insurance should something happen to her.
After that we traveled around to Sharan’s Pass, fucked with a bartender, tried to be totally sneaky, and eventually headed back towards Colingrove to find this red-headed runner. We learned there that the runner headed to the east, and without a moments delay we marched on the North Tower only to find our runner standing outside the tower doors as if he was waiting. Caitlin snuck up behind him and placed him in a hold so we could integrate him, but (twist!) it turns out this red-headed runner was none other than Thorian Hawklight, douche extraordinaire! After some persuasion (see headbutts to the back of the head) we learned he was waiting for a report from the High Cleric of Tiamat, and conveniently so were we. However we were privy to the little detail of the broken teleporter, so we decided to play engineer and go fix it.
Back over to Dhother and Grieg it seemed that this magical sun was taking its toll on poor Dhother. Grieg tended to the Invoker as best he could before searching for clues only to find a dark obsidian surface beneath the sand. As he continued to dig he found it eventually reached an edge, and after a good Perception roll Grieg woke up from the illusion to find that he and Dhother were actually on top of the Demon Baron’s Tower. Yipes.
Back with Thorian & Friends, we took our favorite recurring character into the basement of the tower and forced him to hook up the teleporter again. It electrocuted him which we found very funny. Caitlin asked Jonn and Denora to take Thorian to Colingrove so he could be arrested and then she would stay behind and wait for the High Cleric, but before that could happen the tower flashed with lightning and the cleric arrived. He demanded we release Hawklight, and against our will we did so, only for the Cleric to stab Hawklight in the heart for failing… which admittedly was pretty fucking hardcore. The Cleric then explained to us that we could have our friends back if we entered a portal with him.
Instead Caitlin proposed a counter offer. If the Cleric returned Dhother and Grieg to the party with all of their equipment and permitted everyone to return to Wyrmwick, then Caitlin would offer herself up as a prisoner. Caitlin urged her party members to trust her on this, and left her weapons with Jonn before joining the Cleric. In a flash Caitlin and the cleric disappeared and in their place was Dhother and Grieg, equipped and confused. Caitlin was stripped of her armor and equipment and placed in a dark cell inside of the Demon Baron’s Tower to await whatever foul cruelties the Demon Baron had planned for the first-born of Bahamut. Tell me that seeing this motherfucker coming towards you wouldn’t make you shit your pants with fear—if only Caitlin were wearing pants at the moment. However instead of using Caitlin like a toothpick like I assumed, the Demon Baron dropped to one knee and begged his cousin to help him.
He explained that he was an unwilling pawn in this army, and that he wanted Caitlin’s help. In return he would ensure that there was a mix-up during a prisoner transfer scheduled to occur in a few months (and before anyone suggests that’s a long time away remember that it takes weeks to get anywhere in this world). Caitlin (and myself) were obviously a bit weary of this revelation and didn’t make a commitment either way, though I intend to cut to the core of this situation next session. I just can’t trust him because I totally get a Gin/Rukia vibe from this situation where all the Demon Baron wants to do is give me hope of rescue only to cruelly snatch it away to let the despair really sink in. Call me crazy but I just don’t trust that the Demon Baron is on the up and up yet—I have too many questions.
Turning our attention back to the party, we join them as old friends reunite, though there is a somber feel about this knowing that Caitlin traded herself for them. It seemed this was a plan of Caitlin’s for awhile as she left a note behind for Dhother that basically explained that she didn’t want the party to worry about her. Instead she urged them to find the Goblin King’s orb to prevent further teleporting hijinks and to blow up any towers they find. They did just that, and the tower at Watchman’s North was utterly obliterated. With one more tower in ruins, our heroes ventured to Colingrove to resupply before heading off to the Boreal Maze.
Before leaving though they stopped by Bomar the Baker’s only to find a familiar face arguing with the beloved baker over his bizarre bazaar. It was none other than Dahl, the former-pirate turned poop shoveler… you know, the guy who lost his family. He told the party that he overheard their plight and that he was going to join them in their quest in order to pay back Caitlin for sparing his life and attempting to find his family. Can you guys say “Guest Party Member”?
Without wasting another moment the party ventured into the Boreal Maze and began navigating its twisted design. Each night the party would attempt to rest only to leave Dahl shitting his pants on the final shift muttering “I can hear the trees”. Just as our party was about to exit the maze we found ourselves under attack by Treants, and for those unaware what those are, think big fucking trees with a pissed off disposition.
These fucking trees nearly TPK’s us which I can only imagine would be the greatest downer ending to a campaign ever: “yeah, Caitlin you’re still prisoner of the Demon Baron, and the rest of the party was killed by fucking oak trees. GG.” Thankfully we did survive the encounter, but it was not a very glamorous victory—i.e. there were quite a few girlish screams going around. Let it be known that thus far in the campaign our biggest challenges have been a Death Knight, and fucking trees. Worst part is no one believed Dahl when he was crying about the trees until their 1d12+10 branches were lodged half way up our asses.
After that we managed to climb up to the top of the tower that made up the Goblin King’s prison with Denora pulling off some very special Daredevil-esque acrobatics to make it inside. Once we had broken in we descended the tower and ignored the jeers of the prisoners who clearly knew far too much about us which is, admittedly, something we should look into. We managed to traverse the dungeon just fine though and we battled the Goblin King is a climactic battle. Through good teamwork we dispatched the Goblin King without too much of a hassle, and were left to reap the spoils: his orb of anti-teleportation, and the necklace that prevented mutation.
We escaped the tower and called it a night following that encounter. We’re in a very unique position now as the party now has to figure out where the remaining towers are as we only knew of Watchman North & Watchman South. Until those towers are destroyed they can’t march on the Demon Baron, but it might take quite some time to accomplish this. On the flip side Caitlin is set to be moved to a new prison in a few months, so there’s a timetable going on right now that the party doesn’t even know about. So, what do you guys think? Do you trust the Demon Baron? Was Hawklight’s death satisfying? Will Dahl freak out even more when he learns that Dhother has an evil magic rosary following them? Could Bomar the Baker really be behind everything!?! Tune in next time to (maybe) find out!
Images credited to Sable, DarkVolt, DungeonsandFlagons, and Sighter.
Until next time, Namaste!
Picking up from the end of the last session we (Caitlin, Denora, and Jonn) decided to leave the tower standing so as not to piss of the guys holding our friends captive—though it wasn’t an easy choice. Our only attempt at vengeance was slicing up the power box in the basement that enabled the teleportation device on the tower’s ground floor. We truly are the vandals of this world! With our juvenile shenanigans behind us we rode off to Colingrove to give Duke Ned the news. We arrived to see the city nearly deserted with a report left behind that the city’s forces (including Duke Ned himself) marched towards Wyrmwick to help repel a Demon Baron attack from the South Tower—the tower we had just recently destroyed.
We sailed south only to find Wyrmwick fine and Duke Ned drinking himself silly in the bar. Apparently a runner came to Colingrove baring a message with Wyrmwick’s seal that asked for assistance, but after speaking to Kahn Musarog we learned no such message was sent and instead it seemed some shorter man with long red hair and a facial scar was responsible for sending the message. We gave our message to both Duke Ned and Musarog who took it in stride mostly because we explained our position, and following that Duke Ned left for Colingrove. We took it upon ourselves to investigate this mysterious red-headed runner while we waited for the High Cleric of Tiamat to give us a new assignment, but before we set off Caitlin gave Jonn the remaining vials of the ritual liquid used to make her the first born. She wanted him to have it as insurance should something happen to her.
After that we traveled around to Sharan’s Pass, fucked with a bartender, tried to be totally sneaky, and eventually headed back towards Colingrove to find this red-headed runner. We learned there that the runner headed to the east, and without a moments delay we marched on the North Tower only to find our runner standing outside the tower doors as if he was waiting. Caitlin snuck up behind him and placed him in a hold so we could integrate him, but (twist!) it turns out this red-headed runner was none other than Thorian Hawklight, douche extraordinaire! After some persuasion (see headbutts to the back of the head) we learned he was waiting for a report from the High Cleric of Tiamat, and conveniently so were we. However we were privy to the little detail of the broken teleporter, so we decided to play engineer and go fix it.
Back over to Dhother and Grieg it seemed that this magical sun was taking its toll on poor Dhother. Grieg tended to the Invoker as best he could before searching for clues only to find a dark obsidian surface beneath the sand. As he continued to dig he found it eventually reached an edge, and after a good Perception roll Grieg woke up from the illusion to find that he and Dhother were actually on top of the Demon Baron’s Tower. Yipes.
Back with Thorian & Friends, we took our favorite recurring character into the basement of the tower and forced him to hook up the teleporter again. It electrocuted him which we found very funny. Caitlin asked Jonn and Denora to take Thorian to Colingrove so he could be arrested and then she would stay behind and wait for the High Cleric, but before that could happen the tower flashed with lightning and the cleric arrived. He demanded we release Hawklight, and against our will we did so, only for the Cleric to stab Hawklight in the heart for failing… which admittedly was pretty fucking hardcore. The Cleric then explained to us that we could have our friends back if we entered a portal with him.
Instead Caitlin proposed a counter offer. If the Cleric returned Dhother and Grieg to the party with all of their equipment and permitted everyone to return to Wyrmwick, then Caitlin would offer herself up as a prisoner. Caitlin urged her party members to trust her on this, and left her weapons with Jonn before joining the Cleric. In a flash Caitlin and the cleric disappeared and in their place was Dhother and Grieg, equipped and confused. Caitlin was stripped of her armor and equipment and placed in a dark cell inside of the Demon Baron’s Tower to await whatever foul cruelties the Demon Baron had planned for the first-born of Bahamut. Tell me that seeing this motherfucker coming towards you wouldn’t make you shit your pants with fear—if only Caitlin were wearing pants at the moment. However instead of using Caitlin like a toothpick like I assumed, the Demon Baron dropped to one knee and begged his cousin to help him.
He explained that he was an unwilling pawn in this army, and that he wanted Caitlin’s help. In return he would ensure that there was a mix-up during a prisoner transfer scheduled to occur in a few months (and before anyone suggests that’s a long time away remember that it takes weeks to get anywhere in this world). Caitlin (and myself) were obviously a bit weary of this revelation and didn’t make a commitment either way, though I intend to cut to the core of this situation next session. I just can’t trust him because I totally get a Gin/Rukia vibe from this situation where all the Demon Baron wants to do is give me hope of rescue only to cruelly snatch it away to let the despair really sink in. Call me crazy but I just don’t trust that the Demon Baron is on the up and up yet—I have too many questions.
Turning our attention back to the party, we join them as old friends reunite, though there is a somber feel about this knowing that Caitlin traded herself for them. It seemed this was a plan of Caitlin’s for awhile as she left a note behind for Dhother that basically explained that she didn’t want the party to worry about her. Instead she urged them to find the Goblin King’s orb to prevent further teleporting hijinks and to blow up any towers they find. They did just that, and the tower at Watchman’s North was utterly obliterated. With one more tower in ruins, our heroes ventured to Colingrove to resupply before heading off to the Boreal Maze.
Before leaving though they stopped by Bomar the Baker’s only to find a familiar face arguing with the beloved baker over his bizarre bazaar. It was none other than Dahl, the former-pirate turned poop shoveler… you know, the guy who lost his family. He told the party that he overheard their plight and that he was going to join them in their quest in order to pay back Caitlin for sparing his life and attempting to find his family. Can you guys say “Guest Party Member”?
Without wasting another moment the party ventured into the Boreal Maze and began navigating its twisted design. Each night the party would attempt to rest only to leave Dahl shitting his pants on the final shift muttering “I can hear the trees”. Just as our party was about to exit the maze we found ourselves under attack by Treants, and for those unaware what those are, think big fucking trees with a pissed off disposition.
These fucking trees nearly TPK’s us which I can only imagine would be the greatest downer ending to a campaign ever: “yeah, Caitlin you’re still prisoner of the Demon Baron, and the rest of the party was killed by fucking oak trees. GG.” Thankfully we did survive the encounter, but it was not a very glamorous victory—i.e. there were quite a few girlish screams going around. Let it be known that thus far in the campaign our biggest challenges have been a Death Knight, and fucking trees. Worst part is no one believed Dahl when he was crying about the trees until their 1d12+10 branches were lodged half way up our asses.
After that we managed to climb up to the top of the tower that made up the Goblin King’s prison with Denora pulling off some very special Daredevil-esque acrobatics to make it inside. Once we had broken in we descended the tower and ignored the jeers of the prisoners who clearly knew far too much about us which is, admittedly, something we should look into. We managed to traverse the dungeon just fine though and we battled the Goblin King is a climactic battle. Through good teamwork we dispatched the Goblin King without too much of a hassle, and were left to reap the spoils: his orb of anti-teleportation, and the necklace that prevented mutation.
We escaped the tower and called it a night following that encounter. We’re in a very unique position now as the party now has to figure out where the remaining towers are as we only knew of Watchman North & Watchman South. Until those towers are destroyed they can’t march on the Demon Baron, but it might take quite some time to accomplish this. On the flip side Caitlin is set to be moved to a new prison in a few months, so there’s a timetable going on right now that the party doesn’t even know about. So, what do you guys think? Do you trust the Demon Baron? Was Hawklight’s death satisfying? Will Dahl freak out even more when he learns that Dhother has an evil magic rosary following them? Could Bomar the Baker really be behind everything!?! Tune in next time to (maybe) find out!
Images credited to Sable, DarkVolt, DungeonsandFlagons, and Sighter.
Until next time, Namaste!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
From Their Eyes - Caitlin (Growing the Wings)
Have you ever made a decision you immediately regret, like ordering one drink too many at the bar or starting up a conversation with a particularly verbose acquaintance? This was sorta like that, but a thousand times worse.
I’m not even sure why I did it. I knew we had to get across the pit, but we had no clue how to get across such a large chasm. I wasn’t thinking straight, or rather I was thinking in the brashest sense of things again. After all there had to be a reason for that liquid to exist, and everything else we had tried with it thus far had failed. After a sip I didn’t notice anything; some rather thick and bitter taste but it didn’t seem lethal. I guess that lulled me into a false sense of safety because right after that I chugged the remainder like it was a mug of mead over at the Golden Hand Clubhouse.
I don’t remember when I really started to lose myself, but it must have been pretty early on. After just a few moments I was doubled over on the floor; throat clenched with my fingers digging into my arms. The initial feeling was like razor blades pushing against the inside of my skin. The serrated edges ripped their way through my flesh only slightly but as soon as there was an opening it was as though someone forced their fingers into the laceration and began pulling at the edges to widen it.
The pain was immeasurable. I can remember my own painful shrill echoing through the cavern for what seemed like an eternity. I had never heard myself scream before, at least not that I can remember—it’s a horrible sound I never wish to hear again as long as I live. Somehow that one noise was so piercing and violent that it dulled the rest of my senses sans the agonizing pain. I remember writhing in shock with my body thrashing in all directions. In all likelihood I probably slammed my head against the smooth stone floor more than a couple times in my horrid spasms, but my transformation left me numb to those minor inconveniences.
Soon my wounds were large enough to be used as gates, and I felt the long scaly wings start to emerge from my back. Where they came from I can’t even begin to fathom. Was this the power of magic? To make the impossible a reality? If that’s true I worry for the sanity of every mage out there who dares to claim they have the power to manipulate these eldritch forces at their fingertips.
Every nerve on my body was sensitive as if they had all chosen this exact moment to reveal their frailty. The wings extended out from my back in what seemed like an endless march and nothing I could do stopped the pain. I can’t remember what the others were doing during this. I can remember glimpsing during the brief moments my gaze could focus for even a moment, but even in my clearest recollection I didn’t see them reacting. Instead one distorted images fades into a blur of dull tones—likely the floor during one of the many times I was hunched over hacking up a thick wad of blood onto the ground. Or so I’m told. I wasn’t aware I was doing it, but my allies said it must have happened six or seven times as evidenced by the large crimson stain beneath me.
When it finally ended all I can remember was an overwhelming sense of relief. My face was drenched with sweat, but my back was covered in blood. When the wings emerged they forced themselves through my armor, and what tattered remains were left of my clothes were now a ragged ruddy mess. Regaining my senses took time and my body was still adjusting the pain very slowly. My breath was worn and haggard as though I had just ran from Colingrove to Wyrmwick without stopping, and despite my best efforts I couldn’t stop a slight quiver in my body as if my nerves were dreading the possibility that the process could start again at any moment.
After my breathing returned to normal and my eyes could once again focus on a single image I looked up to find myself under the judging eyes of my flabbergasted party members. I was not used to showing a vulnerable side—especially not to strangers, so I quickly discarded my pain-stricken frown and replaced with the same bold grin I had when I suggested our earlier “diplomatic” decisions. “Hey guys,” I said meeting their bewilderment with a smirk, “I bet I can fly now.”
I’m not even sure why I did it. I knew we had to get across the pit, but we had no clue how to get across such a large chasm. I wasn’t thinking straight, or rather I was thinking in the brashest sense of things again. After all there had to be a reason for that liquid to exist, and everything else we had tried with it thus far had failed. After a sip I didn’t notice anything; some rather thick and bitter taste but it didn’t seem lethal. I guess that lulled me into a false sense of safety because right after that I chugged the remainder like it was a mug of mead over at the Golden Hand Clubhouse.
I don’t remember when I really started to lose myself, but it must have been pretty early on. After just a few moments I was doubled over on the floor; throat clenched with my fingers digging into my arms. The initial feeling was like razor blades pushing against the inside of my skin. The serrated edges ripped their way through my flesh only slightly but as soon as there was an opening it was as though someone forced their fingers into the laceration and began pulling at the edges to widen it.
The pain was immeasurable. I can remember my own painful shrill echoing through the cavern for what seemed like an eternity. I had never heard myself scream before, at least not that I can remember—it’s a horrible sound I never wish to hear again as long as I live. Somehow that one noise was so piercing and violent that it dulled the rest of my senses sans the agonizing pain. I remember writhing in shock with my body thrashing in all directions. In all likelihood I probably slammed my head against the smooth stone floor more than a couple times in my horrid spasms, but my transformation left me numb to those minor inconveniences.
Soon my wounds were large enough to be used as gates, and I felt the long scaly wings start to emerge from my back. Where they came from I can’t even begin to fathom. Was this the power of magic? To make the impossible a reality? If that’s true I worry for the sanity of every mage out there who dares to claim they have the power to manipulate these eldritch forces at their fingertips.
Every nerve on my body was sensitive as if they had all chosen this exact moment to reveal their frailty. The wings extended out from my back in what seemed like an endless march and nothing I could do stopped the pain. I can’t remember what the others were doing during this. I can remember glimpsing during the brief moments my gaze could focus for even a moment, but even in my clearest recollection I didn’t see them reacting. Instead one distorted images fades into a blur of dull tones—likely the floor during one of the many times I was hunched over hacking up a thick wad of blood onto the ground. Or so I’m told. I wasn’t aware I was doing it, but my allies said it must have happened six or seven times as evidenced by the large crimson stain beneath me.
When it finally ended all I can remember was an overwhelming sense of relief. My face was drenched with sweat, but my back was covered in blood. When the wings emerged they forced themselves through my armor, and what tattered remains were left of my clothes were now a ragged ruddy mess. Regaining my senses took time and my body was still adjusting the pain very slowly. My breath was worn and haggard as though I had just ran from Colingrove to Wyrmwick without stopping, and despite my best efforts I couldn’t stop a slight quiver in my body as if my nerves were dreading the possibility that the process could start again at any moment.
After my breathing returned to normal and my eyes could once again focus on a single image I looked up to find myself under the judging eyes of my flabbergasted party members. I was not used to showing a vulnerable side—especially not to strangers, so I quickly discarded my pain-stricken frown and replaced with the same bold grin I had when I suggested our earlier “diplomatic” decisions. “Hey guys,” I said meeting their bewilderment with a smirk, “I bet I can fly now.”
Monday, May 2, 2011
Wyrmwick Log: Session 11
Let me apologize ahead of time readers for the following article as there is a good chance that random “USA! USA!” chants will appear throughout this piece as a result of last night’s big news. For those foreigners out there (and according to my traffic I have a pretty nice following in Sweden) this might all be a bit too exotic for you guys to comprehend, but just let the silly Americans wave their flags and enjoy the recap. “USA! USA! USA!”
Back onto the topic, the theme of this week’s session was character development. In some cases it was very traditional and in other cases quite literal, but the constant this week was character development and everyone got some. Some will also note this session had a much darker tone than normal, and that’s true. It’s not to say we didn’t derp and have some fun, but in general this session was a good deal more somber. To put it bluntly if the Demon Baron arc were a trilogy, this was the Empire Strikes Back session. We ended hopeless, defeated, and conflicted—but remain optimistic because that means next session Caitlin gets to rescue slave-bikini Dhother from an evil slug and then we’ll blow up the Demon Baron’s tower. I’m getting ahead of myself (though the imagery is awesome), so let’s start at the beginning.
We returned to the chronicles of Wyrmwick having just left Vante’s Tower with knowledge of the White Orb of Lockton’s Keep. On the request of Bahamut we decided to seek out the orb and add its incredible power to our ranks so that we can use it to take down the Demon Baron. We wasted no time doing this and we arrived in Lockton Keep just a day later. The Keep itself is a lighthouse with a budding city built around it with a heavy emphasis on Moradin, the God of Creation, Hammers, Dwarves, Liquor, and probably Overblown Religious Festivals. We couldn’t get in the church to see the White Orb, so we needed an alternate plan. First we did some reconnaissance with Grieg using the power of his Shadow Orb to turn invisible and insubstantial so long as he remains in the presence of shadows. With this he snuck into the Church before dawn and investigated a trap door that lead into the lighthouse above the church. There he found a blind old woman sitting a wheelchair which we then deduced was the host of the Light Orb.
After debating the morality of killing old women (a tabletop tradition), we decided it would be best just to speak with the old woman directly, and after some negotiating we were allowed to do just that—or at least Denora was. Our meek little cleric headed upstairs and spoke with the old woman about the orb. Not only did we find out that to possess the Light Orb meant losing your eyes, but any owner of an orb is slowly having their soul devoured so that upon their death they fade away to nothingness instead of going onto the afterlife. A harsh price, but the power you receive in return is supposed to be great, and Denora made the decision to put lives of those around her over herself. It was painful as Denora had to experience her eyes literally melt out of her face, but the deed was done. I could link you to one of the many images of Denora without her eyes, but I already have enough nightmares about waking up next to nuns missing their eyes due to thirteen years of Catholic school so you're on your own there.
It was a heavy sacrifice, but Denora made it for the benefit of everyone else, so props to her. The poor girl passed out from the pain and we had to carry her back to the ship. When she awoke she found she could no longer see, and even worse the orb which she was told would guide her after she lost her sight was not speaking to her. It was a tragic scene. If that’s pulling your heartstrings guys then hold on because things do not get any easier. On the plus side Grieg has taken it upon himself to take care of Denora and guide her. Maybe it’s a budding romance, or maybe just the two orb wielders looking out for one another, but at the very least you get your “d’awww” moment which is quite necessary for this session.
We left Lockton Keep having acquired the second orb and information about where the blue orb might be (hint: it’s far to the east in an enormous cyclone) and then headed south for a quick stop at Wyrmwick before continuing on to Felbrigg Stronghold to find Doll’s family, find out the location of the other towers, and handle Dhother’s vampire problem because (shocker) the rosary came back. We arrived and Caitlin, Dhother, and Jonn made their way to the poorer district to find Doll’s family. We learned the family had been imprisoned for not paying their taxes. Outraged, we went to the castle to pay their taxes and get the family the heck out of dodge only be alerted of some very grim news from Lord Felbrigg himself.
The family is dead and what remains of them was fed to the pigs in a farm to the west. No, I’m making a joke—that’s quite literally what happened to them. I should note that Caitlin smelled a very terrible evil coming from the castle and particularly Lord Felbrigg himself while Dhother’s rosary was reacting strongly to the stronghold. Caitlin tried to stay her hand as long as she could, but to the shock of everyone (or maybe just me), Dhother was the one to attack.
We started up a battle with Lord Felbrigg and his guards, and Caitlin got to show off one of her new breath weapons! Yes, in case you missed it Caitlin now has her own breath weapons and the first she used was the special Bahamut breath, Disintegration Breath. It does decent enough damage (2d12) upon hit and 10 ongoing damage afterwards, so yeah expect to see a lot more of that. As for the battle itself it was difficult considering our two Leaders were gone and thus no healing. Still we proved to be victorious and Lord Felbrigg was torn to pieces. We collected his body parts for “disposal” and decided to investigate the castle a bit further. We found a dungeon that appeared to be a feeding pit for the vampire lord, and after exploring his bedroom we found a journal and a scroll. The scroll’s seal was foreign to us so we pocketed that for the moment, but the journal we easily picked and read. It detailed Felbrigg’s life starting from a very long time again before eventually reaching the end where he wrote about making a deal with the Demon Baron to spare Felbrigg in exchange for materials and supplies. With this new information we left the castle and headed back towards Wyrmwick stopping on the way to toss Felbrigg’s remains overboard so that he can rest at the bottom of the ocean ala Dio from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. If I recall correctly we should have about a hundred years or so before Felbrigg comes back, so that’s a plus.
The trip to Wyrmwick was an uneasy one as we had to report that we essentially left Felbrigg without a government, so in other words we left it in complete and utter anarchy. Muzarog came up with a plan to install a temporary puppet government and try to send refugees to Holmin Falls where a fort is currently being established. With that done Dhother and Caitlin headed off to their respective churches for prayer. Caitlin spoke with Bahamut directly and learned the sad truth that Doll’s wife and daughter were indeed dead. On the plus side she did learn that the orb’s effect on the user could be reversed in some fashion, though we’d have to destroy the orbs themselves which wouldn’t be an easy task. Finally she learned that to complete the ritual to become the first born of Bahamut she’d need to travel far to the north to find a way to Bahamut’s castle. Cryptic, but man it might as well been step by step directions compared to Dhother’s experience with Correlon. I kid you not, Dhother prayed long and hard for guidance, and Correlon answered his prayers with a meat spin. Yeah, LordKaT is our DM alright, and consider yourself lucky if you don’t know what meatspin is by NEVER searching for it. After that Correlon decided to cock slap Dhother which was all a very cryptic way of saying “go to Colingrove”. Following that not-so-bitching prayer session, Dhother and Caitlin got drunk, though for very different reasons.
Get your tissues ready guys because it gets worse from here. We left Wyrmwick and returned to Colingrove to see the city preparing for war. As Grieg spoke with some of his old compatriots Caitlin headed to the church of Bahamut to tell Doll the bad news about his family. He immediately felt defeated as though his attempt to change his life was completely meaningless, but Caitlin shared with him the truth behind her own painful loss. She, like Doll, had lost her family, though for a man who just lost everything it was little consolation. It would take time, but hopefully Caitlin could keep Doll optimistic and on the right path. However now she felt rather defeated though she wouldn’t let the party see that as she quickly began offering Dhother public handjobs. Caitlin is good for a great mood whiplash like that.
After we got our supplies we rode off to Watchman’s North to try to take out the tower before Colingrove met the Demon Baron’s army head on. We arrived outside the tower and began an intense fight with the Gnolls inside and a fiendish Chain Devil. The party got lucky in that Caitlin used another one of her breaths, Misty Breath, to turn the Chain Devil and two of the Gnolls into a fine mist making them useless until they save. That allowed us to focus fire on the remaining Gnolls and eliminate them before the Chain Devil returned so we devote our full focus on him. On the plus side Denora possesses a new ability that allows her to project a field of light that makes it so good aligned creatures get total concealment while unaligned creatures are blinded. Even with those bonuses the Chain Devil still nearly took us down in a wild flurry of attack, but we survived just long to take him down.
Now all that was left was to take down the tower, right? No, we were greeted by a man in dark robes who applauded our abilities. It appeared he was a servant of the Demon Baron, but before we could ask him much he cast a spell. In a flash both Dhother and Grieg disappeared and the man told us that if we wanted to see our friends again we were to return to Colingrove and tell the world leaders to give up their resources to the Demon Baron. After that he left leaving the party conflicted and defeated. Caitlin, head hung low, started to head back towards Colingrove while Jonn demanded we try to take down the tower. It was a pretty tense moment full of conflicted emotions that probably stand out as the best moment in the campaign for me thus far. On one side it’s a classic “needs of the many outweight the needs of the few” situation and Jonn has a very valid argument in bringing the tower down, but Caitlin and Denora are both hesitant to do so as it would put the lives of Grieg and Dhother in jeopardy. Five sessions ago Caitlin would have agreed completely with Jonn about blowing up the tower, but now she’s grown close to her compatriots and after just having to relieve the pain of losing a family she’s not willing to risk their lives. Making this even more complicated Caitlin is the fact that Dhother was one of the two kidnapped, and I’ve made it canon that Caitlin and Dhother have a thing for each other—or at least Caitlin does for Dhother.
So yeah, the session ended with Dhother and Grieg waking up tied to posts in the middle of the desert with the same dark robed man from earlier promising to take the orb from Grieg by whatever means are necessary. Fade to black.
You see what I mean now about this being the Empire Strikes Back of the Demon Baron arc? Dhother & Grieg are captives of the Demon Baron, Denora is blind, Caitlin has given up hope, and the Jonn is at odds with his allies about what to do with the tower. It’s a pretty tense moment that will undoubtedly lead to some great storytelling down the line. I love that everyone got the chance to delve a bit more into their characters this session, and I think we’ll learn a lot about each other in the coming sessions.
Credit for the images goes to DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
Back onto the topic, the theme of this week’s session was character development. In some cases it was very traditional and in other cases quite literal, but the constant this week was character development and everyone got some. Some will also note this session had a much darker tone than normal, and that’s true. It’s not to say we didn’t derp and have some fun, but in general this session was a good deal more somber. To put it bluntly if the Demon Baron arc were a trilogy, this was the Empire Strikes Back session. We ended hopeless, defeated, and conflicted—but remain optimistic because that means next session Caitlin gets to rescue slave-bikini Dhother from an evil slug and then we’ll blow up the Demon Baron’s tower. I’m getting ahead of myself (though the imagery is awesome), so let’s start at the beginning.
We returned to the chronicles of Wyrmwick having just left Vante’s Tower with knowledge of the White Orb of Lockton’s Keep. On the request of Bahamut we decided to seek out the orb and add its incredible power to our ranks so that we can use it to take down the Demon Baron. We wasted no time doing this and we arrived in Lockton Keep just a day later. The Keep itself is a lighthouse with a budding city built around it with a heavy emphasis on Moradin, the God of Creation, Hammers, Dwarves, Liquor, and probably Overblown Religious Festivals. We couldn’t get in the church to see the White Orb, so we needed an alternate plan. First we did some reconnaissance with Grieg using the power of his Shadow Orb to turn invisible and insubstantial so long as he remains in the presence of shadows. With this he snuck into the Church before dawn and investigated a trap door that lead into the lighthouse above the church. There he found a blind old woman sitting a wheelchair which we then deduced was the host of the Light Orb.
After debating the morality of killing old women (a tabletop tradition), we decided it would be best just to speak with the old woman directly, and after some negotiating we were allowed to do just that—or at least Denora was. Our meek little cleric headed upstairs and spoke with the old woman about the orb. Not only did we find out that to possess the Light Orb meant losing your eyes, but any owner of an orb is slowly having their soul devoured so that upon their death they fade away to nothingness instead of going onto the afterlife. A harsh price, but the power you receive in return is supposed to be great, and Denora made the decision to put lives of those around her over herself. It was painful as Denora had to experience her eyes literally melt out of her face, but the deed was done. I could link you to one of the many images of Denora without her eyes, but I already have enough nightmares about waking up next to nuns missing their eyes due to thirteen years of Catholic school so you're on your own there.
It was a heavy sacrifice, but Denora made it for the benefit of everyone else, so props to her. The poor girl passed out from the pain and we had to carry her back to the ship. When she awoke she found she could no longer see, and even worse the orb which she was told would guide her after she lost her sight was not speaking to her. It was a tragic scene. If that’s pulling your heartstrings guys then hold on because things do not get any easier. On the plus side Grieg has taken it upon himself to take care of Denora and guide her. Maybe it’s a budding romance, or maybe just the two orb wielders looking out for one another, but at the very least you get your “d’awww” moment which is quite necessary for this session.
We left Lockton Keep having acquired the second orb and information about where the blue orb might be (hint: it’s far to the east in an enormous cyclone) and then headed south for a quick stop at Wyrmwick before continuing on to Felbrigg Stronghold to find Doll’s family, find out the location of the other towers, and handle Dhother’s vampire problem because (shocker) the rosary came back. We arrived and Caitlin, Dhother, and Jonn made their way to the poorer district to find Doll’s family. We learned the family had been imprisoned for not paying their taxes. Outraged, we went to the castle to pay their taxes and get the family the heck out of dodge only be alerted of some very grim news from Lord Felbrigg himself.
The family is dead and what remains of them was fed to the pigs in a farm to the west. No, I’m making a joke—that’s quite literally what happened to them. I should note that Caitlin smelled a very terrible evil coming from the castle and particularly Lord Felbrigg himself while Dhother’s rosary was reacting strongly to the stronghold. Caitlin tried to stay her hand as long as she could, but to the shock of everyone (or maybe just me), Dhother was the one to attack.
We started up a battle with Lord Felbrigg and his guards, and Caitlin got to show off one of her new breath weapons! Yes, in case you missed it Caitlin now has her own breath weapons and the first she used was the special Bahamut breath, Disintegration Breath. It does decent enough damage (2d12) upon hit and 10 ongoing damage afterwards, so yeah expect to see a lot more of that. As for the battle itself it was difficult considering our two Leaders were gone and thus no healing. Still we proved to be victorious and Lord Felbrigg was torn to pieces. We collected his body parts for “disposal” and decided to investigate the castle a bit further. We found a dungeon that appeared to be a feeding pit for the vampire lord, and after exploring his bedroom we found a journal and a scroll. The scroll’s seal was foreign to us so we pocketed that for the moment, but the journal we easily picked and read. It detailed Felbrigg’s life starting from a very long time again before eventually reaching the end where he wrote about making a deal with the Demon Baron to spare Felbrigg in exchange for materials and supplies. With this new information we left the castle and headed back towards Wyrmwick stopping on the way to toss Felbrigg’s remains overboard so that he can rest at the bottom of the ocean ala Dio from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. If I recall correctly we should have about a hundred years or so before Felbrigg comes back, so that’s a plus.
The trip to Wyrmwick was an uneasy one as we had to report that we essentially left Felbrigg without a government, so in other words we left it in complete and utter anarchy. Muzarog came up with a plan to install a temporary puppet government and try to send refugees to Holmin Falls where a fort is currently being established. With that done Dhother and Caitlin headed off to their respective churches for prayer. Caitlin spoke with Bahamut directly and learned the sad truth that Doll’s wife and daughter were indeed dead. On the plus side she did learn that the orb’s effect on the user could be reversed in some fashion, though we’d have to destroy the orbs themselves which wouldn’t be an easy task. Finally she learned that to complete the ritual to become the first born of Bahamut she’d need to travel far to the north to find a way to Bahamut’s castle. Cryptic, but man it might as well been step by step directions compared to Dhother’s experience with Correlon. I kid you not, Dhother prayed long and hard for guidance, and Correlon answered his prayers with a meat spin. Yeah, LordKaT is our DM alright, and consider yourself lucky if you don’t know what meatspin is by NEVER searching for it. After that Correlon decided to cock slap Dhother which was all a very cryptic way of saying “go to Colingrove”. Following that not-so-bitching prayer session, Dhother and Caitlin got drunk, though for very different reasons.
Get your tissues ready guys because it gets worse from here. We left Wyrmwick and returned to Colingrove to see the city preparing for war. As Grieg spoke with some of his old compatriots Caitlin headed to the church of Bahamut to tell Doll the bad news about his family. He immediately felt defeated as though his attempt to change his life was completely meaningless, but Caitlin shared with him the truth behind her own painful loss. She, like Doll, had lost her family, though for a man who just lost everything it was little consolation. It would take time, but hopefully Caitlin could keep Doll optimistic and on the right path. However now she felt rather defeated though she wouldn’t let the party see that as she quickly began offering Dhother public handjobs. Caitlin is good for a great mood whiplash like that.
After we got our supplies we rode off to Watchman’s North to try to take out the tower before Colingrove met the Demon Baron’s army head on. We arrived outside the tower and began an intense fight with the Gnolls inside and a fiendish Chain Devil. The party got lucky in that Caitlin used another one of her breaths, Misty Breath, to turn the Chain Devil and two of the Gnolls into a fine mist making them useless until they save. That allowed us to focus fire on the remaining Gnolls and eliminate them before the Chain Devil returned so we devote our full focus on him. On the plus side Denora possesses a new ability that allows her to project a field of light that makes it so good aligned creatures get total concealment while unaligned creatures are blinded. Even with those bonuses the Chain Devil still nearly took us down in a wild flurry of attack, but we survived just long to take him down.
Now all that was left was to take down the tower, right? No, we were greeted by a man in dark robes who applauded our abilities. It appeared he was a servant of the Demon Baron, but before we could ask him much he cast a spell. In a flash both Dhother and Grieg disappeared and the man told us that if we wanted to see our friends again we were to return to Colingrove and tell the world leaders to give up their resources to the Demon Baron. After that he left leaving the party conflicted and defeated. Caitlin, head hung low, started to head back towards Colingrove while Jonn demanded we try to take down the tower. It was a pretty tense moment full of conflicted emotions that probably stand out as the best moment in the campaign for me thus far. On one side it’s a classic “needs of the many outweight the needs of the few” situation and Jonn has a very valid argument in bringing the tower down, but Caitlin and Denora are both hesitant to do so as it would put the lives of Grieg and Dhother in jeopardy. Five sessions ago Caitlin would have agreed completely with Jonn about blowing up the tower, but now she’s grown close to her compatriots and after just having to relieve the pain of losing a family she’s not willing to risk their lives. Making this even more complicated Caitlin is the fact that Dhother was one of the two kidnapped, and I’ve made it canon that Caitlin and Dhother have a thing for each other—or at least Caitlin does for Dhother.
So yeah, the session ended with Dhother and Grieg waking up tied to posts in the middle of the desert with the same dark robed man from earlier promising to take the orb from Grieg by whatever means are necessary. Fade to black.
You see what I mean now about this being the Empire Strikes Back of the Demon Baron arc? Dhother & Grieg are captives of the Demon Baron, Denora is blind, Caitlin has given up hope, and the Jonn is at odds with his allies about what to do with the tower. It’s a pretty tense moment that will undoubtedly lead to some great storytelling down the line. I love that everyone got the chance to delve a bit more into their characters this session, and I think we’ll learn a lot about each other in the coming sessions.
Credit for the images goes to DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Wyrmwick Log: Session 10
Hide your wives and hide your kids, it’s another edition of the D&D recap! This time our sessions were stretched over the course of the weekend, but in shorter segments. Thankfully this will be a one post recap (hopefully), but that isn’t to say stuff didn’t happen—far from it. Heck if you thought Caitlin got fucked up… well actually she’s still far and away the most fucked up party member, but shit happened to Grieg too. Let’s not waste time and get right into the recap!
Having just finished off the gnolls and cleansing the temple of Bahamut, we found ourselves searching the town for any other survivors. Caitlin smelled a very dark energy radiating from a manor inside the city. We went to investigate, but when we snuck into the basement we found ourselves blinded by this magical darkness. Figuring it was best not to wonder into the pitch black cube of hell, we decided to try the back door, though it was half barricaded with chests. I rolled a trap check and Caitlin sensed she didn’t feel there were any traps, but it seemed too suspicious not to be. To satisfy Caitlin’s curiosity we stood back and let Grieg fire an arrow at chests. Nothing happened. Oh except for the enormous explosion that took out nearly a third of the manor. But you know… no biggie right?
As a moment of douche-ness Jason told us we found a tiny scorched teddy bear that to me meant we had just killed a group of children which quite frankly would kill Caitlin emotionally. This was just a joke though, and the teddy bear was just left behind. In fact all we found in the manner were corpses that made this D&D session feel more and more like a Silent Hill title. All we needed was some symbolism, eerie music, and a retrospective by Dena and we’d have been good to go. Instead all we found was a magic circle that when activated produced an eldritch candle. Figuring this arcane light might break the darkness, we took it with us into the basement.
Dhother decided he’d be the one to enter the darkness first, and to our delight the candle worked! To our horror though, the candle worked, revealing a room full of the mangled human corpses, mostly children, imbedded into the wall. The floor was slick with blood and viscera, and crimson stained spikes lined the ceiling. Dhother proceeded to freak out, though none of us really judged him. Oh Dhother you’ve got a little bit of baby brain on your shoe.
The other thing to note in the room was an altar with a strange man upon it. We debated for quite some time whether we should try to wake him or not, but eventually he extended the length on the room so that we were all inside. We were all trapped in what I can only image Hell must look like, and our mysterious man, cloaked in shadows, woke up and began to move. We tried to sneak up and attack him while he was still shambling around the room, but our attacks just passed through him. Eventually we rolled initiatives and began our battle, but for the sake of brevity I’ll sum up the important shiz-nit (as Snopp Dogg says): Shadow man couldn’t be hurt, he said Grieg was chosen, and we eventually figured out we needed to burn him with the candle.
After the shadow man died an orb of shadow hovered over his altar. Since it told Grieg he was the one chosen for it, Grieg attempted to grab it only for the orb to latch onto his body and cover his body in shadows. Before long Grieg looked more like Noob Saibot (Ha-HA! Mortal Kombat reference), and the shadows began to fade away. Once they were gone it seemed Grieg was back to being normal old Grieg—to everyone else that is. Grieg knew he had changed, and that was most obvious when he heard the orb speaking to him telepathically. It appears these orbs attach themselves to a host and feed off their energy and emotions. In return they grant the user extended life, and special abilities. Grieg’s was the orb of Shadow, which granted him many insidious abilities though it should be noted that his powers aren’t intrinsically evil, but rather very “dark”. If Mickey Mouse shows up and starts talking about the door to the Light, I’m quitting (Ha-HA! Kingdom Hearts reference).
Following that battle we left Holmin Falls via abandoned ship, dubbed the Mighty Gauntlet. Considering the other names that Jason’s name generator has come up with, we were very fortunate. Back in Wyrmwick we reported about the damage to Holmin Falls, and revealed Caitlin’s condition to Muzarog to explain why she might have the ability to counteract Tiamat’s influence. It went well (well as well as “hey I’m a dragon” discussion can go), and Muzarog suggested we head to the Felbrigg Stronghold to discover how they combated the Demon Baron. He would provide us with a bribe and the use of his personal carriage driven by… and I’m serious… Pantikrabs. Yes, his name is Pantikrabs. See what I mean about us getting lucky with Jason’s name generator?
Caitlin used Pantikrabs services to travel to the temple of Bahamut, and from there prayed to the Big B. After a long discussion between father and sorta-daughter-thing, Caitlin learned a bit about Grieg’s orb (protip: don’t let Grieg die), and the source of the Glass Roads. The roads receive power from towers that act as hubs for the Demon Baron’s power, and destroying the towers will revert the lands back to normal. One such tower was in Watchman’s South, and another already destroyed tower was near Felbrigg.
Admittedly I goofed here. When we spoke to Councilman Muzarog, I thought we already agreed to bribe the leader of Felbrigg, and that we already had his money. I misunderstood that he wanted to see us, so when we left without the money I honestly thought it was on board the ship. That was my fault, and I wanted to clear the air there so people didn’t think we were just rushing through things. Also I farted, so clearing the air was necessary. So long story short, we couldn’t get into Felbrigg but we found the destroyed tower anyway.
… Also magic.
With the information we gained we headed back to Holmin Falls and marched on the South Tower. We cleared out the Gnolls guarding the tower (and the one demon who leapt off the tower just to fight us), and made our way upstairs to find a glowing white orb hanging from the ceiling. We started to knock it down only for Dhother to warn us that doing so would kill us all! So we left the tower and knocked it down from the outside via Grieg’s crossbow. The orb fell and tower went boom! It would have looked more glorious and awesome if we hadn’t decided to immediately book it afterwards just in case any reinforcements heard Hiroshima go off. We returned to Wyrmwick, victorious!
Suffice it to say, Muzarog was still very confused as to why we left without his money, but since we figured out the whole “tower” thing on our own, we saved Wyrmwick that bribe money. That’s a positive, right? Sadly we did learn a negative due to a dream with Bahamut. The Demon Baron is Tiamat’s chosen one, so basically Caitlin’s polar opposite cousin. In addition Bahamut fears we won’t be strong enough to take down the Demon Baron, and is suggesting we find the other orbs like Grieg’s and hopefully with their power and the systematic elimination of the Demon Baron’s towers, we might just be able to do it. Unfortunately Caitlin’s mutations have taken a turn for the worse: her sense of smell is now completely changed, she’s starting to grow talons, and she now has complete control of her breath weapons. In general these aren’t bad (in fact the breath weapons are a huge plus), but it’s enough that Caitlin refuses to enter Wyrmwick due to her appearance and she’s contemplating finishing the ritual to see if it will make her stronger. I asked the party to give my best to Alpert, but they didn’t so lord knows what Caitlin will look like the next time she sees him. Stupid party.
And with that we set off to Colingrove and from there Vante’s Tower. Along the way we were attacked by pirates, and Caitlin got to intimidate people with her dragon wings for once. This battle went our way as Jason’s Saving Throw rolls were awful. We knocked half of the pirates off the ship, and they all drowned shortly after. We killed two more, and the last surrendered. We tied him up and interrogated him. His name? Skynet Anti-Gravity. No, I’m not shitting you. Again, see why Jason’s name generator sucked? We retconned that shit immediately so his name is Doll, and he’s pirating to help his family in Felbrigg. Caitlin spared him on the condition that he give himself up to the clerics in Colingrove and repent for his sins. In return we’d find a way to get his family out of Felbrigg… in due time. He agreed, and we docked the Mighty Gauntlet in Colingrove.
From there we picked up some supplies (i.e. some new magic armor for Caitlin and Grieg, plus the rest of the dragon ritual liquid), sold off some items, and then purchased horses to take us to Vante’s Tower. Along the way Dhother continued to investigate the rosary he found in Zalelah’s Crypt, and finally figured out all he could about it. It seems to rosary acts as a GPS on a “Hot N’ Cold’ system to show the user where “home” is. It also can act as a homing beacon for the vampire, and Dhother realized the vampire only disappeared and we weren’t really sure we killed her. Dhother attempted to drop the rosary, but found it followed him like a dog. Yay! Now Dhother can join Dragon Caitlin and Shadow Grieg as having a horrible problem hanging over his head! Huzzah!
We finished off the night in Vante’s Tower learning the origins behind the orbs. We found that at least six orbs exist, though their locations are unknown. The only other orb we know about it the white (Light) orb which seems to be near Attesfield, across the sea to the north of Vante’s Tower. Also Dhother traded the rosary to the mages in exchange for Caitlin’s bodily fluids, so Caitlin can rest easy knowing someone doesn’t have a salt shaker full of her tears.
The session ended there, and next week we have to decide where to go. Looking on the map (courtesy of Sable this time) you can see our options. We could head south back towards Colingrove and try to liberate Watchman North. Or we could return to Colingrove directly to pick up our ship and sail to Attesfield to get another orb. Or we could get the ship and head to Felbrigg Stronghold to find Doll’s family, investigate the source of the rosary (does anyone believe for a second we won’t wake up next time with the rosary?), and try to find out the locations of the other towers. Again, we have a few ways to go about this, so we’ll need to prioritize accordingly. What do you guys think? Where would you go if you were us? Any thoughts or predictions for the future? Are you pumped for the Tiamat V Bahamut Chosen Showdown? Do you like my vest made of real gorilla chest (Ha-HA! Simpons reference)?
Images credited to big sexay DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
Having just finished off the gnolls and cleansing the temple of Bahamut, we found ourselves searching the town for any other survivors. Caitlin smelled a very dark energy radiating from a manor inside the city. We went to investigate, but when we snuck into the basement we found ourselves blinded by this magical darkness. Figuring it was best not to wonder into the pitch black cube of hell, we decided to try the back door, though it was half barricaded with chests. I rolled a trap check and Caitlin sensed she didn’t feel there were any traps, but it seemed too suspicious not to be. To satisfy Caitlin’s curiosity we stood back and let Grieg fire an arrow at chests. Nothing happened. Oh except for the enormous explosion that took out nearly a third of the manor. But you know… no biggie right?
As a moment of douche-ness Jason told us we found a tiny scorched teddy bear that to me meant we had just killed a group of children which quite frankly would kill Caitlin emotionally. This was just a joke though, and the teddy bear was just left behind. In fact all we found in the manner were corpses that made this D&D session feel more and more like a Silent Hill title. All we needed was some symbolism, eerie music, and a retrospective by Dena and we’d have been good to go. Instead all we found was a magic circle that when activated produced an eldritch candle. Figuring this arcane light might break the darkness, we took it with us into the basement.
Dhother decided he’d be the one to enter the darkness first, and to our delight the candle worked! To our horror though, the candle worked, revealing a room full of the mangled human corpses, mostly children, imbedded into the wall. The floor was slick with blood and viscera, and crimson stained spikes lined the ceiling. Dhother proceeded to freak out, though none of us really judged him. Oh Dhother you’ve got a little bit of baby brain on your shoe.
The other thing to note in the room was an altar with a strange man upon it. We debated for quite some time whether we should try to wake him or not, but eventually he extended the length on the room so that we were all inside. We were all trapped in what I can only image Hell must look like, and our mysterious man, cloaked in shadows, woke up and began to move. We tried to sneak up and attack him while he was still shambling around the room, but our attacks just passed through him. Eventually we rolled initiatives and began our battle, but for the sake of brevity I’ll sum up the important shiz-nit (as Snopp Dogg says): Shadow man couldn’t be hurt, he said Grieg was chosen, and we eventually figured out we needed to burn him with the candle.
After the shadow man died an orb of shadow hovered over his altar. Since it told Grieg he was the one chosen for it, Grieg attempted to grab it only for the orb to latch onto his body and cover his body in shadows. Before long Grieg looked more like Noob Saibot (Ha-HA! Mortal Kombat reference), and the shadows began to fade away. Once they were gone it seemed Grieg was back to being normal old Grieg—to everyone else that is. Grieg knew he had changed, and that was most obvious when he heard the orb speaking to him telepathically. It appears these orbs attach themselves to a host and feed off their energy and emotions. In return they grant the user extended life, and special abilities. Grieg’s was the orb of Shadow, which granted him many insidious abilities though it should be noted that his powers aren’t intrinsically evil, but rather very “dark”. If Mickey Mouse shows up and starts talking about the door to the Light, I’m quitting (Ha-HA! Kingdom Hearts reference).
Following that battle we left Holmin Falls via abandoned ship, dubbed the Mighty Gauntlet. Considering the other names that Jason’s name generator has come up with, we were very fortunate. Back in Wyrmwick we reported about the damage to Holmin Falls, and revealed Caitlin’s condition to Muzarog to explain why she might have the ability to counteract Tiamat’s influence. It went well (well as well as “hey I’m a dragon” discussion can go), and Muzarog suggested we head to the Felbrigg Stronghold to discover how they combated the Demon Baron. He would provide us with a bribe and the use of his personal carriage driven by… and I’m serious… Pantikrabs. Yes, his name is Pantikrabs. See what I mean about us getting lucky with Jason’s name generator?
Caitlin used Pantikrabs services to travel to the temple of Bahamut, and from there prayed to the Big B. After a long discussion between father and sorta-daughter-thing, Caitlin learned a bit about Grieg’s orb (protip: don’t let Grieg die), and the source of the Glass Roads. The roads receive power from towers that act as hubs for the Demon Baron’s power, and destroying the towers will revert the lands back to normal. One such tower was in Watchman’s South, and another already destroyed tower was near Felbrigg.
Admittedly I goofed here. When we spoke to Councilman Muzarog, I thought we already agreed to bribe the leader of Felbrigg, and that we already had his money. I misunderstood that he wanted to see us, so when we left without the money I honestly thought it was on board the ship. That was my fault, and I wanted to clear the air there so people didn’t think we were just rushing through things. Also I farted, so clearing the air was necessary. So long story short, we couldn’t get into Felbrigg but we found the destroyed tower anyway.
… Also magic.
With the information we gained we headed back to Holmin Falls and marched on the South Tower. We cleared out the Gnolls guarding the tower (and the one demon who leapt off the tower just to fight us), and made our way upstairs to find a glowing white orb hanging from the ceiling. We started to knock it down only for Dhother to warn us that doing so would kill us all! So we left the tower and knocked it down from the outside via Grieg’s crossbow. The orb fell and tower went boom! It would have looked more glorious and awesome if we hadn’t decided to immediately book it afterwards just in case any reinforcements heard Hiroshima go off. We returned to Wyrmwick, victorious!
Suffice it to say, Muzarog was still very confused as to why we left without his money, but since we figured out the whole “tower” thing on our own, we saved Wyrmwick that bribe money. That’s a positive, right? Sadly we did learn a negative due to a dream with Bahamut. The Demon Baron is Tiamat’s chosen one, so basically Caitlin’s polar opposite cousin. In addition Bahamut fears we won’t be strong enough to take down the Demon Baron, and is suggesting we find the other orbs like Grieg’s and hopefully with their power and the systematic elimination of the Demon Baron’s towers, we might just be able to do it. Unfortunately Caitlin’s mutations have taken a turn for the worse: her sense of smell is now completely changed, she’s starting to grow talons, and she now has complete control of her breath weapons. In general these aren’t bad (in fact the breath weapons are a huge plus), but it’s enough that Caitlin refuses to enter Wyrmwick due to her appearance and she’s contemplating finishing the ritual to see if it will make her stronger. I asked the party to give my best to Alpert, but they didn’t so lord knows what Caitlin will look like the next time she sees him. Stupid party.
And with that we set off to Colingrove and from there Vante’s Tower. Along the way we were attacked by pirates, and Caitlin got to intimidate people with her dragon wings for once. This battle went our way as Jason’s Saving Throw rolls were awful. We knocked half of the pirates off the ship, and they all drowned shortly after. We killed two more, and the last surrendered. We tied him up and interrogated him. His name? Skynet Anti-Gravity. No, I’m not shitting you. Again, see why Jason’s name generator sucked? We retconned that shit immediately so his name is Doll, and he’s pirating to help his family in Felbrigg. Caitlin spared him on the condition that he give himself up to the clerics in Colingrove and repent for his sins. In return we’d find a way to get his family out of Felbrigg… in due time. He agreed, and we docked the Mighty Gauntlet in Colingrove.
From there we picked up some supplies (i.e. some new magic armor for Caitlin and Grieg, plus the rest of the dragon ritual liquid), sold off some items, and then purchased horses to take us to Vante’s Tower. Along the way Dhother continued to investigate the rosary he found in Zalelah’s Crypt, and finally figured out all he could about it. It seems to rosary acts as a GPS on a “Hot N’ Cold’ system to show the user where “home” is. It also can act as a homing beacon for the vampire, and Dhother realized the vampire only disappeared and we weren’t really sure we killed her. Dhother attempted to drop the rosary, but found it followed him like a dog. Yay! Now Dhother can join Dragon Caitlin and Shadow Grieg as having a horrible problem hanging over his head! Huzzah!
We finished off the night in Vante’s Tower learning the origins behind the orbs. We found that at least six orbs exist, though their locations are unknown. The only other orb we know about it the white (Light) orb which seems to be near Attesfield, across the sea to the north of Vante’s Tower. Also Dhother traded the rosary to the mages in exchange for Caitlin’s bodily fluids, so Caitlin can rest easy knowing someone doesn’t have a salt shaker full of her tears.
The session ended there, and next week we have to decide where to go. Looking on the map (courtesy of Sable this time) you can see our options. We could head south back towards Colingrove and try to liberate Watchman North. Or we could return to Colingrove directly to pick up our ship and sail to Attesfield to get another orb. Or we could get the ship and head to Felbrigg Stronghold to find Doll’s family, investigate the source of the rosary (does anyone believe for a second we won’t wake up next time with the rosary?), and try to find out the locations of the other towers. Again, we have a few ways to go about this, so we’ll need to prioritize accordingly. What do you guys think? Where would you go if you were us? Any thoughts or predictions for the future? Are you pumped for the Tiamat V Bahamut Chosen Showdown? Do you like my vest made of real gorilla chest (Ha-HA! Simpons reference)?
Images credited to big sexay DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
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!
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!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Wyrmwick Log: Session 9 Part 1
Holy crap, I still don’t know how this group finds ways to play over seven hours of D&D in a weekend. This time it was all on one day, but in one long session that started at five and ended a little bit past midnight rather than broken up over two days. However I should note that we wouldn’t have bothered playing that long if we weren’t having fun, so obviously there was a lot to enjoy this session. If you decide to read through this whole thing I commend you because this is going to be a long one. You should probably get some snacks.
So our campaign continued about where it left off with the party at Vern’s cavern, and the White Dragon agreeing to fly us to Owayne’s. However we decided not to assault Owayne’s directly at the moment as we could use more information, and thus we convinced Vern to take us first to Vante’s Tower, a tower of mages far to the north where we could perhaps learn more about how to defeat a Deathknight and more about Caitlin’s condition. The dragon could only carry three of us though, so Dhother, Denora, and Caitlin readied themselves for the journey while Greig and Jonn headed towards Colingrove where we would meet up with them once we completed our journey. Oh, but before we left Vern smelled Caitlin and said, and I quote, “This is gonna be a good journey”. Ew. A thousand times ew. Vern is one creepy dude, though shockingly not the creepiest guy hitting on Caitlin this session, but I’ll get to that in time.
So during the long travel to Vante’s Tower Caitlin began to grow a tail, horns, and a new sense of smell meaning that as the days continue to pass by Caitlin becomes even more of a dragon. With renewed urgency we entered the tower and spoke with Ghadi, a mage in the tower. He said he could help us out with both of our problems by providing us with a device that would prevent Owayne from teleporting, and by putting a ward on Caitlin to slow her metamorphosis. Figuring we just walked into a good deal, we headed up to the room where the ward would be performed only to find a room littered with corpses. To our bewilderment though Ghadi wasn’t actually trying to trap us or trick us—he and the other wizards of Vante’s Tower are just completely batshit insane. Obviously when we saw the floating corpses we decided Caitlin wouldn’t take part in his ward, but he refused to give us a decent deal on the orb that would prevent Owayne’s teleportation. He did tell us that this orb could be trusted as a more permanent version of this orb, along with a device to prevent changes similar to what Caitlin is experiencing are currently being used by the Goblin King who’s prison rests just beyond the Mountains of Madness and the Boreal Maze.
We contemplated briefly about just heading to the Goblin King’s prison and taking the stuff he had there, but without the luxury of time, Caitlin made a deal with Ghadi. If he gave us the orb, then after the battle with Owayne she would return and allow Ghadi to run his tests on her on the condition her companions could supervise it. Ghadi anxiously agreed, and we had the orb, so we quickly headed off to Colingrove where we reunited with Jonn and Grieg.
At this point we had to make our final preparations to go up against Owayne, and we started by speaking to the city’s clerics to have them bless our weapons and provide us with support against Owayne’s undead legions. After that we visited the mages only to find Arwyn, who was quite eager to see Caitlin. He explained there her blood had turned silver and that currently they aren’t aware what it meant, which is rather annoying when all you want are answers and instead the mages just say “hey look this happened! I don’t know why, but it did!” After that he provided Caitlin with an amulet that he said would allow us to see Owayne should he turn invisible. Caitlin asked if Death Knights could do that, and Arwyn responded that he didn’t know. Then we found out the amulet wasn’t magic, indicating that Arywn is also batshit insane. Apparently studying the arcane arts in this world leads you to be a complete freak. Note to self: kill all mages.
That night Caitlin was disturbed in her sleep by a dream where she found herself alone in this strange field with the crystal we found back in Zelalah’s Crypt. She wandered up the crystal only to see a strange shadowy figure within the crystal who would stare at her while banging on the crystal. After that Caitlin woke up and immediately headed into Dhother's room to find the crystal. To her shock the same figure she saw in her dream was staring at her in real life, but she couldn't tell who it was. As she tried to speak with the shadow, Dhother woke up leading to an interesting exchange. After sharing some words, Caitlin punched Dhother in the balls and took the crystal for herself. I can't remember why I had Caitlin punch Dhother in the balls, but he probably deserved it.
So with preparations made it was time for the big moment when we would attack Owayne. Our plan was in place: let the clerics handle the undead, and then have Vern attack the tower and bring it down on top of Owayne. The plan started off almost flawlessly as Vern brought the keep down and Owayne was crushed underneath his own palace. Then the clerics handled the undead and left us to deal with one pissed off Death Knight. Around here though is where the plan fell apart—and we all sorta knew it would. The problem is that Owayne had gone too far (attacking Alpert and Timmy) to really justify ignoring him any longer especially if he was going to remain a constant threat while we tried to combat the Demon Baron.
But the downside is fact is that Owayne is a level 19 motherfucking beast so he jacked our monkey asses up. No lie, he seriously fucked us up, and we just about party wiped. To be completely fair we fought far better against Owayne than any level 4 party should have. We took him down to bloodied and I think everyone got at least one good hit in on him. The problem is that his health easily outclassed our damage output, and every time he attacked it was pretty much a guaranteed hit. With a few of our party members already down for the count, Caitlin handed off the crystal to Jonn for him to smash into the ground. Once it shattered, everything went white...
And like the Season 5 finale of LOST, that's where I'm going to leave you right now. To be frank this session was long and full of stuff to talk about, so I really can't sum it up in one long post without basically writing the Time Cube (sans the racism). Expect the rest of the recap to come up in the next few days, but until then reminisce about how fucking stupid it was for us to attack a Death Knight at level 4.
Credits go to Sighter and DarkVolt for the images.
Until next time, Namaste!
So our campaign continued about where it left off with the party at Vern’s cavern, and the White Dragon agreeing to fly us to Owayne’s. However we decided not to assault Owayne’s directly at the moment as we could use more information, and thus we convinced Vern to take us first to Vante’s Tower, a tower of mages far to the north where we could perhaps learn more about how to defeat a Deathknight and more about Caitlin’s condition. The dragon could only carry three of us though, so Dhother, Denora, and Caitlin readied themselves for the journey while Greig and Jonn headed towards Colingrove where we would meet up with them once we completed our journey. Oh, but before we left Vern smelled Caitlin and said, and I quote, “This is gonna be a good journey”. Ew. A thousand times ew. Vern is one creepy dude, though shockingly not the creepiest guy hitting on Caitlin this session, but I’ll get to that in time.
So during the long travel to Vante’s Tower Caitlin began to grow a tail, horns, and a new sense of smell meaning that as the days continue to pass by Caitlin becomes even more of a dragon. With renewed urgency we entered the tower and spoke with Ghadi, a mage in the tower. He said he could help us out with both of our problems by providing us with a device that would prevent Owayne from teleporting, and by putting a ward on Caitlin to slow her metamorphosis. Figuring we just walked into a good deal, we headed up to the room where the ward would be performed only to find a room littered with corpses. To our bewilderment though Ghadi wasn’t actually trying to trap us or trick us—he and the other wizards of Vante’s Tower are just completely batshit insane. Obviously when we saw the floating corpses we decided Caitlin wouldn’t take part in his ward, but he refused to give us a decent deal on the orb that would prevent Owayne’s teleportation. He did tell us that this orb could be trusted as a more permanent version of this orb, along with a device to prevent changes similar to what Caitlin is experiencing are currently being used by the Goblin King who’s prison rests just beyond the Mountains of Madness and the Boreal Maze.
We contemplated briefly about just heading to the Goblin King’s prison and taking the stuff he had there, but without the luxury of time, Caitlin made a deal with Ghadi. If he gave us the orb, then after the battle with Owayne she would return and allow Ghadi to run his tests on her on the condition her companions could supervise it. Ghadi anxiously agreed, and we had the orb, so we quickly headed off to Colingrove where we reunited with Jonn and Grieg.
At this point we had to make our final preparations to go up against Owayne, and we started by speaking to the city’s clerics to have them bless our weapons and provide us with support against Owayne’s undead legions. After that we visited the mages only to find Arwyn, who was quite eager to see Caitlin. He explained there her blood had turned silver and that currently they aren’t aware what it meant, which is rather annoying when all you want are answers and instead the mages just say “hey look this happened! I don’t know why, but it did!” After that he provided Caitlin with an amulet that he said would allow us to see Owayne should he turn invisible. Caitlin asked if Death Knights could do that, and Arwyn responded that he didn’t know. Then we found out the amulet wasn’t magic, indicating that Arywn is also batshit insane. Apparently studying the arcane arts in this world leads you to be a complete freak. Note to self: kill all mages.
That night Caitlin was disturbed in her sleep by a dream where she found herself alone in this strange field with the crystal we found back in Zelalah’s Crypt. She wandered up the crystal only to see a strange shadowy figure within the crystal who would stare at her while banging on the crystal. After that Caitlin woke up and immediately headed into Dhother's room to find the crystal. To her shock the same figure she saw in her dream was staring at her in real life, but she couldn't tell who it was. As she tried to speak with the shadow, Dhother woke up leading to an interesting exchange. After sharing some words, Caitlin punched Dhother in the balls and took the crystal for herself. I can't remember why I had Caitlin punch Dhother in the balls, but he probably deserved it.
So with preparations made it was time for the big moment when we would attack Owayne. Our plan was in place: let the clerics handle the undead, and then have Vern attack the tower and bring it down on top of Owayne. The plan started off almost flawlessly as Vern brought the keep down and Owayne was crushed underneath his own palace. Then the clerics handled the undead and left us to deal with one pissed off Death Knight. Around here though is where the plan fell apart—and we all sorta knew it would. The problem is that Owayne had gone too far (attacking Alpert and Timmy) to really justify ignoring him any longer especially if he was going to remain a constant threat while we tried to combat the Demon Baron.
But the downside is fact is that Owayne is a level 19 motherfucking beast so he jacked our monkey asses up. No lie, he seriously fucked us up, and we just about party wiped. To be completely fair we fought far better against Owayne than any level 4 party should have. We took him down to bloodied and I think everyone got at least one good hit in on him. The problem is that his health easily outclassed our damage output, and every time he attacked it was pretty much a guaranteed hit. With a few of our party members already down for the count, Caitlin handed off the crystal to Jonn for him to smash into the ground. Once it shattered, everything went white...
And like the Season 5 finale of LOST, that's where I'm going to leave you right now. To be frank this session was long and full of stuff to talk about, so I really can't sum it up in one long post without basically writing the Time Cube (sans the racism). Expect the rest of the recap to come up in the next few days, but until then reminisce about how fucking stupid it was for us to attack a Death Knight at level 4.
Credits go to Sighter and DarkVolt for the images.
Until next time, Namaste!
Friday, April 15, 2011
Wyrmwick Log: Session 8
“Well hello-hello what’s all this now? Another D&D recap? We just had one of those on Tuesday! How can there be another?” It’s interesting you ask that, Oddly British Personification of Potential Fan Confusion, because yes, we did. See the session we had on Saturday was so memorable and fun that we decided to play again on Sunday. This was a shorter session, only about three and a half hours (which is actually pretty standard for a tabletop group), and it was a lot more on the story side. Also the hot kinky angry flying sex between Caitlin and Dhother sadly happened off screen. Maybe we’ll get to see it next session, or someone will grace us with fanart. That’s what the internet is here for, right? To draw porn and stuff?
Anyway, this session began with Caitlin and Dhother heading to the temple of Correlon to see if they can receive any guidance from the followers there regarding the “dragonification”. The cleric couldn’t give us too much information, though he did insinuate the followers of Bahamut would know more, but that Caitlin should hide her condition from them because they would likely either see her as the avatar of the Platinum Dragon, or as a heretic to his teachings. So obviously when we later investigated Bahamut, Caitlin stayed back. I should also note we left a copy of Caitlin’s tattoo with the cleric of Correlon and the Arryn, the mage. I’m beginning to think that might be a mistake because they could easily spread that information around. Once it gets out that Caitlin is this way the party will be attracting a lot of unwanted attention.
As I said, we went to the temple of Bahamut to try and find out more information, and Dhother tried to get what information he could out of the cleric. From what we gathered, the ritual seemed to involve turning someone into the first born of Bahamut, so basically it’s a ritual to make you Dragon Jesus. No lie. We decided to wait to hear back from the mages regarding their investigation, but in the meantime still work towards solving one of our major problems: the most notable being Timmy. We had to get the Duke’s son back, though doing so meant going back to Owayn’s Keep which none of us particularly wanted. Still, we’re the heroes so saving hostage children is kind of the one thing we have to do.
At this point we were introduced to Skitch’s new character Grieg. Grieg isn’t for sure a definite addition to the party, but is a character Skitch wanted to try out for a session or so. He’s an Archer Warlord, and the in-character reason for meeting him is that Duke Ned sent him to help us rescue Timmy. Now I should note that we had a direct portal to Owayne’s Hold, but it’s in a closet in the temple of Pelor. We had to sneak into this portal several times this session, and our methods of doing so weren’t brilliant. However since we kept disappearing before the guards would spot us, the head cleric was arrested for being insane, and the temple was closed down. We sorta have some repenting to do on Denora’s behalf.
I’m going to skip over a very long section of the game that amounted to nothing. Basically we got stuck trying to enter Owayn’s Keep via the portals, and we left to enter through the harbor like we did the first time. Along the way we had to fight some spiders, but they died relatively easily. We do seem to fight a lot of spiders though. I get this terrible feeling that in our quest to find a way to offend every god out there, Lloth is secretly near the top of the list and she’s just biding her time.
Back to the plot, we snuck into Owayn’s Keep, and we found Timmy down in a dungeon below. Unfortunately with Drew gone, lock picking and trap finding falls on Caitlin who isn’t incredibly skilled at Thievery. She couldn’t pick his locks, and Jonn wasn’t strong enough to rip the chains out of the wall. We all took a turn trying to attack the chains, but for some reason we all suck when it comes to hitting chains… except Denora. She fucking clobbered it. I suspect Denora’s got a secret badass side we all haven’t seen, and one session will end with Denora standing on top of a pile of bodies wearing nothing but a loincloth as she smears enemy blood on her chest and screams at the heavens. Or it was a lucky roll. Whatever—we got Timmy, and that’s the point.
We returned to Duke Ned with his son at hand, but apparently spending time with Owayn had very negative consequences on Timmy’s body. The clerics of Collingrove spent all night working on him, but the news we got wasn’t great: Timmy might never walk again. Everyone pretty went through the same emotional roller coaster from “D’awwww” to “You’ll pay for this Owayn!”
Following that we decided we hate to return to Wyrmwick to see how the city fared and to see if we couldn’t find the White Dragon who assisted Dhother and Jonn back at the South Tower. After Jonn failed twice to sneak into the church of Pelor, we finally made it back to Wyrmwick, and the first thing we went to do was visit Alpert only to find Owayn in his chamber and Alpert’s body on the floor. Cue “You just killed Santa Claus! DIE MONSTER!”
This was actually where Dhother got to look like a completely awesome badass as he whipped out Zelalah’s rod (mind in the gutter), and blasted Owayn with it. It sent Dhother flying as well and he took a healthy dose of damage, but the shot absolutely blasted the Death Knight and weakened him enough that Denora managed to hit him with Smite Undead. After taking two brutal attacks Owayn fled, and Denora managed to stabilize Alpert just before he died. Following a few “this is personal” lines, the party left Alpert in care of the Wyrmwick medics, and ventured off to find the White Dragon.
Along the way Caitlin’s mutation continued, and now she possesses the eyes of a dragon meaning she now has dark-vision. With each day Caitlin has another chance to continue her mutation, but so far I’ve been very lucky on my rolls. If I don’t avoid or undo a mutation completely, I roll something that at least has a benefit to it. However stuff like the tongue, the claws, the tail… that stuff is going to get messy. Jason even mentioned a mutation that messes with my speech, so fingers crossed that I avoid that one.
After a few days we found the dragon’s cave, formerly the hideout for Wez the Mad. The dragon was inside sleeping, and we started speaking to him. At first I had Caitlin ask about the mark, but the dragon really didn’t know what was going on, which is rather concerning. So far we know enough that Bahamut followers will either love Caitlin or crucify her, and the general consensus seems to be that Caitlin’s mutations are making her more enemies everywhere she goes. The problem though is that no one we’ve spoken to yet seems to know anything. We’ve got some people looking into it, but that research is going to take time and every day that passes is another chance for Caitlin to get worse and for her secret to get out.
We still wanted to speak to Vern (a shortened version of the dragon’s full name that I can’t remember) about Owayn, and after Dhother brought up that Owayn is the one supplying the mind control devices that nearly enslaved Vern to Wez, he agreed to help us with any traveling we needed. Then he said it was a shame Caitlin wasn’t a dragon because she smelled good. I don’t know what’s worse—the Caitlin smells like a dragon, or that she smells attractive.
The session ended there, and we are ready to play this upcoming Saturday. We learned a bit about Caitlin’s condition and started our offensive against Owayn, but we’re still in the dark and underpowered regarding those plot points respectively. For the former we have to be careful because honestly I don’t think it will be long before Caitlin gets a bounty on her head from the church of Bahamut, Tiamat, or even just a hunter interested in taking down a dragon-elf. I can see Caitlin attracting a lot of bad attention, and right now we have very few ways to curb it. I don’t think it will be long at all until Caitlin has to start avoiding towns completely and sleeping in the wilderness to avoid detection. For the latter we certainly managed to hurt Owayn, but not enough to kill him and both in and out of character I know we aren’t strong enough to kill him yet. The problem is though that he’s gone too far by kidnapping Timmy and attacking Alpert. Our characters can’t just sit around waiting to get stronger, so we have to figure out some way to stop him.
Next session should be very interesting as we try to figure out what our next move will be. Curious to hear what you guys think we should do, and don’t bother suggesting angry flying sex… Caitlin and Dhother already got that handled.
Until next time, Namaste!
Anyway, this session began with Caitlin and Dhother heading to the temple of Correlon to see if they can receive any guidance from the followers there regarding the “dragonification”. The cleric couldn’t give us too much information, though he did insinuate the followers of Bahamut would know more, but that Caitlin should hide her condition from them because they would likely either see her as the avatar of the Platinum Dragon, or as a heretic to his teachings. So obviously when we later investigated Bahamut, Caitlin stayed back. I should also note we left a copy of Caitlin’s tattoo with the cleric of Correlon and the Arryn, the mage. I’m beginning to think that might be a mistake because they could easily spread that information around. Once it gets out that Caitlin is this way the party will be attracting a lot of unwanted attention.
As I said, we went to the temple of Bahamut to try and find out more information, and Dhother tried to get what information he could out of the cleric. From what we gathered, the ritual seemed to involve turning someone into the first born of Bahamut, so basically it’s a ritual to make you Dragon Jesus. No lie. We decided to wait to hear back from the mages regarding their investigation, but in the meantime still work towards solving one of our major problems: the most notable being Timmy. We had to get the Duke’s son back, though doing so meant going back to Owayn’s Keep which none of us particularly wanted. Still, we’re the heroes so saving hostage children is kind of the one thing we have to do.
At this point we were introduced to Skitch’s new character Grieg. Grieg isn’t for sure a definite addition to the party, but is a character Skitch wanted to try out for a session or so. He’s an Archer Warlord, and the in-character reason for meeting him is that Duke Ned sent him to help us rescue Timmy. Now I should note that we had a direct portal to Owayne’s Hold, but it’s in a closet in the temple of Pelor. We had to sneak into this portal several times this session, and our methods of doing so weren’t brilliant. However since we kept disappearing before the guards would spot us, the head cleric was arrested for being insane, and the temple was closed down. We sorta have some repenting to do on Denora’s behalf.
I’m going to skip over a very long section of the game that amounted to nothing. Basically we got stuck trying to enter Owayn’s Keep via the portals, and we left to enter through the harbor like we did the first time. Along the way we had to fight some spiders, but they died relatively easily. We do seem to fight a lot of spiders though. I get this terrible feeling that in our quest to find a way to offend every god out there, Lloth is secretly near the top of the list and she’s just biding her time.
Back to the plot, we snuck into Owayn’s Keep, and we found Timmy down in a dungeon below. Unfortunately with Drew gone, lock picking and trap finding falls on Caitlin who isn’t incredibly skilled at Thievery. She couldn’t pick his locks, and Jonn wasn’t strong enough to rip the chains out of the wall. We all took a turn trying to attack the chains, but for some reason we all suck when it comes to hitting chains… except Denora. She fucking clobbered it. I suspect Denora’s got a secret badass side we all haven’t seen, and one session will end with Denora standing on top of a pile of bodies wearing nothing but a loincloth as she smears enemy blood on her chest and screams at the heavens. Or it was a lucky roll. Whatever—we got Timmy, and that’s the point.
We returned to Duke Ned with his son at hand, but apparently spending time with Owayn had very negative consequences on Timmy’s body. The clerics of Collingrove spent all night working on him, but the news we got wasn’t great: Timmy might never walk again. Everyone pretty went through the same emotional roller coaster from “D’awwww” to “You’ll pay for this Owayn!”
Following that we decided we hate to return to Wyrmwick to see how the city fared and to see if we couldn’t find the White Dragon who assisted Dhother and Jonn back at the South Tower. After Jonn failed twice to sneak into the church of Pelor, we finally made it back to Wyrmwick, and the first thing we went to do was visit Alpert only to find Owayn in his chamber and Alpert’s body on the floor. Cue “You just killed Santa Claus! DIE MONSTER!”
This was actually where Dhother got to look like a completely awesome badass as he whipped out Zelalah’s rod (mind in the gutter), and blasted Owayn with it. It sent Dhother flying as well and he took a healthy dose of damage, but the shot absolutely blasted the Death Knight and weakened him enough that Denora managed to hit him with Smite Undead. After taking two brutal attacks Owayn fled, and Denora managed to stabilize Alpert just before he died. Following a few “this is personal” lines, the party left Alpert in care of the Wyrmwick medics, and ventured off to find the White Dragon.
Along the way Caitlin’s mutation continued, and now she possesses the eyes of a dragon meaning she now has dark-vision. With each day Caitlin has another chance to continue her mutation, but so far I’ve been very lucky on my rolls. If I don’t avoid or undo a mutation completely, I roll something that at least has a benefit to it. However stuff like the tongue, the claws, the tail… that stuff is going to get messy. Jason even mentioned a mutation that messes with my speech, so fingers crossed that I avoid that one.
After a few days we found the dragon’s cave, formerly the hideout for Wez the Mad. The dragon was inside sleeping, and we started speaking to him. At first I had Caitlin ask about the mark, but the dragon really didn’t know what was going on, which is rather concerning. So far we know enough that Bahamut followers will either love Caitlin or crucify her, and the general consensus seems to be that Caitlin’s mutations are making her more enemies everywhere she goes. The problem though is that no one we’ve spoken to yet seems to know anything. We’ve got some people looking into it, but that research is going to take time and every day that passes is another chance for Caitlin to get worse and for her secret to get out.
We still wanted to speak to Vern (a shortened version of the dragon’s full name that I can’t remember) about Owayn, and after Dhother brought up that Owayn is the one supplying the mind control devices that nearly enslaved Vern to Wez, he agreed to help us with any traveling we needed. Then he said it was a shame Caitlin wasn’t a dragon because she smelled good. I don’t know what’s worse—the Caitlin smells like a dragon, or that she smells attractive.
The session ended there, and we are ready to play this upcoming Saturday. We learned a bit about Caitlin’s condition and started our offensive against Owayn, but we’re still in the dark and underpowered regarding those plot points respectively. For the former we have to be careful because honestly I don’t think it will be long before Caitlin gets a bounty on her head from the church of Bahamut, Tiamat, or even just a hunter interested in taking down a dragon-elf. I can see Caitlin attracting a lot of bad attention, and right now we have very few ways to curb it. I don’t think it will be long at all until Caitlin has to start avoiding towns completely and sleeping in the wilderness to avoid detection. For the latter we certainly managed to hurt Owayn, but not enough to kill him and both in and out of character I know we aren’t strong enough to kill him yet. The problem is though that he’s gone too far by kidnapping Timmy and attacking Alpert. Our characters can’t just sit around waiting to get stronger, so we have to figure out some way to stop him.
Next session should be very interesting as we try to figure out what our next move will be. Curious to hear what you guys think we should do, and don’t bother suggesting angry flying sex… Caitlin and Dhother already got that handled.
Until next time, Namaste!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Wyrmwick Log: Session 7
Oh my… things sure can change in a week can’t they? We got together this Saturday to continue the Wyrmwick campaign (and again on Sunday, but that’s for later) and this was quite the pivotal session. There were plenty of battles, instantly memorable conversations, and a rather interesting metamorphosis. With that kind of buildup I really can’t waste time dicking around, so let’s get right into the recap!
So the session picked up right where we left off: our party was in Zelayla’s Crypt searching for Zelayla’s Staff, and after a nice extended rest we were back on the classic adventurer pastime of murdering everything. The first victim was a Fire Elemental, but to our shock and bewilderment, this monster didn’t seem interested in murdering us right away. In fact he was pretty kosher with just chilling while we walked around. Dhother performed his ritual to Comprehend Language, and heard the monster saying that he was “part of [a] key”. With no way to understand what else that might mean, we attempted to see if we could provoke the monster. Caitlin drew her swords and instantly the elemental got ready to battle. It was a short but thrilling battle than ended when the elemental teleported away, and then Caitlin took it down via throwing dagger. It was a totally ninja moment.
When the elemental died it left behind a talisman that was set ablaze. The party was a bit too cautious to touch it, but eventually Caitlin grabbed it. Instantly it set her hand on fire, but eventually the fire started to subside and instead left her with a strange tattoo of a snake wrapped around a flame. Cue people already getting ready for the idea that my character is cursed and it’s the Book of Morgana all over again.
After a bit more exploring we found an Air Elemental, and started to sense a pattern. Before fighting we found that Caitlin could now understand the elemental’s speech indicating that she could now speak Primordial. Probably not a great sign, but it allowed her to her the Air Elemental speaking about also being part of a key. Cue the battle, and Caitlin sorta-kinda raped the elemental. I crit on my Rapier attack and then rolled near max damage on my Power Attack and follow up short sword attack meaning my damage clocked in at around 48. It was rather disappointing to come that close to 50 and fail, especially since I forgot to roll my 1d6 for criting, but it was still pretty cool. After the elemental died it seemed to become absorbed in my hand, and now my tattoo shifted from flames to a tornado. Again, we’re sensing a pattern.
With two of the elemental keys in hand (quite literally), we ventured down the only path not traveled which sounds like the lyrics to a Johnny Cash song. After opening the gate we found evidence of a Gelatinous Cube in the area, and for those new to D&D Gelatinous Cubes are basically big moving cubes of Jello filled with acid, so in other words not something you want to be surprised by. Thankfully Caitlin has a high enough Perception to notice the cube was actually standing right in front of us, so we avoided being surprised and thus digested by the blocky blob. Instead we battled it, and there was no love lost for this fiend as we rather mercilessly pummeled it which was rather sad when you consider the Cube only has an Intelligence of 1 so it pretty much just exists to glomp. All he wants to do is hug! Too bad we killed him before he could really hug any of us, but luckily the Cube gets his satisfaction through fanart.
Moving along we found a strange room filled with three altars each carved into the shape of a dragon and containing a copper chalice full of a strange unfamiliar liquid. In addition there was a tiny piece of glowing moss in the middle of the room that Jason noted was “unnatural”. To me I figured that meant it was the third elemental, Earth, but instead Jason meant it wasn’t naturally glowing moss and instead it existed to illuminate this room. We didn’t find that out until much later—far after we had started pouring the liquids on top of the moss expecting it to change into some golem of dirt and mud. Whoops. At that point we couldn’t figure out what we were expected to do with the liquids and figured we’d need more clues to complete this puzzle.
Not to be stumped, we continued on in hopes of stumbling upon some clue to enlighten us to the mystery behind the cups, but instead we stumbled upon our third elemental: Water. To sum it up: Caitlin heard the elemental talk about being part of a key, we kicked ass, and the essence of the defeated elemental was absorbed into Caitlin’s hand. At this point Caitlin was just two elements away from being Captain Planet.
Through another corridor we found a Bulley Pit. Well, I don’t know how to spell their names, but apparently they’re like land sharks, so in complete terror our group ran through the pit waiting for the Bulley to pop out at any minute. They didn’t, and instead we found the diary of Wesley clutched in the hands of a skeleton. Through this diary we found out the secret history between Wez, Owayn, and Zelayla. Turns out the former two were pupils of Zelayla, but Owayn tried to seize control of everything she built and killed her. Wez had mastered a ritual that would allow someone to transfer their soul over to a new body hopefully to revive Zelayla, but he had to use the ritual on himself to survive.
Beyond that we didn’t get too much from the Diary, but we did learn quite a bit more about Wez. Sadly nothing regarding that dragon altar puzzle which was disappointing. Instead we stumbled upon the last elemental, and thanks to an early crit, defeated him rather easily (the only way to defeat the earth elemental was to crit against him). With the earth elemental absorbed, we know had all of the keys… unless we were also using fake elements like lightning, ice, mud, light, darkness, poison, love, dragon, normal, and iridium. Oh wait, that last one actually is an element… nevermind.
We found another chest containing seven golden daggers, and whenever Caitlin held them they seemed to respond to her tattoo and let off a particular feeling that corresponded to one of the elements: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, and chaos. We figured they’d be some part of the puzzle later on, so Caitlin held on to them. After that we came upon a coffin with a vampire sleeping in it. Figuring we’d probably have to kill her anyway, Caitlin decided she’d take the dagger of light and try to plunge it into the vampire’s heart before she woke up, but as you can imagine the vampire was well aware of what we were doing and bit Caitlin as she tried to attack.
Thankfully one bite doesn’t make a vampire, so Caitlin was spared vampirism on top of the other conditions she received in this dungeon, but we’ll get to those in a moment. As it is now, the party vanquished the vampire, Dhother swiped her rosary in case it came in handy, and the group used the seven daggers to open a door leading to a room with a massive chasm. On the other side of the pit was a golden coffin, but sadly no one in the group could figure out how to get across. After deliberating Caitlin decided to test her luck and tried drinking from one of the cups on the altar. It caused her to double over in pain, writhe in agony, and grow a pair of dragon wings. Yes, I am quite serious; Caitlin grew a pair of dragon wings.
With these new wings she flew over to the other side of the chasm (with a rope attached so she wouldn’t fall just in case the wings failed). After crossing, she opened the coffin to find a spectral Zelayla and her staff sitting in a pile of her ashes. Zelalah was waiting for someone to bring her a body, but since Caitlin didn’t have one, she instead demanded to take the elf’s body instead. With that demand Caitlin acted quickly, and grabbed the staff, avoided the ghost’s grapple, and was pulled back over the pit with the staff in hand. The entire conversation was much more humorous and you can find the entire conversation here.
With the staff at hand we tried one last time to figure out our predicament regarding the dragon altars. Drew and Jonn both tried drinking from the chalices (one of the altars refills the cups) hoping to see if they also received draconic transformations, but instead it just poisoned them and knocked them out. Dhother tried to feed them the moss from earlier but well… Okay I think we can safely say this group is Dethklok Part II. Dhother fed them glowing poisonous moss and surprisingly their conditions didn’t improve. After they woke up we found that Caitlin’s tattoo allowed her to move the statue blocking the entrance, and after collecting a cup of the liquid for study, the group left the crypt. Thankfully Wez was sleeping peacefully in the elevator the whole time, so we collected him, returned to Wyrmwick, and reported back to Khan Muzarog.
Well actually we returned to Alpert first so that Caitlin could reveal her new wings to him (which he responded was “kinda hot”), but the conversation mostly turned to Muzarog where we presented him with the staff and a crystal we found inside the cavern that is used to charge it. Unfortunately we learned the only way to recharge the crystal is to power it with someone’s soul. Since that wasn’t very appealing to the group of mostly good characters, we were told to investigate the weapon more thoroughly and the mages at Colingrove were our first stop. However after arriving we received bad news from Duke Ned: Timmy has been taken hostage by Owayne who is still waiting for the party to kill Thoran Hawklight. Dun dun DUUUUUUUN!!!
There was a bit more to this sessions including a conversation with an annoying mage who couldn’t get over the fact that Caitlin was an elf with wings, but this recap is already long enough. I suppose I should use this change to address Caitlin’s changes because they’re far from your normal fair. To be frank, I like that Caitlin has this story bit. Sure it’s never fun to see your character undergoing a transformation you can’t control, but at the same time there’s a lot of enjoyment to get out of character development you don’t have total control over. I like the way things are going with Caitlin and I’m curious to find out the root of all of this. I just hope that until we discover what the dealio with her dragon-ification is we don’t run into even more problems.
Credit for the images go to DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
So the session picked up right where we left off: our party was in Zelayla’s Crypt searching for Zelayla’s Staff, and after a nice extended rest we were back on the classic adventurer pastime of murdering everything. The first victim was a Fire Elemental, but to our shock and bewilderment, this monster didn’t seem interested in murdering us right away. In fact he was pretty kosher with just chilling while we walked around. Dhother performed his ritual to Comprehend Language, and heard the monster saying that he was “part of [a] key”. With no way to understand what else that might mean, we attempted to see if we could provoke the monster. Caitlin drew her swords and instantly the elemental got ready to battle. It was a short but thrilling battle than ended when the elemental teleported away, and then Caitlin took it down via throwing dagger. It was a totally ninja moment.
When the elemental died it left behind a talisman that was set ablaze. The party was a bit too cautious to touch it, but eventually Caitlin grabbed it. Instantly it set her hand on fire, but eventually the fire started to subside and instead left her with a strange tattoo of a snake wrapped around a flame. Cue people already getting ready for the idea that my character is cursed and it’s the Book of Morgana all over again.
After a bit more exploring we found an Air Elemental, and started to sense a pattern. Before fighting we found that Caitlin could now understand the elemental’s speech indicating that she could now speak Primordial. Probably not a great sign, but it allowed her to her the Air Elemental speaking about also being part of a key. Cue the battle, and Caitlin sorta-kinda raped the elemental. I crit on my Rapier attack and then rolled near max damage on my Power Attack and follow up short sword attack meaning my damage clocked in at around 48. It was rather disappointing to come that close to 50 and fail, especially since I forgot to roll my 1d6 for criting, but it was still pretty cool. After the elemental died it seemed to become absorbed in my hand, and now my tattoo shifted from flames to a tornado. Again, we’re sensing a pattern.
With two of the elemental keys in hand (quite literally), we ventured down the only path not traveled which sounds like the lyrics to a Johnny Cash song. After opening the gate we found evidence of a Gelatinous Cube in the area, and for those new to D&D Gelatinous Cubes are basically big moving cubes of Jello filled with acid, so in other words not something you want to be surprised by. Thankfully Caitlin has a high enough Perception to notice the cube was actually standing right in front of us, so we avoided being surprised and thus digested by the blocky blob. Instead we battled it, and there was no love lost for this fiend as we rather mercilessly pummeled it which was rather sad when you consider the Cube only has an Intelligence of 1 so it pretty much just exists to glomp. All he wants to do is hug! Too bad we killed him before he could really hug any of us, but luckily the Cube gets his satisfaction through fanart.
Moving along we found a strange room filled with three altars each carved into the shape of a dragon and containing a copper chalice full of a strange unfamiliar liquid. In addition there was a tiny piece of glowing moss in the middle of the room that Jason noted was “unnatural”. To me I figured that meant it was the third elemental, Earth, but instead Jason meant it wasn’t naturally glowing moss and instead it existed to illuminate this room. We didn’t find that out until much later—far after we had started pouring the liquids on top of the moss expecting it to change into some golem of dirt and mud. Whoops. At that point we couldn’t figure out what we were expected to do with the liquids and figured we’d need more clues to complete this puzzle.
Not to be stumped, we continued on in hopes of stumbling upon some clue to enlighten us to the mystery behind the cups, but instead we stumbled upon our third elemental: Water. To sum it up: Caitlin heard the elemental talk about being part of a key, we kicked ass, and the essence of the defeated elemental was absorbed into Caitlin’s hand. At this point Caitlin was just two elements away from being Captain Planet.
Through another corridor we found a Bulley Pit. Well, I don’t know how to spell their names, but apparently they’re like land sharks, so in complete terror our group ran through the pit waiting for the Bulley to pop out at any minute. They didn’t, and instead we found the diary of Wesley clutched in the hands of a skeleton. Through this diary we found out the secret history between Wez, Owayn, and Zelayla. Turns out the former two were pupils of Zelayla, but Owayn tried to seize control of everything she built and killed her. Wez had mastered a ritual that would allow someone to transfer their soul over to a new body hopefully to revive Zelayla, but he had to use the ritual on himself to survive.
Beyond that we didn’t get too much from the Diary, but we did learn quite a bit more about Wez. Sadly nothing regarding that dragon altar puzzle which was disappointing. Instead we stumbled upon the last elemental, and thanks to an early crit, defeated him rather easily (the only way to defeat the earth elemental was to crit against him). With the earth elemental absorbed, we know had all of the keys… unless we were also using fake elements like lightning, ice, mud, light, darkness, poison, love, dragon, normal, and iridium. Oh wait, that last one actually is an element… nevermind.
We found another chest containing seven golden daggers, and whenever Caitlin held them they seemed to respond to her tattoo and let off a particular feeling that corresponded to one of the elements: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, and chaos. We figured they’d be some part of the puzzle later on, so Caitlin held on to them. After that we came upon a coffin with a vampire sleeping in it. Figuring we’d probably have to kill her anyway, Caitlin decided she’d take the dagger of light and try to plunge it into the vampire’s heart before she woke up, but as you can imagine the vampire was well aware of what we were doing and bit Caitlin as she tried to attack.
Thankfully one bite doesn’t make a vampire, so Caitlin was spared vampirism on top of the other conditions she received in this dungeon, but we’ll get to those in a moment. As it is now, the party vanquished the vampire, Dhother swiped her rosary in case it came in handy, and the group used the seven daggers to open a door leading to a room with a massive chasm. On the other side of the pit was a golden coffin, but sadly no one in the group could figure out how to get across. After deliberating Caitlin decided to test her luck and tried drinking from one of the cups on the altar. It caused her to double over in pain, writhe in agony, and grow a pair of dragon wings. Yes, I am quite serious; Caitlin grew a pair of dragon wings.
With these new wings she flew over to the other side of the chasm (with a rope attached so she wouldn’t fall just in case the wings failed). After crossing, she opened the coffin to find a spectral Zelayla and her staff sitting in a pile of her ashes. Zelalah was waiting for someone to bring her a body, but since Caitlin didn’t have one, she instead demanded to take the elf’s body instead. With that demand Caitlin acted quickly, and grabbed the staff, avoided the ghost’s grapple, and was pulled back over the pit with the staff in hand. The entire conversation was much more humorous and you can find the entire conversation here.
With the staff at hand we tried one last time to figure out our predicament regarding the dragon altars. Drew and Jonn both tried drinking from the chalices (one of the altars refills the cups) hoping to see if they also received draconic transformations, but instead it just poisoned them and knocked them out. Dhother tried to feed them the moss from earlier but well… Okay I think we can safely say this group is Dethklok Part II. Dhother fed them glowing poisonous moss and surprisingly their conditions didn’t improve. After they woke up we found that Caitlin’s tattoo allowed her to move the statue blocking the entrance, and after collecting a cup of the liquid for study, the group left the crypt. Thankfully Wez was sleeping peacefully in the elevator the whole time, so we collected him, returned to Wyrmwick, and reported back to Khan Muzarog.
Well actually we returned to Alpert first so that Caitlin could reveal her new wings to him (which he responded was “kinda hot”), but the conversation mostly turned to Muzarog where we presented him with the staff and a crystal we found inside the cavern that is used to charge it. Unfortunately we learned the only way to recharge the crystal is to power it with someone’s soul. Since that wasn’t very appealing to the group of mostly good characters, we were told to investigate the weapon more thoroughly and the mages at Colingrove were our first stop. However after arriving we received bad news from Duke Ned: Timmy has been taken hostage by Owayne who is still waiting for the party to kill Thoran Hawklight. Dun dun DUUUUUUUN!!!
There was a bit more to this sessions including a conversation with an annoying mage who couldn’t get over the fact that Caitlin was an elf with wings, but this recap is already long enough. I suppose I should use this change to address Caitlin’s changes because they’re far from your normal fair. To be frank, I like that Caitlin has this story bit. Sure it’s never fun to see your character undergoing a transformation you can’t control, but at the same time there’s a lot of enjoyment to get out of character development you don’t have total control over. I like the way things are going with Caitlin and I’m curious to find out the root of all of this. I just hope that until we discover what the dealio with her dragon-ification is we don’t run into even more problems.
Credit for the images go to DarkVolt.
Until next time, Namaste!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Caitlin's Backstory
Since people seemed to enjoy Juliet’s backstory and From Their Eyes was popular enough to make it a full-time series, I figure I’d indulge those curious about Caitlin and her backstory. Admittedly her story is a lot less whimsical than Juliet’s which is a big reason why I have no real qualms about spoiling it—it’s really not something will come up naturally in the story, and even if it did we wouldn’t be able to see it from the perspectives that matter, so instead I’ll share it with everybody. Hopefully you guys dig it. Without further adieu, let’s get into Caitlin’s backstory.
Caitlin Cormac was only a child when her parents left the Glitterhold Forest in their attempt to find a new way of life. With very little to their name they made the long arduous journey overseas, but due to dire circumstances regarding funds they were not able to procure a direct route to Wyrmwick and instead had to settle for reaching the continent and walking from there. Though perilous, Caitlin’s parents felt it was in their daughter’s best interest to be able to grow up in a society where her future wasn’t dictated to her by the whims of one man, however such an exodus came with risks—not only were Caitlin and her parents declared as heretics for abandoning the forest, but the road to Wyrmwick was rife with danger not suitable for a child and two adults who were far from proficient with a weapon.
It seemed as if fortune would shine upon the couple though as they found themselves only a few miles outside of Wyrmwick and had yet to encounter a single problem. However the elves let their guards down, and were completely unaware of the predators following them. Stalking the family was a trio of beasts with mangled teeth, knotted muscles of flesh, and crocked claws leaking lethal venom. Just as the Cormac family thought they were safe the beasts attacked, and in mere moments the situation became chaos. Caitlin’s father, moderately sized for an elf, was the first target, and before anyone could recognize the dangers at hand he had been stricken several times. With his brief knowledge of medicine, Caitlin’s father recognized the venom he was now infected with was very deadly, and without much time to grieve he accepted that his fate was already decided. In the brief moments he had left he wanted to ensure his family escaped, and he desperately tried to hold off the beasts while ordering his wife to escape. Though it pained her to do so, she knew her husband’s conviction wasn’t worth questioning and she began to flee with Caitlin. Unfortunately one of the fiends managed to strike Caitlin’s mother in the back as she ran, but due to the final efforts from her father, the beast was held back for the mere moments necessary for Caitlin and her mother to escape, and for the beasts to decide to finish off the meal they already had.
A mile outside of Wyrmwick, Councilman Alpert stared down at a grave. His wife, Moyria was six months pregnant with their child when she was stricken with an illness. Even for a man with as much money and power as he, curing her was just impossible, and all too suddenly he lost the family he never had. It had become habit for the Councilman to wonder out to the cemetery and stare at his wife’s grave for hours, and people were starting to question the sanity of the recently widowed husband. But fate has a strange way of working as Alpert heard the strained breathing of a woman staggering towards him with a child tucked tightly in her arms.
Alpert stared at the woman who seemed to be stuck in a horrible fever. Thick beads of sweat pouring down her face already tinted a faint red. Her eyes seemed barely focused, and she was muttering something in elven—a lullaby. The image was an all too painful reminder of his own wife’s final moments, and quickly the councilman wrapped his jacket around the mother and tried to diagnose her problems based off his own limited knowledge of medicine. His efforts were in vain though, and Caitlin’s mother died less than an hour outside of Wyrmwick. Now an orphan, Caitlin was all alone in the world, and Alpert knew it. He couldn’t stand witnessing someone else endure the tragedy of living alone, and thus he employed the young Caitlin to be his servant so that she would have a home to stay in and a life inside of Wyrmwick.
However the relationship between Alpert and Caitlin extended far beyond a simple handmaiden. As she aged Alpert would employee elves to help teach her the ways of her people. She was taught the ways of the hunter, the ranger, and the scout. Due to her near constant supervision by either Alpert or one of her trainers, she adapted quickly to the ways of combat, and at the age of fifteen she was hired on as the official bodyguard of Councilman Alpert. She always knew she owed her life to him, and never questioned any task he asked of her. To her, Alpert was an amazing mentor—far more magnificent than any she deserved. To Alpert, Caitlin was the child he lost years ago, and the chance to live a life with a real family.
On her twentieth birthday Alpert pooled together a large amount of resources to have Caitlin built a custom rapier forged by true elven blacksmiths in the style of her people. This sword, called Corellon’s Thorn, holds very significant meaning to Caitlin. Not only is a treasured gift from the man she respects more than anyone else, but it was custom built for her, and the names of her parents are carved into the inside of the hilt.
Caitlin would do anything for Alpert which is why she never questioned him when he asked her to lend her skill to the resistance armies battling the demon horde. Though it pained him to send Caitlin, Alpert knew that the city of Wyrmwick needed her strength more than he did. Without hesitation she left her home behind to find what remained of the resistance army, and bring the threat of the Demon Baron to an end.
So yep, that’s Caitlin’s backstory. Less thematic than Juliet’s, but I still like the emotion. If you guys enjoyed reading this, I encourage you to check back in the next few days as I’m going to detail my process for creating Caitlin from start until finish. Hope you guys enjoyed.
Until next time, Namaste!
Caitlin Cormac was only a child when her parents left the Glitterhold Forest in their attempt to find a new way of life. With very little to their name they made the long arduous journey overseas, but due to dire circumstances regarding funds they were not able to procure a direct route to Wyrmwick and instead had to settle for reaching the continent and walking from there. Though perilous, Caitlin’s parents felt it was in their daughter’s best interest to be able to grow up in a society where her future wasn’t dictated to her by the whims of one man, however such an exodus came with risks—not only were Caitlin and her parents declared as heretics for abandoning the forest, but the road to Wyrmwick was rife with danger not suitable for a child and two adults who were far from proficient with a weapon.
It seemed as if fortune would shine upon the couple though as they found themselves only a few miles outside of Wyrmwick and had yet to encounter a single problem. However the elves let their guards down, and were completely unaware of the predators following them. Stalking the family was a trio of beasts with mangled teeth, knotted muscles of flesh, and crocked claws leaking lethal venom. Just as the Cormac family thought they were safe the beasts attacked, and in mere moments the situation became chaos. Caitlin’s father, moderately sized for an elf, was the first target, and before anyone could recognize the dangers at hand he had been stricken several times. With his brief knowledge of medicine, Caitlin’s father recognized the venom he was now infected with was very deadly, and without much time to grieve he accepted that his fate was already decided. In the brief moments he had left he wanted to ensure his family escaped, and he desperately tried to hold off the beasts while ordering his wife to escape. Though it pained her to do so, she knew her husband’s conviction wasn’t worth questioning and she began to flee with Caitlin. Unfortunately one of the fiends managed to strike Caitlin’s mother in the back as she ran, but due to the final efforts from her father, the beast was held back for the mere moments necessary for Caitlin and her mother to escape, and for the beasts to decide to finish off the meal they already had.
A mile outside of Wyrmwick, Councilman Alpert stared down at a grave. His wife, Moyria was six months pregnant with their child when she was stricken with an illness. Even for a man with as much money and power as he, curing her was just impossible, and all too suddenly he lost the family he never had. It had become habit for the Councilman to wonder out to the cemetery and stare at his wife’s grave for hours, and people were starting to question the sanity of the recently widowed husband. But fate has a strange way of working as Alpert heard the strained breathing of a woman staggering towards him with a child tucked tightly in her arms.
Alpert stared at the woman who seemed to be stuck in a horrible fever. Thick beads of sweat pouring down her face already tinted a faint red. Her eyes seemed barely focused, and she was muttering something in elven—a lullaby. The image was an all too painful reminder of his own wife’s final moments, and quickly the councilman wrapped his jacket around the mother and tried to diagnose her problems based off his own limited knowledge of medicine. His efforts were in vain though, and Caitlin’s mother died less than an hour outside of Wyrmwick. Now an orphan, Caitlin was all alone in the world, and Alpert knew it. He couldn’t stand witnessing someone else endure the tragedy of living alone, and thus he employed the young Caitlin to be his servant so that she would have a home to stay in and a life inside of Wyrmwick.
However the relationship between Alpert and Caitlin extended far beyond a simple handmaiden. As she aged Alpert would employee elves to help teach her the ways of her people. She was taught the ways of the hunter, the ranger, and the scout. Due to her near constant supervision by either Alpert or one of her trainers, she adapted quickly to the ways of combat, and at the age of fifteen she was hired on as the official bodyguard of Councilman Alpert. She always knew she owed her life to him, and never questioned any task he asked of her. To her, Alpert was an amazing mentor—far more magnificent than any she deserved. To Alpert, Caitlin was the child he lost years ago, and the chance to live a life with a real family.
On her twentieth birthday Alpert pooled together a large amount of resources to have Caitlin built a custom rapier forged by true elven blacksmiths in the style of her people. This sword, called Corellon’s Thorn, holds very significant meaning to Caitlin. Not only is a treasured gift from the man she respects more than anyone else, but it was custom built for her, and the names of her parents are carved into the inside of the hilt.
Caitlin would do anything for Alpert which is why she never questioned him when he asked her to lend her skill to the resistance armies battling the demon horde. Though it pained him to send Caitlin, Alpert knew that the city of Wyrmwick needed her strength more than he did. Without hesitation she left her home behind to find what remained of the resistance army, and bring the threat of the Demon Baron to an end.
So yep, that’s Caitlin’s backstory. Less thematic than Juliet’s, but I still like the emotion. If you guys enjoyed reading this, I encourage you to check back in the next few days as I’m going to detail my process for creating Caitlin from start until finish. Hope you guys enjoyed.
Until next time, Namaste!
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