Intensely Stupid Player Characters
Oct. 15th, 2002 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Lance's game, where we proved that not only are we really, really stupid, but that we don't learn from our mistakes. Then we played around with construction equipment and argued theology.
The party started out with only the small wine cellar of the hangar to search for monsters, to complete the emperor's task of making the airport safe for his august personage to visit. The wine cellar contains many bottles of wine on huge racks lining the walls, which were searched compulsively since 'wine cellars always have secret doors'.
Sure enough, the wine cellar contained a secret door. It was trapped, but the poison on the needle seemed to have evaporated in the 200 years it had lain dormant, luckily for Ozzie. Beyond the secret door was a hallway lined with statues of various monsters -- a gauntlet of traps that had the party following lines of runes on the floor, searching for keywords among garbage text on the statues, pressing hidden switches and levers, fighting infinitely regenerating automatons while other party members searched frantically for the 'off' switch, and generally taking lots and lots of damage. Finally, they located the secret door next to the giant, fire-trapped false doors, and entered the temple of the beast lords.
It wasn't obvious that it was a temple at first. The first section they entered looked more like an arena, with fearsome creatures trapped in stasis. What do you think the party did?
(a) Ignore the monsters and search for treasure.
(b) Watch the monsters carefully, and be careful not to spring the trap that would set them loose.
(c) Turn right around and leave that section of the temple.
(d) Consult the Oracle of the Mythal to discover that the monsters were all the most dangerous monsters in the world, then set one free, almost get killed before trapping it again, set the same monster free again, almost get killed again, then set a *different* monster free?
[sigh]
After that fiasco, a less hostile section of the temple was explored, containing two huge transporter mirrors that led to a quarter million different locations (with no indication of what combination would lead back to the temple), an extensive library with an interactive holographic librarian, four undead liches who were (apparently) bound to answer all questions truthfully and do no harm, and a bunch of magic items that couldn't be claimed without converting to the heretical religion of the beast lords.
Several party members considered switching over, but after reporting to the emporer the depth of enmity between the dragons and the beast lords was revealed, and the party was ordered to destroy the temple and everything in it. The dragons seemed to want the party to brave the armory to retrieve enough blasting powder to do the job, but Wren came up with the idea that instead they'd have the giant crystal construction spider they'd found earlier fill the temple in with cement.
Wren and Ray'ia set to the task immediately, while Ozzie and Largo looked uncomfortable and sat about the castle, brooding. They were approached by a shadowy figure, a Beast Lord of Scorpion in training, who was quite surprised by their enthusiastic agreement when asked to help move the valuable books and equipment out of the temple before it was destroyed, before he could even offer to bribe them. Ira, the tiny cleric/guardian, also came along to assist. With a lot of hard work, they managed to move everything safely through the mirror to a castle floating in the clouds somewhere, and the Beast Lord teleported them to safety as the cement oozed in, leaving them with a charm that could be used to contact him.
They were seen by Ray'ia returning to the castle, but she was unable to pry an admission of guilt from them. Instead the conversation degenerated into angry shouting about faith in the gods vs. personal freedom and doing what you know is right. Ozzie openly insulted the leader of the gods, criticized the emporer's orders, and expressed an extreme distaste for the entire idea of rebuilding the ancient empire... in the throne room, while the emporer looked on. Of course, since he comprised approximately 20% of the so-called-empire's total military might, there was little chance of any actual reprisal.
After all the drama, Ray'ia remembered that there was one door in the actual wine cellar -- remember the wine cellar? -- that they hadn't searched, and so somewhat under protest, Ozzie disarmed the traps on it (wondering, again, who in their right mind set so many fricking traps on EVERYTHING), but had a very *bad feeling* about what might be on the other side, and so asked Ray'ia to handle the actual opening.
As the monk opened the door, a sparkling field swept over her, and Wren, and Ozzie, and they all went 'zoop!' and vanished.
Largo, meanwhile, was several miles away bedding the female members of his tribe.
last week next week
The party started out with only the small wine cellar of the hangar to search for monsters, to complete the emperor's task of making the airport safe for his august personage to visit. The wine cellar contains many bottles of wine on huge racks lining the walls, which were searched compulsively since 'wine cellars always have secret doors'.
Sure enough, the wine cellar contained a secret door. It was trapped, but the poison on the needle seemed to have evaporated in the 200 years it had lain dormant, luckily for Ozzie. Beyond the secret door was a hallway lined with statues of various monsters -- a gauntlet of traps that had the party following lines of runes on the floor, searching for keywords among garbage text on the statues, pressing hidden switches and levers, fighting infinitely regenerating automatons while other party members searched frantically for the 'off' switch, and generally taking lots and lots of damage. Finally, they located the secret door next to the giant, fire-trapped false doors, and entered the temple of the beast lords.
It wasn't obvious that it was a temple at first. The first section they entered looked more like an arena, with fearsome creatures trapped in stasis. What do you think the party did?
(a) Ignore the monsters and search for treasure.
(b) Watch the monsters carefully, and be careful not to spring the trap that would set them loose.
(c) Turn right around and leave that section of the temple.
(d) Consult the Oracle of the Mythal to discover that the monsters were all the most dangerous monsters in the world, then set one free, almost get killed before trapping it again, set the same monster free again, almost get killed again, then set a *different* monster free?
[sigh]
After that fiasco, a less hostile section of the temple was explored, containing two huge transporter mirrors that led to a quarter million different locations (with no indication of what combination would lead back to the temple), an extensive library with an interactive holographic librarian, four undead liches who were (apparently) bound to answer all questions truthfully and do no harm, and a bunch of magic items that couldn't be claimed without converting to the heretical religion of the beast lords.
Several party members considered switching over, but after reporting to the emporer the depth of enmity between the dragons and the beast lords was revealed, and the party was ordered to destroy the temple and everything in it. The dragons seemed to want the party to brave the armory to retrieve enough blasting powder to do the job, but Wren came up with the idea that instead they'd have the giant crystal construction spider they'd found earlier fill the temple in with cement.
Wren and Ray'ia set to the task immediately, while Ozzie and Largo looked uncomfortable and sat about the castle, brooding. They were approached by a shadowy figure, a Beast Lord of Scorpion in training, who was quite surprised by their enthusiastic agreement when asked to help move the valuable books and equipment out of the temple before it was destroyed, before he could even offer to bribe them. Ira, the tiny cleric/guardian, also came along to assist. With a lot of hard work, they managed to move everything safely through the mirror to a castle floating in the clouds somewhere, and the Beast Lord teleported them to safety as the cement oozed in, leaving them with a charm that could be used to contact him.
They were seen by Ray'ia returning to the castle, but she was unable to pry an admission of guilt from them. Instead the conversation degenerated into angry shouting about faith in the gods vs. personal freedom and doing what you know is right. Ozzie openly insulted the leader of the gods, criticized the emporer's orders, and expressed an extreme distaste for the entire idea of rebuilding the ancient empire... in the throne room, while the emporer looked on. Of course, since he comprised approximately 20% of the so-called-empire's total military might, there was little chance of any actual reprisal.
After all the drama, Ray'ia remembered that there was one door in the actual wine cellar -- remember the wine cellar? -- that they hadn't searched, and so somewhat under protest, Ozzie disarmed the traps on it (wondering, again, who in their right mind set so many fricking traps on EVERYTHING), but had a very *bad feeling* about what might be on the other side, and so asked Ray'ia to handle the actual opening.
As the monk opened the door, a sparkling field swept over her, and Wren, and Ozzie, and they all went 'zoop!' and vanished.
Largo, meanwhile, was several miles away bedding the female members of his tribe.
last week next week
