Damn Ropers!
Jun. 10th, 2004 01:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we had another session of Jeff's Dragonlance-themed campaign. This time, after a looooong period resting and enchanting, we got roped into a plot to kill Frost, the dragon overlord who plagues Southern Ergoth. Our secret assault was cut short when a Roper ambush forced us to reconsider our supply of clerical magic (and, possibly, our supply of clerics).
Fortunately, we'd set out a month and a half early because we were bored.
The party had about 100,000 gold to spend, each, in the tower of high sorcery, and access to not only the workshops that let unskilled artisans construct magical items, but to teleportation for shopping trips to Palanthas. It took about two months (75 days, actually) for the slowest of them (Mike) to spend all that.
During that time they passed on several possible jobs, like rescuing the remaining elves from the basement of the complex -- instead, Alhana hired some wizards to invis, scry, and teleport in and out to rescue them. Problem solved. And replaced with a Great Wyrm black, but that problem didn't periodically travel a thousand miles to bother Silvamori, so it was good enough.
About a month into it, Alhana did offer them another job, but they were told they could put off answering her summons until the spring solstice, so they waited until they were good and ready (and broke, except for Morgan, who bought a few small things, but was mostly trying to save up the >100k he needed to add 'speed' to his rapier).
Alhana *tried* to be polite and respectful to them, but she was still a jerk. 'The plot is to kill Frost. Don't worry, we're not hiring you to kill Frost -- it's obviously FAR beyond your power.' The fact that it was true, and the lack of concrete rules for honor, didn't keep that from being aggravating.
What they were actually hired to do was sneak into Frost's lair while Frost was being distracted by a bunch of dragons (some of whom were evil dragons the elves were planning to trick into attacking him) and destroy the dragon-skull totem that gave him his power. Oh, and to rescue two specific elves that Frost was purportedly keeping frozen in pillars of ice, somewhere in the lair.
Teleporting in would be suicide -- Frost's totem let him detect all teleportation within his domain, and he would no doubt respond immediately, with deadly results. Instead, they'd take a secret back route under the mountain range and then walk across the glacier to the lair. Once the totem was gone, teleporting out would be possible, and (the party decided) they could hide out in the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth, which was still unfindable by enemies of the tower. Theoretically, at least. And Frost wouldn't be a *full* dragon overlord anymore.
Alhana tried to convince them that Frost wouldn't hold a grudge against the party anyway, since the way dragons think, he'd look at the dragons involved in the plot and figure them for the masterminds.
The payment, in addition to the opportunity to loot Frost's lair, was two free True Resurrections to anyone in the party, and a free 50k item from Silvamori's vaults paid in advance to assist them on their quest (and to be returned if they should fail, or fail to attempt it). Kijj took wings of flying, Morgan got some new armor that didn't give him a spell failure chance, other people took other random normal things.
Of course, the whole plan depended on synchronization, so the party was to sneak up near the lair in advance, say a few days before the scheduled attack, then go in the day after Alhana sent them a message. The journey would take a month, tops, and they had three months before the assault was scheduled.
They spent a couple weeks asking around in Silvamori for information about Frost and his lair, and eventually were summoned by the expert on that who'd been absent, negotiating with the Solamnic Knights who guarded Misthaven for some of the dragonlances that were built there for use on the quest. He told them what he could -- Frost has 104 dragons of 'very old' age or higher working for him, but only one or two of them will be trusted inside his lair -- probably the most powerful. Expect all sorts of magic traps. Beware of the dragons doing flyby patrols of this entire island, and watch out for the strange stupid things I couldn't identify that plague the glacier.
Murphy asked about anti-dragon spells, and requested some dragonlances to help them, so this expert took them to Misthaven (a two day trip, and on the way to the secret passage) where they could meet the scout that would guide them and his 'friend who turned into a dragon' who knew all the anti-dragon spells.
Kijj asked about how he turned into a dragon, and he offered to show him how he could do it. "But it'll be painful! Really painful!" "I'm not afraid of pain!" Kijj of course replied.
The pain involved hammering a dragonscale into Kijj's chest. "That's step one. Step two is to be mind-controlled by a dragon overlord, and successfully resist the compulsion. Step three is to then kill that dragon overlord. Then you'll be able to steal its power, and change into a dragon like I can." "Ha! We're setting out to kill Frost even now! Once he's weakened, I'll have a shot!"
Riiiight.
The scout wanted to set out immediately, and spend the extra time exploring the underground passages that weren't on the way to the glacier, for completeness. The party was amenable to meeting strange underground denizens and killing them, but wanted to wait a few days for Murphy to scribe the anti-dragon spells.
At the end of that wait, the camp was attacked by walrus-men. The party volunteered to help the Solamnics defend their citadel, of course -- they couldn't let it fall to evil! It was the only source of dragonlances! Besides, this was a stupid army of stupid walruses, how hard could it be?
The battle *was* mostly a slaughter, but the knights' unfortunate choice of battleground worked against the party at every turn. It was almost as if they'd designed their wall specifically to be overrun by walrus-men! The everpresent mist hid the enemy until they were well within arrow range, so the party couldn't cast its defensive spells before battle. The wall was rough-hewn, and easily climbed by the walruses' claws. And there was a FREAKING RIVER not ten feet from the wall, which the walruses were as much at home in as land, and neither archers nor spellcasters could fire into effectively.
So what should have turned into a total slaughter proved rather dangerous. The opening fireballs were effective, but then the walrus-men dove into the water and were effectively immune to attack, except for actions readied to hit them as they popped out to throw javelins. After a few groups got toasted as they popped, they started sequencing their attacks so that only two were out of the water at a time, letting them do all their attacks while remaining immune to area spells.
Their attacks consisted of badly-thrown javelins, dangerous only because of the ludicrously high number of them tossed partywards. It doesn't matter how well protected you are when twenty javelins at a time are being flung at your face! Murphy in particular was almost killed, saved only by his bodyguard leaping off the wall to engage a dozen walruses single-handed. Mike continued to fireball any group of walruses foolish enough to leave the water, including a bunch that tried to climb the wall, and the group surrounding Tetsuyo (Murphy's bodyguard). Tetsuyo was badly burnt, but he lived.
Sonnet's inspirational singing aided the knightly archers, and she added her bow to their ranks -- the archer contingent took down many walruses, almost as many as the fireballs. Sawyer helped keep walruses off the walls, 'tripping' them to the ground as they tried to climb up past him. Kijj flew down with his new wings, hovered over the water where the walruses kept popping out, and charged back and forth with his axe, lopping off heads. Soon, the few surviving walruses (maybe 25 out of a hundred) swam for their lives, diving deep underwater to escape with no chance of pursuit.
The knights healed the party's wounds, and they set off for the secret passage. The day's travel there from Misthaven was uneventful, but after flying and/or climbing down a thousand feet, they were ambushed by four ropers.
The initial attack was devastating -- Morgan, Kijj, Sonnet, and the scout were wrapped up in two to six strength-draining tentacles each, and pulled towards the gnashing maws -- and Mike and Murphy both recognized that direct magical attacks against these creatures would be useless. Murphy lowered the spell resistance of the creature trying to eat Morgan, who wriggled out of the tentacles and ran away (with 7 strength left, out of 26).
Mike put a wall of stone around the creature near Kijj, keeping it from biting the minotaur... and keeping Kijj from fighting back without breaking the wall. Kijj was pissed -- he still had most of his strength, had been pulled within reach, and thought he could most likely kill the creature with a single attack sequence -- but instead cut himself loose from the tentacles, which were all he could reach, and fell fifty feet to the ground. Ow.
At this point, Tetsuyo was the one in danger from what was formerly Morgan's roper... but the threat it posed was ended by Mike's maximized scorching ray, which killed it in a single hit (of 108 fire damage). The scout -- more experienced than the party, apparently -- had no trouble taking out his roper. Kijj's roper was essentially neutralized by the wall of stone, at least for the moment. That left Sonnet's, which was tying up and draining both Sonnet and Sawyer.
So Kijj charged Sonnet's roper, finishing it off, and Mike and Morgan killed the last with spells from MOSTLY outside its tentacle range. Morgan had to get too close to cast his scorching ray, and was grabbed and drained of the last of his strength, paralyzing him. The roper died before it could bite off his head, though.
Kijj had a potion of lesser restoration that at least got Morgan back on his feet, but the party decided it would be foolish to sit for two weeks in a cavern, about a day and a half walk from Misthaven, waiting for the strength to return. So, after carefully studying their current location (to pick up where they left off -- they weren't in Frost's domain yet) they teleported back to Silvamori to get healed, and buy a wand of lesser restoration, in case the same sort of thing happened again.
last session | next session
I just took my last non-dragon-disciple level with Kijj, so starting next level I'll be slowly turning myself into a dragon. This corresponds wonderfully with the 'do this and you'll turn into a dragon' scam that got pulled on him.
I'm thinking of taking leadership as my 12th level feat, and picking up a cleric. Not having anyone in the party that can cast divine magic is a bit silly! It'll be the third cohort in the group, though.
Fortunately, we'd set out a month and a half early because we were bored.
The party had about 100,000 gold to spend, each, in the tower of high sorcery, and access to not only the workshops that let unskilled artisans construct magical items, but to teleportation for shopping trips to Palanthas. It took about two months (75 days, actually) for the slowest of them (Mike) to spend all that.
During that time they passed on several possible jobs, like rescuing the remaining elves from the basement of the complex -- instead, Alhana hired some wizards to invis, scry, and teleport in and out to rescue them. Problem solved. And replaced with a Great Wyrm black, but that problem didn't periodically travel a thousand miles to bother Silvamori, so it was good enough.
About a month into it, Alhana did offer them another job, but they were told they could put off answering her summons until the spring solstice, so they waited until they were good and ready (and broke, except for Morgan, who bought a few small things, but was mostly trying to save up the >100k he needed to add 'speed' to his rapier).
Alhana *tried* to be polite and respectful to them, but she was still a jerk. 'The plot is to kill Frost. Don't worry, we're not hiring you to kill Frost -- it's obviously FAR beyond your power.' The fact that it was true, and the lack of concrete rules for honor, didn't keep that from being aggravating.
What they were actually hired to do was sneak into Frost's lair while Frost was being distracted by a bunch of dragons (some of whom were evil dragons the elves were planning to trick into attacking him) and destroy the dragon-skull totem that gave him his power. Oh, and to rescue two specific elves that Frost was purportedly keeping frozen in pillars of ice, somewhere in the lair.
Teleporting in would be suicide -- Frost's totem let him detect all teleportation within his domain, and he would no doubt respond immediately, with deadly results. Instead, they'd take a secret back route under the mountain range and then walk across the glacier to the lair. Once the totem was gone, teleporting out would be possible, and (the party decided) they could hide out in the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth, which was still unfindable by enemies of the tower. Theoretically, at least. And Frost wouldn't be a *full* dragon overlord anymore.
Alhana tried to convince them that Frost wouldn't hold a grudge against the party anyway, since the way dragons think, he'd look at the dragons involved in the plot and figure them for the masterminds.
The payment, in addition to the opportunity to loot Frost's lair, was two free True Resurrections to anyone in the party, and a free 50k item from Silvamori's vaults paid in advance to assist them on their quest (and to be returned if they should fail, or fail to attempt it). Kijj took wings of flying, Morgan got some new armor that didn't give him a spell failure chance, other people took other random normal things.
Of course, the whole plan depended on synchronization, so the party was to sneak up near the lair in advance, say a few days before the scheduled attack, then go in the day after Alhana sent them a message. The journey would take a month, tops, and they had three months before the assault was scheduled.
They spent a couple weeks asking around in Silvamori for information about Frost and his lair, and eventually were summoned by the expert on that who'd been absent, negotiating with the Solamnic Knights who guarded Misthaven for some of the dragonlances that were built there for use on the quest. He told them what he could -- Frost has 104 dragons of 'very old' age or higher working for him, but only one or two of them will be trusted inside his lair -- probably the most powerful. Expect all sorts of magic traps. Beware of the dragons doing flyby patrols of this entire island, and watch out for the strange stupid things I couldn't identify that plague the glacier.
Murphy asked about anti-dragon spells, and requested some dragonlances to help them, so this expert took them to Misthaven (a two day trip, and on the way to the secret passage) where they could meet the scout that would guide them and his 'friend who turned into a dragon' who knew all the anti-dragon spells.
Kijj asked about how he turned into a dragon, and he offered to show him how he could do it. "But it'll be painful! Really painful!" "I'm not afraid of pain!" Kijj of course replied.
The pain involved hammering a dragonscale into Kijj's chest. "That's step one. Step two is to be mind-controlled by a dragon overlord, and successfully resist the compulsion. Step three is to then kill that dragon overlord. Then you'll be able to steal its power, and change into a dragon like I can." "Ha! We're setting out to kill Frost even now! Once he's weakened, I'll have a shot!"
Riiiight.
The scout wanted to set out immediately, and spend the extra time exploring the underground passages that weren't on the way to the glacier, for completeness. The party was amenable to meeting strange underground denizens and killing them, but wanted to wait a few days for Murphy to scribe the anti-dragon spells.
At the end of that wait, the camp was attacked by walrus-men. The party volunteered to help the Solamnics defend their citadel, of course -- they couldn't let it fall to evil! It was the only source of dragonlances! Besides, this was a stupid army of stupid walruses, how hard could it be?
The battle *was* mostly a slaughter, but the knights' unfortunate choice of battleground worked against the party at every turn. It was almost as if they'd designed their wall specifically to be overrun by walrus-men! The everpresent mist hid the enemy until they were well within arrow range, so the party couldn't cast its defensive spells before battle. The wall was rough-hewn, and easily climbed by the walruses' claws. And there was a FREAKING RIVER not ten feet from the wall, which the walruses were as much at home in as land, and neither archers nor spellcasters could fire into effectively.
So what should have turned into a total slaughter proved rather dangerous. The opening fireballs were effective, but then the walrus-men dove into the water and were effectively immune to attack, except for actions readied to hit them as they popped out to throw javelins. After a few groups got toasted as they popped, they started sequencing their attacks so that only two were out of the water at a time, letting them do all their attacks while remaining immune to area spells.
Their attacks consisted of badly-thrown javelins, dangerous only because of the ludicrously high number of them tossed partywards. It doesn't matter how well protected you are when twenty javelins at a time are being flung at your face! Murphy in particular was almost killed, saved only by his bodyguard leaping off the wall to engage a dozen walruses single-handed. Mike continued to fireball any group of walruses foolish enough to leave the water, including a bunch that tried to climb the wall, and the group surrounding Tetsuyo (Murphy's bodyguard). Tetsuyo was badly burnt, but he lived.
Sonnet's inspirational singing aided the knightly archers, and she added her bow to their ranks -- the archer contingent took down many walruses, almost as many as the fireballs. Sawyer helped keep walruses off the walls, 'tripping' them to the ground as they tried to climb up past him. Kijj flew down with his new wings, hovered over the water where the walruses kept popping out, and charged back and forth with his axe, lopping off heads. Soon, the few surviving walruses (maybe 25 out of a hundred) swam for their lives, diving deep underwater to escape with no chance of pursuit.
The knights healed the party's wounds, and they set off for the secret passage. The day's travel there from Misthaven was uneventful, but after flying and/or climbing down a thousand feet, they were ambushed by four ropers.
The initial attack was devastating -- Morgan, Kijj, Sonnet, and the scout were wrapped up in two to six strength-draining tentacles each, and pulled towards the gnashing maws -- and Mike and Murphy both recognized that direct magical attacks against these creatures would be useless. Murphy lowered the spell resistance of the creature trying to eat Morgan, who wriggled out of the tentacles and ran away (with 7 strength left, out of 26).
Mike put a wall of stone around the creature near Kijj, keeping it from biting the minotaur... and keeping Kijj from fighting back without breaking the wall. Kijj was pissed -- he still had most of his strength, had been pulled within reach, and thought he could most likely kill the creature with a single attack sequence -- but instead cut himself loose from the tentacles, which were all he could reach, and fell fifty feet to the ground. Ow.
At this point, Tetsuyo was the one in danger from what was formerly Morgan's roper... but the threat it posed was ended by Mike's maximized scorching ray, which killed it in a single hit (of 108 fire damage). The scout -- more experienced than the party, apparently -- had no trouble taking out his roper. Kijj's roper was essentially neutralized by the wall of stone, at least for the moment. That left Sonnet's, which was tying up and draining both Sonnet and Sawyer.
So Kijj charged Sonnet's roper, finishing it off, and Mike and Morgan killed the last with spells from MOSTLY outside its tentacle range. Morgan had to get too close to cast his scorching ray, and was grabbed and drained of the last of his strength, paralyzing him. The roper died before it could bite off his head, though.
Kijj had a potion of lesser restoration that at least got Morgan back on his feet, but the party decided it would be foolish to sit for two weeks in a cavern, about a day and a half walk from Misthaven, waiting for the strength to return. So, after carefully studying their current location (to pick up where they left off -- they weren't in Frost's domain yet) they teleported back to Silvamori to get healed, and buy a wand of lesser restoration, in case the same sort of thing happened again.
last session | next session
I just took my last non-dragon-disciple level with Kijj, so starting next level I'll be slowly turning myself into a dragon. This corresponds wonderfully with the 'do this and you'll turn into a dragon' scam that got pulled on him.
I'm thinking of taking leadership as my 12th level feat, and picking up a cleric. Not having anyone in the party that can cast divine magic is a bit silly! It'll be the third cohort in the group, though.
