Incidental Vampires
Nov. 7th, 2004 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday we had a session of the body-swapping demon campaign. We reached a major landmark, where many of our enemies had set up shop, and began the slow process of invading it in order to regain our identities.
Dave and Michelle were gone, but we decided to go ahead without them - 4 of 6 players is enough. There were some loud angry arguments, but this time I wasn't involved in them, which means that from *my* point of view it went better than the last few sessions.
It took a day and a half for the party to reach the tower where they were pretty sure the body-switching machine was located, during which time the rest of their demon powers faded, to be replaced by their remembered spells and skills.
It turned out the tower *wasn't* underground, as they'd assumed, but merely in a deep ravine. Jyrras, the harpy bard, remembered the tales he'd heard about this place better as he approached and was able to see it with his own eyes -- a cult had sacrificed to its demon masters, here, before all suddenly vanishing. Since then, however, everyone *else* who'd gone in had also vanished. There was also supposed to be a black dragon living there now. People prepared appropriately, although many decided to wait on the resist-acid spells until they sighted the dragon with their own eyes. Hopefully before it saw them.
Nothing attacked them as they approached, until they reached the base of the tower, and sent the succubus ranger (Felinne) up to scout, invisible. This awoke the Mooncalf, which turned itself invisible and started raining lightning bolts on them from the suddenly cloudy and stormy sky (to no effect; most of them were immune to lightning). With the help of a few spells, the entire party was able to start flying up towards the top of the tower, some much faster than others. The fastest was the druid in Dire Eagle form, who managed to reach the top so quickly that he ended up *above* the Control Wind spell gust that blew everyone else downwards, which meant he was the one that the mooncalf wrapped its tentacles around and grappled.
The top of the tower was very uneven, and by flying around the base the party would be able to enter the tower without going through the zone of heavy winds -- Felinne told them that telepathically, while looping around. The grappled druid changed into a dire bear to try to bear the mooncalf downwards, and was partially successful -- it dropped him 80 feet into the bowl at the top of the tower, instead. He landed heavily near the very dead, half-eaten body of the black dragon, out of which burst a trio of wights.
Jyrras celebrated the return of his bard spells by glitterdusting the mooncalf (which had blindsight) and failing to suggest it fly off and bother someone else. It ignored him at first, in favor of attacking Vlad (the hydra sorcerer), who'd been pricking it with magic missiles, but when Vlad dimension doored inside the tower, taking the cleric Colleen and the energy-draining barbarian with him, that left Jyrras as the nearest target, and sure enough he was wrapped up and dragged in for brain-devouring... he tried to bluff it into letting him go "What are you doing? I'm on *your* side!" and managed to confuse it. It wouldn't let go of him, but delayed eating him long enough for the two flying tanks (the marilith paladin and the energy-draining barbarian) to take it out.
The wights were no threat at all, and were taken out in melee by the cleric and druid with no injuries sustained.
Suprisingly, much of the dragon's treasure was intact. They left the bulky piles of silver, but took the gems, magic items, and such, and moved down into the tower. Vlad's familiar had met with them the previous day, and was interrogated for the route down to the machine. "Take the south door. Or... maybe the north. I don't remember, I was running from the vampires!"
So of course they first went west, to check out the coffins scattered about the room through the open archway. Vampires dropped down to attack, but they really weren't much of a threat, even after they called in some reinforcements... at least, not while Vlad had fireballs left to fling at them. Since their coffins were in the very same room, they were easy to stake immediately, although several of them got away unkilled, and the party was leery about chasing after them, since they were mostly a distraction from their real mission.
Jyrras felt a tug of recognition from a room adjacent to the coffin room, and so they opened the door to see a pair of vampires feasting on a roomfull of corpses. The cleric turned the pair, and while the fighter-types walked up to beat them to death (their coffins were in the coffin room too), Jyrras rescued his body from the pile of corpses. It was still alive! Apparently, the demon in his body was able to use bluff checks as well.
They tried to negotiate with the extremely weakened harpy-in-bard's-clothing for information, and didn't get much of use -- he'd apparently decided that the whole body-swapping plan was stupid, and worse, a front for a vampire lord to take over the world by herding the townsfolk in to be converted to vampire spawn. Having the demons in human bodies made them easier to control, since the vampires could then dominate them -- that was the real reason for all the forced swaps. He just wanted to switch back, and go back to hell... so, if that could be believed, his aims coincided with the party's nicely, as they wanted him swapped back and then sent to hell. Still, they Charmed him for good measure.
All his equipment had been looted, though, so they decided to check out the rest of this vampire-infested level to see if they could find it. The first closet they peeked in was full of shadows, which didn't last long, but drained a few points of strength... and a shadow mastiff which charged through the party's ranks -- drawing AoOs -- to nuzzle up to the energy-draining barbarian's feet.
"Um... good dog?"
last session | next session
Dave and Michelle were gone, but we decided to go ahead without them - 4 of 6 players is enough. There were some loud angry arguments, but this time I wasn't involved in them, which means that from *my* point of view it went better than the last few sessions.
It took a day and a half for the party to reach the tower where they were pretty sure the body-switching machine was located, during which time the rest of their demon powers faded, to be replaced by their remembered spells and skills.
It turned out the tower *wasn't* underground, as they'd assumed, but merely in a deep ravine. Jyrras, the harpy bard, remembered the tales he'd heard about this place better as he approached and was able to see it with his own eyes -- a cult had sacrificed to its demon masters, here, before all suddenly vanishing. Since then, however, everyone *else* who'd gone in had also vanished. There was also supposed to be a black dragon living there now. People prepared appropriately, although many decided to wait on the resist-acid spells until they sighted the dragon with their own eyes. Hopefully before it saw them.
Nothing attacked them as they approached, until they reached the base of the tower, and sent the succubus ranger (Felinne) up to scout, invisible. This awoke the Mooncalf, which turned itself invisible and started raining lightning bolts on them from the suddenly cloudy and stormy sky (to no effect; most of them were immune to lightning). With the help of a few spells, the entire party was able to start flying up towards the top of the tower, some much faster than others. The fastest was the druid in Dire Eagle form, who managed to reach the top so quickly that he ended up *above* the Control Wind spell gust that blew everyone else downwards, which meant he was the one that the mooncalf wrapped its tentacles around and grappled.
The top of the tower was very uneven, and by flying around the base the party would be able to enter the tower without going through the zone of heavy winds -- Felinne told them that telepathically, while looping around. The grappled druid changed into a dire bear to try to bear the mooncalf downwards, and was partially successful -- it dropped him 80 feet into the bowl at the top of the tower, instead. He landed heavily near the very dead, half-eaten body of the black dragon, out of which burst a trio of wights.
Jyrras celebrated the return of his bard spells by glitterdusting the mooncalf (which had blindsight) and failing to suggest it fly off and bother someone else. It ignored him at first, in favor of attacking Vlad (the hydra sorcerer), who'd been pricking it with magic missiles, but when Vlad dimension doored inside the tower, taking the cleric Colleen and the energy-draining barbarian with him, that left Jyrras as the nearest target, and sure enough he was wrapped up and dragged in for brain-devouring... he tried to bluff it into letting him go "What are you doing? I'm on *your* side!" and managed to confuse it. It wouldn't let go of him, but delayed eating him long enough for the two flying tanks (the marilith paladin and the energy-draining barbarian) to take it out.
The wights were no threat at all, and were taken out in melee by the cleric and druid with no injuries sustained.
Suprisingly, much of the dragon's treasure was intact. They left the bulky piles of silver, but took the gems, magic items, and such, and moved down into the tower. Vlad's familiar had met with them the previous day, and was interrogated for the route down to the machine. "Take the south door. Or... maybe the north. I don't remember, I was running from the vampires!"
So of course they first went west, to check out the coffins scattered about the room through the open archway. Vampires dropped down to attack, but they really weren't much of a threat, even after they called in some reinforcements... at least, not while Vlad had fireballs left to fling at them. Since their coffins were in the very same room, they were easy to stake immediately, although several of them got away unkilled, and the party was leery about chasing after them, since they were mostly a distraction from their real mission.
Jyrras felt a tug of recognition from a room adjacent to the coffin room, and so they opened the door to see a pair of vampires feasting on a roomfull of corpses. The cleric turned the pair, and while the fighter-types walked up to beat them to death (their coffins were in the coffin room too), Jyrras rescued his body from the pile of corpses. It was still alive! Apparently, the demon in his body was able to use bluff checks as well.
They tried to negotiate with the extremely weakened harpy-in-bard's-clothing for information, and didn't get much of use -- he'd apparently decided that the whole body-swapping plan was stupid, and worse, a front for a vampire lord to take over the world by herding the townsfolk in to be converted to vampire spawn. Having the demons in human bodies made them easier to control, since the vampires could then dominate them -- that was the real reason for all the forced swaps. He just wanted to switch back, and go back to hell... so, if that could be believed, his aims coincided with the party's nicely, as they wanted him swapped back and then sent to hell. Still, they Charmed him for good measure.
All his equipment had been looted, though, so they decided to check out the rest of this vampire-infested level to see if they could find it. The first closet they peeked in was full of shadows, which didn't last long, but drained a few points of strength... and a shadow mastiff which charged through the party's ranks -- drawing AoOs -- to nuzzle up to the energy-draining barbarian's feet.
"Um... good dog?"
last session | next session
