Military Operations
Nov. 16th, 2004 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we had a session of Jeff's Darksun campaign. Once again, Stacey and her brother were missing -- last week it was because she was sick, this week it was because her mother's boyfriend gambled away his paycheck and therefore didn't get her a present -- so the whole family (she listed off at least six different relations on the phone) had to sit up and comfort her.
This sort of thing seems to happen with Stacey all the time. I'm not sure whether to be annoyed with her or feel sorry for her.
Laika's night scouting mission went well. This was a bad thing. The enemy camp was easy to find, as it was only four miles from the temple, and had twice as many Gith in it as they'd hoped were in the entire force -- Gith from three different tribes, one of which in particular had a strange banner with an extraplanar rune on it. At least he managed to get away without being seen.
As he approached the temple to rest, though, he spotted a group of about fifteen Gith lurking on a dune overlooking it. Through the mindlink, Cypher and April were informed, and they dimension-doored within fireball range to arrange a counter-ambush. April did most of the work -- sonic fireballs and an Evard's Black Tentacles trapped the Gith and blasted them to bits. The leader escaped, unfortunately, having had too many defensive spells up for Laika to finish him off. Cypher dominated the last two survivors, and then after a quick unsuccessful check to try to find the psion Gith (under the assumption that he'd dimension doored) the party went to work looting the corpses.
...and the psion reappeared, right in the middle of them, and unleashed an energy blast -- he hadn't left at all, he'd simply timeslipped into the future to get out of the tentacles. Magic missiles and arrows put an end to him, though, and Cypher managed to maintain his concentration on the dominate.
The dominated Gith were made to answer questions, but didn't know much. This group hadn't been spying, really -- the insanely overconfident psion had been planning to have them attack on their own and retrieve the item of great power thought to be hidden within the temple for himself. Apparently, the army of Gith thought that with the item from the temple, they'd be able to take over the surface world.
The party tried to get directions back to the Gith's home camps (with the thought of taking their noncombatants hostage), but the Gith couldn't give good directions to people who couldn't track by scent. They did give reasonable, if vague, directions to the mine from which the rune tribe had gotten all their steel-tipped spears. It was a ways away, in the southern mountains, though.
After they were satisfied they'd gotten everything they could from the prisoners, they let the escaped slaves torture them to death, and decided to sneak into the depths of the temple to see this item of power for themselves.
The plan was for April to slip down through the crack the escaped slaves used to dispose of waste water, invisible, in ectoplasmic form, using the mindlink to talk to the party and let them dimension door down to join her. It went off more or less without a hitch, except that she forgot to bring any sort of light source, and had to dismiss her ectoplasmic form to cast one before being able to look around and verify that it was safe. It *was* safe, though, so no harm was done.
The party started exploring below the temple, and quickly found two rooms with trapdoors in the ceiling -- locked from the top, but no doubt how Tenpegs, the leader of the slaves, had entered -- as well as the ceramic pipe that sent water up to the altar. They avoided some asps, and started heading down the main corridor.
Then the spirits showed up. "Infidel!" "Intruder!" "How dare you defile this place!" And so on. The party tried to convince the spirits that they were only planning to loot the place to keep the powerful item from falling into the wrong hands, but the spirits weren't buying it -- they insisted the party leave until they could show proper deference and respect, or get permission from one who had.
Given their cynicism about the spirits -- they basically figured they were monsters of some sort -- the party decided that actually showing deference wasn't likely to happen. They'd have to talk to Tenpegs to get permission -- he certainly seemed to show deference.
With the idea of finding a way to get back down without teleporting, they dimension doored up to just the other side of one of the locked trapdoors, and found themselves in a treasure chamber, with unimaginable wealth -- a suit of metal, magical plate mail, metal swords, some of them magical, and more. They discussed taking the treasure and running -- there was more wealth in that one room than any of them had seen in their lives -- the platemail alone was worth 150,000 ceramic *without* the enchantment on it.
But they were heard moving around in the room by someone outside the walls, who called Tenpegs over to investigate, so instead of taking one of the secret doors (which were quite obvious from the inside), they dimension-doored back to their tent to pretend that nothing had happened.
Tenpegs wasn't fooled, though, and headed right for them. Cypher immediately admitted everything, and since they hadn't taken anything or caused any real harm, and had turned back as soon as the spirits had objected to their presence, Tenpegs was mollified by his honesty. He refused to give permission, though, at least not until all hope was lost. April tried to convince him that all hope was *already* lost, but he wasn't buying it. So, since it was almost dawn, they went to sleep to recharge for the next day's work.
The next day they took a group of escaped slaves out to the nearby obsidian quarry to get materials for inferior weapons. Some wild muls ran off at the sight of the large group approaching, and it was a matter of seconds for April to stone-shape the rough forms of enough weapons to arm the entire group, which needed only a few finishing touches to be dangerous sharp pointy things. Back at the temple, Tenpegs said that he'd be able to finish them all by the time the Gith were expected to be ready to attack (they'd looked about a week out from attacking, when Laika had scouted them).
After that they contacted the elf scout (Nala), who told them that the caravan from the forest, with all the carpenters and engineers in it, was about to leave the road and enter the danger zone. So they travelled out to meet it, hoping to run across some Gith on the way to help thin their ranks, especially the ranks of scouting parties that might intercept the caravan.
They ran into a group of the Rune tribe, and while Laika's combat air patrol was able to give them a few seconds' warning, this patrol was from the Rune tribe. Every Gith in the Rune tribe was able to use Ego Whip, which dropped April's charisma dangerously low, and kept Laika stunned for most of the battle. Fireballs carried the day against the rank and file though, regardless, and Cypher kept the leader stunned through the whole fight, until he dropped into a coma.
Among the treasure, they found a signal horn, and April decided to blow it to try to lure another Gith patrol to its doom. April hadn't completely healed her own charisma, though, and utterly screwed up playing the horn, so soon about sixty Gith were heading their way. A little too many to fight, especially if they could all Ego Whip.
Since the caravan was still a ways to the south, the party decided to lead off the Gith by leaving an obvious track, to draw them away from the caravan's path. This didn't work. The losses they'd inflicted on the patrols did work, though, and the Gith pulled their patrols back to the main camp to stop the bleeding, which let the caravan through without further incident.
With the engineers safely back, and the main Gith push expected at any moment, thought turned to fortifications, which always boiled down to the same problem -- was there any way to keep the people on the walls from falling prey to the enemy psions?
last week | next week
This sort of thing seems to happen with Stacey all the time. I'm not sure whether to be annoyed with her or feel sorry for her.
Laika's night scouting mission went well. This was a bad thing. The enemy camp was easy to find, as it was only four miles from the temple, and had twice as many Gith in it as they'd hoped were in the entire force -- Gith from three different tribes, one of which in particular had a strange banner with an extraplanar rune on it. At least he managed to get away without being seen.
As he approached the temple to rest, though, he spotted a group of about fifteen Gith lurking on a dune overlooking it. Through the mindlink, Cypher and April were informed, and they dimension-doored within fireball range to arrange a counter-ambush. April did most of the work -- sonic fireballs and an Evard's Black Tentacles trapped the Gith and blasted them to bits. The leader escaped, unfortunately, having had too many defensive spells up for Laika to finish him off. Cypher dominated the last two survivors, and then after a quick unsuccessful check to try to find the psion Gith (under the assumption that he'd dimension doored) the party went to work looting the corpses.
...and the psion reappeared, right in the middle of them, and unleashed an energy blast -- he hadn't left at all, he'd simply timeslipped into the future to get out of the tentacles. Magic missiles and arrows put an end to him, though, and Cypher managed to maintain his concentration on the dominate.
The dominated Gith were made to answer questions, but didn't know much. This group hadn't been spying, really -- the insanely overconfident psion had been planning to have them attack on their own and retrieve the item of great power thought to be hidden within the temple for himself. Apparently, the army of Gith thought that with the item from the temple, they'd be able to take over the surface world.
The party tried to get directions back to the Gith's home camps (with the thought of taking their noncombatants hostage), but the Gith couldn't give good directions to people who couldn't track by scent. They did give reasonable, if vague, directions to the mine from which the rune tribe had gotten all their steel-tipped spears. It was a ways away, in the southern mountains, though.
After they were satisfied they'd gotten everything they could from the prisoners, they let the escaped slaves torture them to death, and decided to sneak into the depths of the temple to see this item of power for themselves.
The plan was for April to slip down through the crack the escaped slaves used to dispose of waste water, invisible, in ectoplasmic form, using the mindlink to talk to the party and let them dimension door down to join her. It went off more or less without a hitch, except that she forgot to bring any sort of light source, and had to dismiss her ectoplasmic form to cast one before being able to look around and verify that it was safe. It *was* safe, though, so no harm was done.
The party started exploring below the temple, and quickly found two rooms with trapdoors in the ceiling -- locked from the top, but no doubt how Tenpegs, the leader of the slaves, had entered -- as well as the ceramic pipe that sent water up to the altar. They avoided some asps, and started heading down the main corridor.
Then the spirits showed up. "Infidel!" "Intruder!" "How dare you defile this place!" And so on. The party tried to convince the spirits that they were only planning to loot the place to keep the powerful item from falling into the wrong hands, but the spirits weren't buying it -- they insisted the party leave until they could show proper deference and respect, or get permission from one who had.
Given their cynicism about the spirits -- they basically figured they were monsters of some sort -- the party decided that actually showing deference wasn't likely to happen. They'd have to talk to Tenpegs to get permission -- he certainly seemed to show deference.
With the idea of finding a way to get back down without teleporting, they dimension doored up to just the other side of one of the locked trapdoors, and found themselves in a treasure chamber, with unimaginable wealth -- a suit of metal, magical plate mail, metal swords, some of them magical, and more. They discussed taking the treasure and running -- there was more wealth in that one room than any of them had seen in their lives -- the platemail alone was worth 150,000 ceramic *without* the enchantment on it.
But they were heard moving around in the room by someone outside the walls, who called Tenpegs over to investigate, so instead of taking one of the secret doors (which were quite obvious from the inside), they dimension-doored back to their tent to pretend that nothing had happened.
Tenpegs wasn't fooled, though, and headed right for them. Cypher immediately admitted everything, and since they hadn't taken anything or caused any real harm, and had turned back as soon as the spirits had objected to their presence, Tenpegs was mollified by his honesty. He refused to give permission, though, at least not until all hope was lost. April tried to convince him that all hope was *already* lost, but he wasn't buying it. So, since it was almost dawn, they went to sleep to recharge for the next day's work.
The next day they took a group of escaped slaves out to the nearby obsidian quarry to get materials for inferior weapons. Some wild muls ran off at the sight of the large group approaching, and it was a matter of seconds for April to stone-shape the rough forms of enough weapons to arm the entire group, which needed only a few finishing touches to be dangerous sharp pointy things. Back at the temple, Tenpegs said that he'd be able to finish them all by the time the Gith were expected to be ready to attack (they'd looked about a week out from attacking, when Laika had scouted them).
After that they contacted the elf scout (Nala), who told them that the caravan from the forest, with all the carpenters and engineers in it, was about to leave the road and enter the danger zone. So they travelled out to meet it, hoping to run across some Gith on the way to help thin their ranks, especially the ranks of scouting parties that might intercept the caravan.
They ran into a group of the Rune tribe, and while Laika's combat air patrol was able to give them a few seconds' warning, this patrol was from the Rune tribe. Every Gith in the Rune tribe was able to use Ego Whip, which dropped April's charisma dangerously low, and kept Laika stunned for most of the battle. Fireballs carried the day against the rank and file though, regardless, and Cypher kept the leader stunned through the whole fight, until he dropped into a coma.
Among the treasure, they found a signal horn, and April decided to blow it to try to lure another Gith patrol to its doom. April hadn't completely healed her own charisma, though, and utterly screwed up playing the horn, so soon about sixty Gith were heading their way. A little too many to fight, especially if they could all Ego Whip.
Since the caravan was still a ways to the south, the party decided to lead off the Gith by leaving an obvious track, to draw them away from the caravan's path. This didn't work. The losses they'd inflicted on the patrols did work, though, and the Gith pulled their patrols back to the main camp to stop the bleeding, which let the caravan through without further incident.
With the engineers safely back, and the main Gith push expected at any moment, thought turned to fortifications, which always boiled down to the same problem -- was there any way to keep the people on the walls from falling prey to the enemy psions?
last week | next week
