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terryclothDan flaked again, last night, and this time finally told us straight out that he wasn't interested in running D+D anymore. So we decided to run a high level plane-walking campaign, and made new characters. Again. Sigh.
Since we were starting at level 18, I took the opportunity to break out the new Savage Species, and I'm playing a young silver dragon. No class levels, but with level-appropriate equipment even a young dragon is pretty badass. I used 'Leadership' to get a cohort... a halfling cleric is small enough to ride on my back, and high enough level to cast heal. A useful pet. Since we were buying equipment out of the DMG, a pet with several scrolls of True Ressurection.
I named the dragon 'Ryu', the rider/cohort is 'Nina'.
Ed took a mage who doesn't have a name yet, specificaly so that he could cast 9th level spells. The first spell cast in the game (not counting long-duration buffs) was Time Stop. An utter waste of a Time Stop, but only because the GM was sort of railroady. 'No, you can't time-stop and kill the main bad guy in the first scene, because he has a wall of force up. A special wall of force that's immune to disintegrate. Ha!'
Luis, of course, is playing a cat-person monk Ray'ia... not the cat-people from Savage Species, though, just the non-ECL version that's a lot like a halfling, stat-wise. 18th level monks are pretty powerful, especially when you misinterpret Ki Strike.
Making characters took a long time, but we did get to play the game a little.
The game started with the three characters being the remainder of a once-proud adventuring company who'd conquered the world, and each ruled as much of the surrounding area as they felt comfortable with. Ray'ia was the head of a secluded monastary, Nameless had a tower from which he ruled a nation, and Ryu... well, Ryu was the son of the silver dragon who'd travelled with the original party. She was deep in dragon sleep, and had left him, as her favorite son, to run the family business while she slept. So he was mostly a banker, although he also served as guardian for the local branch of the cult of the dragon god.
The three of them were surprised by a message from a fourth surviving member of the party, who now lived in a floating fortress. He sent them each an earring (enchanted with 'Tongues' and the spell that lets you communicate across distances), a pocketwatch-looking device, and a scroll telling them that if they were receiving this message, he was in trouble.
It was quickly decided via earring to meet at the floating fortress post-haste, although of course they needed a little time to arm themselves and, in Ryu's case, fetch his high priestess to aid them. They were transported to the tower using the pocketwatch devices, which were flashy and not nearly as convenient as simply teleporting.
Even with the slight delay, they were in time to hear the enemy cackling over having stolen their friend's soul, and rushed to attack!
The battle took place at the top of the tower -- five vaguely draconic constructs, a stereotypical demon with a spectral hand at the end of its tail, and a red-robed mage who held what was obviously their friend's soul in his hand. Ray'ia and Nameless moved quickly, but were unable to reach the mage as he had a special wall of force around him and the demon that was impervious to everything, including the normal methods of bringing down a wall of force. Ryu, seeing them fail, flew through the room, scattering the constructs, but only taking down one in passing, who'd already been severely wounded by one of Nameless' passing spells.
The mage cackled and disappeared using what looked like another pocketwatch, and ordered his demon to steal all their souls. The Wall of Cutscene vanished with him, and Ray'ia began to spar with the demon... then Nameless centered two fireballs on her, knowing (since they were old companions) that she literally *could not fail* to evade his spells, and the demon and the construct that had come to help it were both destroyed.
Ryu and Ray'ia mopped up the rest of the enemies. Ryu was the only one during the entire battle to take any damage at all -- a single massive hit from the construct's evil-looking claw that nearly ripped his head off. He lived, though... and retaliated with equal force while Nina healed him.
The enemy defeated, they went to check their friend's library to figure out who had attacked him and where they might be. They discovered that their friend had been travelling the 'Cenotaph Road', which travelled between multiverses (and thus, spells like plane shift or discern location would not work). The enemies were from an unknown multiverse and considered themselves the rulers and sole owners of the Road, although they were hardly the undisputed rulers. There were some lists of the places their friend had been, or at least their names, but not how to get there. But apparently, the pocketwatches were the key.
Their friend's body was not dead -- despite Nameless' fireballs (they'd luckily missed it by about five feet) -- and was taken to Ray'ia's monastary for safekeeping, as the pocketwatches each had a 'home' setting. Then it was off to Ryu's city, where the Dragon Temple had a graveyard with a Cenotaph in it.
Sure enough, as they approached the tomb of the unknown soldiers, it opened and revealed a cloaked figure. It was not the guardian of the gate, as initially assumed, but it was a friend of their friend, with vital information, including where to look first for Baraccas, the evil wizard who'd probably done the soulnapping -- the 'Arch of Heaven'.
next week
Now, let's see if we ever play another session of this game. This group is SO DYSFUNCTIONAL! AIEEE!
Since we were starting at level 18, I took the opportunity to break out the new Savage Species, and I'm playing a young silver dragon. No class levels, but with level-appropriate equipment even a young dragon is pretty badass. I used 'Leadership' to get a cohort... a halfling cleric is small enough to ride on my back, and high enough level to cast heal. A useful pet. Since we were buying equipment out of the DMG, a pet with several scrolls of True Ressurection.
I named the dragon 'Ryu', the rider/cohort is 'Nina'.
Ed took a mage who doesn't have a name yet, specificaly so that he could cast 9th level spells. The first spell cast in the game (not counting long-duration buffs) was Time Stop. An utter waste of a Time Stop, but only because the GM was sort of railroady. 'No, you can't time-stop and kill the main bad guy in the first scene, because he has a wall of force up. A special wall of force that's immune to disintegrate. Ha!'
Luis, of course, is playing a cat-person monk Ray'ia... not the cat-people from Savage Species, though, just the non-ECL version that's a lot like a halfling, stat-wise. 18th level monks are pretty powerful, especially when you misinterpret Ki Strike.
Making characters took a long time, but we did get to play the game a little.
The game started with the three characters being the remainder of a once-proud adventuring company who'd conquered the world, and each ruled as much of the surrounding area as they felt comfortable with. Ray'ia was the head of a secluded monastary, Nameless had a tower from which he ruled a nation, and Ryu... well, Ryu was the son of the silver dragon who'd travelled with the original party. She was deep in dragon sleep, and had left him, as her favorite son, to run the family business while she slept. So he was mostly a banker, although he also served as guardian for the local branch of the cult of the dragon god.
The three of them were surprised by a message from a fourth surviving member of the party, who now lived in a floating fortress. He sent them each an earring (enchanted with 'Tongues' and the spell that lets you communicate across distances), a pocketwatch-looking device, and a scroll telling them that if they were receiving this message, he was in trouble.
It was quickly decided via earring to meet at the floating fortress post-haste, although of course they needed a little time to arm themselves and, in Ryu's case, fetch his high priestess to aid them. They were transported to the tower using the pocketwatch devices, which were flashy and not nearly as convenient as simply teleporting.
Even with the slight delay, they were in time to hear the enemy cackling over having stolen their friend's soul, and rushed to attack!
The battle took place at the top of the tower -- five vaguely draconic constructs, a stereotypical demon with a spectral hand at the end of its tail, and a red-robed mage who held what was obviously their friend's soul in his hand. Ray'ia and Nameless moved quickly, but were unable to reach the mage as he had a special wall of force around him and the demon that was impervious to everything, including the normal methods of bringing down a wall of force. Ryu, seeing them fail, flew through the room, scattering the constructs, but only taking down one in passing, who'd already been severely wounded by one of Nameless' passing spells.
The mage cackled and disappeared using what looked like another pocketwatch, and ordered his demon to steal all their souls. The Wall of Cutscene vanished with him, and Ray'ia began to spar with the demon... then Nameless centered two fireballs on her, knowing (since they were old companions) that she literally *could not fail* to evade his spells, and the demon and the construct that had come to help it were both destroyed.
Ryu and Ray'ia mopped up the rest of the enemies. Ryu was the only one during the entire battle to take any damage at all -- a single massive hit from the construct's evil-looking claw that nearly ripped his head off. He lived, though... and retaliated with equal force while Nina healed him.
The enemy defeated, they went to check their friend's library to figure out who had attacked him and where they might be. They discovered that their friend had been travelling the 'Cenotaph Road', which travelled between multiverses (and thus, spells like plane shift or discern location would not work). The enemies were from an unknown multiverse and considered themselves the rulers and sole owners of the Road, although they were hardly the undisputed rulers. There were some lists of the places their friend had been, or at least their names, but not how to get there. But apparently, the pocketwatches were the key.
Their friend's body was not dead -- despite Nameless' fireballs (they'd luckily missed it by about five feet) -- and was taken to Ray'ia's monastary for safekeeping, as the pocketwatches each had a 'home' setting. Then it was off to Ryu's city, where the Dragon Temple had a graveyard with a Cenotaph in it.
Sure enough, as they approached the tomb of the unknown soldiers, it opened and revealed a cloaked figure. It was not the guardian of the gate, as initially assumed, but it was a friend of their friend, with vital information, including where to look first for Baraccas, the evil wizard who'd probably done the soulnapping -- the 'Arch of Heaven'.
next week
Now, let's see if we ever play another session of this game. This group is SO DYSFUNCTIONAL! AIEEE!
