cheethorne Hangs Out Hoping To Get A Job member is offline
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Re: SFB Campaign - Sept 2009 « Result #3 on Dec 21, 2009, 8:50am »
I wouldn't worry about not getting called too much. Given the importance of the battles in this campaign turn. I doubt we'll be limited to the standard 3 week period to get them all (or mostly done).
Re: Mark's Greyhawk Savage Tide Campaign « Result #7 on Dec 13, 2009, 9:43pm »
Here we go - session 64 recap in point-form.
Savage Tide – Session 64 Recap
Moonday, 17 Planting, 597 CY
Calico, disgusted with the degenerating morality of the party, takes his leave and plane shifts back to Sasserine to take proper control of his growing fleet. He communicates to Lavinia his fears regarding the influence that the Abyss is having on several members of the party.
Arriving in the skies above the Wells of Darkness, almost at the same time as Charon, is a young red dragon. After hearing rumours of the party’s exploits in the Abyss and following the movements of Charon via scrying magic, the red dragon decided to take a chance that the group would allow an outcast red dragon to join them in their quest. Happily, the motley crew is more than willing to accept such a strange new addition to their group.
Charon invites the party aboard his skiff, querying them on the state of his river. The party responds by explaining about Shami-Amourae and their quest against Demogorgon and his plans for triggering the Savage Tide.
Charon ferries the party back through the rift and along the River Styx. He describes Demogorgon as a common enemy, and brings them to the gothic estate of Iggwilv, Witch-Queen of Perrenland, Mother of Iuz, and Daughter of Baba Yaga, on the Grey Wastes of Hades. The party is shocked to see the Blue Nixie, Lavinia’s ship, docked at the pier leading up to Iggwilv’s estate. Charon explains that he brought the ship here, and that as long as they are aboard it and sailing on his river they are protected from the denizens and ravages of the lower planes. Charon then takes his leave, telling the party to call on him when the final battle against Demogorgon begins.
Godsday, 18 Planting, 597 CY
Following some initial confrontations with a pair of stygian linnorms and Iggwilv’s overzealous arcanaloth yugoloth house-guardians, Iggwilv deigns to meet with the party. Iggwilv makes it clear that in other circumstances the party’s intrusion on her home would be met with indiscriminate force, and that the future may yet hold violence between them. For now, however, she concedes that the opportunity to destroy Demogorgon is one that necessitates an alliance of sorts between several of the most infamous and powerful enemies of Demogorgon. Iggwilv outlines the hatchings of a plan, and directs the party to those who would most likely be willing or convinced to participate in a temporary alliance against the Prince of Demons. That list includes:
Charon, Boatman of the Styx, with whom the party has already met and secured assistance;
Orcus, Prince of Undead – demon lord of undeath, residing on the plane of Thanatos in the Abyss, who harbours a deep desire for the title of Prince of Demons;
Gwynharwyf, The Whirling Fury – consort and lover of the eladrin Queen Morwell of the Court of Stars, residing on the plane of Arborea. Iggwilv believes she will join the alliance for past wrongs by Demogorgon against the eladrin;
Malcanthet, Queen of Succubi – residing in the Palace of Flesh on the plane of Shendilavri in the Abyss, who has been involved in events leading up to the Savage Tide for some time;
Obox-Ob, obyrith lord and former Prince of Demons, who was killed by the Queen of Chaos eons ago. A fragment of his aspect is said to still exist and desires revenge against Demogorgon;
Bagromar, aspect of Demogorgon and one of the twin generals of the Prince of Demons’ armies. Said to be dissatisfied with his lot and perhaps jealous of his twin brother (and dual aspect of Demogorgon), Tetradarian.
The party discusses the details of the possible alliance with Iggwilv for some time before taking their leave. Iggwilv hands the party a letter that she says should help them in getting an audience before Orcus. She warns them of his propensity for violence, and suggests they return to her when, and if, they secure an alliance with the Prince of Undead.
The party journeys to Thanatos via the River Styx aboard the Blue Nixie. They eventually reach the keep of Everlost and gain an audience with Orcus after presenting Iggwilv’s letter to his balor and bodak attendants. The party meets with Orcus at the foot of his throne, surrounded by legions of undead thralls and attendants and forced into supplication by the overwhelming negative and physical energy emanating from the demon lord. Orcus seems interested in the party’s suggestion of an alliance against, Demogorgon, but demands a display of power from them before committing. He insists that the group pick a champion to do battle against Lestra, one of his death giant thralls, and opens the doors to his great arena.
So begins Enemies of My Enemy, part eleven of the Savage Tide
Main Page Changes: * Added Federation Master Ship Chart.
Notes: Finally the fed are done. Next up is the General Master Ship Chart and then I'll get to the stragglers and small empires, but I am in no great hurry for them.
Main Page - Campaign 9: * Added turn 11 results for Campaign 9. * Added tracking form for Special Projects
Notes: I am going to try to track the special projects people are doing in the campaign. Yet another thing for us to track, but there we'll try.
Campaign Rules v9 Changes: * Updated 6.2 - Changed the combat order so players can adopt either an aggressive or defensive stance. * Updated 6.3 - Changed Protection mission to be more broad and removed the Flanking and Interception missions. * Updated 6.4 - Updated descriptions based on mission changes.
Notes: Overhauled the order of combat in a hex and several missions. Based on comments from the last battle, we saw that there were some problems with our missions that led to unrealistic situations. The biggest being that Andrew with a fleet of 30 ships was completely at the mercy of a die roll to see if any of those ships could actually engage John's fleets before those fleets attacked Andrew's planet / warp gate. The Protection mission has changed that calculus completely.
We will be going over these combat changes tonight (and I'll be bringing a handout for people too). Overall, most of the missions stayed the same and the order of combat will be very similar except in crazy multi-group situations, but there were some changes in here and people need to be aware of what they are.
Re: Mark's Greyhawk Savage Tide Campaign « Result #9 on Dec 6, 2009, 6:11pm »
Well, it's been a while since I've updated this thread, and a lot has happened in the Savage Tide campaign since last summer. Here is a recap of last Wednesday's game. Last session leads up to the final two adventures in the series.
Savage Tide – Session 63 Recap
Sunday, 16 Planting, 597 CY
Unwilling to implant the Tooth of Ahazu in his own mouth, Armond grudgingly donates the demonic artifact to the dwarf Shag. Somewhat nervous about the prospect of touching Ahazu's pool, Shag asks Azreal to remove one of his teeth and implant the Tooth of Ahazu, guessing he had about a 50% chance that the tooth would protect him from any negative effects of touching Ahazu's pool. The Tooth of Ahazu implants itself in Shag's mouth as though it always belonged there. Shag's skin immediately takes on a pale hue, and his countenance becomes gaunt and haggard.
Shag touches Ahazu's pool and is immediately engulfed by a visage of Ahazu's face rising from the black waters. Luckily, the Tooth of Ahazu has its desired effect and protects Shag from being pulled into Shattered Night and merging with Ahazu's essence. Now in telepathic contact with Ahazu, Shag manages to broker a pact with the demon lord of night and abduction. Ahazu agrees to provide the secret of freeing Shami-Amourae from her prison in return for an even greater prize, something considerably more powerful than the Lady of Debased Eros (in game terms, a replacement prisoner of at least CR 24). The replacement prisoner will be accepted by Ahazu dead or alive, and Shag is given 66 days to make good on his promise, else he will be taken as Ahazu's replacement prisoner. As Shag agrees to the contract, the weight of the pact settles over him, binding him to its terms. The rest of the party feels a similar weight fall over them, oblivious to the fact that Shag unwittingly entered all of them into Ahazu's pact.
In return for his promise, Shag is given a book of infinite spells tied to the cult of Shami-Amourae. One page remains in the book, and only by casting the spell on that page while standing at the edge of Shami-Amourae's well can she be released from the bonds of her prison. With that, Ahazu breaks contact with Shag.
In the meantime, Azreal plane shifts away from the Wells of Darkness with Shump's body, arriving some 50 miles of the city of Sasserine. The rest of the party sets up a temporary campsite in a sheltered lee of the jagged rocks and peaks of the layer. After several hours of searching, Azreal manages to secure enough diamonds and holy water to conduct a true resurrection on Shump, and does so following a night’s rest at Lavinia’s estate. The two return to the Wells of Darkness soon after, luckily arriving within 5 miles of Overlook Keep. A hasty teleportation spell reunites the party. Shump, of course, maintains some distance from Calico, who is clearly displeased with his return.
Moonday, 17 Planting, 597 CY
Under Shadowfire's guidance, the party makes its way to Shami-Amourae's well. As soon as they come within earshot of the well they hear a cacophanous noise - a riot of shrieks and ape-like grunts. Coming close to the well, they see it is overflowing with strangely verdant foliage and life - huge trees ripe with deep red and purple fruit. Swinging from the branches of the trees are at least four immense, four-armed, silver-furred Abyss-tainted gorilla-like creatures. The fiendish creatures do not initially attack, instead gesturing crudely to the party, seeming to suggest a nightmarish exchange of sexual favours for access to Shami-Amourae's well. Shag's attempt to intimidate the massive creatures does not go as planned, and one of the apes mistakenly takes Shag's challenge as an invitation. It bounds forward, motioning for Shag to turn around and bend over. Once within range, clearly anticipating the fun it is going to have with the poor dwarf, Shag unleashes his mighty axe, taking the Abyss-tainted gorallon by surprise and nearly running it through. A few short rounds later and the remaining gorallons scattered from the area.
Making its way through the thick canopy of verdant trees, the party slowly descends the well. The group exits the canopy about 40 feet above the bottom of the well. Standing atop the black pool is a gargantuan retriever (similar to the bebilith-like construct fought at the Crimson Fleet Wreck), unmoving and inactive. Unsure of how the apparently inactive giant retriever will react to an attempt to free Shami-Amourae, and not necessarily desiring to fight the massive construct, Azreal uses a summoning spell to call forth an earth elemental titan, a paragon of elemental kind. The party hovers over the two titans and watches the resulting cage match. By the time the fight is over, the massive retriever is destroyed, crumpled in a giant heap of Abyssal metal amidst the massive tree trunks at the base of the well. The elemental titan remains, still under the control of Azreal.
Shump wastes little time using the book of infinite spells (via his Use Magic Device skill) to casts the freedom spell inscribed in its last page. Shami-Amourae, a stunning, statuesque woman with flawless pale skin and long golden tresses, slowly rises from the pool's depths. Her angelic form is marred by the wanton, lustful pout of her lips, the all-consuming hunger that lurks within her eyes, the large bat wings that unfurl from her back, and the writhing tail that coils around one leg. An expression of joy appears on her face as she notices the party, only to suddenly grow slack. It is then that the party notices the writhing snake protruding from her neck, previously hidden behind her silky hair. The snake’s hissing face rears up behind Shami-Amourae’s head and spits a curse, “You shall not have this prize! I shall use her to destroy your bodies, and I shall send your souls back to Shattered Night forever!” The chokesnake symbiont, a failsafe planted by Demogorgon before he imprisoned Shami-Amourae, attacks the party using the Lady of Delight's abilities, but is fortunately vanquished by Shag.
Shami-Amourae drops to her knees in a daze, and then with a scream of anguish, she tears the snake-thing from her neck, throws it to the ground and crushes it with her heel. She looks over to the party and is about to say something when a great thunderous boom rips through the air and drowns out her voice. The trees surrounding Shami-Amourae’s pool are torn from their roots and tossed from the well by some unseen force, and a swiftly spreading rift of darkness opens in the sky above. A moment later, a torrent of dark water cascades from the rift, as if a great waterfall had suddenly appeared in the sky. Several party-members are struck by the waters (a diversion of the River Styx, engineered by Demogorgon in the rare event of Shami-Amourae's rescue) and loose several hours of memory, but narrowly escape total amnesia). The party manages to escape the rapidly-filling well before being affected by the waters again, only to face a group of four bar-lgura demons riding demonic retriever mounts exiting the growing rift. With the help of Shami-Amourae the bar-lgura demons and retrievers are defeated, and Shami-Amourae is finally able to speak to the party. She thanks them for her rescue, and after some prompting explains why Demogorgon imprisoned her in the Wells of Darkness, and how it may be possible to defeat him.
"Demogorgon is his own worst enemy. He is, in many ways, two creatures that share the same body. Aameul, his left head, is them more charismatic and calculating, while Hethradiah, his right head, is more impulsive and feral. Each views the other as inferior, and each believes the other incapable of outfoxing itself. It's really rather cute, after a fashion. It certainly makes it easy to manipulate him, by playing Aameul off of Hethradiah, and vice versa.
"Both of his heads have long sought ways to achieve dominance over the other. Even before they betrayed me, Aameul and Hethradiah had hatched independant plans to take control. Aameul's is to murder Hethradiah and use the life energy of the Bastion of Unborn Souls to cauterize the wound. I have my doubts that would work. Hethradiah's plan is much more insidious. He planned on seeding dozens, if not hundreds, of Material Plane cities on a number of worlds with madness - he called it a savage tide. The resulting eruption of insanity could then be siphoned into Gaping Maw, where he could use the energy to absorb Aameul. In effect, Aameul wanted to shed his unwanted half, while Hethradiah wanted to absorb it. A much stronger plan. I always did like him better.
"If you seek to oppose him, take warning. Demogorgon is not one to be trifled with - even I wasn't able to deceive him for long. What hope do you think you have? No...if you want to even have a chance at stopping him, you need to distract him. That is Demogorgon's weakness. Each situation he faces brings two reactions, not one. And when faced with multiple dangers across multiple fronts, these reactions can paralyze him. I've seen it before, on a small scale as he's been forced to deal with uprisings and invasions. I quiver to think how he'd react to something on a larger scale... say, perhaps, an invasion of Gaping Maw by the armies of multiple enemies at once?
"In any event, I need to be away from this place, to go into hiding before he tries for me again. I have much to rebuild. I've no interest in tangling with Demorgorgon again soon. Perhaps ever. But if you feel suicidal, I'd suggest consulting with someone who knows more than I do about the Abyss. Someone like that tart, Iggwilv, perhaps?"
With that, Shami-Amourae plane shifts away, leaving the party alone on the edges of the new expanding lake fed by the River Styx. As they debate their next move, a sinister form appears in the growing lake. Emerging from the mist and vapour churning up from the turbid waters is a long skiff, propelled along the water's surface by a gaunt figure. As it approaches, an almost palpable aura of menace filled the air. Charon, Boatman of the River Styx, has arrived.
So ends The Wells of Darkness, part ten of the Savage Tide
john Administrator John "Can-You-Believe-It's" Butters member is offline
Game Master/D&D Minis/Lackey
Joined: Feb 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 523 Location: moncton Karma: 0
Re: SFB Campaign - Sept 2009 « Result #10 on Dec 3, 2009, 2:19pm »
Oh no, we're going to try and play this one through until turn 30ish, we need to run through situations with later tech and really see how the battle system holds up.
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