The (new) D&D game with no name!
Feb. 5th, 2013 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassDouble-header! Enough to get us (finally) out of the dwarven monastery, this time for good! We hope. Please, oh please, we hope.
[Our Heroes (tm) approach the kobolds' main barracks. The question is, who reconnoiters?]
Shawn: "I have 14 stealth."
Eric: "Congratulations, you're going first!"
[Atraxian has seen a number of kobolds in the barracks, and tries to signal back to the rest of the party. Sadly, the only other party member at the session is Sionach, who isn't very good at reading Atraxian's signals.]
Sionach: "I think he's got a really spiky porcupine that suddenly got bigger!"
[Meanwhile, Kerrdremek the kobold gives us the low-down on the rooms remaining to us.]
Kerrdremek: "There's the throne room, then the stab-stab room, then the Dragon King's room."
Aaerevan: "...Go back a minute."
[Because Andrew was not at the session, we decide to use him as a distraction.]
Adam the GM: "Biere will come in the other tunnel, get slaughtered, and the rest of you will run in behind."
Shawn: "Y'know, I don't want to be mean, but..."
[We prepare our cunning plan.]
Atraxian: "Everybody, the go word is 'kaboom!'"
[Biere sneaks in through the other tunnel from the rest of us.]
Adam the GM: "You hear horrible shrieking noises from the other corridor."
Shawn: "Oh, yes. That was the alarm they warned us about."
[Sionach has run along the ceiling into the barracks. He prepares his attack.]
Robert: "I take out my ax and drop it!"
Julie: "I might be as effective as any other time you used your ax."
[In the barracks is an alarm bell, which Aarevan has carefully maneuvered his way towards.]
Julie: "There's just been an explosion in this room. We have lost the element of subtlety."
Eric: "True, but once we went through the trouble of making a plan..."
[Also entering the room are some slurk-riding kobolds. They deal a lot of damage. Have I mentioned my character can't wear armor, despite being a front-line fighter?]
Sabina: "I'll move next to Julie."
Julie: "No, don't move there -- leave me as an ineffective meat shield."
[Kastin fights a slurk-riding kobold.]
Julie: "He's just a kobold."
Adam the GM: (indignant) "He's a kobold slurk-trainer, thank you very much!"
[Not everyone is busy fighting.]
Adam the GM: "Sionach?"
Robert: "I get bored and walk away."
[We finally take out all the kobolds and slurks and start making our way forward again.]
Shawn: "I get a 28 on sneak."
Robert: "I get a 22 on sneak."
Adam the GM: "Y'know, considering you just made horrible amounts of noise..."
[We enter into the Dragon King's throne room.]
Atraxian: "I like what you've done with the place. The dank is a nice touch."
[Parley begins with the Dragon King...]
Dragon King: (confused) "You don't want to be sacrificed?
[...For certain values of 'parley.']
Adam the GM: "Combat started, because you don't want to be sacrificed."
[Aarevan attempts to hit the unarmored Dragon King, and misses.]
Eric: "The oil on his body is distracting."
[The fight is harder than anticipated.]
Eric: "Incidentally, I have rejected the 'figurehead' theory."
[The Dragon King begins speaking with Atraxian in his own language, i.e. Ophiduan. None of the rest of us can understand it.]
Shawn: "It's a hard decision."
Julie: "Are you going to betray us all?"
[As Kastin and the others continue to fight the Dragon King, mostly ineffectively, Atraxian continues to parley.]
Shawn: "I charge a psychic strike on my blade."
Kastin: "...Any time now!"
[The Dragon King's offer is apparently tempting.]
Shawn: "Don't be mad if I do something surprising."
Eric: "The surprising thing would be if you don't betray us."
Julie: "So, who thinks Atraxian's gonna betray us all?"
Everyone but Shawn: *raises hand*
[Atraxian tells us all to put down our weapons.]
Julie: "Sense motive on Atraxian." *rolls low*
Shawn: "You think he's a dirty, rotten scumbag."
[With everyone having put down their weapons, the Dragon King says it's time for feating before we're sacrificed. He orders Sionach to get the food, which he does. The Dragon King seems surprised at his eagerness.]
Sionach: "I often do things for people when they threaten to kill me."
[Regarding Atraxian's apparent betrayal.]
Atraxian: "It's okay, I don't trust me, either."
[In fact, Sionach had some poison that makes the Dragon King fall asleep. We keep him alive because Atraxian wants to question him.]
Eric: "Now, you're absolutely sure we can't kill him now? Because this will come back to haunt us."
[In the next room, we know, is the sacrificial chamber with the kobolds' priest.]
Atraxian: "They may have heard the commotion."
Aarevan: "I don't think it occured to them that the Dragon King could lose."
[We approach the sacrificial chamber, where a priest is conducting a horrid ritual and three guards protect him.]
Sionach: "Your king is dead!"
Kobold Priest: "Don't listen to him -- he lies!"
Sionach: "No, we killed him up good!"
[The priest summons a bat swarm, which we are woefully unequipped to deal with after having used up all our spells and special abilities, except a few lesser ones like 'cause fear.']
Shawn: "Do bats get scared?"
Eric: "Yes, but when they do, they start biting."
[Because we were not playing at our usual location, we had to make do with improvised props instead of miniatures. So when the priest is dead and we can rescue the small child he was about to sacrifice...]
Eric: "Yay, we saved the jellybean!"
Julie: "Aemelia, go help the jellybean!"
[Kerrdremek begs Atraxian to give him the ring he took off the Dragon King.]
Atraxian: "What's the morally acceptable thing to do here?"
Biere: "Has he served you well?"
Atraxian: "What does that have to do with anything?"
[Atraxian makes a decision.]
Atraxian: (to Kerrdremek) "I'm sorry, I shan't give you the ring, because you're not to be trusted."
[In the Dragon King's private chambers, we find his wife.]
Kobold Queen: (seductively to Atraxian) "You're so strong..."
Atraxian: "Calm down, woman. I'm not going to kill you."
Kobold Queen: (still seductively) "What are you going to do with me?"
[As Atraxian is going to interrogate the Dragon King, Kerrdremek tries to cast sleep on him.]
Kerrdremek: (apologetically) "I just want the ring."
Atraxian: "Now I need to do something very, very unpleasant."
Robert: "I turn away."
Eric: (as Atraxian) "I need to forgive you."
[Kerrdremek takes the ring and transforms into a figure that looks remarkably like the Dragon King.]
Biere: "Did we just return the Dragon King to his rightful place?"
Sionach: "Is that a good thing?"
[The newly-restored Dragon King, aka Kerrdremek, tells us to leave and take the old Dragon King -- who appears to be a member of Atraxian's race and know things about his family -- with us. We prepare to interrogate.]
"Dragon King": "I see the food was not good?"
Atraxian: "No, the food was fine. So was the poison."
[The interrogation continues.]
Atraxian: "You said you knew my brother."
"Dragon King": "I don't know your brother. I was calling you brother, moron!"
[The ex-Dragon King psionically manifests full plate armor, bursts out of Atraxian's chain-reinforced scarf, and leaves. We try to figure out whether to stop him.]
Atraxian: "I really don't want him to live, but I think we'll need more training before we face him."
[Shawn says what the rest of us are thinking.]
Shawn: "Something about this screams 'recurring villain.'"
[Atraxian realizes that since the ex-Dragon King burst out of his scarf, it is no longer useable.]
Shawn: "My scarf is gone!"
Adam: "No, it's there. It's just in pieces."
[Biere is not always the quickest on the uptake.]
Biere: "Did you guys make peace?"
Atraxian: "I just tried to stab him. What do you think?"
[The ex-Dragon King has left.]
Kastin: "Do we tell him about the werewolf?"
Atraxian: "...No."
[We've mostly dealt with the monsters in the dungeon. There are just a few left for us to deal with the next day, including a few ghouls.]
Aarevan: "I like the 'throw grenades and run' plan."
[We have rescued all five children. Finally.]
Julie: "So, back to Brookglade? Again?"
[We return to Brookglade.]
Adam the GM: "I'll let you decide how you bring the children back, and to whom."
Eric: "Triumphantly, and to their parents."
[We first go to Sheriff Piper before returning the children.]
Eric: "She's the one who hired us, sort of."
Julie: "Not really. Her precise words were, 'I don't have time for this.'"
[One of the children, Mikra, seems to be spontaneously developing magical abilities.]
Sionach: "You are going to have SO MUCH FUN!"
[We warn Sheriff Piper about the werewolf we were unable to kill.]
Sheriff Piper: (skeptical) "A werewolf. Uh-huh."
Aarevan: "Really? After everything we've helped with, you think we're making this up?"
[Andrew says what we're all thinking.]
Andrew: "So let's drop off the children, get our xp, and have a beer."
[One of the missing children's parents is Forster Edwards, head of the local Lumber Consortium.]
Eric: "Five bucks says we kill Forster within three levels."
Shawn: "We're like a tactical nuke - best dropped from low orbit."
Adam the GM: "I think the word 'tactical' is being misused."
And that's it for this week. Next week: dinner with the town notables. Where we will undoubtedly get into trouble. Or hired. It's one or the other, really.
[Our Heroes (tm) approach the kobolds' main barracks. The question is, who reconnoiters?]
Shawn: "I have 14 stealth."
Eric: "Congratulations, you're going first!"
[Atraxian has seen a number of kobolds in the barracks, and tries to signal back to the rest of the party. Sadly, the only other party member at the session is Sionach, who isn't very good at reading Atraxian's signals.]
Sionach: "I think he's got a really spiky porcupine that suddenly got bigger!"
[Meanwhile, Kerrdremek the kobold gives us the low-down on the rooms remaining to us.]
Kerrdremek: "There's the throne room, then the stab-stab room, then the Dragon King's room."
Aaerevan: "...Go back a minute."
[Because Andrew was not at the session, we decide to use him as a distraction.]
Adam the GM: "Biere will come in the other tunnel, get slaughtered, and the rest of you will run in behind."
Shawn: "Y'know, I don't want to be mean, but..."
[We prepare our cunning plan.]
Atraxian: "Everybody, the go word is 'kaboom!'"
[Biere sneaks in through the other tunnel from the rest of us.]
Adam the GM: "You hear horrible shrieking noises from the other corridor."
Shawn: "Oh, yes. That was the alarm they warned us about."
[Sionach has run along the ceiling into the barracks. He prepares his attack.]
Robert: "I take out my ax and drop it!"
Julie: "I might be as effective as any other time you used your ax."
[In the barracks is an alarm bell, which Aarevan has carefully maneuvered his way towards.]
Julie: "There's just been an explosion in this room. We have lost the element of subtlety."
Eric: "True, but once we went through the trouble of making a plan..."
[Also entering the room are some slurk-riding kobolds. They deal a lot of damage. Have I mentioned my character can't wear armor, despite being a front-line fighter?]
Sabina: "I'll move next to Julie."
Julie: "No, don't move there -- leave me as an ineffective meat shield."
[Kastin fights a slurk-riding kobold.]
Julie: "He's just a kobold."
Adam the GM: (indignant) "He's a kobold slurk-trainer, thank you very much!"
[Not everyone is busy fighting.]
Adam the GM: "Sionach?"
Robert: "I get bored and walk away."
[We finally take out all the kobolds and slurks and start making our way forward again.]
Shawn: "I get a 28 on sneak."
Robert: "I get a 22 on sneak."
Adam the GM: "Y'know, considering you just made horrible amounts of noise..."
[We enter into the Dragon King's throne room.]
Atraxian: "I like what you've done with the place. The dank is a nice touch."
[Parley begins with the Dragon King...]
Dragon King: (confused) "You don't want to be sacrificed?
[...For certain values of 'parley.']
Adam the GM: "Combat started, because you don't want to be sacrificed."
[Aarevan attempts to hit the unarmored Dragon King, and misses.]
Eric: "The oil on his body is distracting."
[The fight is harder than anticipated.]
Eric: "Incidentally, I have rejected the 'figurehead' theory."
[The Dragon King begins speaking with Atraxian in his own language, i.e. Ophiduan. None of the rest of us can understand it.]
Shawn: "It's a hard decision."
Julie: "Are you going to betray us all?"
[As Kastin and the others continue to fight the Dragon King, mostly ineffectively, Atraxian continues to parley.]
Shawn: "I charge a psychic strike on my blade."
Kastin: "...Any time now!"
[The Dragon King's offer is apparently tempting.]
Shawn: "Don't be mad if I do something surprising."
Eric: "The surprising thing would be if you don't betray us."
Julie: "So, who thinks Atraxian's gonna betray us all?"
Everyone but Shawn: *raises hand*
[Atraxian tells us all to put down our weapons.]
Julie: "Sense motive on Atraxian." *rolls low*
Shawn: "You think he's a dirty, rotten scumbag."
[With everyone having put down their weapons, the Dragon King says it's time for feating before we're sacrificed. He orders Sionach to get the food, which he does. The Dragon King seems surprised at his eagerness.]
Sionach: "I often do things for people when they threaten to kill me."
[Regarding Atraxian's apparent betrayal.]
Atraxian: "It's okay, I don't trust me, either."
[In fact, Sionach had some poison that makes the Dragon King fall asleep. We keep him alive because Atraxian wants to question him.]
Eric: "Now, you're absolutely sure we can't kill him now? Because this will come back to haunt us."
[In the next room, we know, is the sacrificial chamber with the kobolds' priest.]
Atraxian: "They may have heard the commotion."
Aarevan: "I don't think it occured to them that the Dragon King could lose."
[We approach the sacrificial chamber, where a priest is conducting a horrid ritual and three guards protect him.]
Sionach: "Your king is dead!"
Kobold Priest: "Don't listen to him -- he lies!"
Sionach: "No, we killed him up good!"
[The priest summons a bat swarm, which we are woefully unequipped to deal with after having used up all our spells and special abilities, except a few lesser ones like 'cause fear.']
Shawn: "Do bats get scared?"
Eric: "Yes, but when they do, they start biting."
[Because we were not playing at our usual location, we had to make do with improvised props instead of miniatures. So when the priest is dead and we can rescue the small child he was about to sacrifice...]
Eric: "Yay, we saved the jellybean!"
Julie: "Aemelia, go help the jellybean!"
[Kerrdremek begs Atraxian to give him the ring he took off the Dragon King.]
Atraxian: "What's the morally acceptable thing to do here?"
Biere: "Has he served you well?"
Atraxian: "What does that have to do with anything?"
[Atraxian makes a decision.]
Atraxian: (to Kerrdremek) "I'm sorry, I shan't give you the ring, because you're not to be trusted."
[In the Dragon King's private chambers, we find his wife.]
Kobold Queen: (seductively to Atraxian) "You're so strong..."
Atraxian: "Calm down, woman. I'm not going to kill you."
Kobold Queen: (still seductively) "What are you going to do with me?"
[As Atraxian is going to interrogate the Dragon King, Kerrdremek tries to cast sleep on him.]
Kerrdremek: (apologetically) "I just want the ring."
Atraxian: "Now I need to do something very, very unpleasant."
Robert: "I turn away."
Eric: (as Atraxian) "I need to forgive you."
[Kerrdremek takes the ring and transforms into a figure that looks remarkably like the Dragon King.]
Biere: "Did we just return the Dragon King to his rightful place?"
Sionach: "Is that a good thing?"
[The newly-restored Dragon King, aka Kerrdremek, tells us to leave and take the old Dragon King -- who appears to be a member of Atraxian's race and know things about his family -- with us. We prepare to interrogate.]
"Dragon King": "I see the food was not good?"
Atraxian: "No, the food was fine. So was the poison."
[The interrogation continues.]
Atraxian: "You said you knew my brother."
"Dragon King": "I don't know your brother. I was calling you brother, moron!"
[The ex-Dragon King psionically manifests full plate armor, bursts out of Atraxian's chain-reinforced scarf, and leaves. We try to figure out whether to stop him.]
Atraxian: "I really don't want him to live, but I think we'll need more training before we face him."
[Shawn says what the rest of us are thinking.]
Shawn: "Something about this screams 'recurring villain.'"
[Atraxian realizes that since the ex-Dragon King burst out of his scarf, it is no longer useable.]
Shawn: "My scarf is gone!"
Adam: "No, it's there. It's just in pieces."
[Biere is not always the quickest on the uptake.]
Biere: "Did you guys make peace?"
Atraxian: "I just tried to stab him. What do you think?"
[The ex-Dragon King has left.]
Kastin: "Do we tell him about the werewolf?"
Atraxian: "...No."
[We've mostly dealt with the monsters in the dungeon. There are just a few left for us to deal with the next day, including a few ghouls.]
Aarevan: "I like the 'throw grenades and run' plan."
[We have rescued all five children. Finally.]
Julie: "So, back to Brookglade? Again?"
[We return to Brookglade.]
Adam the GM: "I'll let you decide how you bring the children back, and to whom."
Eric: "Triumphantly, and to their parents."
[We first go to Sheriff Piper before returning the children.]
Eric: "She's the one who hired us, sort of."
Julie: "Not really. Her precise words were, 'I don't have time for this.'"
[One of the children, Mikra, seems to be spontaneously developing magical abilities.]
Sionach: "You are going to have SO MUCH FUN!"
[We warn Sheriff Piper about the werewolf we were unable to kill.]
Sheriff Piper: (skeptical) "A werewolf. Uh-huh."
Aarevan: "Really? After everything we've helped with, you think we're making this up?"
[Andrew says what we're all thinking.]
Andrew: "So let's drop off the children, get our xp, and have a beer."
[One of the missing children's parents is Forster Edwards, head of the local Lumber Consortium.]
Eric: "Five bucks says we kill Forster within three levels."
Shawn: "We're like a tactical nuke - best dropped from low orbit."
Adam the GM: "I think the word 'tactical' is being misused."
And that's it for this week. Next week: dinner with the town notables. Where we will undoubtedly get into trouble. Or hired. It's one or the other, really.
