Excitement, adventure, poontang. A necromancer craves not these things.
Hey, I’M not trying to do it.
Well, that depends on why he got into necromancy in the first place. Can’t have the necro without the romancy.
Vrai may, indeed, be in love with death.
But he’s not moved one way or another by meatbags. Except in so far as they can serve as… materials.
Okay, gigantic post. TLDR: Party goes out, finds village, accepts quest to free captured men from evil lizards. Party finds lizard camp, kills some lizards, about to be charged by remaining lizards. Next session will resolve lizard fighting funtime party jamboree.
[spoiler]
The party, including beloved Meep and potentially useful Klara, are threading their way through the river areas of the hot and barren interior of the southern continent. Along the way Vrai broaches the subject of leading an actual revolution to topple the Yuan-Ti. Not making a secret of hiding his goal, he admits to the Order that he seeks to plunder the Yuan-Ti’s magical knowledge and artifacts and to create a mage’s college in the city which will tolerate (and perhaps even encourage) the study and practice of necromancy. Righteous Calven and cagey Phaistos are both against the plan, but upon being promised the right to set up the future mage’s college, Jenks eagerly joined up. Surprisingly enough the druid Khel cast the deciding vote, agreeing that as long as necromancy was used responsibly and that only non-intelligent undead were created, he was on board for leading a revolution. It remains to be seen what the two reluctant members of the Order will do, having been outvoted, or even if the Order can pull off a coup at all and will instead be limited to escape options.
While following the rivers and progressing towards Oxyman’s tower, the party ran into a human village of what appear to be refugees from lizard dominated cities. Terrified of Khel and disturbed by Jenks, the people were willing to listen to friendly, friendly Vrai. The women and children, led by a lone woman wielding a spear, informed the Order that all of their men had been captured by a group of blackscale lizards just a few miles up the river. The Order was also told that the blackscales would probably eat the captives as time went on and would sell any survivors into slavery soonish, too. Having already seen the tactical potential of a fairly, large, fertile area a month from Yuan-Ti domination, Vrai set about trying to convert the small town to serve as the base of an insurrection. As a result he was uncharacteristically eager and had to convince the Order that it was worth going in to murder the blackscales… or was that free the prisoners?
In either case, the Order quickly scouts out the blackscale encampment and find that the prisoners are held on the north bank of a river, while the blackscale chief is on the southern bank. Upon Phaistos’ recommendation, the Order decides to wait for the tail end of the night to launch a strike at the blackscales. When that point comes, Meep sneeks into the underbrush towards the north and makes his way to the prisoners while Phaistos creeps up behind the blackscale chief. The Order gains a surprise round as Meep begins freeing prisoners and Phaistos misses his sneak attack against the blackscale chief. To draw attention and slow down the rest of the blackscales, Khel casts Entangle on the northern shore of the river while Jenks summons a celestial porpoise.
When combat begin for the first full round, Phaistos finishes off the blackscale chief with a massive sneak attack strike, sonic bursts cast by Jenks wound and daze two blackscales which are swimming from the north shore towards us, and the goddamn porpoise wrecks some shit and murders a blackscale right in the face. With timely kills by Schelty and Meep the Order manages to reap a pleasing tally of blackscales and has just fallen back to a defensive position with one freed prisoner and Meep on the north bank of the river, ready to start freeing other prisoners, and the rest of the blackscales charging the Sunset Order.
Will the Order survive? Will Jenks find a way to mention and/or use his furry balls? Will Calven get laid? Will Phaistos get to coup de grace any more folks? Will Khel turn into the lizard equivalent of a druid bear? Will Vrai get a puppy?
Find out when the Sunset Order does more stuff (probably) two weeks from now.[/spoiler]
The Party: :smack: :dubious: :rolleyes:
The Party: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Jenks: 
*I imagine with now said as if in reference to “The Goddamn Batman!” We woulda had 'em if it wasn’t for The Goddamn Celestial Porpoise!
Le sigh… until I get to level 6 I’m boring as a mage. Until I get to level 8 I’m not yet a true minionmancer. But after 8? Mwahahahahahaha.
Once, in the the time of my grandfather’s grandfather, there was a plague, a terrible disease in the lands of the “softskins”, as we called the humans and others. It ravaged unchecked and all suffered. Because our own country was so war-like and we were not yet skilled at farming, so we traded for slaves from the other countries, which ensured a measure of peace between us. When they were dying, however, they refused to sell any food, having greater problems.
So we starved, and the fears rose that perhaps we too would become sick and die. There was no proof of it, no bodies, but the mind can play tricks, and many came to believe that they might be infected. A group of wise leaders studied the bodies of the dead and dying humans to understand this illness. They shut themselves away from the world, to protect the rest if they did become ill, and that is how the greater evil began. A young sage had been examining the body of a dying human for some weeks when he discovered that he, too, was dying. In his fear and anger, (for he was young and had a beautiful mate) his confusion and hunger were too great, and he consumed the body of the human. When it was discovered what he had done he was immediately brought to trial by the head of the group and sentenced to death. He, however, spoke with great passion and eloquence, telling them of his new strength and that his sickness had been healed. They could all be healed, live long lives, become mighty. And there were no shortage of slaves in those days…..
Most of the council rejected him with some difficulty, but a few did not. They set out to explore this new path of power, and approached a rich merchant and trader who himself had fallen ill on a trip to the human cities before the plague was seen. They offered him a cure in exchange for his assistance, and he accepted, consuming the flesh of a slave, and was healed. So began the cult of the Red Path. That merchant was my sire’s sire, and the group moved down through the years as the plague raged, learning the secrets of sacrifice and blood magic, dominating the trading of slaves, and using their knowledge of the plague and those willing to cure themselves to their advantage. And it did give them powers. One extremely fervent young acolyte named Ophis killed and ate his own mate and child, as well as three human slaves before he was captured. After his imprisonment he killed again and again, until he was taken to a forgotten cell. Why is this important? Because I, too, worked for the Red Path, and those who knew of his prison never announced his death, and many slaves have vanished over the years……
Yes, I am the descendant of that merchant, my father’s heir, and if I had not been shown a better path by an old druid I would be there still. I worked for them. I unloaded “cargo” and swept the cells and faithfully joined in their worship, but it never felt right to me. I didn’t know of anything else, until the day they brought a stranger they said had been disrupting the rituals. He fought them, gave his life so three other slaves would escape, and their magic could not touch him. He broke their altars and it took two Red Priests to bring him down in the end, roaring at them in the shape of a great cat… He knew he was going to die, too. I can never go back. The Red Path is very strong, and they will kill me, my father himself will consume me as a mark of his faith. I cannot blame him; it is a part of his world as it was once part of mine, but I know there is a better way, and I will find it. I will drag the Empire back to sanity and light.”
Awesome Backstory! I love the narrative aspect of it. And the Red Path certainly is quite spooky.
I guess I’m beyond confused really I just got an account with this page because I thought it would be a good way to get new ideas and see how others feel about my campaign (that won’t be playing so I dont give anything away) but it took me out of where the D&D posts were…am I back in the right area now??
and for those who haven’t picked up I DM my own campaigns completely made up with only monster books and characters from the 3.5 version.
All D&D posts will be on this page, yes.
If you have something you want to discuss about your campaign you should probably start your own thread. I’ll report your post, maybe a mod wants to split it off to form its own thread.
thanks, and I’m not sure how to post my own thread…downfall of being new to this site lol
Welcome, OD,just give it some time, browse around, get a feel for the place, and then start asking for ideas and all- we’re a very welcoming bunch if you take the time!
I wonder what the various players think… I’m curious if we might work a bit faster if we had discussions via Skype voice and rolled/made official actions in Skype chat. Sound like a plan to anybody else?
That’s what my other group does.
I think it’d certainly make it cooler if people played their chars via VOIP… much better role playing experience to hear Jenksisms out loud.
When I move into a new apartment next year, I’ll be able to do DM voices. SPOOKY DM voices!
Pfft, I don’t think I could actually do the Jenkisms aloud. I’m a better writer than an actor. I’d probably end up referring the Jenks repeatedly in the 3rd person.
With the dialog I can at least scroll up and catch anything I’ve missed. But that’s just my preference. If it really does cut down on the stalling/extra time then maybe it’s the way to go.
I’d have to get my microphone working. I don’t use it, and I think my front jacks might be shot. But I’d otherwise be up for it…just not this weekend, as I’ll be at my old man’s place and he doesn’t have any internet (hence, only phone connection).
This is a pretty quick writeup, as there were only 3 of us today and we just finished the lizard fight from last week.
The lizards began their turn by smashing poor, poor Schelty the spider into undead spider paste. While I thought she’d tank longer, she did at least serve as an acceptable speedbump, as it let us reorganize a bit. Unfortunately, our reorganization was hampered a bit by Calven the swashbuckler getting grabbed in the face by a lizard and dragged under water and Phaistos the rogue/ranger attempting to Tumble through the lizards’ ranks and instead getting smashed in the face with a greatclub. Khel ran up to join the rest of the party, but since he’d hung back the first several rounds, he wasn’t able to get into the fight.
Out of desperation Vrai decided to try Animating one of the dead lizards with his necromantic sphere, but this pissed one of the lizards off, and he attempted to grab the sphere before Vrai could complete the Animation. At that point, Babs informed me that my only chance of still Animating the lizard was to pump an additional 4 Rebukes into the sphere and that it would create a negative energy burst. What Babs did not tell me, however, was that unlike the Dread Necromancer’s normal NEB, this one had a 20 foot radius and did 6d8 of damage. For once my awful rolling served the party, as I rolled high enough to murder all the rest of the lizards but low enough that our party members managed to survive the hit (albeit two of them were at -7 and -3 HP’s). However, the sphere exploded into a billion little bits and Vrai is now no longer able to Animate anything until he can cast 3rd level spells. The rest of the lizards fled at that point, Vrai now has 5 substandardly Animated minions . The party has leveled up to level 4, saved the slaves, and is going to go back to the town to rest and heal up.
Hopefully next week will put us on the path to Oxyman’s tower again.