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Zipding
2009-09-02, 10:47 PM
I am playing a 4e game with about 4 other PC's and our DM(my brother). The setting is really good, it is before the humanoids were the main race in the world. Our players include:
A half-elf warlock(me): has the Star Pact, and is a major non-combatant
A dragonborn warlord: There's no real way to describe him except that he yells at us to "Get up"
A goliath warden: This guy is our meat shield, but he has over 50 health at level 4
A goliath barbarian: Charges everyone into submission. This guy deals crap-metric tonnes of damage
A deva invoker: Our resident minion death machine
And we used to have a shifter druid, but due to circumstances, they can't come anymore.
This is the story
The world you live in is a harsh one, but you’re long used to that. You are humanoid, and therefore three things: one of a million, expendable, and a slave. Your life is determined by the whims of your immortal masters. Demons, devils, vampires and more, these beasts decide your fate with careless actions. You and your kind are nothing more than dust under their feet, slaves bought, sold and stolen without care.

The city is vast, and its true ruler is never seen. Instead, hordes of rival houses vie for control of the many districts. The major houses are ruled by powerful monsters, creatures almost on level with the gods. Some are even rumoured to have ascended to godhood themselves. The city’s true ruler, however, stands above them. His tower is visible from all locations within the city, deep within a walled off district. Only the highest of the houses may enter, and only at his allowance. None other even try to enter. To do so is suicide.

You have all lived your lives under many masters. Slaves change hands at a moments notice, and can do nothing more than go along for the ride. Bought, stolen, or spoils of war. You’ve experienced it all. Battle is the worst. Any of you can be thrown onto the front lines of combat, a living wall between your monstrous master and his equally powerful opponent. Caught between two rampaging storms, you could do nothing but try to survive the wave of slaves trying to do the same as you.

This latest battle was similar to those before. You all were slaves under a minor demon, working to expand his latest manor in celebration of his promotion. He had assassinated a relatively important devil, and was awarded a new crop of slaves, along with the task of watching over a section on the edge of the district controlled by his house. He immediately set you all to work redecorating, when a retaliatory assault from the devils was launched. The defences were lowered during the refurbishment, and you all soon found yourselves involved in the horrific melee. Now, the battle has finally ended.

You all lie among hundreds of bodies, mostly slaves, but more powerful creatures mixed in. You’re waiting for the usual after-battle routine: surviving slaves are rounded up by the winners and carted off. Your old master was killed in the fight, you can tell because of the ordered instructions being passed about. Demons would be rampaging about, seeking individual slaves, while devils gather and distribute them according to rank. Each of you lies still; some of you are still wounded, others are hiding, and some of you are hoping with every fibre of your being that this time, this time they will miss you.

And this time, your wish is granted. The searching stops, marching feet and shouted orders fade away slowly and silence descends over the massive room. You lie quietly in a room filled with the dead, alive and forgotten because of nothing more than happenstance. Congratulations. In a city with more than a million slaves, where simply being a humanoid is enough to get you killed, what will you do with your freedom? And how will you survive?

Yea, we're doomed if we decide to attack all out without caution

Zipding
2009-09-03, 12:10 AM
In our first session, it began when we survived the fight. There were about 8 other survivors.(Our barbarian wasn't there at the time, but I'll get to that later). The first thing was a skill challenge. We needed to find gear amongst the dead bodies. There was a group of 5 people huddled together, with way more equipment than they needed. Myself and the warlord went over(we were the charisma freaks) to try to get equipment from them. The warlord was using diplomacy and I was using bluff(I don't have diplomacy as a class skill, but it is only 3 under bluff and intimidate). We managed to get some gear out of them, offering protection should anything show up. The warden, druid and invoker were rooting through the dead bodies for gear. We succeeded the skill challenge and got our respective gear.
After a quick discussion about what we were going to do, the 5 people whom the warlord and I got gear from were all killed by zombies and skeletons. A goblin walked out of the building where our old master was. He wanted to kill us and raise us as either zombies or skeletons. Apparantly, he was a member of the undead house, and left. Right now, he is trying to get their attention. The goblin's name was Old Milgriv, everyone in our party remembers that name because the crazy goblin talked about himself in the third person. It caused a fight, unfortunatly, we were gimped a bit. None of us had daily powers and half of our healing surges were gone. The battle was brutal, everyone got pounded because the druid attacked one zombie, the warlord and the warden were attacking another while the invoker and warlock were running from skeletons that Milgriv summoned. We managed to deal with the skeletons, but we couldn't fight anyone else. The zombies were finally finished off, when that happened, Milgriv retreated into the building and disapeared.
We were all damaged pretty heavily and were pretty much out of healing surges. After a short rest, a woman with blades on her arms(they are sticking out of her arms), a kobald, and a few other humanoids appeared and when they learned that we just fought Old Milgriv, they were very upset because he always made it to after-battles before them. They announce at this time that they are members of the resistance, and we are offered to join. The other 3 survivors are offered as well. The woman sees that inside the mansion, there are 2 beholder-like monsters inside with slaves and they seem to be coming outside. The resistance members look at everyone and ask who is willing to help out. This will require killing humans, elves and other humanoids like ourselves. We agree(of course), but the other three don't. This is where we find out that my character is deaf as a post and the warlord is blind as a bat because I was around the corner from them talking and I failed my perception check, and the warlord failed looking into the building to see the abberations. We hide in the bodies, disguising ourselves as dead bodies and wait for it to come out. The resistance members go inside to take one of them out.
This is where the first session ended. I will update at some point this week about the second session. This is when the barbarian is introduced.

Zipding
2009-09-05, 12:09 AM
Our second session was about as brutal as the first. It began with the barbarian running at full speed out of the building, followed by 10 slaves, 8 of them human and 2 are elves. They were followed by one of the beholder-like monsters(we learn that they are gauths, a weaker version of the beholders), and they proceed to deal quite a bit of damage to the barbarian. The barbarian turned around and proceeded to slaughter quite a few of them. It was at this point that we sprung from the bodies and began our own slaughtering spree. The druid, warden and warlord charged into combat while the invoker and I attacked from range. We killed 8 of the slaves in the course of 2 turns. We killed one of the elves, and the other hid amongst the bodies, afraid to die. The goth tried to kill him with its most powerful attacked, but failed in doing so. After another brutal fight, we managed to kill the gauth. When we looked into the building, though, the other goth was dead and the resistance members(this included blade-arm girl and the kobald) were yelling at us because they made bets to see how fast we could kill the goth and his retinue. One of the elves survived, and decided to join the resistance. We also found out at this time that killing the gauth was just a test, to see if we would actually kill other humanoids, and that we were skilled in combat. We also learned that if we didn't accept, we would be put in some random part of the district and left alone until either the resistance won or was absolutely destroyed.
We returned to their base and met a halfling. He was scary, he only went by the name The Doctor, and was blatently rude to us. He did not care about us at all. We also learn that he is like that to everyone. He leaves and we are prepared to go onto our first mission. We are supposed to enter a new house of Felltaints (beings from the Far Realm). Our mission was to get supplies and kill the leader if possible.
We started that in the third session. This is where the second session ended.