Campaign Journal - Seven Kingdoms

[Jarian]

So the worm is circling the city...maybe it's trying to weaken the defenses on the walls?

10 gp says this turns into Gears of War 2. :smallcool:

[Exterminatus]

I wonder, can negative levels and death effects kill it? (Of course a wight version of it would still be very bad).

[Eldariel]

I wonder, can negative levels and death effects kill it? (Of course a wight version of it would still be very bad).

If it isn't outright immune, it's going to die to both, Con damage/drain and energy drain. If you e.g. use Enervation, no wight-worries either. Though I wouldn't put immunity past that thing; it sounds pretty nasty.

[Saph]

Episode 18: The Very Definitely Final Dungeon


The Archivist was away today, but the Ultimate Magus showed up again, making the party me, the Druid, the Ranger, the Assassin, and the Ultimate Magus, aka “Kenny”.

We had two possible plans. The first was going after the Nomming Worm, trying to hunt it down with some combination of divination and burrowing magic, and killing it. The second was breaking through the dungeon below the city to the Raver’s prison.

In the end we decided to go with the second plan. The reasoning was that since the worm was eventually going to go to the prison too, once we were there we could just camp outside the front gate and the worm would have to come to us.

The caverns below the city were directly under the Town Hall, and covered by about eighty feet of solid stone. My two Minor Xorns scouted us a way in that only went through earth, and a mass burrow spell from the Ranger got us into the tunnels.


Dungeon Crawling

The DM had generated this dungeon randomly off some website, which led to some pretty bizarre encounters. It also meant that the enemies we were fighting were “stock” ECL 12-14 enemies, instead of the super-advanced monsters from the previous session. We noticed the difference quickly.

The first monster was a 12-headed Pyrohydra (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm). It was 15 feet by 15 feet and was occupying a 15 foot by 45 foot room. Given that the doors were 5 feet wide, that meant it couldn’t get out. The Assassin opened the door, looked at it, then just closed the door again and left it there.

Next was a door with contact poison on the doorknob. The Assassin dealt with the trap by the cunning tool known as “gloves”.

Inside was an ice devil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#iceDevilGelugon). The Assassin closed the door on that one as well and it sealed the door shut with an ice wall. We went back to the hydra. This time it was ready for us. I won initiative and used Charm Monster. It failed its save and I started scratching its heads.

Me: “Who’s a good little hydra? Are you a good little hydra? Yes you are!”
DM: “Why do I even give you guys random monsters?”
Ranger: “But it must be so lonely! It’s shut up in this tiny little room and can’t get outside . . . it probably doesn’t even know there is an outside.”
DM: *sigh* “Fine. The hydra continues nuzzling you lovingly, as once again a monster that’s supposed to be a CR 13 challenge for an entire party gets turned into a pet.”
Ranger: “I think we should take it outside when we leave. Maybe we could find him a new home.”
Me: “Okay. After this is over I’ll use Teleport or something to take Clyde out.”
DM: “Clyde?”
Me: “Clyde the Hydra.”

While we were playing with Clyde, the Assassin scouted ahead and found that the next room contained something a little more serious - a Symbol of Insanity on the wall, and next to it, a beautiful female angelic figure who was, unfortunately, insane.


Angels Cry

The Astral Deva (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/angel.htm#angelAstralDeva) filled the room with a blade barrier, shrugging it off with her own spell resistance. The Assassin and the Ranger completely ignored it with their Evasion, but the rest of us had to back off hurriedly into the hydra room. The Astral Deva followed us through and started trying to smack us with her mace.

The Assassin and the Druid (along with his new Fleshraker companion) started happily hitting the Deva back. The Ranger and I were much more reluctant. The Ranger tried Diplomacy: it didn’t work. She tried telling the others to stop attacking, at which point the Deva used a holy word and deafened them (being one of the only two Good characters in the party occasionally has its advantages). The Deva couldn’t really hit the party’s Armour Class, so she was losing hit points faster than they were.

Meanwhile, I was hanging back and tried to figure out how to cure insanity. Insanity’s an Instantaneous effect, so the only thing that would work would be a Heal spell. The Druid had a scroll of it he’d been saving, but unfortunately after checking we realised there was zero chance of it breaking the Deva’s spell resistance. I tried to think of a Shapechange form that granted the ability to cure insanity as a (Su) ability, but couldn’t come up with one.

But SR doesn’t stop a creature’s own magic, so I realised that if we could figure out a way to get the Deva to use her own Heal ability on herself, that would cure her. Unfortunately, it turns out that persuading an insane creature that’s trying to kill you to heal itself is a little tricky.

Finally the Ranger gave up talking and reluctantly shot the Deva until it dropped. Due to her bow’s Holy damage not hurting the Deva, the Deva was left alive but bleeding out. We stabilised her and tried to figure out what to do next. The Ranger and I weren’t willing to kill the angel, while the Druid didn’t particularly care but did concede that an Astral Deva would be a useful ally. The Assassin just started looting the Deva’s weapons and clothes.

Me: “If she’s unconscious, does she automatically fail saving throws?”
DM: “Yes.”
Me: “If I used a charm effect, would that override the insanity enough for me to persuade her to do something?”
DM: “No. She’d still be insane.”
Me: “ . . . What about a dominate?”
DM: “That would work, but you don’t know the spell.”
Me: “No . . . but I can think of a form we’re all very familiar with that has it as a supernatural ability.”
DM: “ . . . You’re going to Shapechange into an Aboleth, aren’t you?”
Me: “Can everyone give me some space?”

The others backed out of the room, and I used the third of my scrolls to turn into a giant aberrant fish. After a brief discussion of whether the ability worked on nonhumanoids (we eventually decided it did) I was about to use it when I noticed not everyone had left.

Me: “Wait, why are you here?”
Assassin: “Don’t mind me, carry on.”
Me: “ . . . Are you drawing a picture?”
Assassin: “The tentacle monster and naked angel setup is very artistic.”
Me: “You’d better not be planning to put this up on Deviant Art or something.”
Assassin: “Uh-huh.” *scribble scribble*
Me: *sigh* “I use my Enslave ability on the Deva."
DM: “It works.”
Me: “Okay, Oros? Can you heal her up?”
Assassin: “Sure.” *does so while still sketching*
DM: “She’s conscious.”
Me: “I command the Deva. ‘Minion! I order you to use your most powerful healing ability on yourself!’ “
DM: “She does.”
Me: “I monitor her thoughts through the telepathic link. Does she seem not-insane?”
DM: “Let’s see. Her first thought is ‘Where am I?’. Her second thought is ‘Why is there a huge tentacled fish-monster next to me?’. Her next thought is ‘Where are my clothes?’ “
Me: “Oros, give her her clothes and weapons back, and stop drawing already.”

I was going to dismiss the Enslave effect before noticing that it wasn’t dismissable. Oops. Making the best of it, I asked the DM what the Deva’s name was. His response was something along the lines of “I don't know, it was supposed to be just a ****ing random encounter, you’re supposed to be fighting these things not turning every creature on the level into your pets, she’s your *****, you make up a name for her.”

And that was how the newly-named Lumina the Astral Deva became a member of our party. :smallsmile:


Level-Appropriate Encounters Aren’t Always Appropriate

From this point on the enemies were constructs and Evil-aligned only, which sped things up a bit since the Ranger and I didn’t keep on trying to befriend them. This was also the point at which we noticed that our party wasn’t really all that balanced for fighting normal encounters anymore. We’d gotten used to the massively advanced and DM-customised Guardians, and had scaled up our defences and attack powers accordingly. The MM-standard creatures that the random generator had populated the dungeon with just weren’t that much of a challenge.

In order, the fights went something like this:

Another ice devil. It tried to separate the party with illusions and ice walls. Lumina spammed dispel magic and got rid of them all, and the ice devil teleported away rather than fight the six-person party on its own.
Two stone golems and a clay golem. The druid tanked, I used breath weapon attacks to soften them up, and the Ranger killed them all with adamantine arrows.
Another room full of golems (can’t remember which type). Same drill.
An iron golem. I turned into a Rust Dragon and breathed on it and it died.
Somewhere in the middle of this the Assassin and the Druid wandered off on their own to discover what was probably the single silliest encounter of the lot. A 15’ by 15’ Glabrezu (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#glabrezu) . . . in a 15’ by 15’ room.

Assassin: “What are you doing here?”
Glabrezu: “I’m sort of stuck.”

The Assassin and Druid worked out a deal where they gave the glabrezu its freedom in exchange for a wish. They used the wish to find the path to the end of the dungeon, and then came back to rejoin the party without telling the rest of us how they got the information. With the map, we were able to find our way to the exit.


Coatl vs Beholder

The Assassin and Druid had also been told that there was a beholder hive guarding the way down to the prison. Sure enough, the last room contained a beholder.

Luckily, the way we spotted it was that I was in couatl form, ethereal. I laid eyes on the thing and ran away quickly to the rest of the party before it could lay eyes on me. We discussed what to do, and came up with a plan: I’d launch a surprise attack on the thing from above, and they’d burst in the door.

Coatls have some useful abilities. They can use ethereal jaunt at will, and they can also grab, poison, and constrict. I went ethereal, popped out of the ceiling above the beholder, waited for the effect to wear off, then bit it, grabbed it, and started crushing it. The rest of the party burst in the door.

I won initiative and constricted the thing some more. The Assassin went second and ran in and shanked the Beholder. The Beholder went next, put a targeted antimagic beam on me, and suddenly I was grappling it in human form instead (though amusingly, I still managed to beat the Beholder’s grapple). The Assassin ate three Fort-save-or-die eye rays. She managed to survive the disintegrate and flesh to stone effects, but failed her save against the finger of death and dropped dead.

The Ranger killed the beholder on her turn, but now we were stuck. Since the Assassin had been killed by a death effect, last breath wouldn’t work. Just to add insult to injury, the door leading out of the dungeon was trapped with a crushing room trap, and with the Archivist and Assassin gone nobody could detect it. We all got mashed for 50ish damage and decided to withdraw.


Final Stages

And that was where we left the session, which brings this campaign journal fully up to date.

In the post-game chat, the DM pointed out a form to me from the Fiend Folio that could fix the Assassin’s death issue: a bizarre construct called a Zodar. They get to do a one-off Wish effect, so the first thing I’m going to do next session is use my still-functioning Shapechange and do that. (This sort of thing is exactly why polymorph effects are so completely ridiculous, but we’re at the end of the campaign and it means the Assassin’s player doesn’t have to roll up a new character.)

And after that we have to decide whether to fight our way through a beholder hive or just figure out some way of bypassing it.

The next session’ll be on Saturday and it’s scheduled to be the last, so stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion! :smalltongue:

[Myshlaevsky]

The first monster was a 12-headed Pyrohydra. It was 15 feet by 15 feet and was occupying a 15 foot by 45 foot room. Given that the doors were 5 feet wide, that meant it couldn’t get out. The Assassin opened the door, looked at it, then just closed the door again and left it there.

This really set me laughing. An argument against random dungeons if there ever was one.

[DanReiv]

Somewhere in the middle of this the Assassin and the Druid wandered off on their own to discover what was probably the single silliest encounter of the lot. A 15’ by 15’ Glabrezu . . . in a 15’ by 15’ room.

Assassin: “What are you doing here?”
Glabrezu: “I’m sort of stuck.”

I lol'd.

Awesome journal :smallbiggrin:

[Greenish]

Making the best of it, I asked the DM what the Deva’s name was. His response was something along the lines of “I don't know, it was supposed to be just a ****ing random encounter, you’re supposed to be fighting these things not turning every creature on the level into your pets, she’s your *****, you make up a name for her.”
Brilliant.
:biggrin:

[Eldariel]

I'm still chuckling. This deserves all sorts of quotes. This one has to take the cake though:
"I don't know, it was supposed to be just a ****ing random encounter, you’re supposed to be fighting these things not turning every creature on the level into your pets, she’s your *****, you make up a name for her."

[The Glyphstone]

Did she get her clothes back?

[Saph]

We made the Assassin give them back, yeah. The Enslave thing was morally dubious enough already. :smallwink:

[Eldariel]

We made the Assassin give them back, yeah. The Enslave thing was morally dubious enough already. :smallwink:

Well, it does beat insanity so hey; good intentions! Though killing it might've been better if it were summoned, not called. Damn, I hate the 3.5 calling rules... And I'm pretty sure there's like a dozen ways to release an Aboleth-bound creature anyways, so it's not like harm was done.

[Darkxarth]

Random dungeon generators are great for hack 'n' slash one-shots, less so for plot-based campaigns.

So, what are you going to do with Lumina? I mean, she's good and you're good, and you've now enslaved her. You should probably find some way to break the enslave effect. I don't have my books available at the moment (since Aboleths aren't OGC), but would dispel magic, remove curse, or break enchantment work? If not, I suppose you could command your slave to "pretend I released you and go about your usual Deva-y business after returning to the Upper Planes" (this hopefully avoids the Deva attacking the evil Assassin.

[Myshlaevsky]

Random dungeon generators are great for hack 'n' slash one-shots, less so for plot-based campaigns.

So, what are you going to do with Lumina? I mean, she's good and you're good, and you've now enslaved her. You should probably find some way to break the enslave effect. I don't have my books available at the moment (since Aboleths aren't OGC), but would dispel magic, remove curse, or break enchantment work? If not, I suppose you could command your slave to "pretend I released you and go about your usual Deva-y business after returning to the Upper Planes" (this hopefully avoids the Deva attacking the evil Assassin.

Remove Curse breaks Enslave, IIRC.

[Saph]

Yeah. It's sort of a dilemma, because on the one hand we're on a save-the-world type mission where we really do need all the help we can get.

On the other hand I can't really justify keeping the enslave effect on now that we've got some time to do something about it, so I'd better find a way to break it.

[LordShotGun]

Ah, another awesome post worth of a sticky! After this adventure do you plan on starting another campaign journal? It would be too bad if this was the last we hear of you and your awesome games.

I particularly enjoyied the 15x15 demon in a 15x15 room.

[Malbordeus]

i've done random dungeouns which have had 15x15 creatures inside 10x10 rooms before...

[Eldariel]

Yeah. It's sort of a dilemma, because on the one hand we're on a save-the-world type mission where we really do need all the help we can get.

On the other hand I can't really justify keeping the enslave effect on now that we've got some time to do something about it, so I'd better find a way to break it.

Just going more than a mile away breaks it... Seems easy enough.

[Saph]

That would work. I had been going to just tell her to keep using Dispel Magic on the thing till it was gone.

[Greenish]

(since Aboleths aren't OGC)What are they doing in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/aboleth.htm) then?

But yeah, Remove Curse and moving farther than a mile work, and the subject gets a new save every 24 hours, so sooner or later she'll roll 20.

[Darkxarth]

What are they doing in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/aboleth.htm) then?

But yeah, Remove Curse and moving farther than a mile work, and the subject gets a new save every 24 hours, so sooner or later she'll roll 20.

Smoly hokes! I was sure that Aboleths, along with Mind Flayers and Gith, had been kept out of the OGL. I did not even check because I was so positive. Well, I guess I'll be having my humble pie with a whipped topping, please. :smallredface:

[DanReiv]

Random dungeon generators are great for hack 'n' slash one-shots

No they aren't, like at all. Not even for hack 'n' slash, and certainly not for a one-shot.

They're just dumb, Saph's experience is just another proof of it. Even not random and official and recent tend to be on the boring side (looking at you Pyramid of shadow 4th ed and all)

[Exterminatus]

If it isn't outright immune, it's going to die to both, Con damage/drain and energy drain. If you e.g. use Enervation, no wight-worries either. Though I wouldn't put immunity past that thing; it sounds pretty nasty.

While not official, isn't there a wight template made by Monte Cook? I wouldn't put it past the DM to research it up and have it rise the next day to create the wight-apocalypse.

[Gerrtt]

I gotta say, I'm excited that today is Saturday and we'll get to see the exciting (and likely hilarious) conclusion to this awesome journal.

[Deth Muncher]

I can't remember if you said you actually freed the deva or not, but in case you hadn't:


Enslave (Su)
Three times per day, an aboleth can attempt to enslave any one living creature within 30 feet. The target must succeed on a DC 17 Will save or be affected as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 16th). An enslaved creature obeys the aboleth’s telepathic commands until freed by remove curse, and can attempt a new Will save every 24 hours to break free. The control is also broken if the aboleth dies or travels more than 1 mile from its slave. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Emphasis mine.

[Wolf Warhead]

Thought 1: Hurray! Saph's journal is updating again.
Thought 2: Final session? Nooooooooooo!

Anyways, new member, slightly older lurker here. This journal helped me a lot figuring out my own Sorcerer (First high-level character) and was hilarious to read. Any chance you'll do another journal after this?

As for the Deva; there have been several suggestions on how you can free her, but it is true you could use her help on the mission. Why not do the good-aligned thing and, you know, ask her to help you out after she's freed?

And I disagree with all the people saying that random dungeons are bad. They are obviously hilarious :smalltongue:

[Saph]

So, final session was yesterday.

I'm in the middle of writing it up now, slightly delayed since I'm also preparing for the next campaign, which is starting immediately afterwards. :smalltongue:

[Raiki]

I'm also preparing for the next campaign, which is starting immediately afterwards. :smalltongue:

As the founding member of the Saph Fan Club, I support this motion.

:smallbiggrin:

~R~

[Dusk Eclipse]

Saph is starting a new campaing??? :brain explodes from anticipattion!!:

[Wolf Warhead]

So, final session was yesterday.

I'm in the middle of writing it up now, slightly delayed since I'm also preparing for the next campaign, which is starting immediately afterwards. :smalltongue:

You're not just going to tease us like this, right? You'll provide some details at some point...

Right?

Also: *anticipation*

[2xMachina]

Wow, finale.

Hopefully, the new campaign also has a journal.

[Amel]

I thoroughly loved reading this campaign journal, both from a player's perspective and a DM's.

I have also been inspired to new heights of cruelty as a DM. I can't wait to spring some new perils upon my unsuspecting players and make them weep. :smallamused:<Evil Laughter>

[Saph]

Episode 19: End of Days (Part One)


Everyone was here for the final session: my Sorcerer, the Ranger, the Druid, the Archivist, the Assassin, and even the Ultimate Magus. I was level 14, while the others were all level 13. The session was played out at the Druid’s player’s flat, and apart from a pizza break it ran from about 2 pm all the way to 11.

As the session opened, our characters were standing over the Assassin’s body, deciding what to do next.


Party Reassmbly

My Shapechange was still running, so as agreed, I shifted into a Zodar and Wished him back to life. For the curious, Zodars are weird enigmatic intelligent constructs with a variety of useful abilities, their once-per-year Wish being the main one. They look like this.

http://www.aulamanga.it/fantasy/galleria1/Zodar.jpg
The next issue was that the Archivist’s character was up above ground in the city. I shifted into a Blink Dog and teleported back up to the city, then outside his bedroom door, shifted back into human form, and knocked.

Archivist: *opens door* “Hello?”
Me: “Hi. We’re about to go down into the lower dungeon levels to fight our way into the prison and kill the Raver. Coming?”
Archivist: “Oh, right. I’ll just be five minutes.”
Me: “We’re kind of in a hurry.”
Archivist: “Just five minutes.” *closes door*
Me (to DM): “I shift into a Beholder and disintegrate the door.”
Archivist: “Hey!”
Me: “I said, we’re kind of in a hurry.”

We blinked back to the town hall, I disintegrated a shaft straight down to join up with the dungeon, the Archivist rode on my back, and we rejoined the rest of the party.

And finally, having had the week to think about it, I decided it was time to break the enslave effect on Lumina the Astral Deva, and ordered her to use her Dispel Magic SLA repeatedly until the domination effect was broken. She did, blinked a bit and looked around. We got a short way into explaining what had happened, at which point she said, “Well, thank you for saving my life, and uh . . . bye,” and plane shifted out. I was kind of sad about it, but that’s how it goes (and given the lethality of some of the things we ran into later, it might have been for the best).


Death Attacks And Almost-Death-Attacks

The next level of the dungeon was littered with symbol of death traps. The Assassin failed to find the first one and it went off right underneath her, the Druid, and me. Luckily we all passed our Fort saves and I shifted into a beholder and disintegrated it.

The Archivist found the next symbol of death 20 feet down the corridor and disarmed it.

There was yet another symbol of death 5 feet further. I disintegrated that one too. (By this point I was sick of having to make Fort saves against death and was going around in Zodar form. The Archivist was starting to wonder out loud what the point of the Disable Device skill was.)

The next room contained a bunch of dybbuks, a particularly unpleasant type of demon from Hordes of the Abyss. They used their incorporeality to hide in the walls and tentacled us with Constitution-damaging touch attacks. Since they refused to move out of the walls, we couldn’t target them with anything in return. Luckily, there was a solution at hand: I delayed to just after the dybbuks, used my beholder form to disintegrate the 10-foot cube of wall they were using for cover, and the Ranger shot them to death with some additional pounce damage from the Druid. After repeating the process twice more, there were no more dybbuks.

Our combats by this point in the campaign had become a little weird, since virtually every non-boss battle was coming down to waiting for the Ranger to shoot things to death. With her “railgun” buffs up, she was capable of doing so much damage that it just wasn’t worth the effort for anyone else to expend any resources on attacking. Between that and the crowding effect of the dungeon corridors, the Assassin, Archivist, and Ultimate Magus had pretty much given up on even trying to hit the enemies, while the Druid and I did tank duty. Effectively the entire party had become a delivery system for the Ranger (quite impressive given that she was still in gnome form and was relying upon a steady supply of Enlarge Person spells to avoid weapon size penalties).

Just to show you what I mean, here’s how the next combat went:

Setup: Two Nycaloths (CR 10, MM III) and one Ultroloth (CR 13, MMIII) are waiting invisible in a room. Level 14-15 encounter, in theory. The Assassin goes in to search for traps.
Surprise Round: Nycaloths maul the Assassin down to half HP or so.
First Round: Assassin Tumbles and runs. Ranger full attacks from the mouth of the doorway. She eats two AoOs but kills a Nycaloth in one full attack. I move up in front of her and shift into Gold Dragon form. Surviving Nycaloth attacks me and does nothing. Yugoloth hits me with enervation. Archivist uses Dark Knowledge and casts Bane Bow (evil outsider) on the Ranger. The Ultimate Magus and the Druid can’t reach.
Second Round: Ranger fires on the second Nycaloth and kills it in one full attack. Yugoloth fires SLAs at me and does light damage, I shoot a supernatural ability back at it and fail to beat its saves. Assassin, Druid, Archivist, and Ultimate Magus twiddle their thumbs.
Third Round: Ranger fires on the Ultroloth and kills it in one full attack. Battle over.
By comparison, back when we fought a single Ultroloth at the end of Session 10, the thing was enough to kill one of the PCs, nearly kill several more, and tax the survivors to their limits in an epic 2-hour battle. We’ve really tuned our characters up since then.


Yet More Reasons Why Shapechange is Ridiculous

A search revealed a secret door, giving us a choice of three directions to go in. By this point we were all starting to get tired of this dungeon. We’d been in it for over a full session, had gone through eight encounters plus a ton of traps, and still had no idea if we were even on the right path.

At which point I came up with an idea. There are creatures from Monster Manual II called Elemental Weirds. They get to duplicate all the most powerful divination spells in the PHB as a Supernatural ability . . . as a free action.

Several free actions later, I had find the path, as well as true seeing and foresight for good measure. Find the path revealed that sure enough, we were going the wrong way - the entire yugoloth room had been a false trail. Grumbling a bit, we headed back the way we’d came.

The opposition in the next room was more serious. Four more dybbuks were hiding in the walls, and they’d learned from the first ones. They ignored me, since I was invulnerable to Con damage in Zodar form, and beat the crap out of the Archivist instead, hitting him for 25 or so points of Con damage and killing him instantly. On my turn I 5-foot stepped upwards, drew a scroll of Last Breath and used it to reincarnate the Archivist as a human again (earning a “I hate you” from the Ranger), then turned into a Beholder and disintegrated the 10-foot cube of floor the dybbuks had been hiding in. The Druid moved in and used a rejuvenation coccoon to protect the Archivist, and the Ranger killed one of the four dybbuks. On their turn, the remaining three dybbuks all 5-foot stepped up and full attacked me. I came close to being killed, but thanks to Wings of Cover and some low rolls on the DM’s part, survived with only one hit. I blasted the dybbuks with Wings of Flurry, the Ranger gunned down two more, and force attacks from the druid and Ultimate Magus finished off the last, killing them all before they had a chance to take another action.


Home Stretch

The dybbuks were the last non-boss encounter of the day. We were all sick of fighting our way through the dungeon, and unanimously decided to take a shortcut. A discern location spell courtesy of Elemental Weird form pinpointed the Raver’s prison as only a couple of hundred feet downwards. I turned into a beholder and carved out a spiral staircase with disintegrate rays.

Fifty thousand cubic feet of disintegrated rock later, we were at the bottom of the dungeon. Below us, the spiral staircase disappeared into utter blackness. Our daylight effects didn’t penetrate it. Detect magic revealed that it was some sort of heightened darkness spell, and that it was overlapped by a dimension lock. We’d finally found the prison. Next issue: how to deal with the darkness?

Suggestion 1: Use a heightened daylight spell to overcome the darkness. Rejected because seriously, who prepares heightened daylight? (Not us, anyway.)
Suggestion 2: Figure out a way to get hold of Lumina or some creature with similar abilities and spam dispel magic at the darkness. Rejected once we figured out what the likelihood of us overcoming the darkness’ caster level was (about zero).
Suggestion 3: Have everyone get blindsense or similar abilities and put up with the darkness effect. Rejected since boss battles in our games are more than bad enough already without eating a 50% miss chance.
Suggestion 4: Have me turn into a beholder and lead the way and train my anti-magic cone on the darkness while another character stood next to me and held a nonmagical torch inside my antimagic eye-beam. It says something about how short on ideas we were getting that we took this seriously. Actually, everyone else was willing to try it. I was less keen on the plan for obvious reasons.
Luckily, at this point it occurred to me to check the PHB. It turns out that True Seeing not only sees through magical darkness, but is also a Touch spell. One Shapechange into an Elemental Lolhax and a bunch of free actions later (seriously, Weirds are just freaking ridiculous), everyone in the party was buffed with True Seeing, Foresight, and Find the Path. However, on an ominous note, I did a last Discern Location before going in and found that the Nomming Dark was closer . . . much closer.

We descended into the darkness for the final battle with the Raver and its guardians.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Episode 19: End of Days (Part One)


<awesome write of a session>


Why do you hate us Saph, why do you leave us with such a cliff-hanger why Saph.

[PId6]

Great session so far! Yeah, Elemental Weirds are crazy good, even ignoring the 18th level Sorcerer casting. Just make sure your DM doesn't start sending them at the party; those things are not CR 12. :smalltongue:

Can't wait for the next part!

[Deth Muncher]

One Shapechange into an Elemental Lolhax and a bunch of free actions later...

Heh. I lol'd. I mean, there are many lollarious moments, but The Elemental Lolhax is the pinnacle of amusing.

[Jarian]

My pet theory: the writers of the MM2 added/subtracted 10 from the CR of just about everything.

[Saph]

Episode 19: End of Days (Part Two)


The stairs spiralled down in the darkness and opened up into a single wide room. At the centre of the room was a translucent pillar made of some sort of crystal. Frozen inside was a giant four-armed figure that seemed to be made entirely of black glass.

We didn’t get much chance to look at it, because as soon as we stepped inside a shadowy four-armed figure materialised in front of the Archivist, stabbed him in the chest, and vanished again. Initiative time.

The creature stabbing at us was the Raver, and the next time it appeared we shot it with a bunch of readied actions. Unfortunately, it didn’t do anything. The thing was only a projection and our attacks couldn’t touch it. We did manage to figure out that Death Ward protected us from its strength-draining attacks, so within a couple of rounds everyone was buffed up with that.

That was the point at which the Nomming Dark showed up for a rematch.


The Final Guardian: The Nomming Dark Again

http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptationscreatures/games/dnd/purpleworm.jpg

The Nomming Dark burst up out of the ground next to the Druid and took a massive chomp out of him (the druid’s Freedom of Movement preventing him from being grabbed and swallowed). The Ultimate Magus tried to fly away while still inside the worm’s AoO range and got bitten, grabbed, chomped, and thrown into the wall. The Druid’s Fleshraker charge-pounced and got smacked back prone with an Awesome-Blow type effect (turned out the creature had Combat Reflexes in addition to its 20-foot reach.) The Assassin maneuvered into position behind the creature, the Ranger full-attacked the worm for her normal silly amount of damage (150 points or so) and I zapped the thing with an Orb of Force.

The Nomming Dark used a maximised breath weapon on the party, dealing 100 points of fire damage, but between energy resistance, energy immunity, and Evasion, everyone stayed up. It was the last action it got to take. Everyone had gotten into position, and proceeded to hit the thing with their best attacks one after the other. The Druid and his Fleshraker managed to break through the thing’s AoOs and charge-pounced it for about ten attacks and upwards of 100 damage. The Ranger full-attacked and did another 100 or so damage. I hit the worm with an Empowered Unicorn Arrow for 75, and the Assassin, who’d finally managed to find a creature that she could sneak attack, TWFed the worm with four backstabs, dealing 120 damage. We imagined it as kind of like a video game combination attack. The Nomming Dark hit the ground on -50 or so, and the last Guardian was dead. I disintegrated the head just to make sure.


Gearing Up

With the Nomming Dark dead and the Raver’s projection unable to hurt us, we had a short breather. Several of the party were in favour of backing off and coming back while we were rested, so to check whether that was practical I took Air Weird form again and used an Analyse Dweomer on the pillar. The news wasn’t good. According to the information it gave, the Raver had been investing some of its power into the Guardians. With each one that had died, it had been growing stronger, and now it was powerful enough to break out. It was just a matter of when.

I’d just finishing telling this to the party when cracks started appearing in the crystal pillar. That answered the “when” question.

We healed up, used every buff spell we had left, and got ready for the final battle.


The Raver - Outer Form

The pillar shattered, and out stepped a giant golemlike creature made of black glass. It looked almost exactly like a Nightwalker, except that there was a smaller humanlike figure encased within its chest.

http://vnmedia.ign.com/nwvault.ign.com/NWN2/creatures/MM35_PG196.jpg
Everyone opened up on it with the most powerful attacks they had. The Ranger, unsurprisingly, did the most damage, her adamantine arrows breaking the thing’s damage reduction and hitting it for upwards of a hundred damage. I threw in another Unicorn Arrow for a little more. The Raver charged in and hit the Ranger with a slam attack that did surprisingly little.

Archivist: “I hit it with a Sound Lance for 32 damage.”
DM: “Make a check against SR . . . Okay. It does something, but you’re not sure what.”
Ultimate Magus: “I hit it with a Split Maximised Scorching Ray for 96 damage!”
DM: “SR check. Does something, but you’re not sure what.”
Druid: “My Fleshraker and I both full attack it. Oh, and it takes another 12 from my Fire Shield, don’t know if that does anything..”
DM: “SR check. Again does something, but you’re not sure what.”
Ranger: “I Tumble away.”
DM: “The creature’s turn. It stands there and focuses for a second, then there’s a whine that grows rapidly in pitch, followed by an ear-splitting boom as it releases all the energy you’ve thrown at it in a massive circular pulse of force. You all take 140 force damage, Reflex 30 for half.”
Everyone: :smalleek:

The Ranger and the Assassin escaped with Evasion. I used Ruin Delver’s Fortune and dodged with Evasion as well. The Archivist and Druid passed their saves and survived with heavy damage. The Ultimate Magus failed and was turned into a wet smear on the wall that splattered down on top of the Druid’s back.

The Assassin took out a razor, scraped bits of Ultimate Magus out of the Druid’s fur, and reincarnated the Ultimate Magus with a scroll of Last Breath. I doubled my Strength to 50 with the Zodar’s special ability and beat on the golem with my sword, the Ranger sent another volley of adamantine arrows into it, and under the weight of fire the thing shattered into fragments.

With the outer shell broken, the true form of the Raver stepped out from the remains - a four-armed, Medium-sized creature of pure darkness. It was time for the final battle.


The Raver - Final Form

I opened up on the Raver with touch attack spells and missed completely - turned out the thing had a Touch AC in the mid-30s. The Druid and Ranger had more luck, beating on the thing with full attacks and doing significant damage.

The Raver’s action was to disjoin the effects on the prison and to start blinking between planes. Suddenly everything targeting it had a 50% miss chance, and it began using immediate-action teleports to dodge spells. Our next round of attacks was a lot less effective. The Archivist’s cast a Heal spell on the Ultimate Magus to put him back in the fight. It worked . . . unfortunately, the Raver also had the Spell Stowaway ability, and shared the benefit of the spell, healing itself back up to full HP. After the collective “Arrgh!” we made a quick resolution not to cast any more healing spells.

The Raver stepped outside time, hit everyone in the room, and reappeared on the other side of the room next to the Ranger. The Ranger stepped away and full attacked it and with a series of lucky rolls managed to do heavy damage to the thing while the Druid and Ultimate Magus threw in additional attacks from the sides. I shifted form into a Chronotyryn and started chucking double True Striked Orbs of Force at the Raver with Arcane Fusion.

The Raver full attacked the Ranger, then used Greater Celerity, and full attacked her again. Even with her ridiculous AC it hit her seven times, but thanks to her buff spells she was left just barely alive on -1 HP. By this point the Druid had decided that we weren’t going to win this the way the fight was going, and had started scribbling on a piece of paper.

Druid: “Okay, Aiden. You’ve still got two of those Shapechange scrolls, right?”
Me: “Yes . . .”
Druid: “We need someone else to use one so they can take Zodar form and do a Wish.”
Ultimate Magus: “Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!”
Me: “ . . . Do we have to?”
Archivist: “I’d do it, but it’s an arcane scroll.”
Me: “Can’t Oros use it?”
Assassin: “My UMD’s +20. I could try, but . . .”
Ultimate Magus: “I can do it! I only need a 5 on the caster level check to use a Shapechange scroll.”
Me: “Yes, but I don’t want you to have one.”
Ultimate Magus: “Why not?”
Me: “Firstly because you’re insane, secondly because you’re evil, and thirdly because you sold your soul to Pazuzu. Giving you a scroll of Shapechange is like giving a loaded gun to a monkey.”
Druid: “Look, we don’t have any choice. I’ve done this sort of thing before, I know how to phrase a Wish so it works.”
Ultimate Magus: “I run over and take a scroll out of his Handy Haversack.”
Me: *grabs his hand on the way over* “ . . . Use that Wish for anything other than exactly the wording he tells you to use and I will take your head off at the neck.” *releases hand*

The Ultimate Magus promptly fluffed his caster level check and failed to activate the scroll. I flew over, grabbed the Ranger, and withdrew with her to the corner of the room, and the Raver, who’d been listening in on the conversation, looked upwards and disappeared up through the roof of the prison at lightning speed, passing straight through the rock and leaving a trail of glowing light behind it.

The Druid grabbed the piece of paper he’d worded the Wish on and hastily edited it, while the Ultimate Magus tried the Shapechange again and succeeded this time. I switched to Avoral form and used Lay on Hands to heal the Ranger, the Assassin, the Druid, and the Fleshraker lined up in the middle of the room, while the Ultimate Magus Shapechanged into a Zodar and read the following off the piece of paper: “I wish that the Raver be transported to here” *pointing at the square in the middle of the party* “and be unable to leave this dimension or use any form of dimensional travel magic for 1 minute.”

The DM thought about it, then decided it worked. The Raver blinked back into existence in the middle of the party. The Druid rubbed his hands, had his Fleshraker charge-pounce the thing, and was just about to charge in himself, when . . .

. . . the Raver collapsed. Its body disintegrated into dust, the dust turned into black smoke, and the smoke blew away on the wind. It had only been on about 50 HP, and the Fleshraker’s pounce had killed it.

And so the Raver, the creation of the Daeklyr designed to free them from imprisonment, the creator of the Guardians that had fallen onto our plane a thousand years ago and nearly destroyed our continent in a civilisation-spanning war, the immortal and almost indestructible entity capable of destroying our entire world, was killed by the druid’s animal companion.


Epilogue

And that was it.

The Raver wasn’t dead - being a direct creation of the Daeklyr, it couldn’t be killed, only discorporated. But it wasn’t coming back for a couple of thousand years, which made it somebody else’s problem as far as we were concerned.

We made the journey back up to the surface to find the capital city as we’d left it. The Ultimate Magus used Plane Shift to go off to Celestia and try and convince the residents to un-condemn his soul from Pazuzu, but we weren’t paying much attention by this point (and the answer was “no”, anyway).

There are plenty of stories left unresolved. The Justicars are still occupying the city, and we don’t know when or if they plan to leave. There are still two armies of giants on the borders that we never dealt with (we never figured out what was up with that red dragon, either). There are a bunch of aberrations in the surrounding villages that need catching. The Ranger still wanted to get to use her epic flying advanced rhino mount, I was planning on going back and fetching Clyde the Pyrohydra, the Archivist and I were planning on using a Sending spell to get back in touch with Lumina, the Archivist is still looking for a way back to his home plane, and the Assassin and Druid had various miscellaneous things they wanted to sort out as well.

But by this point, the DM has had enough. He’s been running this campaign for 5 months non-stop, doing a vast amount of preparation every week, and has reached the point where he simply refuses to do any more work. He’s officially handing things over to the next DM . . .

. . . which will be me. I’ll be running a 3.5 sandbox-type stronghold-based game starting this Saturday, and I’ve been spending the last few days writing up notes and drawing maps. Starting at 6th-level, this time. I think most of us wanted something with a marginally saner power level.

And so that brings this campaign journal to a close. Thanks to all those who’ve been reading it so faithfully - you’ve collectively given us a lot of funny suggestions, and we’ve all enjoyed reading everyone else’s comments on the weird adventures we’ve been getting up to. Goodbye for now!

[Gadora]

That was one heck of a good read. Thank you for sharing this with us.

[Grimlock]

This has been entertaining, inspiring and hilarious! Thanks a bunch Saph for taking the time to write this up for our enjoyment!

[Gerrtt]

Quite exciting. Love the damage mirror/energy release effect it had. Out of curiousity did the DM invent the Raver or base it off an existing creature?

[TurtleKing]

You are going to be DMing...:smallredface: Are you going to be writing up what shenanigans happen to the party?:smallbiggrin: I am sure we are all looking forward to it.

[mikej]

And so the Raver, the creation of the Daeklyr designed to free them from imprisonment, the creator of the Guardians that had fallen onto our plane a thousand years ago and nearly destroyed our continent in a civilisation-spanning war, the immortal and almost indestructible entity capable of destroying our entire world, was killed by the druid’s animal companion.

Damn, I knew Fleshrakers were powerfull, never imagined that would happen. just kidding

It was a good read, Saph. I wish you the best on your next campaign.

[Raiki]

I, on behalf of the fan club (which...actually only officially means me [and Dusk Eclipse] I suppose :smallamused:), would like to thank Saph for writing up what has clearly been the best campaign journal since SCS's games.

Also, I totally hope you write up your game. Just hearing about all the things you came up with as a character (Let's hear anyone say that a well played sorcerer can never be effectively tier-1...come on, anyone?), I would love to hear about all of the terrible and amazing things you'll come up with as a DM.

Also, in the spirit of remembrance...may I suggest a free bag of tricks to all party members in the next game? :smallbiggrin:


Edit: Shamed by Dusk Eclipse into doubling the number of members in the Official Saph Fan Club. :smallbiggrin:
~R~

[Saph]

Damn, I knew Fleshrakers were powerfull, never imagined that would happen. just kidding

It was actually kind of symmetrical. We figured out afterwards that between the four main attackers of the party, we'd killed a Guardian each.

• Doom Kitty - Pounce-shredded by the Druid.
• Eye Eye - Shot down by the Ranger (twice).
• Black Death - Disintegrated by me.
• Nomming Dark - Backstabbed by the Assassin.

So then the final boss was taken down by the animal companion. I guess it was his turn.


You are going to be DMing...:smallredface: Are you going to be writing up what shenanigans happen to the party?:smallbiggrin: I am sure we are all looking forward to it.

Sadly, no. It just takes too much time to do these writeups, and there's no way I'd be able to juggle that and DMing at the same time (I'm writing the new campaign myself, so I'm having to do loads of preparation). Besides, I've been doing this journal for 5 months and I need a break. :smallwink:


I, on behalf of the fan club (which...actually only officially means me I suppose :smallamused:), would like to thank Saph for writing up what has clearly been the best campaign journal since SCS's games.

I'm flattered. :smallredface:

And yeah, I've got all kinds of fun stuff planned for the next campaign. Who knows, I might get a chance to write up the most funny bits - we'll see!

[The Glyphstone]

I smell a Stronghold Builder's Guide! Woot!

[Kaulesh]

*applause*

What am I to do now that my favorite campaign journal is over?

[Drothmal]

It was amazing!

Thank you very much!

[Cisturn]

thanks saph this was great

[Claudius Maximus]

No offense Saph, but this was pretty good.

[Saph]

Glad you guys all liked it!


No offense Saph, but this was pretty good.

That doesn't offend me, no. :smalltongue:

[OMG PONIES]

Your group rotates DMs, why not rotate journalers? :smallsmile:

[Eldariel]

Fine run; glad you wrote it all up! I'll have to say, I have quite enjoyment every new installment of the story.

[Anonomuss]

Thanks for all the hard work Saph. A massively enjoyable read.

[DanReiv]

Now that was a good run, thanks for sharing it with us.

Pretty sure you've got a lot of readers (just checked, 16k views, not too shabby, it's more than the 2 stickies :smallbiggrin: )


I’ll be running a 3.5 sandbox-type stronghold-based game starting this Saturday

That's funny, our current campaign is coming close to its end, and I was thinking doing it sand box style for the next. Gives the players a small keep on a flying island (http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/9199/flyingisland.jpg) in the astral plane, a small spelljammer, the way to a portal to Sigil, and see what happens.

I'll eagerly await your next journal:smallcool:

[Dusk Eclipse]

I, on behalf of the fan club (which...actually only officially means me I suppose :smallamused:), would like to thank Saph for writing up what has clearly been the best campaign journal since SCS's games.

Also, I totally hope you write up your game. Just hearing about all the things you came up with as a character (Let's hear anyone say that a well played sorcerer can never be effectively tier-1...come on, anyone?), I would love to hear about all of the terrible and amazing things you'll come up with as a DM.

Also, in the spirit of remembrance...may I suggest a free bag of tricks to all party members in the next game? :smallbiggrin:

~R~

I'll have to dissagree with that

I sixth (or seventh) the petitoin for titles..

also Dusk Eclipse: second member of Saph's fanclub:smallsmile:

:smallbiggrin:

Saph I really loved this journal it is awesome beyond words.

[Erts]

Wow... I have just read from Session 17, and this was great.

You've done an amazing job keeping track of your campaign and writing this Saph, and I can't wait to read a future journal.

[UltraMegaSquid]

*applauds*

Thanks Saph, for a most enjoyable read.

[Fizban]

Woohoo!, great journal, sorry to see it done.

[Rising Phoenix]

Thank you for your time and effort writting this. It was awesome! Also kudos to your DM.:smallsmile:

[Saph]

Yep, he did a great job. Doubt I'll be able to keep a campaign up for quite so long!