Meeting of minds

[Gaiyamato]

Thirst appears on the empty plains, the wind whipping about him. He raises his hands and an oppressive force falls down upon the hex, the weather turns hot and purple rain falls from the sky.

A dark shadow appears nearby and settles slowly into the ground, vanishing from sight.

OOC: Actively blocking the presence in this hex and blocking scrying before stopping all casting, magic and divine powers. Even the table wont show where we are or what effects are in here right now.

[Jormengand]

Kayros appears in his robe of words, with no helpers. He looks irritably at the Vile god, although in honesty he had nothing better to do. He walks towards the deity, utterly prepared for any fight that might take place.

Kayros, being a prepared sort of chap, has the following active (Though you don't know that):

Second Word, Maximised Empowered Reversed Superior Word of Nurturing activated when attacked on the attacker*20
Extended Superlative Energy Negation (Force, Vile, Piercing)
Extended Reversed Superlative Energy Negation (Sonic, Force, Holy)
Extended Walk Between Worlds.
Extended Superior Seek the Sky.
Extended Mystic Rampart.
Extended Superior Word of Nurturing.
Extended Perceive the Unseen

Permanent Symbol of Death on the robe*20 (though it can't actually hurt gods, so it's kinda irrelevant here)
Maximised explosive Runes on the robe*20, activated when attacked from within range.
Contingency: Maximised Time Stop when I am attacked.
Freedom of Movement
Haste
Foresight
Moment of Prescience

[Gaiyamato]

Glad you came Kayros. Starting to think that you are the closest thing to an Ally I have.
The Vile God greets him as he arrives.
All of this.. he gestures around the hex is just in case the others find us and come looking. I have no intention of harming you.
He pauses again.
It seems I made a mistake trusting the other gods. their agreement and actions are clearly designed to destroy me. The agreement also essentially declares war on any God who does no sign the agreement. Destroying you, myself and Tyranus is clearly their goal. don't get me wrong I want power. But there need to be Gods to control the forces of this world. Everyone is important. We cannot simply eliminate those who we don't agree with.
So I am have decided not to support the agreement and sid'Jax as ruler. Instead I wanted to propose something to you. I want to try to form a sub-pantheon along with Tyranus. Not an evil Pantheon, or even an overly Lawful Pantheon. But one based on acquiring enough power to ensure our own survival and balancing out the actions of the other Gods. Firstly though I think I can help you gain more power for yourself personally, which could tilt the scales a little. My days are looking numbered ever since Sophia attacked my Herald in BelTran. Sophia has actively been breaking our truce agreement, and now Sid'Jax has attacked and destroyed portions of one of my worshippers settlements. Now this document they have made.. it is too much.
I want to form this Pantheon with you and place you in charge as the formal head of the sub-pantheon.

OOC:
The Pantheon would work like the Ebberron Patheons. We would each select two of our domains and combine them into a pool. Worshippers could then select from the 6 domains if they are clerics. It would make us one single strong block under the divine rules as well as my followers would boost you and vice versa.
I would make a prestige class like World Speaker that mortals could take also.

The power I can offer would involve giving you a Gestalt Track, though it would be outsider RHD and not class levels. But you would gain a ton of feats and powers in combat.

Between these two changes if Tyranus joins with us we can stand out as the primary power among the Gods, with you at the head.

[Jormengand]

"Heh. You think the other gods will try to kill us, R'ta'nakk'k? Let them come. I could use the target practice. Let them see us here, Ancient One, and they shall never see again."

He smiles. "Or perhaps, we could destroy their cities and followers... what say you to dropping an island atop them?"

[Gaiyamato]

We should keep those options in mind for another time. But no, they will not openly attack us. Either myself or you could destroy them all as it is. Instead they work behind the scenes, and through their contract, to gradually draw us into a trap and strip us of our powers. If either of us signs that agreement the other will either be forced to sign it or be slowly drained of power until we can be exterminated. Tyranus will never sign it, but he will likely be their last target. I have the greatest number of followers after Sophia however. If we can form a single pantheonic block then we can pool our power, increasing yours substantially. Then we should work to foster hatred between the nations of Haven and Arnil, which would cause a rift between Inautia and Sophia. That alone would put an end to their plans for now and keep us safe. Using that however one us of could then take the throne if we could force the support of Inautia.

He holds out a small gemstone in his hand, throbbing with purple energy. This would grant you power on equal standing with the rest of us, and would place you in a position to become the KING of the Gods!

OOC: Accepting the Gemstone would grant you a gestalt track and create the pantheon.

[Jormengand]

Identify item on the gem. Not that i don't trust him not to have cast any nasty spells on it, or anything...

(Identify item tells me any and all magical properties of an item and the actions required to activate them, even for an artifact or cursed item.)

[Gaiyamato]

No spells or SLAs work in this hex right now. You cannot even teleport or use your time stop.


Seeing you intensely staring at the gem Thirst responds You have my word that it does only what I have claimed it does.

[Jormengand]

No spells or SLAs work in this hex right now. You cannot even teleport or use your time stop.


Damn, forgot about that.

"And I suppose you think I trust you? I know of several ways to defeat someone by tricking them into taking a magic item. Let me use my powers to examine the gem, and I may take it."

[Gaiyamato]

If I lower my defenses the others will find us and be here instantly. I have never lied to anyone nor broken my word. I revel in foulness and spreading pain and misery. But I will never break my word. The gem only does what I claim, it will not harm you nor enslave you to me.
He pauses and pulls a deep black bag from a pouch, the bag is sucking the light from the area, dimming the effects of the sun. He places the gemstone into the pouch. To show how honest I am you may carry the item away in this bag, examine it and then decide what you wish to do with it.

[Jormengand]

Kayros looks suspicious, but takes the bag anyway. "All right."

Assuming he's not dead yet, he then walks away.

Kayros had Walk Between Worlds active, so he can teleport out without casting a spell or SLA. He then identifies the gem.

[Gaiyamato]

No problems.
The Gem radiates massive volumes of transmutation and conjuration magic on a scale you have never seen before. OOC: It was made using actual epic magic, AND 10th and above level spells. Thirst is more powerful than he seems....

From what you can tell it has no harmful effects at all. It changes some very core part of your being. A DC 40 Spellcraft check will confirm that thirst is telling you the truth.

It does however radiate an aura of almost irrepressible evil.

[Jormengand]

Identify item tells me all the abilities of the item in question - the only check I need is the truespeak check to cast it. I have a lot of ranks in truespeak :p (IE I only need to roll if you're about CL 50.)

Kayros takes the gem out of the bag...

[Gaiyamato]

No worries then. The Gem literally stitches on a 20 HD creature onto you (like the oots comic did, but yours is permanent and you are in control).

You gain a divine rank.

It also starts the formation of the pantheon.

[Gaiyamato]

You gain all the traits of a Marrowspawn Abomination from the Sandstorm book. All 20HD of it. Except all of your HD will also be changed to D10s.

You gain:
Type: Changes to Outsider(Native) if not already.
Size: Grows to large (changes included below)
Ability Scores: STR: +26 STR, +2 DEX, +18 CON, +8 INT, +18 WIS, +16 CHA
Movement: +30 base land Speed
AC: +19 Natural, +10 Insight bonus
BAB: Full +20
Special attacks: Howl of dissolution, SLAs
Special qualities: Blindsight 120', DR 10/Adamantine and Magic, Darkvision 120' (or +60' if you already have it), Fast Healing 15, immunities, marrowspawn traits, nonedetection, Resistance to cold 20, SR 32 (or +12 to existing SR if that would be higher), telepathy
Saves: Good will saves (probably wont affect you)
Feats: Blindfight, Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Sunder, Multiattack, Power Attack, Quicken Spell-like Ability(flesh to salt), +1 any Epic feat you qualify for. If you already have any of these you may chose any other feat you wish - even Epic feats.
Alignment: Becomes Neutral Evil.

Immunities (Ex): A marruspawn abomination
has immunity to polymorph (although it can activate a
polymorph effect on itself) and petrification. It is not
subject to energy drain, ability drain, or ability damage. It
has immunity to mind-affecting spells and abilities and
fire.

Marruspawn Traits: A marruspawn abomination
has all the abilities of the marruspawn (see page 168 Sandstorm),
including discriminating hearing, resistance to dessication
10, and low-light vision (the resistance to fire 5
ability has no effect since an abomination already has
immunity to fire).

Nondetection (Su): A marruspawn abomination is
treated as if affected by a continuous nondetection spell
with a caster level equal to its Hit Dice.

Spell-Like Abilities: At will—parching touch, true seeing; 3/day—flesh to salt, sandform, summon monster IX (Gargantuan fiendish monstrous
scorpion only - always works); 1/day—symbol of thirst. Caster
level 20th for all. INT based DCs.

Telepathy (Su): A marruspawn abomination can communicate
telepathically with any creature within 200 feet
that has a language.

[Jormengand]

Kayros realises the power going through him... It would be so tempting... so tempting...

But no. He can't allow the Vile God to take control of him. Grudgingly, making a mental note that it's for his own benefit, he calls a solar angel to aid him...

Conjunctive Gate => Solar angel => Miracle => Atonement to make Kayros True Neutral again. He takes all the benefit of the thing, though.

[Gaiyamato]

The atonement fails utterly. You cannot stab someone in the face and then suddenly throw your hands up and say you are sorry. the face would still be stabbed.
I will let you "quest" away the evil alignment later. For now you are Neutral Evil and very badass.

[Jormengand]

The atonement fails utterly. You cannot stab someone in the face and then suddenly throw your hands up and say you are sorry. the face would still be stabbed.
I will let you "quest" away the evil alignment later. For now you are Neutral Evil and very badass.


The alignment change was accidental, as you did not explain at any point that it would take place. Taking the gem was not an evil action - while the gem radiated evil, that was probably because it was made to form a pantheon with an evil deity - Kayros couldn't have known that it would actually have made him into an inherently evil creature.

Also, you can stab someone in the face and suddenly say you're sorry - all it means is that the poor solar has to pay an experience cost (of course, he can wish for an atonement as an SLA so he doesn't have to pay for it anyway.)

Finally, being neutral evil screws with my character concept in every way imaginable - being turned into a horrific outsider is already pushing it.

[Gaiyamato]

This is like the Diplomacy argument. In reality the Solar is going to tell you to get F*****. But that aside we did not roll your summon roll. [roll0]
and if it works for control [roll1]
EDIT: Failed. No Solar appears anyway.

You took the deal. You can accept the consequences.
There are no mechanics that get you out of this for the time being anyway.

You need to roll with this just like Gaheris did when his LG Paladin switched to a LE Death Knight...

[Jormengand]

This is like the Diplomacy argument. In reality the Solar is going to tell you to get F*****. But that aside we did not roll your summon roll. [roll0]
and if it works for control [roll1]
EDIT: Failed. No Solar appears anyway.

You took the deal. You can accept the consequences.
There are no mechanics that get you out of this for the time being anyway.

You need to roll with this just like Gaheris did when his LG Paladin switched to a LE Death Knight...


Summon roll? Huh?

[Gaiyamato]

You need to pay attention to the setting rules in the master thread dude.
Until the Gods complete a certain quest and until you have the right feats, summoning has a 90% chance of failure and any success has a 90% chance of being uncontrolled and refusing your request. You have a 1% chance of a summon spell working as normal.

[Jormengand]

You need to pay attention to the setting rules in the master thread dude.
Until the Gods complete a certain quest and until you have the right feats, summoning has a 90% chance of failure and any success has a 90% chance of being uncontrolled and refusing your request. You have a 1% chance of a summon spell working as normal.


Really? Because I was under the impression that you:

"Can summon outsiders normally, but they get stuck and outside your influence."

Given that a solar angel would probably be willing to make someone less evil, and I can force it to make me less evil with one of my utterances anyway, by your rules such as they are I can do it.

[Gaiyamato]

Fluff trumps mechanics in this instance.
You want the power, live with the evil.. for now.

But the summons are not perfect. They still fail, the spell just works as normal except for the control part. You still get the Solar if it works. Unlike others which can sometimes summon random stuff...

[Jormengand]

Fluff trumps mechanics in this instance.

You mean that you're DM fiating my TN character to be NE for your own personal amusement even though you admit that you're raising a middle finger to the 3.5 rules, your own rules and my character concept?

Wow. Just... wow.

[Gaiyamato]

No.. It is the same thing myself and many do with diplomacy and everything else. If you sell your soul to the devil, you cannot just turn around and repent for it and get to keep the benefits. You need to work your way back to True Neutral.

Also you are only one step away in alignment (NE), the changes to your character will be relatively small. The personality will remain the same, just that some of the outlook will shift from a neutralistic stance in the war against good vs evil to one that favours evil and is more selfish.

You have some serious power now. The trade-off was a single step change in alignment.

[Jormengand]

No.. It is the same thing myself and many do with diplomacy and everything else. If you sell your soul to the devil, you cannot just turn around and repent for it and get to keep the benefits. You need to work your way back to True Neutral.

Also you are only one step away in alignment (NE), the changes to your character will be relatively small. The personality will remain the same, just that some of the outlook will shift from a neutralistic stance in the war against good vs evil to one that favours evil and is more selfish.

You have some serious power now. The trade-off was a single step change in alignment.


If you had told me, when I identified the item and supposedly found out all its properties, "Oh, by the way by doing this you're selling your soul to the devil, it makes you into such-and-such type of evil outsider and you become NE" rather than "You are making a pantheon with an LE god. Unsurprisingly, it has a decent amount of evil in it," then Kayros would, fully in character, have spammed reversed spell rebirths at the stone until it died, stood on it and cast intensified Rend the World to make sure it was destroyed, and thrown the remains in the nearest active volcano.

If you're going to make my alignment change a step towards yours, without telling me when I should have known, and stop me from changing it, at least make it LN - which actually makes some vague level of sense for Kayros.

[Gaiyamato]

You possess no power to identify that fact, Identify is limited when it comes to epic level artifacts, however it was easily inferred. You were having 20 RHD from an Evil monster stitched onto you in Gestalt. I did spell that part out, and you were more than happy to take it on.

Also tricky NPCs sometimes trick you. Sometimes things go according to plan for your character in D&D, it is part of the game. In a pvp game you are also quite likely to die at some point.
No amount of bickering is going to alter these facts.

[Jormengand]

You possess no power to identify that fact, Identify is limited when it comes to epic level artifacts, however it was easily inferred. You were having 20 RHD from an Evil monster stitched onto you in Gestalt. I did spell that part out, and you were more than happy to take it on.


Sorry for any confusion my worldspeaker may have caused by using his worldspeaker abilities, but I'm using the utterance Analyse Item, which states:


...you determine all spells and magical properties affecting a specific item...

And I found out that:



The Gem radiates massive volumes of transmutation and conjuration magic on a scale you have never seen before. OOC: It was made using actual epic magic, AND 10th and above level spells. Thirst is more powerful than he seems....

From what you can tell it has no harmful effects at all. It changes some very core part of your being. A DC 40 Spellcraft check will confirm that thirst is telling you the truth.

It does however radiate an aura of almost irrepressible evil.


And what is "The truth?" Well, the truth is:


He holds out a small gemstone in his hand, throbbing with purple energy. This would grant you power on equal standing with the rest of us, and would place you in a position to become the KING of the Gods!


Seeing you intensely staring at the gem Thirst responds You have my word that it does only what I have claimed it does.

To your eternal cosmic credit, you did tell me that I gestalted with a specifically evil outsider, but only after:


Kayros takes the gem out of the bag...

Did you tell me anything more than:


The power I can offer would involve giving you a Gestalt Track, though it would be outsider RHD and not class levels. But you would gain a ton of feats and powers in combat.

Nowhere did you say that it would be an evil outsider.

Anyway, I need to go now.

[Gaiyamato]

You seem to have skipped over this bit


It changes some very core part of your being


This change is not a harmful effect. Just the price you pay for power.

[Jormengand]

You seem to have skipped over this bit


This change is not a harmful effect. Just the price you pay for power.


As Kayros didn't know what exactly that change would be, he is entitled to an atonement - in fact, the Solar doesn't even have to pay an XP cost.

[Gaiyamato]

Nope, the Solar never showed up anyway. So it is moot.

[Jormengand]

Nope, the Solar never showed up anyway. So it is moot.


I keep trying to summon solars until I succeed. If the Law of Resistance stops me, I stack time stops to get eight hours rest as a standard action and keep on trying to summon solar angels until I get one which does what I want it to do.

Kayros will happily sit here for a million years until he gets the solar he wants, and he will do it all in the space of a standard action.

[Gaiyamato]

They are going to cost you xp actually.
So no, you cannot sit there for a million years. Else you would be reduced back to level 1.
1% chance of there being a Solar who wil obey you and do it. But you loose 100000xp every D100 roll to get it, giving you essentially 2 chances before you become level 1 and lose all your divine ranks - which the Solar cannot restore.

[Jormengand]

They are going to cost you xp actually.
So no, you cannot sit there for a million years. Else you would be reduced back to level 1.
1% chance of there being a Solar who wil obey you and do it. But you loose 100000xp every D100 roll to get it, giving you essentially 2 chances before you become level 1 and lose all your divine ranks - which the Solar cannot restore.


Spell. Like. Ability. No. XP. Cost.

[Gaiyamato]

Gating in infinite Solars to solve every problem you have is stupid.
It costs xp for things like that from now on.