AdamantlyD20
2013-12-11, 05:45 PM
This is the re-telling of the story of my adventuring party from the perspective of my character. I will post a new episode every week (or however often we play). Please feel free to comment or offer ideas, suggestions, or words of encouragement to players if you wish. I am mainly sharing this story because we're having a lot of fun with this campaign and i want to be able to tell others about it.
Background:
I am Fe, I was an apprentice to Zuriel, one of the greatest blacksmiths of the known land. When I was young, I was given the opportunity to attend a fighting school. After many years, my training was complete, and upon my return home, Zuriel presented me with a warhammer forged from Adamantine as a congratulatory gift. Later that evening, a group of men raided the town. Zuriel, not wanting me to risk death, knocked me unconsious and hid me in his basement. I am unsure of most of what happened afterwards, except that the village was destroyed and I never saw him again. I have been looking for him ever since.
Along the way, I’ve met some individuals who have traveled with me for a while, for one reason or another, some longer than others. We’ve recently come across a village in need of help, they seek a cure from a plague on their land. One such cure exists, the petals of the red lotus, a flower that can be found at the top of the tallest mountain in the region. We have agreed to help the people of the village and have set out on a quest to retrieve the flower.
My current company consists of Seraphel, a (Lawful Evil) cleric who reveres demons, devils, and other creatures of Evil, he seeks to enhance his power by conjuring creatures of evil and making pacts with them, in exchange for power. The newest addition to the group, Zetana, a (Chaotic Neutral) cleric, believes herself to be an avatar of death itself, wielding a scythe made entirely from diamond and calling upon the powers of life and death with a single touch. That leaves myself (Neutral Good), Fe, a strange mixed background of blended fighting styles and abilities from many sources, I carry an Adamantine hammer enchanted with the power of lightning, and a special enchantment that draws life energy from those it wounds. My warhammer, Stormforger is used as both a melee and ranged weapon, thanks to an enchanted glove that makes duplicate copies of a thrown weapon that last for 1 minute before disapating.
Episode 1:
Run Forest Run
An adventurer’s story begins behind the scenes, so this isn’t the beginning of our story, but its as good a place as any to begin the tale. Seraphel and I were on our way to the path that lead up the great mountain to get the red lotus flower to save the village of Nagara, when we bumped into a merchant with a covered cart, who asked us to travel with him and protect him and his goods until he arrived in next town. Seraphel told him we’d gladly help in exchange for payment and climbed up front, while I quietly went and sat in the back of the cart to keep watch from behind.
We continued down the path for a while, when I heard something hit the floor and look to see a grenade that had been thrown at the path of the cart. Without hesitating, I jumped from my spot and onto the grenade, taking the full impact, and protected the merchant, his goods, and Seraphel from harm. I got up after taking 36 points of fire damage, and we saw four men with guns aimed at us.
Having the quickest reflexes, I threw a hammer at each of them, dealing damage to each of them. They responded by throwing concussion grenades at us, which Seraphel was knocked unconsious by, while miraculously, I was unaffected. I killed one of the men trying to rob the cart and then took a lethal dose of bullets to the torso from the bandits’ rifles. Luckily I had made a back-up plan in case my HP dropped too low, my healing belt activated, bringing me back from -6 HP to around 13 HP, I was back in the game. I grabbed Seraphel and used a short range teleport ability to make a tactical retreat, and moved about 300 feet away.
Thinking we had escaped, I pulled out some smelling salts to bring Seraphel back to consciousness. When he came to full consciousness, we were approached by a man who appeared from behind a bush, his gun drawn. He told me to keep running, I stood there for a moment. I figured that since it was only one guy, as long as I had my trusty hammer, any damage I dealt to an enemy I would be healed for half the amount. I started to think this guy would be an easy victory. He shot me in the chest and I droped to -3 HP, at which point my healing belt kicked in again, using up the last of its magic for the day, and I was brought back to fighting condition.
Serephel turned invisible and repositioned to flank the enemy, while I went all out on the bandit dealing a whopping 97 points worth of damage to him. He shot back at me and I took around 40 or so damage, bringing me close to death again. Serephel shot the guy from behind with a beam rifle and deals another 33 damage to the bandit. Before I could make my next attack, we were surrounded by 12 more bandits who each threw a concussive grenade at me. I had to make a reflex save for each, and if I failed any reflex saves, I had to make a fortitude save or go unconscious. I survived 8 out of the 12 reflex saves, meaning I had to only make 4 fortitude saves to be unaffected by the barrage of grenades. I rolled my first of the four fortitude saves, what do I roll… a 1! I automatically failed and was knocked unconsious. Meanwhile, Seraphel saw this and deciding the chance of victory was improbable, turned invisible again and ran off, leaving me behind. “F*** you’re hard to kill, Fe!” the DM told me.
Episode 2:
A Thief Among Thieves
Seraphel, made it back to town and met up with a new girl in town, Zetana, who had just received the same quest to gather the red lotus flower from the mountain and was about to set off the next day. Seraphel told her of his narrow escape and after a day of rest, decided to travel with Zetana and seek out the flower together. After stumbling through the forest for several hours, they came across a compound, heavily guarded, with watchtowers and gates to some parts of the facility. Seraphel realized the people guarding the facility were the same bandits from the earlier encounter and he and Zetana started fighting their way through them, Zetana blasting them away with spells and bullets hitting exploding barrels while Seraphel casted croud control and fear spells, and even let a rhino free from its cage and watched as it trampled through a group of enemies.
Meanwhile, while they were outside exchanging blows with a group of 10-12 bandits, I was in a small room in the back of the facility stripped of my gear and bound to a chair. My hands were tied with rope and my feet anchored to the ground with metal chains. The bandit leader, introduced himself as Bennet, and spoke in a condescending tone, telling me that I was dirt, I was nothing, while he was like a god, and had all the power. Instead of being scared, i humorously told him that I accepted his surrender. He scoffed at me and had his henchman bring him a canister of gasoline which he poured over me and then made a trail of gasoline leading out of the room. He took a lighter, and after striking a few times for dramatic effect, used it to ignite the puddle of gasoline.
I knew I had to think of something quickly if I was going to survive, I couldn’t think straight, I knew there was little I could do. Even with the highest strength score at the gaming table, there was too small of a chance that I would be able to break free from the rope bonds, and even then, I was still chained in place, and would be probably be burned anyway. So instead of trying to come up with a crazy plan that I didn’t have time to come up with anyway, I did the first thing that came to mind. I used one of the special properties of my hammer, calling out its name, and it appeared in its owner’s hand. I then activated the electric enhancement to make a spark to ignite the gasoline drenched rope that was binding me. As the ropes burned free, I took a mighty swing at the iron chains keeping me in place, and made a dive forward for the dirt and rolled out the fire, covered in burns.
Standing in the doorway, dumbfounded by what just happened, Bennet and his bandit drew and readied their weapons. Instead of having a repeat of the last encounter I had with guns, I had a much better idea this time, with two mighty swings, I sundred and obliterated their weapons, crushing them into tiny fragments. Then, thinking that I was making a tactical decision, threw my hammer at the crate that held my gear, hoping to be able to retrieve at least my gloves so I could make multiple ranged attacks using the multiply weapon ability of my gloves. I rolled a natural 20 on the attack roll to break the crate and my hammer, instead, obliterated it and sent everything through the back wall of the room I was being kept captive. Now everything was out of reach, as the hole was too small to fit through. The bandits came at me with their combat knives and stabbed me multiple times and Bennet’s abbysal wolf made a bite attack against me as well. I was in a weakened state, taking around 50 or so damage and dropped to 12 HP, no gear, and no allies. (Unknown to my character, they were actually outside dealing with enemies of their own)
I called my hammer to my hand once more and laid down the pain against the underling bandit and the abbysal wolf. In that turn I dealt enough damage to knock the bandit unconsious and hurt the abbysal wolf a decent amount. Bennet stabbed me again with his combat knife and the wolf went to make a leap attack, missed, and landed on my left side. I focused my attention on the wolf and hit it repeatedly until it was close to death. The wolf used a paralyzing gaze attack and I failed my save against it, and couldn’t move or attack for the next 7 turns. Seeing no other way out, and no way to heal, due to not having any gear, except my hammer, which I couldn’t use because I was subject to the paralyzing gaze, I had only one option to survive. I had to perform a tactical retreat. I used the short range teleport and ended up inside the cage that had held the Rhino that the other members of the group had set free. Seraphel continued shooting enemies and using debuffs and fear effects, while Zetana used a blast of negative energy and vaporized most of the remaining enemies in the area, except Bennet, who fled.
I waited out the remainder of the duration of the paralyzing gaze and went to go retrieve my items. When I got there, Seraphel had already gotten to them first and told me, with a twisted smile on his face, that he wanted to make a deal with me. He wanted me to pledge my loyalty to him and fight for his cause, and in exchange, he would return my items to me. Now, being the kind of guy I am (Neutral Good), I didn’t see this as a viable option, serving as an underling to a (Lawful Evil) devil and demon worshiper. I told him, instead, I would offer him 100% of my share of any gold or treasure we found for the next five weeks, in exchange for the safe return of my gear. He declined and made his intentions known: If I did not accept his terms, he was going to summon a devil to aid him in his malicious plan and offer my items to the devil as payment for his services. I couldn’t let that happen.
I warned him that it was a bad idea and to rethink his offer/threat. I told him that I would not follow him because it was against my beliefs and my morals, and he said that he was going to summon his devil and offer my gear as payment because I wouldn’t agree. We rolled Initiative: Seraphel rolled a 2 and I rolled a Natural 20. I got the first and only attack of the battle, I went into rage, and took a -4 penalty to attacks to make it so any damage I dealt would be nonlethal and hit him across the face with my hammer (one of the hits was a critical hit dealing X3 damage) and the resulting total damage was over 110, bringing him from his maximum HP of 56, down to 0. In what would have been a single blow, his body dropped to the floor, unconscious, a familiar sight. I proceeded to go to the pile of my gear and retrieve my items, stripped him of his gear, and hog tied him with rope. I now have two “prisoners of war,” the unconscious bandit, and Seraphel, the demon and devil worshiping cleric.
Episode 3:
Fur, Feathers, and more Fur
We continued our journey up the mountain to find the red lotus flower to bring back to the village doctor so he can use it to cure the disease that was spreading through the region. We rode a Jeep from the bandit camp up the mountain until we found a bridge made from iron and wood that appeared unstable. Not wanting to risk the lives of my unconsious prisoners, in the event that the bridge collapsed and everyone plummeted to their death, I suggested that we cross by foot and abandon the Jeep that was nearly out of gas anyway. I hauled the unconsious bodies of the bandit and Seraphel across the long rickety bridge. When I made it to the other side, I signaled for Zetana to come across as well. We came to a fork in the road a little later on and decided to go right, leading further up the mountain. Along the way we encountered a group of Yak people, 7 feet tall, who rode giant hairy beasts called “tonuks” as mounts. They told us if we killed the Garuda (giant bird-like creature) that took over their land, they would find red lotus for us.
I asked them to watch our prisoners, so they didn’t get in the way while we hunted down the creature, the Yak chief responded “If you kill Garuda, we’ll watch them and take care of them until you return.” (not what I asked for but whatever) I traded the bandit’s gun for a tonuk and we rode it back to the fork in the road we had come across earlier, this time going left. Zetana saw a dead wolf on the side of the path and used animate dead on it, creating an undead animal companion for herself. We came to a canyon and it was there that we found the Garuda, who told us to leave this place, that we were not welcomed there. I asked him if it was true that he forced the Yak people to leave their homeland, he confirmed the story was true, saying they were weak and didn’t deserve this land. He then said that no “mortals” belong here, and vanished before our eyes.
I had a bad feeling that he was still there and looked through my thermal goggles. He had flown right in front of us and was getting ready to attack. We rolled for Initiative! Zetana went first, and attacked with her diamond scythe for 20 damage and followed it up with a 50-foot blast of negative energy damage that dealt another 60 or so damage. I threw a fury of hammers at Garuda and only two rolls were high enough to hit, a 20 and a 19, both possible critical hits. I rolled to see if they would be a confirmed critical hit, the first one yes, the second one no. The two hits combined dealt 220 damage, and using my knowledge of what the average HP that enemies of different CR (Challenge Rating) would possibly have, I figured any foe of level 18 or lower had been vanquished.
However, the Garuda wouldn’t go down so easily, even though he had taken just over 300 damage in a combined effort from those who attacked him, he somehow still had some fight in him. He took out a bow and shot out bolts of lightning at Zetana and I. I passed my reflex save, and the lightning was instead absorbed into my hammer, but Zetana wasn’t so lucky, she was struck by the lightning, the energy surged through her body and she took around 50 damage. Zetana had the ability to heal from both positive and negative energy, and knowing she could heal by inflicting damage to her enemy, she used another negative energy blast, and scored a critical hit and healed herself back up to maximum HP and dealt 80 damage to the Garuda. I tried again with my ranged hammer throwing tactic and all but one of my attacks missed somehow, even though all of my attack rolls were 13 and above, with a +22 to all rolls, that’s 35+ to hit (Even a CR 20 creature only has 36 Armor Class).
Something crazy was going on, but I figured the DM had a reason for making someone with one of the highest possible attack rolls for a level 8 character, (who should not ever have any problems hitting any enemy of a challenge rating equal to or 5 above mine) miss his target. The one attack that did hit, dealt another 60 damage to our foe.
(Ok seriously now, we’ve dealt over 440 damage, this enemy should be dead. Even a CR 20 monster only has 370 HP. I thought to myself: “this enemy, based off of AC (Over 36), HP (Over 440), and estimated CR (20) = treasure value 100,000 GP and 307,200 XP [153,600 XP each], but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. I doubt a duo of level 8’s just creamed a CR 20 in 2-3 turns”).
It was the Garuda’s turn again, and he uses a special ability that blinded us both for 4 rounds and dealt 60 damage to each of us. We were seriously in trouble and would take a penalty to attacks if we tried to hit the enemy. We’d also have a 50% miss chance even if we did roll high enough to hit (10% chance to hit with either a 19 or a 20). I called out to Zetana to use her negative energy again (because it didn’t require an attack roll, and allowed only a reflex save for half damage) and she blasted away with her signature ability, dealing the last of the damage to our foe. (The Immortal CR 20 infinite HP creature that was actually only CR 15, and gave the equivilent of maybe 2000-3000 GP each worth of loot)
We walked over to the body of the slain creature and Zetana cut off its wing and kept that for herself as a trophy, while I took his head, hollowing it out and cleaning it to make a helmet. Zetana also picked up the magic bow that Garuda used to shoot out bolts of lightning. Then we got back on the tonuk and started heading back to the Yak chief to tell him the good news. We saw a group of Yaks riding tonuks and asked them to take our prisoners back to the village with them and to look after them while we continued up the mountain summit to the temple, and that we would be coming back down shortly.
We made it near the top of the mountain, and found another broken bridge with an “icy wizard” trying to construct an Ice golem to make an ice bridge to cross. We offered to make him a tree bridge or to carry him across while we flew using an item that granted flight for a few minutes a day, but he refused, saying we didn’t understand anything, and that it was all about making “Ice bridges” with “Ice golems” and “Ice magic.” Then he asked us to find him a magic rune that was carved on the ceremonial drum of the Yak people, and bring it to him so he could finish the construction of his ice golem. After telling him we’d try, we continued to the temple and spoke with a giant tiger, who told us he was the guardian of the forest, and that if we didn’t do something to save the village and the forest, they would be destroyed and everyone would die. We told him that was already our plan and after receiving his blessings and best wishes, we set out to save the village and the forest surrounding it.
It was getting dark, and we used hang gliders to glide down back to the Yak village, retrieved the the red lotus flowers, and then jumped off a high mountain ledge in the direction of the forest and the village, that we noticed was glowing red and had smoke rising from it. The night was upon us and flying at night with poor visibility is not one of the safest things to attempt, so I cast the spell “light” on my hang glider to give me better visability. Unfortunately, my idea drew attention to us and we were unable to dodge out of the way of an oncoming RPG (yes, a rocket propelled grenade) that hit our gliders out of the sky and we plummeted down into a lake in the middle of the forest. After swimming to the surface, we got out of the water, and full of adrenaline, headed off into the forest towards the village.
Episode 4:
An Unexpected Ally
Seraphel woke up from unconsiousness, and found himself tied up next to the bandit, inside a tent. The Yak people had done as I had asked, and held onto the prisoners for me until I returned. Eventually the bandit woke up and the two of them chat, Seraphel, told a wildly innacurate story of how he was part of the bandit group and had been attacked by a group of people and taken hostage, bluffing his way through the tale. The bandit told Seraphel he had a knife in his boot, but couldn’t reach it, so Seraphel took the knife with his mouth and cast a spell on it to make it cut his bonds loose. He then cut the bandit free and tried to escape out the tent flap, one of the Yak people was standing guard and noticed him trying to escape. Seraphel used another spell to make the Yak flee and then turned invisible and vanished from the village without a trace.
He continued up the mountain to try finding the red lotus flower, and came across the “Icy wizard” that Fe and Zetana had come across before. He tried talking with him and got similar results, “ice bridge, ice golem, ice magic, go find the rune to bring the golem to life.” Seraphel got a feeling that the wizard was hiding something and cast a spell on him to make him unable to move or make actions, and continued asking questions and threatening him. A wyvrern appears from the chasm below and in a cloud of smoke, swooped down and rescued the wizard. “I am the Darkness!” the dark wizard Cholofax yelled out as he rode off into the night sky.
Seraphel, wanting the power of the golem for himself, went back to the Yak village to try to get the rune to bring the golem to life. When he returned, a figure asked him, “why have you returned to the village?” Seraphel told him about how an “evil wizard was going to use the ice golem to attack the Yak village and how he should be the one to control the ice golem to prevent it from being used against them.” Bluffing, yet again. The figure gave him a liquid, which Seraphel drank from, and then the figure turned to dust and vanished into the sky.
Seraphel received the guidance of a “spirit tiger” who guided him up to the temple that Zetana and Fe had visited, and when he came to the temple, he had a vision. After his spirit walk, he saw the burning village of Nagara in the distance, and using a hang glider that he found, jumped off the mountain and in that direction, gliding towards the forest and eventually landed at the same location Zetana and Fe had landed. The three of them looked at one another, and putting their differences aside for the moment, decided to work together.
I (Fe) had been in this part of the forest before, so I led them south through the forest until we came to a pond, then continuted south from that pond until we came to the bridge leading across a chasm made from a collosal wing of an aircraft that no longer worked, spanning 400 feet to the gates of the village. We were 400 feet away from the gates to the village, and from that distance we saw 40 men, armed with assault rifles and machine guns. We went through a few theoretical plans and decided to duck behind my tower shield and slowly move forward while the two clerics used debuffs and blasted away with spells. Seraphel creating images of hell causing the enemies to freak out and shoot at devils and creatures that weren’t really there, Zetana used her blasting spells to inflict damage upon the group of enemies, while I used my standard actions to provide full cover to us, and protect us from the oncoming hail of bullets. The enemies open fired on us and luckily the 15 hardness of my shield was enough to stop the 2d8 damage of the bullets from penetrating for the time being...
We needed to get closer, so the enemies would be within range for the clerics to use some of their other spells. We charged forward at full speed closer to the oncoming gunfire. A man, made of steel, a Talos (basically our setting’s version of Warforged), came charging forward and used an ability that shot out explosives all around us and we took a heavy hit, but kept moving forward. Seraphel and Zetana used mind controlling spells to force the Talos warrior to attack himself and he ended up stabbing his energy sword through his midsection and killing himself.
Remembering that Zetana had “great cleave” as a feat, and seeing how the enemies were bunched up so close to one another, an idea came to me. I knew it as going to be hard for everyone to keep getting closer to the enemies because if they moved and tried flanking us, the shield would not be able to deflect the bullets any longeer, so I did what I thought was going to be a good tactical idea, I picked up Zetana and hurled her into the group of enemies. She came crashing down and sliced away at the enemies, hit after hit, the bodies began to pile up around her as she took out 26 enemies that turn. Seraphel offered to cast a buff on me and I told him it would be appreciated, but to save his spells for now, as I wasn’t going to be able to kill more than 4 enemies in a turn with my hammers, and we would probably need his magic against the remaining enemies inside the village.
The Gargantuan tiger, the guardian of the forest that we had met at the mountain temple, appeared behind us and the remaining enemies outside the gates fled in terror. A man with a golden mask in the shape of a skull, called out to his men, “do not fear him, today I will show you how to kill a God.” It was Gorak, the same man who led the raid on my village 25 years ago, killed the people of my village and my father as he sacrificed himself to protect me. The same man, who, not but a few months ago, raided the village where my mentor, Zuriel, had lived. My mentor had knocked me unconsious because he didn’t want me to fight againt Gorak alone, and when I awoke, nothing but fire and death was to be found.
The man who had brought about so much suffering and death, now stood before me, and full of adrenaline and fury, I charged forward towards the 300 armed soldiers and their leader, Gorak, ready to lay down my life to save what was left of the town and fight for any chance that I could save any survivors. If he was going to inspire courage in his allies, I sure as hell wouldn’t let them think they were going to win without a fight, and would do the same for mine.
Background:
I am Fe, I was an apprentice to Zuriel, one of the greatest blacksmiths of the known land. When I was young, I was given the opportunity to attend a fighting school. After many years, my training was complete, and upon my return home, Zuriel presented me with a warhammer forged from Adamantine as a congratulatory gift. Later that evening, a group of men raided the town. Zuriel, not wanting me to risk death, knocked me unconsious and hid me in his basement. I am unsure of most of what happened afterwards, except that the village was destroyed and I never saw him again. I have been looking for him ever since.
Along the way, I’ve met some individuals who have traveled with me for a while, for one reason or another, some longer than others. We’ve recently come across a village in need of help, they seek a cure from a plague on their land. One such cure exists, the petals of the red lotus, a flower that can be found at the top of the tallest mountain in the region. We have agreed to help the people of the village and have set out on a quest to retrieve the flower.
My current company consists of Seraphel, a (Lawful Evil) cleric who reveres demons, devils, and other creatures of Evil, he seeks to enhance his power by conjuring creatures of evil and making pacts with them, in exchange for power. The newest addition to the group, Zetana, a (Chaotic Neutral) cleric, believes herself to be an avatar of death itself, wielding a scythe made entirely from diamond and calling upon the powers of life and death with a single touch. That leaves myself (Neutral Good), Fe, a strange mixed background of blended fighting styles and abilities from many sources, I carry an Adamantine hammer enchanted with the power of lightning, and a special enchantment that draws life energy from those it wounds. My warhammer, Stormforger is used as both a melee and ranged weapon, thanks to an enchanted glove that makes duplicate copies of a thrown weapon that last for 1 minute before disapating.
Episode 1:
Run Forest Run
An adventurer’s story begins behind the scenes, so this isn’t the beginning of our story, but its as good a place as any to begin the tale. Seraphel and I were on our way to the path that lead up the great mountain to get the red lotus flower to save the village of Nagara, when we bumped into a merchant with a covered cart, who asked us to travel with him and protect him and his goods until he arrived in next town. Seraphel told him we’d gladly help in exchange for payment and climbed up front, while I quietly went and sat in the back of the cart to keep watch from behind.
We continued down the path for a while, when I heard something hit the floor and look to see a grenade that had been thrown at the path of the cart. Without hesitating, I jumped from my spot and onto the grenade, taking the full impact, and protected the merchant, his goods, and Seraphel from harm. I got up after taking 36 points of fire damage, and we saw four men with guns aimed at us.
Having the quickest reflexes, I threw a hammer at each of them, dealing damage to each of them. They responded by throwing concussion grenades at us, which Seraphel was knocked unconsious by, while miraculously, I was unaffected. I killed one of the men trying to rob the cart and then took a lethal dose of bullets to the torso from the bandits’ rifles. Luckily I had made a back-up plan in case my HP dropped too low, my healing belt activated, bringing me back from -6 HP to around 13 HP, I was back in the game. I grabbed Seraphel and used a short range teleport ability to make a tactical retreat, and moved about 300 feet away.
Thinking we had escaped, I pulled out some smelling salts to bring Seraphel back to consciousness. When he came to full consciousness, we were approached by a man who appeared from behind a bush, his gun drawn. He told me to keep running, I stood there for a moment. I figured that since it was only one guy, as long as I had my trusty hammer, any damage I dealt to an enemy I would be healed for half the amount. I started to think this guy would be an easy victory. He shot me in the chest and I droped to -3 HP, at which point my healing belt kicked in again, using up the last of its magic for the day, and I was brought back to fighting condition.
Serephel turned invisible and repositioned to flank the enemy, while I went all out on the bandit dealing a whopping 97 points worth of damage to him. He shot back at me and I took around 40 or so damage, bringing me close to death again. Serephel shot the guy from behind with a beam rifle and deals another 33 damage to the bandit. Before I could make my next attack, we were surrounded by 12 more bandits who each threw a concussive grenade at me. I had to make a reflex save for each, and if I failed any reflex saves, I had to make a fortitude save or go unconscious. I survived 8 out of the 12 reflex saves, meaning I had to only make 4 fortitude saves to be unaffected by the barrage of grenades. I rolled my first of the four fortitude saves, what do I roll… a 1! I automatically failed and was knocked unconsious. Meanwhile, Seraphel saw this and deciding the chance of victory was improbable, turned invisible again and ran off, leaving me behind. “F*** you’re hard to kill, Fe!” the DM told me.
Episode 2:
A Thief Among Thieves
Seraphel, made it back to town and met up with a new girl in town, Zetana, who had just received the same quest to gather the red lotus flower from the mountain and was about to set off the next day. Seraphel told her of his narrow escape and after a day of rest, decided to travel with Zetana and seek out the flower together. After stumbling through the forest for several hours, they came across a compound, heavily guarded, with watchtowers and gates to some parts of the facility. Seraphel realized the people guarding the facility were the same bandits from the earlier encounter and he and Zetana started fighting their way through them, Zetana blasting them away with spells and bullets hitting exploding barrels while Seraphel casted croud control and fear spells, and even let a rhino free from its cage and watched as it trampled through a group of enemies.
Meanwhile, while they were outside exchanging blows with a group of 10-12 bandits, I was in a small room in the back of the facility stripped of my gear and bound to a chair. My hands were tied with rope and my feet anchored to the ground with metal chains. The bandit leader, introduced himself as Bennet, and spoke in a condescending tone, telling me that I was dirt, I was nothing, while he was like a god, and had all the power. Instead of being scared, i humorously told him that I accepted his surrender. He scoffed at me and had his henchman bring him a canister of gasoline which he poured over me and then made a trail of gasoline leading out of the room. He took a lighter, and after striking a few times for dramatic effect, used it to ignite the puddle of gasoline.
I knew I had to think of something quickly if I was going to survive, I couldn’t think straight, I knew there was little I could do. Even with the highest strength score at the gaming table, there was too small of a chance that I would be able to break free from the rope bonds, and even then, I was still chained in place, and would be probably be burned anyway. So instead of trying to come up with a crazy plan that I didn’t have time to come up with anyway, I did the first thing that came to mind. I used one of the special properties of my hammer, calling out its name, and it appeared in its owner’s hand. I then activated the electric enhancement to make a spark to ignite the gasoline drenched rope that was binding me. As the ropes burned free, I took a mighty swing at the iron chains keeping me in place, and made a dive forward for the dirt and rolled out the fire, covered in burns.
Standing in the doorway, dumbfounded by what just happened, Bennet and his bandit drew and readied their weapons. Instead of having a repeat of the last encounter I had with guns, I had a much better idea this time, with two mighty swings, I sundred and obliterated their weapons, crushing them into tiny fragments. Then, thinking that I was making a tactical decision, threw my hammer at the crate that held my gear, hoping to be able to retrieve at least my gloves so I could make multiple ranged attacks using the multiply weapon ability of my gloves. I rolled a natural 20 on the attack roll to break the crate and my hammer, instead, obliterated it and sent everything through the back wall of the room I was being kept captive. Now everything was out of reach, as the hole was too small to fit through. The bandits came at me with their combat knives and stabbed me multiple times and Bennet’s abbysal wolf made a bite attack against me as well. I was in a weakened state, taking around 50 or so damage and dropped to 12 HP, no gear, and no allies. (Unknown to my character, they were actually outside dealing with enemies of their own)
I called my hammer to my hand once more and laid down the pain against the underling bandit and the abbysal wolf. In that turn I dealt enough damage to knock the bandit unconsious and hurt the abbysal wolf a decent amount. Bennet stabbed me again with his combat knife and the wolf went to make a leap attack, missed, and landed on my left side. I focused my attention on the wolf and hit it repeatedly until it was close to death. The wolf used a paralyzing gaze attack and I failed my save against it, and couldn’t move or attack for the next 7 turns. Seeing no other way out, and no way to heal, due to not having any gear, except my hammer, which I couldn’t use because I was subject to the paralyzing gaze, I had only one option to survive. I had to perform a tactical retreat. I used the short range teleport and ended up inside the cage that had held the Rhino that the other members of the group had set free. Seraphel continued shooting enemies and using debuffs and fear effects, while Zetana used a blast of negative energy and vaporized most of the remaining enemies in the area, except Bennet, who fled.
I waited out the remainder of the duration of the paralyzing gaze and went to go retrieve my items. When I got there, Seraphel had already gotten to them first and told me, with a twisted smile on his face, that he wanted to make a deal with me. He wanted me to pledge my loyalty to him and fight for his cause, and in exchange, he would return my items to me. Now, being the kind of guy I am (Neutral Good), I didn’t see this as a viable option, serving as an underling to a (Lawful Evil) devil and demon worshiper. I told him, instead, I would offer him 100% of my share of any gold or treasure we found for the next five weeks, in exchange for the safe return of my gear. He declined and made his intentions known: If I did not accept his terms, he was going to summon a devil to aid him in his malicious plan and offer my items to the devil as payment for his services. I couldn’t let that happen.
I warned him that it was a bad idea and to rethink his offer/threat. I told him that I would not follow him because it was against my beliefs and my morals, and he said that he was going to summon his devil and offer my gear as payment because I wouldn’t agree. We rolled Initiative: Seraphel rolled a 2 and I rolled a Natural 20. I got the first and only attack of the battle, I went into rage, and took a -4 penalty to attacks to make it so any damage I dealt would be nonlethal and hit him across the face with my hammer (one of the hits was a critical hit dealing X3 damage) and the resulting total damage was over 110, bringing him from his maximum HP of 56, down to 0. In what would have been a single blow, his body dropped to the floor, unconscious, a familiar sight. I proceeded to go to the pile of my gear and retrieve my items, stripped him of his gear, and hog tied him with rope. I now have two “prisoners of war,” the unconscious bandit, and Seraphel, the demon and devil worshiping cleric.
Episode 3:
Fur, Feathers, and more Fur
We continued our journey up the mountain to find the red lotus flower to bring back to the village doctor so he can use it to cure the disease that was spreading through the region. We rode a Jeep from the bandit camp up the mountain until we found a bridge made from iron and wood that appeared unstable. Not wanting to risk the lives of my unconsious prisoners, in the event that the bridge collapsed and everyone plummeted to their death, I suggested that we cross by foot and abandon the Jeep that was nearly out of gas anyway. I hauled the unconsious bodies of the bandit and Seraphel across the long rickety bridge. When I made it to the other side, I signaled for Zetana to come across as well. We came to a fork in the road a little later on and decided to go right, leading further up the mountain. Along the way we encountered a group of Yak people, 7 feet tall, who rode giant hairy beasts called “tonuks” as mounts. They told us if we killed the Garuda (giant bird-like creature) that took over their land, they would find red lotus for us.
I asked them to watch our prisoners, so they didn’t get in the way while we hunted down the creature, the Yak chief responded “If you kill Garuda, we’ll watch them and take care of them until you return.” (not what I asked for but whatever) I traded the bandit’s gun for a tonuk and we rode it back to the fork in the road we had come across earlier, this time going left. Zetana saw a dead wolf on the side of the path and used animate dead on it, creating an undead animal companion for herself. We came to a canyon and it was there that we found the Garuda, who told us to leave this place, that we were not welcomed there. I asked him if it was true that he forced the Yak people to leave their homeland, he confirmed the story was true, saying they were weak and didn’t deserve this land. He then said that no “mortals” belong here, and vanished before our eyes.
I had a bad feeling that he was still there and looked through my thermal goggles. He had flown right in front of us and was getting ready to attack. We rolled for Initiative! Zetana went first, and attacked with her diamond scythe for 20 damage and followed it up with a 50-foot blast of negative energy damage that dealt another 60 or so damage. I threw a fury of hammers at Garuda and only two rolls were high enough to hit, a 20 and a 19, both possible critical hits. I rolled to see if they would be a confirmed critical hit, the first one yes, the second one no. The two hits combined dealt 220 damage, and using my knowledge of what the average HP that enemies of different CR (Challenge Rating) would possibly have, I figured any foe of level 18 or lower had been vanquished.
However, the Garuda wouldn’t go down so easily, even though he had taken just over 300 damage in a combined effort from those who attacked him, he somehow still had some fight in him. He took out a bow and shot out bolts of lightning at Zetana and I. I passed my reflex save, and the lightning was instead absorbed into my hammer, but Zetana wasn’t so lucky, she was struck by the lightning, the energy surged through her body and she took around 50 damage. Zetana had the ability to heal from both positive and negative energy, and knowing she could heal by inflicting damage to her enemy, she used another negative energy blast, and scored a critical hit and healed herself back up to maximum HP and dealt 80 damage to the Garuda. I tried again with my ranged hammer throwing tactic and all but one of my attacks missed somehow, even though all of my attack rolls were 13 and above, with a +22 to all rolls, that’s 35+ to hit (Even a CR 20 creature only has 36 Armor Class).
Something crazy was going on, but I figured the DM had a reason for making someone with one of the highest possible attack rolls for a level 8 character, (who should not ever have any problems hitting any enemy of a challenge rating equal to or 5 above mine) miss his target. The one attack that did hit, dealt another 60 damage to our foe.
(Ok seriously now, we’ve dealt over 440 damage, this enemy should be dead. Even a CR 20 monster only has 370 HP. I thought to myself: “this enemy, based off of AC (Over 36), HP (Over 440), and estimated CR (20) = treasure value 100,000 GP and 307,200 XP [153,600 XP each], but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. I doubt a duo of level 8’s just creamed a CR 20 in 2-3 turns”).
It was the Garuda’s turn again, and he uses a special ability that blinded us both for 4 rounds and dealt 60 damage to each of us. We were seriously in trouble and would take a penalty to attacks if we tried to hit the enemy. We’d also have a 50% miss chance even if we did roll high enough to hit (10% chance to hit with either a 19 or a 20). I called out to Zetana to use her negative energy again (because it didn’t require an attack roll, and allowed only a reflex save for half damage) and she blasted away with her signature ability, dealing the last of the damage to our foe. (The Immortal CR 20 infinite HP creature that was actually only CR 15, and gave the equivilent of maybe 2000-3000 GP each worth of loot)
We walked over to the body of the slain creature and Zetana cut off its wing and kept that for herself as a trophy, while I took his head, hollowing it out and cleaning it to make a helmet. Zetana also picked up the magic bow that Garuda used to shoot out bolts of lightning. Then we got back on the tonuk and started heading back to the Yak chief to tell him the good news. We saw a group of Yaks riding tonuks and asked them to take our prisoners back to the village with them and to look after them while we continued up the mountain summit to the temple, and that we would be coming back down shortly.
We made it near the top of the mountain, and found another broken bridge with an “icy wizard” trying to construct an Ice golem to make an ice bridge to cross. We offered to make him a tree bridge or to carry him across while we flew using an item that granted flight for a few minutes a day, but he refused, saying we didn’t understand anything, and that it was all about making “Ice bridges” with “Ice golems” and “Ice magic.” Then he asked us to find him a magic rune that was carved on the ceremonial drum of the Yak people, and bring it to him so he could finish the construction of his ice golem. After telling him we’d try, we continued to the temple and spoke with a giant tiger, who told us he was the guardian of the forest, and that if we didn’t do something to save the village and the forest, they would be destroyed and everyone would die. We told him that was already our plan and after receiving his blessings and best wishes, we set out to save the village and the forest surrounding it.
It was getting dark, and we used hang gliders to glide down back to the Yak village, retrieved the the red lotus flowers, and then jumped off a high mountain ledge in the direction of the forest and the village, that we noticed was glowing red and had smoke rising from it. The night was upon us and flying at night with poor visibility is not one of the safest things to attempt, so I cast the spell “light” on my hang glider to give me better visability. Unfortunately, my idea drew attention to us and we were unable to dodge out of the way of an oncoming RPG (yes, a rocket propelled grenade) that hit our gliders out of the sky and we plummeted down into a lake in the middle of the forest. After swimming to the surface, we got out of the water, and full of adrenaline, headed off into the forest towards the village.
Episode 4:
An Unexpected Ally
Seraphel woke up from unconsiousness, and found himself tied up next to the bandit, inside a tent. The Yak people had done as I had asked, and held onto the prisoners for me until I returned. Eventually the bandit woke up and the two of them chat, Seraphel, told a wildly innacurate story of how he was part of the bandit group and had been attacked by a group of people and taken hostage, bluffing his way through the tale. The bandit told Seraphel he had a knife in his boot, but couldn’t reach it, so Seraphel took the knife with his mouth and cast a spell on it to make it cut his bonds loose. He then cut the bandit free and tried to escape out the tent flap, one of the Yak people was standing guard and noticed him trying to escape. Seraphel used another spell to make the Yak flee and then turned invisible and vanished from the village without a trace.
He continued up the mountain to try finding the red lotus flower, and came across the “Icy wizard” that Fe and Zetana had come across before. He tried talking with him and got similar results, “ice bridge, ice golem, ice magic, go find the rune to bring the golem to life.” Seraphel got a feeling that the wizard was hiding something and cast a spell on him to make him unable to move or make actions, and continued asking questions and threatening him. A wyvrern appears from the chasm below and in a cloud of smoke, swooped down and rescued the wizard. “I am the Darkness!” the dark wizard Cholofax yelled out as he rode off into the night sky.
Seraphel, wanting the power of the golem for himself, went back to the Yak village to try to get the rune to bring the golem to life. When he returned, a figure asked him, “why have you returned to the village?” Seraphel told him about how an “evil wizard was going to use the ice golem to attack the Yak village and how he should be the one to control the ice golem to prevent it from being used against them.” Bluffing, yet again. The figure gave him a liquid, which Seraphel drank from, and then the figure turned to dust and vanished into the sky.
Seraphel received the guidance of a “spirit tiger” who guided him up to the temple that Zetana and Fe had visited, and when he came to the temple, he had a vision. After his spirit walk, he saw the burning village of Nagara in the distance, and using a hang glider that he found, jumped off the mountain and in that direction, gliding towards the forest and eventually landed at the same location Zetana and Fe had landed. The three of them looked at one another, and putting their differences aside for the moment, decided to work together.
I (Fe) had been in this part of the forest before, so I led them south through the forest until we came to a pond, then continuted south from that pond until we came to the bridge leading across a chasm made from a collosal wing of an aircraft that no longer worked, spanning 400 feet to the gates of the village. We were 400 feet away from the gates to the village, and from that distance we saw 40 men, armed with assault rifles and machine guns. We went through a few theoretical plans and decided to duck behind my tower shield and slowly move forward while the two clerics used debuffs and blasted away with spells. Seraphel creating images of hell causing the enemies to freak out and shoot at devils and creatures that weren’t really there, Zetana used her blasting spells to inflict damage upon the group of enemies, while I used my standard actions to provide full cover to us, and protect us from the oncoming hail of bullets. The enemies open fired on us and luckily the 15 hardness of my shield was enough to stop the 2d8 damage of the bullets from penetrating for the time being...
We needed to get closer, so the enemies would be within range for the clerics to use some of their other spells. We charged forward at full speed closer to the oncoming gunfire. A man, made of steel, a Talos (basically our setting’s version of Warforged), came charging forward and used an ability that shot out explosives all around us and we took a heavy hit, but kept moving forward. Seraphel and Zetana used mind controlling spells to force the Talos warrior to attack himself and he ended up stabbing his energy sword through his midsection and killing himself.
Remembering that Zetana had “great cleave” as a feat, and seeing how the enemies were bunched up so close to one another, an idea came to me. I knew it as going to be hard for everyone to keep getting closer to the enemies because if they moved and tried flanking us, the shield would not be able to deflect the bullets any longeer, so I did what I thought was going to be a good tactical idea, I picked up Zetana and hurled her into the group of enemies. She came crashing down and sliced away at the enemies, hit after hit, the bodies began to pile up around her as she took out 26 enemies that turn. Seraphel offered to cast a buff on me and I told him it would be appreciated, but to save his spells for now, as I wasn’t going to be able to kill more than 4 enemies in a turn with my hammers, and we would probably need his magic against the remaining enemies inside the village.
The Gargantuan tiger, the guardian of the forest that we had met at the mountain temple, appeared behind us and the remaining enemies outside the gates fled in terror. A man with a golden mask in the shape of a skull, called out to his men, “do not fear him, today I will show you how to kill a God.” It was Gorak, the same man who led the raid on my village 25 years ago, killed the people of my village and my father as he sacrificed himself to protect me. The same man, who, not but a few months ago, raided the village where my mentor, Zuriel, had lived. My mentor had knocked me unconsious because he didn’t want me to fight againt Gorak alone, and when I awoke, nothing but fire and death was to be found.
The man who had brought about so much suffering and death, now stood before me, and full of adrenaline and fury, I charged forward towards the 300 armed soldiers and their leader, Gorak, ready to lay down my life to save what was left of the town and fight for any chance that I could save any survivors. If he was going to inspire courage in his allies, I sure as hell wouldn’t let them think they were going to win without a fight, and would do the same for mine.