Nibbens
2014-06-04, 11:46 AM
For those of you just tuning in, get yourself acquainted with the gist of the story here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?330770-City-of-Progress-Campaign-Journal).
For those of you who missed the last chapter, tune in here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?354532-City-of-Progress-Campaign-Journal-Chapter-2-(When-in-Doubt-Speak-with-Plants)&p=17575530#post17575530).
Still sitting at the table is my group from the last game:
Beable Bamford - Halfling siege mage and Golem Lord for Rab's Progress, and his trusty Golem "mouse" (carrying a ginormous cannon inside of it).
Galarend - Human Shining Knight Paladin and General of Rab's Progress' standing army. He is never far away from hits trusty steed "Bolba."
Bolba: A huge flying Triceratops decked out in spiked full-plate armor. (yes, it flies. I approved a permanency of a Fly spell in his case due to particular circumstances.)) By the way, he is totally sentient, has a sense of humor and can speak in a very low and slow voice.
Lady Wisteria - Human verdant Sorcerer who is the Rab's Progress' herbalist and "tea-master." (In the front yard of her home stands the only tree in all of the city - a huge oak tree)
Joining the PC's is their tag-along NPC; Dungle, a Dwarf Fighter.
The players continued traveling through the Twisted Forest and burning through Find the Path charges on the wand. After traveling for several hours, they come to a clearing in the forest approximately 40 feet across and Bolba descends with no problem. The Find the Path spell end abruptly in the center of the clearing. As expected, their target (The Prism Forge) is not there. Dungle commented "Maybe ole Rogar's theory was correct. And here I though he was just a madman with a lot of money."
The party contemplates camping for the night before attempting Plane Hopping. So Lady Wisteria asks for the permission of the largest tree in the area (using Speak with Plants). It responds with
"I don't mind. Just don't mess up my dirt."
So they Stone Shelter for the night, and the time passes uneventfully.
The next morning, they begin to argue which plane to Shift to. Rogar's theories included two possibilities: The Ethereal Plane, or the Shadow Plane. The Players argue for a few moments - and Beable doing several Knowledge:Planes checks, he re-remembers that both Planes could have things that want to eat their faces off. After all the arguing it still ends on a roll of the dice.
They roll for the Shadow Plane. Whoots!
Plane Shift and directional chaos
For those of you unfamiliar, Plane Shift never spits you out where you want. It places you randomly 5-500 miles in any random direction.
So they players end up 222 miles directly north of their current location - in more forest.
After giving a brief description of what the Shadow Plane looks like
The Shadow Plane is a world of black and white; color itself has been bleached from the environment. It otherwise appears similar to the Material Plane. Despite the lack of light sources, various plants, animals, and humanoids call the Shadow Plane home.
They cast Find the Path from the wand (the spell wouldn't function if the target isn't on the plane they want) and low and behold, Bolba gets a strong reading leading them directly south. Taking that as an indicator, they decided to ascend over the treetops and travel via flight.
Lady Wisteria asks the trees if they would let Bolba go up through the canopy easily, and the tree responds with a more non-verbal cue of a mean stare.
When going up the to the sky, I make everyone roll ride checks - and Lady Wisteria gets clobbered by a branch, nearly knocking her off Bolba.
Galaren's player had a quick math-gasm when he figured out Bolba's flight speed with roughly a little less than a mile per minute. After the first re-cast of FtP, Lady Wisteria begins to notice the treetops shaking behind them, following them. So, she sends Arcane Eye into the canopy to see what's going on. I describe what she sees: A Gargantuan, six-legged panther like creature covered in huge spines. And as she lays eyes on the Bandersnatch (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/bandersnatch.html#_bandersnatch) it immediately confuses her with it's gaze. She rolls act normally, so she immediately tells everyone what she sees, Bolba wants to begin an upward ascent, Beable casts Tiny Hut and Galarend shoves anyone who is not "ride check savvy" into the hut: Lady Wisteria was the only one. For seventeen rounds she babbles incoherently and beats herself in the head with her own staff. Thankfully, her strength bonus was 0.
Bolba takes off (even more-so) toward the sky. The Bandersnatch, which was 'playfully' stalking it's prey, lobs a volley of 4 quills towards the UFT (Unidentified Flying Triceratops) and party.
Beable gets hit, but the quill doesn't embed. However the one that hits Galarend and the two that hit Bolba do. Galarend (as selfless pally's often do) removed the quills from his steed first before yanking out his own. After realizing how much damage this one attack did as they were running away, the party decided (intelligently) to not turn around and fight this thing. Bolba keeps flying, and Lady Wisteria keeps hitting herself.
Beable checks on her and sees her dizzy from repeated knocks on the head and bashed up, so they party begins burning charges from a wand of cure light wounds. By the time they were done, it was little more than a stick for all the charges they had left, but they decided to keep it anyway.
Yet, the trees keep shaking behind them and this monstrous six-legged cat from hell continues following even though it can't reach them, but after another hour it suddenly stops. The PC's are now completely worried: what are they running towards which that thing doesn't want to come any closer to.
Eventually, the Bolba reaches a clearing and the FtP spell leads him down into a set of old ruins.
The Prism Forge
They enter the Forge (The halls are just wide enough for Bolba to get through) and begin seeing the remains of a large Dwarven Store Front/Forge which is has been abandoned and left to dust. However , as they are exploring, they come across a patch of color (which is not right in the shadow plane) inside this color, they see Dwarves, sitting eating, drinking moving about having a good ole time and are completely oblivious to the newcomers. When trying to interact with anything inside the color, it just passes through. Outside of the color patch the forge is dead and deserted, inside alive and vibrant - Knowledge: Planes checks are made, and Beable come up with a theory - that maybe this spot in the prime material slipped through/was brought into the Shadow Plane and the Dwarves they are witnessing are sort of "echoes from the past." So the players nod, and begin to conduct experiments - throwing in things to interact with the space before taking the plunge and stepping in. They are able to pass through the space with ease and eventually come upon 4 Dwarves working over a table, looking at papers.
Lady Wisteria throws down another Arcane Eye to see what they are talking about, and notices Dwarven scribbling, but she can't read it. So she copies it down, but fails her linguistics check. So when Beable casts Comprehend Languages - he can read the word "undead" written, but the rest is gibberish (caused by an improper copying job).
The players enter the color patch, but something's different this time. The Dwarves who were reading the material on the table, react to them. One even picks up a chair as though he's looking for something to protect himself.
Wrapping up
We ended the session there because it was already past twelve. We old people need our beauty sleep. lol. Because of favorable work schedules, we were able to plan on meeting for next week. So all plans are good plans.
Also, Frout Arthbringer's player got married and moved out of state. So he's opted to buy a camera/tripod/mic thing with an external control so he can literally stand at the table with us and play through a computer. This should be interesting!
See you guys next time!
For the next session click Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?362127-City-of-Progress-Campaign-Journal-Chapter-3-(The-Soul-Keeper))
For those of you who missed the last chapter, tune in here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?354532-City-of-Progress-Campaign-Journal-Chapter-2-(When-in-Doubt-Speak-with-Plants)&p=17575530#post17575530).
Still sitting at the table is my group from the last game:
Beable Bamford - Halfling siege mage and Golem Lord for Rab's Progress, and his trusty Golem "mouse" (carrying a ginormous cannon inside of it).
Galarend - Human Shining Knight Paladin and General of Rab's Progress' standing army. He is never far away from hits trusty steed "Bolba."
Bolba: A huge flying Triceratops decked out in spiked full-plate armor. (yes, it flies. I approved a permanency of a Fly spell in his case due to particular circumstances.)) By the way, he is totally sentient, has a sense of humor and can speak in a very low and slow voice.
Lady Wisteria - Human verdant Sorcerer who is the Rab's Progress' herbalist and "tea-master." (In the front yard of her home stands the only tree in all of the city - a huge oak tree)
Joining the PC's is their tag-along NPC; Dungle, a Dwarf Fighter.
The players continued traveling through the Twisted Forest and burning through Find the Path charges on the wand. After traveling for several hours, they come to a clearing in the forest approximately 40 feet across and Bolba descends with no problem. The Find the Path spell end abruptly in the center of the clearing. As expected, their target (The Prism Forge) is not there. Dungle commented "Maybe ole Rogar's theory was correct. And here I though he was just a madman with a lot of money."
The party contemplates camping for the night before attempting Plane Hopping. So Lady Wisteria asks for the permission of the largest tree in the area (using Speak with Plants). It responds with
"I don't mind. Just don't mess up my dirt."
So they Stone Shelter for the night, and the time passes uneventfully.
The next morning, they begin to argue which plane to Shift to. Rogar's theories included two possibilities: The Ethereal Plane, or the Shadow Plane. The Players argue for a few moments - and Beable doing several Knowledge:Planes checks, he re-remembers that both Planes could have things that want to eat their faces off. After all the arguing it still ends on a roll of the dice.
They roll for the Shadow Plane. Whoots!
Plane Shift and directional chaos
For those of you unfamiliar, Plane Shift never spits you out where you want. It places you randomly 5-500 miles in any random direction.
So they players end up 222 miles directly north of their current location - in more forest.
After giving a brief description of what the Shadow Plane looks like
The Shadow Plane is a world of black and white; color itself has been bleached from the environment. It otherwise appears similar to the Material Plane. Despite the lack of light sources, various plants, animals, and humanoids call the Shadow Plane home.
They cast Find the Path from the wand (the spell wouldn't function if the target isn't on the plane they want) and low and behold, Bolba gets a strong reading leading them directly south. Taking that as an indicator, they decided to ascend over the treetops and travel via flight.
Lady Wisteria asks the trees if they would let Bolba go up through the canopy easily, and the tree responds with a more non-verbal cue of a mean stare.
When going up the to the sky, I make everyone roll ride checks - and Lady Wisteria gets clobbered by a branch, nearly knocking her off Bolba.
Galaren's player had a quick math-gasm when he figured out Bolba's flight speed with roughly a little less than a mile per minute. After the first re-cast of FtP, Lady Wisteria begins to notice the treetops shaking behind them, following them. So, she sends Arcane Eye into the canopy to see what's going on. I describe what she sees: A Gargantuan, six-legged panther like creature covered in huge spines. And as she lays eyes on the Bandersnatch (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/bandersnatch.html#_bandersnatch) it immediately confuses her with it's gaze. She rolls act normally, so she immediately tells everyone what she sees, Bolba wants to begin an upward ascent, Beable casts Tiny Hut and Galarend shoves anyone who is not "ride check savvy" into the hut: Lady Wisteria was the only one. For seventeen rounds she babbles incoherently and beats herself in the head with her own staff. Thankfully, her strength bonus was 0.
Bolba takes off (even more-so) toward the sky. The Bandersnatch, which was 'playfully' stalking it's prey, lobs a volley of 4 quills towards the UFT (Unidentified Flying Triceratops) and party.
Beable gets hit, but the quill doesn't embed. However the one that hits Galarend and the two that hit Bolba do. Galarend (as selfless pally's often do) removed the quills from his steed first before yanking out his own. After realizing how much damage this one attack did as they were running away, the party decided (intelligently) to not turn around and fight this thing. Bolba keeps flying, and Lady Wisteria keeps hitting herself.
Beable checks on her and sees her dizzy from repeated knocks on the head and bashed up, so they party begins burning charges from a wand of cure light wounds. By the time they were done, it was little more than a stick for all the charges they had left, but they decided to keep it anyway.
Yet, the trees keep shaking behind them and this monstrous six-legged cat from hell continues following even though it can't reach them, but after another hour it suddenly stops. The PC's are now completely worried: what are they running towards which that thing doesn't want to come any closer to.
Eventually, the Bolba reaches a clearing and the FtP spell leads him down into a set of old ruins.
The Prism Forge
They enter the Forge (The halls are just wide enough for Bolba to get through) and begin seeing the remains of a large Dwarven Store Front/Forge which is has been abandoned and left to dust. However , as they are exploring, they come across a patch of color (which is not right in the shadow plane) inside this color, they see Dwarves, sitting eating, drinking moving about having a good ole time and are completely oblivious to the newcomers. When trying to interact with anything inside the color, it just passes through. Outside of the color patch the forge is dead and deserted, inside alive and vibrant - Knowledge: Planes checks are made, and Beable come up with a theory - that maybe this spot in the prime material slipped through/was brought into the Shadow Plane and the Dwarves they are witnessing are sort of "echoes from the past." So the players nod, and begin to conduct experiments - throwing in things to interact with the space before taking the plunge and stepping in. They are able to pass through the space with ease and eventually come upon 4 Dwarves working over a table, looking at papers.
Lady Wisteria throws down another Arcane Eye to see what they are talking about, and notices Dwarven scribbling, but she can't read it. So she copies it down, but fails her linguistics check. So when Beable casts Comprehend Languages - he can read the word "undead" written, but the rest is gibberish (caused by an improper copying job).
The players enter the color patch, but something's different this time. The Dwarves who were reading the material on the table, react to them. One even picks up a chair as though he's looking for something to protect himself.
Wrapping up
We ended the session there because it was already past twelve. We old people need our beauty sleep. lol. Because of favorable work schedules, we were able to plan on meeting for next week. So all plans are good plans.
Also, Frout Arthbringer's player got married and moved out of state. So he's opted to buy a camera/tripod/mic thing with an external control so he can literally stand at the table with us and play through a computer. This should be interesting!
See you guys next time!
For the next session click Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?362127-City-of-Progress-Campaign-Journal-Chapter-3-(The-Soul-Keeper))