Magnus_Samma
2007-02-28, 08:23 PM
This doesn't really fit into any existing thread, so I figured I'd just tell the story here. I can't imagine anyone not getting a chuckle or two out of this.
I currently have five players. Jesse plays Bob #7, a human cleric of some obscure death god. Adam plays Bob #9 (they're not putting a huge amount of thought into their characters, really), a human barbarian who abuses Power Attack as much as possible. Mike is Dorn, an elven monk who is marginally less useless than the other elf, Donny, a fighter played by Zach who, even after some pretty significant weapon upgrades, still can't manage to hit anything. My last player is little DJ, who plays a human wizard who up until tonight didn't have a name and I can't remember what it is now. They're all roughly level 6, and show every sign of reaching level 7 after the next session.
They're levelling pretty fast because I've been throwing some pretty high-level nasties at them, mostly in an attempt to challenge them because they're tearing right through anything at their CR. Part of the problem is that I've also been overgenerous with loot, and they all have really nice magic equipment. I'm not exactly complaining here- I did give this stuff to them, but I would like them to have a little more of a challenge now and then.
At first I was kind of drawing a blank on what to do with these guys, so I decided to go with an old standby and start the adventure with a fight with a dragon. From there, a peasant woman thanked them and led them to the cave where it laired. The cave system was, as a private joke, shaped like a crude dragon. The first inkling I got that something was going to go wrong here was when Bob #7 gave the peasant woman a gold piece to hold a torch for them, then proceeded to bully her into doing anything that seemed relatively dangerous in the place, eventually culminating into having her taste gelatinous cube gelatin to see if it had any halucinagenic properties. She fled.
Later they ran across an altar that housed the first plot hook: The Eye of Argon. Actually, while it was a red spherical crystal, it had a rune inside it that roughly translated from infernal to "Crustacean." They had no idea what it did, so they took it with them. A discussion about religion ensued, and after the party decided that, despite being nominally neutral, most of them worshipped evil gods, they desecrated the altar with the images of their horrific deities. Bob #7 then began to animate corpses to use as foot soldiers, and Jesse asked me to bring in my copy of the Book of Vile Darkness to the next game.
That should have been -plenty- of warning, but I decided to go with my initial plan anyway- not having come up with any original ideas for a plot, I decided to rip off Final Fantasy Tactics. The dungeon they were in led to a sewer which opened up beneath a street in the capital of the church of Pelor. Through sheer plot contrivance, the PCs happened upon the sewer opening in the middle of a kidnapping attempt being made on Sarai, the young Pontiff of the Pelorian religion. The PCs promptly nabbed her, beat the crap out of a blackguard I had intended to be a boss-level encounter for them, and high-tailed it out of there, undead in tow. They then briefly considered sacrificing the popette on the altar dedicated to their treble dark gods, but decided that ultimately they could get more profit from taking her to the castle of a Cardinal of the Pelorian church that she trusted. Though they were sure to cast a spell to ensure that she didn't remember everything that went on while they travelled, which was good because the first thing Bob #7 did in the next village was to trick four peasants into following him out into the woods where he proceeded to kill all of them and reanimate their corpses.
Jesse, meanwhile, is asking about the Thrall of Orcus prestige class. He's not crazy about it initially because the Lichloved feat is a prerequisite. His last remaining spark of humanity dissapears when everybody else in the party starts painting a picture of hot female zombies galore, and Bob #7 as an undead pimp. He then considers using Sarai (the fourteen year-old religous figure) as a sacrifice to his god, and then animating her corpse for lukewarm undead loving afterwards so he can qualify for the feat.
I began to despair. At this point it was clear that expecting the PCs to save the world because it was the right thing to do was a dog's egg of a plan, so I decided that the bad guys would hire them to do their dirty work for them, since they all seemed to be very interested in shiny cash.
The PCs head for the cardinal's castle, and along the way they find three drinking skeletons who recognize the "Eye of Argon" and refer to it as one of the twelve holy demon-slaying stones. This was my first really overt reference to FFT, and I was rather gratified when nobody seemed to notice it. Though I wouldn't have minded if someone had spotted the Hellboy reference. The skeletons also gave them a black ring which, when magic detected, nearly blinded the wizard. I'm going to be milking that plot device for months.
The PCs made their way through some woods and the Tunnel of Horrific Death (recently renamed the Bunny Cave), where Donny proved to be absolutely useless as he got raped by a wraith to the tune of 16 Con drain. I hadn't realized the wraith's touch was that potent, so I let Bob #7 and Sarai repair his damage, because a fighter with 1 Con is even more useless than a fighter who can't hit the broad side of a barn.
A troop of soldiers coming to "rescue" the pontiff then met their end to a single fireball and got reanimated as zombies, to which the returning blackguard, again intended as a boss-type encounter, peed herself and fled. I began to get the impression that I was underestimating my players' abilities somewhat.
The PCs arrived at the cardinal's castle, and I got Sarai away from them as quickly as was feasible to avoid her getting killed and reanimated and molested. The Cardinal quickly determined that the pontiff's rescuers were evil jerks, so he took them into his private chambers and offered them a job. He handed over a couple thousand GP for saving the Pontiff, and promised double that amount if they'll go a fetch a certain item for him, one of the twelve demon-slaying stones.
Of course, then they decide to sell the stone they've already found to him, because they want more money and they figure they can always kill him to get it back later. So now I've got a bunch of freshly 6th level characters running around with 18,000 GP each for supplies. A sensation of dread set in, especially when Bob #7 proceeded to acquire a Rod of Wonder, and then purchase the materials for and build a clay golem, which he proceeded to craft in the likeness of a nine foot naked anatomically correct humanoid woman. Named Sally. I asked him if he was at least going to get clothes for it, and he said he would, but only for when the party wasn't alone with it.
...
Along the way I brielfy introduced two characters who are going to turn out to be the campaign's BBEGs, Celia and Leo. I wanted them to underestimate Celia, so she didn't get much description, but I made a point of saying that Leo was wearing golden plate armor and carrying a greatsword that made Bob #9's greatsword look like something a wussy would use. After some conversation, the PCs learn that Leo is in fact wearing armor made out of gold dragonscale. They go on to have a short adventure in a hidden temple underneath the castle, and discover a devil that tells them that the twelve demon-slaying stones are actually evil devil crystals. The PCs are now getting very suspicious, especially because the black ring they found put an NPC wizard into hysterics a little while ago. Said ring then proceeds to freak the devil out so it runs away, and when they ask the Cardinal to look at it, he starts laughing hysterically, then tells them he was no idea what it is.
They decide that they need to kill the Cardinal, who is clearly evil and planning on releasing tons of demons into the world. I'm a little irked by this, because they're arguably just as evil, and while I intend for them to eventually kill this guy, I hadn't had a chance to create stats for him yet. Then Jesse brings up the valid point that the Cardinal seems to have two bodyguards, one of which has reportedly slain a dragon singlehandedly.
So they decide that they need to kill Leo. The plan is to wait until he takes a poop and ambush him. I'm laughing hysterically at this point because I haven't had a chance to stat Leo either, but even in the planning stages he's easily an epic level encounter. Donny, though, who at least knows when he's about to get killed, argues strongly against fighting the dude with the six foot greatsword. Finally, the others decide they can always kill the Cardinal after he pays them another 18,000 gp for retrieving the other crystal, so they'll just go south to meet their contact for now.
[plot scrubbed]
It's my first time GMing an actual tabletop game, and I think it's turning out pretty well. You know, except for the whole necrophilia thing.
I currently have five players. Jesse plays Bob #7, a human cleric of some obscure death god. Adam plays Bob #9 (they're not putting a huge amount of thought into their characters, really), a human barbarian who abuses Power Attack as much as possible. Mike is Dorn, an elven monk who is marginally less useless than the other elf, Donny, a fighter played by Zach who, even after some pretty significant weapon upgrades, still can't manage to hit anything. My last player is little DJ, who plays a human wizard who up until tonight didn't have a name and I can't remember what it is now. They're all roughly level 6, and show every sign of reaching level 7 after the next session.
They're levelling pretty fast because I've been throwing some pretty high-level nasties at them, mostly in an attempt to challenge them because they're tearing right through anything at their CR. Part of the problem is that I've also been overgenerous with loot, and they all have really nice magic equipment. I'm not exactly complaining here- I did give this stuff to them, but I would like them to have a little more of a challenge now and then.
At first I was kind of drawing a blank on what to do with these guys, so I decided to go with an old standby and start the adventure with a fight with a dragon. From there, a peasant woman thanked them and led them to the cave where it laired. The cave system was, as a private joke, shaped like a crude dragon. The first inkling I got that something was going to go wrong here was when Bob #7 gave the peasant woman a gold piece to hold a torch for them, then proceeded to bully her into doing anything that seemed relatively dangerous in the place, eventually culminating into having her taste gelatinous cube gelatin to see if it had any halucinagenic properties. She fled.
Later they ran across an altar that housed the first plot hook: The Eye of Argon. Actually, while it was a red spherical crystal, it had a rune inside it that roughly translated from infernal to "Crustacean." They had no idea what it did, so they took it with them. A discussion about religion ensued, and after the party decided that, despite being nominally neutral, most of them worshipped evil gods, they desecrated the altar with the images of their horrific deities. Bob #7 then began to animate corpses to use as foot soldiers, and Jesse asked me to bring in my copy of the Book of Vile Darkness to the next game.
That should have been -plenty- of warning, but I decided to go with my initial plan anyway- not having come up with any original ideas for a plot, I decided to rip off Final Fantasy Tactics. The dungeon they were in led to a sewer which opened up beneath a street in the capital of the church of Pelor. Through sheer plot contrivance, the PCs happened upon the sewer opening in the middle of a kidnapping attempt being made on Sarai, the young Pontiff of the Pelorian religion. The PCs promptly nabbed her, beat the crap out of a blackguard I had intended to be a boss-level encounter for them, and high-tailed it out of there, undead in tow. They then briefly considered sacrificing the popette on the altar dedicated to their treble dark gods, but decided that ultimately they could get more profit from taking her to the castle of a Cardinal of the Pelorian church that she trusted. Though they were sure to cast a spell to ensure that she didn't remember everything that went on while they travelled, which was good because the first thing Bob #7 did in the next village was to trick four peasants into following him out into the woods where he proceeded to kill all of them and reanimate their corpses.
Jesse, meanwhile, is asking about the Thrall of Orcus prestige class. He's not crazy about it initially because the Lichloved feat is a prerequisite. His last remaining spark of humanity dissapears when everybody else in the party starts painting a picture of hot female zombies galore, and Bob #7 as an undead pimp. He then considers using Sarai (the fourteen year-old religous figure) as a sacrifice to his god, and then animating her corpse for lukewarm undead loving afterwards so he can qualify for the feat.
I began to despair. At this point it was clear that expecting the PCs to save the world because it was the right thing to do was a dog's egg of a plan, so I decided that the bad guys would hire them to do their dirty work for them, since they all seemed to be very interested in shiny cash.
The PCs head for the cardinal's castle, and along the way they find three drinking skeletons who recognize the "Eye of Argon" and refer to it as one of the twelve holy demon-slaying stones. This was my first really overt reference to FFT, and I was rather gratified when nobody seemed to notice it. Though I wouldn't have minded if someone had spotted the Hellboy reference. The skeletons also gave them a black ring which, when magic detected, nearly blinded the wizard. I'm going to be milking that plot device for months.
The PCs made their way through some woods and the Tunnel of Horrific Death (recently renamed the Bunny Cave), where Donny proved to be absolutely useless as he got raped by a wraith to the tune of 16 Con drain. I hadn't realized the wraith's touch was that potent, so I let Bob #7 and Sarai repair his damage, because a fighter with 1 Con is even more useless than a fighter who can't hit the broad side of a barn.
A troop of soldiers coming to "rescue" the pontiff then met their end to a single fireball and got reanimated as zombies, to which the returning blackguard, again intended as a boss-type encounter, peed herself and fled. I began to get the impression that I was underestimating my players' abilities somewhat.
The PCs arrived at the cardinal's castle, and I got Sarai away from them as quickly as was feasible to avoid her getting killed and reanimated and molested. The Cardinal quickly determined that the pontiff's rescuers were evil jerks, so he took them into his private chambers and offered them a job. He handed over a couple thousand GP for saving the Pontiff, and promised double that amount if they'll go a fetch a certain item for him, one of the twelve demon-slaying stones.
Of course, then they decide to sell the stone they've already found to him, because they want more money and they figure they can always kill him to get it back later. So now I've got a bunch of freshly 6th level characters running around with 18,000 GP each for supplies. A sensation of dread set in, especially when Bob #7 proceeded to acquire a Rod of Wonder, and then purchase the materials for and build a clay golem, which he proceeded to craft in the likeness of a nine foot naked anatomically correct humanoid woman. Named Sally. I asked him if he was at least going to get clothes for it, and he said he would, but only for when the party wasn't alone with it.
...
Along the way I brielfy introduced two characters who are going to turn out to be the campaign's BBEGs, Celia and Leo. I wanted them to underestimate Celia, so she didn't get much description, but I made a point of saying that Leo was wearing golden plate armor and carrying a greatsword that made Bob #9's greatsword look like something a wussy would use. After some conversation, the PCs learn that Leo is in fact wearing armor made out of gold dragonscale. They go on to have a short adventure in a hidden temple underneath the castle, and discover a devil that tells them that the twelve demon-slaying stones are actually evil devil crystals. The PCs are now getting very suspicious, especially because the black ring they found put an NPC wizard into hysterics a little while ago. Said ring then proceeds to freak the devil out so it runs away, and when they ask the Cardinal to look at it, he starts laughing hysterically, then tells them he was no idea what it is.
They decide that they need to kill the Cardinal, who is clearly evil and planning on releasing tons of demons into the world. I'm a little irked by this, because they're arguably just as evil, and while I intend for them to eventually kill this guy, I hadn't had a chance to create stats for him yet. Then Jesse brings up the valid point that the Cardinal seems to have two bodyguards, one of which has reportedly slain a dragon singlehandedly.
So they decide that they need to kill Leo. The plan is to wait until he takes a poop and ambush him. I'm laughing hysterically at this point because I haven't had a chance to stat Leo either, but even in the planning stages he's easily an epic level encounter. Donny, though, who at least knows when he's about to get killed, argues strongly against fighting the dude with the six foot greatsword. Finally, the others decide they can always kill the Cardinal after he pays them another 18,000 gp for retrieving the other crystal, so they'll just go south to meet their contact for now.
[plot scrubbed]
It's my first time GMing an actual tabletop game, and I think it's turning out pretty well. You know, except for the whole necrophilia thing.