Horror Campaign (prev. Army of Commoners)

[SilverClawShift]

doublepost.

[lord_khaine]

so, did any of the villages lv up?

[SilverClawShift]

No way, that was the point of them jumping to second level.

But then, our DM doesn't award XP for kills or in a set pattern or anything, it's more of a vague "this is where you are" kind of thing for us

[Eighth_Seraph]

I'd like to join the masses saying one of several variations of "That is an amazing /epic battle."

I have to say that I am very VERY impressed by the actual horror and suspense elements shown here. Giving you turns as you wait for your opponents to come upon you and potentially slaughter you? Hearing the screams of those that you failed to save? Knowing that if you can hear it, it's not a threat, and that it's only that which you can't hear that you should fear with your very soul? A fearless schoolteacher being forcibly made to stand down by others that want to keep her alive?

That's beautiful work. I'm going to do that now. Someday, I will run this scenario. Thank you, ma'am.

[SilverClawShift]

I have to say that I am very VERY impressed by the actual horror and suspense elements shown here.

Heck yeah. When our DM is hosting a horror campaign for halloween month, he's not kidding about the horror part.

Of course, you basically have to agree to be scared. Like watching a horror movie at noon with sunlight streaming in through the window and then saying "It wasn't scary". ANyone can dettach themselves from fiction.

You gotta agree to let it under your skin before you find out what 'it' is

[Tor the Fallen]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

[Grey Watcher]

Heck yeah. When our DM is hosting a horror campaign for halloween month, he's not kidding about the horror part.

Of course, you basically have to agree to be scared. Like watching a horror movie at noon with sunlight streaming in through the window and then saying "It wasn't scary". ANyone can dettach themselves from fiction.

You gotta agree to let it under your skin before you find out what 'it' is

May I quote you on that? That's a very astute and simple way of putting it. Much more accessible than "willing suspension of disbelief."

(Also, admittedly, I don't care for horror movies because I fail to do exactly that. I get into a weird mindset where I see it as a contest between me and the filmmaker, so I'm deliberately trying NOT to be scared.)

Oh, and, yes, this was, from what you report, an incredibly great session. Not only loosing your friends but having them turn into nasty foes. You, yourself, get to survive, but with an especially nifty and beautifully poetic Terrible Price (even if, from a strictly mechanic perspective, it's more of a reward than a price).

Not to mention, I have to applaud a DM who can give his players an (apparently) hopeless situation and not get into the "screw 'em" mentality. It's really great that he let you, for example, use a combination of luck, quick-thinking, and sheer audacity to escape being a slave to Eil Ei.

Oh, and I think I missed it. What happened to the Cleric? Do he run off screaming "I'll get you and your little dog, too!" like the Wizard, or what?

[SilverClawShift]

May I quote you on that?

Absolutely :)

I don't care for horror movies because I fail to do exactly that. I get into a weird mindset where I see it as a contest between me and the filmmaker, so I'm deliberately trying NOT to be scared.

I used to be like that actually. I would refuse to let myself get scared, because I thought of being scared as bad and refused to let the movie 'get' me. Then I realized "Wait, I'm watching something scary because I WANT to be 'gotten' and scared"...

You, yourself, get to survive, but with an especially nifty and beautifully poetic Terrible Price (even if, from a strictly mechanic perspective, it's more of a reward than a price).

Yeah. Mechanically it's very lovely. I wasn't thinking of all the stuff being undead actually meant, but it's on immpressive list of goodies.
But roleplaying wise, my character isn't too happy with the turn of events. In an 'intellectually disspassionate' way, i recognize how much more durable I am, and the gentle repose spells will keep me from turning into a shambling pile of gross. But I'm still literally stitched back into one peice, and, you know, dead. Also, my DM won't take it easy on me, I'm sure. The villagers whose lives, town, and entire history I've just helped save from utter destruction are only VAGUELY accepting of me. Anywhere else I go after this? I'm gonna have to invest in a heavy black hood and let the party do most of the talking.

Oh, and I think I missed it. What happened to the Cleric?

I knew I forgot to mention something. The cleric was utterly SHREDDED. He kept climbing out of negatives and trying to escape/fight, and the kythons had him completely surrounded. Finally when he came back as undead, well, it was very brief. He shouted some vague curses at us, but it kinda lacked the impact of the spider climbing hissing wizard cackling at us as he escaped, considering the cleric was screaming at us while getting devoured 'alive' by kythons.

I actually asked the DM what was up with the will saves. If me, a rogue with low wisdom needed a 3 or lower to return to life, why did the wizard (and especially the CLERIC) return the same? He said that he basically was giving us a 1-in-whatever chance of coming back each time we rolled. He called it a will save because it was our 'wills' that were doing the struggling, but we all had about an equal chance of getting sucked back into our bodies.
Seems fair.

*******************

Also, while I'm here posting about this, I might as well mention a great freaking scare the DM got out of us.

We, the 4 surviving players, (with the new duskblade schoolteacher along for the ride (with swashbuckler levels no less, the player took them on level up )) have collected our wits, organized our gear, patched ourselves up, and tried to figure out what to do next. We decided to check out the moutains with the kython caves, naturally. It's the LAST place we want to go, but it's also the most logical next step in trying to find out "Just What The Heck Is Going On Here Gang?". We tracked the kythons back through their warpath, but got sidetracked. Not too far from the village, we found a little wooden cottage. It was ransacked and shredded, and the doorknob had the same pattern stamped into it as the dragon shamans sparkly new necklace. We figured this was the arcanists home, the kythons tore him apart, and he got up afterwards and happened to trail towards the village (probably drawn by the living kythons in fact).
We're all pretty noble and virtuous by nature in this campaign, if not specifically PIOUS. Robbing the dead feels yicky. But the cold hard truth of the matter is, it's the dead of winter, we're on an island infested with undeath, and we're dealing with monsters so fearsome they make us STOP worrying about the aforementioned undead. he's dead, we're not (er... most of us.) We need whatever we can scrape up here.

So we head in, and yeah, we have nothing to say in our defense. We were going to loot everything valuable like starving rats to help cover our rear ends when the next wave of trouble starts.

So, we're exploring the cottage very quietly. The roof and some walls were torn apart, so snow was starting to blanket over everything. We found a lot of useless spell scrolls, some good stuff like coinage, medical supplies, a few potions (a lot of them frozen and cracking the glass containers they were in, but a lot still useable, though unidentified). We found one of our DMs notorious calling cards, the "Magic Item with no directly applicable use" that we wind up figuring out what to do with. In this case, it's a coin that, when flipped, will change the pattern engraved on it so that it always lands heads. Except that if it initially lands on tails, the pattern takes a good 5 second to change, and does so visibly and with a series of faint clicking noises. useful, right? I'm hanging onto it though. I'm a rogue, it's a magic coin. That's like, what I'm all about right?

Anyway, through this whole thing, the DM is doing a good job creeping us out. A cold and dark cottage that someone actually LIVED in not two days ago, suddenly barely recognizeable as a home. A lot of morbid detail. We had a pretty moody setup going here.

Then, we find 'it'. The arcanist had some kind of weird construct, something like the rest of us had never seen before (archivist included). It was battered and partially dissasembled, apparently by the kythons. It was also covered in strage markings, runes, glyphs, symbols, text fragments (on its forhead, etched in faint dwarven runes, "thus unbound unfettered and felled"). ect.
Nearby it, what looked for all the world to be some strange flute made of the same material and in the same fashion, though not covered in the markings or runes.
We kind of fixated on the golem naturally (in retrospect, our DM would have tricked us into focusing on it if we hadn't in the first place). We managed to strap the sucker back into one peice. We shrugged and asked ourselves what to do with it, until we noticed that the flute had a dettachable series of small black gemstones, which the archivist identified as being effectivelly "wands" with a single charge and a very simple activiation. A little further examination, and he reveals that each gemstone contain a single spell, "repair damage".

You know darn well what we did.

So the DM describes the scene, getting more and more quiet. The construct begins to twitch, and jerk. The wooden grain of its frame snaking back together, the cracked stone plating melting into solid peices once more. He gets real quiet, we're all leaning close together, and he tells us this.

"Suddenly, the construct springs up in one fast fluid motion, grabbing <dragon shaman> by the shoulders and shouting...."

And THAT is when the 6th player, the one with no current character, grabs the dragon shamans player by the shoulders and screams "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE CREATOR?!?"

I. Almost. Peed myself.

It took us five minutes to stop laughing/throwing things/settle back down and get to the game. The player decided to be a WARFORGED of all things. Him and the DM decided behind the scenes that a warforged experiment the arcanist cooked up would be a great new addition to the party. "It" primarily served the arcanist as an assistant during magical concerns, but also as a cook, housecleaner, and entertainment.

So, now we have a warforged bard in the party. And I thought I was the odd one out

They agreed that the best way to introduce the new character would be a shocker moment. I'm inclined to agree.
So there we go. The bard plans (assuming it survives) to become a sublime chord and act as our primary arcane spellcaster, in a sense. And the DM successfully made us wet ourselves by playing one of our group against us. That bastard

[Tyrael]

Wow, that is really, really fantastic. It sounds like your DM is an absolute master of getting together with players and giving everyone memorable moments that will be talked about for sessions to come

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE CREATOR!?!?

That's absolutely genius.

Best
Chara intro
Ever.

[Alex12]

Your. DM. Rocks.

[Grey Watcher]

A very deft character intro. Bravo. (Or should I say "Brava"?)

I also gotta say that frozen potions cracking their vials has to be one of the best bits of flavor I've ever seen. I realize it's a mundane detail, but it's those oft overlooked mundane details that really bring a scene together, I think, especially when you're dealing with (unwillingly) abandoned property.

[ElectricEel]

Very, very cool. Sounds you're having a good campaign.

[bugsysservant]

Wow. I missed the last couple of pages for some reason, so today I have been steadily progressing through your two last encounters. They were both incredible. It has been said before, and I hate to trivialize the role of the players, but your DM is seriously awesome. 'Course good players make good Dms, hmm

Anyway, see if you can use this thread to keep your loyal fans posted about your campaign, if you would be willing. I don't know if that violates forum rules (I assume not) or if you would have to start a new thread, but I am really interested in how your campaign unfolds.

[Alex12]

Anyway, see if you can use this thread to keep your loyal fans posted about your campaign, if you would be willing. I don't know if that violates forum rules (I assume not) or if you would have to start a new thread, but I am really interested in how your campaign unfolds.

I agree. I really want to know how this goes, because it sounds purely awesome. That character intro was beautiful, and your DM sounds like he really knows how to do it right: the atmosphere, the descriptions, the challenges, everything.




Also, off-topic, I never noticed your sig before, bugsysservant, but I love it.

[SilverClawShift]

I also gotta say that frozen potions cracking their vials has to be one of the best bits of flavor I've ever seen.

It's the littlest things that really make a picture come together, I agree. Finding a potion drives it home that someone lived there. Finding a potion cracked and useless from exposure to the cold because the owner died drives it home that someone lived there.

Anyway, see if you can use this thread to keep your loyal fans posted about your campaign, if you would be willing.

I agree. I really want to know how this goes, because it sounds purely awesome.

I always feel weird just rambling on about a campaign no one else is taking part in. It feels like I'm going "ME, ME, read about ME"

But yeah, I guess there's no reason I couldn't post about the campaign here, what else is this thread for? We've had a few sessions since then, and another one tonight, but I'll try to get some more of the facts about it up.

[BRC]

You DM is awsome. They should make a DnD Hall of Fame and give your DM a wing.

[TheSteelRat]

Yeah, we like you talking about this campaign. So many wonderful ideas, definitely an inspiration to gaming. Can we rent your GM? Pretty please?

[Lolzords]

I'm imagining a montage with that live to win song in the background.

[shadowdemon_lord]

Wow, I loved the description of the battle, and the character intro was nothing short of awesome. I like the setting idea a lot, and the fact that you not only do you have hordes of wandering undead, but also bands of roving Kythons wandering around is cool. I'd love to keep reading about this campaign.

[SilverClawShift]

Allrighty.

So to recap the warforged portion of things, we did get him (it) to calm down fairly quickly. Despite the dragon shaman wearing his creators necklace, we managed to convince him that we had nothing to do with what happened. When he found out we were going after the kythons (and of course, having been shredded by them and knowing his 'father' was destroyed by them, is now very very anti-kython) he eagerly joined up with us.
Of course, that really goes without saying, since he's a player-character :p. His natural armor is also pretty kickin and enchanted well.
The party is at that magical point where we realize we can start mutliclassing/prestige classing. The warforged plans on becoming a sublime chord, the paladin is looking to become a death delver, I'm actually gonna take a few levels of factotum to give myself a little more edge.

Anyway, this has been a few sessions, so I'm trying to keep it neat and trim and give highlights.

Now, we make our way through the snowy dead woods. There's lots of zombies around, but for the most part, we're taking care of them pretty effeciently.
Then, we realize, there's trouble. Not trouble in the way you might traditionally think, but worse trouble. One of the zombies isn't shambling towards us. It's watching us. And when it realizes we're watching it? It dissapears back into the trees.

To quote the paladin. "Wow. That sucks".

It wasn't the wizard, so it's basically foreshadowing that things are gonna keep getting worse for us with this whole 'not 100% dead and angry at you for being alive' thing.
But we make it to the mountain range, and track the kython trail back to a cave entrance. The zombies (a lot of whom were still shambling for us) cease to be even a threat of a problem when we start climbing the rocks. Zombies aren't the best climbers, fortunately. We're keeping our eyes peeled for... uh, the sentient ones. If there are stronger undead watching us, we don't want them following.
Me excluded of course.

I'm sure you can imagine how this goes. We don't want to go into the kython caves. We just don't, prepared or not. But there's not a lot of places to check out, things aren't going to spontaneously get better, and we need to know what riled those monsters up.
So we head in. We're taking it fairly slowly. I'm on point, cause, you know, I'm the rogue. Not that it really matters, we can't hide from these things the way we'd like to be able to. But I'm undead, along with some pretty sleek resistances, and I can blink ethereal and sprint if I really have to.
The warforged keeps humming quietly. We keep having to shush him. The archivist is compulsively checking his bone shard crossbow, despite it being useless against kythons. "I don't know, it just makes me feel safer to have it ready."
We do fight some kythons, but it's nothing like the war. We're doing very well at keeping them under control when they attack us. Never facing more than an adult or two at a time, still have some sonic orb stuff from the battle. Going well.

We can tell the cave is going donwards, not up, which is making us generically claustrophobic. FOr some reason, it seems worse to be heading into the black when you're also heading underneath the surface.
And then as I'm doing a random check for traps (just in case), I notice something scratched into the wall. It's a circular pattern filled with obscure arcane runes that we can't recognize. Not even the warforged who's covered in random obscure runes.
The archivist is leafing through his notebooks furiously (read: the DM is giving him notes on what he's figuring out after he rolls a knowledge check... I know it's kind of silly, but it really helps with immersion when the character who rolls the knowledge check tells you what's up, instead of the DM telling you himself).
The archivist, holding up a black handbook and a small rod with a light on the end: "It's... it's a seal."
Us: "okay, what are we getting at?"
Archivist: "Blasphemy. It's blasphemy. It's a seal of an otherworldly being, neither angel nor devil." he crosses himself here. "They enter this world through the souls of willing mortals, heretics, and corrupt us to unknown ends".
(Now mind you, we all know what the binder class is, but good golly I was immperssed with the archivist players acting here. Impressed enough that it was creepy.
Anyway.)
Duskblade: "So there's something down here in addition to the kythons?"
Archivist: "...if I didn't know any better... I'd say the kythons made this."

So we press on, very uneasy. Mind you, the whole time, I'm trying to talk to the kythons, like some kind of warped ranger (I wasn't even interested in diplomacy with them, creepy monsters, but the archivist correctly reminded me that I was probably the first mortal *akward pause* uh, the first material creature to even understand what the kythons were saying, so I had to try). They won't have anything to do with me. They just won't. I try telling them we only want to find out why nothing will stay dead, telling them to back away before the bloodshed, asking them what the seals we keep finding on the walls mean. They just hiss curses at me, and either dissapear into the smaller sub-caves, or attack violently.
But as we descend, we notice the kythons are actually thinning out. What that meant was still open to interpretation.
Then we come into a massive chamber. We're on a ledge overlooking it. It goes easily 30 feet down and 50 feet up. The room is around 100 feet to a side, give or take.

And there are undead kythons pinned to the walls, cippled with no limbs, or otherwise incapacitated. A zombified kython with no lower half crawls up the wall at us meekly.
There are also seals carved EVERYWHERE. Scratched right into the stone, overlapping each other, seemingly for dozens and dozens of different vestiges.

We're all rolling spot checks. The archivist makes it first.
Archivist: "...Everyone get ready to run for your lives."

A 'slaughterking' kython. The grand daddy of grand daddy kythons. The kind that kill slaymasters from boredom.

To quote our paladin: "Wow. That sucks."

The slaughterking? It's scratching the ground. (Now would be a good time to remind anyone reading that slaughterkings are more intelligent than a human being by a wide margin (20 INT)).
We don't even know if it's seen us. Then, it hisses, in that strange clicking hiss that only I can understand (read: the DM gave me a note) "Leave this place now."

I tell the group. The archivist tells me to try to talk to it (while we're all backing towards the entrance). I'm actually picturing this scene. We're god knows how far underground, surrounded by undead kythons and blasphemous religious symbols. I just say quietly, barely a whisper "I don't think I can". I was serious, I'm trying to think of what to say to this thing, and I'm just terrified.
The archivist reminds me that I'm the only one who can even try. So I managed to say one word.
"Please"

The kython turns to look at us, growls quietly, and goes back to scratching. After a few moments, the area in front of him lights up. We see, what looks like a JESTER with dozens of arms spring out of thin air, juggling dozens of tiny objects.
Of course, this is a real vestige, but we don't know that in character.
Vestige: "Sorry there guv'na, no pacts today, otherworld's closed up shop. going out of business, huge sale, everything must go! *insane cackle*"
Kython, still speaking in growling clicks and hisses (which the DM actually did, knowing I'd just tell the group, and wanted to do a quiet angry hissing voice for it): *angry hiss* "How is this happening."

The vestige stops juggling, rubs his chin ponderously, and leans to the kython before saying very slowly, and very confidently. "Because we. Want. Out."
And with a huge insane grin, the vestige turns from the kython and looks me dead in the eyes. Says in a boisterous friendly grin "I'm still mad at you!!!!"

And then winks out of existance as fast as it came in, while the kython pounds the ground in a fury and tears off one of the undead kythons heads, throwing it at us, and scattering away into some dark hole.

Sweet mercifull macgilicutty.

Anyway, to tighten things up a little here, we press forwards, and down through the dark hole the slaughterking went in. Everything was covered in slime, there were bones and dead body parts everywhere. By a few checks revealed that they weren't human, or even surfacers bones. There was apparently a whole eco-system that went much, much deeper into the caves, of which the kythons were only a part.
We found the slaughterking deeper down, checking over a bunch of scratched in runes that were, apparently, his notes. He wasn't interested in the surface, he wasn't even interested in killing us (though he said repeatedly that he would kill us if we didn't leave).
I managed to convince him we would gladly leave, in one peice, but we didn't know what was going on and could he please just tell us anything. We got some facts out of him.

There's a lot, lot more vestiges than anyone, scribe, scholar, cleric or binder has ever heard of. In fact, there's millions. Billions. Countless. Most of them are weak, powerless, but they still exist in the 'nothingness'. No sensation, no communication. Nothing but black. Inky timeless black, forever.
Kythons (who were originally created by fiends trapped on the material plane) weren't just a fluke experiment. There were seeds of intent lain in their race. The demon prince orcus intended to use them, in ways unknown, to reclaim the vestige tenebrous from the nothingness and reclaim the measure of divinity he acheived. Kythons have some innate knowledge of binding, but don't actually do binding themselves, they just know about it.
Whatever's going on (the kython didn't know, and is trying to find out), it's big. Something's wrong, the tether of the planes are fraying, and vestiges have apparently found a way to push themselves into the ethereal plane, hijack peoples souls, and use them as more than just temporary pacts. They're piggybacking back into reality on them and taking them over.
Even insects and rodents are coming back, because any vestige that finds a way in is TAKING it, regardless of how insignificant. Even the eyes of a spider are better than no eyes whatsoever. The weak ones are degenerate and can't really be called 'minds' in any sense. They're just pushing into reality blankly to get away from the 'void'. Those are the shamblers. They kill for no reason other than to make more paths in.
The more powerful vestiges are trying to piggyback in on more powerful souls (read, higher level characters and powerful creatures). A more powerful soul makes a more powerful 'ride', and lets them retain their sense of self, but more or less consumes whoever their ride was. They don't keep their powers, but they get the minds and full knowledge of whoever they come in on, and keep their own minds as well.
It's possible that a powerful enough soul would let a vestige keep its own powers through the process. But they aren't worried about that. They just want to EXIST again.

A lot of powerful vestiges are out in the world now. Some are still there, and at least one is still willing to make pacts and doesn't wish to leave the void. The others are scrabbeling to get a way out of it. They would all love nothing more than to kill you dead and give another vestige a ride into the world.

And we know tenebrous is still a vestige.

So uh, yeah. To quote our paladin yet again: "Wow. That sucks..."

And it does. It does indeed suck.

The kython ran down another hole eventually, but promised that if it saw us again, or if we hassled it in any way while it tried to figure out what was going on, it would shred us to ribbons.
We had a hard time convincing the warforged not to attack the kython. All he wanted to do is kill kythons.

We came back to the surface in dreary silence. We were all kinda stunned sick actually, we have no idea what to do here.
We made it back to the village, and they let us rest there for a while. We also went to another village (me in a heavy black hood and only coming out at night, and we managed to convince the warforged to act like he was just a golem under our control to avoid real trouble beyond a 'what the heck' reaction). Refreshed our supplies, got some gear for the duskblade (who the DM has allowed to come up to 7th level with us now).

So, I'll put a breaker in here for the current climax, which is going to get picked back up tonight.

********************************************

The archivist asked us if we'd mind returning to the mainlands instead of exploring the rest of the island. He wants to get to church and pray with his brethren, but also to report what he's discovered and try to get some backing from the church at large for us to continue our explorations on the subject (though we admit to not being sure where to go from here).
We also need to let them know they're missing one semi-famous cleric, and that the paladin is officially leaving his 'path'. Staying virtuous and noble, and remaining with the church, but will no longer advance as a paladin itself. The DM is letting him keep his abilities in this setup, which we all think is fair.

So, we start sailing back to the mainland. It's not a pleasant ride. We see a lot of undead sea creatures actually. We killed a few undead sharks that gave us trouble, and we actually saved a school of dolphins from a zombie killer whale (really, the paladin saw a zombie attacking a school of friendly dolphins, and just went APE on us, tore off his full plate, swung out on a rope, dove and started fighting the thing in water. Naturally, we all helped after that).
We thought. We saw. An undead blue whale. SWEET. MERCILESS. ASMODEUS. Save us now.
Just thinking about that makes my back shiver. Tiny wooden sailing ship, UNDEAD BLUE WHALE. oh god.

We don't know if it was still alive, something else, or just our eyes playing tricks on us, cause we weren't attacked by it. Gave us all the heebie jeebies though.

So?

We make it back to the mainland. We're sailing for port, cloudy day, releived to be getting away from the undead infested waters (especially before the nasty storm the captain smelled in the air hit).

I don't know why it didn't really hit us.

Undead infested island.

Ethereal plane broken.

Undead in the waters.

I guess we really just weren't thinking about it as hard as we should have been. Because we docked in port, and tied the ship up and whatnot. We swung off it, and went with the captain to find the harbor master to let him know we were in port (and we were paying for the docking anyway).

The place was empty. No one around. We peered towards town? no signs of life. We started getting a really uneasy feeling. We went in towards town a little ways (the captain came with us)? Nothing. We climbed a belltower. Took a look around the town. Noth- wait. There's someone. "Hey, what's going o-" the duskblade starts to shout, before the archivist clamps a hand over her mouth and pulls us all down so we're laying prone.

Archivist: "we're in trouble"

And then? We hear a single zombie moan angrily. Followed by about a thousand more moans from every direction.

We managed to barricade the door to the belltower, and the doors leading back up to the tower portion itself. We had a single scroll of 'fly' left over from the war, and we used it on the paladin and sent him flying to look for somewhere we can head to. He found that the church was barricaded pretty heavily, and that a few other buildings, mostly homes and shops, were boarded up and might have people in them too.

We just have to fight through streets literally flooded square to square with zombies to get there.

To quote EVERYONE. "Wow. That sucks."

**********************

So that's where we're standing right now. We're gonna game for a few hours tonight, and hopefully tommorrow night too (but definately tuesday).

We'll see where this goes I guess.

*edit*

Think I forgot to mention. The warforged really does not care about what's going on. He's staying with us cause we're friendly towards him and he doesn't really have anything better to do without an 'owner'. He's got a dissapassionate outlook on everything, mainly because if he gets destroyed, that's that. No undeath, just a question of wether or not someone will repair him at some point.
Still, he's party-loyal and utterly fearless.

[bingo_bob]

Oh dear. That's quite a situation, there...

Just remember then. Vestige-Zombies with names from ToM are bad news. Especially since the higher level ones are likely to retain their powers. Acererak will be particularly nasty.

[Tor the Fallen]

Why didn't a mage that was powerful enough to craft a warforged not get a monstrously badass visage in him?

[SilverClawShift]

Why didn't a mage that was powerful enough to craft a warforged not get a monstrously badass visage in him?

DM oversight. Also probably the fact that part of it the DM makes up on the fly.

It hadn't occured to me, I wonder if it's occured to anyone else. I don't think I'll bring it up though, that'd just be petty. Also, he can just Rule 0 it and give any reason.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Wow. Keep us posted, this is actually the most awesome campaign ever. Sounds like you have a great DM.

Although I was wondering if the rest of the world was undead-ified.

[Azerian Kelimon]

And if you wanna clear a path out, use spheres and walls of fire. They'll save your ass, since you can spam 'em for a while before going down. And believe me, you'll really need to clear a path, even for 10' away from the tower. And consider runnin' away through rooftops to reach the barricaded buildings. And turn the people you find into Warlocks, dragon shamen, and marshals . Maybe that grin is inappropiate. The World's goin' down in flames.

[bugsysservant]

Wow...

I mean, damn.

First, thanks for putting the effort in to keep us posted. You really do a great job conveying the atmosphere of the campaign (I assume). And again, your DM kicks ass. Seriously. Good luck with the zombie hordes, if you have no other option, try scavenging boards and going from the bell tower by them. Once retracted the mindless zombies shouldn't be able to follow. 'Course some of 'em might not be mindless...

[Anxe]

Where do you live and can I come play?

[Machete]

Is your DM single and female?

[TheLogman]

The Church is probably your best bet. It might have a few friendly NPC clerics who are willing to help. At 7th level, I think your Archivist only has 1 Wall of Fire if any? Try to get a night of rest, restore spells, and then in the morning, here's an idea. Aided by all the battlefield controls you guys can muster, send yourself into the undead sea, trying to get the the Church. If they don't attack you because you are undead, great, then you can get into the Church, hopefully NOT get killed by the guys inside, (They don't have to know you're undead) then they can send out a team of Clerics (If any) to Turn the Undead to create a path to send the rest of the party through. Once inside, Clerics and other more powerful characters in the Church might be willing to help with the Kython situation, or at least sell/give you some supplies.

If you are very lucky, there might be a witchslayer in town. Those guys are good against vestiges, and hate them a ton. Get as many of them as you can if there are any at all. If there aren't, consider taking classes in WitchSlayer yourselves, it would be the perfect prestige class for the Paladin.

[Anxe]

I'd suggest you have the wizard flying person rest while you guys keep the zombies out. When he awakes he casts fly on everyone and you zip around town and get everyone still alive to the church or whatever place looks most defensible. And after that it becomes BURNINATION TIME!