Dragon of Life (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonoflife) wrote2009-08-31 09:30 am
dragonoflife) wrote2009-08-31 09:30 am
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Our missing player from last session arrived in good time and in fit shape to play, but lacked a character (having previously attempted to make a wizard, then giving up in disgust after encountering the spell selection and memorization rules). After some debate over warmage and swashbuckler, he elected instead to roll up a ninja. Not the good kind from The Complete Ninja's Handbook, which was a freaking *awesome* supplement, but good enough!
Aidan: Let's see, you can use siangham, sai, kama... Hmm, the kama is actually a pretty good weapon.
Alliara and Ninja: Kama kama kama kama kama chameleeeeon!
Aidan: I'm gonna kill you.
The party discovers the ninja as a captive on the altar, who promptly wakes up to reveal that he's voiced with an absolutely hilarious Christian-Bale-as-Batman-style growl. This random stranger is promptly invited into the party with all the furious under-the-rug sweeping of sense that PCs usually get for the sake of not spending an entire session roleplaying "who are you, why should you join us?" The PCs begin burying bodies and cleansing the befouled temple -- and searching the town for supplies.
Alliara: We'll take the supplies that would've otherwise gone bad. The villagers would approve of us using them to get the people who killed them.
Ninja: I like how you justify your thievery.
Alliara: Thievery?! I -- you -- oh, I AM chaotic good, I guess I'm okay with that.
Drusila: I'll check out the bakery!
DM: You find almost everything you could want in the bakery to bake with... except milk.
Ninja: (to Alliara) I saw that! You looked at ME when he said that! Why?!
Alliara: I was waiting for you to suggest we go kill a cow or something and wait for it to drop milk!
Drusila: (busies herself baking hardtack for travel rations)
DM: It's flaky and light! But then it cools...
Aidan: I've got everything I need right here. (indicating a bag of chips)
Alliara: This is him casting Heroes' Feast.
DM: "This is delicious, I hope you guys get the chance to have some!"
Alliara: Oh, you'll be sorry in one hour per character level!
Under the NPC Questgiver's guidance, the PCs depart for the Magic School of Illusion, from which they'll teleport to the School of Necromancy on the icy northern continent, near where the item they seek is. Along the way, the ninja fumbles gender pronouns while speaking IC -- since, as the astute reader has noticed, this game features the terrifying specter of GUYS playing GIRLS ZOMG.
Aidan: Look... (Drawing a line with one hand) Everyone on THAT side of the line is female.
DM: Aww, I'm androgynous.
Cautioned only by the NPC warning that the school of illusion "has a sense of humor", the PCs discover an abandoned hut near an outcropping of rock.
DM: "This could be them... but maybe it's just a hut."
Ninja: (trying to determine what equipment they have available from the NPC) "What have you in your satch?
There's a pause while the rest of the players consider just how wrong this sounded. Several inappropriate comments follow.
Alliara: I go around back.
DM: You find a water barrel! It's bottomless.
Alliara: I drop a rock in!
DM: You don't hear it hit the ground.
Alliara: "Hello!"
DM: A voice comes from the barrel. "What do you want?"
Alliara: "I'm looking for the school!"
DM: "Which one?"
Alliara: (pausing) "The good one!
Mirrshala: Okay, I'm climbing in.
The NPC hurries over to interrupt the conversation and re-establish it in such a matter that the PCs can actually advance the plot. He swiftly negotiates for entrance to the school of illusion, while Mirr finds herself unable to pass a certain invisible point in the bottomless barrel.
Mirrshala: Pass me the chips.
DM: You toss the chips down the barrel!
The PCs are permitted into the school of illusion -- which is a magnificent showpiece, brilliant and festive and incredible!
Alliara: Of course, it's all just an illusion. I disbelieve!
Ninja: It all fades, you see two guys playing checkers.
DM: "You can see us, can't you?"
The PCs quickly gain an audience with the dean of the school.
Alliara: Is his name Dean?
DM: (pausing) Uh. I didn't come up with a name for him, so... yes.
Alliara: Sweet!
DM: "If you are famished, you may rest here. (singsong) I smell haaardtack!"
The PCs are allowed a short time of recuperation in a sitting room. Drusila inexplicably gets drunk and goes to sleep, and a few minutes later is prodded awake by Alliara.
Drusila: "MEOW!"
Ninja: Well, that's -- Ha ha! (pointing at the screen, where Drusila's player is hastily talking to a startled spouse off-camera) He has to explain!
The PCs are teleported to the frozen northern continent, where, IC, Mirrshala hails from and Alliara has spent a couple of years roaming, questing, and learning the blade. Smugly, Alliara dons her cold-weather outfit, while the DM rules that Mirr doesn't need to roll the Fortitude saves cold weather requires.
DM: What are the rest of you doing for cold weather protection?
Drusila: I have two blankets, I fashion a poncho.
Luckily, Aidan not only has Endure Elements as a domain spell but has a feat to spontaneously cast it. He lays it upon Drusila, himself, and the ninja, and the party ventures forth into the cold. Alliara, who at this point fails her Fortitude saving throws only on a 2 to start with, promptly fails three of the five she rolls before giving up and accepting a protection spell as well.
Ninja: I like how the person who's most prepared to deal with the cold is the one who fails...
Alliara's player grumbles, recognizing that this is just how the last game turned into something of a running joke at the character's expense. The PCs promptly reach a stone cliff, which they must climb.
Alliara: "Drusila... uh, sir ninja, please climb the cliff and lower some knotted rope for the rest of us to climb."
Aidan: "I'm climbing too."
Aliarra: "Uh, okay, you can--"
Mirrshala: "I'm climbing as well!"
Aliarra: "...am I the only one here who can't climb?" (The other players nod. Alliara flicks them off.) "Fine! Go!"
The party climbs the cliff and promptly locates a small alcove, which they enter. A few minutes pass as they explore it.
Drusila: Oh, we forgot the tank! I lower a rope.
Alliara: (Profanity) "All right, who has torches?"
Aidan: "I do."
Alliara: "How many?"
Aidan: "Oh, uh, only three."
Alliara: "Ha! I have 20. Mirr, please light the torch--"
Aidan: "I have a lamp, too, though."
Alliar: "Oh. Uh, let's use that then--"
Ninja: "Why don't we just ask the mage for light?"
Alliara: "We don't want to use up his arcane power, he should save it for --"
Ninja: "Hey Kartek, what can you do for us for light?"
DM: "Light, hmm?" His staff begins to glow. (A moment's pause, then the DM grins and mimes snapping the staff, then shaking it.)
Alliara: Oh my God, that would be the best magic item ever.
DM: Glowstaff! Anyway, you come to the end of the tunnel and find a massive statue over a door. It's generically carved and bending over, its arms extending down as if it's --
Aidan: Eating a baby!
DM: "GIVE ME BABY!"
The statue is a puzzle trap, which involves inserting different fluids into each hand. An abortive effort with blood dumps several party members into a pit trap, which begins to close on them. In a fit of pique, Alliara punches the lid, but fails to damage it enough to stop it from closing. The PCs do escape, and after managing to concoct a poison from luminous mushrooms (or moss, I forget which), gain entrance into the dungeon proper. Alliara develops a habit of kicking open doors; Aidan spends about three minutes yelling at her and warning her that she'll be sorry after every single one. After a quick exploration, the party finds an altar in a room covered by writings.
Alliara: "All work and no play make Homer something something."
Ninja: "Go crazy?"
Alliara: "DON'T MIND IF I DO!"
Aidan and the NPC mage, who can read the text, begin to find themselves becoming drowsy. They hurriedly avert their eyes --
Aidan: My porn mag! Must use my porn mag!
-- and the party leaves the NPC to the room, heading deeper into the dungeon. After a few fruitless explorations, Aliarra kicks open a door and is promptly webbed by a spider.
Alliara: I roll an 18 to get free.
DM: Not good enough!
Drusila: I have alchemist's fire!
Alliara: No!
The giant spider prudently waits out of sight.
Alliara: 14, that's not good enough.
Drusila: It's only 1d6 damage...
Alliara: No!
The spider descends. The unwebbed PCs begin to hack and slash and shoot it, though Drusila has a bad angle...
Drusila: Okay, can I throw the flask up at an angle, so it burns the spider, and the splash damage hits Alliara?
DM: So... you want the splash damage to hit Aliarra?
Alliara: Can I mention I rolled a 22 on my next strength check to get free?
DM: Oh yeah, that'll do it.
Alliara: RrraaaagaghhhhhhNOFIRE!
Drusila: See, that did it! You just needed the proper motivation!
The giant spider is butchered, and the PCs advance onwards, eventually discovering a large dining room. Suspicious of an empty room, the PCs vigorously search the place, eventually discovering a circular indentation on the ground. They try standing in it, jumping on it, searching for the mechanism, all to no avail. Alliarra and Drusila grab a crowbar and a dagger, respectively, and begin slowly levering the disc out of its housing. After several minutes they finally succeed, and the party descends the chains beneath it, to discover -- a massive kitchen.
Alliara: (slowly, slowly coming to a realization of the truth) So... we just beat the crap out of a dumbwaiter.
Alliarra spends the next five minutes laughing after which combat erupts, and the party triumphantly slays a hobgoblin and the cohorts it kept throwing into the party (feebly). At which point the session ended, with a promise of greater adventure to come...
no subject
(Anonymous) 2009-08-31 07:30 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
I love the fact that despite our attacks of opportunity slaughtering the mooks before they could get anywhere near us, their corpses still smashed into us with the same amount of force.