Terminus 12.8.13 Grand Finale Part 2!

The next room Room down, the final one before the Forge Room, held a blue and a purple Beholder.  Meggido quickly moved i to a defensive position, taking advantage of Sardis teleporting then backwards.  Vallo healed Adah-kah and the fight was on.

Unfortunately for the Beholders, it wasn't destined to be a long one.  Unleashing her fury, Sabriel annihilated tge purple Beholder.  Adah-kah slashed at the blue Beholder, beginning a torrent of attacks that left the eyebeast bleeding on the floor.  It was time for the last drop to the Forge Room.

The room seemed calm, but quickly an array of Beholders appeared!

The fight begun with Vallo pushing his teammates deeper into the room.  Maggido capitalized on this by drawing a big chunk of the Beholders to himself, keeping them from free movement.  Sardis immobilized another large chubk of the Beholders, meaning the No Pants Brigade had far more range of motion than their foes.

Adah-kah used that fact to dart in and launch a psychic assault on several of the Beholders, staggering them.  Sardis teleported the few Beholders not already pinned further away as Meggido pushed towards the largest Beholder, their apparent leader.

Sabriel used her wings and strength to smash into the blue and white Beholders.  At nearly the same moment, Meggido reacher the leader and engaged him.  The leader tried to fire back at Sabriel, but missed badly.

Vallo, having been preparing for this fight, laid out several bursts of fire from his crossbow, killing several of the lesser Beholders and gravely wounding the blue, white, and brown Beholders.

But now it was the Beholders' turn to strike.  They blasted the party, causing some damage, but nothing debilitating.  One of the lesser Beholders attacked and missed Adah-kah, who charged him in return and then flung another nearby Beholder into the Forge Fire.

Sardis, sensing the end of the long quest nearing, summoned her ensorceled succubus and commanded it to dominate the brown Beholder.  It successfully did so, temporarily eliminating a threat.  Then the succubus directed the brown Beholder closer to the leader.  Once there, it bit at its leader, scoring superficial damage.

Sabriel used the distraction to send a blast into both Beholders.  Unfortunately turnabout was fairplay and Meggido was forced to hit Sabriel, bloodying her, while she felt compelled to defend the Beholders.

Vallo took charge and sent a devestating blow into the lead Beholder and Adah-kah landed his own massive blow on the brown Beholder, finishing it off.  Temporarily at her own direction, the succubus killed one of the lesser Beholders.  Sardis damaged the leader further as Sabriel shook off the mind control.

The lead Beholder shifted Adah-kah slightly, then sent eye-rays into Meggido and the Nekhanj.  Adah-kah responded in kind, slashing at the Beholder.  Free to choose her own path again, the Succubus lashed out at another lesser Beholder... And Sardis, who went down in a heap.

Perhaps sensing an opportunity, the leader tried to shove everyone away, but only managed to move Meggido and temporarily weaken Sabriel.  He followed up by trying to freeze Sabriel and Sardis. Unfortunately for him, this didn't phase Sabriel, who shoved him at Meggido.  He countered, though bu shoving Meggido into the Forge Fire!

Being Warforged, Meggido passed through mostly unharmed, but it gave the party a brief scare.  Adah-kah teleported into range, stabbing at the unprepared Beholder.  Vallo launched a psychic assault to follow up and enraged the Beholder.  Moments later, Adah-kah, Meggido, and Sabriel teamed to bring the beast down, leaving the party alone with the Forge Fire.

The whine and shift in the Forge Fire's size the party had previously deduced was the sign of something coming through the rift.  Adah-kah, near the Fire had to dodge away as something immense crossed over.

Meggido, undaunted, siezed the momentary lull to place the linkage device onto the Forge Fire.  It immediately began to glow, seeming to steal a bit of vitality from Meggido.  Instinctively, the Warforged knew his life force had been bound to the device.  And in that moment it clamped into place, first charging off the interdimensional energies of the Forge Fire and then sealing them away.

Meanwhile, Adah-kah worked to stabilize Sardis while Sabriel covered them, and Vallo, against a few straggling Beholders. Vallo completed a healing spell and Sardis regained his feet, quickly looking to gather all the information he could about the situation.  In that moment the device finished its task, flying free of the former location of the Forge Fire, which had fallen silent.

And through the damaged Forge, the heroes could finally see the thing that had come through the Fire at the very end.  It was a Beholder the size of a city, which had yet to notice them as it crashed through the damaged home of the Warforged.  The No Pants Brigade fled the building lest it be dropped atop them.

As they regained their eagle mounts, they saw that the Beholder had become fixated on an approaching object, which appeared to be a cloudbank around a solid mass.  The heroes had saved the world from the threat of invasion but the mysteries in it had not all been solved...

Terminus 12.8.13 The Grand Finale Part 1!

The No Pants Brigade decided to skirt the outside of the forge to reach the command chair, hoping that there would be fewer Beholders on that path.  We managed to avoid a lot of the enemy movements, but did come across a few Beholders blocking our route.

Meggido and Adah-kah moved in quickly and scored solid hits hits, seperating the Beholders from the less hearty members of the party.  Sardis and Sabriel struggled to connect with their own volleys, but Vallo did connect and used the chance to spur the party on.

A large purple Beholder moved in, managing to bypass Adah-kah and Meggido to advance on Sabriel and Sardis.  Meggido pulled him back, though, as one of the other Beholders temporarily petrified Adah-kah.  Sabriel got a solid shot off, bloodying one of the Beholders.  A cycle began in which the No Pants Brigade would score hits on the Beholders who repeatedly petrified the party.

Eventually the balance shifted, as Adahkah was able to pull the brown Beholder away as Sardis bloodied the purple Beholder.  The Beholders got a final burst of petrification off, but Meggido broke free.

Adah-kah used the opening to kill the brown Beholder and Vallo finished off one of the lesser Beholders.  Unfortunately, one of the Beholders scored a hit on Sabriel that put her on death's door.

The other party members teamed to rush the killing of the purple Beholder and stabalize the fallen Dragonborn.  They managed it, keeping Sabriel from passing away.

The team gathered themselves and readied for the final push.  Not too long later, the No Pants Brigade had reached the antichamber of the Warforged's Council Room.  Inside  the antichamber were three Beholders, one alive and two clearly undead.

Vallo pushed his teammates onward, getting Meggido into a place where the Warforged could pin the Beholders in a corner.  The party made quick work of them, with Sardis and Sabriel quickly crushing the living Beholder and one of the undead.  Adah-kah, slashed through the last remaining.  With a mighty heave, Meggido opened the door to the main chamber.

The Warforged rushed the room and got face to face with a large undead Beholder as Vallo sniped on of the small Beholders.  Behind the team, the three Beholders who had just been defeated rose back up.  They attacked, but Vallo sent one back to the grave as it tried to get at Adah-kah.

A large Beholder radiating an aura of death arrived as the team fought the lesser Beholders.  Vallo quickly showed the new arrival that he was unimpressed bu killing a blue Beholder and wounding a purple Beholder.  The large white Beholder attacked Sabriel, but couldn't put her down.  Adah-kah killed off the purple Beholder that Vallo had previously wounded.

Sardis added his own volley, striking the white Beholder with an acid burst before pushing him away in a booming of thunder.

He tried to move back in and get the last undead Beholder to help him, but Meggido kept it pinned down.  Vallo, Sardis and Sabriel weakened the brown Beholder that had been holding back and Adah-kah struck a killing blow on it. 

Sabriel killed the last of the small Beholders, and she and Meggido wounded the white Beholder.  He tried to retaliate, but the party manage to dodge the full assault.  Adah-kah, dogged in his pursuit, finished off the last of fhe undead Behilders and Sabriel put the killing blow to the white Beholder. 

Adahkah quickly moved to check the next room, spotting the wide hole created by the forced expansion of the Forge Fire.  Meggido, for his part, moved to the Command Chair and sat, immediately becoming linked to the Forge.  He locked the doors of the Forge to restrict the movements of the Beholders.  The Forge Fire began to whine and pulse and as the noise grew, and tge fire expanded, it became apparent something had just come through from the Beholders' world.  It settled back as Meggido continued his mental exploration.

Meggido closed and locked all open doors in the Forge, giving himself tge only passcode.  Meanwhile, Vallo began rebuilding the artifact the team had gathered.  With great care he completed it, prepping the team for their final assault.

Meggido was slightly stymied by not having the top level of clearance, but managed most of what he intended.  The party formed a plan to use Sardis' gateway to teleport closer to the main Forge Fire room as Meggido contacyed the Contruct which made Pseudo-Warforged we had seen months before in the forest.  The Construct agreed to send those empty vessels towards the Forge under orders to obey Meggido and the party and attack the undead and Beholders.

Now done with the Command Chair, Meggido rose and Sardis teleported the team down closer to the Forge Fire room.  The floor below, in the room above the actual Forge Fire, waited Beholders...

The party quickly dropped through and engaged them.  Meggido drew them all together.  A few minor blows were struck before Meggido was petrified and Adah-kah abjured the Beholder.  In response, it managed to lock down most of Adah-kah's skills.  It was enough, though, as Meggido, Sardis and Sabriel landed heavy blows to finish off the ghost.

In response, one of the Beholders tried to push Sabriel into the Forge Fire, but she rolled away, keeping from being burned.  This gave the team an idea and the slowly positioned their foe until Adah-kah could put him in range for Meggido to shove him into the fire.  He burned and the party dropped down another floor...

Terminus 11.24.14

When last we saw the No Pants Brigade, they were on a boat sailing around the main undead force on Celton.  The sea voyage was going mostly smoothly until we were attacked by a ship towed by a Beholder and manned by a group of headless yellow ghosts.

Fortunately, as is often the case, Vallo struck first.  He scored a solid hit and was able to launch Meggido onto the other boat.  Sabriel followed that up by spewing acid onto the enemy.

Meggido, true to his nature, quickly arranged the enemy into a postion where he could limit their movement.

Adah-kah, who had been holding his discomfort around water in, missed his next attack because he was more focused on moving safely than the attack.  Then the counter attack was on. The yellow ghosts tried to strike back, with one stabbing Sabriel.

The big damage came from the Beholder, though, who used his eye beams to attack everyone, including the crew of the ship transporting our heroes.  Charlie, a lesser crewman died in the assault and quickly rose as an undead horror.  He bit at Adah-kah and caused the Nekhanj to have a festering wound.

But the team had a secret weapon. Cornered and having grown into the adventures with his friends, Sardis unleashed a powerful magical assault, driving back his foes!

Unfortunately that paved the way for a disgusting swarm of secered heads, clearly seperated from the headless crew which had been the first wave of the assault.

Vallo and Sabriel were not phased, though, striking out to score big hits on the enemies.  Meggido reasserted his dominance, locking down the movement of the assorted creatures.  Having recovered his balance, Adah-kah joined the fray and delivered a big blow of his own!

The ghosts piled on to Adah-kah and Meggido, but the melee combatants were undeterred.  Sardis backed them up by firing an icy blast which rearranged the attackers.  Vallo used the moment to strengthen the resolve of Meggido and Adah-kah.

Sabriel viciously struck at the Beholder and the swarm of heads, which didn't work out as well as expected as the Beholder exploded in response, injuring the combatants.  Meggido quickly adjusted his positioning to stay in betweenhis teammates and the shifting threats.

Adah-kah, irritatedat having been bitten, crushed the risen Charlie and plannedto move on to another foe, but they had been cleared from the decks by his compatriots.  Quickly, the team inspected the enemy ship and then allowed it to sink, setting out once more to find a way to attack the Undead from behind.

It was smooth sailing for about another week until a large mass was spotted off to port.  Adah-kah usedhis keen eye to make out the features of the Forge!  The No Pants Brigade had inadvertantly found the portal the Beholders had been using to enter the world before the outsiders could drag it ashore.

Quickly the team formulated a plan to assault the Forge with the intent of speeding through the building to reach the Forge Fire and charge the device we'd assembled.  Once that was accomplished, an attempt would be made to cap the fire and close the portal.  To help in this, Vallo planned to summon great eagles which cpuld allow our boat to stay at a distance while we made our attack.

Quickly, we put the plan into action, taking to the sky and landing very near to one of the doors to the Forge. Several Beholders waited there and they managed to score a hit on Meggido and Sabriel as we landed.  They missed Adah-kah, but did manage to trip him up as Meggido bullied them into the positioning he found favorable.

Undaunted, Adah-kah lept to his feet and charged the Beholders, returning their attacks.  One of the Beholders, dubbed a Blood Kiss, managed to daze the party, but missed in directly attacking Adah-kah before hitting Meggido softly.

The Beholder tried to instill fear in Sardis, but shockingly, Sardis charged into the fray and magically coerced the Beholders to move to his liking.  Meggido used the opening to push closer to the doorway.

The Beholders made an attempt to blind Sabriel, but she struck back at them, causing them to retreat in fear.  The flaming Beholder tried to move back in and their reinforcements arrived.  It was too late, though, as the No Pants Brigade was already pushing their advatage.

Meggido slid the Bloodkiss Beholder out of the way, giving Adah-kah an opening to slay the flaming Beholder.  Vallo, Sabriel, and Sardis quickly added their own assaults, killing most of the smaller Beholders and further wounding the Bloodkiss.

The Beholder, having seen Adah-kah's assault on its ally, tried to use its eyes to stun the Avenger, but every attempt failed against the Nekhanj's iron will.  Sardis used the distraction to score a staggering blow and Vallo followed up with a daring strike of his own.

Meggido stepped in with his own major assault and bloodied the Beholder heavily.  The creature responded by lashing out wildly at the party, but couldn't stop Adah-kah from circling around to cit into him deeply.  Sardis and Vallo added further injury and Meggido and Adah-kah struck again one after another to send the Bloodkiss crashing to the ground in death.  And then it was time to enter the Forge proper...

Terminus 9.29.13

In the morning, the No Pants Brigade and the Nekhanj prepared to set out, with the Nekhanj speaking of clearing the entrance to the tunnels that would lead them south and the fact that it would take them a couple of weeks.  While the discussion was going on, the group received an SOS call from Gronton, whom they hadn't seen in quite some time.

The stalwart Minotaur sailor had been scouting along the coast of Celton along with other concerned captains from the nearby area and had seen the undead make attempted crossings to Brenna.  Most of these had been foiled by the coastal towns on the mainland, with the added aid of captains who managed to end sea travel to the island nation, depriving the undead of their source of ships.  But things had changed.

The dragon Krathnaraz had joined the fight, bringing flying undead and their Beholder allies to attack the coastal defenses from the air.  This had decimated these defenses, leaving the coast more open for an attack.  Meanwhile, scouting ships had discovered that there was a new invasion fleet, massive and full of undead, prepping,  The undead had built crude but large rafts which were being towed by Beholders and loaded them with hundreds of undead soldiers.  Soon, it seemed, these undead would sail to the mainland, which was now unready to repel them.

One of the last bastions of defense was the town of Polenta, which is where Gronton was asking for aid to come.  The party decided that they'd have to separate from the Nekhanj to get their in time and made preparations to do so.  Once the threat at Polenta was solved, their intention would be to push onto Celton and make for the Forge, to close the gateway which allowed the Beholders to cross into their world.

Vallo summoned flying boars and the party set out, flying rather uneventfully to Polenta.  But that changed once they neared the town.  Quickly it was apparent that the town was under attack.  An immense white dragon had landed on the docks and was rampaging through the town's defenders. Using the boars, the party got in fairly close before launching their assault.

Meggido moved in first, pulling the dragon towards himself and then Adah-kah unloaded with divine wrath, rocking the dragon.  Sardis and Sabriel followed up with theirown powerful attacks, getting the No Pants Brigade off to a good start.  Adah-kah hammered the dragon again with a critical strike, but that's when things started to go downhill.

Krathnaraz began to use his draconic power to stun the party, then dealing massive amounts of damage.  The party was able to get a few more hits in this period, but eventually the dragon put Adah-kah on death's door.  Vallo delivered timely healing, though, and got the Nekhanj back on his feet.  Once more, the party began to trade even blows with the dragon, though Krathnaraz was able to hurt Meggido more than the Warforged had been hurt in quite some time.

Still, the party appeared to have the upper hand and Krathnaraz made ready to escape.  Unfortunately, for him, the No Pants Brigade had other plans, and put him down before he could get airborne.  Upon a quick inspection, though, they discovered that one of his heel spurs was missing, likely taken by Samuria so that she could resurrect her ally should he fall.

The party moved on to another town, hoping to at least delay Samuria's discovery that they'd re-entered the fight against her and her undead forces.  Once there, the party notified Gronton of their location and asked him to come and meet us.  He came, and learned of recent events, including the plans of the Nekhanj.  In return, he gave the party the information he'd gathered in his time scouting, including the fact that undead have begun to count fallen Beholders amongst their number.  That gave the party something to think on as they prepared for their journey to Celton to find the Forge.

Last Recap.  Other posts on Terminus.

Contemplation

Adah-kah sat silently above the vast basin which had once been a great pool of water.  The hood of his cloak, so often worn up to hide his features in shadow, was thrown back and his legs dangled over the edge. Below, other Nekhanj milled about, regaining their strength and agility after years in stasis.  Many of them were nude, having entered stasis that way and not yet having gathered clothes.  The nudity didn’t bother him so much, he knew what the anatomy of his race was and he’d had years to practice an understanding of separating sexual urges from his moment-to-moment motivations.

Still, he was disquieted.  For a decade and a half he’d been alone.  His race a mystery and illusion, Adah-kah himself the only representative most of the people he’d met had known.  He felt more brotherhood for the other members of Ioun’s religion than for the Nekhanj around him.  I’m not sure what I imagined.  Did I think I’d be connected to them?

The luminescence above the cavern twinkled and flickered, almost like near stars.  Adah-kah stared out into the dusky light.  Did they think they’d be connected to me?

It was an uncomfortable thought.  Like his companions, he was generally thought to be the last of his race.  And in proving that untrue, Metkin had named him “chosen” and “waited for.”  He was a key figure to a race he’d never known.  Their culture had very little to do with his.  And does it have any semblance to what Nekhanj culture had been before?  These warriors who trained over and over to fight an enemy they’d never seen?  Who are, as a rule, little older than me?  What will they do when the fight is won?

Glancing down at his hands, Adah-kah sighed.  Will they look to me to lead?  Am I ready to surrender my studies now that I’ve found their goal, the people who I’d searched for?  And if they turn once more to conquest?

Below, some of the Nekhanj saluted him and moved to climb out of the basin. I would be forced to fight them.  The world has suffered enough war.  It’s time for peace, even if it cannot last.  Regardless of all else, that I know.

Resolve returned, he sat once more in silence, meditating on the questions he’d confronted himself with.  He sat there until someone came to retrieve him.

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Terminus 8.18.14

The night for the No Pants Brigade began at the campfire we'd set on the paths shown to us by the dragon at the end of last session.  While we were there, Meggido was visited by the Watcher and when he woke he told the rest of the party a bit about what happened in the vision.  We waited a bit longer before setting out again.

As we descended into the desert, we ran across a group of sand elementals, which threatened to impede our progress.  Vallo launched a good initial assault, putting the elementals on the ropes quickly.  Meggido followed up by knocking one of the elementals prone, where it proceeded to throw a temper tantrum.  The party and elementals traded shots for a few moments, before the party began to gain the upper hand for good.  In among that chaos, the elementals tried to shove Meggido around, but he made like a dwarf and was unmoved.  A few more strong blows and the party came out the winners.

The party briefly rested before another elemental arrived to disturb us.  Unfortunately for him, he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn and that left him wide open to the party's onslaught, in which we basically beat him to a pulp.  Sensing that perhaps this desert trek wasn't working out, we set out again.

After a short time on our flying boars, we came across a circular stone cone surrounded by enormous statues representing the  five races of the party: Dragonborn, Nekhanj, Githyanki, Skeshuni, and Warforged.  We inspected the statues and pyramid-structure for a bit, with Adah-kah being able to identify that it had seems that faced each of the statues.  Once the party stood under the statues, they became animate, revealing themselves as constructs.  The moved, pulling the cone open and revealing an elevator.

We rode the elevator down to a room with what appeared to be an organic pod, a stone pillar, and beneath the pod was a pool of clear water.  Not wanting to rush into potential danger, the party searched the room.  Upon the pillar there was an imprint of an Nekhanj hand, so after the search was complete, Adah-Kah placed his hand upon it and the pod began to soak in the water from the pool.

After a few moments, it opened to reveal a naked female Nakhanj, who looked like she was a bit undernourished, but not terribly different in age than Adah-kah.  When Adah-kah questioned her, she  revealed her name was Metkin.  Adah-kah offered her food as Sardis offered her a smelly yeti pelt and Vallo produced fancy clothes he'd obtained earlier in our adventures.  Metkin took the clothes and some of the food before suggesting we move downstairs.

We went with her down another elevator, activated by Metkin saying "down" in deepspeech.  When we descended, we arrived in a room with a couch, a small changing area and a series of elevators which led further down.  Everyone shared more of the food.  Metkin offered that everyone could sit, but only Adah-kah did.  Metkin dressed and returned.  She then suggested that Adah-kah would be awakening the entire Nekhanj race.  He was shocked to discover that they were here.  Metkin explained that this place was built for "everyone" but mainly for the Nekhanj.

Metkin further revealed that the Nekhanj's piece of the linkage is here and Vallo gave her a 30 minute history lesson.  Metkin now explained that Adah-kah's blood, and her own, would be what awakens other Nekhanj.  Once more, Metkin told the elevator "down" and the group descended into a great hive, which was similar to the hive we'd visited before.  We descended for a very long time, eventually emerging into a huge cavern.  Metkin explained that here were housed 10 generations of Nekhanj warriors.

The pedastal from above was duplicated here with two hand prints.  Metkin explained that the caverns here stretched to the southern seas.  There, she said, waited boats which would allow the Nekhanj sail to Celton to combat the beholders there, as had been prophesied.  She shared more of the history she knew, explaining that the Warforged had chosen to shut themselves down to buy the other races time to shut down the link between the Forge and another plane which had allowed the Beholders to break through into our world.

That link had been discovered to suck the life from the other plane and the Beholders had widened it to emerge into the Forge.  Caught unawares, the Warforged were being overrun.  They attempted to recall their race to add to the defense, but they couldn't all make it back in order to establish their defense.  As a result they shut down the Forge.  At this point, Metkin and Adah-kah agreed to put their hands on the pillar to awaken the Nekhanj.

Hundreds, thousands of pods descended into pools of clear water.  The Nekhanj within revived, revealing many young, powerful specimines of the race.  Adah-kah asked Metkin, recovering from the draining experience, what had happened to his mother.  As he'd suspected, she'd died after leaving him.  Meggido remained untrusting of the word of Metkin about the Warforged's decision.  Metkin confirmed, also, that the Nekhanj here held Vallo, and his race, no ill-will, being focused instead on the extra-planar threat.

Last Recap.  Other posts on Terminus.

Terminus 8.4.13

Having ended the threat of Karus, the No Pants Brigade mounted up and flew to the mountains seperating the forest to the desert.  As we were flying, Adah-kah spotted something that he noticed just coming into view here and there. After the group slowed slighty, he was able to make out that a dragon was following us.

We got further on and slowed enough for Adah-kah to make out the the trailing was grey.  The group decided that the dragon was quite huge and would likely attempt to attack and consume us, so pushed on, at least hoping to pick the ground for the fight. We stopped on a large plateau.

The dragon slowed as ge neared the plateau, circling instead of landing for a fight.  The party spun to see what the dragon was avoinding and were faced with a large force of air elementals including a rather aggressive Djinn.

While the air elementals generally got the drop on the party and dropped devestating early blows, the No Pants Brigade returned fire admirably.  Adah-kah oathed and then abjured a tornado-formed elemental, grievously wounding it. 

Sardis and Adah-kah were pushed in one direction, Sabriel and Meggido in another, and Vallo in a third.  This allowed the elementals to heavily damage the party.  Sardis and Sabriel were in dire straits, but the elementals were falling. Adah-kah finished his foe, the attacked the Djinn, hitting it hard but not as hard as the tornadomental.  It fell before the rest of the group's assault.

Sardis fell as the party picked off the various elementals.  Adah-kah pushed one of the tornados off of Sardis and tge elementals went into retreat, with Vallo picking off the tornadomental as it ran.  The dragon chose this moment to move in.

It chased down one of the smaller elementals and devoured it.  He returned to land before the No Pants Brigade and threaten us with being eaten.  This immediately put Meggido on the defensive.  Sabriel was able to talk him around until he mentioned Karus and she could confirm we'd killed him.

The dragon demanded details.  Sabriel described the major events of the fight.  Sardis filled in the divine providence of tge Watcher's aid.  Vallo was able describe the effects of various attacks and strategies.  Meggido refused to be a jester for a dragon, but Adah-kah pitched in by describing the dome in which the fight with Karus happened.

Sabriel then took the chance to make Meggido sound intimidating, which the dragon responded made him like Meggido.  Sardis fed the dragon eel because it had said it was hungry.  All that added up to the dragon being pacificed and the laughing about Karus' downfall.  He then told us his name was Kashmard and gave us routes which might best help us avoid elementsl interference and departed to hunt the forest.

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Terminus 7.21.13

Other posts on Terminus.  Last Recap.

The party slept in the relative safety of the artifact chamber and then decided to head back to the surface to hunt down Karus' Ent.  The party decided that the route back to the surface should be the one they'd entered through, choosing to ignore the arboleth hole.

At the entrance, the No Pants Brigade found that a weathered but solid wall had been erected across the open wall of the building.  As they approached it to determine a method of egress, it fell on them, revealing it was actually a transformed rock golem.

The party was hurt a bit by the surprise attack, but quickly rallied.  Vallo called his punishing eye and Adah-Kah shoved the golem through his lesser golem sidekicks, knocking them all over.  Meggido and Adah-Kah closed in on the big golem as the rest of the team decimated the minons.

The golem fell quickly, though not without having taken some serious damage as the golem collapsed on them again.  They took a break to tend their wounds and Vallo summoned a wilderness guide and asked it to lead us to the Ent's grove.  The party mounted their summoned boars and set out.  On the ride, though, both Vallo and Adah-kah were visited by the Watcher.  When they awoke, they shared a bit of what they'd seen and the party returned to hunting Karus' Ent.

The group was led to the grove and found the Ent, who didn't respond initially.  it looked old and nearly dead, but was clearly still a threat.  The party prepared itself and the fight was on.  Vallo gavr Adah-kah an enchantment to set his sword aflame, which Adah-kah was happy to accept.

Everyone sprang into action, scoring quick hits on the Ent.  For his part, Adah-kah stabbed the tree with fire in the face. TWICE.

The Ent tried to strike back, attacking everyone at once but it only managed to hit Sardis and Vallo.  It followed that up by starting to grab partymembers, especially Meggido and Adah-kah.  Unfortunately for the Ent, the party was happy to stay close and use the firey weapons they carried to set the Ent alight and finish it off.  As it burned, it revealed a semi-fetal Dryad-lich, Karus, who also died in the fire.

Taking a moment to assess the situation, the party discovered that Sabriel's sense pointed us at the desert.  They discussed going over the mountains or through the abandoned dwarven tunnels.

Terminus 6.24.13

Other posts on Terminus.  Last Recap.

Now that Karus was gone, the party set to searching his command post for access to the area we needed to go to.  After a little searching by Adah-kah, we spotted an area filled with junk that Sardis recalled might hide the stair down.  Under the direction of Vallo and Adah-kah, Sabriel and Meggido dug into the trash pile, revealing the stairs under the junk.  We set out to descend.

Going further down into the building for a while, we ended up at the entrance to a vertical tube which let out into a domed room below.  Sardis briefly wanted Adah-kah to go through first, but Meggido claimed the most dangerous position.  Vallo helped the party exit the tube into the room when the dome's current inhabitants noticed Meggido and prepared to attack.  They turned out to be arboleths, who tried to go insubstantial and dominate the party.  They sort of succeeded but only sort of at the insubstantial part.  The party beat them down and took a moment to gather themselves.

From the dome, we found a door way and went down a long passage where there was fancy art and jewels on the way.  Clearly, this was leading to something important to the Skeshuni, and the party was curious.  Unfortunately, what it led to was a wall that had been dug in and what appeared to be a treasury that was now a nursery for the arboleths and filled with hatchlings and arboleth-snot-monsters.  Which meant it was time for a fight.

The No Pants Brigade set to killing the hatchlings and snot-monsters, which fell fairly quickly, especially to the area effect attacks of Sabriel and Sardis.  Adah-kah and Meggido pushed into the center of the room and the mother arboleth appeared in the hall behind the party, particularly Vallo and Sardis.

As Sardis retreated, Vallo got dominated by the mom.  He took a swing at Sardis, but not much came of it.  The rest of the snots and hatchlings were pushed to their limits, so Adah-kah turned to attack the mother arboleth.  He sprinted to it mightily, but missed his attack.  In the meantime, Vallo got free.  The last of the hatchlings and snots died at this point, which was good, but then Adah-kah got dominated after attacking the mom but missing because he was dazed, which was bad.

The Arboleth, positioned as it was, couldn't make Adah-kah attack the party, so it sent him around the corner and sought to dominate Meggido, which it succeeded in, but the battle was on it's downswing.  Adah-kah tried again to attack the arboleth, but missed.  Fortunately, though, Vallo and Sabriel had no such issue and we won eventually.  As we counted the money in the room and looked around, we spotted a golden seal upon the roof.

Sardis and then Adah-kah swam up to inspect it.  It really was gold and there were five knobs upon the seal which had symbols which corresponded to the five races of the party and council.  Pushing at the knobs, we opened the seal, but it only opened a little.  Sardis went into the small hole and swam up to a chamber like the ones we'd seen before when finding the Linkage and the Base.  There, Sardis found the Receptacle, which looked like a metallic-glass cylinder and series of increasingly sized glass orbs.  Sardis brought the party up to the room and they settled in to rest.  Sardis passed out pieces of the receptacle to the party, but Adah-kah refused to take some and Sardis questioned his faith.

Terminus 6.7

Other posts on Terminus.

The No Pants Brigade started the day on a bridge where we'd been led by the old Kuo-toa lady after questioning Karus' flunky.  It seemed like we'd get across this bridge without issue, but Adah-kah spotted a black form in the water, which turned out to be a creature of swamp-muck that looked like a dragon, an eel, and a tree had an ugly baby.  The party was ready for this, though, as Vallo had cast a spell that let us walk on water.  He moved us down to it and the fight was on.

Unfortunately for muck-drageelant, the party was itching for a fight and had resources to spare.  Adah-kah and Meggido quickly positioned it to effect max damage.  The Kuo-toa pady ran away, but the party pretty smuch smashed through the muck-drageelant.  It was pissed when it died.

We went back and found the Kuo-toa lady and got better directions from her.  Rather than follow her round-about directions, the party boar-flew to the town center.  From the air, we began to scout the area.  We quickly spotted the main dome, but saw no sign of Karus.  We spied on his shrub people minions from above, though.  Sabriel's dragonborn sense pointed us directly at the building.

After a bit of debate about fkying i. On the boars or leaving them outside, tge party entered the big dome on foot and found the dryad-lich Karus.  He had his shrub minions and golem Skeshuni creatures with him and seemed to be doing a ritual.  Thus, it was combat time!

The shrub minions fell quickly as the party went straight to work on crowd control.  That left mainly the fake Skeshuni and Karus, who demanded the golems defend him.  The party didn't know until too late that the golems had some nasty tricks up their sleeves.  when bloodied, they washed over wnemies in an acidic form, severely damaging a few party members.  

Adah-kah took a fair amount of damage from that, then tried to finish one of the fake Skeshuni off.  It blew up on Meggido and Adah-kah, bloodying Adah-kah.  Adah-kah crossed to another fake Skeshuni near Sabriel, which died trying to blow up on Adah-kah and Sabriel, but only hit Sabriel.

For a breif moment Adah-kah was able to flex his mobility and teleported once and sprinted about, but Karus entered the fight and restrained the Avenger, along with Meggido and Sabriel.  It was sad times.  The last Skeshuni-light exploded on Adah-kah, who was in a bad way.

Things looked grim for a moment, but Sardis and Meggido combined to get Karus close to Adah-kah and Vallo managed to keep everyone alive.  Adah-kah landed two big Avenger powers on Karus and everyone else piled on the damage, bringing him down.  Karus threatened to find us, to which we responded, "fuck you, we'll find you first."

Characters I've Played: Eli/Rosie

Rifts has long been one my favorite settings.  Giving me a game world where "anything can happen" isn't just a catchphrase but typically an important part of gameplay really gets my creative juices flowing.  The system can sometimes frustrate me (like when it took us two hours to get through a 4 turn combat), but the setting always overcomes my distaste.  As such, I have many, many characters who hail from the world of Rifts.  But the ones to follow here are probably my favorite.

In case you don't know, Rifts is set on a technologically advanced Earth many years after a magical apocalypse that opened gateways (rifts) to other times and places throughout the multiverse.  This meant demons, dragons, elves, dinosaurs, superheros, Cthulhulian horrors, aliens, and giant bugs poured through onto Earth already rich with mecha, artificial intelligence, genesplicing, super-steroids, and lasers.  And then people discovered psychic and magical powers as the world crumbled around them, both from the invasions and the natural disasters causing and caused by the rifts.  Rifts also has a "prequel" setting called Chaos Earth, which will be relevant here.  In Rifts, the rifts have been open for hundreds of years; in Chaos Earth players play characters who are experiencing the first days of the apocalypse that will create Rifts Earth.

Taking to heart all of that, I came up with a dual character idea the last time we attempted to play Rifts that I think will carry forward as the most likely character for me to reuse.  The "main" character of this dual idea is Master Sergeant Eli Mercer, NEMA (Northern Eagle Military Alliance, a joint US, Canada, and Mexico military force) Fire and Rescue (nicknamed Roscoes) trainer, from the Chaos Earth setting.  The "secondary" character is Rose Marie "Rosie" Mercer, a wilderness scout obsessed with finding pre-rifts artifacts (thus a Legacy Scout in game terms), from the Rifts setting.  Rosie and Eli are bound to one another, though they don't know this at first, by a strange form of temporal displacement in which one of them is present in the world (at the time of the Rifts setting) and the other vanishes during that time.  Then, suddenly, they switch.  To them, no time has passed, but they appear wherever the other had been.

As usual, I'll stat them both out in Fate Core.  I'll start with Eli.

Name: Eli Mercer

The High Concept for Eli is a little more bland than my usual fare, but because it's got to pack a lot of information about his job and training in, there isn't as much room for flexibility.
High Concept: NEMA Roscoe Master Sergeant

Eli's trouble, though, is where things can get a little juicy.  He's on the other end of the apocalypse.  The military he worked for is gone.  And he's bound to a girl he's never met and likely never will.  That's a lot to pack in.  Mechanically, though, the fact that he and Rosie switch places is important (and works great as a compel in Fate Core).  I could use something like "Time and Space Displaced" or "The Other Side of Armageddon" here, but I think neither quite sums it up.  I think focusing on the thing that's hardest for Eli will fit best.
Trouble: Bound for Change

Eli's first phase aspect (aka background), is all about where he's from.  And in this case, I think it can help me bring back something from an aspect idea I passed over.  Eli's a fighter who'll always push to keep going, and he's definitely in a hard situation.
Phase Aspect (Background): Lost the Apocalypse, but Still Fighting

The second phase aspect is about guest stars, but Eli's weird situation doesn't present well for that.  Rosie's already tied to him and most of what's gone on in his life is well separated from the world he's in now.  But it might be able to match up later.  Still, a big aspect of Eli is that he's a skilled melee fighter and determined rescue operative.
Phase Aspect (Guest Star 1): Up Close and Personal

Same thing applies for the third phase aspect.  Another facet of Eli's personality that might be worth playing up a bit is that he's calm and generally willing to put a positive spin on things.  He's been trained to deal with the worst, so he's rarely overawed or intimidated.  He's also extremely well-trained physically, having to work in high pressure situations and preform extreme physical tasks, especially when wearing his NEMA-issue power armor.
Phase Aspect (Guest Star 2): Resilient Spirit, Armored Body

To keep this from getting too insanely long, I'll spare the justifications for Eli's skills.

Great(+4): Fight

Good(+3): Will, Investigate

Fair(+2): Athletics, Empathy, Shoot

Average(+1): Physique, Craft, Drive, Rapport

Eli's stunts are all fairly straightforward.  He has a stunt called "Carry it Forward" which allows him to use the momentum of a successful melee attack into a second attack.  Another called "Roscoe's Intuition" which allows him to use Investigate to Notice people in danger situations.  And a third called "Jury-Rigger" which gives him an extra +2 on trying to fix mechanical devices.
Stunts:
Carry it Forward
Roscoe's Intuition
Jury-Rigger

Now for Rosie.

Name: Rose Marie "Rosie" Mercer

Her high concept is all about her curiosity.  Rosie wants to discover the past and will search the modern world to find it.  She can also sense temporal anomalies  which fits in well with her curiosity, as she's more likely than not to seek them out.
High Concept: Time-Sensitive Relic Collector

Trouble for Rosie is mostly about her connection to Eli.  She feels acutely the time she loses while he's occupying her space in the world and it frustrates her that she can't figure out why it is happening.
Trouble: My Life is No Longer Mine Alone

Rosie's background is fairly tied in to the setting.  She was trained in Fort Hawkins in Florida, where she was within striking distance of quite a few potentially important areas of research into the pre-rifts world.  This is the key for her background.
Phase Aspect (Background): Trained by Pennant and Gran

Rosie is well-tied to the Rifts world and has lots of opportunities to guest star, serving as a guide or informant.  She's also got a lot of gear collected from these excursions and can pull from these things at need.  Her current prized item is a NEMA jeep (which was once Eli's) filled with NEMA gear.
Phase Aspect (Guest Star 1): My Jeep's Got Just the Thing

For a second guest star situation, I think the thing that should be brought out about Rosie is that she's fairly gifted.  She's pretty.  She's smart.  She's technically savvy when most people aren't.  And she's fully aware of these things.  She tries to stay humble, but she's pretty proud of her girl-genius status.
Phase Aspect (Guest Star 2):  Brains, Beauty, and the Best Toys

Skills:

Great(+4): Investigate

Good(+3): Notice, Shoot

Fair(+2): Athletics, Empathy, Will

Average(+1): Physique, Craft, Drive, Rapport

Stunts:
Rosie is a bit trickier for the stunts, but I think there's a couple that stand out.  She's got "Target-Rich Environment" for when she's got to get her gun-fu on against overwhelming odds.  She can use "Just a Southern Belle" to use Rapport for Deceive when trying to charm an opponent into believing her.  And "Fixing Old Stuff is Fun" to give her a bonus for fixing up pre-rifts mechanics.

So I think that sums this pair up.  They're a lot of fun to play, and hopefully I'll get another crack at it someday.

Terminus 4.21

The DnD group met up for our second Terminus session in as many weeks and it was a pretty entertaining one, though it was more roleplay light than the last one.

We picked up where we left off the last session out.  We started moving deeper into the ruins and in a marshy area, where we yet again were ambushed by plant-looking creatures.  Vallo voiced his disappointment in Adah-Kah (who has a +25 to perception checks) for missing them.  Out of character I joked that I was trying to smell them instead of looking around.  In character, we set up for battle as mossy looking monsters rose from the murk to attack us.

We quickly noticed that there was a larger, mossier creature that seemed to be organizing the others and that the smaller moss creatures were augmenting its strength in turn.  We also realized that they were essentially surrounding us, so we needed to pick a direction to attack.  Meggido did a good job of positioning the monsters and Adah-Kah immediately used the bonuses given to him (and the rest of the party) by Vallo and went after the lead moss monster. It ended up being a fairly quick and brutal fight.  The moss men tried to use the party's powers against the party, but rolled low and the party did not.  The smaller moss men seemed to heal the big boss moss as they died, but it was too little too late and some massive damage from Adah-Kah, Sabriel, and Meggido did it in.  It should be noted here that it was a pretty crit heavy night on my part.  I got one in this fight and "wasted" a second on critting my initiative.

At this point we had the option of going to higher, more visible ruins or lower, less visible ruins.  We quickly decided to go for the high road.  Once we got to the more visible ruins, we ran across some Wood Woags and an Ivy Heart in another pseudo-ambush (still smell checking!).  This was also a fairly quick and brutal fight, but much harder on the party.  The Ivy Heart and Wood Woags got to attack first and managed to bloody three fifths of the party in the first round and a half.  Adah-Kah helped to focus fire down one of the Woags and moved on the Ivy Heart while Meggido pinned down the other Woag.  I got two different crits on the Ivy Heart in this fight and we got pretty massive damage off on it at one point thanks to Vallo buffing the party.

During that fight, Adah-Kah spied (no more smell checking) an older Kuo-toa woman spying on them and then scurrying off.  Her tracks were fairly obvious, so it was easy for Adah-Kah to follow them back to her hut.  Adah-Kah knocked on her door and when she answered explained that he'd seen her watching them.  The inside of her hut appeared to be full of animals.  When the Kuo-toa woman asked Adah-Kah why the party was in the ruins, Sardis exclaimed that they were one world saving business.  The old woman chuckled and Sabriel finally stepped in and explained a bit more and the old Kuo-toa was given a description of the room we suspected we'd find with a piece of the artifact we've been collecting.

The Kuo-toa also explained to the party that Karus (Karus, Karus is on fire...) was a dryad and with some banter, the party also intuited that Karus' tree is actually an Treant and that Karus believes he is as powerful as (or has become) a lich.  Karus was also behind the spread of the darkwood and had recruited most of the local Kuo-toa to his service.  Given past experiences, it seems pretty likely the party will need to end Karus' control of the area in order to get what we need to save the world.  In the past we've done fairly well when directly searching for the artifact and gotten rid of this kind of threat, but when not in that situation we've often left enemies alive to haunt us later.  Hopefully, we'll remember to put this one down when the time comes.

Anyways, we followed the old Kuo-toa lady to a bridge near a large waterway.  As we went to cross the bridge, we were ambushed (smell checks are back!) by a group of three Kuo-toa, one of whom rapidly grew into a raging behemoth.  This fight definitely qualified for brutal, but was by no means fast.  The Hulkuo-toa smashed into the party doing fairly significant damage and the other two Kuo-toa were no slouches either.  The party had to do some fancy positioning to get the best impact out of our attacks and it took a bit of time to whittle away the health of our three opponents.  One of the regular Kuo-toa fell first and then we focused on the Hulkuo-toa while keeping the other smaller Kuo-toa pinned down.  Eventually the big guy fell and we pressed the small Kuo-toa to surrender, which it refused to do.  We had to knock it out with the intent of questioning it on if Karus knows we're coming, what Karus' defenses and plans are, and where Karus' Treant is.  There are vague suspicions that the Treant that we encountered last session might be the one Karus' is bonded to.

We're back to a more normal rotation of gaming after this so it may be a brief bit until the next Terminus posting.

Terminus Session ?.? (Calling it 4.14)

Terminus is the campaign of my DnD group and has been running for over two years. We began it not too long after DnD 4th Edition released and have gone from starting level characters to level 16 world travelling heroes. I play Adah-Kah, a Nekhanj (based on the Dromite from previous editions) Avenger of the goddess Ioun.

To give a breif summary of the plot, each of the player characters is the lastor nearly last representative of their respective races. Adah-kah was found on the edge of a desert in the arms of a Nekhanj statue and adopted by a temple of Ioun. Over time, he trained in the teachings of Ioun and the ways of an Avenger. Being always different and ever a subject of study, Adah-kah learned to keep his appearance semi-obscured when in public. He also made it his goal to find his vanished people. Eventually he set out on excursions first to the desert, then the great library in the city of Span to see what he could discover.

Span is a city built on a bridge over a swift moving inland sea called the Scarring. The Scarring also refers to an event in the world's history in which magic users of the Dragonborn race very nearly destroyed the world and broke their continent in two. The Dragonborn had a magi-tech empire that crumbled after the Scarring, leaving a sole representative (the PC Sabriel). The Nekhanj previously warred with the Githyanki, but retreated suddenly and the Githyanki empire went into decline until their former slaves the Lizardfoll began to hunt them down mercilessly. It's possible the PC Vallo is the last Githyanki.

Once, the Warforged race were born at a great factory called the Forge, but the Forge is now missing and the Warcorged are shut down, save for the newly awakened PC, Meggido. It's possible that the Skeshuni, who later became unable to breed, may have had something to do with those events. Their final representative is the PC Sardis. The PCs ostensibly are working for the Watcher, a mysterious godlike being who typically does not interfere with the world but who has gathered this group to face a cataclysmic threat. The Watcher, on occasion, sends visions to the heroes which expand on their powers beyond the normal hero's. The PC's are occasionally aided by Grontonn, a Minotaur ship captain, his crew and a dog Vallo rescued named Kun Kun.

The PC's have helped re-form the Talminar Province, stop a vampire (twice because we avoided her the first time), shut down an army of false Warforged, released a Dragonborn lich (uhhhh...), awoken the lich's dragon ally (UHHHH...), rescued several towns, gathered a war effort against undead forces, crushed a gang called the Firehawks (Firehawks suck!), investigated mines and caves including an ancient Nekhanj city, found two pieces of a device which might save the world, discovered an invasion by Beholders, and most recently maybe, kinda sorta permanently collapsed a demi-plane used for rapid travel (oops!).

This session was focused on getting on to our next objective. We checked in with the folks we'd last worked with and discovered the trolls we'd fought/allied with were moving in to support the other races fighting the undead. The maybe-not-a-Succubus who'd accompanied us was turned over to Sardis' old university for investigation. And Sabriel, using Dragonborn directional senses that the Watcher may be tapping in to, directex the party into a forest to the southwest, quite near to Sardis' home. On the way we fought some assassin vines which put a severe hurting on the party (three or four of us were bloodied within a round and a half). Adah-kah did get a couple good shots in, as did everyone else, but it was a rather unpleasant fight overall.

We continued on riding our magic flying boars (because we're awesome) and came across a Treant (which we immediatelt redubbed an Ent), who told us about a corrupt "pink fleshy thing" (I forget his name) who is spreading kudzu-like Darkwood through the forest, which is increasing the population of plant mosters such as assassin vines. We continued on, flying over an encounter (yeah, our boars are awesome) and then finding overgrown Skeshuni ruins, actually the Skeshuni capital, where Vallo summoned up a guide to help us find the seat of governent. And I believe that's where we left off until next week.

Kicking Dice

Sorry for the week of silence.  Work got crazy and I barely even had time to sleep last week.  But back to it with something short now!

As has been going on lately, I jumped on board another Kickstarter in the last week.  This time it was for Artisan Dice's metal polyhedrals.  At the moment, I'm just planning on getting a single D20 (though if I was given the option of getting fate dice, I'd be all over it).  While this Kickstarter isn't blowing stretch goals out of the water quite like some of the others, it's still rolling along well and got to it's first couple unlocked stretch goals in a timely fashion.

So far the one I'm most excited about is the Dragon's Breath option, which will make the steel D20 that I'm ordering have a blue-purple sheen.  There's still plenty of time left on this Kickstarter, too, so hopefully some more cool options will crop up.