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.

Related Recap.  Other posts on Terminus.

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 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 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.

Concept Characters: Skark

As I said earlier, I sometimes have the idea for a character that I'm not going to get a chance to run.  Mostly, these characters are about the background/personality rather than the stats, but I'll share whatever I've got.

This character came up when what I call "my Sunday group" was playing DnD 4th edition set in a world where we were playing monster or non-human-looking races that we're rising up to free themselves from an oppressive Human-Elf-Eladrin regime that had enslaved all other races.

Skark
Race: Kenku
Sex: Male
Age: 16
Height: 5'0"
Weight: 110 lbs.
Alignment: Unaligned
Class: Seeker
Concept: Most Kenku are out for themselves and their flock, and occasionally become particularly eager to rend, maim, and steal. Skark is most certainly out for himself, but probably wouldn't be considered a model Kenku. His "flock" consists of a group of adventurers he's worked with for several years and his desire to cause mayhem isn't particularly well developed. Skark also has a great love of shiny things, but in a display terribly unlike the average Kenku he's learned that doing deeds to help others often sees him rewarded with the baubles he wants. And because everything everyone else wants done seems easy with the aid of his flock, Skark rarely goes out of his way to thieve. Finally, Skark uses a fairly simplistic guise much of the time to lower other people's mistrust of him. He remains mostly mute, save for a few bird-like squawks and his own name, using his seeming inability to communicate to convince others that he has no true intellect. While Skark is not a genius, his intelligence is on par with the average person's and there have been a number of individuals who have let their underestimation of the Kenku Seeker guide them right into his schemes.