Scions in an Ambush

If you want to see what's come before, there are two recaps here and here, and videos here, there, and everywhere.

Picking up where last we left off, the Scions were introduced to the silent Yeti, called Lha-mo.  They were further informed that Lha-Mo would escort them to the top of the mountain where they'd discover more about their quest.  William requested some added warmth for Brock, at which point Lha-mo picked Brock up into a fireman's carry.  Brock, of course, assumed this meant that Lha-mo was a big fan and would be happy to carry him.

The events leading up to the Titanspawn attack were discussed, and Rivkah, apparently suddenly very motivated, decided to regale the assembled group with stories of how various deities had had sex in various unconventional ways (such as Loki getting pregnant as a horse and Zeus going out as a swan).  Everyone else cleared away a bit...  At one point not long later, Brock asked to be cold again and Lha-mo virtually drowned him in snow, which gave everyone a pretty good laugh.

When the group reached the top of the mountain, the discovered a blue-skinned man in meditation.  He held up a finger asking them to wait and the group complied momentarily.  After a brief continued meditation, the man introduced himself (but I, at the moment, can't manage to figure out how to spell or pronounce his name) and explained that we were gathered out of prophecy, but reiterated what we already knew, that the Titans had an interest in the prophecy, knew who we are, and had managed to turn some of the gods to their side without revealing which gods those were.  The group discovered that he was part of the Tibetan pantheon and that he was tasking Lha-mo to accompany them.

He then informed the Band that Pele had been abducted by Muspelheim.  Which is kind of bad.  This appeared to be part of a larger plot intended to set the entire world aflame.  Which is kind of worse.  He also informed the group that he would transport them to the airport where a plane would be waiting to take them to Hawaii.  Leander asked about what forces might be arrayed against them, and was told that Titanspawn that hadn't been seen for ages were reappearing.  Brock asked about who to trust.  And there were a few other questions I'm fuzzy on at the moment.  Those answered, the blue-skinned being transported the entire group into the airport, past security with packed bags and stashed gear.  Which, really, takes quite a bit of juice.

The group set out into the airport but were almost immediately approached by an attractive woman who suggested she could take them to their chartered plane.  The Scions were suspicious, but determined that she was neither Scion nor Titanspawn, but that she clearly had some sort of divine lineage.  She suggested that she worked with the blue-skinned man (dubbed a smurf by Nick and Brock, to the consternation of Lha-mo, Serafiia and William) and led the Scions to a private jet.  The group chatted a bit in-flight, with everyone being offered a drink that aligned with their general preferences.

The group relaxed briefly until Brock and Leander felt small pricks on their necks and discovered squashed spiders in their hands.  At which time they quickly discovered spiders crawling on the entire Band and throughout the plane.  The attractive woman emerged, but didn't make it far as the spiders were swarming over everything.  Leander quickly drew his spear and intended to use it to crush spiders by rolling it along surfaces, but it quickly became clear that she was part of the situation as when she looked at the group, spiders poured from her eyes.  She took several strides and backhanded Leander the length of the plane and into the rear emergency door.

Laying there, Leander grabbed a large bottle of vodka, a strip of cloth bandage from his vest, and a lighter, preparing to burn down his foe, but it was not to be.  It seemed immediately clear that she had eyes only for Leander as her dark, spider-y sockets stayed fixed on him.  The other Scions tried to intervene, but she evaded them.  At this point Leander realized what she was: a child of Arachnae.

Eventually, crawling on walls, ceilings, and across seats, she reached Leander and used him to bash out the emergency door behind him, exposing them to the outside elements and snuffing the budding Molotov cocktail.  Lee grabbed her wrist and held on as she cackled about killing the only true-blood child of Athena.  Lha-mo and the other Scions managed to pull them back into the plane.  In return, the Arachnae-spawn hurled Leander back to the other side of the plane.  Serafiia stepped through shadows and into the cockpit to check on the pilots and found them covered in webbing and drained of fluids.

Once more the spider-lady advanced on Leander, ignoring the others who had slightly more success in stopping her.  William, Lha-mo, and Rivkah scored hits which caused the Arachnae-spawn to shove herself back down to the other end of the plane.  Finally, Leander had an opening.  His spear rolled to a stop at his feet.  Using it to lever himself up, and wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, he hefted the Molotov.  Calling, "Hey, Brock...  Hot potato..." he hurled it at Arachnae's daughter.  In mid-flight, Nick shattered the bottle and and Brock lit the fluid inside, causing a tornado of flame to catch the spider-woman full force.  She burned mercilessly and the ashes were sucked outside the plane.

Leander flopped over, badly beaten, into a row of chairs and put a breathing mask on.  William and Lha-mo administered first aid while Serafiia's tiger broke down the door of the cockpit and the other Scions set to freeing it of webbing.  Rivkah, in a moment of divine inspiration, discovered she could apply her own ability to fly to the act of flying the plane, and managed to set the team down in Hawaii.  Properly reminded that they need to be cautious, the Scions paused to gather themselves.

I got to award two ChrisG points this session.  One went to Lha-mo for holding Brock under the snow.  The other I'm blanking on at the moment, but when I remember I'll add it back in here.

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.

Scions on a Mountain!

This past Sunday, we finally managed to get the band (mostly) back together to play Scion. We picked up where we left off last time; at the base camp if K2 in the deepest part of winter.

Serafiia and Nick's players were absent, so it was decreed that they were off doing in-character things and away we went. Everyone settled in at the base camp, claiming bunk space and preparing to stay the night. Having somewhat bonded with Nick and Brock, Leander offered them some of the rations he'd ordered and began to take stock of the space. Claiming a bunk, Lee checked to see if the satellite internet was patched through to the camp, but there was no such luck. So instead he began to watch a pre-dowloaded StarCraft II tournament cast. For a few minutes the group was serenaded by the sounds of excited casters, but when a few of the others began to prepare for bed, Leander slipped on and hooked up his bluetooth earpiece.

He, and most of the group rose, rose early. Lee worked out alongside Brock for a bit and before long, the band was ready to set out. Leander suited up in arctic camo gear while mocking Brock's neon green Eddie Bauer gear. The group pushed hard up the mountain, but even their divine physiques were slowed by the daunting task and Brock and Leander both began to feel the cold around them.

Which was about the time giant, white-furred, jewelry bedecked humanoids burst from the snows around them. Leander dropped his hands to his relic spearhead and desert eagle but didn't draw, feeling threatened by the apparent yetis but not wiling to provoke them into an attack. Within moments, more yetis and yaks appeared, adding to the tense situation. The yetis spoke at the Scions until William suddenly developed an ability to understand them. They told the Scions that they were trespassing on sacred ground and needed to leave or die. William informed the yetis of the Scions' mission and the yetis retorted that Rivkah bore the stench if Muspelheim. When that was revealed, Leander immediately remembered the giant who had attempted to chain Rivkah at the airport.

William instructed Rivkah to strip, to detect if the giant had placed something on her that gave her the "stench." She complied, to no positive result, but at nearly the same moment, several steaming shapes were spotted charging up the mountain by the Scions and a certain yeti vowed to silence. The shapes resolved into super-heated onyx hounds, readily apparent as servants of Muspelheim.  Leander transformed his spearhead belt buckle into a naginata spear, holding it ready for a fight, and drew his desert eagle.  The other Scions and yetis sprang into action, engaging the onyx hounds.

The silent yeti smashed into a pair of the hounds, crushing them deep into the snow, and the Scions quickly put serious damage to the other leading hounds.  A second wave approached, though, accompanied by a fire giant.  Leander immediately focused on the giant, and Brock's assault on the same individual emboldened the Scions, giving them extra fire for the attack.  Surveying the battlefield and valorously ignoring a pair of onrushing hounds intent on him, Leander directed the Scions and silent yeti in an assault on the fire giant, which Rivkah foolishly chose to remain apart from.  Her attack failed, but the greater assault, including the silent yeti's pet yak, crushed the giant and pushed back the assault by the Muspelheim forces.  For the moment, there was a reprieve, which will no doubt end quickly during our next session...