Endless Bag of Games

Ok, that was the last session of the campaign. It is always a shame when time factor affects the pace of gaming, but it is a good thing we managed to pull this trough and get a actual ending to the campaign. Maybe it was executed hastily, but at least it was an ending. This time I’m too tired to write longer summary what happened during the session, but I’ll give you something at least.

Heroes decided that Victor had to be saved, so they made a plan and Hadarai was sent on a mission to retrieve needed sigils to find out the destination where Victor eventually ended. Hadarai got the sigils, but also learned that Victor was forced to go with black crows, but for their surprise, he was alive and well. Meanwhile; Dagur recruited the Arkhosian dragonborn warriors to join them in this attempt for their friend. After Hadarai got back, it didn’t take long to whole group to enter the portal where the villains had went before… So next, they kicked the door, killed the monsters, saved the damsel (Victor) in epic cathedral like-scene and in the same time, solved the problem pathfinders were facing.

After all the action, it was time for little storytelling that I like to conduct with my players whenever we end a campaign. After the obvious celebrations and dust settled I asked individually from my players “What did your character do next”? This is a part that I always like very much. It’s nice to hear what did their characters pursued after the campaign, since it gives a feeling of belonging to the world;

Dagur joined the Arkhosian Dragonborn’s group and continued working from Harn Monas, as for Galvaren continued searching ways to learn to be more skilled swordsman. Hadarai decided that being a pathfinder was not no longer fun and decided to wonder and experience the world more. Alan was curious about the island and started to solve the mysteries around the island of the dread and Victor, he decided that it was time to pull some strings and establish a thieves guild of his own.

Thanks for the players. It was nice playing with you. Next time I can play with you guys are the mini-campaigns we have been talking about, but THAT is an another story. (Original picture from WoTC).

As the campaign inevitably draws near the end, we have about three to four gaming sessions time to go before the end. After that, it’s goodbye for my current gaming group and I welcome Shanghai, the Pearl of the Orient, to my life. Who knows what it is after that, but it’s very likely that the Endless Bag of Dice is going to be a quite silent for a while. Maybe the summer 2009 will bring the longed Forgotten Realms 4th edition campaign in Helsinki.. Who knows.. Anyway, it’s time to write the session log from last sunday:

Lonely Feydark and a group consisting of Arkhosian dragonborn warriors, sailors from Waterham and our hero-pathfinders spend their time desperately finding shelter to survive. The Cyclops and their Fomorian masters were now aware, that some of the group managed to infiltrate the complex. It didn’t take long for Hadarai and the rest of the group to notice, that the entrance was now sealed. Skilled cyclops had collapsed the entrance tunnel.

After finding a shelter, little den which was easy to defend, it was decided that alternative routes had to be found. While Hadarai, Dagur and Gap headed for finding possible new routes, Alan stayed behind and studied the books which he managed to steal among the loot. Soon Alan learned that the crystal tower which worked as a unstable teleport platform possibly to everywhere was a disastrous result of a wizard Inlierins experiment to create Dream Tear, the portal to anywhere. The crystal-part was actually only a cover in order to keep the portal from expanding, thus creating more havoc to the world. It has been bad enough, that the results of the experiment, among the midst of restless times, had tore the island out of time and place and now existed everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

After spending hours in research Alan made a theory, that it was possible to use the crystal with a unique ritual which POSSIBLY could send the people atleast back to their time. The prequisite was, that the ritual had to be linked with an item created which would take the group back to that moment and maybe to that reality. This was only an assumption and it would take almost half an hour to complete the ritual. There was yet another possibility, to just hasten the ritual, without deciding the location, just the time when to enter the unspecified destination. It would be more risky, but yet there remainded a slight possibility of succeeding.

After Alan told others what he learned they made a decision. 30minutes was way too long time for them to survive so the dragonborn commander made a noble decision. They would make a stand, try to defend the others while they get the portal open in order to escape. After all, the commander had had difficult times after learning that in the future, their empire was long gone and forgotten. For him and his men, it was an honor to get the others to safety.

Meanwhile, others had found a refugee among the depths of Feydark. A mysterios blind woman, who told the heroes that he had escaped the cyclop slavers long time ago and was now living in his little home since he could not do more. Being blind and weak after all. The angelic lanterns which only appear when something divine is present however were the lightsources of this woman’s home. Zehran, the woman, appeared to be something out of the ordinary and the heroes agreed to help her too by taking her with them.

With the help of Zehran, they found a way back to the complex leading to a room where the cyclops held their mining tools. Since it would have been TOO much to play “the outbreak” with every single action included, it was decided to run as a continous, hard skill challenge. So eventually they were discovered and the battle for their life began. Alan was using all the skills that he had for the ritual with the help of Tinan, the Melora’s priestess while the others were defending the crystal and fighting. Many brave warriors perished that day, but they managed to open the portal and they jumped… trough thought and time.

Now, group of survivors were standing on a snowy plain in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where they were. When the night came, Hadarai astonished the others by locating where they were. The stars were familiar, they were the northern stars of Aerithian sky. To the rest of the survivors it was time to find new home. Thanks to the wizard they were soon in Harn Monas, At Banruo’s Scholars where Alan had started the whole journey, almost a year ago.

It was almost too good to be true, they had survived and now they were back home. When things seems to be to good, they usually are not. Yes thet had arrived, yes they were safe, but the portal had malfunctioned and it was the same night, when Victor was captured… With a small beacon of hope, we ended the gaming session.

First of all, I think congratulations are in order. One of our players was absent today, but I think he had a reason good enough. Your first children being born is maybe little more important than our gaming sessions!!But only a little!! Fun session though, a struggle to survive trough the island.

Time crawled slowly as our heroes delved deeper to the jungle. On their route they entered a ruined city, which proved to be ancient eladrin city of Viviecan. The ruined city had had it’s problems, but that was the least of our groups problems. Fomorian giants were looking for them and they had to find way out of the island. Ruins of the city proved to be good place for hiding, but they could not continue doing that forever. Stocks of food grew thinner every day and ruins itself was inhabitet by dangerous creatures.

“I say we still trust what the wizard can do whit his rituals” Redgar said with a trust in his voice. He had seen Alan working in his ship and trusted that he was the only one who could get them out of there. Commander of the Arkhosian soldiers agreed so they continued. Alan made another ritual which showed them the way. Underground, towards the tower…

As they entered underground trough a watery temple dedicated to Zehir, they followed underground river coming straight from the mountain (near the distant tower). That however was not a easy task. A stone-eye basilisk put the whole group in danger, but the heroes emerged victorious. As they delved deeper, it was clear that they were slowly descending to Feydark. Where the Underdark is bare stone, the Feydark is lined with bizarre fungi. Forests of mushrooms, as tall as a human, cling to the jagged cliffs descending deep into the earth. Waterfalls run blood red with algae that’s evolved to live off the magical emanations.

After descending long stairs leading to a enourmos cavern full of bizarre fungi it was time to rest. The group had travelled for a long time and it was time to rest. It was thanks to perceptive Hadarai who noticed when something strange was going on. Huge Demonweb spider was crawling with swarms of blade spiders around it on the other side of the cavern. The group falsely believed that they were unnoticed…

Little misjudgement and suddenly the whole camp was in chaos. Blade spiders were everywhere and everyone got their hands full. Cavern was filled with sounds of battle. Heroes and the tough Arkhosian warriors made a good job defending sailors as best as they could. Even so, there were casualties. Eight people dead, the group was getting smaller…

The forest of the fungi wasn’t easier. Difficulties with the feytoched displacer beasts did not made the situation any easier. Luckily for them, there were no casualties this time. Another ritual by Alan and their route was still clear. They delved deeper…

They spent numerous hours in the dark, only small sources of light with them. They started to grew tired for the situation when they finally arrived to caverns made by skillful handwork. As the heroes scouted further, they heard familiar sounds. Cyclops talking. They had arrived.

Hadarai vanished to the shadows, scouting the place as he was the only one skilled enough for that. The complex seemed to be quite big, but the Hadarai had difficulties to find out more about the place because of the guards, but he did find out something interesting. Room of red shimmer and two cyclops guarding it. He learned that there was big crystal inside, which made some of they cyclop guards feel nauseated. Eladrin headed back to tell what he had seen. They decided, that Alan and Hadarai headed back to complex to investigate more of this shimmer…

Alan felt it from a distance. Strong feel of magical energy, somehow distorted coming from the room. Still it was not enough for Alan to know what was the source of it by just feeling it, so it was time to make a little diversion. After succesfull ghost sound by Alan, our heroes found themselves inside the room. There was huge crystal coming from the ground and trough the ceiling. They had found their tower. Next to the crystal was a room where Hadarai and Alan hid themselves. It was the treasury, full of amazing craftwork and valuables…

Alan had drew a conclusion that the crystal was actually somekind of portal but there was much uncertain things about it so they decided to leave the room. After quickly taking as much as they could they tried to sneak back. They tried to sneak close enough for Alan to make the diversion and were noticed. The guards were almost too stunned to move, but soon they yelled “Alarm!! Guards!!”. Hadarai had no difficulties to get past the guards because of his inborn teleporting ability. Alan however had more difficulties. It looked that Alan was doomed, but miracously, with his magic the young wizard was able to escape the strong hands of cyclops with only few scratches. So they ran…

For the players: I forgot the give the EXP for the session and promised to put a list what you guys stuffed in your bag of holdings. So first the EXP = 1700 and then generous loot from the treasury:

*Hide armor, Laughing Dead Armor lvl 9 AV p.47
*Mace, Crusader’s Mace lvl 9 AV p.66
*Staff, Staff of the serpent lvl 7 AV p.106
*Shield, Pelaurum Shield lvl 4 AV p.118
*Gloves of Agility lvl 5 AV p.134
*Polyglot Gem Draconic AV p.175
*Longsword, Communal longsword lvl 4 AV. p66
*Dagger, Assassin’s dagger lvl 8 AV p.63
*Gems, Gold, Valuables worth 7211gp
*Material components worth 300gp
*2x healing potions
*1x elixir of flying AV p.186

News mainly for our players; I recently created a blog for the actual campaign information. You know, PC’s NPC’s, The World and such and because of that, I added a site feed to the blog to show, if there has been updates to Aerithia.

The site is still under construction, so currently NPC information is quite limited. But I will fix that when I have more time on it.

The Blog’s adress is http://aerithia.blogspot.com

Another session, another seven hours well spent. Gaming session was all together very successful. I got my little feeling of satisfaction as a dungeon master and I’ll hope that the players enjoyed too. It’s always nice to see that people have enjoyed the session. When we were finishing and wrapping up our “gear” they talked about what is going to happen next in the game and in the same time were wondering what is happening elsewhere “in the world”. At least I can see, even a bit, little curiosity and FUN! in their ugly mugs.

The greatship Foambeard set it’s sail towards Telf Lamm. Heroes, now uncertain what happened to their companion and friend Victalas, resumed solving the threat of pirates what Rivercoast folk was suffering from. Redgar Telek introduced the ship, it’s navigator Dunnham and the priestess of Melora, Tinan, which had to be onboard by the regulations of Waterham laws. Introductions made it was time to sail.

Days went on quietly while Dagur and Galvaren spent their days sparring and honing their fighting skills on the deck. Alan focused on learning new languages and Hadarai just enjoyed the sea. After a week of sailing the sky started to grew darker and it was acting somewhat strangely. Clouds were standing still while the wind was still severe. Dagur and Redgar, the captain, just laughed to the possible dangers and the ship went on.

Just like the priestess predicted, a storm hit the ship hard during the night. Barrels where flying, crewmembers did their best and they tried to endure it. In the midst of a storm they saw another ship. One with black canvas. They lost the sight of it almost immediately since there was no time for wondering. The storm was getting stronger and everyone got their hands full. Dagur and Hadarai however managed to sleep with their nerves of steel. Meanwhile in downstairs, Alan who could not sleep in the ruckus sensed huge amount of magical energy with similarities of an earth node (Streams of invisible power run beneath the earth, occasionally crossing and collecting in a single spot like river flowing into a lake. Such rare collection points are called earth nodes). When he noticed it, the wizard headed for the deck.

Outside, in addition to the roaring storm, a strange mist rose quickly, engulfing everything with a blue flame. Blurring sight the that everything was tingling with blue flame. Navigation tools went haywire and the ship was almost out of control. Suddenly, the ship swept in a violent motion and a big sound of cracking followed it. The rear of the vessel was damaged. It seemed that ship with the black sails had collided with it with full speed breaking the rudder and parts of the ship.

The blue flame persisted and it began to show. Some of the crew started having serious cramps and they yelled in pain. “Make it stop, oh gods make it stop!” the poor bastards yelled. Very soon, in the midst of the storm the heroes saw a horrible sight. One poor sailor exploded in blue flame. They were seriously in danger… Alan focused his arcane arts to fixing the broken rudder, while the captain and crewmembers gave him all the support that they could. Meanwhile, Dagur gathered all who were in pain below the deck and did everything he could to help the ones in pain. After Alan miracuosly got the rudder back in shape, he went below the deck to perform another ritual which would take time to finish. Hand of the fate

While Alan was struggling creating a working ritual circle in violent motion, Redgar the captain commanded every man capable below the deck to the oars. Hadarai and strong Galvaren went also, since now they could also help in the best of their abilities. Soon the wizard got what he wanted, and asked the question. They now had a direction to follow and the captain, amazed by the magic and resolveness what Alan showed by fixing the rudder during the storm listened when the wizard showed new directions. The men paddled as best of their abilities, it seemed that they where going to survive when a loud grinding and cracking sound emerged. The ship stopped violently, like they had hit something. “Black beach..” somebody yelled. They had arrived ashore.

Almost immediately the storm started to diminish, taking the blue flame with it. The island and the surrounding were revealed in more detail. Colors were more vivid, smells more pungent. Light didn’t scatter as it should. Every sight, sound, smell, and taste had a sharper edge. As with most things in the Feywild. They had crossed the border somehow and now they had a broken ship to be repaired. When Hadarai and Alan explained the situation to the captain, it was clear what had to be done. “I’ll command the men gather some wood. We need to get out of here!” the angry dwarf told straight out.

Soon one of the ships set out scouts returned and told that he saw another ship that was shipwrecked badly. One with black sails. Alan, Gap, Dagur and Hadarai stated that they would go check out the situation while others stayed here until the situation was solved. Heroes trudged onwards, curious to know that were the ones sailing the black-sailed ship actually pirates they had heard so much rumors about.

However, before they were able to met them, amidst of the tree-line emerged a third group. Band of dragonborn, in shiny battle-armors and spears. Their appearance and costumes were straight from history. “That gear was used by the Arkhosian Imperials long time ago” Dagur said quietly. “Over 700-hundred years” the wizard replied. Now there was three separate groups, staring at each other. Dragonborn regiment in the tree-line, crewmembers of the black-canvas ship and our heroes.

The conversation quickly started. For some reason, the dragonborn commander, nor anyone from his group, did not understand common. Only “oldish” draconic language. Dagur was the one who worked as a translator and spokesman of the group. Soon it was discovered that these soldiers from Ancient Arkhosia, arrived the island not much sooner that the other ships. It was a regiment sailing north to join war against devil men of Bael-Turath and they got up in a strange storm during their journey. Commander offered a deal to the groups. They would offer protection on this strange island if they could get a lift in one of their ships. The leader of the black-canvas ship, however tried to fool them and the heroes and the situation quickly exploded. Soon the whole shore was filled with fighting men and dragonborn alike. Heroes sided with the dragonborn regiment and their group eventually merged victorious…

An agreement was made, and now there was only one big group of people, desperate to get out of the island alive. It was soon discovered that it was an island, where big and terrible Fomorian giants, the claimed kings of Feywild, dwelled… (image: A Fomorian giant, illustrated by Raven Mimura.)

A lot happened during the session. One was captured, one was killed and one got in to spice business. We started by finishing my character’s departure in our Thranil campaign. That was done quick and the “voice of concience” left the party since he could no longer tolerate the course of actions. That done we continued our Aerithia campaign. (Sorry for the english.. too tired to check the spelling)

In our previous session Dwarf captain Redgar Telek hired our heroes to protect his ship against vicious pirates that were now threatning all the coastal movement near River coast. It was agreed that on tomorrow at midday the ship would set sails towards Telf Lamm. Our heroes spent their extra time at the lively city of Waterham… When they eventually head back to their inn, the innkeeper informed them that there was two individuals who asked about heroes whereabouts. A tiefling with beady eyes and a huge minotaur warrior full of strange-looking tattoos. They told the innkeeper that they would have a job for our heroes. That however was not the case…

Everyone was sleeping, expect for our eladrin ranger Hadarai who was… doing his weird eladrin stuff. Suddenly, the doors bashed open and rough looking ruffians attacked with poisonous blades. The attackers had the benefit of surprise but eventually they were not prepared enough. When the fight was resolved they got beaten badly. Heroes had survived and three of the attackers were captured during the attack. The innkeeper was lucky that his inn was carved to stone like other buildings in Waterham, since Alan made hell of a ruckus in the room bashing fireballs and other visual spells which lit the room in fire. Anyway, heroes were victorious. Victor however was missing and could not be found anywhere. His personal belongings were still at their usual place in his room.

Soon the Flaming Fist town guards arrived. The innkeeper explained the whole thing with the heroes who proved their worth by showing that they were actually pathfinders. Impressed, the guard in charge let the pathfinders go off the hook, since the standard procedure was to take everyone back to the barracks and there they would interrogate everyone involded. The man was kind enough to let the heroes participe in questionning the attackers. (Skill challenge)

They learned that the attackers had simple orders to capture them, alive if possible and take them to Meret’s Butchery at upper narrow street. Heroes soon decided to take action with the town guards. The sergeant appointed five guards to accompany the heroes and capture everyone involved in criminal schemes. It was a going to be a long night… They decided to visit Meret’s Butchery.

Gap and Hadarai entered building trough window in cinematic manner (but the execution was not so well performed, but it turned out well anyway. Funny moments though when you try to bash trough window and fail the check and end up hanging just outside the window). Dagur and Alan kicked the door and entered the butchery from front door. Upstairs, in the room, they saw the biggest minotaur they had ever seen. Minotaur was engulfed in strange symbols and was carrying nasty looking executioner’s axe and was wearing a scale mail.

The opponent turned out be very tough. Alan regognized the meaning of those symbols and discovered that they were symbols of Tamoo, evil god of the minotaurs. Other symbols included summoning of elemental fire and afflictions towards fire. Soon the heroes learned what was the meaning of those. Every time they hit the furious minotaur, fire bursted trough the attackers weapon damaging also the attacker. Gederon, the minotaur was a typical example of fearsome warrior with exotic abilities. Gederon laughed at the heroes that it was in vain their search for their friend. He told that their friend would eventually meet them… soon enough. As the fight went on our fighter Galvaren got killed and it was near that the minotaur took others with him when he finally perished… Fight took a cost.

After searching the building, they found a secret door leading to room full of ritual markings. They found only the robes of Victor and remains of a powerfull ritual they had witnessed before… it seemed that Victor has been a victim of Zin-Carla. Exhausted.. our heroes headed to the temple of Kord where Dagur plead that they could use the services of the church to resurrect their fallen ally. That however took time several hours and the clock was ticking. Redgar was waiting that the ship would set sails at midday…

It was midday when our heroes, Gap resurrected, went to the harbor and told Redgar that it was not possible for them to accompany the dwarf. As they suspected, Redgar became outraged, but Dagur took great effort comforting him by buying the man’s whole cargo. 5000 kg’s of spices. Dwarf was satisfied but, still little annoyed that his associates could not receive the shipment. So now, our heroes had 5000 kg’s of spices and some rented warehouse-space in the harbor. In addition only one hazy lead (after gathering more information and using speak with the dead ritual) that the tiefling had headed outside the city with wagons.

Frustrated the heroes decided to follow the only lead that they had which eventually took them to a settlement of goblins who were terrified that the group were associates of this fearsome tiefling who demanded to use their sacred table. The table was a teleportation circle. Destination was Shade Enclave in Netheril. Notorious floating city of mighty wizards. Because of Alan’s sharp eyes they noticed that tiefling had performed a ritual in there aswell and thus been teleported to somewhere else. They had lost the trail of Victor…

Feeling somewhat defeated, the heroes head back to Waterham, determined to gain enough wealth to gain necessary means to find ways to find their lost fellow. Now, it was time to get rid of the spices and get a job to have lots of money and fast. Spices were sold with terrible loss, but that was necessary and heroes were once again hired by Redgar.. who would kill them if they would fail him again… The pirate hunt was resumed.

Latest Oots script #611 got me thinking. Our gaming group is a light roleplaying group. We laugh a lot during our sessions and the mood isn’t too serious. Somebody usually has a terrible hangover or something like that so intensive playing usually does not happen. This however has its pros and cons. It is very difficult to create roleplaying atmosphere. Player characters are seldom serious thus even in dire danger, they seem to be very confident about themselves. There are always exceptions, but usually it goes like that. So we play just for the fun of it, we enjoy the fun! This however does not mean that there is no serious roleplaying at all in our games. It just means that doesn’t happen too often.

As a DM I (and I think our other players too) like cinematic scenes. I try to encourage my players to cinematic actions regardless the rules. I have noticed that cinematic scenes are usually exciting and fun. Those usually are the moments we remember after the gaming session. Usually we recall those thing way back so I started thinking. Eartdawn has karma points, Shadowrun has edge, Star Wars Saga edition have force points and 4th edition D&D has action points. These things work very well and sometimes allow players to do awesome things but the question still is “How to encourage players to do awesome things even more? After discussing the matter with one of my friends I decided to add my first House Rule to our Aerithia (D&D 4th edition) campaign and it is called Limit Breaker (or Awesome Point or whatever you like): (image from Order of the Stick comic #611)
Limit Breaker: Limit breaker is character’s luck, that unexplainable factor that allows him to beat the odds. A character can use his limit breaker once per level and doing so consumes also all of his current action points. Limit Breaker is not something that you add to your rolls or that enhance your abilities to do damage or such. Limit Breaker allows you to bend the rules and do things normally would be impossible in a single combat round or outside combat (see the picture above). It is something considered cinematic and awesome. It cannot give the character serious bonus to any situation (except being awesome), it cannot drastically alter the outcome of the combat but it can give you automatic successes in some manner. I.e. imagine a situation where you stand in a top of the building and a dragon flies by. Quickly, spending a limit breaker (if you have action points left) you decide to jump to dragons back and hold on. Normally DM would ask player to throw all kinds of checks. Athletics, grapple falling damage etc etc.. and character could fail and possibly even die. But by spending limit breaker it would be an automatic success. Dragon packs a punch heavy enough that one rider in his back wouldn’t be too serious threat. This scene would be cinematic and a situation that, I at least, would consider awesome. Limit breakers are agreed with DM during sessions and DM has the rule to say is it possible or not. As a DM I want to say (as encouragement to my players) the better you describe the situation, the better odds are that your awesome stunt works.

And a little last note to my players. There are lots of pirate action coming up, so if you want to be creative you can watch the pirates of the Caribbean movies and possibly you can come up with few good ideas