Wrath of the Righteous Chapter Four, The Midnight Isles – Sixth Session

Hepzamirah

Hepzamirah

Sixth Session (10 page pdf) – We murder our way through the naughtiness mines till we come across Baphomet’s daughter. Then we murder her.  Then Nocticula murders Baphomet.  Then we go shopping.

First up is killing a tentacle monster like they have here. Then horned demons.  And a glabrezu. And succubi.  We just sing the demon-killing song as we kill them (any Megadeth song). And our war cry of “No Witnesses!” echoes off the walls of the demonic mines.

Finally we fight Hepzamirah, a Nephilim sired by Baphomet. With liberal doses of Mythic Bullshit we kill her. Baphomet tries to give us some stick but Nocticula is all like nuh-uh and melts him and gets us out of there and delivers us back to Queen Galfrey and it’s the end of the chapter.

And Nocticula still didn’t try to kill us or sex us up… I’m very disappointed. (Mainly because my character is gay and I wanted to come up with some snappy zinger when she tried to vamp on me.)

Nocticula

Nocticula

Reavers on the Seas of Fate – Season Four, Sixth Session

Sixth Session (9 page pdf) – “Dark Wings Over Riddleport” – The celebration grows toward “Project X” levels but is interrupted by a sinister old guy with a “message” from an old enemy. And raven swarms, don’t forget the raven swarms.

The pirates are partying, and voodoo loa Mama Watanna shows up and possesses a bar maid for some Sindawe ravishing. But part way through, everyone’s cypher glyphs burn…

In a very anime-style turn, a cloaked old guy at the head of the dock turns out to be a crazed shadow raven supernatural killer (special CR11 advanced vrock named “The Messenger” from Green Ronin’s “Dark Wings Over Freeport”). The party erupts into chaos as partially incapacitated members of many potentially  hostile power groups leap to arms amidst darkness and confusion and raven swarms (“unkindnesses,” technically).  Ah, I love being a GM.

messenger

He keeps generating swarms of ravens, which threaten all the partygoers. Pirates with swivel-guns and Sindawe with a potion of fiery breath are some of the few things that hurt them (swarms, the ultimate threat in all 3e-derived games).  After a big fight they kill him, though Serpent gets his staff all shadow-infected (a little “thank you” from K’Stallo, aka “The Serpent Man Formerly Known As Elias Tammerhawk”). In fact, Clegg Zincher and Akron Erix are the ones that really did most of the killing of the Messenger himself, which really enhances their local rep! And their status with the PCs – they’ve been ambivalent about whether Zincher is “a stand up guy” or “that guy we really want to kill.”

So – return to party!

Finally, having blown out Riddleport as much as one can blow it out, they return to the sea to seek Piracy, Wogan’s sister, the head of Elias Tammerhawk, the rape-murder of the Stormdaughter, and whatever’s messing with Sindawe’s people.  What’s the chance all those plot threads are related?  This is D&D, so 100%!

Reavers on the Seas of Fate – Season Four, Fifth Session

Welcome back!  We’ve still been playing Reavers and writing up session summaries, but I am sadly delinquent in posting them as blog posts.  This summer, I intend to catch you all up!  Follow along and read the adventures of the most dastardly batch of pirates to ever bedevil Golarion!

Salvadora Beckett Fifth Session (21 page pdf) – “Patching In” – More business on the streets of Riddleport; beating up locals, recruiting new pirates, plotting and scheming… And it is capped off with a pirate party to end all pirate parties!

First they interrogate an anti-Cyphermage agitator and realize his organization is backed by the Zincher crime syndicate, who since the tsunami have become a lot more of the “patriotic community association, that will still break your kneecaps” type.

Then Wogan starts to get concerned about his sister, who has moved to Nidal and married some local.  A visit may be in the offing!  And Serpent and his wife Samaritha go shopping for an egg-case (lest you forget, she is a serpentfolk who disguises herself as a half-elf).

They also follow up with Salvadora Beckett of the God Squad, an undercover branch of the gendarmerie that investigates evil cults and keeps there from being too much religious influence in the city. This is something I imported from the Freeport setting into Riddleport.  Keep in mind as you read the following that I use the picture of butch iconic half-orc inquisitor Imrijka as her character portrait (above).

Sindawe changes the subject, “We are having a patching in ceremony and party tomorrow night. The Overlord and other bigwigs will be there. You’re invited, of course.”
Salvadora replies, “I am a law officer. My presence would put a real dampener on your party. Besides, I’m already running too high of a profile for my line of work.”
Sindawe says, “You could wear a disguise.”
Serpent blurts out, “You could always come as a stripper… uh.”
Salvadora’s eyes slide over to Serpent, who shuts up.
Sindawe laughs at his friend’s mistake, then jokingly tells Salvadora, “You could fake your own death, just like those famous detectives do in the bardic songs. Then you can investigate without having to answer to your boss or the rules. You can bring the villains to justice.”
Salvadora consider this then replies, “I do have a hanging harness.” She clomps off.
Wogan tells Sindawe, “I think she was hitting on you.” Sindawe thinks about that possibility.

Also, they are rewarded for giving over the remaining Yellowjackets (Calistrian assassins) to the law by a raise dead scroll for the murdered Little Mike. Then they recruit some new pirates.

This is always a fun time, and something I have to prepare a lot for.  I have to come up with a list of pirates for them to interview, some high level, some low level, all with various personality disorders, some actively traitorous and some just passively traitorous. You never know what they’ll like or not like.

Duke Ron (based on Kurt Russell’s “Captain Ron” character) was meant to be all lively and piratey but they hated him.

Cannonball Jack, Nemo, Kent, “Ragged” Pete Morgan, George Peters, “Long” Bonifacio Copper, and Kitty the Cantankerous are all welcomed aboard, despite some of them kinda obviously sucking. And Melella, a half-elf druid they met during their investigation of Little Mike’s murder who took a liking to them.

Then they meet Captain Sempronia, who has open enmity with Duke Ron.  They go with Sempronia, which will be revealed as a terrible mistake later.

Then it’s time for the after-party.  The huge, Sons of Anarchy style dock party with loads of rented hookers and VIPs and crime lords and disguised succubi and Cyphermages and demon assassins.  But before the demon assassins, Sindawe came up with a whole motorcycle gang vest and patching plan. Check out the summary for the details. And the Overlord gives them a warrant for the serpent man known as Elias Tammerhawk – 10,000 gold, dead or alive. They like this, they hate that guy (lest you forget, he blew up the Riddleport Light and caused a tsunami to hit Riddleport and got glyph-shards embedded in the PCs and all kindsa stuff like that).

wanted

The PCs really enjoy their party, and I generate all kinds of interesting “party fouls” for them to watch or participate in or whatnot.  I enjoyed Wogan maintaining his priest-of-Gozreh chastity despite a succubus grinding on him.

We leave off in the middle of the party…

Wrath of the Righteous Chapter Four, The Midnight Isles – Fifth Session

The Fulsome Queen

The Fulsome Queen

Fifth Session (11 page pdf) – We explore an island in the Abyss and name its land features after Queen Galfrey in proper British explorer style. Then we meet a sexy slime demon and kill a dragon for its lewt.

The river we were heading up on this Abyssal island was called the Nameless River. Ever one to bring order to chaos, that inspired me/my character to name it the Purifying River of Queen Galfrey. I was somewhat disappointed that didn’t cause an earthquake or something. So I named all subsequent features from their stupid demon names to nice things in the name of the Queen!

Have I mentioned how powerful we have become? Only 11th level but 6 mythic tiers and a bunch of god-given knick-knacks.  When a green dragon that attacked last time turned up again this time, we just beat it unconscious and gave it a scrub-bath and left it lying there with a ribbon around its neck. It’s those little touches beyond just killing things that clearly states “leave them the FUCK alone” to random demon Abyssal residents.

Calanthe just uses her combat actions to use her rod of wonder now rather than cast useful spells.  We’re OK with that.

Calanthe fires the rod of wonder at the left-hand barbican. Loud laughter erupts from the walls of the tower, drowning out all other sounds in the area. Antonius streaks over to the laughing tower. He leaps from the carpet of flying screaming, “Who’s laughing now?”

One of the tieflings screams, “Not me! That would be rude!” His politeness doesn’t save him – Antonius strikes him four times, sending him on the burning path to the eternal forge from which none can ever gain surcease. Then he turns to the other demoniac tiefling and crushes him, flinging his broken body over the burning precipice into the shadowed darkness of the pit down which the lost shall fall forever.

As that effect is permanent, this place is thence called “The Laughing Gate.” Then to “Galfrey Falls.” Then a slime demoness invites us to steal a dragon’s treasure – we are all on board with that plan! Even if she is some refugee from Internet fetish art.

Wrath of the Righteous Chapter Four, The Midnight Isles – Fourth Session

Minagho

Minagho

Fourth Session (11 page pdf) – We need a party favor for when we visit Nocticula, so we go grab Minagho, Baphomet’s minion, as a present. Then we visit Nocticula, and strangely there’s no sex involved. And then we go to an Abyssal island!

What can  you bring the demon queen that has everything? Well, we’re not rich enough to get her something that would impress, so we decide to bring her a key ally of another demon lord. We pay off a demon to narc her out, find her cave, and beat her up. Turns out Baphomet was mad at her and had cursed her bad so it wasn’t all that hard.

Then we get an audience with Nocticula! She gives us info and treats and doesn’t even make us perform sex acts on fly-headed demons (not really sure why not…).

Next thing we know we’re headed to an Abyssal island formed from the corpse of the demon lord of jungles, poisoned water, and dragons. “I wonder what we’ll find there,” said no one…

Wrath of the Righteous Chapter Four, The Midnight Isles – Third Session

Gelderfang

Gelderfang

Third Session (11 page pdf) – To make an impression, we take on Lucha Libre character aliases and go to the local arena and murder our way up the gladiator list till everyone leaves us alone. And then we go to a house party!

So we’re in Alushinyrra in the Abyss and want to gain Nocticula’s attention.  Usually that would call for sex and torture and assassination but we’re all paladin types so we go to the arena to kill demons instead.

We take on stage names and costumes for the event!

  • Antonius becomes “Mindfreak,” dressed in a Ming the Merciless robe and a helmet that looks like a mind flayer head (since trademark violation is super evil!).
  • Calanthe becomes “Stripperella” due to her succubus costume.
  • Tsuguri becomes “The Fiendish Dr. Fu Manchu.” He wears a demon-fetishist rig with green crescent moons and a transparent helmet that looks like it has a brain inside.
  • Tabregon buys leather clothing with floating colored strips and styles himself “Dr. Nasty.”
  • Shawanda is “The Brick.” She has some bricks with her. She’s not the most inventive of paladins.
  • Trystan is “The Elf With No Name.” Mainly because he is determined not to get into the spirit of things and has no stage name.

It goes well, we only have to kill a couple trash mobs before Gelderfang, an incubus with a pizza cutter hand, comes for us.

Shawanda “The Brick” runs up and cuts chunks off Gelderfang, pleasing the crowd and leaving Gelderfang looking horribly maimed. Oh Gelderfang, he’s not pretty no more!

Trystan “The Elf With No Name” shoots Gelderfang again, skewering him. Calanthe “Stripperella” flies in again and strikes Gelderfang with both blindness (which Gelderfang resists) and the rod of wonder (which causes dance music to start playing).

Antonius invokes his titan’s stance and grows to large size and starts dancing to the throbbing techno beat. He crushes Gelderfang’s skull and extracts his brain as the crowd roars its approval. “Mind Freak!!!!” he shrieks in his best mind flayer/Cobra Commander voice. The characters are swarmed with enthusiastic folks of all descriptions from the audience.

Afterwards, we find a night hag selling magic items from the Magic Item Compendium because D&D 3.5e is still holding on in the Abyss.

Then I left before the rest of the group went to win the favor of a succubus lord – when asked what they would do to entertain her, the answer was “Extreme political satire!” But since everyone in the group rolls huge on any skill check you care to name, it all worked out fine in the end.

Wrath of the Righteous Chapter Four, The Midnight Isles – Second Session

Shemhazian Demon

Shemhazian Demon

Second Session (13 page pdf) – We go to the Abyss and murder our way up the wandering monster chart till everyone leaves us alone. And then we go to the big city!

This session is a lot of fights.  We fight to close the gate to the Abyss (with us on the Abyss side) and then we fight random demon attack after random demon attack until finally we kill a shemhazian – a 35 foot tall 12 ton killing machine.  We set its decapitated head upon the battlements of our magical fortress – and the random encounters suddenly stop. Mission accomplished.

Then we go into a big demon city with a clever disguise!

As the characters look around like rubes, a thanadaemon steps in front of them. “Are you escaped prisoners? Do not lie, I will know it!”

Calanthe answers, “We are not. We are here for our own reasons. I am a succubus and this is my cult. And I am shopping for shoes.”

“Would you like me to serve as your guide? I would be happy to do so in exchange for a soul.”

“I don’t think so.”

“If you reconsider, please call for me first. My name is Xugunfarishandoon.”

“Certainly.”

Xugunfarishandoon gets back into its boat and paddles away.

Daemons are stupid.

Wrath of the Righteous Chapter Four, The Midnight Isles – First Session

Queen Galfrey

  Queen Galfrey

First Session (12 page pdf) – We pick up Queen Galfrey of Mendev and roll out to the Midnight Fane to stop their mythic-demon-elixir naughtiness.

It’s the beginning of a new chapter.  In a surprise move, Queen Galfrey of Mendev wants to come with us into the Abyss.  “OK, I reckon,” we say, and she settles down into the usual quiet and mostly-useless NPC role that all party NPCs do. Weird.

We go to the Midnight Fane, and manage to restrain ourselves from killing long enough to be escorted to the local boss.  It’s a big fight, but it turns out most of it was with a projected image from some eyeless minotaur chick that teleports away.

Ursathella the Snake Lady

Ursathella the Snake Lady

Then we go find a snake lady and engage in witty repartee.

Antonius tells her, “Mutasafet sent us. He says, ‘Blaaaggh!’ And do you know anything about the ecology of ash giants?”

The serpent-woman responds, “While would be very interesting to have a long conversation with you about ash giants, I think I shall have that conversation after you are dead. I have promised my mistress Areelu Vorlesh that I shall defend the Rift at all costs!”

Antonius offers, “You better simmer down or we’re going to dimensional anchor your snaky ass and murderhobo you.”

She does not simmer down, so we do.

D&D 5e PHB Readthrough, Chapter 8: Adventuring

adventureAnd now we get to the Adventure!  Welcome to this installment in my D&D Fifth Edition PHB readthrough and review. This time, Chapter 8: Adventuring.

First they reiterate the D&D Decision Loop (DDDL) from earlier:

  1. The DM describes the environment
  2. The players describe what they want to do
  3. The DM narrates the result of their actions

Firmly establishing the trad playstyle.  I’m actually a little ambivalent about this, I like some player participation in limited environment narration and especially action narration but I can see they’re setting the baseline here.

Then we get the usual sections that have been in every PHB since time immemorial. Time, Movement, Vision and Light… It’s all pretty straightforward.  6 second rounds like the kids use nowadays. Crawling and swimming and stuff are simplified to just use 2 feet of movement to go 1 foot. Skill checks are described as being binary – you might make Strength (Athletics) checks to be able to climb or swim, but then the speed is invariant.

I like the “Interacting with Objects” section, instead of a big chart of substance hardness and hit points like in 3e it just says “DM will decide, and if he says you can’t cut a rope with a club, then that’s the way it is.”  I could see a DM advice book with things like the 3e hardness chart as “Here’s some guidance, if you don’t happen to personally know where bone fits vis-a-vis wood and stone in the hardness follies” but I like it being kept out of the core rules for simplicity.

But wait… Then a section on Social Interaction and Roleplaying?  What’s the world coming to? Isn’t D&D just torches and swords and orcs and Cheetos? They describe third person (“Descriptive”) roleplaying and first person (“Active”) roleplaying, and correctly note the second is more immersive. Affecting NPCs is a mix of roleplaying with the possibility of Charisma checks.  This is great, like a lot of things it moves the dial back to Basic/1e/2e times before affecting NPC attitudes was a completely rules exercise where “Diplomancers” could min-max happily enslaving anyone they could talk to with their +50 Diplomacy skills.

Next resting. Like 4e there is a “short rest” (1 hour, and you can roll up to your level in Hit Dice to heal) and a “long rest” (8 hours, and you regain all your hit points and 1/2 your Hit Dice).  This is the primary healing mechanic, which is pretty – perhaps overly – generous (on average, you can heal 2x your entire hit points in the first day). So don’t expect much in the way of lingering wounds.

Then there’s a between adventures section involving lifestyle expenses (from Chapter 5) and downtime.  This is very similar to the Pathfinder downtime system – options include making money from crafting or professions or doing research or training or recuperating from diseases or other effects.

This chapter’s a bit of a laundry list but it is a necessary laundry list of how you do what you do when you’re not murdering.

Wrath of the Righteous Chapter Three, Demon’s Heresy – Sixth Session

Xanthir Vang

Xanthir Vang

Sixth Session (11 page pdf) – We slay Xanthir Vang, and then it’s mostly all over but the looting.  The extensive, extensive looting.

A spellcaster I can’t grapple?  Well that’s a corker.  I use my mythic maneuver power to Dirty Trick him while everyone else tries to figure out how to hurt him.  Sadly, “area effect spells” are what we don’t use, though apparently they would have been great.  After an epic fight, we kill him anyway.

End of battle quote, courtesy Bruce our session scribe, who often lives in a parallel plane of existence:

Calanthe looks at the mass of disintegrating worms. She says, “And thus I am avenged for the deaths of my parents. This is how we treat assassins who have no respect for life.” In saying this, of course, she does not know that she is channeling the only known words of Argrath the Liberator, who uttered a sacred oath to tear the Red Moon from the Middle Air.

An insider note – Xanthir offered a question-for-question info exchange.  We agreed, as long as Tabregon answered the questions.  This is a bit of an inside joke; Bruce, Tabregon’s player, both attends via Skype (and sometimes gets a warped impression of what’s going on as a result) and is somewhat notorious for not being able to explain things in a concise and coherent way.  We all giggled at the thought of this being put to good use against our enemies for once. Xanthir got frustrated fast and just went to combat. Heh heh.

The rest of the time we piled up loot. Next, we’re on to The Midnight Isles!

D&D 5e PHB Readthrough, Chapter 7: Using Ability Scores

beholderWelcome to this installment in my D&D Fifth Edition PHB readthrough and review. We are entering “Part 2: Playing the Game” with a chapter on using ability scores.

First they reprint the Ability Scores and Modifiers section from earlier, in penance for their questionable organizational skills. They explain advantage and disadvantage, one of the big new mechanics in 5e – in many cases, instead of an additional bonus or penalty to a d20 roll,  you roll twice and take the best or worst die result instead. Advantage and disadvantage cancel each other. Simpler and elegant, though they’ve retained enough bonuses/penalties and other stuff to track that it doesn’t hugely simplify the system.

Finally they kinda explain skills.  They try to keep skills on the down-low in this version, basically you generally use ability checks but you can add your proficiency bonus to skills you have. Since proficiency bonuses really only range from +2 to +6 that means that, barring other abilities, there’s not a huge difference between having a skill and not having it.

They also describe passive checks, which is just taking 10 on the die, done when you’re doing it repeatedly or the GM wants to do it in secret (different from 3e’s taking 10 and 20). And working together, which provides advantage.

Group checks have an interesting mechanic – everyone makes the check and if half or more succeed, the group succeeds.  This removes the shitty “everyone makes a roll and one person is going to fail/succeed because probability” problem in earlier editions, very elegant.

Next they just go into what you use Strength, Dexterity, etc. for.  None of this is all that new and surprising, except DEX gives you bonuses to both attack and damage with ranged and finesse weapons, 4e-style. A sidebar on hiding sweeps away hundreds of pages of rules lawyering from previous editions, just saying “you can’t hide if someone can see you – but if you’re hidden you can sneak up on someone if they’re distracted, at the DM’s discretion.” You know, like all sane people have done it. (Google “The Rules Of Hidden Club” if you want to see how pathetically insane rules lawyers have gotten on this topic.)

And then saving throws are just ability checks (plus proficiency if applicable).

So the general message is… Ability checks! Roll them!

D&D 5e PHB Readthrough, Chapter 6: Customization Options

customWelcome to this installment in my D&D Fifth Edition PHB readthrough and review. We’ve reached the end of the Character Creation section.  Now it’s time to customize.

By customize, I guess we really mean “some more spare rules.”  We start with multiclassing. It works like 3e where you can add levels ad hoc in whatever classes.  It has the additional twist of having ability score minimums, which is an interesting and IMO satisfying middle ground between the 1e “you need this much ability to be this class” and 3e-style “minmax however you want.”

Then there are feats. Feats are optional in 5e, you take them in place of an ability score advance (every fourth level). Since you have fewer of them than in 3e, each one is pretty buff.  In fact, oddly, some give you one point of ability advance anyway. Even the “skill” ones are good – let’s take “Actor,” which would be +2 to 2 skills in 3e (yawn).  Here, it gives you +1 Charisma, advantage on deception and performance checks, and an ability to mimic someone’s speech. Many are of course combat focused, like Dual Wielder gives you +1 AC and the ability to 2-handed fight with non-light weapons, and the ability to draw or stow 2 weapons at once.  I like how many of them add those little details (like the draw/stow) that show they’ve thought through the little details. A couple are boring (Skilled – Gain proficiency in 3 skills!) but that’s the minority, and they’re designed to help you push in some character direction you can’t get by class min-maxing in the new regime. And, they’re not strictly better than the +2 to a stat (though since the limit is 20, if you put a high number in your primary stat, a couple advances probably cap you out and you are looking to diversify anyway).

There’s only 42 feats, but each one is meaty, and you’re only going to get a fistful with any character, and I’m sure more will come (whenever they decide to publish anything else…).

And we’re done with character generation!  Solid all in all. Streamlined and not as fiddly as 3e, but more consistent and customizable than 2e. And a real role-playing game and not a pure tactical boardgame like… Uh… Some editions.