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Dragonlance--
We returned to our campaign, now having to account for the loss of two PCs. The rest of the Misfits were very aware that both Justinius and Catt had been caught-- the latter shot out of the sky by multiple arrows-- and when Runa used her Clairvoyance ability to listen in on the enemy command tent, she overheard Fistandantilus denying the cleric Denubis when he asked to heal Catt, but did allow funerary rites to be done, and asked for the red-robed wizard to be left for him.
We snuck around to where the rebel army buried its dead and found the fresh mound of earth with Catt's hoopak stuck in it. My cleric, Gavin, did cast Raise Dead-- because, ICly, we all considered it worth it-- and everyone spoke their piece to see if we could convince Catt's soul to return. We got an ethereal Catt appearing, but she said that she didn't think she should come back, implying there were adventures she was going to be undertaking on the other side, taking her hoopak and bidding us farewell.
What came next for us was having to re-focus and lock in on finishing our mission to steal the Blood Stone artifact from Fistandantilus. To recap, Fistandantilus-- the most powerful evil wizard in all of history, at the height of his mortal power-- was attempting to open a portal to the Abyss, so as to confront Takhisis (evil dragon goddess, known as Tiamat in other D&D planes) and kill her to usurp her place. As this was happening some 350 years before the 'present day' in our campaign, he was destined to fail, and the explosion that transpired killed his physical body, but the Blood Stone allowed his spirit to remain in an in-between place, and he survived by siphoning life/magic from other wizards. He tended to do this by appearing to aspirant wizards during their Tests of High Sorcery, offering the power to pass their Test in exchange for that life force. Justinius's apprentice Tasha was of Irda descent-- a race of 'high ogres' with natural magical power-- and needed to pass her Test so she can learn the higher-level magic needed to prevent herself from going insane, but taking her Test would expose her to Fistandantilus-- and he would not be able to resist just draining her dry, potentially becoming powerful enough to return to physical life. The Orders of High Sorcery had sent our party back to the year 1 AC to try to neutralize the Blood Stone, but we'd also been briefed that we were just the latest in many attempts at this mission. (We were somewhere in the vicinity of Attempt #1148.)
We scouted out the tower of Zhaman, which fortunately went without much fuss. Runa used her Clairvoyance again to scout the tower itself and we once again found an alternative entry than the main gate, which was once again through the sewer. Or rather, the servant entrance next to the sewer-- and even then, the sewer was remarkably clean. The passageway was dusty as well, and we rather worked out that Fistandantilus was just using the tower as a place to conduct his ritual, teleporting in and out to do his prep and whatnot, while resting and eating back in the military camp.
We explored the dungeon beneath the tower, mostly so we could recover Justinius's body, since Runa's Clairvoyance had located it in one of the cells. The rest of the cells had the bodies of people we found out had been part of previous attempts at getting the Blood Stone. The cells in the dungeons didn't have doors, but arcane wards which only allowed an evil wizard or a good cleric to pass through, and the bodies inside were held in a sort of stasis field (DM Bob explicitly compared it to the forcefield that Obi-Wan was held in by Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones) and were... well, they'd been tortured and their life-force sucked away. Gavin, the only one in the party who could pass through the wards on the cells, used a ten-foot pole to gently push the bodies out of the stasis field, and they all essentially disintegrated as they did. Gavin saw this as a mercy.
One of the cells, however, held an elven ranger, who hadn't been tortured to the same extent or had her life force drained. Gavin dispelled the stasis and then healed her up. This was our newest PC, Sylphara, played by Chris. She was a Kagonesti elf (wood elf) from roughly 150 years prior to the 'present day', and had been part of the previous attempt at killing Fistandantilus. The rest of her party was all dead, tortured/drained, and she joined us in our mission. She was a little disdainful of humans (everyone left in the party was human) and couldn't really wrap her head around the timelines, though accepted that she was only going to get to come back to the 'present day' and not her own. We rested up in a disused storage cellar in the tower while making plans, since we had another day or so before we absolutely needed to make our move.
And the plan went off without a hitch. Evrouin cast Silence on his armor, charging in to grapple Fistandantilus-- thus negating the two main components of his magic (verbal and somatic)-- while Gavin cast Hold Person on Denubis (to prevent him from dispelling the silence), allowing Runa to rush in and grab the Blood Stone from around Fistan's neck. Sylphara ran in with our "time-turner" device, we all linked up, released Fistan and returned to our own time, just as Raistlin Majere-- Fistan's usurper-- turned up.
We arrived back in 349 AC at the Weyreth Tower. We turned the Blood Stone over to the wizards, who promised to either find a way to destroy it or seal it away forever, and confirmed that Fistandantilus was dead. Raistlin, however, had now become 'Master of Both Past & Present', which would allow him to access the Palanthas Tower of High Sorcery, and potentially attempt the same thing that Fistan had been doing. (i.e., usurp a god) That, however, was now for the wizards to deal with, and they would do so, presumably without us.
We wrapped up with the Misfits (plus Sylphara) returning to the Whitestone Forces military camp, to resume what will undoubtedly become known as the Fourth Dragon War.
We're still planning to recruit a fifth player, which might end up being my roommate Richard, he's still making up his mind.
We returned to our campaign, now having to account for the loss of two PCs. The rest of the Misfits were very aware that both Justinius and Catt had been caught-- the latter shot out of the sky by multiple arrows-- and when Runa used her Clairvoyance ability to listen in on the enemy command tent, she overheard Fistandantilus denying the cleric Denubis when he asked to heal Catt, but did allow funerary rites to be done, and asked for the red-robed wizard to be left for him.
We snuck around to where the rebel army buried its dead and found the fresh mound of earth with Catt's hoopak stuck in it. My cleric, Gavin, did cast Raise Dead-- because, ICly, we all considered it worth it-- and everyone spoke their piece to see if we could convince Catt's soul to return. We got an ethereal Catt appearing, but she said that she didn't think she should come back, implying there were adventures she was going to be undertaking on the other side, taking her hoopak and bidding us farewell.
What came next for us was having to re-focus and lock in on finishing our mission to steal the Blood Stone artifact from Fistandantilus. To recap, Fistandantilus-- the most powerful evil wizard in all of history, at the height of his mortal power-- was attempting to open a portal to the Abyss, so as to confront Takhisis (evil dragon goddess, known as Tiamat in other D&D planes) and kill her to usurp her place. As this was happening some 350 years before the 'present day' in our campaign, he was destined to fail, and the explosion that transpired killed his physical body, but the Blood Stone allowed his spirit to remain in an in-between place, and he survived by siphoning life/magic from other wizards. He tended to do this by appearing to aspirant wizards during their Tests of High Sorcery, offering the power to pass their Test in exchange for that life force. Justinius's apprentice Tasha was of Irda descent-- a race of 'high ogres' with natural magical power-- and needed to pass her Test so she can learn the higher-level magic needed to prevent herself from going insane, but taking her Test would expose her to Fistandantilus-- and he would not be able to resist just draining her dry, potentially becoming powerful enough to return to physical life. The Orders of High Sorcery had sent our party back to the year 1 AC to try to neutralize the Blood Stone, but we'd also been briefed that we were just the latest in many attempts at this mission. (We were somewhere in the vicinity of Attempt #1148.)
We scouted out the tower of Zhaman, which fortunately went without much fuss. Runa used her Clairvoyance again to scout the tower itself and we once again found an alternative entry than the main gate, which was once again through the sewer. Or rather, the servant entrance next to the sewer-- and even then, the sewer was remarkably clean. The passageway was dusty as well, and we rather worked out that Fistandantilus was just using the tower as a place to conduct his ritual, teleporting in and out to do his prep and whatnot, while resting and eating back in the military camp.
We explored the dungeon beneath the tower, mostly so we could recover Justinius's body, since Runa's Clairvoyance had located it in one of the cells. The rest of the cells had the bodies of people we found out had been part of previous attempts at getting the Blood Stone. The cells in the dungeons didn't have doors, but arcane wards which only allowed an evil wizard or a good cleric to pass through, and the bodies inside were held in a sort of stasis field (DM Bob explicitly compared it to the forcefield that Obi-Wan was held in by Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones) and were... well, they'd been tortured and their life-force sucked away. Gavin, the only one in the party who could pass through the wards on the cells, used a ten-foot pole to gently push the bodies out of the stasis field, and they all essentially disintegrated as they did. Gavin saw this as a mercy.
One of the cells, however, held an elven ranger, who hadn't been tortured to the same extent or had her life force drained. Gavin dispelled the stasis and then healed her up. This was our newest PC, Sylphara, played by Chris. She was a Kagonesti elf (wood elf) from roughly 150 years prior to the 'present day', and had been part of the previous attempt at killing Fistandantilus. The rest of her party was all dead, tortured/drained, and she joined us in our mission. She was a little disdainful of humans (everyone left in the party was human) and couldn't really wrap her head around the timelines, though accepted that she was only going to get to come back to the 'present day' and not her own. We rested up in a disused storage cellar in the tower while making plans, since we had another day or so before we absolutely needed to make our move.
And the plan went off without a hitch. Evrouin cast Silence on his armor, charging in to grapple Fistandantilus-- thus negating the two main components of his magic (verbal and somatic)-- while Gavin cast Hold Person on Denubis (to prevent him from dispelling the silence), allowing Runa to rush in and grab the Blood Stone from around Fistan's neck. Sylphara ran in with our "time-turner" device, we all linked up, released Fistan and returned to our own time, just as Raistlin Majere-- Fistan's usurper-- turned up.
We arrived back in 349 AC at the Weyreth Tower. We turned the Blood Stone over to the wizards, who promised to either find a way to destroy it or seal it away forever, and confirmed that Fistandantilus was dead. Raistlin, however, had now become 'Master of Both Past & Present', which would allow him to access the Palanthas Tower of High Sorcery, and potentially attempt the same thing that Fistan had been doing. (i.e., usurp a god) That, however, was now for the wizards to deal with, and they would do so, presumably without us.
We wrapped up with the Misfits (plus Sylphara) returning to the Whitestone Forces military camp, to resume what will undoubtedly become known as the Fourth Dragon War.
We're still planning to recruit a fifth player, which might end up being my roommate Richard, he's still making up his mind.
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