The Empire Strikes Out

[venger]

Jul 29, 2018 12:25:49 GMT -5 Wolfgar said:

Questions for the pilot

• What is his name again?
• Did they come to the Full Dark Stone (FDS) because the Lantern was there or was it accidental that they showed up while we were there?
• What does he know about the Lantern?
• What does he know about the Empire's plans regarding the FDS? More broadly?
• Why did they need two castles here?
• What did they learn from Corm?
• What did they take from the FDS/Corm's lab and where is it?
• What did they do with Corm's servants?
• What did they learn about the FDS, the blue dragons, the caves/mines, the door with the sigils?
• Did they take any treasure from the dragons? If so, where is it?
• How many dragons remain?
• Have they communicated with the dragons?
• How big is the crew of the other castle? Who are its officers and what are their capabilities?
• Is there anyway to communicate with the other castle? Magic devices? Semaphore flags? Flares?
• What about communicating with central command?
• Are there any secret or concealed rooms/compartments aboard this castle?
• Are there stores for food/other items we might want?
• Would he be willing to switch allegiances to us?
• What are his abilities? What level spell caster is he?

Does Corm have anything he can tell us about the Empire and its plans? What would his plans be now that he is free?

• He is Maestro Stavek, classically trained musician and storm wizard.
• The giant, blazing magical beacon in the sky demanded a swift and powerful response. Stavek was not aware that it was the storied Lantern of Wyv.
• Stavek was aware that an enormous stone "Lantern"floated over the Bay of Wyv. A curiosity of a bygone wizarding age.
• The wizards plan to harness whatever power they can from the newly discovered Full Dark Stone, it's an ancient Seree spell vault overcharged with energy. More broadly, they're amassing military and magical might to wage a campaign for control of the realm and to establish a new wizard-empire, grander than has ever existed.
• Stavek is dismissive of the troll-wizard's magical abilities and entirely skeptical of the merits of the Ritual of Vitrum Aquae, "wizard flowers" and "whatever he was doing with that giant skull."
• They've ransacked Korm's lab, taking all his notes on the Full Dark Stone, his varied "reagents," the invisible chest in which he stored his cache of gemstones for Vitrum Aquae and a bunch of brass collars. They have not yet cracked the Full Dark Stone.
• Korm's lesser golem servitors were destroyed.
• They are confident that they can breach the Full Dark Stone and access the spell vault inside. The wizards plan to offer the blue dragon a large sum of treasure in the hopes of convincing it to league with them.
• The door with the sigils is magically trapped/locked. They have not attempted to breach it.
• The other castle has a larger (double) complement of stormtroopers (including elites), storm wizards, masters of the four winds (monks), and evil elemental creatures from the plane of Air. Their commander is a master tactician, Daegon Stormlord, cloud giant admiral.
• Specially trained stormtroopers use color-coded flags to communicate between flying castles. The storm wizards can send magical messages as fast as the wind.
• Stavek claims there are no secret rooms in the cloud castle. There are crates of well-preserved foodstuffs, barrels of wine & ale, and a furious water elemental trapped in the cistern which generates fresh water and rain.
• Stavek would like to be released, having cooperated and answered your questions. He is a storm wizard of 11th level and an officer in the Celestial Hierarchy. If the party is interested, he could help negotiate terms of surrender.

Korm must return to the Full Dark Stone to reclaim the skull of his master and finish his experiments. He really wants nothing more to do with the Empire. Though he would not be averse to some payback.

Jul 29, 2018 13:59:08 GMT -5 Ginger said:

I can use my rarely used Battlemaster fighter subclass ability to know the character levels and remaining HP of anyone I interact with out of combat for a minute.
I will do that for Corm and the driver.

Korm is a 10HD brute.
Stavek is an 11th level wizard.
Both of them are extremely low on hit points.

Aug 1, 2018 14:02:17 GMT -5 Ren said:

then we have plenty of time to short rest, find secret rooms, take both cannons, loot everything, line the castle up to crash, and escape... Is anyone opposed to doing it this way or see something that’s being forgotten?

The plan is to take a short rest? Then search & loot the castle?

Stavek warns that the other castle will likely wrest control of the weather from him soon, if they have not begun already.

Aug 1, 2018 18:17:27 GMT -5 Fin said:

Eddie, would you be open to using the updated Ranger class per Dave and Jake? If so, I would like to try. Still debating whether to stay with the Hunter conclave or the Underdark conclave. What do you think?

I have no problem with it. Be forewarned, there's not too much in the way of Underdark environs to explore though.

[Ginger]

Can Ren take a short rest while the rest of us loot? He benefits the most from getting a 5th level spell back.

[Fin]

That’s a good call, Dave.
On another note maybe the plan to kill the blue dragon is not the way to go. If the Hierarchy was going to enlist its aid, why shouldn’t we try that? I mean the Hierarchy is already pissed at us and is planing to try and take the Lantern from us. Turn about is fair play, no?

[Ginger]

They are storm wizards. It’s a lightning dragon. Their cooperation makes sense.
They also want the dragon as a partner, where we don’t want new partners, we need magic items to increase the power of our specific characters.
We also don’t have a huge pile of treasure to bargain with.

[Fin]

Titus will grudgingly concede you have a point.

[Wolfgar]

Not to mention the fact that we killed all of its children.

[Wolfgar]

If Korm is a troll-wizard shouldn't he regenerate?

Where did they put the giant skull that was on top of the FDS? I assume the other castle since it was no longer in the caves. BTW, what is/was Korm's master?

Ren rests while others loot. We keep someone on lookout. If there is time after looting then others can rest. If it looks like they are going to catch us or are sending reinforcements before Ren is rested then we use the teleport scroll to leave immediately. If we can crash the castle, fine with me. Korm can come with us. Stavek clearly has no desire to join us so he is expendable.

If we can safely release the water elemental, I'm cool with that. But that is low priority.

We could wait until they give the treasure to the dragon and then kill it...

[Fin]

I’ll keep a lookout. I have a pretty long range with the bow and wouldn’t mind potshotting a couple fools if they start to get close.
Agree with Wulfgar on immediate actions.

[Ren]

I agree with the course of action. We should definitely check for hidden rooms before we go, regardless of what Stavek says. He sounds like he doesn’t want to come with us, I vote we leave him as a corpse when we go. Or rather, we take his corpse with us. An 11th level wizard might be worth resurrection. No need to give a wizard back to the sovereignty, particularly one who has had time to really see all of us and learn our names. Really don’t want to mess with the water elemental. I don’t want any chance of a fight.

[Fin]

Stavek should die with the castle. We can take Korm with us. Forget the water elemental; we got enough problems now.

[Bolo]

This should really be in a new thread, but ...

When Ren had that urge to disintegrate something, did he feel that blasting something small and unimportant like a copper piece would have satisfied the urge? Or was it necessary to obliterate something big like 1000 cu ft of rock?

If only a big target will answer the mail, we'd better make sure he always has a suitable target available. I don't want him to wake up one morning in the Lantern with an uncontrollable urge and the only option is to blast a hole in the wall.

[Wolfgar]

I think any reasonably sized item would satisfy the urge. So we just need a bunch of large cheap items. Maybe Chun just collects a bunch of boulders (or tomb stones) that we store wherever Ren sleeps. He can start doing that while we are busy underground.