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Post by Ginger on Jan 16, 2008 14:21:03 GMT -5
The primitives that live in the Swamp of Lost Hope are cannibals. The tail-less ones are the worst. Seems like the primitives are troglodytes. Is he familiar with Lolth?
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Post by Ginger on Jan 16, 2008 14:22:37 GMT -5
A small group, a mage, his healer, and bodyguard... What's a healer if they don't have clerics? Maybe they have a different word, or maybe they have some alternate form healing?
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Perrin
Junior Member
Posts: 61
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Post by Perrin on Jan 16, 2008 15:08:48 GMT -5
Can someone post the note that Dell pickpocketed?
I don't really understand why the Guild would want us to investigate the castle. Apparently, they don't really care about their lost guild members. And if the Guild is just seeking adventure and treasure for themselves, why would they want us to go? They would miss out on the fun and the treasure. It doesn't seem like they're getting anything out of it.
So, Perrin would like to ask Omartarif: what's in it for him if we investigate the castle?
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Post by Wolfgar on Jan 16, 2008 15:53:49 GMT -5
Omortarif claims to have close relations with many of the lizardfolk, including the Head Chief Lizard Guy of Gnitrax. If the Company proves itself, he'd be happy to bring you down to Gnitrax and introduce you personally! What does Omortarif mean by "the Company proves itself?" Is there a test to become members of the Guild? Is there a rough estimate of how many members are in the Guild?
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Post by Dell on Jan 16, 2008 16:11:16 GMT -5
What's a healer if they don't have clerics? If they only have access to first and second level spells, the power of those comes from within the cleric himself. So the healers aren't really clerics, because they don't have to worship anybody. So what are we gonna do next? I say we kill some Tharizdun worshipping lizard people. Just because they suck.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 17, 2008 0:02:18 GMT -5
Some follow up questions: How long has Mistress Naji ruled? How did she come to power? Is she a mage? Is she a past member of Guild? Are "barbarians" and "primitives" both lizard people, just different levels of advancement? Aren't there farmers that live outside the cities? Where are they located? Is there an easier way to scale the plateau instead of flying? Do Guild members tame pterodactyls for use as flying steeds? Otto would like to see how well his druid abilities function here - does animal friendship/invisibility work on lizards? does entangle work on the purple vegetation? If there are no pearls how do they Identify magic items? Does the term magic item even make sense to them? I think we heard the term artifact used by Salb or Omortarif - what would be considered an artifact? If there are magic items can we learn from them how they identify them? Are there spells we should try to trade for or will the langauge barrier be an insurmountable problem? Do any of the other Guild member speak other languages that we have in common? Mistress Naji has ruled for the last two hundred years (It appears that they still count days by the brightening of the sky and that there are 400 or so days to the calendar. Since they can't see a moon and there are no tides, its not clear why they have picked this number.) A direct descendent of the Wizard Iormad, she was elevated upon the death of her father. Following the sacrifice of Iormad, Iormad's son wreaked great havoc on the others, slaying many of the former priests and reclaiming leadership of the Humans. Since then, Iormad's descendents have ruled. Mistress Naji is a mighty wizardess wielding magics beyond compare. Her control of the mind and of the senses is unparallelled. The barbarians and the primitives are both lizardfolk, though some of the primitives are tailless. The Guild avoids the primitives, since they are uniformly hostile, but the barbarians claim that they are former kinfolk of the primitives. The city of Gnitrax was supposedly established by refugees or exiles leaving the primitives in the Swamp of Lost Hope. Human farmers populate the land outside of Old Neshfal, growing crops that they bring into the city and sell. The lizardfolk apparently also farm, though they mainly hunt and gather. The Guild has not mastered any flying steeds. Instead, they have trained large lizards for travel and drayage. Those of the Guild that do not fly descend down from the mesa by lizard. The Guild seems loath to tell you where this path may be; perhaps it is a secret. Some lizards seem affected by animal friendship, but some do not. The large lizard steeds appear not to, but the small dinosauria that scurry about are affected. Invisibility seems to work fine, though you are concerned about your scent. The vegetation generally responds to entangle. The words magic item, relic, and artifact all seem to be being translated as interchangeable. When you ask about them, a broken and crumbled vambrace is shown to you as an example of an artifact from the City of Iron. Omortarif explains that much trial and error is used to discern the properties of an artifact and that it takes months at the least to learn the first purposes of an artifact. Tyron and several of the Guild members tinker in Tyron's shop making up various draughts that have surprising effects, but Omartorif describes this as capturing the aether of Torsh, not as making potions. Dwarvish seems to be the only working language you have in common, probably because of the static nature of the language. Some of the words Omortarif speaks in his own tongue are familiar, but their use and phrasing is not.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 17, 2008 0:07:45 GMT -5
We also want to know about everything to do with these local portals, as well as information on the spell they used to get here, and the spell that was used to weaken the sphere of blackness. And test the spells we have, like Rope Trick and Summon Monster. Clift wants to be a fighter. How is that going to work? Does he get to specialize? Does he start at level 1 or level 4? Does he gain levels or Hit Dice? Beyond the mesa are apparently additional portals that can be used to travel far distances. Only the bravest of the Guild use them, for sometimes they fail to work and othertimes they lead to deleterious effects, including never returning. The details of the rites of Iormad and his sacrifice are lost to time, at least to the Guild. It is possible that Mistress Naji, being Iormad's descendent, has retained some of the lore. Both Rope Trick and Monster Summoning appear to work as normal, though the monsters summoned are all lizards. Clift starts as a level 1 fighter. He gets all the advantages of the fighter class, including 4 proficiencies and the ability to specialize. He won't gain additional HP until 5th level, but should gain percentile rolls at each level. He'll gain levels and attack on the fighter chart. He can always revert to being an ogre, attacking as a 4+1 HD creature, but will not gain XP for that week, similar to a dual-classed character.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 17, 2008 0:08:39 GMT -5
Is he familiar with Lolth? No, but all of the healers respect the crawling spider for its beneficial venom and silk.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jan 17, 2008 13:00:27 GMT -5
So what is the plan? We seem to be stuck at least temporarily in this world. We have a wish left that we could try to get home. There should be one more Plane Shift scroll left but it is unclear where that would get us and only half the party could go. There are portals in this world but no one seems to know where they lead and the one that we think went to our world has been destroyed. The only direct way back to somewhere we have been would be to use a dark elf to get us back into the Demonweb. But I am not sure where we would get a dark elf aside from breaking into the palace.
Do we want to settle in for the long term or try to get out of here?
As a side note - are we going to try to raise Jasper? There is a good chance he would come back as a lizardman which would almost be as cool as an ogre.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jan 17, 2008 13:04:21 GMT -5
Does Winthrop still have the Egg of Lolth? Do you think we could do some research on how to activate it to create a portal back to the Demonweb?
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Post by Ginger on Jan 17, 2008 14:14:18 GMT -5
So what is the plan? We seem to be stuck at least temporarily in this world. We have a wish left that we could try to get home. There should be one more Plane Shift scroll left but it is unclear where that would get us and only half the party could go. There are portals in this world but no one seems to know where they lead and the one that we think went to our world has been destroyed. The only direct way back to somewhere we have been would be to use a dark elf to get us back into the Demonweb. But I am not sure where we would get a dark elf aside from breaking into the palace. Do we want to settle in for the long term or try to get out of here? As a side note - are we going to try to raise Jasper? There is a good chance he would come back as a lizardman which would almost be as cool as an ogre. You missed a fair bit of out of game discussion after Sunday's session. Apparently this world is one of those black domes created by Tharizdun/Lolth that grew over centuries to encompass the entire world and drag it into the Abyss. Thus, wishes will not work. I think we need to get in the Guild's good graces so they'll show us how to use the portals. Maybe with our egg we'll have better luck. Also, Jasper failed his roll, so he can only be reincarnated. We should see if we can acquire a scroll here ASAP, since I think the time limit will run out for him soon. It could be pretty sweet if there's a different table in this plane, so he comes back as a dinosaur (or a drow!).
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Post by Dell on Jan 17, 2008 14:39:52 GMT -5
Do we want to settle in for the long term or try to get out of here? As a side note - are we going to try to raise Jasper? There is a good chance he would come back as a lizardman which would almost be as cool as an ogre. As far as Dell can determine, he is the most powerful thief on the planet. That's one good reason to stay. And yes, Jasper would likely come back as a lizardman of some type, but even if he rolled the stats for it, only humans are able to be monks, right? Well, he's got a good wisdom, he could always be a cleric...
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Post by venger on Jan 17, 2008 15:02:47 GMT -5
So what is the plan? We seem to be stuck at least temporarily in this world. We have a wish left that we could try to get home. There should be one more Plane Shift scroll left but it is unclear where that would get us and only half the party could go. There are portals in this world but no one seems to know where they lead and the one that we think went to our world has been destroyed. The only direct way back to somewhere we have been would be to use a dark elf to get us back into the Demonweb. But I am not sure where we would get a dark elf aside from breaking into the palace. Do we want to settle in for the long term or try to get out of here? As a side note - are we going to try to raise Jasper? There is a good chance he would come back as a lizardman which would almost be as cool as an ogre. Salb wants us to go to the City of Iron to retrieve artifacts for the Lizard People. Omartarif wants us to clear out the ghost castle. Who knows what the Mistress would want of us. I'm not sure what we'll get in reward other than more information and the "trust" of inherently untrustworthy people. It's only a matter of time before they turn on us because they're crazy or evil. I say we try wishing that the broken Gate wasn't broken. Or if that seems excessive- that we wish we knew how to fix the broken Gate. If it doesn't work, we don't lose anything. If it does work we can ride dinosaurs back to Longspear.
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Post by Ginger on Jan 17, 2008 15:18:29 GMT -5
We could sit in front of the gate and augur about whether wishing it fixed would be a good idea.
Also, how powerful are the mages here? Presumably in the process of spell trading we can discover whether they have a bunch of high level spells?
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Post by Dell on Jan 17, 2008 15:37:58 GMT -5
I'm not sure what we'll get in reward other than more information and the "trust" of inherently untrustworthy people. Treasure. We get treasure. This company was founded on taking money from criminals. I say we get back to our core competencies.
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Post by Ginger on Jan 17, 2008 16:25:44 GMT -5
I think Raven should set up a stronghold here. Maybe I can get lizardmen followers.
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Jan 17, 2008 17:41:28 GMT -5
You should. Just think if you do it and somehow destroy the thing that is causing to dark globes your stronghold might pop back into its own world again.
Maybe we should try and figure out which of the globes has the capital of Sterich in it.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jan 17, 2008 20:28:55 GMT -5
Treasure is only good if we can get it home. It is one thing if we are going to set up shop here, but without access to the secret chests we can't take much with us. And any magic items we find will most likely be useless without access to pearls. (How many pearls do we have not in the chests? Otto has about 6.) Still it might be interesting to spend sometime exploring just to see what the world is like. Right now I would lean towards the City of Iron.
With our current situation Pfiffwin is going to spend some time scouting around with Detect Invisibility, Illusion and Magic up. Maybe he can get an idea of what people are hiding from us.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 17, 2008 22:03:56 GMT -5
So, Perrin would like to ask Omartarif: what's in it for him if we investigate the castle? Omortarif claims to have close relations with many of the lizardfolk, including the Head Chief Lizard Guy of Gnitrax. If the Company proves itself, he'd be happy to bring you down to Gnitrax and introduce you personally! What does Omortarif mean by "the Company proves itself?" Is there a test to become members of the Guild? Is there a rough estimate of how many members are in the Guild? Omortarif smirks at the two of you and Al. "You brag to others that you can destroy the palace of our leader. You claim you are mighty and powerful. Prove it. We know our strengths. We know who is brave among us and who is not. You are either blowhards whose tongues wag, or are our peers, mighty adventurers on an exciting journey frought with dangers. We have a marker that no one has surpassed; venture within the Castle and find out what lies in the midst of our city. If you can do that, you are a force to be respected, as powerful as our leader. If not, well, we have our answer then, don't we?"
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 17, 2008 22:07:01 GMT -5
Salb wants us to go to the City of Iron to retrieve artifacts for the Lizard People. Salb wants to bring you to Gnitrax to meet with the Lizardmen. He mentioned the artifacts from the City of Iron are highly valued, but said gaining the Lizardmen's alliance to overthrow Mistress Naji is worth more to him than a single attack that you might mount.
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Jan 17, 2008 22:09:28 GMT -5
Also, how powerful are the mages here? Presumably in the process of spell trading we can discover whether they have a bunch of high level spells? No one has discussed trading spells with you. You've seen some third level spells being bandied about, such as flight, but don't know what the high end of the mages are. Otto and Raven haven't seen anyone they think is as skilled as they are, but some of the warriors are very healthy.
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Post by venger on Jan 18, 2008 1:04:42 GMT -5
Maybe we should try and figure out which of the globes has the capital of Sterich in it. You missed a fair bit of out of game discussion after Sunday's session. Apparently this world is one of those black domes created by Tharizdun/Lolth that grew over centuries to encompass the entire world and drag it into the Abyss. This bears further explanation- The globes are still physically located on the "Oerth." Everything within them is still where it was, just trapped under the black dome with no contact to the outside world, or cleric spells. The spheres grow and grow until eventually, I assume, they merge into one giant sphere which continues growing until it encompasses the entire planet, like a big forcefield. The sun doesn't shine, and clerics can only get 1st and 2nd level spells and dinosaurs evolve from Man! Lloth then drags the world down into the Abyss and ties it to her Demon Web. That's what happening to where we live. Nobody who's ventured into the castle has come back- maybe there's a one-way portal, maybe it's full of deadly traps and level-draining undeads.... either way, seems like Omortarif wants to get rid of us. Now that it's been established that the Mistress is the legitimate ruler of the city, and not some evil dark elf tyrant, I'm not so eager to help Salb.
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Post by Wolfgar on Jan 18, 2008 8:35:58 GMT -5
Salb wants to bring you to Gnitrax to meet with the Lizardmen. He mentioned the artifacts from the City of Iron are highly valued, but said gaining the Lizardmen's alliance to overthrow Mistress Naji is worth more to him than a single attack that you might mount. Now that it's been established that the Mistress is the legitimate ruler of the city, and not some evil dark elf tyrant, I'm not so eager to help Salb. Can you remind us what atrocities Mistress Naji has perpetrated against her subjects? Why does Salb want to overthrow her? How is this supposed to work exactly? Salb would show us on a map where the City of Iron is or take us there. We would find some stuff which we would give to Salb who would give to the Lizardmen in order to form an alliance. Or is it more like - we go to the castle and prove ourselves, Omortarif takes us to the Lizardmen, the Lizardmen tell us what they want from the City of Iron, we retrieve it from the City of Iron, give it to the Lizardmen on the condition they form an alliance with Salb, wait for them to mount an attack on Mistress Nagi, join the revolution in toppling the palace. Again I'll ask - do we want to take the time to solve this world's problem or find the quickest way home?
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Post by Wolfgar on Jan 18, 2008 8:55:15 GMT -5
Omortarif smirks at the two of you and Al. "You brag to others that you can destroy the palace of our leader. You claim you are mighty and powerful. Prove it. We know our strengths. We know who is brave among us and who is not. You are either blowhards whose tongues wag, or are our peers, mighty adventurers on an exciting journey frought with dangers. We have a marker that no one has surpassed; venture within the Castle and find out what lies in the midst of our city. If you can do that, you are a force to be respected, as powerful as our leader. If not, well, we have our answer then, don't we?" It wasn't Otto, Perrin or Al that made the claim we could destroy the palace. I forget if it was Antonus or Dell. Antonus was certainly spouting off about random things. But since it was a full declarative statement it was probably Dell. But maybe we should tackle the Castle. If it is haunted then we are likely to have the most powerful clerics around and should be able to handle the undead as well as anyone. What was it they said about a Lizard Wizard? They should at least give us what they know about the Castle before we enter it. Side question: Clerics aren't able to memorize spells above second level. Also clerics can convert spells to equal or lower level curative spells. So should clerics be able to convert all of their 3rd and higher level spells to 1st and 2nd level spells at memorization time? Can they use those slots for a 1st level spell they would convert to anyway or do they need to actually memorize the the higher level spell and then they can convert it? It would certainly help in the healing department if they could.
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Post by Dell on Jan 18, 2008 9:27:27 GMT -5
It was definitely Antonus that said we could flatten the palace.
We have to be out of here in roughly... 40 days, so we should do whatever we think will get us to the portal system fastest. I think that involves the guild. Hitting the Castle would impress the Guild, then we can get all the portal information they have.
Alternately, if we're looking to get in good with Mistress Naji, we can hand Salb's organization over to her. She would probably like that.
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Post by venger on Jan 18, 2008 9:33:20 GMT -5
It wasn't Otto, Perrin or Al that made the claim we could destroy the palace. I forget if it was Antonus or Dell. Antonus was certainly spouting off about random things. But since it was a full declarative statement it was probably Dell. Hey... it was a little rough in some patches, but for the record- Antonus did all the talking. And nobody could understand anything he said because they didn't cast Comprehend Languages or Tongues. He convinced the rebels to meet with us after we barged up to their hidden stronghold in the middle of the day, then successfully negotiated with their leader, which got us information and an audience with Omortarif, which got us a ton of information and moved from the undead infested ruins to the luxurious Guild accomodations. Admittedly the meeting with Omortarif was handled by other people who spoke Dwarvish, but Antonus did a superb job as diplomat and communicator as far anyone in the party should be concerned. Maybe it comes up in passing that he said the party could level the palace... maybe he exaggerated our power to impress upon the evil locals that we weren't to be trifled with or double-crossed... I stand by the statement though. We've got a Lord, a Wizard, two Sorcerers - Otto's like a Ranger Knight. Don't we have a Transmute Rock to Mud scroll? And Pffifwin's wand.. we could take that thing right down. Alternately, if we're looking to get in good with Mistress Naji, we can hand Salb's organization over to her. She would probably like that. That's clever, I like that.
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Perrin
Junior Member
Posts: 61
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Post by Perrin on Jan 18, 2008 9:35:12 GMT -5
Again I'll ask - do we want to take the time to solve this world's problem or find the quickest way home? I vote for getting home. "Solving" disputes between the various forces in this world merely shifts the balance of power amongst evil forces. That is, unless Omortarif gains power - at least he's chaotic neutral. As for how to get home, let's try working on that gate first. We've got some time while Hugh recovers (and if Perrin is training Adler). Failing that, I vote for the castle. It's ancient and it's unexplored, so it must have good treasure, right?
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Post by Ginger on Jan 18, 2008 14:22:29 GMT -5
Nobody particularly wants to stay here long term. We definitely have to be back on the Prime Material Plane in 40 days or else our Leomund's Chests will be gone for good. Therefore, wasting time to train Adler in spells he cannot cast is not helpful. So, we want to get into a gate to somewhere else ASAP. Who can help us with this?
Mistriss Naji - She seems to be the legitimate ruler here. She's likely evil, but so is everyone else. She's obviously very powerful and has more knowledge of the outside world than anyone else.
Salb - He's the resistance leader. In an evil world, we assume that makes him a good guy, but there's no evidence of that he is good. His faction is the weakest, and since his cause is not obviously just, I think we should definitely not ally with him.
Omartarif - He is powerful, knowledgeable about the portal system, and has no close ties to the drow. Thus, I think he's our man. If we accomplish his test, he can hopefully show us the way to the best portal.
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Post by Dell on Jan 18, 2008 15:17:46 GMT -5
Mistriss Naji - She seems to be the legitimate ruler here. She's likely evil, but so is everyone else. She's obviously very powerful and has more knowledge of the outside world than anyone else. Salb - He's the resistance leader. In an evil world, we assume that makes him a good guy, but there's no evidence of that he is good. His faction is the weakest, and since his cause is not obviously just, I think we should definitely not ally with him. Omartarif - He is powerful, knowledgeable about the portal system, and has no close ties to the drow. Thus, I think he's our man. If we accomplish his test, he can hopefully show us the way to the best portal. That's one good thing about being trapped in the Abyss - our potential adventure list is so much more manageable. Other possibilities include talking to the "Lizard Wizard", talking to the Th_r_zd_n worshipping Lizardfolk, or following a Drow to see how they get in or out. I'm assuming that the Drow have a way to grow a webgate from the Abyssal Weave... but who knows when they'll visit next?
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Post by Wolfgar on Jan 18, 2008 15:20:50 GMT -5
The globes are still physically located on the "Oerth." Everything within them is still where it was, just trapped under the black dome with no contact to the outside world, or cleric spells. The spheres grow and grow until eventually, I assume, they merge into one giant sphere which continues growing until it encompasses the entire planet, like a big forcefield. The sun doesn't shine, and clerics can only get 1st and 2nd level spells and dinosaurs evolve from Man! Lloth then drags the world down into the Abyss and ties it to her Demon Web. If we are currently in the Abyss tied to the Demon Web then shouldn't the armor Otto is wearing be magical again? IMHO I would say yes. I'll do a detect magic on it just to make sure.
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