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Post by Ginger on Mar 17, 2008 17:08:23 GMT -5
Lots of action this past week. We talked to the 10 lizard men we found. 5 were modern using metal weapons and 5 were more primitive. The primitive ones turned hostile and ran off/were eaten by the other ones. Our new lizard buddies made us a map of the island and showed us where some of the gates were. We walked with them towards Gnitrax, via the lizard sage's house and the Lizard Wizard's tower. The sage's house was ransacked and we discovered he was kidnapped by lizard men primitives a week ago. We then went our separate ways, with them heading towards Gnitrax and they dropped us off at the Lizard Wizard's tower.
The Lizard Wizard was awesome. He had an awesome universal translator powered by the souls of the damned. We gave him the lizard skeleton brooch we found at the castle and some other tribute. He gave us another map and more info about the gates. Apparently the drow occupy the city of iron in the NW and have their own portals there. They do not use the system of portals we've used, which were apparently constructed by the slaad. When we mentioned that Jasper's MR disrupted the gate, he got very excited and realized that he could perhaps do the same thing and destroy the gates when they were disrupted. He abruptly ended the discussion.
He mapped out a few of the gates which he claimed connected to each other in a loop. We tried that, to ill effect. He used arrows to show that they lead in a loop, but apparently they take you random places. The party got split up, with a group landing at new gates, and several landing back at the original gate after a 6 hour delay.
Most interestingly, Jasper went to a gate, alone, and found himself surrounded by men with drawn bows. They shouted for him to get down on the ground. He said "Huh, you speak common?" Eventually Al came too. They spoke dwarvish to him. Al recognized they had banners from Sterich!!! Eventually more party members trickled in en masse, when we realized that if you held hands you all went to the same destination.
Right now, Cedrus, Raven and Grizela are at the portal we were trying to get to. They are therefore staying put. Otto is in some unknown location. Perrin is in some unknown location. Everyone else is with the Sterich group.
The next order of business is for Dell and Winthrop to start sending, while Antonus uses clairvoyance on the gates we've been to to see if he can Perrin and Otto.
That's probably not especially clear, so others can jump in.
Also, we killed a lot of dinosaurs. Antonus polymorphed a few dinosaurs, which was fun. Pfiffwin was eaten by a T-Rex, but then spit out because we did 150+ damage in that round.
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Post by venger on Mar 18, 2008 8:14:41 GMT -5
We learned that if you have a special amulet (like Omar Tarif and the Lizard Wizard do) you can control where the portals take you.
The portal we entered had a symbol "K" and four branching arrows with symbols L, M, J, O.
When you step through the portal you're randomly transported in the L, M, J, O mini-network.
There are a couple of portals not connected to any systems the Lizard Wizard knows about and he thought that they might take you somewhere not on this world. One is in a volcano. Another has iron-toothed gnomes that come out of it occasionally. There's one on an island way to the north and there's one on the mainland near the Sterich island.
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Post by Wolfgar on Mar 18, 2008 9:58:14 GMT -5
By the "Sterich Island" do you mean the inside of the black dome around Istvin?
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Post by Wolfgar on Mar 18, 2008 10:12:20 GMT -5
Right now, Cedrus, Raven and Grizela are at the portal we were trying to get to. They are therefore staying put. Otto is in some unknown location. Perrin is in some unknown location. Everyone else is with the Sterich group. What portal were we trying to get to? |
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Mar 18, 2008 10:25:15 GMT -5
The portal that comes out in the swamp. It gets us closest to where the portal that the gnomes come out of is.
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Post by Ginger on Mar 18, 2008 10:25:22 GMT -5
Maybe Dana can scan the map we marked up with the different portal connections. There is a series of 5 portals on the island that are inter-connected.
NE - Near the Lizard Wizard's tower. Notable features include a large boulder and several dinosaur corpses.
NW - In the jungle. Has troughs carved around it for water. (if you fail to go through the gate when it's red and fail your save, you become so thirsty that you cannot do anything unless you immediately drink a day's worth of water. When that happened to us the clerics created water and we needed trenches to collect it all.)
SW - In a swamp. Nearest to Neshfal and the portal where the magic-resistant, iron toothed gnomes come from. Raven, Cedrus and Grizela are here. This is where we were hoping we would go.
S - On an island. There are people from Sterich here, but we don't know why. It's definitely still on Torsh, as the trees are purple. Maybe the drow brought them to the city of iron as slaves and they escaped through a portal.
SE - In a cave.
Everyone is accounted for except Otto and Perrin, because they weren't played by characters and thus went "off-screen" as soon as they were separated.
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Post by Wolfgar on Mar 18, 2008 11:15:53 GMT -5
What is the draw for the "magic-resistant, iron toothed gnomes?" Or is it just that the gate they come through might take us off world?
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Mar 18, 2008 11:22:41 GMT -5
We expect that they are deep gnomes and lead to someplace in the Underdark. At least that was my interpretation. They show up rarely so the expectation is that portal will lead to someplace other than Torsh.
We might be able to learn form the Sterich folks the location of the portal they came in from.
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Post by Ginger on Mar 18, 2008 11:24:47 GMT -5
Yup. We know the drow have gates that lead off world, but we don't want to mess with them unless we have to. Thus, we decided to check out the portals that lead to places unknown. The gnome portal seemed like a good place to start.
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Post by Wolfgar on Mar 18, 2008 13:12:37 GMT -5
Any thought as to whether the dark elves are holding the Great Druid in the city of iron? Did we learn conclusively from the communing that the Great Druid was not in this world? Why are we avoiding the dark elves? Is it more important to get back to Oerth or get back to the Demonweb pits so we can continue searching for the Great Druid?
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Post by Ginger on Mar 18, 2008 13:39:01 GMT -5
We have no idea where the Great Druid is. He could very well be in the city of iron. I suggested we go fight the drow but everyone else wussed out.
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Post by Mr. Trommer on Mar 18, 2008 13:43:39 GMT -5
Let's just say that we took into account Cedrus asking why we weren't trying to find out where the other portals went to before rushing off the fight dark elves.
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Post by Wolfgar on Mar 30, 2008 20:50:22 GMT -5
Did we make any headway after I left?
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Post by Ginger on Mar 31, 2008 8:23:27 GMT -5
We headed back into the portal. Our plan was that we would investigate whatever portal was closest to the one we were randomly taken to. We were randomly taken to the swamp portal, so we walked to the Irontooth portal. On the way, we were ambushed by 50+ lizard men from the City of Hidden Guilt. 40 "regular" fighters, 8 sergeants, 4 lieutenants, and a captain. They were all pretty tough. The lieutenants had 50 or so HP. We lost initiative for the first 3 rounds, which made things a bit dodgy, but in the end, no lizard men escaped (although one dwarf with a lizard man mind did).
We webbed 4 guys and interrogated them. The City of Hidden Guilt is marching to war on Neshfal. Apparently a group of humans tried to steal artifacts from the Temple of Twilus. Some were captured. I don't remember if some escaped and if they made off with any of the artifacts.
In 5 days, the invasion of Neshfal will occur while the humans are sacrificed at the temple. Hisspek will also be killed, as punishment for consorting with humans.
After stripping the bodies, we found coins and a bunch of obsidian weapons. They seem to be pretty strong. The lizard man leader had a mace, which Adler has his eyes on. Also, they had 5 magical stone shields.
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Post by venger on Mar 31, 2008 8:48:17 GMT -5
The City of Hidden Guilt is marching to war on Neshfal. Apparently a group of humans tried to steal artifacts from the Temple of Twilus. Some were captured. I don't remember if some escaped and if they made off with any of the artifacts. In 5 days, the invasion of Neshfal will occur while the humans are sacrificed at the temple. Hisspek will also be killed, as punishment for consorting with humans. We should go save the lizard sage and the humans. And get some artifacts. |
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Post by Wolfgar on Mar 31, 2008 11:42:19 GMT -5
In 5 days, the invasion of Neshfal will occur while the humans are sacrificed at the temple. Hisspek will also be killed, as punishment for consorting with humans. Is the assault going to start in 5 days or will the forces leave the City of Hidden Guilt in 5 days? I assume we are more than 5 days away from Neshfal and the City of Hidden Guilt. Are we going to bother warning anyone in Neshfal? I assume it was the Guild that robbed the temple so no point warning Omartarif. Anyone have a count on the days left before the Leomund's chests are gone forever? I am not sure what else is in them but Otto doesn't want to lose the +4 scale mail. |
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Post by venger on Mar 31, 2008 13:25:56 GMT -5
Is the assault going to start in 5 days or will the forces leave the City of Hidden Guilt in 5 days? I assume we are more than 5 days away from Neshfal and the City of Hidden Guilt. Are we going to bother warning anyone in Neshfal? I assume it was the Guild that robbed the temple so no point warning Omartarif. The swamp surrounding the plateau (Neshfal) supposedly has 100+ groups of 50 lizardmen like the ones we fought, ready to strike in 5 days time. The humans and the lizard sage will be sacrificed in 5 days time. Coincidentally we are 4 1/2 days from The City of Hidden Guilt, by way of portal. |
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Post by Wolfgar on Mar 31, 2008 15:01:37 GMT -5
Given our track record with deadlines (cf. Flen) they are goners. Even if we did reach the city in time how would we even find the prisoners in 1/2 a day? That would require a precision strike on a presumably well fortified location by a small subset of the party. We would need to get in and out with minimal detection. If they know we are coming for the prisoners they will just kill them. And somehow I don't think we will be able to bribe our way past the guards.
I will throw out a suggestion but I recognize that getting anyone to agree to it will be impossible. Winthrop, Dell and Antonus use invisibility and polymorph to recon the city and locate the captives. They gain access to the captives using same. Use knock to open all doors and manacles holding captives. Use wall of force/iron/fire to hold off lizard folk. Use tongues to communicate with captives. Use teleport/dimension door/fly to get captives to freedom.
Everyone else just hangs back since escaping from a swamp full of angry lizardmen seems like a bad idea.
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Post by venger on Apr 1, 2008 9:33:14 GMT -5
Given our track record with deadlines (cf. Flen) they are goners. Even if we did reach the city in time how would we even find the prisoners in 1/2 a day? That would require a precision strike on a presumably well fortified location by a small subset of the party. We would need to get in and out with minimal detection. If they know we are coming for the prisoners they will just kill them. And somehow I don't think we will be able to bribe our way past the guards. I will throw out a suggestion but I recognize that getting anyone to agree to it will be impossible. Winthrop, Dell and Antonus use invisibility and polymorph to recon the city and locate the captives. They gain access to the captives using same. Use knock to open all doors and manacles holding captives. Use wall of force/iron/fire to hold off lizard folk. Use tongues to communicate with captives. Use teleport/dimension door/fly to get captives to freedom. Everyone else just hangs back since escaping from a swamp full of angry lizardmen seems like a bad idea. They are to be sacrificed in some grand ritual to Twilus. Presumably at the Temple of Twilus. Where all the delicious artifacts are kept. Our lizard captives or some new lizard captives should be able to tell us where they keep sacrifices. I like your plan. We have enough invisibility and fly spells for a couple fighters to accompany us as well. Maybe we can get a cleric to come along with Know Alignment. Plan B: (Winthrop's Gambit) The entire evil lizard army is out in force, days away, attacking Neshfal. We fly in to the temple dropping fireballs, lighting bolts, ice storms, Raven, Otto, walls of fire, hold persons, mounts, etc. We could charm some dinosaurs, maybe recruit some of these Sterich-folk. If the evil lizards have the Lizard Sage, they probably have the Human sage too. |
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Post by Ginger on Apr 1, 2008 12:33:25 GMT -5
I think the temple is assailable, since the vast bulk of the occupants are preparing to assault the town. Our captives were impressed into service, which suggests that even the regular occupants of the city have left to fight. If there are only a few hundred lizard men left, we should be in good shape.
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Post by Dell on Apr 1, 2008 13:26:42 GMT -5
Battle tactics are a little premature, I think. Let's get there first, and see what we have to deal with. But given the ease we took out this group of losers - that had us surrounded - I think we will easily be able to eliminate ten times that number given adequate preparation.
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Post by Ginger on Apr 1, 2008 14:13:14 GMT -5
I don't think we'll be in a situation where they are going to execute the prisoners to keep us from rescuing them. They're saving them for a religious ceremony, so they hopefully won't want to kill them as soon as a group comes to rescue them.
FYI, we killed 50+ guys without using a fireball or ice storm. Our one wall of fire didn't kill anyone, and the lightning bolts were all used to kill individuals who were fleeing. Given our mass death spells, we can raze a lizard city.
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Post by venger on Apr 1, 2008 15:20:55 GMT -5
I don't think we'll be in a situation where they are going to execute the prisoners to keep us from rescuing them. They're saving them for a religious ceremony, so they hopefully won't want to kill them as soon as a group comes to rescue them. FYI, we killed 50+ guys without using a fireball or ice storm. Our one wall of fire didn't kill anyone, and the lightning bolts were all used to kill individuals who were fleeing. Given our mass death spells, we can raze a lizard city. Antonus cast a fireball. It killed a few lizardmen and did 8 damage to Hugh. But I agree. We could annihilate the City of Hidden Guilt. Though they could have clerics with prayer, curse, dispel magic, hold person, etc. as well as divine/daemonic allies, so we should exercise some caution when assaulting an evil god's temple in a plane where only the evil god has powers. |
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Post by Dead Greyhawk on Apr 1, 2008 21:16:04 GMT -5
Cedrus points out you can always just go through the portal of the gnomes. That was where we were going in the first place, no?
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Post by venger on Apr 2, 2008 8:40:44 GMT -5
Cedrus points out you can always just go through the portal of the gnomes. That was where we were going in the first place, no? They're going to sacrifice Hisspeck the Sage, the most learned lizard in all of lizard-dom, to their evil god Twilus. Unacceptable! In his time in the strange world of Torch, Antonus has learned that lizardmen are people too. |
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Post by Ginger on Apr 2, 2008 9:31:00 GMT -5
In his time in the strange world of Torch, Antonus has learned that lizardmen are people too. Until they develop too many hit dice. Then they become lizard kings, and cease to be people. |
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sam
New Member
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Post by sam on Apr 3, 2008 18:05:41 GMT -5
Luna thinks its a great idea to let the powerful mages and fighters go invisible. This way she can stay back with the others and rest...she's awfully tired after that huge fight. :)
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