DM Chronicles, Session 11: When the stars are right, we get Planar Awesomeness! Part 3

See part 1 here and part 2 here… this is the last part I swear…

(I’ll have spent more time writing this session log than actually playing it!)

The PCs followed the Wolf lord to meet with Kharasutra’s General.

While dodging troupes of Armanites (Centaur Demons, a shoutout to my buddy Cayzle) and buzzing Chasme fly-demons, the heroes were brought to a burnt-out groove where a Dire Bear was having a war council with various denizens of the plane (Displacer beasts, Owlbears, Blink Dogs, you name it).

More Jungle Book-style roleplaying was had (although no one dared calling the General” Baloo”) and the heroes agreed to raid an ancient ruin where a recently captured werebear guardian was being kept.

Thus, the PCs would proove thier worth to the Animal Lords and be told where the legendary sword was and be allowed to attempt to recover it.

At that point I told Cruguer that he was already pretty sure where the sword was. The whispering in his mind was growing stronger and stronger, constantly calling him to rejoin once again.

The party set out to the ruins in the perpetually dark landscape leading them to a ruined keep that was occupied by 4 Amaranites keeping a battered and wounded werebear prisoner.

That confrontation turned out to be one of the best D&D fights we’ve had in a long time.

While Inigo was scouting ahead in the darkness, thanks to a Potion (or is it an elixir) of Darkvision, the demon centaurs saw the light source that Cruguer had attached to his backpack.

Light Source Aside: Do any D&D character actually use their hands to hold a light nowadays?

That’s where thing became very exciting.

You see, Yan is a master Combo artist when it comes to crunchy games. You should see the crazy-a$$ed decks he makes at Magic the Gathering. Well, when shopping in the Magic Item Compendium, he got himself a little ring that makes him invisible to creatures who have Darkvision when he is in the complete dark.

On top of everything, he’s a scout (he sneak attacks when he moves at least 10′ in a round) and he took the Spring Attack feat.

So he was fighting demons that couldn’t see him, in the dark, and he could move before and after hitting his target… He managed to spend the whole fight in darkness, even though Cruguer moved around a lot (the Steel Sqwire on the map is Cruguer’s light).

I had no choice but to ignore him and the demons paid a hefty price for that.

While Inigo was having fun flanking and doing his guerrilla stunts, the rest of the group was busy fending off three of the fast moving, hard hitting demons.

Having a NPC cleric became very useful Cruguer and Nogard were severely wounded and needed help during the fight. But with a combination of well placed blows, timely maneuvers from both Book of 9 sword classes and multiple arrow strikes, the PCs were victorious. I did manage to score one telling blow on Nogard exactly because his armour was damaged… woot!

After combat and after having healed the werebear, Cruguer said he knew where the sword was and they could reach it without the animal lords help.

As they made their way to an island in the middle of a small lake, the whispering in Cruguer’s mind reached a Crescendo.

The tomb’s door was sealed with a powerful spell geared at keeping out creatures of both good and evil alignment, as Inigo tasted firsthand when he tried to penetrate that ward.

Cruguer, quite confident and expecting what was coming, stepped up to the door, ignoring the ward and opened it.

Inside were frescos showing a lord of Law and Evil slaughtering the denizens of the Beastlands and battling Demons with a wicked looking bastard Sword. As the frescos progressed, doubt and disgust appeared on the face of this Champion of Hell. At a certain point of the battle, his doubts and hesitation cost him his life and he was slain by gleeful demons.

The fresco then showed a druid reincarnating the fallen Champion and asking him for help. The champion accepted and joined the host of the plane’s defenders to repulse both devilish and demonic invaders. After countless battles and skirmishes, both fiendish hordes were expelled of the plane, at the cost of the Champion’s second life.

Now considered a hero, the Champion was buried here with it’s sword…

A more recent carving showed the Goddess of nature reaching out and seizing the champion’s soul while it was on it’s way to hell and giving it life in a new body…

When I was telling this last part, I knew I had oversold this story and had crossed from Epic to downright cheesy… Eric had gotten the hint well before that. But I was dead tired and my filters weren’t all that functional at that point. Allow me an Ass pull and say that this last part was a fevered dream and never happened.

Still, when he grasped his sword, a foul looking evil piece of death-dealing, he realized that he was reconnecting with a lost part of his soul.

At that point I pulled a Harry Potter on Eric and told him that he held an alternate path to saving his soul from Hell if he allowed the sword’s soul to meld with his own. Always the method Actor and noble soul, Eric thanked me but said that he would continue with the path he had chosen (while still keeping the sword). He had a million dollar smile on his face!

Lessons Learned:

• The best games we play are the ones where I created the stories: a series of scenes with a lot of story potential peppered with balanced and interesting fights.
• Never isolate a player, even if the story calls for it. Give them atrocious choices, screw around with their background and belief, but don’t make them the enemy of the rest of your world just because ‘the story logically needs to go there.
• Even bad adventures can be hacked to be awesome!
• I’ll need to consider leaving the NPC cleric with the group.

What players liked

• This session was tailor made for Eric. While he initially was thinking of letting Cruguer go and picking up a Wizard, that thought evaporated somewhere in that evening. (And yes, I was a complete Manipulative Bastard because I happen to love Cruguer as a character! That’s the joy of being the DM, as much as it’s a shared narrative, you remain the director)
• Yan loved the stories, the Beatslands and absolutely went bonkers with his character. I think it’s one of the rare cases where his expectations were blown out of the water with a character.
• Edit: Nogard was able to shine in combat, using his free-action breath weapon and finding pure synergy with Inigo’s area Fire maneuvers (Norard is immune to fire).

What player disliked

• As mentioned, it was an ordinary evening for Franky storywise because Cixi had no options on this session. It’s now resolved.
• Apparently, stars can’t grow on trees.

Conclusion:

If we can keep this up and bring Cixi and Aravar in the fold of this story, our group will return into the Performing zone!

Bonus Section for those who read through the whole thing

The Eclipsed Sun

This +1 Cold Iron Evil Outsider Bane Bastard sword is a gruesome, multi-hooked blade made of Hell-forged demonsteel. It radiates both a faint Evil aura and a Strong Good one. It’s an intelligent Lawful good weapon with a Wisdom and Intelligence score of 13 and a charisma score of 10. It is Empathic (DMG p 269) that features an overbearing, malevolent, hate of all evil fiends. Upon spilling the blood of an evil outsider, it grants the wielder, for the next 24 hours, the following powers :

• Sword is considered good aligned for purposes of Damage Reduction
• Once per encounter the user can, as a swift action, cast Protection from evil (Caster Level 10) on himself (Spell-like ability).
• Once per day, the user can cast Banishment (CL 12, DC 19) as an immediate action on any fiend being wounded by the sword (Spell-like ability).

There you go, thanks for reading.