Zilean's Revenge

Skitter tries to climb up onto the "body" of the thing and shouts down, "Knifey! More bloody blessed bones!" (Skitter see Colossus, Skitter climb Colossus. )

Bronymous wrote:Any of you guys have any openings in Pony Tales groups? My groups keep falling apart, and its kind of annoying.

We lost our 5th party member, so "Pony Team Bravo" is recruiting again. Good luck, if you're interested.

And speaking of recruiting, I've decided to post a recruitment request for Kris/Tiffany's replacement, on account of her inactivity. Should I post it here, or as a separate thread (I'm keeping the players wanted one clear till Demonu gets us a 5th player), and should I wait for the bone horror fiasco to end before I start with it?

You might as well start recruiting nowish. You can wait till your other game gets a new player but, those threads would be the best way to do it. Not that I'd see why they'd interfere. They're two very different means of playing. We should probably get two players if we can really. Just let them know they'll have to wait for a sensible time to show up. Like when we get to go get paid and buy desperately needed supplies perhaps. Oh and pass along my wish that they don't make more humans and we need a healer. In fact you might as well just state what we do have so they make characters that hopefully we won't have a lot of overlap.

Horizon grabs the rest of the sanctified bones, and begins back tracking to the door, lining up his shots. Aiming for the creatures head, he throws them all, one at a time, hoping to severely drain it.

3 bones, 3 rolls, and remember i have High Dex.

I talked to Fred about Bravo, he said maybe, if no one else is interested. He also said i'd have to wait until you all get to a reasonable point, since right now you're in an underwater cavern? I guess that's what happens when a group follows the plan.

But yeah, you should put up the thing sooner, rather than later. Make sure you specify how mechanics-light the game is. We should also go get the rest of the transcripts from the FiD sessions.

Mis comm, but it works out. I should clarify- Originally I tried to throw all of the Holy bones at the thing, but you only hit it with one, so I threw the other 3 (I brought 4 total). I didn't try to collect any of the other bones.

Horizon had nothing else he could do, so he retreated past the wards with the Priest and Paladins. "Will you guys hurry up?" he yelled back to the two still inside.

Rolf quickly backs up a good distance past the door, while still maintaining control of the Dancing Lights. "Pity we can't bring more bones out of there, but they fulfilled their purpose. I've got its attention, so I'll try to have it chase the Lights out of the door. Skitter, either teleport off or hang on!" He then directs the lights so that they go through the door and hover just outside the temple. "That's right, chase the pretty lights, you undead bastard," he muttered under his breath.

I'd say set up recruitment now, Zarhon. Hopefully, we can get two more players by the time we get back from "shopping".

Zarhon wrote: ...1

Earth beloooow us! Drifting, falling! Floating weightless, calling, calling home!

edit: Just out of curiosity, Ramsus, where does that "orange lights" quote come from (assuming it's not just a general comment on the propensity for the weak points of most video game bosses to be in full view and flashing)?

It was a reference to Shadow of the Colossus.

Zarhon, why are we not recruiting for a 5th member too? We originally wanted 5 players anyway at the start. Is there some particular reason to keep it at 4?

Ramsus wrote:It was a reference to Shadow of the Colossus.

Zarhon, why are we not recruiting for a 5th member too? We originally wanted 5 players anyway at the start. Is there some particular reason to keep it at 4?

Actually, from the way you described it, it was Dead Space (necromorph weak spots).

As for the 5th member, not sure if I can handle dealing with a 5th member. Four peeps are hard enough to manage (especially since you split the party constantly).

I'll consider it though, if there are any particularly interesting/fun characters.

Skitter

Skitter stabs his blade into the back of the cratures "head", lodging it firmly into it and giving him an anchored object to hold on to. The creature doesn't seem to respond to the blade in any way.

Others

As the monstrosity approaches the ward, it decides to use its newly formed claw to knock everyone out of its way, swiping at everyone on the other side of the door.

Horror swipe -> 16

Horizon def -> 13
High Priest def -> nat1
Paladin 1 def -> 11
Paladin 2 def -> 15

As soon as the claw passes the ward, it fully ignites in holy fire. Despite the fires swiftly starting to destroy the aberrant limb, its trajectory and moment are mostly preserved, hitting everyone except Rolf, who was too far to reach. Everyone is bludgeoned as though hit by a sledgehammer, severely disorienting everyone (-5 on the next roll). The High Priest attempts to shield himself with a ward, but is too slow. Unlike Horizon and the paladins, he's not wearing any armor and is fairly old, causing the blow to knock him away near Rolf, breaking a leg, arm and a rib. He loses consciousness, but appears to still be alive. The two paladins rush to his aid.

After the swipe caused the claw to ignite, the horror shrieked (in what appears to be actual pain) and stoped its charge before venturing any further through the ward. It tries to retreat its claw, but all it achieves is losing the entire limb, as it fully vaporizes. The "stump" of the limp cought on fire as well, forcing the horror to further abandon that segment before the fire spread any further. The monstrosity quickly retreats near the center of the hall. It assumes a strange pose and starts emitting a strange hum, remaining motionless.

Suddenly, all the undamaged, un-sanctified bones that were scattered around from the previous attacks start floating towards the monstrosity. They all merge beside the main body, forming a replacement claw appendage. At the same time, bones are channeled from the main body of the monstrosity as well, forming a separate limb. In mere moments, it forms not one, but two different clawed hands. It uses both of them to pull on a nearby balcony pillar, completely separating it from it (and causing part of the balcony to crumble). It raises it high above its head, directly above Skitter.

0...

Got a bunch of college stuffs to do over this week (exam on the 12th, two semester assignments to finish & hand in, new year sign-up process). Don't expect updates till after the exam.

"Well, this is a mess," said Rolf. "Paladins, you stay here and try and heal the High Priest. Horizon, come inside with me. Whenever more bones fall off, I want you to toss them out the door. It'll stop Humpty Dumpty from putting himself back together, and if we're lucky we'll find one of the "holy bones" again to attack it."

Rolf then ran into the temple, yelling, "Skitter, teleport onto one of the balconies and try shadow-lassoing the newer claw toward you! We'll bring that pillar down on top of his head!" He then cast Grease at the older claw, particularly where it was gripping the pillar.

Roll for Grease.

Quick question, Zarhon.

Zarhon wrote: all the undamaged, un-sanctified bones that were scattered around from the previous attacks start floating towards the monstrosity.

I see this as having two possibilities.
1. Pretty much ALL of the bones have reconstituted back to the bone horror, except for a few that are obviously broken and the four sanctified bones. This means the boss is back at about 90%, but that Horizon could more easily find the "holy bones" he could use for attack.
2. All the bones that were dislodged from holy attacks (either the Priest's blast or the holy bones) were not reabsorbed by the bone horror. The boss has less health, but Horizon would have to toss the piles of remaining bones outside in order to find the holy bones again.

If you could clarify this for me, it would give Horizon a better idea of what options are available to him.

Good luck on exams, Zarhon.

You realize Skitter can only teleport about 15 feet right? There's no way he can reach one of the balconies right now, if I'm reading the situation correctly.

"Too far!" he shouts down at Rolf and tries to follow through with Rolf's idea as best as possible. He yanks his sword out of the horror's skull and throws a loop of shadow around the new claw's thumb (or whatever it's using to grip the pillar) and yanks it hard downwards, prepared to jump/slide down to avoid getting hit with the pillar himself. ((Attack: Nat 20!))

Edit: Good luck Zarhon.

@ Lynt:
-Yeah, there are a few "holy bones" somewhere in the room, but you'd have to find them first, if they aren't shattered already from the reaction with the monster. The monster reabsorbed the rest that it could use or could reach it (a bone on the balcony might have been obstructed, for example).
-It is at 50% size because:
a) A lot of the scattered bones are unusable: The bones are half-charred and brittle, so they shattered easily.
b) It didn't absorb the scattered bones, it used all of them to make a new, extra hand.
c) It had to make a 2nd hand from its own body mass, bringing it down to 50% and otherwise using up any "re-absorbed" extra bones it didn't use for the first hand.

@ Ramsus: Actually, you should be able to teleport to a balcony, especially since it just ripped a pillar from one. You're on the monster's head, and its near enough to the balcony. Consider the height from riding on it's claw/head enough to teleport to a balcony (although you cant teleport from floor to balcony without getting under the balcony first, due to height

Bronymous wrote:"You got it..." Horizon groans as he picks himself up off the floor. He rushes forward to try the bone trick again, but stops as he looks to the Paladins kneeling over the High Priest. "Change of plans, you two, I'm countermanding that order." He kneels next to them and gestures to the monstrosity. "We can't keep this up all day. We need Holy Fireballs, or whatever it is you do, to take this thing down." As they attempt to protest and go back to the Priest, he grabs one by the collar and stands him up. "Which is more important? The life of the old man, or taking down the undead beast and saving your temple? He would have done the same!" Horizon releases the paladin, before storming off to help the others again.

Wow, trying to make the paladins betray their allegiance to the head of their faith and abandoning him to death in favor of a building? That's betrayal worthy of stripping a paladin of their powers. Horizon is a complete hypocrite.

Horizon

Paladin -> 14
Horizon -> 8 - 5 = 3

The paladin headbutts Horizon's helmet with his own, knocking him to the ground. As he's getting up, he calmy says:

"The High Priest is the wisest, most charismatic person in the city AND the one who maintains the majority of the wards on the temple AND one of the few people in this town who faced Zilean and lived. The temple may as well be a pile of rubble without him. A temple can't raise hope, inspire courage or raise a fearless army from common folk without a preacher behind its altar. Temples can be rebuilt. But if he dies, the whole town's faith and hope dies with him. I am NOT sacrificing that."

He then leaves a glass flask of red liquid in front of Horizon, goes to the High Priest, carefully picks him up and carries him away to a safer area. The other paladin gives Rolf a bottle of blue liquid and a glass flask of red liquid. He explains it's a potion of healing and sanctified wine, respectively. The wine can sanctify things or harm undead. He wishes you success and leaves after his colleague.

Bronymous wrote:Horizon releases the paladin, before storming off to help the others again

He didn't stick around for a response. Buuuuut assuming he had, there are three reasons why the paladins leaving the old man don't qualify as betrayal:

1- Paladins don't swear oaths of loyalty to men. They swear loyalty to their gods, sainted figures, and the religion itself. The guy might have been important, but he's not god.

2- Pelorite Paladins swear an oath to destroy undead wherever it takes form, no matter the casualty or collateral damage. It is their sworn and solemn duty to stand and fight, and either remove the unholy blight from their sacred temple, or die trying. Instead they ran off trying to keep the priest alive. They abandoned their post and their first and most important duty, and by all rights THAT is the betrayal that should have them stripped of their powers.
What's worse, is they left other people- people they swore to defend from evil and the undead- to fight and save their temple.

3- Based off of those two reasons, the Priest knew what he was getting into, and swore the same oath of self sacrifice. He would have died fighting- assuming he wasn't a coward- and the Paladins should have held him to his oath, and themselves to their own. Instead, they ran. Living to fight another day is not part of their creed- its what makes them so predictable and exploitable to characters like Horizon.

On the idea that Horizon is a hypocrite-
Hypocrisy means holding other people to a higher standard then oneself. A hypocrite faults others for some flaw or another, and believes himself better than them, but at the same time exemplifies the same or an even worse flaw. Even if he did think they would be breaking their oaths by staying and fighting, by holding them to a standard less then himself, he is in effect the opposite of a hypocrite- If someone were to do their best to keep from littering, but does not demean or yell at someone who does, you would not call them a hypocrite.

Horizon watched the craven, so-called "Defenders of the Light" leave. Any other day he would have considered going after them and relieving them of their oaths the hard way, but he had bigger issues. He sifted through the strewn-about bones, looking for something familiar. Bones were bones, though, and he decided he would be of more use distracting the monster. He drew his weapons and darted underneath the beast, breaking off and smacking away individual bones as he went. He made sure not to stand too long in one spot, in case the big guy decided to take a sudden nap.

Retro-roll to ID the red potion.

You and Horizon are making an important mistake though. They aren't pelorites exactly. Their temple and oaths are in relation to the guy who stopped Zilean. You don't actually know what their oaths were and if they're already willing to worship a man, then the man who leads them probably is the subject of their oaths. They may have oaths to destroy the undead or they might not. And even if they do if they swore oaths to that in essence tell them to protect the high priest then it's just a matter of priorities. In which case, we're busy fighting the undead and nobody but them will help the high priest who as far as they are concerned is more important than the temple and is the possibly in their view the only person around who would know how to stop Zilean a second time. So they're not abandoning their oaths at all. You/Horizon just misunderstood their beliefs/goals.

Zarhon wrote:"As for our faith, our temple, as I imagine you guessed already, mostly worships our saint and savior. His name is Gregorius the Peace-bringer. We follow in his path from observing and acting upon his own piousness, for he was a paladin of the god Pelor. So in a sense, you are correct: this is a temple to Pelor, although indirectly."

I hardly think a God of such righteous and clear intent would bestow power upon those with such an offbase interpretation of his laws. Sill though, operative assumptions being what they are, there is no reason for Horizon to think they would behave any differently than any other Pelorites.

ALSO, immediate violence over a simple misunderstanding- to one less than knowledgeable (or even completely ignorant) of the oaths of their church- isn't very LG of them.

Pelorite Paladins swear an oath to destroy undead wherever it takes form, no matter the casualty or collateral damage. It is their sworn and solemn duty to stand and fight, and either remove the unholy blight from their sacred temple, or die trying. Instead they ran off trying to keep the priest alive. They abandoned their post and their first and most important duty, and by all rights THAT is the betrayal that should have them stripped of their powers.

Let's quote wiki for this one:

Pelorians strive to perform so many good acts that evil has no room in which to exist, though they will fight if necessary. Pelor is wrathful against the forces of evil, and is especially opposed to the undead. However, Pelor urges his followers to remember that excessive attention to things of evil can blind one to the truly important things: compassion and goodness. These are what must be emphasized above all.

Pelor is more about "do good, help others" than he is about "smite evil".

ALSO, immediate violence over a simple misunderstanding- to one less than knowledgeable (or even completely ignorant) of the oaths of their church- isn't very LG of them.

Nobody said the paladins are LG. They might be CG. Imagine them as batman: Being "good" does not mean they have to be "nice", especially when dealing with someone that is somewhere in the CE/LE/NE range (which they may or may not know, depending on how much they know of your torture methods or reputation in the town).

As for the red potion, it's the same as the one Rolf got (sanctified wine).

It's only in 3.5 that Paladins have to be LG anyway. 4th basically operates like alignment doesn't exist. Which I believe is the best way as the alignments don't even really make sense with the deific setup anyway. Then again I run my D&D games as if there isn't objective good or evil at all and even when it comes to devils and demons its just a matter of perspective. I doubt Zarhon is doing that though.

Isn't the alignment system in 4E LG, G, N, E, CE? Or did someone make that up? Regardless, I've never heard of a non LG Paladin. And the fact remains that they basically ignored "do good, help others" by retreating and forcing us to clean up the mess.

Now that I think about it- we should just leave. If they don't care enough to stay and fight this thing, or save their temple, then I don't see why we should. We have no stake in winning here, other than a few less-than-appreciable rewards we can take from the temple and clergy once were done. And I guarantee you if that happens, then they're gonna come back all indignant like they deserve to keep whatever we take- including the building itself- as if they somehow earned it after running away.

Kinda looking forward to that confrontation, actually.

Yeah with their high priest down....actually....Horizon go kill the high priest. We can probably take the rest of these guys and loot the temple before the rest of the town even knows what's going on. And we could just blame it all on Zilean afterwards! Hahahaha. Ahem. =P

Yeah, that is the alignment system in 4e but it has almost no mechanical effects in the system at all so it might as well not exist. I've seen a lot of non-LG paladins as there are a lot of gods and most of them don't make any sense to even have LG paladins. Even other good deities like Corellon don't make a lot of sense to have LG worshipers. LG really only makes any sense for Bahamut, Pelor, and Moradin and maybe a couple others. But, imagine Tiamat or Lolth or Zehir with LG paladins. Or even Melora who is just neutral. How would having LG paladins help her goals?

Zarhon, you gonna move this scene along? I believe we're still waiting on you.

So what you're saying is, 3.5 is so much better in every conceivable way.

The more I think about it, the more I'm certain these Paladins and Priests are done in this city. At the very least, they're getting displaced. Maybe killed. We're definitely taking over the title of "Saviors of the City", though, so their purpose here will become obsolete.

Yes. 3.5 is better because it forces nonsensical alignments. What? No.

Unless we destroy it instead. *shrug*

Ramsus wrote: Then again I run my D&D games as if there isn't objective good or evil at all and even when it comes to devils and demons its just a matter of perspective.

The warlock says to the cleric, "We've both sold our souls to higher beings in exchange for powers beyond the ken of normal men. Your side just has better PR than mine."

Anyway, we have to save the temple so the townspeople have a safe haven. Don't you even care that...oh, silly me. I forgot I'm arguing with Mr. Apathy and Mr. Greed.

Well, have fun storming the town. I'm sure the Thieves' Guild will be happy to exchange goods with perfect strangers (assuming you can find them). And considering your "competition" is a lich, and that neither of you have ANY knowledge of magic...meh, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Ramsus, I don't think Zarhon will be updating until at least the 12th. I'm going to finish putting the transcripts on the front page, and you can write a story about Skitter's life before his exile.