Secrets of the Blue Agents

[This summary was created by Nate.  Thanks Nate!]

Dev and Jago talk while Meraud and the others sleep.  The highlights:

• Jago confirms off-handedly that he is a vampire.
• They struggle to establish trust without disclosing any potentially damaging information.
• Dev says outright that he doesn't trust Jago or Meraud.
• Jago is aware that Dev is Iluvien's brother, but since he didn't trust Iluvien either, this doesn't help.
• In a gesture of goodwill, Jago tells Dev more of Occulke and the War of Keyholes.  Apparently Clattermouth directed the tar orphans (the headless flyers) and the ghasts that were attacking us.  Occulke sent/controlled the tentacle thing.  "Occulke protects his own".  But because his argument does not build upon anything Dev already knows, it doesn't give Dev a reason to trust.  Jago could be lying, and the entire episode with the ghasts, the flyers, and the tentacles could be a ruse to drive us to Jago and Meraud.
• Jago begs Dev to give him a reason to trust him.  Dev takes a risk and tells him about finding the heron-marked coins in the caverns below the roots.  Jago says this confirms something he had already suspected - something about "Jester" - but does not elaborate.  Apparently this is not sufficient.
• Still searching for a path to common ground, Dev asks Jago what he needs to trust him.  Jago asks "what have you done for us recently?".  Dev mentions killing ghasts, fighting harpies and gnolls, killing grimlocks.  He mentions fighting the blue dragon, which elicits surprise and skepticism from Jago.  When Jago realizes that the fight with the dragon occurred in Olemheiden - far from the blue dragon's natural habitat - he becomes alarmed.  He asks where the dragon came from.  Dev replies that he doesn't know, but that he suspects that the dragon may have come from beneath the orulins, which further agitates Jago.
• Finally, Jago asks what else has happened in Olemheiden recently.  When Dev mentions the earthquake, Jago starts using ALL CAPS.  HE WAKES MERAUD AND YELLS THAT THE TRUSS IS BROKEN.

Game Session, 2009.04.27

Posted to Google Docs.

Hunted & Saved

The party, depleted of its magic, attempts to rest in the maze.  This does not go as planned, however.  To give Dev a chance to rest, Crom takes a spell at the watch.  Maurice appoints the fallen babau, newly risen as a zombie, to assist with the watch at another corridor.  Almost immediately, ghasts start appearing, tearing at the zombie demon and the berserking human with no apparent care for their existence.  But soon it becomes clear that this is not an isolated series of attacks, but an assault, as more and more undead keep arriving, climbing over the walls and at the same time pushing the babau zombie back with a mass of bodies.  Crom cannot hold back the tide on his own and he wakes the rest of the party up, but it's already too late.. there are too many enemies and not enough swords, and then Crom himself falls, paralyzed by an early attack.

The party is already depleted, and there seems to be no recourse except immediate retreat, but without Crom.  As they slowly come to this realization, two dark, non-ghast-shaped figures arrive and exhort the party with loud screams to follow them.  The characters do so quickly after it becomes apparent that Crom is going to get torn apart anyway, and the babau is probably beyond saving as well.  More and more ghasts and hunting the team, and coming from every direction.  Soon, however, a keening wail from above announces more, and more deadly trouble: two tar orphans, the headless fliers of the Soft World, are flapping around overhead, apparently looking for a gap in the flood of undead to make their attack.

The characters chase headlong after the two mysterious arrivals, who lead the party to a trapdoor in the glass ground, and start pushing the heroes through it to safety.  Even as this happens, the tar orphans decide to make their move, and smash through the glass walls of the maze, sending deadly fragments flying everywhere.  But their attack is halted as two great lashing tentacles grab and crush them, sending their bodies off into oblivion.  The tentacles then begin pummeling and tossing ghasts, giving the saviors and the heroes time to get to safety.

Just before she ducks through, Tiffy tries one last-ditch effort to save Crom, and with her final magic summons a great beetle to push back the hordes and try to pull the body out of the fray.  Then they all scramble into the bolthole and latch the trapdoor behind them.

Once inside they are introduced to their saviors, a woman named Meraud and a man named Jago.  It is clear immediately that the plan to save the heroes from the ghasts was not unanimously approved, as the woman holds out a holy symbol, a disk bearing the heron symbol they have seen before, and attempts to turn the party members.  Nobody flinches, and she agrees to let them stay.

The party rests, but Dev agrees, once again, to stand watch, this time to discuss the immediate future with Jago.

Welcome Page, updated

This entry should help new players to the game get acquainted with how things work.

If you do nothing else, join the Google Group linked below so you can ask questions about the rest.

Important links for players:

Google Group: link

We have an email component. Apply to join this group if you are interested. This is a great place to seek help, ask questions, meet the players and play by email. I also make announcements on here.

IRC: #vellum on freenode

Games are conducted on IRC. Use an IRC client such as mIRC, Pidgin, Xchat, etc. to join us in #vellum on freenode - our server and channel.

If you are having any trouble with any of the software or character creation, please join us on IRC in this channel where it will be easiest for us to help you.

RPTools Maptool: download link

Make sure to download Version 1.3 of Maptool. Maptool is the "virtual game table" - how I help players visualize the map they're in.

Halfrest: link

This is an online character pastebin. You may create your character directly in here by using the Template button or create it elsewhere and paste it here, but your character will be available online from here. Our character pages are editable plain text (actually a format known as RestructuredText which is easy to read and write and formats nicely).

The DM recommends using Its All Text, a Firefox extension, for editing the character sheet in Halfrest.

Intro Story: link

Condensed version of events to this point, for catching up and figuring out your character's background story.

Game Sessions Calendar:

We play approximately 2 sessions a month, usually on Tuesday evenings (PST).

And, if you're curious about my maps and want to make your own: I use Dundjinni.

From the Lower Planes

A thing from the Abyss has attacked the party.  In a whirlwind of action, Ellira illuminates the scene with daylight while the rest of the party desperately tries to hit the monster, to no avail.  Crom, seeing Tiffy's mortal danger, rushes the monster but it simply knocks him back, snarling and laughing in its gory language.

But Maurice manages to strike first, inflicting wounds on it with a spell and drawing its wrath.  It lashes back at him when he tries to make a move across the battlefield, and as the other party members strike, it seems to heal from all injuries and deal back twice as much damage as they would have caused.

Soon Crom is bleeding, but still protecting Tiffy as her spells whittle away at the demon's hit points with missile after missile.  Dev flails in vain, unable to do much worse than scratches to this thing which simply ignores steel weapons.  But Maurice has a solution: he casts align weapon on Crom and Dev's weapons while Tiffy continues to plug away with the magic missiles.

Between Dev's bow, Crom's Ungarik, Tiffy's missiles and the babau's claws and teeth, the battlefield becomes a shower of blood but when it clears, the party stands over the underworlder's vacant corpse.

Maurice celebrates the occasion by animating it as a zombie.

Game Session, 2009.04.07

Posted to Google Docs.