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Post by brumguvnor on Jun 16, 2017 15:20:28 GMT
After many months of teaser trailers and build-up, the new season of Ragnarok begins with an up and coming director... We open on 4 people having the worst day of their life: Jeremy Crowley (Steve) - a young geeky lab worker, framed by a manager at work, in hospital with 75% burns. Colin Creavey (Dave) - a young, rich banker who got kidnapped by pirates on honeymoon and was forced to watch his wife beaten and raped, before beiing almost kicked to death himself. Kirk Savage (Kris) - a former WWE wrestler known as the Druid, now a paraplegic in a hospital bed after a wrestling move went wrong and waiting to die. Jane Watkins (Kath) - a Cof E vicar who was secretly a believer in Wicca who got framed by a REAL Satanist / child abusing cult and ran into the woods and fell down a cliff. To each of these people appeared the Goddess Hecate - goddess of witchcraft, secrecy and sorcery to make them an offer: travel to another world "a few octaves down from this one" to defend her one remaining worshipper against the worst that the Norse gods could do in Ragnarok. The characters agreed - not having anything to lose and having been promised full healing... - and also - on the transition they could grab as much magical power as their minds could comprehend.... As they went Jeremy reached out for Fire, Flesh, Mind, Shape and Magic: Colin went for Magic, Null, Perception and Flesh; Kirk went for Nature (animals and plants) Nature (environment), Magic and Flesh; Jane took Life, Magic, Luck and Flesh. They arrived in a dark, stone clad room, in the middle of a pentagram, with a very attractive young woman looking at them, saying "so... - you're the Champions Hecate sent? - I hope you're ready for a fight!" At this moment there was a scream from upstairs and Cerise shouted "Avilla!" - and ran up the stairs. The characters followed - some having the presence of mind to raise their most potent spheres of magic - and were confronted by a horde of goblins and 5 trolls tearing down the wall of the cottage to get in. Avilla was in the kitchen fending off goblins with two very large cleavers and furniture was animating itself to jump in the way of blows. Cerise pulled out two athames (witches daggers) and leapt into the fight. Colin created a blade seemingly formed of sheer nothingness, Cerise took on a troll, Kath started sucking the very lifeforce from trolls, the Druid animated allen trolls clubs into vines that entangled the remaining goblins, and Jeremy wreathed himself in insanely hot flames and started punching trolls with red hot glowing fists. When they had put down the evil bastards, the Druid put up a screening wall of living vines and Jeremy used his flames to utterly incinerate them... in fact pounding them into greasy smears in the snow to be honest. Then they realised they were naked and it was below zero... - Avilla (who had pulled Colin back from the bring of death in the fight with a small but vital touch of healing magic) scrounged them up some clothes. They began talking about what was going on - about how Olympus had been sacked by Asgard centuries before and all worshippers persecuted and slain... - about how Loki had been freed from his eons long imprisonment and was now free to start Ragnarok - how Fimbulwinter meant 30 years of winter without a single warm day...
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Post by brumguvnor on Jun 19, 2017 8:03:00 GMT
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Post by Kristian on Jun 19, 2017 19:14:51 GMT
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Post by brumguvnor on Jun 20, 2017 7:53:14 GMT
I posted images of Cerise and Avilla here - and they only seem to be showing intermittently - I will try again.
Also: does anyone else want to volunteer to write up the synopsis? - I think it would be MUCH better from a players point of view so that you only wrote about what you actually know - instead of me trying to remember what it is you know at the time... - that make sense? - I am willing to offer XP for it....
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Post by brumguvnor on Jun 23, 2017 9:01:32 GMT
Avilla bustled around the kitchen and cooked up an amazing 3 course meal for everyone in an unfeasibly short time... - and then, suddenly there were two more people in the room, with a muttered "there's been unexpected vortexes in the inter-dimensional flux...." from Hecate.
Ryan "Raven" Bradshaw (Lawrence) - a former undertaker accused of inappropriate treatment of the dead bodies in his funeral home: his wife then left him and he set the funeral home on fire - and got caught in the blaze.
Hope (Ash) - an online fortune teller
Jane and Colin had indicated that they would be interested in joining the religion of Hecate and so Cerise took them downstairs. All of the rest of the group were not interested right then, but Cerise said that they were honoured guests and more than welcome to observe. The ceremony was quite short and low-key - annointing with oil, and a promise to learn more about the Ways of Hecate from the high-priestess Cerise - and a promise to honour and obey her in anything to do with the religion.
Avilla then stressed out and would not rest until she had put together something for Ryan and Hope to wear. In Hope's case this was a tablecloth hurriedly stitched together to make a dress... - that on closer examination looked like it had been worked on for a good couple of days. They all sat around the main table in the cottage, in a warmer area conjured by Kirk. Ryan got annoyed at how cold it was and how little clothing they had available and decided to use his Flesh sphere to manifest a dense coat of thick black fur... - and also a tail, because - why the hell not?!
Kirk took a few minutes to locate a nearby owl, and then control it and then to see through it's eyes. (only after he had done the same to a raven that was roosting.... - which then flew off in the dark and knocked itself stupid against a tree it could not see...) He scouted around the area and saw the tracks of the goblins and trolls that had first attacked them - and they seemed to be converging on the cottage from all directions, and were not coming from just one compass point.
Kirk then opened the back door of the cottage and got shot by an arrow - then Ryan also went to the door and also got shot - and so did Jeremy. Jeremy decided enough was enough and put up a wall of flame in a semicircle that blocked off access to the doors. Ryan yanked the arrow out of Kirk and healed him.
Then there was a light thud of several things hitting the outside of the cottage and Jeremy realised that they were magic-imbued arrows that were burning with a ferocious intensity - and he immediately started to use his Fire sphere to put them out.
Hope activated her electromagnetism sphere and used it to bend light around her to go invisible, walked over to the front door, opened it and slipped out. She was able to do some useful scouting and broadcast a mental message to Kirk and Jane about the numbers and location of the goblins - and also avoided having her footprints in the snow be seen... - even though she was invisible, she was not flying and so they could have been seen if the goblins had been paying more attention. Incidentally - Hope was also the only person with the presence of mind to pick up a goblin sword from the first attack...
Kirk changed form using his nature - animals and plants sphere into a polar bear and charged out of the front door, into the three goblins that were sniping through the front door, and promptly Lost His Shit In No Uncertain Fashion. In game terms - he took Barbarian as his class as it fitted in best with his character background of being a pro wrestler, and used his Rage feature. However - this was different from the fake rage he used to display in the ring - this was real and much more scary. As a raging polar bear he began ripping the goblins apart.
Jane also slipped out and failed to notice anything - in fact she saw movement in the totally wrong direction and was about to direct everyone to attack a perfectly innocent tree... - but half unconsciously she had been whispering a prayer to Hecate the whole time, who managed to get her to look in the right direction. (out of character - you would not normally know you had critically failed a perception roll until much later on - when it would become dangerous after you had missed the bad guys and they got a free attack at your undefended back... - so Hecate's little intervention was something you didn't actually know had happened... - you just felt a touch of something powerful and just out of perception, drawing your attention to where the goblins actually were.)
All this time Ryan had been casting a powerful spell and finally succeed in raising one of the goblins as a zombie under his command. At the same time Jeremy finally extinguished all of the fire arrows (that had clearly been magically enhanced) and which he thought if they had been left to burn unchecked would have burnt down the cottage in mere minutes, and Kirk smashed into the last group of goblins and wolf riders and firmly and unequivocally expressed his displeasure at their rude interruption.... - and tore them apart in his fury. He was a little brought down because he had earlier hatched a plan to try and control a wolf if he ever met one, as it fitted in with his stage persona when he would walk in flanked by two large "wolves" (in reality very well trained and polite huskies) - but in his battle-rage he could not stop himself and as a polar bear he had not been able to communicate to anyone - and Hope's earlier request to "leave one alive!" had been forgotten by everyone else.
The fury of battle fades... - the bodies start to cool in the snow... - everyone looks around at the carnage and feels a little sick... - this was suddenly very real - this was not watching something on a screen - these things had wanted to kill them - via torture if possible.
[out of character; when monsters are reduced to 0 HP they do not die immediately - unless of course they are decapitated or something similar... - they might not be able to move, but the actual process of dying takes at least a minute for the blood to stop flowing and the brain to die from lack of oxygen... - just in case anyone wanted to heal up a wolf for Kirk to control... - and: if this rule applies to the monsters then it also applies to players - which is what the death saves represent to my way of thinking.
Also - in the combat I was aware of getting a bit overwhelmed with so many things to keep track of, so I am going to ask for someone else to run the battle board and collate initiative and call out when it is each person's turn. Whoever does this WILL get something nice happen in-game.
And as ever - if I have missed or forgotten anything, just let me know.
And finally.... - all of you at some point have been struck by the thought that "this is REAL!" - and had an attack of the shakes, thinking that there are these vicious creatures all around that want to kill you.... - but all of you also have a moment of "holy SHIT - I have some serious power here! - when Hecate said "you will gain the power of an Archmage" - she was not shitting"]
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Post by brumguvnor on Jul 3, 2017 13:20:44 GMT
After the fight, everyone slowly stopped shaking and came down from the adrenaline rush and came back inside... - apart from Kirk who skinned two of the wolves for their fur coats.
Then discussion turned to getting the hell out of there: whilst there was a lot of stored food in the cottage, it was far from secure, and as Kirk put it "we've had two attacks in 24 hours: they are not going to stop coming".
So preparations started: Avilla went into domestic goddess overdrive and prepared a lot of trail rations.
Both Kirk and Jane found time to sneak down to the ritual room in the cellar to spend time communing with Hecate. No one else in the party apart from Cerise knows what they did - but they both came back with a contented smile on their faces.
They all heard the howling of wolves coming from the south east - and when they talked to Cerise and established that the nearest settlement was Tylers Grove about 25 miles away to the north west, that's where they decide to go.
As the left the cottage Colin added a misdirection spell onto the secret door to the ritual room and Jeremy thoughtfully laid a firetrap spell on the front door. Kirk then called is Nature (animals and plants) spell to mind and crafted a 4 wheeled covered wagon from wood and plants. Everyone loaded this up with as much food as possible: the floor is covered in a layer of crates, and you are sitting on crates and barrels of food: everyone also got as many tools and seeds as they could and also looted the goblins of their weapons: 6 broadswords, 6 short swords and 12 daggers.
Hope looked at the overloaded wagon and said "that ain't gonna go nowhere - at least - not very fast" - and put together a spell from the Force sphere to make the wagon a hell of a lot lighter than it would otherwise be.
Kirk shapeshifted into a polar bear again and set off pulling the wagon; he REALLY wanted to do the normally 1.75 day journey in a single day. The wolfs howls were getting closer....
They had been going for about half an hour when Kirk senses spirits of nature flitting around them: he stopped long enough to write "TREES!" in the snow with an arrow pointing towards them and then set off again at a noticeably higher speed.
The party is racing through a snow-bound forest, with spirits of nature entering trees all around them, and what sounds like a pack of very pissed off, very large wolves coming along very quickly....
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Post by brumguvnor on Jul 7, 2017 9:24:59 GMT
The spirits started to enter the trees to either side of the path, but it seemed that whoever was controlling them did not have a good view, because by the time the spirits had entered into the trees and animated them, the cart pulled by Kirk in his bearshape had moved on.
But... - the trees kept getting closer and closer, until at last 3 spirits each entered into 2 trees in front of the party, and the trees ot only animated, but pulled up their roots and started to march towards them.
Jeremy called up his fire sphere and started to blast one tree, and Hope mind controlled the spirits animating one tree and made it stop. Kirk in bear form tried to convey the concept of "free me from this harness so that I might twat the ungodly animated trees" but for some strange reason was not able to put this across via the medium of interpretative eyebrow movements. Kirk did some more of his plant sphere magic and caused the wheel of the cart to grow very long, spiked and barbed wheel-hub thorns, to chop at anyone they went past.
Colin started to put up a formidable series of wards aimed at nullifying incoming damage and reflecting it back onto the attacker - but only after a flight of arrows came out of the forest from an unseen ambush and struck half the party. Jeremy threw a fireball at them and was rewarded with the sound of some screams.
After dispatching the two animated trees they carried on - at an even quicker pace than before. Kirk as a polar bear was strong and had amazing endurance... - but not limitless endurance. Even with Hope lightening the load on the cart, it was still a lot of weight for even something as large as a bear to pull all day at full tilt.
After rounding a corner marked by a large stone at the side of the trail, they saw that a tree had come down and completely blocked the path ahead. Everyone immediately thought 'ambush!" and Kirk slowed down. This time Hope realised he would be more effective at fighting and released him from the traces and he went bounding ahead - to come to a stop as he sensed a pit trap in front of them: he took a running leap to get over it - and slipped on take off to land fully on the spikes in the trap. Colin ran down the length of his body and charged over the downed tree and laid into the 3 goblin shamans. Jeremy soon followed and they made short work of them - and then the 3 camouflaged dire wolves shook of their concealment and joined the fray, only to meet their doom too.
With the time getting late they pushed onto Tylers Grove at full speed, and Jane healed up many of the party that had been hurt - and was even able to turn her Life sphere to banish the exhaustion of Kirk in bearshape.
Whilst traveling the last leg, Kirk used is Nature - animals sphere to search out any nearby wolves... - one was close and he called it to him. He worked his will and impressed on the wolf that he was it's pack leader and Alpha - and as the spell took hold the wold trotted companionably alongside Kirk.
Finally they burst out of the woods and into a large open area - and saw in front of them the shapes of some buildings, silhouetted against a fire, with thick black smoke billowing out.
Some shapes were moving between them and the fire and they were not quite able to make out what they were...
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Post by brumguvnor on Jul 14, 2017 13:35:21 GMT
The shapes turned out to be a mercenary company - the 5th Margold Foot - and a bunch of refugees.
All of them were in a very bad state: the mercenaries led by Captain Marcus Tannhauser had been sent out to sweep for supplies and survivors - and 50 of their original 100 had died, and 25 of those remaining were injured. At this point, anyone who knows anything at all about the military will be deeply shocked and impressed the Tannhauser has kept his men together as a cohesive fighting force after taking 50% casualties.
The mercs and the refugees were heading back to the nearest walled town - Lanrest - and were happy for the party to come along with them - and asked if they could help in any way with defense... - and when they found out that some in the party were healers they were really interested in getting some of their members healed up - especially 2 who would not otherwise make it through the night.
They were more than happy for the party to loot the town and any bodies for better clothes and Hope promptly walked into the nearest building which turned out to be a general store and came back with a trunk of clothes in everyone's size, and a lot of cheap, sturdy jewellery.
Jeremy did some healing on the 2 very injured men - just enough so that they could be properly healed when his mana regenerated and then people went to bed or started some rituals. Jayne went into a deep, involved ritual that lasted 4 hours and at the end of it came out with an amulet that she looks really pleased with... - that permanently heals the wearer.
Jeremy sat down at midnight and started to concentrate and put into effect something he had obviously been thinking a lot about. Realising that when a fight started, it was always a pain to put together spells on the fly, he case a number of enchantments on himself that would last all day - and be in effect if his spheres were called to mind or not. He made his skin as hard as iron, made himself much tougher and stronger, made each blow from his fist cause massive fire damage and made himself able to regenerate a huge amount of damage each turn.
This was shown to be a very wide plan when 2 frost giants launched 2 huge rocks into camp: one landed on the wagon, crushing it and hurting Jayne, Cerise and Avilla who were inside it and one landed on the main campfire, waking Hope and helping to alert the rest of the camp.
The frost giants then attacked in melee - with 3 Felwolves, each the size of an elephant. Kirk changed into a mammoth and charged them and went berserk with rage, and Jeremy started to lay into them with his bare hands - which did shocking amounts of damage with his fire enhancements. The giants fought back strongly, and if Kirk had not been in a berserk rage and if Jeremy had not armoured himself and had a permanent regeneration spell in effect they would have both died... - as it is with the rest of the party blasting in from the outside - and some very well placed lighting bolts from an invisible Hope - they managed to put them down.
As usual there is the sick feeling at the end of a fight, where the adrenaline wears off and you realise you could have died. The rest of the camp seemed to have a lot of screaming and shouting going on, and you all stop to look up and see what's going on.
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Post by brumguvnor on Jul 25, 2017 9:16:12 GMT
As you all look around after the fight, you realise your battle was just one part of it - at least one other frost giant and felwolf attacked the camp, and as the others did not have magical aid it did not go very well for them - a lot more of the 5th Margold and the refugees had been killed and hurt. Tannhauser came over to talk to you and you saw he had taken a very nasty wound in his upper arm- the kind of wound that would have put most ordinary people out of the fight for good. Jayne used her amulet to heal Tannhauser and then everyone else who had got hurt in the fight - especially the 2 sergeants who were injured last night and their camp follower Ashara who Hope had been talking to. The party then spent a couple of hours helping the mercenaries construct enough sleds to get everyone on with as many supplies as possible, and Kirk summoned a pack of very large moose to the camp - and Hope then mind controlled them to act as beasts of burden and pull the sleds. They also removed a lot of the weight from 2 sleds and piled these high with people and supplies and had 1 moose pull both of the lightened sleds. The emblem of the 5th Margold footThere was also more than enough armour from fallen mercenaries for everyone to take their pick - and a lot of left over weapons too: swords, shields, waraxes and crossbows. Marcus also made sure everyone wore the emblem of the 5th Margold as a way to stop anyone hassling you all. Avilla started to get one of the felwolves skinned for its fur and got Jeremy to use his magic to cure it instantly. She also cooked a lot of one of the other felwolves and everyone got a boost from the animal vitality of the beast that she had magially capptured and put into the meal. You could feel its potency and also that you could make a choice - to take it as a short term boost, or to let it sink into your essence and have a longer term effect on you... - all of the party went for the short term boost and found themselves stronger and better able to resist the cold for the day... - some of the refugees had a very thoughtful look on their face as they ate theirs... They then started the journey to Lanrest, moving as quickly as possible. On the way they came to the Glimmermere river which was still unfrozen, due to it flowing so fast... - and it was a damn good thing it was too, because on the other side of the river they saw an Ungol. Superficially it looked a lot like a velociraptor, except perhaps twice as large - easily weighing as much as a large horse... - but with much longer and stronger arms and much bigger claws on arms and legs... - and a scaly, very tough looking skin that seemed to be able to shift colour to blend in with any background, and a disturbingly intelligent gleam in its eyes. When Cerise saw them she was genuinely scared and said "they are Chthonic beasts from the Stygian Abyss beyond Tartarus - the path to their realm was sealed before Olympus fell. Olympus sealed the doors to the Plane of Terror and bound the Titans in front of them so they would only have to watch one place." When they finally arrived at Lanrest they were overwhelmed by the stench - the streets were open sewers. They saw it was massively crowded with refugees everywhere - down every alleyway and in all of the streets. They talked about how to proceed and accompanied Tannhauser as he went to see Baron Stein. One thing you all notice on the way in: the walls are about 3 meters tall - they could probably fend off a troll and goblin attack... - but if more frost giants came then those walls might not be large enough to stop them... As they were going, Colin magically boosted his perceptions and so was able to notice many things - particularly the Baron whispering in jest (he hoped...) that all the females in the group be 'stripped, scrubbed, bound, gagged and sent to my room"... The Baron did not seem impressed with Tannhauser, despite Marcus having kept his command functioning with over 50% casualties, and he asked what the group could do for him. Hope demonstrated some force magic and Colin negated damage from an arrow and the Baron seemed somewhat reassured... - enough at least that he allowed them to share barracks with the 5th Margold for now. Tannhauser led them all away to where they are living - one of the towers in the wall. The layout of the towerLanrest: your tower is the one in the top left, up against the river
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Post by brumguvnor on Jul 28, 2017 12:11:39 GMT
And this week, they got back to the tower, put the supplies and sleds away, decided which rooms to sleep in and went to bed. Colin worked out a ritual to cast to enchant an item.. - and that was pretty much it! - there was just Kath and Dave there this week due to holidays and other commitments so we kept it light and mainly just chatted.
If everyone else wants to work out a ritual they want to cast in this downtime then work out all the details and let me know.
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gilbo
2019 Group
Posts: 1,446
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Post by gilbo on Aug 12, 2017 15:28:33 GMT
Jeremy's Diary
We settled in to our quarters in one of the towers in Lanrest today. The people here are friendly enough but the Baron is a complete dick. We set about trying to help with the defences of the place. I heated up some stones and put them in the fireplaces, which went down well with everyone. Kirk did some scouting out - he seems to be able to see through the eyes of bats and stuff, abit like worging in Game of Thrones - and he discovered a camp of goblins just across the river, with worse things further out. It seemed that the river would freeze soon, so I had a look and resolved to do something in the morning.
Next day I did my usual rituals, pumping myself up, hardening flesh and adding fire effects to my attacks, as well as armouring myself with plates and spikes. I also replenished the heating stones and created some super-hot rocks to put in the river, which I hoped would prevent the freeze. Kirk spent awhile chanting and doing his funny poses and caused about a hundred trees to walk out of the forest and plant themselves as fence posts around the town. It was pretty impressive, but caused a bit of a panic among the folk in the town. This high priest dude turned up and kicked up a bit of a fuss, but we eventually calmed him down when he realised what we were doing. Kirk agreed to give him and Tannhauser fair warning next time he did anything like that, so that was okay. Colin had agreed to give the Baron some protection each day, which he did, and Kirk then summoned some more trees. As this was happening an alarm was sounded warning of an attack.
Me, Colin and Jane rushed down to the bridge as three massive frost giants arrived. I sent in my fire goblin, but he was immediately crushed by one of the giants! This made me pretty angry, so I charged at them, smashing at them with my firey fists. Colin used his negative energy to attack them while Jane tried to suck out their life force. This didn't seem to work very well, the giants seemed to have some sort of magic resistance. They attacked us with massive swords, but thanks to Colin's protective wards they had virtually no effect. They created some sort of icy blast which hurt Jane a bit. They certainly weren't like standard D&D frost giants! I damaged one pretty badly causing him to jump off the bridge and swim off. The others stepped back and created a wall of ice between us and them. I used a powerful fire spell to melt the ice - so powerful that it caused a huge cloud of steam which hurt more than the giant's attacks. I made a hole big enough to get through, but by this time the giants had fled. I think they'll think again before coming back. They're gonna need an army to get past us...
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Post by brumguvnor on Aug 14, 2017 15:59:32 GMT
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Post by brumguvnor on Aug 23, 2017 13:47:45 GMT
The party (except for Kirk who was still summoning trees to form the northern wall of Lanrest adjacent to the river) heard an alarm going over on the southern edge of the town from the bridge and made their way over there - through very panicked crowds.
When they were nearly at the South Gate they encountered a group of four marauding trolls, each one of which had a goblin shaman riding on it's shoulders. They waded in thinking it would be an easy fight and were shocked to see how much the shaman had increaded the fighting prowess and toughness of the trolls.
After spending so much of his power on spells specifically designed to improve his own combat prowess, Jeremy waded into the fight with gusto: Ryan though, having not done nearly so many empowering spells was soon in deep trouble and a hearbeat from death - until Jayne managed to get her healing amulet onto him. Kirk heard what was happening and hurried to finish his tree-wall building and shape-shifted into a giant eagle: he grabbed his faithful wolf and flew over to the fight - and landed on the nearby rooftops which had been infested with an elite goblin shaman assassination squad: he shapeshifted again into polar bear form and started to lay into them with his wol.
The party were slowly gaining the upper hand against intensely tough opponents when they were barged aside by a massive force - something or some things had shouldered them aside and were charging to the center of the town. Kirk came down from the rooftops and started to track them - but both their tracks and their scent trail soon faded.
They all looked slowly around as they realised that this had been the tip of the spear - the breaching squad sent to batter down the walls and get into the town and allow access to the rest of them... - which turned out to be a veritable horde of goblins, trolls and direwolves came pouring in...
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Post by brumguvnor on Sept 2, 2017 13:51:34 GMT
Jeremy and Raven waded into the horde flowing through the gates, and each one was no match for them... - but there were just so many. On arriving at the all Jeremy cleared a space and Ryan proceeded to use the sphere of Flesh and Bone to build a wall of living Goblin bodies, melded together to form a single bodily mass.
They came across an unlikely alliance of two trades that are always found near to the gates of any low-tech city - a brothel and a blacksmiths. Their leader was a giant of a man called Oskar, clearly a smith who had organised his family and the ladies of negotiable virtue to defend their homes and a small area around them.
Then Jeremy, Ryan and Kirk headed up the two streets parallel to the walls and cleared the last of the remaining goblin scum: they had been breaking into every home, dragging the occupants out and slaughtering them in the streets - and then setting fire to the buildings.
Kirk and his wolf got sick and tired of the goblin shamans on the roofs taking magical potshots at them and broke into a house - terrifying the family huddled there - and went to the roof.... - taking just enough time for his sphere of Flesh to heal him of the wounds acquired in the recent battle. Once he got to the roof he found they had fled and could not be traced, so he returned to the street.
At this moment Jane cast a powerful spell of the Magic sphere to detect all active magic within a very wide area. She saw all of her friends blazing with magic as expected and many (very many!) smaller glows of magic from all the goblin shamans, and two areas of hostile magic flaring up at the other two gates of the town. Looking at the river she saw the hot stones dropped in there by Jeremy and the line of trees forming a wall alongside it, magicked there by Kirk. In their own tower she could not see the spell of distraction put up by Colin that would shield Cerise and Avilla from the notice of anyone not a demigod. In the center of the town she saw a great and subtle magic around the temple and in the very ground beneath it - and was able to overcome it's wards to sense Cerise inside it. In t he keep she saw several flashes of magic that were old and strong and attached to things and not being currently cast by a mage - and the unique sense of Avilla's magic.
Then they all turned to deal with the half-seen shapes that had burst past them in the middle of the fight and hurried to the Baron's keep. There they found three Ungols trying to get through the door - which was defended by the Baron who showed all of the prowess of a professional warrior with enough money to buy the best training, arms and armour - and to also buy a spell of potent damage reduction cast daily by Colin.
They fell upon their enemies unguarded rear and attacked with full force: within a single moment of combat they had killed one of the Ungols and severely wounded a second... - who t hen burnt all of his remaining lifeforce in a spell of terrifying potency: all active spells in the area were dismissed as if they were cobwebs and for a horrifying few seconds every single mote of damage inflicted on the denizens of the Planes of Terror also manifested itself on the body of the one dealing it.
This made a small skirmish into a vicious life and death struggle: soon members of the party were lying on the floor gasping from mortal wounds, and feeling their lives beginning to ebb away into the cold snow with their lifeblood... - until Jane could get to them and heal them with the amulet she had made with the help of Dark Hecate, at which point several of them had powers sufficient to heal themselves.
They concentrated all of their magical and martial prowess on the last remaining Ungol and slaughtered the foul, unholy creature where it stood.
As one, their eyes turned to the Keep where Avilla, the one true love of the person they had been summoned to this world to defend was being held captive. Without needing to say a word they all agreed: break in here, kill anyone between them and Avilla, and then get to the temple to get Cerise.
Kirk in his war-form of a full-grown mammoth smashed the doors down in a single mighty blow.
The episode finishes with a view of the party, looking bloody and battered - but also angry and determined, looking in through the now open door to the Baron's Keep.
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Post by brumguvnor on Sept 8, 2017 15:48:36 GMT
They were met with the Baron's sworn men-at-arms, arrayed to stop them. They demanded entry and to be housed by the Baron and a sergeant major led them to an unoccupied barracks room on the ground floor. On the way there they started to cast healing magic and to empower themselves with spells.
After taking a quick breather in the barracks room, they got the wolf, Winter to sniff out where Avilla might be, and he followed his nose up to the 4th floor where the Baron's personal chambers were. There were two more than competent looking guards outside it in full, serviceable plate, who quite clearly told them to "feck off".
Jeremy used his Mind sphere and implanted the idea in their minds that if they didn't feck off and go get something to eat then they'd go hungry for the rest of the day - and so off they fecked.
Kirk pounded on the Baron's door and demanded entry: then using his magic-enhanced strength gave it 2 almighty blows and was getting ready for the third which would have smashed the door in completely when the Baron took his chance and thrust out of the door with his greatsword... - a weapon not really designed for thrusting, but he was a very competent fighter. In fact so competent was he that he was soon getting the upperhand... - especially when a mis-swing of Kirk with his massively magically imbued greataxe nearly took Jane's head off.
(in a special sequence we see the sword going straight for her neck, and she screams in her mind "Hecate: help me!" - and the goddess reaches through time and space and not only moves Jane's amulet into the path of the blow but also imbues it with enough power to deflect the worst of the damage. However - that power had to come from somewhere and Hecate took all she needed and more directly from Jane: and so Jane dropped to the floor, totally exhausted, hovering close to death, her amulet destroyed and all her magics exhausted... - but still alive)
Jeremy was enraged at this fat pig of an arrogant, naked Baron was causing so much difficulty and summoned the utmost limit of his Fire sphere, and directed a blast of plasma fire as hot as the surface of the sun straight at the Baron's face: this blast was not stopped by the Baron's head - his head, neck and shoulders were utterly disintegrated by the ferocious blast... - and Jeremy was lucky not to harm the occupant of the room, Avilla.
She was naked and tied to the bed and had been severely beaten by the Baron, prior to far, far worse happening. As soon as Avilla was free she kicked the Baron's corpse and cursed his name and family... and then sank down into an exhausted heap and cast a ritual to heal herself.
Jeremy thought to pick up the Baron's sword that had been doing so much damage in the short, nasty fight and it immediately shocked him as he was no true Son of Odin, which in his enhanced state only did minor damage, but he was wise enough to drop the sword.
They were then pushed out of the Baron's keep towards the nearby temple where Cerise had been taken and Kirk began to batter down the door again. When anyone not a worshiper of the Norse stood on the floor, the many years of rituals and magic that had been steeped into the wood and stone of the temple assaulted the party: it slowly worked at reducing their magic and battering their souls.
At the far end of the main hall by the altar with its manacles and blood gutters were 5 guards who launched javelins at the party and then closed to fight. Even with the effects of the holy ground attacking them all the time they soon prevailed and found the stairs down to the cellar, as Avilla told them "the priest-bastards like to do their dark deeds underground"
They burst into a ritual chamber with very expensive, mastercrafted ritual circles and pentacles on the floor and saw a lithe shape with horns, claws and wings which they eventually realised was Cerise behind a force field. They realised they she had been imprisoned and the priests had used a captured demon to kill her... - but she had prevailed against it and had stolen much of it's power. The priests were raising another large urn containing the essence of a demon up to the forcefield, clearly intending to unleash another, more powerful infernal beast into the magical containment area to finish off Cerise when the party leapt to the attack.
Winter the wolf had been enhanced by Kirk and wreaked bloody ruin upon the high priest and the acolytes and soon the magical barrier imprisoning Cerise died when he did. Avilla rushed up to her lover - seemingly totally unfazed by the claws, wings and horns - and had a brief, passionate reunion. They left the temple, but not before Jeremy instructed his fire imp to burn it to the ground.
Returning to the Keep they ascended to the highest point to survey the city and found they could see no fighting at any of the 3 gates, and surmised that Tannhauser, Colin and Ryan had managed to seal them up, at least for the time being.
They return to the Great Hall and discover that the Baron had hoarded a huge amount of food in the castle cellars, and that now that the Baron was dead, Tannhauser and the 5th Margold were free to swear service to anyone they liked. They also knew that large areas of the town had been ransacked by the goblin and troll horde and many citizens killed... - and that there was enough food in the cellars to feed everyone, but only for perhaps 4 or 5 weeks. And that they were now the strongest force remaining in the city, responsible for not just the refugees they brought with them from Tylers Grove but also the 2 or 3 thousand people in the town.
The episode closes with them sitting there, exhausted, battered and bruised from their Day of Hell and wondering... - just what the hell do they do now?
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