Fourth - Fifth Level Campaign History DM's Perspective

Fourth - Fifth Level Campaign History DM's Perspective

The party regroups back at the village after a 2 years of in game side questing. The village is mostly rebuilt and things would be getting back to normal if they hadn't learned what the party did in the past 2 years.

They discover on party member is always followed by ombu now, and those ombu may have planted a listening device (scarab) that they reprogram to show them the way to the one who scryed upon them. They discover a teleportation circl on the ground with tarot card slots that they alter the pattern on them to show 4 different locations, assumedly matching those of the gatekeepers. As soon as the swamp appears, the scarab who has been leading them flys through it.

The party have a few skill challenges with the locals in order to gain their trust and help, frog gigging, log rolling, and bedroom wrestling. All of which contribute to the goal of finding their way through the swamp to their real objective the Witch (howling hag) gatekeeper, who they must defeat in cooperating with the Cercators so that Sharina or Lissera isn't killed for their insubordination.

The party enters the swamp and after a randomish encounter, run into a Dryad who tests their will and goals to see if she would allow them to pass. The party answers the riddles of the tarot cards to discover the will of nature is to have all things in balance, death, birth, sustinence and famine all play a role in the harmony. Seemingly in agreement with the Dryad's riddles she allows the party to pass and further venture to seek the witch.

Another randomish encounter later, and the party comes across a temple of Lolth (the god of guile and treachery) they discover hundreds of graves of females of different races going back generations named Lotus. After pondering a riddle of mod-soul weapons, the party discovers that if they offer the unformed version of their weapon to the temple they gain entry.

The party discovers a girl with a family resemblance to Sharina, calling herself Lotus inside. After a 'game' known as a seance with Lotus, the party manages to awaken something claiming to tbe the Raven Queen inside Lotus that apparently took someone telling her, her name before she would awaken. The Queen begins to tell the party something when she interrupts herself apparently sensing the presence of someone else, and says you must rescue the captains Pelor, Sehanine, Melora.

Lotus then falls unconscious as a hollow emerges saying to two party members something along these lines, 'that will be about enough of that. No soulreaper was ever intended to enter this place, much less awaken the queen. I will have to remedy this mistake for the master, and we will just have to start this little experiment all over again.'

At the outset of the session and a conversation with Lotus, she claims to not recall much about the Raven Queen and insists she is just Lotus and doesn't want anything to do with this Raven Queen. She just doesn't want anyone to have to fight or die anymore, and the only way for Crusio and her family not to have to endure this again is for Lotus to find her sister. Lotus drugs the party to sleep and escapes the temple to apparently face the gatekeepers herself and find her sister, so that no one else has to fight anymore.

All of which the party begins to believe is outside the cycle already, assuming that the whole thing wasn't one giant illusion by Lolth, the party seems to have broken the cycle of death and rebirth of the Nobu, but inherently they do not know which part of the cycle they have broken yet, the death part or the rebirth part. As they have observed it seems that Lotus function in all of it is to survive and bear the children that will become the next nobu family, and if she dies - what then? (as a side note I will give the party this information, the bodies of the prior Lotus all seem to have died in child birth).

The stakes are high no matter what road they take, refuse to fight the gatekeepers and the Cercators will likely kill Lissera and/or Sharina.

Fight the gatekeepers and become stronger only to be claimed as a vessel for their god.

Save Lotus only for her to potentially bear the next generation of nobu, when Crusio and Sharina die.

Save the Captains, but who are they and how are you to save them while you have all of the above to contend with.

Food for thought: aka. DM hint section

Is there significance to the fact that the Raven Queen guiled into the trappings of a human form asks the party to save captains who happen to also have godly names? Might that mean that other deities fell into the same trap?

If other deities feel into the same trap and the trap appears to be cyclical, who would potentially be necessary and reoccuring for the cycle to take place, might it be a fair assumption that these necessary parts to the cycle might be the other trapped deities?

If Lotus is the Raven Queen, and she named 3 other deities, who else might be part of the same cycle as Lotus and inherently might share her fate?

Be thinking about:

how did these gods get trapped in human bodies in the first place?

If the Cercators were able to put other's gods into human trappings so easily why are they having such a hard time finding a vessel for their own?

Why aren't the Cercators just using Crusio's body, rather than trying to find someone who can defeat him to be the vessel?

What is the ultimate purpose of forcing the party to use mod-soul weapons that to your knowledge were designed to augment the wielders abilities as a reflection of the will, if the Cercators wanted the most powerful vessel for their god, then wouldn't it make more sense to have the most powerful vessel before augmentation rather than one merely powerful because of augmentation?

If these mod-soul weapons can access your soul or will and reflect it, this would suggest it is a two way conduit directly linked to your own soul or will - if something comes out of you and manifests itself, then what's to say something can't go into you and manifest?

Wrapping up Fourth to Fith - The Final solo (Howling Hag)

So couple players down, our rogue and barbarian, we begin the session picking back up the wizard from his side jaunt down the other primary flow of the river (how we wrote him out from missing the previous session).

The party whole (or mostly so) again turns to adventuring down the primary flow of the river with knowledge they will soon meet the 'witch' gatekeeper - and perhaps Lotus who seeks the gatekeeper to reveal where her sister is and to protect her new friends from fighting her families battles. The party primarily believing that Lotus is merely the vessel for the Raven Queen decide that whether or not the lives is of no concern as perhaps it would lead to the Queen being set free (as in death the soul may depart the body).

The party comes to the end of the primary flow of the swampy river and are confronted with a barrier of semi-solid fog; they hear battle and a conversation between Lotus who demands to know where her sister is, and and old crone's ragged voice that tells Lotus to stand down as she doesn't wish to have to use this power on her. Lotus refuses saying she cannot, she must defeat the witch and save her new friends from having to fight her battles. Moments later the sound of battle stops, nothing else is heard, but the fog does mysteriously lift as though the witch used up too much power or 'chakra' to defeat Lotus and could no longer sustain the barrier.

The Barrier of fog lifted, the party sees the old Hag perched on top a series of evenly spaced 1 ft poles, set 5ft down into a trench of swampy water (i.e. difficult terrain). The Fighter rushes in and pins a fallen Lotus to on of the poles with a javelin, keeping her from drowning in the waters - noticing that Lotus eyes are much similar to those Rygenhijo ninja whom they battled earlier that appeared out of their minds. The hag swiftly uses her recharging teleport (adapted to recharge b/c of being a solo, also adapted for recharge her primary howl ability) she uses her primary howl on most of the nearby party dealing a significant amount of damage that the well prepared cleric mitigates with excellent uses of healing.

Between the difficult terrain and the Hag's ability to perch on top training poles with a general blast attack of 5x5 squares. The primarily melee party has some difficulty approaching the hag on her turf, one member unwearily manuvers towards the Hag, by Lotus and is attacked by her while she is still pinned to the pole, creating an impossible situation around that pole, attack and you will be attacked by an ally.

Eventually the spirtually aware party member engages a 'blank' hollow that was being used to control Lotus freeing her to join the battle. Even with the attentional attack power of the NPC, the group was having difficulty overcoming the problem of how to attack that hag on her turf; when the fighter gets the bold idea to speak to his weapon and see if it can change shape (as previously seen done in another session) it changes from a short spear to a long spear, giving him the reach he needed to no longer have to attempt to climb and grapple or bullrush the hag off of her perches. This gets the hag in range for 3 rounds of general melee pummeling . At the end of which Lotus has the hag restrained in a unique sword alteration technique that acts like a constrictor snake; unfortunately the hag's teleport ability finally recharges for the first time in 4 rds of trying - the hag ports away, followed by our spiritually aware and lotus who attempts and fails a bullrush attack falling onto the spiritually aware party member.

Nevertheless, the party refuses to back down and fight the hag elsewhere, which eventually results in everyone except the fighter and the wizard, unconscious. The Fighter makes a desperate ploy leaping to attack the hag and misses, recalling how others had used their mythical weapons by plunging them into their chests and causing great creatures of power to emerge he turns his weapon towards himself as he falls and thrusts it through his body causing a green dragon level 5 solo to emerge - that as it turns out has a remnant of his uncles memory or such stain inside of it, that says this is not what I wanted for you. The creature out of the control of the player is driven by only one purpose to destory the 'casters' ninjutsu users of the world, unfortunately for our wizard he just so happens to be such a ninjutsu user. Compelled by the dragon spirit that reflects his true heart for truth and vengance the fighter in dragon form attacks the wizard, failing to regain control until he has knocked the wizard to 0 hp. At which point a strange school girl shows up wearing the emblems of kyotenichi, the girls body drops way as the spirit of the girl emerges from the body wielding a form of nodachi, and black/white kimono.

The girl forces the fighter out of the form of the dragon, screaming for Onagi (our spiritually aware PC) saying where is he what has he allowed to happen now. She chastises the fighter for meddling in powers he doesn't understand, and tries to force him to tell her where Onagi is. She drags him unwillingly along, and eventually finds Onagi unconscious on the ground, she uses a flame skull glove and forces his spirit out of his body and begins to berate him for all he has done wrong - revealing his power to these mortals, allowing them to wield mod-soul weapons, etc. The fighter distrusts her and dislikes being ordered around by some stranger without warrant and says, if you don't think we should be wielding these mod soul weapons then you should try and take them from us, at which point she over powers him and does exactly that - saying you are not ready to wield these weapons, as you can see, you nearly destroyed your own party.

I will take them, and though they were to have been destroyed long ago, you may indeed have to wield them as no with your awareness the hollows will surely hunt you all. (this is all your fault onagi, I warned you).

The party confesses the long details of their journey to her, and why they are here, and who they believe Lotus to be, Rukia (the spirit girl) places the glove to Lotus and out comes the Raven Queen herself.

So last time we had a few questions raised or conversations that folks wanted to have so, I think we should probably do that here on the post so everyone can catch up to speed with things they want answered from the Queen, and what they want to be doing during the 1 year training period with Rukia (luckily the cercators believe the green dragon likely finished off the rest of the party and won't be looking for them for awhile or until they reappear). The Queen does tell Rukia of a place on this plane that she found many centuries ago where the veil between the soul society and the material world is thin, and time passes somewhat differently, it would be an excellent place for her to train the party (i.e. you get 1 years of character development but the world around you won't advance as quickly).

So look for the next post (Fifth - Sixth Level Campaign History DM's Perspective, Out of Game Side Quests)