If only the DM wasn't a Jerk!

When last we left the party they were at the base of a bell tower, taking a short rest before storming up the staircase to stop the mystical song of the ringing bells.

The group runs the spiral staircase without stopping at any of the prior five levels, rushing straight into a eladrin enchanter 6th, shadowfell witch 6th, and Mind flayer Master mind adjusted to 13th level elite.

Because of how poorly this combat went for the party the really really short version is appropriate, the trick was to stop the bells from ringing by some ranged means by stopping at some level before the baddies and looking up the long 4 square opening in the center of the room that looks up into the bell tower - with the bells stopped the two 6th level baddies would immediately drop from being thralls of the Mind Flayer Mastermind (MFM), and the group could focus on him alone. Fortunately one round into the dazed, stunned, dominated, or teleported effects, the wizard pulls off a fair use of a chilling ability that does immobilize, and I allow it to freeze the bells.

But because what you can do with the rules, isn't necessarilly a 'should' do, leveling the baddy from an 18 elite to a 13 elite - the maximum allowable by the book, is what you call a bad idea; at least when you are talking about a MFM. This baddy effectively drops or dominates at least 1/2 the party, and I have to use some fudge rules that says the bore into brain doesn't kill the player out right, instead it can just make them a thrall that once magically healing has been applied or the MFM is destroyed the effect of thrall ends.

One combat down, the party quickly rushes off lead by the bard to the last place their damsel could be, the master control room under the altar in the chapel.

under the chapel the group tries to talk down the damsel, unfortunately they are espousing things about her not being who she thinks she is, rather that she is Sehanine (the deity), which is to most NPC's crazy talk. But because she is a friend to them and doesn't want to hit the self destruct switch with them around is able to be partly talked down, can't recall this a couple weeks later what triggered her to go ahead and try to off herself by pushing the self destruct, but she does and a chasm opens beneath her and one in the party catches her with a save check. They flee the chapel grounds as the entire complex crashes down into a chasm beneath the earth.

The little girl kimico that they saved from the chapel earlier leads them through the town, to her manor on a hill overlooking the city. They rest and do the typical Naruto anime pervie sage bathhouse scene, where the swordmage over hears Kimico whisper to Lissera (the other damsel they saved) the passphrases to unlock Sehanine from the prison of the body of Lissera. Freed the young girl Sehanine bounds away in search of "kenny" a soul reaper who is back in the soul society - and teasingly berates the swordmage as she leaves for peeping.

Next session the group awakes to a new world that looks nearly the same as the one they meditated or when to sleep in the night before only the hues are grayer and the lighting slightly dimmer.

The swordmage wakes to find a skinned corpse disguised to look like his body on the floor in the entry to his room - turns out it is an undead flesh creature that was animated by a hell butterfly - an object of the soulsociety that can be used for scrying communication and animating bodies.

The wizard meditates until he leaves his room to find a casket in his entry which he arcane locks shut, then after the swordmage arrives they talk to the casket and find a potential vampire inside and so they decide to leave the casket locked shut - then they make note of the fact that the wizard has stepped out of his body when he got up from his meditations.

The Bard wakes to hearing noises outside of his room, that turn outs to be a two headed undead dog that hunts him down as he retreats to his fellow party members, they dispatch the pooch, to find another undead rot hound inside it's body that immediately imprints on the Bard as his new master - the wizard fearing for the Bard and just not liking the critter blasts it to gooy bits onto the Bard, then cleans the bard with a prestidigitation.

Soon after the group resigns itself to getting their bodies back, but first they have to save the last captain from the soul society that is trapped here. Sharina (Corellon). They run into town and notice the entire city over run by undead that are spawning more undead. The wizard pulls out a teleportation ability to link them to the permanent circle under the orphanage or primary headquarters of the Cercators.

They find this headquarters to be empty because all of the creatures are streetside creating havoc. Only beings left are three vessels brains in magical jars, that are used to contain the immense power of the hollows that would otherwise explode a normal physical body upon entering it.

Effectively the wizard puts to sleep the elite brain, leaving only the two weaker puds to dispatch - whence the group coupe de gra the main boss with 4 rounds of pummeling.

They free the damsel, but realize she can't see them in their soul forms, but have discovered ghost sound works to speak to the otherside. At which point they play her scary dark music after telling her that they were there to help her. she freaks out tries to get away and then runs into the invisible swordmage. They persist in chasing her around undersheets or in some other to her scary fashion until finally her and a group of henna tattooed potential vessel prisoners are told to wait that the group will get them out of there.

In the meantime the group finds a pool of alchemical regents acting as a capacitor or potential energy store for the hollows that would be allowed to flow into the mouths of vessels - usually unsuccessfully (boom goes the host). Also they discovered the lair of the Blue Dragon Head of the Cercators and looted his lair.

The group then escaped to the Swordmage's family house in Kyotenichi bringing Kimico with them - discovering her to be an avid reader of Ion books that were used in the Cercator rituals.

The swordmage discovers his father can see him in soul form, as well can his sisters - and apparently each has some new level of understanding of what has been going on, or at least of the soul society in general.

The group unable to immediately awaken Corellon from Sharina, decide to contact pelor and the raven queen, who tell them not to contact them in that manner again or it will give them away.

Pelor and the Raven queen show up in dog and cat forms respectively - attempting to hide their spiritual pressure from detection from hollows and soul reapers alike. They advise the party that they cannot help them, other than to instruct them at this point. Which is to say they should take care of their material world problem of the Blue Dragon Cercator head, as it doesn't matter if you get your body back if you have not world to come back to.

They do convince the Raven Queen to at least unleash Corellon - which she does, and upon discovering this, kimico gets very upset with the group, the Bard in particular who she has taken a liking to, and was severely disappointed in.

So the session ends with the party trying to figure out how to stop this Blue Dragon and then they will refocus on finding their bodies, which they believe to be in the soul society - or at least those who know are in the soul society.

I didn't feel like I did a great job with running the Deity NPC's it's always hard find excuses to only reveal a little and not the whole plot when potentially the NPC could have all of that information - I'll try to do better next time, have to forgive me this one, didn't expect the guys would get that far last session.

Who knew you could use your brain like that!?

When last we left our intrepid heros, they were trapped on a staircase that lead down into a sub-sewer secret tunnel.



The swordmage drew his blade to illuminate the tunnels, and the damsel they had pursued was no where nearby to be found. The party passes a few porculus style doorways through one of which they hear female screams.

The party rushes the room to discover Lissera crouched down near the floor in fear. She immediately attacks the swordmage and confesses all the while that she is being controlled by someone else - specifically she names the newest party member Sangi as being the one who is controlling her.

Later in that same round Balahnoths appear hanging from the ceiling, revealing themselves from their invisible hiding places. They make quick work of attacking the swordmage, focusing all of their attacks on him as he was at the limit of their reach, and therefore safely removed from them. Using their minor action to turn invisible after every attack.

The Swordmage pleads with Lissera to snap out of it, all the while taking extreme amounts of damage from her dagger attacks.

After round 2 of the party makes a few perception checks to see if there is a way to lessen the difficulty of this challenge, and they hear that the portcullus style doors opposite them buzz with a strange humming noise while closed. They figure it must interfere with the creatures blindsight and their ability to teleport, because teleport requires line of sight, and if the hum interferes with the way the creatures see, then they couldn't leave the room if they closed the doors.

The group flees the room, and end up locking lissera in there with the baddies. Shortly after reconsider and reopen the doors to have her in her possessed state follow to attack them and close the door behind her.

Sangi, knowing Lissera to be a doppleganger waits till she in the space where the portcullus closes, and pushes the button from another entrance - rolling a percentile to see what happens, getting less then 20% at 17% I rule it slices her in half. Death upon her, her true form of doppleganger appears, but not before our barbarian has words with Sangi for his brash actions.

The challenge effectively over the party mops up the remaining baddies, including some that weren't at threat locked up in a nearby cell - Yay for extra xp!

With no other way out of the secret laboratory/cells the party returns to the basement below the girls dormatory, only to find at the top of the staircase the chapel bells are ringing a strange melody that has all of the girls to dawn armor and weapons similar to that of kobolds and mindlessly wander around in search of the party.

The party yet undetected had the option to close the secret door back and recover from their long drawn out battle, or to press on - Sangi says he thinks he knows what is going on and they can't wait to rest, they have to get to the bell tower. The party still suscpicious of Sangi, reluctantly agrees.

The party decides, rather than trying to use the knockout rules and wade through the horrdes of little girls in armor - they would instead climb the staircase to the roof and try to find another way to the bell tower from there.

Each level of the staircase requires a stealth check from the group - individual or assisted, the group went with individual stealth checks, ending up with 5 baddies in tow by the roof door, which turns out to be locked. Luckily someone notices a waxy grease bucket and kicks it down the stairs to slow up the on coming baddies.

Unfortunately no one has the theivery necessary to open the lock without breaking it, and so they bust down the door. Now with a broken door and no way to stop the girls from coming up after them, they survey the scene. The party discovers a classroom on the roof where animal disections were left in complete, brains sitting in chemical trays. The party ignores the classroom for now, and heads for the Crane that was mounted to the roof, because of re-roofing work that hadn't been completed yet.

They find a large size tar bucket attached to the crane and Sangi uses the crane to block the doorway to the staircase by setting the tar bucket down infront of the door, at the same time swashing a possessed girl.

The barbarian in the meantime drags a deaf little girl who had been bitten - he uses a heal check and knows he needs to suck out the poison/disease from her wounds. In doing so he becomes afflicted himself, making an endurance check every round.

The ground floor quad still full of little girl baddies, the party isn't sure if they should use the scaffolding to get off the roof or not, in the process of deliberation the wizard picked up a brain with mage hand and makes it talk with ghost sound, convincing the little brain crazed girls that the brain was living and then tosses it down the staircase they had came up, effectively ridding the party of that threat from moving the tar-bucket.

Meanwhile the quadrent leader a Mind Flayer Infiltrator Elite out in front of his thralls, comes up from the opposite staircase to the roof and attacks the Swordmage for two vicious rounds, until Sangi leaps into the crane after reattaching the tarbucket, this time intent on dropping it on the Mind Flayer Infiltrator by crashing it through the roof of the staircase. Sangi does a precision drop, using his dungeoneering skill to operate the crane, crushing the mind flayer and blocking that staircase. this leaves only the scaffolding left to use to get down. Luckily the mind flayers thralls were still following his last order, which was to converge on the roof - this cleared the ground level of thralls. The party makes some heroic skill checks to slide or jump down the roof sections to get to the scaffolding, taking the injured Kimico with them.

The wizard with another surprising use of a power, uses a poison cloud to block the line of sight from the party to the thralls, while making their way out in the open towards the bell tower, casting sleep on the 2 thralls guarding the tower entrance.

Reopening the tower door from the inside, and closing it back again with by moving all the piled up junk in front of the door, the party feels it has time for at least a short rest before they are discovered again.

Session end - Next time it's pure combat, with not skill tricks to save the day. The party was awarded xp = to the combats they defeated and bonus xp equal to 2 sixth level encounters for contributing to the encounter by significant uses of skill checks.

Might as Well call this the Reset - Paragon's go!

So after several character swaps and other miscellaneous mishaps, the campaign feels like it is back on track.



What's happened in the in between - the short version.



Party with help from a tree stride teleporting dryad, goes after last Gatekeepers to buy time for them to come up with a plan to save their NPC companions who are held prisoner by the Cercators.



Party encounters some gnolls and griffons with assistance from their new friends the ranger and artificer. They defeat the first encounter with the ranger so badly wounded that he takes off never to be seen by the party again. The second encounter rolls on, and on, without much ranged assistance to bring down the manticore.



The battle over, the party takes shelter in the Manticore's cave, where they draw in the dragonshaped NPC Crusio (actually pelor trapped in Crusio form) - after a short puzzle about who Crusio is and who the party is to Pelor. Pelor emerges to awaken the locked powers of the soul in the party ( effectively giving them the ability to reach paragon or higher without using mod-soul weapons) Pelor says he can't act in this world, without catching notice from the soul society. Thus he leaves it to the party to finish the job, down into the caves they go and defeat a bloodfire harpy, rather easily. They use her teleportation circle to get to the basement of the Cercators chapel headquarters, where from their little Artificer friend decides to depart from them for his sewer home.



The party climbs through level after level of dungeon where they discover humans in all stages of the process of transformation from human to aberration. The reach a set of double doors and find a note torn from the armor of the mod-soul companion that pelor gave them, written in the hand of the girl they came to save - do not come for me, I'm safe for now, but if you follow I won't be. They see through her deception, and realize she isn't ok, but is trying to again save them while sacrificing herself.



They bust through the doors ready to battle, only to find a room full of cots and vagrants, who beg for change. The party hurriedly tosses change off in a corner to be rid of the vagrant pests. Then on up another staircase to an auditorium/gymnasium like room, where orphans are at play. They entertain what to do with the orphans or where to go, when the church bells ring, and the children file out to their dorms, and the vagrants file out to their dinner - all seemingly in a trance. The party follows the vagrant line to a dining hall, and instead of going through the line, duck off behind the kitchen, in the process noticing alchemical regents being poured into the food. They hide in a utility closet where they find their mod-soul buddy's armor, but no mod-soul jewel. Looking out a near by window, they find small foot prints that they follow to the woman's dorm, where they hear a girl screaming upstairs. They rush into the dorm causing a rucuss. To find the girl screaming about her bra moving on it's own. One party member convinces her to hold still while he helps her, and he removes the mod-soul jewel from the bra, causing it to stop moving. The girls are all still screaming, the party puts the jewel into a doll, and the talking doll leads them to the basement laundry where he last saw the girl they were looking for. Then the party hears the girls calling for Krul. The ground shakes as he approaches.



We pick up the following week, with the party convincing Krul that they were just lost and looking for a certain girl, he says he will take them to girls. Then the party attacks him while he is squeezed in the staircase. They effectively keep him in a tight spot most of the combat, so that he only makes one successful attack on them. A little healing later, they go up stairs and convince the girls that Krul is just resting and not to disturb him. They say they have to get ready for services and need their clothes, but the party convinces them to wear something else for now, because Krul really shouldn't be distrubed right now.



The party figures services is the best place to find the girl they were looking for, but in the 15 min wait they decide to explore the bell tower, breaking open the lock they enter and start up the stairs only to run into an acolyte who was coming down the stairs to see what the noise was. She tells them they can't be in there and to keep an eye out for who ever broke that lock. She goes back up stairs after barring the doors better. The party enters for services, and mid service the head of the Cercators who was giving the sermon stops because of the bells ringing late. The party manages to avoid communion by sliping out of the side doors, where they meet up with the girl they were looking for. She leads them back to the Auditorium where soon after a new party member shows up and tells them not to trust her, she isn't who she says she is. Then a combat starts between some upstairs baddies and the downstairs group. Lissera, the girl they were after runs off to go upstairs, but is passed by the barbarian in the group. He gets stuck in a trap the new guy party member place before combat. Then the swordmage passes Lissera telling her, to let him protect her this time. She says alright then, and doesn't enter the combat. After the baddies are eliminated the new guy still trys to convince the party not to trust her, and she tells the group it doesn't matter what he does or doesn't believe, they had all best leave there before anyone else shows up. She runs off ahead of the group, followed closely by the new guy, and the other 2 party members.



Lissera stops in the basement under the girls dorm, pushing a secret button on the wall, and goes quickly down into the opening. The new guys follows first, but when he gets down there and she is gone, he turns around to get back up to get out of the hole, but doesn't have enough movement to get completely out. The other 2 party members enter the secret passage, and the door immediately closes behind them all.



We'll see if they can get pass their distrust for the new guy long enough to survive the next encounter. It should be fun.

THE BIG FIX - patch version 9.0

Ok so after some conversations with Ryan, ray and Geoff about the current state of affairs, I'm thinking of flipping the campaign design on it's head a little - rather than having the campaign's story having level dependant aspects that because of a desire to see you succeed I end up having to adjust those requirements anyhow, how about I do the exact opposite, that if you find ways to quickly advance the plot to where it would ordinarily be outside of your reach for success - then I give or find cause to advance you along with the plot to the point where you can successfully complete those aspects. There will still of course be decisions that will be soo outside of the realm of consistency where I won't be able to do that, but those will be very minimal situations, so that the margin for error is as large as possible while still allowing for the possiblity of some risk involved/consequences.

Ok, so because of a couple decisions about characters doing their grand exit of the game before the plot I had tied to their backstory intended, I'm left in an awkard place of not really having many hooks to tie the current group together, BUT - never fear the great american railroad company has given me permission to thrust plot fixes upon you, and skip over all the nonsense that really doesn't apply to what is left of the current story arch.

So you might be saying, I don't want to ride this particular train - to that I say but you haven't even heard where it's going yet.

Wanna hear it? great - it's a go directly to 9th level, don't stop at any interim levels, and collect much loots in the form of new magical items. Yay!!!

Roughly you guys are going to awaken pelor in crusio who is going to make a deal with the group and empart some of his spiritual goodness into the group, as well as design some doo dads from his bag of creation trickets to help you along the way.

I believe we have in the party now items leveling 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9.

That leaves a 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (for sixth to seven) then you still need, 8, 9, 10, 11 (for seven to eight) and 9, 10, 11, 12 (for eight to nine) and because expect to have you guys gaining a level each session for the next 3 sessions - 10, 11, 12, 13 (for nine to ten) these last four will be found in the course of your battles, and maybe this time I'll actually let a monster use a magic item that won't kill it when it does. - sucks to be U's guys right about now.

K, so get your noses in the books and min max like I know you can. j/k don't really do that, (not that I can stop you) but do try to find useful things that you will make you enjoy the character - if that lends itself to min max - so be it.

I made some new friends

Reed t'lls me he's on da move, so I'm like, "Awesome, time t' go 'venturing again!" Obbiously I ain't ganna let 'im go off and get hiself killed like he'd like t' do, as 'e is lible t' do if I ain't round.

So we're off, travelin' bout for months, running around in circles, eating from the same barrel of pickled herring until my sweat smells like rotten fish and even his doggie avoids bein' downwind from me. The very idea of stopping for dinner time made me lose me appetite toward the end, there. Reed insists we ain't got no time to hunt nothing not pickled and in barrels, though, much less find a decent tavern with some decent swill.

When we finally catch up to whatever ghost Reed was a'chasin, turns out we're a minute too late! Not even so much as a thank you from that lot, neither. BUT I FINALLY GOT TO SEE A DRAGON!! There were two of 'em, but by the time I came up, pantin' n' out of breath, they had both flown off.

The lads seem a tad on the morbid side. They're definantly the cup's half empty type. Also, it grieves me terrible to say they don't even 'ave a 'alf decent 'venturing name.

The one in robes took me up on me climbin bet, but 'e cheated! Least he gave me back me coin, though I was sportin enough to let 'im keep it. I learned a lesson 'bout making bets with pointy-ear'd ones, least.

'Fore long passed, we were talking to some tree-woman. She sent us to the mountains without so much as a toasted croc' leg to eat, and there was we continuing our n'er ending march to no-wheres.

We must 'ave been getting close, for long had passed the wolf-masked feller starts hoopin' and hollerin' a'tryin to wake up the whole country-side. I figured it must've been a success, cause here comes a big 'ol green dragon. Try as we might, he didn't eat us after all! Fact is, now we're 'pose to be working for him, or sumtin like that.

I am glad t' be out an' about, don't get me wrong, I just wish'd there was more in the way of vittles out here. Reed n' me are about t' start growin gills at this rate!

Yes it did, and Here's how it's gonna go down.

Alright, well thanks to all the guys who've checked the blog and left comments and suggestions.

From those I've come to a plan - it's blunt but I'm just going to break down some options for you for next session and I'll try to have some things prepared for each of those situations, but ultimately it will boil down to a good deal of winging it again (another of those bare with me situations).

So last time you guys were caught by a random NPC in the catacombs below what you now know to be the Headquarters of the Cercators, the NPC closed a multitude of security gates behind him as he fled -

NOW FOR THE OPTIONS:

If any of you are concerned about the time line for the captains being executed you can at any time reveal yourselves to the cercators which will essentially give them cause to resume using them as hostages to force you to proceed doing what they want - though you all will also know that you've already broken the cercators ability to ever reproduce the cycle by freeing the Raven Queen, but have no idea what would happen to the Captains if the Cercators find out that they can never again try the cycle again (kind of the point of this second story arch).

You all know that after the hand of fate, if you move forward into the catacombs you will find one of the captains you seek, but I will remind you that going forward directly into the catacombs will lead to your revealing yourselves to the cercators and your margin for error will be very small (this amounts to every challenge you face being at the highest possible difficulty allowable for your level, which means it is completable, but likely not everyone will make it through to see the results)

As a freebie you guys will recognize that the drainage gates in the first room of the catacombs that I mentioned last time may lead into the sewers, this would get you into Rygenhijo the city through the sewers, but won't immediately lead to the captain you seek - downside the sewers may only be slightly less perilous than the catacombs.

Another option is to return to the lolth tower and seek out the dryad along the primary flow of the river, and hope she will be willing to show you a way to the next captain or Rygenhijo - but more likely if you recall the portal she had showed several locations that would each mostly match to a gatekeeper, as in perhaps this path would only lead you to another gatekeeper (and if Crusio was to be watching over you all again, he would likely be around one these gatekeepers waiting for you all to show up, and you might be able to find him) This will likely reveal yourselves to the cercators, but if you believe Crusio is a captain you might be able to find him there as well (warning, you have no idea how he will take the loss of his sister Lotus), but if you don't confront or find Crusio and just fight the gatekeeper this will likely be the path of least resistance.

Ok so you guys have a decision to make, you can do your chat on here or however, just try to have an idea in mind before next session.

Did that just happen?

Here's the thing are you guys still enjoying the session - cause it seems like I've heard a lot of complaining recently about multiple things that aren't going the way some of you think they should - if you don't think I'm treating you fairly and it's effecting your enjoyment of the campaign talk to me about it, give you an argument from RP or mechanics and I'll consider it.

The fact is this is supposed to be fun for everyone involved (including me), and recently its just been me feeling like I'm defending every decision I'm making. I'm just trying to make an Interesting, but also Challenging game that's is balanced by the mechanics as I understand them.

I usually put at least 4-8 hours every 2 weeks between updating this blog and preparing for the game itself to make sure what I'm doing is fair balanced and you have every opportunity to understand what is going on and evaluate it for consitency as well as make comments or suggestions for the direction for your character or campaign - generally the fact of the matter is you don't and aren't supposed to know everything about the world in its entirety, if you did there would be no decisions for you to make and might as well be reading a book or playing the game solo - thus there will be times when you are just going to have to trust that I'm trying to make a balanced campaign and not trying to screw you over and that even in the darkest hour I've built ways for you to succeed (though there has to be cause and effect that may eventually lead to your failer or demise - ie. you level 1 try to take on the great wyrm), if you can't do that at this point then I really don't need to be running games for you guys.

I will accept responsiblity for not having prepared to guide you all in a specific direction for the session outside of picking out a variety of monsters you might fight, I expected that you all would come to some conclusion amongst one another relatively quickly, or if you didn't have a clear plan in mind that you would roll a check to see what your character would think to do or try based on their motivations. I also expected to tell you that with regard to the captains if you kept off radar you would likely have "days if not hours" before the captains lives might be in danger, given what your characters should know about the logistical consequences of yet another group failing to defeat all of the gatekeepers, thus putting pressure on you to move forward quickly or emerge to the cercators again so that they will have reason to continue forward with the current cycle.

At the same time I hope you guys would recognize the contributing factors, when we are 2 hours into the session and no decision has been made and not a single roll has been made, all I have left is the infamous duh check, in this case it was for the most likely character to know of a potential fast way to travel - your arcane knowledge based wizard. With the knowledge from previous sessions imparted by other characters (TJ) most of you would know that the Cercators are based in Rygenhijo, being months from the Lolth tower his character would be able to put together that there should be a teleportation circle nearby to get to such an important place quickly.

I will accept blame for not explaining specifically where the portal leads in Rygenhijo; I expected if anyone wasn't certain or wanted to know more they would make a check, again no checks were rolled at all. I knew when I told you guys there was a portal, where I would have it go. Everything the Cercators do revolves around Lotus and the Nobunaga, knowing that it would be logical to infer that the teleportation circle would from it's last use go to a protected or Cercator controlled location and not just out on the streets somewhere in the city - a conclusion that if you didn't come to on your own might have if a roll was made - not everything is going to be a passive check when there are heavy consequences involved.

You all were heavily pressing for combat this session to test out your abilities, well I saw this as a way to do that and then get you right back on track with trying to stay in the shadows - you can't be in the shadows and low key if you are looking for direct combat out of game. The plan once I knew you were going, was to have you get to have a combat with something new, including undead and a hollow, showing you a preview of what is to come at the heart of the Cercators - the alarm was meant to give you the option for combat but not want to hang around long enough to see who you've alerted, given you all said you wanted to be off radar and alarms sounding doesn't exactly fit with being off radar - no one puts builds and alarm that takes over 10 minutes for something or someone to show up and check it. I am not going to tell you guys how to run your characters, if you in character want to ignore alarms go off to find out more about where you are that's fine, I'm going to give you the chance to do so and if it is a really dangerous place I'm going to try to give you time to reconsider the decision.

In this case you had and have a great deal of time given that the character the party chose to interact with ran off shutting down the entrance exit gates behind him, giving you even more time to think about and give clues to where you are or how difficult your path is. Even so far as to rethink the questions that were asked of the hand of fate where I according to it only have to have it point a direction I don't have to give any explanation at all as to why, I was trying to explain the answers so you guys would make the most informed decision given what your characters might be able to interpret from the hand choosing what it chose given the questions that were asked.

At any rate if you guys don't like what went down this session I don't care if we scrap the whole session, or if you guys aren't enjoying what I'm doing for and with your characters I'm fine with someone else running or just going to Friday Night Magic or xboxing. I run because it's fun to create something and see you guys get into your characters and play through them to see what new and creative ways you can come up with to defeat the challenges I create, but if all I do is defend what I'm doing and feel like you guys aren't enjoying it, then I really don't have any reason to do it, because it isn't fun for me at that point.

So post your opinions comments and etc. we'll go from there.

I don't want to make a big deal out of nothing, ordinarily Geoff doesn't leave the house out of session to chat, which leads me to believe some of you guys were not happy with the session, and from running for you guys for awhile now I realize the seemingly small margin for error and heavy intrigue campaigns aren't up you guys' alley which is why this one isn't that way, and has a much larger scope for success, but as I mentioned parts of the storyline have been again advanced more quickly than I anticipated and am balancing those things out, but that results in there being areas or potential paths that will have much small margins for success, this current through the Cercator HQ being one of them.

Anyhow I'm just tired in general, been busier than usual, without the time to prepare for what I can't predict what you guys will do, and each time I don't the game suffers or has some issue or another, I would just like to get through a session where I get to wing it, everyone have a good time, and there not be an issue afterwards. I could just be getting burnt out, previous years the DM's would swap who was running to try to keep that from happening, but with TJ gone and no one else really having the time or desire that's been kind of hard, so to help me out I'm asking for a little extra slack.

I'm going to hit the sack but I'll check this some time before next session and see what all your suggestions or comments are.

Fifth - Sixth Level Campaign History DM's Perspective, Out of Game Side Quests.

Ok guys, we'll pick up with Questions for the Raven Queen, Rukia, and etc.

Post them on the commment section, and I'll repost/answer them in blog for everyone.

Second if you want to discuss where you want to go with your character you can do it here or via e-mail, or whatever.

I'll check back often.

General information conveyed by Rukia or the Raven Queen.

Process of Death - when a humanoid dies it's soul is conveyed from this world into the next by a Soul Reaper who using their zanpakuto (soul-cutting sword) performs the soul burial (konsō). Souls have a certain amount of time they may exist without a soul chain appearing, but eventually a soul chain appears and binds the soul to a particular place or person; this starts the clock, from that point on the soul chain that binds their consciousness to merely being a 'whole' soul begins to errode.

Once the last link in the chain errodes away that soul instantly transforms into a hollow, losing much of it's previous consiousness and the 'hole' in it's heart becomes quite litteral. The soul takes on a porcelain painted mask that and a shadowy figure with a hole in it's chest, all of these things symbolic of what has transpired the soul looses it's identity and becomes a consumption machine obsessed with filling it's emptiness with the literal or figurative bodies and souls of humanoids.

Soul Reapers are charged with guiding souls before they turn into hollows on to the next world, and if they cannot do that, then they are to destroy the hollow that emerges and purify the soul contained by it.

Why? Because souls that pass on, emerge in the soul society to live a new life and when a soul dies from the soul society they return to the material world to animate a humanoid on that plane of existence. But each soul that is destroyed has the potential to unbalance this harmony - filling huecomundo (purgatory or place where the hollow exist when not in the material world)

Only Reapers can perform the konso, thus any PC trying it will only destroy the hollow for the purposes of our game we will call you Quincy, a group of spiritually aware humanoids who throughout history have secretly emerged and protected the humanoid material plane from Hollows - their general belief is that destroying a single hollow while resulting in the loss of a soul, is better than all the souls that would be consumed by that single hollow. (technically soul reapers and quincy are bitter enemies, but Rukia nor the Queen will tell you more on this, other than if you come across any other reapers you do not let on that you can see them or are even aware they are there.)

Those of you with a hight insight 19+ (lowered check because of the extremely difficulty of hiding this fact) - will know that there is something very odd with the way Rukia acts around and about the Raven Queen. Rukia seems to treat her with the respect a subordinate would but at the same time seems uneasy about being near her at all, as though she is conflicted between some duty or obligation and the feelings she has for your group specifically Ookami, and when the Queen's returning to the soul society is brought up Rukia usually interjects that the Queen has only today to spend with you all and then has somethings she has to attend to - never actually admitting that she is returning to the soul society, but the Queen herself always seems to acknowledge what Rukia is saying as though Rukia is protecting the Queen and the group from something.

General Re-introduction to the NPC Rukia Kuchki

Rukia eventually comes to tell you all how she even became involved with your group, that Ookami came across her doing battle when an extremely powerful hollow, and in the process of the battle she was forced to convey part of her power to Ookami, but because of Ookami's extremely strong spiritual power he accidentally took all of her reaper powers and has been acting in her place guarding Kyotenichi while she has been forced to remain in a gegai (humanoid shell body) to recover. She told Ookami to not confront hollows unless it was to protect those that are important to him, and the party must be a close group for him to risk facing me afterwards. She admits she is glad he protected you, but now it seems it may have made things worse for all of you, and appolgizes she can't do more for you as she isn't completely healed. For now you will all have to rely on your own strength and her training in kido to survive.

ANYONE FOR LOOTS?

Alrighty well lootwise you guys get 500gp each.

As for the items, I'm going to basically do an exchange though some of the leveling will have to be adjusted up or down to match the DMG tables - also except for Geoff, try to make the swapped weapons not have the same ability as your old one to reflect the fact that it isn't the same weapon - preferrably your 'mod' weapon will have the abilities you really want rather than this replacement, representing the unique factor of the mod weapons.

Geoff - swap your weapon with one up to a level 9, (though yours isn't actually taken from you, just represents your characters improvements) then find something up to a level 4 item.

Drew - swap your weapon with one up to a level 8, and then find something up to a level 6.

Sean - swap your weapon with one up to a level 8, and then find something up to a level 6.

Ryan - swap your weapon with one up to a level 8, and then find something up to a level 6.

Ray - no changes however remember to take the above gp in case you have enough to make some purchases.

The some of the above swaps are actually slightly higher than the DMG table suggests but I figure it will all work out in the wash.

Geoff wanted me to suggest that someone might buy into some of the items you are loosing with the players that are leaving the game - ex. TJ's thundering crossbow or etc. (I'll post those if anyone wants to look at them for ideas, if not I won't bother.)

One Mod Weapon Down:
Ryan requested in the down time Geoff to perform the konso on his mod weapon, which with Rukia's guidance Geoff is able to do - but as it turns out there is only a minor flicker of soul energy that emerges and fades, leaving anyone who thinks about it very long wondering did it truly contain a sentient soul, and if it did, did that soul move on to the soul society like those of other humanoids?

Group Census:
After polling most of the group, Geoff, Drew, Ryan, Ray - I gather the impression is that with the knowledge that for now to the Cercators you all are dead and gone (meaning you can drop off the radar for any stealth/rescue missions you may want to attempt) are left with two possible paths, go and seek out your long captured NPC friends who may have out lived their usefulness to the Cercators at the outset of your Demise or confront the next gatekeeper, again revealing yourself to the Cercators once again. (difference between confront this problem head on allowing your battles to decide your fate, or find another route that may be just as battle intensive but more subversive and with lesser combatants. It seems like the subversive route for now to make a more informed decision felt right to at least Geoff and Drew. Now with Sean on board with keeping low on the Cercator radar I'll prep for a more infiltration/recon design.

that's all I've got for now maybe more later.

Halloween means Character Side Quest for Die Hard Gamers!

CHARACTER INTRODUCTION, WHAT'S A BARBARIAN?

So we were down a few players for the halloween game, because of folks having party goodness to go to, but for the die hards and a new to the campaign player, it seems like a good time to have character introduction sidequesting action.

We lead off with the PC's having escaped the Lolth tower and searching the Howling Hag Gatekeeper and to stop Lotus from doing something stupid, in the process of rafting down the primary current of the swamp lands, the party comes across a 26 year old chainmail wearing human with claw mark scaring on his face and body, gripping an axe with spiked protrusions massocistically placed on the handle. The party approaches cautiously as their NPC river guide attempts to disguise his cowardess in an offer to tie off the raft up stream from the brooding Human.

The party asks what the barbarian what he is doing in the swamp, he replys 'waiting for death.' To which the party says something along the lines of 'you picked a good place to do it, there's plenty of that around here.' The party probes him further if he knows of a 'witch' around here aka. howling hag. He replies 'I do ... you might say I have an axe to grind with her.' The party tells him, we don't know if we can trust you or not as it seems the cercators have agents everywhere, so take us to her but know if you turn on us we won't hesitate to put you down, to which he replys 'you can try.'

The barbarian leads the party to a familiar looking ritual site (reusing old maps), that looks very similar to that of the werewolf den entrance - this time there's a new puzzle. They find the same looking burried cellar off to the side and this time discover long rectangular strips of semi processsed oar, an alchemical agent, and cylindrical spikes. The party sees on the altar 3 holes similar to those that were the keyholes to enter Lolth's tower, but also similar to the size of those cylindrical spikes. The party tests a mixture of the spikes, oar, and alchemical mixture and discover it produces a delayed explosion, which they decide to pour the chemical into the holes in the altar, and rub the oar on 3 spikes and then place them into the holes. Unfortunately it seems as though you must drive the spikes into the holes as they don't go down far enough to start the chain reaction. The party resets the altar and this time they push down onto the spikes and in anticpation of a explosion leap away from the altar between the outer ring of pillars each in a different direction, however one party member fails the check and doesn't make the jump. An explosion underground triggers 4 trap doors placed between the pillars where the party members jumped, so that when the one left behind looks around everyone else has disappeared, sliding down underground tubes into one of 4 detention cells.

The party member left on the surface places transforms his weapon into the same cylinder as the one used to enter lolth's temple and he is transported into the dungeon just outside of the detention cells. But is unable to free the other party members before they find avenues of escape, brute force, teleportation, or etc.

Having escaped their cells, they party proceeds to dive into the cistern that lead to the solo werewolf the last time they were in a similar dungeon. But this time it leads up to a grate somewhere below the fountain room that had a flooding trap in it the last time.

The fighter grabs the rack in the flood room, and the bed (trapped) in another room and props them against the door of the flood room (setting off the matress trap, which misses) before he searches the room for the pressure release switch that last time opened the flood gates to the room, and nearly drowned the party. This time it is hoped it will be the mechanism to unblock the cistern passageway.

The fighter finds a rock and ties a rope to it, tossing and dragging the rock until he hears a click, followed by several loud clangs from the adjoining cells. This initiates suprise round of combat where the shadowfell under the control of another emerge from beneath the grates in the adjoining cells.

The shadow gloom blade, chain wielder, and soldier type emerge from the cells apparently with their eyes clouded over, all wearing the Rygenhijo ninja emblems. The party quickly finds ways around the gloom blads invisibility, the chains shifting reach weapon, and the soldiers double attacks - mostly by a head on we can out damage you sort of way. Though the Rygenhijo ninja appear out of sorts, the party quickly off's them without leaving any alive to question or etc.

After a quick search of the bodies, they find the ninjas' orders, to hunt down someone that looks like what the barbarian did before he was all scarred up, and kill the traitor. However, while it is a sanctioned manhunt, it wasn't ordered by Rygenhijo, these ninja were hired by someone outside of Rygenhijo.

The party feeling like they had solved the puzzle of the cistern re-enter with the barbarian in the lead, he pops out on the otherside of the cistern onto the top of a stone platform carve out of the top of a stallagmite that towers 100ft above a cavern below with only a 10ft wide gap between the ledge the party emerges on and the outer 10ft wide ledge the Kyotenichi emblemed and bloodied female ninja stands.

After some debate about what a running jump entails, the party discovers it isn't such a hard check after all, but some are still hestitant, a joke about indiana jones and the secret walk way is made - partly as a hint to remind players, that a passive check doesn't always cut it, and spending a minor action to use perception may be useful (in this case there was a hidden by artful design a ledge from the inner to the outer that one could walk across).

The female ninja wearing the kyotenichi emblem, seeing the barbarian emerge, already quite injured leaning against her longsword looks at him and says you coward of course you emerge now after your minions have done their dirty work - here to finish me as you did my mother? I won't let you leave here until I know what you did to her back then. She plunges herself onto her blade and as the blade pierces her body, the sharp tail of a black dragon errupts in time with the blade from out of her back, as though her body were being turned inside out and transmuted into this new black dragon form.

A level 4 solo black dragon emerges with 134 hp (-100 hp from max.) The party takes a heavy breath weapon early on, and the cleric heals back the party from that before they make the leap across to the cornered dragon.

The dragon hit by the barbarian's first attack is sent bloodied, and uses it's when first bloodied breath attack as an immediate reaction, again hitting most of the party. She threatens the party, instruct your friend to tell me what I want to know. what does he know of what happened to my mother, did he kill her? (the barbarian responds raising his blade, this is all I know.)

One round of pummeling from the party later, the dragon is on the verge of complete defeat, she uses her cloud of darkness to conceal her escape as she plummets intentionally into the cavern below to escape to the caves. she say, I will not give up, I will find you again when I am healed, and you will tell me what you know of my mother.

The party asks the barbarian a few more questions as to what exactly he knows about the woman's mother and he replies that he doesn't know what happened to her, he was knocked unconscious soon after the battle started that her mother was in. The party finds on the ground a historical headband, with markings of Kyotenichi that stand for the 2nd hokage - the hokage that disappeared on a intercept mission just before the crimson dragon appeared that killed all approaching Rygenhijo ninja near kyotenichi during the last part of the revolution. No one knows for sure what happened to the 2nd hokage after that.

If you guys member anything else or want to add to it, don't forget the comment box.

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)

Third - Fourth Level History DM's Perspective

Third to Fourth Level Campaign History DM's Perspective

The events for this level took place out of game as individual side quests, and for the sake of avoiding oversharing information that should be up to individual players to share, I'll only briefly review the plot points that I'm aware have been universally given to the party.

During the course of 3-4th most players either aware or unawaredly were made to pick up a 'mod-soul' weapon, one thought by observation of players shared history with mod-weapons, to be augmentations or even reflections of one's will or desires as the weapon has no form of it's own until given one by the wielder.

These Mod-weapons are discovered to be a tool of the Cercators who use them in their ritual battles with their leader the Blue Dragon or in the training of potential vessels to fight Crusio.

The Cercators are learned to have their hands in every level of government and commerce, but apparently this level of control is not absolute. For one reason or another they do not risk revealing themselves to the general populace other than in false rumors that give their agent power. The group awaits the embodiement of their god to arise in a suitable vessel before they will risk outright war.

Much of this information is gained from Lissera who left a journal with a party member as an appology before she left for having lied or betrayed the people of the village. She reveals she is the daughter of the Cercator leader, and is betraying her father and family for the sake of her love for Crusio and his only friends (the party).

It is later revealed that in the process of Lissera trying to save Sharina from her father, she is captured and set in with Sharina as extra assurance that the party and Crusio stay in line with the Cercators plans. (fight the gatekeepers, and become strong enough individually to defeat Crusio and become a worthy vessel for their god)

Another party member discovers that there may be more pulling the strings or acting on the world than can ordinarily be seen (soulreapers and hollows), and perhaps their is a larger picture that they are missing out on, but nevertheless must remedy the problems at hand before attempting to figure out these broadscoping issues.

End Short Summary of 3-4th, if players have more individual character happenings to share with the party as though it were in game conversation feel free to do so in comments or an attachment.

First - Second Level Campaign History DM Perspective

FIRST - SECOND LEVEL HISTORY

The party joined together under the banner of the Jupin-Naga Club, founded by Crusio as their sponsor. Crusio leads the party to the Ryosuchi Headmaster, who informs them that their Jupin-naga groups doesn't have the official charter necessary to gain entry into the academy and for that reason much undergo the entrance exam of the Fire Caves.

Ryosuchi informs the party they must find their employer, the Lady of a nearby river mining town which controls the Fire Caves. Ryosuchi seems to be intentionally sparse on the details, and after the Players are kicked out into the hallway, Crusio and Ryosuchi have a heated discussion about Crusio's undisciplined behavior -

Ryosuchi - "What the hell is the deal coming in here with a bunch of snot nosed middle-schoolers, are you trying to get those boys killed?"

Crusio - "Don't crack a scale you old lizard, I'm just having a bit of fun don't worry so much."

Ryosuchi - "Watch your mouth! I don't care who you work for, you'd best remember who is the headmaster around here kid."

Crusio - "Aw, ha ha, but remember there honorable lizard you work for them too." opening the door and finding some of the players attempting to listen in.

Only parts of this conversation actually were communicated to the party because of their checks - but, at this point it won't hurt to have the whole thing laid out.

Crusio exits the Headmasters office and walks the party a little way down the hall before being confronted by another student who challenges Crusio - a battle that ends before it begins with a single thrust of Crusios thumb into the challenger's chest, nearly killing the opponent in a single blow.

A female student (Lissera) arrives semi-scolding Crusio, "You must be more careful I won't always be around to put them back together after you break them."

Crusio - "Oh, you and I both know you will always be around, won't you Lissera?" he says with a stoic face.

Crusio after looking out the 2nd floor window down at a beautiful young girl (Sharina) walking through the school yard says, "I've got some things I need to take care of, good luck on the exam boys, I'll see you around." With that he leaps out the window landing gracefully to the earth and walks after Sharina who is several paces ahead.

Lissera stands from having treated the wounded class men, looks out the window with a longing sadness that Insight checks revealed. She takes the time to explain a bit that battles between class men happen often and so long as they are not fatal are overlooked as skill training. But for the time the Players should be very cautious challenging any of the students. She says, "I would help more but I'm neglecting my duties, please take care of Crusio for me." She too leaps from the 2nd floor and lands uninjured upon the earth walking off in the direction of Crusio and Sharina.

This leaves the players alone in a combat oriented academy to be mocked by the upper-class men. Though the challengers are met with the Players defiance no battles occur on the grounds.

The Players with an obscure directive, lend themselves to the question - does anybody know where we're going. At which point each pursue their own ends, family, library, stableman, cartographer or etc. in pursuit of where is this mining town. The most productive is a Father's directions follow the river out the east gate north, or the copied map from a cartographer.

Then it was "how do we get there and complete this trial in 3 days without horses, because it is a day and a half on foot just to get there?"

Horses is the answer, but the problem soon becomes, I won't rent a horse to a minor, I need and adult to sign for it. The potential answers were bribe and adult to sign for the players, get someone's family member to sign for the players, or less so - steal the horses but don't get caught.

The party having some trouble with what to do end up in front of Crusio outside the school who tells them "why haven't you left yet, if it was my exam I would have already have been gone." when asked "but we can't get horses" he replies "You're ninja aren't you, use your skills find a way. Lets just call it a race shall we, the first one there gets to be the leader."

One Player immediately hearing race and leader takes off at a dead run, making endurance checks after a couple hours, hoping his impetuous RP might pay off.

One Player takes that to mean I know how to steal as a rogue therefore he must mean steal them - which is possibly true of Crusio, but it would be with the stipulation of if you do it you don't get caught, this is the ninja way.

While the Player himself didn't get caught, he stole the horses behind the back of the stable master who was in the middle of negotiations with the rest of the Party. Thus he immediately had the Party detained as accomplices to be brought before the Hokage.

After explaining the situation that they had nothing to do with the theft the Hokage asks them to deliver the message of severe fines and shackles to their party member that stole the horse. To remind that member that the village is lawful and there are consequences for his actions.

Those that were restrained end up renting horses by finding and adult to sign for them and take off after the other party members.

The runner and the horse thief catch up to one another at which point they are soon after attacked by predator panthers stalking the river side. They have a much tougher battle than the rest of the party being only two players.

The two out front choose to rest and wait for the rest of the party to catch up, at which point those with the shackles present them to their party member and convey the notice of the fines he must pay, amounting to about 2 levels worth of wealth.

As the Party continues on that day they discover an overgrown path that leads to an ancient altar ring which they discover to have a trap door beneath the altar, the party rogue refuses to help with the traps without compensation from the party (his way of recouping the loot lost by his fines) and so the party proceeds to use brute force to break the trapped doors and chests of the ritual site. Also because the rogue didn't participate in the trap opening there was differential xp and gold awarded to those players who participated.

Needless to say there was some party cohesion issues arising from the differential and debate both in game and out as to what makes a party function and what constitutes cohesive party behavior.

Both issues finding some resolution with those siding for helping the rogue because of their characters alignment and those that say he is on his own simply playing it out in game and it becoming what it will.

Fortunately the party doesn't fracture and they reach their destination, what is described as a run down deserted mining operation with drunken miners littering the streets with their stuppored bodies. The only thing open in the town is the bar and the manor. The general store and nearby estate house are boarded up.

The party is attacked entering the streets of the town by drunken miners who are looking to get some donations for their dry mouth syndrome. The party defeats this initial encounter by the paladin contributing to their fund. The miners retreat to the bar, and tell them the Lady of the town is probably in the manor.

The party meet with a nearly histerical well dressed middle aged woman who admits to be the Lady of the manor but has no time to talk with the party. The party tells her that she hired them and they need to ask about the mine. She tells them she didn't hire them but because they are there and are ninja perhaps they can help her find her daughter who went missing last night.

The Lady offers the only thing of value her family has left, Dwarven Gauntlets. An heirloom of her current second husband. She says he would be furious if he knew she had used them as payment but she will do anything to get her daughter back.

The Lady informs the party she was the one who shut the mines down do to safety concerns and too many explosive accidents, she couldn't bare anymore of her people dying in the unsafe conditions, and her husband (a dwarf, who lives for mining and drinking) now begrudginly only has his drinking to drown his sorrows.

The Party searches the grounds finding a pair of muddy foot prints in the soft garden behind the house under the daughters second story window. Looking as though someone had been climbing up the wall into the daughters room. The party then tracks the foot prints through the soil over the river and down into the Fire Caves, where all the mining had been taking place until what they deduce to be about a year ago.

The tracks look to be two creatures dragging a third smaller person, then after the river where because of the rocks the tracks became harder to find, it appears that the daughter must have been walking with her shoes on, and then back to being dragged through the dirt entering the Fire Caves. With some sort of scuffle happening outside.

The party enters the caves avoiding a series of webs left by the creatures that presumably now enhabit them. They eventually find the daughter covered in a cocoon of webbing behind a iron-bar cage. Above their head Ettercaps swing from their webs, watching the party as they open the cage and cut the webbing from around the mouth of the daughter.

The party questions the daughter, not certain if they move her whether or not the ettercaps will attack. The daughter beligerently tells them to get her the hell out of there, those creatures are going to kill her. The party deduces if they were going to kill her they would have done so already. She claims that she hired them and they work for her, they have to get her out of there. After awhile of miming with the ettercaps the party deduces that the ettercaps and dwarven miners were once allied and it seems that the ettercaps actually want their dwarven friends to return to mining.

At this point the party doesn't quiet know who their working for or what they are supposed to do, so they decide for now to not chance a battle with the ettercaps in which the daughter might be killed, and head out of the caves to discuss things with the Lady of the village to see exactly what else is going on there.

After exiting the mines a Gnome emerges from the shadows wearing emblems of a mist village shinobi/ninja. "Don't trust that little witch, she would poison her own mother if it suited her purpose. Which, as it happens it does."

Gnome - " you should know that I work for her, she hired me to shut down these mines, poison her mother, and fake her kidnapping. Unfortunately for her I got a better offer from a certain dwarven miner along the way. I had hoped those ettercap would kill her once they found out what she had been up to, but sadly they didn't have what it takes. So here's the thing, you go in there and bring me her head and I'll let you collect half the reward from the dwarf. I trust you'll bring me my half later."

Party - "how did you shut the mines down?"

Gnome - "Easily enough, with a few of these" (explosives disguised as rocks, to set off the methane in the mines)

Party - interparty debate as what to do

Gnome - "just think about it, but do it quickly, we are on a bit of a time crunch here."

While the party debated, the Gnome was able to slip by them and kill the girl. The party re-enters the caves to find the daughters throat riped out by the bit of an animal. The ettercap describe the gnome then it in mime as some sort of dog or fanged creature.

The party immediately gather up the daughter and take her back to the Lady of the town, while the paladin to his detriment, confronts the Lady's husband the Dwarven miner, who says to the paladin that he doesn't answer to him because he is the law of the town (with regard to hiring a ninja to kill his stepdaughter.) This gains the paladin a 10day trip to jail that is resolved willingly later.

The Dwarven husband hearing the Lady's screams as she is presented with her daughter next door in the manor, rushes to her side.

At which point the party tells the Lady of her husbands hiring the gnome to kill her daughter, and he is forced to come clean, confessing he did it to protect the Lady from the truth, that her daughter was trying to poison her. The party tests a few wine bottles and finds the poisoned one, proving the mother was being poisoned, but didn't prove that the dwarf wasn't responsible.
Because it seems the one that has the most to gain from the daughter and the mother's death is the heir to the mines the dwarf who would be working in them still even with the conditions as deadly as they are.

Then while arguing someone bumps the body of the daughter, and a clank sounds as the husbands family heirloom the gauntlets fall to the floor from her corpse. This the party believes would have been the last straw to set the mother and father against one another and perhaps leave only the daughter behind to rule the town. The family seems satisfied with the answer that the daughter was responsible, and true to their word give the party the gauntlets, saying they only wish to start new with one another, and now that the mines can reopen they will bury the past (literally).

The paladin serves his 10 days in jail, the rogue trades the gauntlets as payment to the gnome. The gnome praises his wisdom in bringing it to him so he did not have to hunt down the party for his reward, and splits the value of the gauntlets in gold with the rogue. The rogue on the way back to town finds the bodies of several mist ninja with one missing his emblems, suggesting the gnome wasn't who he said he was.

The party leaves town, not really sure who they were working for or if they did the right thing, but they know the mines are reopened which they see is clearly good for that town, so they return to the village seemingly better off.

The party on the way back to the village encounter a group of mist ninja gnomes who have laid a trap for them, blocking the river with two hidden wire mesh nets to box in a kill zone. At which point I proceeded to misread the invisibility reactive ability of the gnomes and unwittingly cheese the combat, nevertheless the party was victorious and awarded a small extra amount of extra xp for the mistake - with one gnome escaping with potentially rewarding wand of magical loot.

The party reports back to the Headmaster, at which point are berated for not having put together that when the Headmaster said Lady of the town, that there could be more than one, and when the first Lady of the town says she didn't hire you, that the second who said she did, must have actually hired them. So the mission technically ends in failure, because not only did they not work for the person who hired them, but that person was killed in the process.

Crusio tells the old Headmaster to stuff it, because they both know that town is productive again whether or not they did their mission is pointless as they outcome is better for the village anyhow. "just give them their charter you dried up gnewt." The headmaster gives the party their charter and mission rewards.

At which point the Rogue goes to settle up with the Hokage, who tells him sternly but kindly, that those manacles are not for his imprisonment, but to remind him that this village is only as strong as the laws that govern it, the people that support them, and the leaders that bind them together. The links of that chain are a symbol for the unity of the villages common laws, and for the consequences for breaking them. The Hokage reduces the fines to half what they were and accepts what the rogue presents as full payment, forgiving the rest as lesson learned.

This concludes the DM's memory of 1st to 2nd levels, though I'm sure because of how many months ago that was I've left a bunch out.

David's Dungeons/Dragons 4.0 Anime Campaign Origin 10.21.08

GENERAL RP NOTES TO CONSIDER.

WHILE THIS IS A 4.0 BASED GAME THERE ARE SOME CONSIDERATIONS TO KEEP IN MIND.

This game is a loose rip off of several anime that I enjoy, something I could put together quickly for you guys and it hopefully all tie together from 1st to 30th coherently.

Given the ripped off nature of the game, certain world concepts and flavors are going to come into play.

1. All powers divine, arcane, and martial are all referred to as “Jutsu” and everyone no matter their training have their own capabilities and flavors of “Jutsu“, each manifesting in a different way and from a different source.

Arcane powers are “Ninjutsu” drawn from one’s own inner chakra and expelled into an effect.

Divine powers are “Genjutsu” drawn from the chakra that surrounds everyone and everything then expelled into an effect.

Martial powers are drawn purely from the body “Taijutsu” and use one’s own body to make physics work in miraculous ways.

At times the lines do blur and one may cross slightly into the other but the skill checks will always remain the same regardless of if a martial ability looks like an arcane or divine or vice versa.

2. Like 4.0 suggests magic, or in this case ninjutsu is rare but is still natural, and the populace at large can handle seeing the effects of low level ninjutsu without thinking their whole world has come unglued; however, they nor your characters are prepared to handle the extreme reality of higher level jutsu (Paragon to Epic Powers) and simply cannot believe it is possible at this point. Try to play like you don’t know at your next level you get that cool new I blast your face into the next plane thing.

3. Gods are like gods of our world, individuals have faith in them as they choose, argue, fight and persecute over them just as we do, but ultimately there is no proof of their existence that isn’t debated in some fashion by one side or another. Because the gods are not seen acting directly in the lives of the people at large. You can believe for RP that your power comes from a deity if you wish but it isn’t required, if you are a divine caster you must still have a firm belief in some guiding morality even if you don’t believe your power comes from it.

4. Other races of creatures do exist and even ‘monsters’ but these creatures are not perceived as supernatural unless I tell you otherwise, you should perceive them no differently than some critter you’ve never seen on the discovery channel for the first time – some creatures even if weird simply are natural to this world – while others seemingly perhaps less weird are in fact extremely unnatural for the world and should cause you great alarm.

Anything else just make a role and I’ll tell you how the RP should play out according to it.


SUGGESTED REFERENCE ANIME - for flavor/feel

Naruto - I'm using the concept of kingdoms using 'villages,' or hired military training academy, as the starting point with the abilities of D&D being explained as ninja arts. Also promoting early on a base of operations and a mission by mission setting.

Tenjho Tenge - I'm taking the concept of an inevitable destiny for the world, that the harder you try to prevent something the closer you get to making it happen. Also I'm pulling the four main characters story as the driving plot to resolve from 1st to 12th level. Can you find a way to escape your destiny, or do you even want to?

Bleach - I'm taking the concept of Spiritual Pressures, Artificial Souls, Soul guides, Bonded Weapons, the After life, and the battle between Salvation and Damnation. These concepts will be introduced from 1st to 12th but won't become truly pertinent until Paragon levels.



INFLUENTIAL NPC NAMES & PLACES

PLACES OF NOTE: ANIME TEMPLATE - (Naruto)

Dargenryo - The most influential of nearby Kingdoms because of their military power, that stems from the Kyotenichi Village Ninja.

Dargenichi - The primary state/province of the Dargenryo Kingdom, where most of the campaign action will take place.

Rygenhijo - The Crrent Capital City of the Dargenryo Kingdom, and the birth place of a new Capitalism supported Monarchy.

Kyoten - The Old Capital City of the Dargenryo Kingdom, which never fell during the revolution that over threw the previous monarchy.

Kyotenichi - The Hired Military Village bordering Kyoten City, recognized as the most prestigious military villages among the neighboring kingdoms.
ANIME VILLAGE TEMPLATE : Konohagakure (Naruto)


PEOPLE OF NOTE:

Aderyosuchi - The Hokage of Kyotenichi, sacrificed himself for the village, and plead with it's destroyer to trust in it's people to do what is necessary. (Dragonborn pristine Gold scales, Full plate bears the emblems of Bahamut)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : 3RD Hokage (Naruto)

Ryosuchi - The Headmaster of Kyotenichi's primary ninja academy Viso Adestra, Aderyosuchi's younger brother who has always been jealous of his brother's power and ability. (dragonborn scarred silver scales)

Sharina - Buxom youthful woman with silky long straight white hair, nimble movements, with a fox like jovialness that is encumbered by a deeper hidden saddness. Sister to Crusio of the Nobu-naga clan. (Eladarin)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Maya Natsume (Tenjho Tenge)

Lissera - Poised and proper young woman of elegant breeding, brown loosely curled hair, with glasses and fashion concealing her exaggerated femanine wilds. Daughter of Onigar.(Human, with odd hints of glitteringly blue metallic skin tones)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Mana Kuzunoha (Tenjho Tenge)

Cercators - A secret association of religious zealots who follow Bane and the Raven Queen, with their hands in every aspect of the world, these are truly the puppet masters of every major incident on the continent.

Onigar - The current aging co-leader of the Cercators, by will and power alone he seeks the vessel who will be worthy to replace him, the Demi Vaso, or otherwise known as the 'true martial artist.' Lisseras True Father. (Blue Dragon or blue scale dragon born)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Dogen Takayanagi (Tenjho Tenge)

Crusio - The founder of the jupin-naga, a club of students at Vaso Adestra who were assembled unwittingly with the sole purpose of learning from Crusio so that one day they would be strong enough to defeat him in battle, becoming worthy to be the next Demi Vaso. He is known to be the last of the Nobu-naga clan, and the wielder of the Reiki Nodachi (over sided cursed katana) named the Kyonaga. Covers the knowledge of his fated death at the hands of his closest friends with an overt sarcasm, and crass jovialness. Long white hair and unusually feable looking frame, with an eye patch over one eye and a leather bomber type jacket having a silver chinese dragon emblem on the back. (Eladrin)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Shin Natsume (Tenjho Tenge)

Demi Vaso - Bad latin for the Vessel of God. The person the Cercators seek to create to serve as a conduit for their demi-god's works on this plane of existence.
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Mitsuomi Takay (Tenjho Tenge)

Labisis - the 4th gate of the Cercator, serving to test and strengthen the ability of the Jupin-naga as the final step before a battle with Onigar and Crusio. Completely willing to die in service of the cercator cause. Young lizard like humanoid male of green scales will blunt nasal cavities and clawed hands/feet. (Githzerai)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Gara of the Sand (Naruto)

Baringo - the 3rd gate of the Cercator, serving to test and strengthen the ability of the Jupin-naga as the final step before a battle with Labisis. Completely willing to die in service of the cercator cause. Adult female with black hair and ravenlike wings, with taloned feet. (Blood fire Harpy)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Temari (Naruto)

Arryota - the 2nd gate of the Cercator, serving to test and strengthen the ability of the Jupin-naga as the final step before a battle with Baringo. Completely willing to die in service of the cercator cause. Crone female with white beleagered features and diseased body under robes of rotted moss. (Howling Hag)

Lotus - the lost sister of Crusio and Sharina, locked away in the Liloth tower of deceit & illusions. Potentially the vessel of the Raven Queen herself. Similar features to Sharina, but sandy brown hair, and more coy innocence with a seemingly programmed flirtaciousness with members of the Jupin-naga. (Eladrin)
ANIME CHARACTER TEMPLATE : Aya Natsume (Tenjho Tenge)


CAMPAIGN STARTING POINT

Players begin the campaign between the ages of 12-16 in the village of Kyotenichi. The players each choose their own backstory fitting into the general concept of a Naruto based world where a major revolution just occurred within the Kingdom of Dargenryo, that caused the capital city to change to Rygenhijo, and potentially shift the village from it's traditional home of Kyoten.

After the players have selected a backstory for their characters, the DM introduces Crusio as described above. He will form the unchartered club known as the Jupin-naga - the club is created according to Crusio so the Players will prove their characters worthy of joining the Vaso Adestra Ninja Academy. The players will be introduced by Crusio to Vaso Adestra's Headmaster Ryosuchi, who will demonstrate a clear disapproval of Crusio's unruly attitudes and behaviors, but will eventually approve the Jupin-naga for their first mission, "Trial of the Fire Caves."

Ryosuchi explains the Players have been hired by the Lady of a nearby rivers mining town, they are instructed to go to the mining town find the Lady and resolve the issue of the Fire Caves. The successful completion of the mission will give the Jupin-naga their necessary Charter to enter the academy as a squad - also rewarding them with 1/4th of 1st to 2nd level's wealth (reference DMG wealth by level table).


END CAMPAIGN OUTLINE TO OPENING.

RESUME WITH OUR CAMPAIGN HISTORY.