Siriel

Agents of Raerion

One fateful day, Siriel woke up and said “I’ll run a short game on the side of Curse of the Lion Lord, that should be fun.” And he invited mAc_Chaos, Christemo and Reiu to participate in it.

This is the result. The game takes place in the same setting as Curse of the Lion Lord, but in another region.

CAST:
Zanma: A paladin sworn to oppose undeath in all its form, coming from a local religious order.
Otto: A reclusive monk of the order of Final Death, seeking to eradicate all undeads. Boaster of 23 AC which is kind of obnoxious.
Arkvir: An oracle, sworn of another noble house. Has a lot of knowledge skills.

The three of them were sent in answer to a request from Lord Carrow, As level 4 characters, they are somewhat special for the setting, though not hero-level.

The scene opens with Lord Carrow, who greets them and quickly moves on to business: An alchemist in his employ, one Stephanos, was recently discovered to be a Necromancer illegally using the kingdom’s funds to further his heretical research. After being discovered he fled to a crypt, and has now barricaded himself inside.
The party’s mission is to track him down and bring back his research, as well as neutralize the man himself either by capturing or killing him.
The party readily agrees, with Otto swearing to slay the man and bring back the documents to Lord Carrow. Some of them have heard of each other, some have not. Amusingly Arkvir fails both knowledge checks and Reiu decides that it’s because he doesn’t pay attention.

Since I had fairly little time to prepare the session, we skip to a few days later when the party has reached their destination. They speak relatively little along the way, all of them being reserved men focused on their Mission.

Descending into the crypt’s underground level, Zanma begins using Detect Undead, which thanks to his Oath against Undeath has replaced a normal Paladin’s Detect Evil ability. For the sake of ease of play, we decide that he’ll automatically use it every time they enter a room, since it gets tiresome to have to specify it (and aggravating if you forget.).
He detects undead in a nearby room, and Otto promptly walks off in that direction. Alas the fiends are well prepared, and the door leading into it is locked.

Defeated by their cunning foes, the party walk further down the corridor, arriving in a room filled with statues whose heads were destroyed. mAc seizes the opportuniy to use the word dank in the right context (“What are these statues doing in the dank depths of this crypt,”) and Arkvir reveals that the statues were of minor saints and heroes, used in crypts to ward off evil spirits.
Incensed by the unforgiveable heresy, the party rushes onward, but it is not long before they meet...another locked door!
This time they remember that they can just bash it in, and confront their first enemies; a pair of Skeletal Champions. (Unusually powerful skeletons.)
Zanma recognizes them for what they are, and the party engages them in mortal kombat.

Otto begins his streak of missing with one attack and hitting with another (this will continue for every single combat round in the entire session) and accidentally rolling a d20 for damage instead of a d8 (this will also continue for almost the entire session).
The champions prove unworthy and are swiftly dispatched, Otto beginning to laugh as his AC is never threatened.
Undeterred, the party carries on.
Deciding to investigate a small alcove, they find a mace on a pedestal. Zanma inspects it, leading to the following exchange:

Zanma: “I care not for trifles and baubles, but to slay the dead. Such worldly attachments mean nothing to me. You can have it if you desire.”
GM (answering knowledge roll): The mace bears the symbol of the Holy Sun, destroyer of undeath.
Zanma: (LOL, okay nevermind that last thing.)
Otto: (WHAT ARE THESE BAUBLES? I DONT WANT THEM- OH WAIT THEY'RE DIVINE RELICS NVM GIMME)

Though wary of a trap, Zanma decides to retrieve it, and when he takes the mace from its altar a holy light shine to not effect. It turns out to be a magical mace enchanted against ghosts.
They then double back to the first room that they hadn’t opened the door to, and bash it in. Inside is a large group of standard skeletons, which I had meant as the introductory fight.

The ensuing ‘fight’ drives me to despair as every single skeleton fails to roll above 10, Otto manages to miss them in turn, and I end up so disgusted that I delete them while announcing that Otto killed them all.

Arkvir: (ouch)
Otto: (I cant)
Siriel : rolling 1d20 + 3 = 5
Otto: (LOL)
Siriel : THE SKELETONS ARE SUCH DISAPPOINTMENT THAT THEY ERASE THEMSELVES FROM EXISTENCE
Zanma: (they wither up and die)
(wow lol)
Arkvir: (ouch my sides)
Zanma: (OMG)
Otto: (Otto casts Road Roller)
Siriel (GM): rolling 1d20 + 3 = 5
Arkvir: (my sides)
Zanma: (the necromancer dispels them)
Otto: (ROFL)
Siriel : THAT'S IT
Otto: (I CANT)
Arkvir: (it hurts guys)
Otto: (LAUGHING BREAK PLEASE)
Arkvir: (it hurts so bad)
Siriel : (I've now deleted every instance of those guys from teh dungeon.)
Let's just assume Otto punched them all to final death
Eventually
Arkvir: (o-okay)
Zanma: (siriel slowly pulls out a wooden block and begins carving a voodoo doll of otto)

Moving on and continuing to explore the dungeon, many doors are destroyed and Otto avoids a lightning trap by rolling 19 on his reflex save, remaining invincible.
They find magical gloves marked with the emblem of the Holy Sun, and determine that they have the power to boost a Paladin’s Lay On Hand ability. Otto retrieves them from their pedestal, rolling another 19 against the trap.

They then encounter another duo of Skeletal Champions, on whom I place my trust to restore my honor. They do not disappoint, wounding Zanma and confirming a critical on Akrvir for 14 damage (about half his HP). Otto remains untouched and keeps making smug comments whenever someone gets hit. (His AC is just on the level where they’d need a natural 20 to hit him.)

They continue down a corridor that leads further underground, until they encounter a steel door with the emblem of the Holy Sun on one side (the corridor continues deeper).
Sensing loot, Otto launches a fierce attack on the door...and fumbles, taking 2 damage.

Arkvir: (his first damage. from a door)
Otto: (You cheating bitch)

Zanma eventually figures out that the Holy Sun is the key and opens the door while wearing the gloves, unlocking it.
They enter a room where they find a few healing potions and a holy symbol bearing the Holy Sun. Seeing another door leading further inside, Otto punches it as the others stand in a line behind him. They promptly all get zorched for 11 damage from a lightning bolt trap as they all fail a DC 15 save.
Otto: (jesus christ. You cant trust doors I told you. It was a warning sign)
Inside is a statue of Leon Silvershield, a legendary hero who landed the final blow against the world’s last great dragon centuries ago. Though they wonder what a statue of him is doing there, they decide to continue on.

Down the corrdor, they find a door bearing a symbol of danger.

Entering, they encounter a ghostly warrior that Arkvir identifies as a guardian spirit. Upon seeing the holy symbol, the spirit bows to them and vanishes. (Mini-boss fight avoided by inspecting all the rooms.)
Puzzled by why a holy guardian would have allowed a necromancer to defile the crypt, they inspect the room and realize that Stephanos must have swarmed it in minions while he passed through the room.
They don’t know it but at this point they’re at a crossroad: To the East lies Stephanos and the dungeon’s end, to the west a bonus area containing more backstory and a chance to stop what Stephanos is planning.

They opt to go East. Finding a corridor leading in two directions, they first go South and find a room with another statue (this time of one of Leon’s companions) and what appears to be a rudimentary alchemist workshop.
Arkvir inspects some notes left on the table and finds gibberish. A bare intelligence roll promptly yields a natural 20, the only result that could give anything.

Arkvir proceeds to enter BEAST MODE and succeeds on four DC 20 checks spread across four different skills to figure out what the notes mean, revealing that Stephanos was working on a way to revive the dead by taking advantage of the opening to the afterlife opened by a particularly powerful death (in this case, the death of the last dragon entombed in the crypt, which continues to echo centuries later). This is such a complicated process that Stephanos had to invent entirely new concepts for it, which is why his notes appear to be gibberish.

The first dilemma that the party meets appears as Arkvir plans to bring the notes back to Lord Carrow, while Zanma and Otto insists that such an aberration against nature must be destroyed.
Doing his best to memorize the notes, Arkvir eventually accepts since he couldn’t win a fight against the two of them.
(Note: Technically Otto is breaking his promise with Lord Carrow by doing this, something that a Monk wouldn’t be allowed to do. However I agreed that his vow against undeath would take precedence so I didn’t speak up.)

As they leave and continue deeper into the East wing, they hear a glass breaking and determine that Stephanos must be near. Before confronting him, they stop for one last looting frenzy and find an altar with a necklace on it; a magical item that protects against poisonous gas.

(At this point we’re hurrying a bit as mAc didn’t eat before the session and we’ve been playing for 7 hours or so.)

Thus equipped, they confront Stephanos and his skeletal bodyguards.

They at last confront the nefarious necromancer! The decisive battle to determine the fate of the world! ...And roll20 crashes immediately after Stephanos starts speaking.

We decide to take a lunch break (our first pause since we began playing) while the admins fix the servers, and reconvene some 30 min later.

There is some pre-fight banter with Stephanos and the party proceeds to make a chain of 20+ Intimidate rolls.
At this point I find myself in something of a bind; I could have Stephanos surrender (as he’s definitely intimidated) but that would be kind of boring.
Sighing, I cross out some of Stephanos’ special ability and invoke the power of a DARK VOICE that intimidates Stephanos into fighting the party. (Rolling 25 on my Intimidate check; I’d decided that if that failed he would surrender.)

The bad guys start because the good guys can’t roll initiative for crap, and then this happens:

Siriel (Attacking Otto): rolling 1d20+7=25
Zanma: (REKT)
Otto: (Miss.)
Zanma: (WHAT)
Otto: (I have Mage Armor on. AC is 27)

Screw you, Otto.
A fierce battle ensues, as they slay Stephanos’ bodyguards while Stephanos completes an incantation and launches a cloud at them. Arkvir fails his roll, which will prove dire in the future.

Eventually Otto and Zanma manage to break through and charge Stephanos, leaving Arkvir with the last skeleton bodyguard. Arkvir summons a celestial eagle that they start calling America Bird for some reason, and sends it after Stephanos.

As the trio reaches Stephanos, the prior poison catches up to Arkvir, making his muscles collapse and preventing him from acting as long as he fails the saving throws against it. Fortunately for Arkvir the skeleton remaining with him is apparently unable to hit a downed opponent so no damage is dealt from either side.

America Bird proves the most competent person in the room and wounds Stephanos despite also having the lowest attack bonus in the room. Stephanos, engaged in melee, proceeds to balloon to a great size and attempts to grapple Otto (as grapple checks are not against AC) but fails much to my disgust.
Otto attacks thrice but hits Stephanos only once, dealing a little damage and trying to paralyze him. Unfortunately for him Stephanos aces his saving throw while Otto fails his, losing 2 STR to the poison emitted from Stephanos’ body.
Another round, another missed grapple and attacks. Otto unleashes a flurry of punches and misses with every one of them.

Otto: (...is this how it feels?)
Zanma: (welcome to the land of ordinary mortals)
Arkvir: (yes this is how it feels)
Otto: (I shouldve never made armorstacking meta)

America bird proceeds to spend two more rounds being the only one damaging Stephanos, and the latter eventually tires of it and (barely manages to) squash the bird flat.
Eventually Stephanos grapples Otto successfully and damages him some, but Otto returns the grapple and Zanma takes the advantage to murder Stephanos, with Arkvir managing to slay the skeleton just in time to rush over and secure the kill.

Stephanos falls as the dark voice echoes once more (“ "A death as sacrifice, the echo of a great one as strength, and chains to bind the soul.") and all is silent.

The quest is over, Stephanos slain, his notes destroyed.

But.... there is one last room in the dungeon, behind where Stephanos stood.

The three chooses to continue further. In the last room, they find a circle of runes overflowing with negative energy in which a man wearing a lion pelt stands. Zanma detects him to be an exceptionally powerful form of undead.

The ensuing discussion is odd, as the man speaks cryptically, but they eventually determine his identity: Eskarl the Lion Lord, one of the lieutenants of the ancient dragon during the war centuries ago, now risen as an undead through Stephanos’ ritual.

Otto and Zanma both realize that they’re trapped at this point; both of them are sworn to destroy him (not only because he’s historically a villain, but because he’s undead), but both OOC and IC are fairly certain they stand no chance. Arkvir, having no such vow, promptly bows out and runs off to report to his employers.

The battle begin, and immediately Zanma takes two strikes from Eskarl for 19 damage, bringing him to 0 HP (as they had neglected to fully heal after the previous battle), though he manages to heal himself with Lay on Hand before fainting.

Getting back up, Zanma rolls a crit and confirms. (He’s fairly surprised to confirm it with a total of 20, since that means he has a lower AC than the Skeletal Champions; I then point out that Eskarl isn’t wearing any armor.)

Otto unleashes a flurry of three punches and for the first time hits with every single one of them, dealing 29 damage to Eskarl.

Eskarl counters on Zanma, dealing exactly enough damage to knock him unconscious, and Otto is left the last one standing.

Otto misses his round, and Eskarl counters with a special ability that has a DC 20 saving throw. Naturally, Otto gets 19, thus failing that save. A storm of negative energy strikes him for 25 damage.

Despite his wounds, Otto refuses Eskarl’s offer that he surrenders, and Eskarl decides that he’ll rededicate the tomb to Otto after the battle.

The fight lasts two more rounds, and Otto asks that Eskarl make sure that he won’t be revived as an undead. Eskarl agrees and swears it.

With one last blow Otto falls, his ridiculous AC not quite enough to compensate for Eskarl being three times his level.

With Otto and Zanma’s deaths, the session ends as Arkvir flees to report to his employers.




With the end, we pretty much all agreed that it was really fun but too exhausting to do ever do again. The session lasted about nine hours, with only a thirty minute break when roll20 crashed.

Before leaving, I feel I need to talk a bit about Eskarl to not give the wrong impression of me as a GM; this wasn’t, in fact, a campaign where I set out to kill the players, despite what the presence of a virtually boss might indicate. Eskarl was an avoidable encounter, and meeting him required the players to ‘fail’ a few non-mechanical parts of the campaign.
The west wing of the bottom floor, which they didn’t visit at all, contained the ancient dragon’s corpse, and if they had found it they could have sabotaged Stephanos’ ritual.
Zanma’s Detect Undead detected Eskarl before the Stephanos fight, and if one of them had gone there before Stephanos died they could have disrupted the ritual as well.
Finally, gathering all of the Holy Sun relics (of which they missed the armor) would have weakened Eskarl significantly, making him beatable.
I left it up to the dice too; if they had fully healed before confronting him and Arkvir had participated in the battle, they might have been able to defeat him even as he was since while high level he had no equipment to speak of.
Well, also, I didn't know in advance that two of my players would be playing characters that were forced to fight Eskarl; he wouldn't have chased if they fled.

Still, we all agreed it was a good end for Otto and Zanma.