>>30627173

So our tale begins in Serne. As can be seen, the area is circular, with a chunk of the region descending into the oceans. The land is easily defined by the unusual ring of mountains.

Legend tells that thousands of years ago Serne did not exist. A number of factions considered their borders to lie within this area, whether partially or entirely. It was not until the mountains were risen by the mighty wizards of the lonely university that Serne came into being.

A terrible and ancient power is said to be buried here. One of the gods of old; that of nature but not as most denizens of the world think of it. This was a temperate, terrible god who's name is lost to time; it harnessed the raw powers of the four elements. When the new gods rose to power, they did so by tearing the gods of old from their pedestals and casting them into oblivion before taking their place. However, this particular god was not such an easy foe. How could anything, even beings as mighty as Torag or Gozreh tear asunder the reality of the elements from the multiverse?

Civilisation had existed for many thousands of years even when these divine wars raged upon one-another and The Great University was already a part of the world and a powerful one at that.

>>30627288

The university sides with the new gods, citing their desire for a change of management, so to speak, and though no-one would dare accuse them of such an act the university had far more selfish motives and they sought to harness the power of the dying gods of old.

They were formidable, and a force to be reckoned with even by the divine and so as the old gods fell into the history books the god of nature marched upon the university.

Recognising what could happen if these mortals could harness such a great source of energy, and also as a means to fight their foe, the new gods sent out a warning. They would raise the oceans and decimate the lands of mortals to rid the world of this god and his minions.

Nations and kingdoms quickly came to the university and implored them to do something! To hold the oceans back from their lands so that they would not fall into ruin.

The Great University obliged them. The eight mages of the council, each one a pioneer in his school and an army in his own right banded together and as the oceans came roaring beyond the shores, the ground shook and great stone walls rose from the ground to hold back the tide of destruction.

The gods watched as the turbulent forces of the ocean, awash with their own imbued holy energies, destroyed cities and towns and their greatest foe.

When the waters receded and flowed back into the ocean there was a barren ruin of a crate, two hundred miles across with a single tower erect in the centre.

Out of grief for the life, history and civilisations lost for many miles around them, The Great University became The Lonely University and has since stood solitary at the heart of Serne.

>>30627377

Serne was now born, and it did not take long for the new divine powers to discover that the university had betrayed them. In the death throes of their foe, the university had instead bound the god within a prison and tried to secret it away such that they might learn to harness it. A set of keys had been constructed by the wizards and the gods took them and locked even these away, creating new keys which they scattered across the land. Ever since, the wizards have been under a watchful eye and as mages withered in their heart-beat long lives the gods thought that they had forgotten.

And thus our campaign begins.

>>30627412

I'll be taking a brief break from writing now. I will compose a basic list here in the real world of how the campaign progressed and what actually happened in what order.

I'll start writing again later.

I will tell the story a little less like I'm trying to write a novel now and I will tell it more from the party's perspective, which means lulz will hopefully be had.

>>30627428

I'd also love to know if people are actually reading...

>>30627451
Lurking.

>>30627451
We're here, just don't want to interrupt the flow.

>>30627454
>>30627463

Alright, cool. Just didn't want to be sat here typing to myself.

>>30627467

I'm going to clarify a couple of my house-rules.

Detect Magic works like a sixth sense. You can turn it on and off and when it's on it basically just means perception checks will reveal magical auras in the vicinity. A little bit like Detect Life in Oblivion, except you just kind of "feel" where the magic stuff is.

Magical items are very obviously magical. To enchant an object, someone with the knowledge and ability inscribed a series of magical runes a part of the object. Weapons might have letters running up the side of the blade or a staff might have a helix of runes from tip to toe. Someone proficient in enchantment can actually read these runes like a language and glean what an item does (However it would've been told in fantasy terms as opposed to RAW terms if someone have ever done it). It also allows the construction of "fake" magical items, where people inscribe a load of useless runes (Which are no more magical than the residual energies of Serne) which will glow and make it look powerful when it might not be.

>>30627454
>>30627463

I also need to know if you'd like me to write out the entire campaign or focus on the highlights in no particular order.

>>30627820
Either or, I'm not picky.

>>30627820
Entire campaign with highlights.

>>30627820
If you don't mind doing it write up the whole thing.

>>30627859

I'm talking to some of the players and trying to pin down the order that things happened in...

>>30627881
>>30627889

I wasn't going to leave out the campaign highlights if doing the whole thing, haha.

I'll just do the whole campaign.

The characters:

Chatalis the Elf Druid

Grind the Warforged Wizard

Something (I've forgotten the name) the Half-Orc Barbarian

Akira the Human Paladin

I will refer to them all mostly as "The Barbarian" and "The Druid" anyway.

>>30627933

So... The campaign begins mid-quest, because that's how I wanted to roll and things fit together far easier because of it.

The Barbarian had been hired to defend and protect a wizard from the university and escort him into an old dwarven ruin in the mountains. They had fought through a few 'rock monsters' and the barbarian had little trouble killing them as they came out of the walls. Eventually they arrived at an ornate stone door.

The wizard had drawn all runes and markings around the door and had attempted to cast a spell. Despite his efforts, he could not budge this door. The door was quite basic in shape (Square) but had a circular pattern with some inlets upon it, covering most of the door. There were eight inlets around the outside of the door and then a single deeper, circular hole in the center. The inlets were in the shape of a circle, a leaf, a triangle, a square and so on up to octagon.

In frustration of the wizard "dragging me here wasting my fucking time", the barbarian attempted to open the door by throwing the wizard at it. This served to knock him out and probably give him concussion and the barbarian would've likely just paled into the wizard if the warforged hadn't appeared.

The warforged had come to being one-day in this place and found it empty and sealed, but full of books! He spent his days reading books and learning of the magicks inside and over the half-century or so of relentless study he had become a powerful wizard, if somewhat child-like for having never met another being or seen anything outside of this cave (None of the books had pictures). Wisdom was his dump stat.

The barbarian regarded the warforged and pretty much ignored them and picked up the wizard and began to carry him home, so the warforged followed and came out into the wide world for the first time (The doors were magically sealed and hidden and the warforged had never thought to look for them). They camped just outside the cave and introduced themselves

>>30627992

The story was a little bit... Disjointed, with the wisdom dump-stat wizard not understanding how conversation worked and the intelligence dump-stat barbarian not understanding half the words the robot used.

In the morning, the wizard came around and was told he banged his head and that they failed to open the door.

As they descended Mt. Isan (Bottom right) into the forest, the warforged began approaching things in amazement.

WF: "Oh my god, what's this!?"
Wizard: "That is a tree."
WF: "I've read about these! ... ... ... Oh my god, what's that!?"
Wizard: "... That is another kind of tree."

They soon joined up to River Isan and began following this back to the university where the river ends (It just stops, nobody knows where it goes except the wizards).

The warforged, now having more things to use magic on and noticing fish in the river when they first started along mage-handed a fish out of the water successfully. He stared at it for a while (To which the barbarian and the wizard got pissed off) before eventually it stopped moving.

"It's broken." he announced to the two, before they continued on their way. He kept the fish in one of his storage compartments.

The only settlement they passed through was They'n (Pronounced Thane) and they didn't really stop and basically nothing happened between here and the university.

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>>30628044
>>30627992
>Reading intensifies
My body is ready

>>30628044

When they got to the university, they were invited inside the grounds. There was a large, tall stone wall which made a circle around the tower of the university which had a single gate at the western edge. Passing through here, there were beautiful gardens (And the very end of river Isan) where various herbs and ingredients grew. They approached the door of the university, came inside and were asked to wait inside of the fawyer which they did, though the barbarian checked all of the doors to see if there was anything to steal but none of the doors would open for him.

After a little while they were invited once more by the wizard (A middle-aged man named Jeremy, I forgot to mention) up to his study to discuss a contract.

They went up and were given the run-down. They were shown various diagrams and texts and the eight stone keys were described to them (A sort of brass colour, very smooth but not mirror-polished and about eight inches in diameter). The other central keys were also described and they were tasked with going out into Serne to find them and bring them back, for the hefty sum of 2000 gold per key. The warforged with no concept of money was happy to oblige as he understood the concepts of adventuring and quests having read some of the novels in his cave. The barbarian wanted MOAR GOLD, so he was happy as well.

They were told that there was an individual supposedly living in Altec who might have information on the where-abouts of the keys and that they should go find him.

>>30628093

So onwards our heroes went on their quest! Just two in number (For now, the druid joins later as a permanent character and the paladin is with us for two sessions and then another one much later in the campaign).

Our heroes, being level 10, were relatively wealthy as well. The warforged especially, having melted down precious gold items found in his cave to build replacement gears for himself. Grind did not stand up-right, rather he stood hunched over and walked a little juddery. He had a basic cloth "cloak" (Read as: blanket) and a gnarled, old wooden stick. The barbarian was generic half-orc barbarian model #4.

I couldn't be bothered for spending every night in the woods, maybe fighting a random encounter and it having no impact upon the campaign (They're level 10 for christ's sake) so when they wanted to go places they did consider the amount of time that it took but it had no out-of-game effect.

Arriving in Altec, a place neither adventurer had been before, they found a rather small town with sheep and cattle as one source of in-come though due to the large plains nearby they had a LOT of horses, and they were famously awesome. Because of their relatively cheap price and number, anybody who owned a horse owned an Altec horse. There were the odd shops and one or two inns but this was a hamlet at best.

In total there was (I have this written down from my old campaign notes):

A General Store *
An Equine "store" ****
Blacksmith **
Magic Store **

The was also The Old Boat Inn **

All of my shops and stuff I gave a star rating system based on the goods they carried and how nice they were in general, just for consistency but I made these known to my party just so they could have a rough idea of how good (or bad) a shop was.

The barbarian quickly struck it off the the blacksmith, who was a not-Russian vodka addict who hit metal with a hammer for a living. He even forged the barbarian his own hand-axe (After getting paid, of course).

>>30628146
>The warforged especially, having melted down precious gold items found in his cave to build replacement gears for himself.
Wouldn't this, you know, be impossible and a bad idea.

>>30628146

They spent some time asking around people and the barbarian, having some street smarts, decided the best place to ask about shit was the inn (Which reminds me of a mini-story with the barbarian which I will pretend happens later on).

The warforged took the direct approach and just walked up to people and exclaimed

"I'm on a quest! Looking for a stone. Made of brass, about 'yay' big." and would gesture its size "has one to eight sides."

He was often met with even funnier looks than when people saw a fucking robot waddling over. The barbarian had some more street-smarts and he asked around for "some dodgy guy", figuring that wizards only speak to weird people. They were directed to the owner of the general store who was "a right fuckin' weirdo".

It was late and the store was closed by now though, so they spent the night in the inn. I think the barbarian fell asleep like a dog in front of the fire and the warforged doesn't sleep so he just twiddled his thumbs.

>>30628173
I am enjoying this.
Please continue.

>>30628170

Oh yeah, it was a bloody terrible idea. He had loads of just ruined gears and carried so many spares with him because of their tendency to break. It was why he didn't stand upright or walk properly. It was the only metal he found in large enough quantities to make new gears for himself and he spent most of his time sitting down and reading anyway.

>>30628173

Morning soon came and when the barbarian awoke they made their way over to the general store. They found a small, cramped room (Pretty much identical in layout to Jensine's "Good as new" Merchandise in TES:IV) with a man, feet up on the desk and leaning back in his chair. He was sort-of young, slick and cocky looking with brown hair and eyes.

"Ah, how can I help you... Gentlemen today?"
"We're on a quest! Looking for a stone. Made of brass, about 'yay' big." and the Warforged would gesture its size "has one to eight sides."
"Oh? I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about. I have one in my possession and I know the location of the other. I will charge ten-thousand gold for both."

The barbarian thought the price was ridiculous and immediately kicked off, to which the store owned reached under the desk and after a brief clunk he pulled out a polished metallic blue blunderbuss with gold trim and at least eight different lines of blue glowing runes running up and down the barrel. The barbarian shut-up.

They said they'd go get the money, and left and went straight back to the university and basically just said "We need 10 grand to buy some of the stones." and the university happily obliged them and even teleported them a little way which saved about a day in-game.

They got back to the shop, paid for the stone and the location of the second before the Warforged decided to use detect magic upon the blunderbuss.

"It's not got any magical aura."
"It's a fake!?"
"Could be, or could have a masking enchantment."
"Fuck... Nah, we won't risk it and we got what we wanted anyway."

>>30628259
Man im starting to feel bad for the warforged.

>>30628259

So they left the shop and headed off towards the Espeth hills. On the map, Espeth the town is on the far right hand side and the river Espeth runs from the mountains, through the town and then past Altec into the sea. Espeth is also the name of the region which pretty much includes everywhere between the river and the ocean, including the town Altec.

So they walked through the hills, searching in caves and killing the odd goblin or kobold they found, not really finding much.

Deep in the hills they came across a large clearing though, filled with creatures they did not recognise. Before they could do much else however they were ambushed by mountain trolls (Much more like TES trolls than LotR trolls in my games, despite what the SRD says). They just started killing, basically, but were actually soon overwhelmed and instead of being killed they were taken alive and brought to the camp.

>>30628259
Let me guess, the Warforged is named "Grind" because of the noise he makes?

>>30628288

His low wisdom led to quite a lot of funnies in the campaign and his stature never really affected him as whenever he needed to move he just used magic. He specialised in transmutation btw.

>>30628314

That post was short...

Anyway, they were tied up and left in one of the many caves dug into the side of this large, roughly round "valley" in the foothills of the great mountains which surround Serne.

Despite common opinion of trolls as stupid and basically animals, these guys were basically tribes people. They resented the "civilised" races because the civilised races hated them and killed them when they found them and did not look beyond what they thought to be an animal, or so the two were informed by the tribe shaman who came over to talk to them. They quickly noticed that upon the "staff" the shaman carried, one of the talismans hanging off the tip was the stone they came looking for.

They spoke with the troll and assured it that they would spread the word that trolls were actually intelligent and amazing if they let them go, and the warforged just flat out asked for the talisman the shaman carried.

I actually don't remember how they obtained it, I believe they agreed to send some humans into the hills for the trolls to kill in exchange for it. The warforged had no understanding of what this meant and the barbarian was chaotic evil (But not extreme in either way, he just didn't like rules and his acts tended to be more "bad" than "good").

>>30628343
Probably because he grinds everyones gears with his low wis.

>>30628343

Yeah. Or at least this is the nickname the player gave to him because the warforged's understanding of a name went little beyond the string of number hard-coded into his brain as his identity information.

>>30628368

So now they had two stones! Huzzah! Now began the long trip back to the university. They stopped off in Tamsuth on the way (Directly westward of Espeth).

Baleful Polymorph made its first appearance in the campaign here... Because they wanted to stop in a town, we did the roleplay from maybe half an hour before they arrived in town (They hitched a cart, also the druid was in the party now and it was treated as if she were always present for simplicity's sake). The barbarian was making fun of the warforged and kept throwing dirt and stuff at him, which the warforged would rather blank facedly clean away with prestidigitation. Eventually the warforged decided to do something back at the barbarian, figuring this a game and getting a little bit annoyed (The player was very annoyed, in a well-humour way. Also, we're welsh so expect the players to have those stereo-types and accents).

WF(Player): "Fuck you, butt. Baleful polymorph."
Me: "Alright, roll a will save."
Barb: *roll*
Me: What's the DC?
WF: 21.
Barb: I failed.
Me: Alright, what do you turn him into?
WF: A shrew.

The barbarian's clothing suddenly dropped inwards and a tiny squeaking could be heard coming from within the clothes.

Me: Alright, how long does the spell last?
WF: I'll check now.

...

WF: Ah, shit... It's permanent.

My girlfriend, the druid, was just pissing herself laughing by this point. The barbarian was VERY pissed off and the Warforged was being very apologetic and promising to fix it.

They were just outside of Tamsuth anyway so they found the nearest magic shop.

Tamsuth consisted of:

Korbak's Magicsl Goods *****
Generic Blacksmith 1 **
An outdoor market, mostly selling food ***
Alchemist ***

>>30628459
>also the druid was in the party now and it was treated as if she were always present for simplicity's sake

>"Hey, Warforged, has this Druid always been traveling with us?"
>"I dunno. Guess she must've been."

>>30628459

Korbak is a recurring character in my games for a couple of reasons, one of which is:

I'm a relatively new DM, so I have a fair few cliches in my games which will become apparent throughout the game. Also, for ease, I used Serne in, I believe, four different campaigns in total with this being the last one. All it meant was that I knew the world better and as such the games ran more smoothly and were more enjoyable.

Korbak is a short old man with a croaky voice and a little bit of a fractured mind. He would often simply forget things or seem to pay them no heed at all. He also had a magical shop door.

Upon entering the shop, a customer is greeted with randomly placed tables covered in scrolls and books in stacks of varying heights, the walls would be lines with racks of staffs and cupboards filled with various oddities and artefacts. No shopkeeper would appear until a customer rang the small bell on the counter, at which point the front door of the shop would open (The world beyond another room instead of the town they entered from) and Korbak would enter.

This time, they were seeking a way to reverse the baleful polymorph and Korbak had just the answer which he would charge 50,000 gold for. The warforged paid the bulk of this, taking some of the barbarian's gold to make up what he couldn't (Or wouldn't) himself. They purchased a Ring of Wishes with a single ruby left set in the gold band. The warforged was tasked with making the wish and he was careful with his wording. It was something like:

"I wish that the barbarian [Name] from Serne who was travelling with us had the effects of the baleful polymorph cast upon him reversed and him returned to us, safely, above ground no more than ten feet and close by."

Of course, I grasped at what I could to fuck with them. The Barbarian did indeed appear "near-by", on a cosmological scale. As far as the players knew, he had simply vanished.

>>30628492
I like to imagine that she just showed up one night.

The warforged thought she was a one-night stand from the barbarian and didn't want to say anything about it.

While the barbarian thinks the warforged hired a mercenary/cook to help them out while they travel.

>>30628492

It went exactly like that. Whenever they attended the university, Jeremy was the only one who ever knew if the party changed in composition or size.

"A new friend I see?"
"What? Who? It's always just us three?"
"I could've sworn there were two of you..."

>>30628535

The barbarian awoke to the sound of rushing, cold wind and he stood up, looking around. In the very far distance he could see the mountain walls of Serne, just as far in each direction except where there was only ocean upon the horizon. He stood upon a large circle, with a large eight pointed star upon the floor and in the centre was a large, golden orb. Around the circumference of this sphere were eight slots, one a circle, the next a leaf, the following a triangle and all the way round to an octagon before the circle again. In the top of the sphere was a circular hole, which was quite deep. The barbarian managed to figure out that these shapes were the same as those upon the door which the campaign had started with.

He also soon figured out that he was on top of The Lonely University (For purposes of the wish, the ground basically meant the floor). This was because it was the greatest conduit of magical energies for thousands of miles and he had been placed there via the magic of a wish.

Fortunately for him, the party decided there was nothing they could do and the best course of action would be to return the stones to the university and hopefully they could get some help from the wizards in locating their friend.

So to the university they went, entering through the gate (And let in by a student) and then waiting once more in the fawyer. They had not noticed the odd little piles of barbarian droppings which their party-mate had been launching into the university gardens in efforts to ease his boredom. It had taken a few days for them to get here and their barbarian was severely dehydrated and very hungry, having been living off rain more or less.

>>30628535
>"I wish that the barbarian [Name] from Serne who was travelling with us had the effects of the baleful polymorph cast upon him reversed and him returned to us, safely, above ground no more than ten feet and close by."
Wouldn't "Dispel all magical effects on this barbarian right here the one that I'm touching don't you fucking dare fuck with this you stupid ring" work just as well, if not better?
And if you choose to interpret that as "No magical effects work on this barbarian any more good luck using magic items ha ha I'm a dick ring" then congratulations! Free spell immunity!

>>30628544

That sounds pretty awesome. She had a wolf with her as well, though I forget the name of the thing.

>>30628630

They were paid 4000G each for the trouble of getting two stones (Even the druid, despite not helping at all with the stones) and Jeremy tasked one of the more senior students to divine where the barbarian was. They had some of his stuff, so it was an easy task and some confusion was had when they reported that the barbarian was on top of the university.

Only a few beyond the council members themselves are permitted onto the roof of the university, so the councilor of divination was called to confirm the student's findings and then he himself retrieve the malnourished, naked, poo-encrusted Half-Orc from the roof. The wizards cleaned him off and he was given his clothes back. The councilor of divination said that as payment for his help they would deliver a letter to the councilor of Necromancy, who resided within his fortress in Darkwood (That shaded area on the map north-east of The Lonely University).

The party obliged but said they needed a day of rest here first. This is where we left of the campaign, with the party unwinding in the Stannary (The university's sort of pub and named after the same place at Exeter University's Tremough Campus in Cornwall) and then given a bed for the night.

>>30628645

Ask the warforged. The ring however does not "fuck with" the wisher, it just does as it is told. The GM fucks with the party, but from the ring's point of view it just did as was asked.

>>30628697

When they awoke it was a new day and a new session! A new member of the party had also materialised (She actually materialised a while ago and I'm getting sessions mixed up because she must've been here for longer than I think because of what happens in the next like hour of gameplay); Akira the female Human Paladin of Iomedia, who the WF and Barbarian players basically made up that when people were looking she was manly as fuck but secretly she was the girliest girl in all the land and she even wore her tutu under her armour.

So onwards our heroes went to Darkwood, requesting that they be teleported closer. They were sent to Aine which, whilst not technically closer is a more direct route into Darkwood.

They spent no time in Aine. Ever. For the entire campaign. I have zero notes for this town...

They followed the path upwards and I believe they camped just outside of Darkwood (It's easy to see the border where the sunlight suddenly doesn't penetrate the balcony and the plants rapidly grow more withered eventually to dead).

The following morning the party awoke (Except the warforged who was already awake) and made their way into the spooky forest of Darkwood.

As they made their way along the narrow path, trees towering over them and blocking out the bulk of the sunlight, they began to see things in the distance. The odd glimmer of wispy white through the trees. Paladin took point.

They hadn't actually been told where exactly on their map to go, though all maps of Serne had a single dot placed inside of Darkwood so they were aiming for that. This all added to the atmosphere, but the paladin was immune to any fear and the warforged wasn't aware this place was even scary. At least the paladin encourage caution in the group.

>>30628820
>A new member of the party had also materialised

>People materialising out of thin air
>One person who can tell that it's happening, everyone else doesn't notice
I suspect time travel shenanigans.

>>30628820

A wailing, horrendous scream came echoing through the forest as one of the glowing white figures came out onto the path and faced them. The party stared on in horror/indifference as this ghostly elven woman came towards them.

Roll initiative.

The banshee, as the party quickly worked out, was hostile... And not alone. They tried to move and fight defensively, knowing they could not hope to win if they stood here to fight. More and more banshees made themselves apparent and the air was soon filled with their inhuman screams. Surely the party was done for...

... But not if the paladin could help it. She ushered the party on to continue and though some concealing magicks from the wizard and the holy glow emitted by the Paladin all of the banshees focused their attention upon her.

A few moments after the party lost sight of their paladin, a brilliant pure, warm white light erupted from where they had left their companion as the holy wrath of Iomedae smote ruin upon the un-natural creatures of undeath in the name of the paladin who gave her life honourably.

The forest was silent now and the party mournfully continued on their quest.

Note: This wasn't me just killing off a player, we all knew this was the Paladin's last session as she had work so I gave her a good send-off.

File: 1393940398628.jpg-(99 KB, 500x707, DnD Portrait Warforged Wi(...).jpg)

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Monitoring the thread.

>>30628846

Jeremy was the only one who openly noticed but there was one other NPC who was fully aware of what was happening but paid it no heed.

>>30628873

Continuing through Darkwood and even camping (If on edge) in the nights the party eventually got far enough along the path that they decided now was the best time to delve off-path to get to the marker on their map.

It did not take long for them to stumble across a parapet sticking out of the ground, as if a castle were just poking out from beneath the earth. This battlement was one of many entranced into the fortress and as such there was a trap door which the party could climb down through.

The warforged sensibly levitated down rather than putting his weight upon the old, fragile looking wooden ladder and they found themselves in a corridor with four directions to walk in.

The room was lit by a burning torch on each wall and looking down each corridor the party would be able to see nothing but a thin fog, though if they walked a little bit they would come to a near-identical "room" to the last, though there were often subtle differences.

I have no clue what order ANYTHING happened in this labyrinth, but it serves a purpose other than padding the game out. It was the Necromancer's way of observing unexpected guests before he could change the labyrinth to allow them in or send them back out depending on whether or not he wanted them in there.

The labyrinth included throw-backs to old campaigns, including old characters of WF player (This was the barbarian's first time playing and I don't like brining up the first campaign I had with my girlfriend).

There were two random people that some of them would encounter in the labyrinth and time didn't always make sense, you might walk through a doorway and suddenly your party is gone and you're tied quite poorly to the wall.

In many rooms there would be a skeleton sitting against a wall, head hanging down and slightly to the right and arms just at its sides.

>>30628959

This was mostly throwbacks to the WF's old campaign, especially the skeleton which I won't go into. Lots of random shit happened, party members were attacked by reflections and eventually the warforged began taking the same index finger of each skeleton he came across. In the other thread, someone said this was probably to "see if he'd been here before" kinda thing in the labyrinth.

As he took fingers however, the skeletons came to life and would then stand there expectantly, looking between the Warforged and the finger he had taken from them.

Eventually the party met back up and the warforged, having stored the fingers in a bag of holding, had a stupid number of (Eighty was the number I estimated before) skeletons following him which just crowded the place. He dumped their fingers out into a pile on the floor and the skeletons, rather civilised, approached the pile and began looking through for "their" finger, despite all of them being identical in pretty much every way you can imagine.

The lich had granted them access to his fortress and they found themselves drawn down particular corridors unlike those of the labyrinth until they eventually came to a poorly lit feast room.

Various rotting foods sat upon the table and dusty cutlery just sat in front of the many silent guests who faced the party as they entered the room but said nothing. At the head of the table sat the Councilor of Necromancy in all hid lichdom.

He was the oldest member of the university and he was not particularly fond of any of them, but because of the magicks which bound him to his position as councilor he was forever associated with them and he had never properly "died" enough for his place as councilor of Necromancy to be taken from him.

The druid and the barbarian where pretty uneasy but the Warforged was happy to announce,
"We're on a quest! We're bringing you a letter. Here you go."

>>30629048

Right, I'm taking a break now. I've been writing for almost four hours.

I'll continue today, but this was a very long campaign and we're not that far in.

>>30629048

I guess I'll continue a little bit now.

The lich opened the letter and silently read it before pulling out his own paper and a quill and writing a letter back. This gave the party plenty of time to look around the room a bit and discover that one of the keys was also in the room.

When given the letter, the party requested that the lich teleport them as close to the university as possible and as he could do things more or less effortlessly within his own domain he said it was no problem to teleport them to the edge of the forest.

As the world faded around them and the spell transported them, the warforged's hand shot out and magically reached out and took the key from the room.

Story's pretty neat so far. Looking forward to more.

>>30629286
Still lurking, by the way.

>>30630207

Glad to hear. I will write up the next installment shortly.

>>30630445

I'm trying to think what happened next in the campaign, actually... It doesn't matter too much which order I do it in really, so I'll just let you guys decide:

A - The party travels to the city and meets the "other party"

B - The party go wildly hunting for keys and cause quite a bit of havoc... And get praised

>>30630605
>B - The party go wildly hunting for keys and cause quite a bit of havoc... And get praised

>>30630605
>B - The party go wildly hunting for keys and cause quite a bit of havoc... And get praised

I second this. Especially if said havoc is caused by Grind and his amusing wizardry.

I just found the name if the Barbarian. It is Kronus.

So far they own the six sided stone, the five sided stone and the four sided stone.

>>30630649

Alright, this one it is. I was pretty sure this one came first anyway, but wasn't confident enough to go straight for it.

So as we had left off our party had just been transported to the edge of Darkwood by the necromancer living there. What a nice guy.

From the western edge of the forest, the party travelled westwards back to Aine and back towards the university. Nothing much happened here. They went back, they got paid and they basically got told... They had no idea where any of the other keystones might be, so just get out there and look for rumours and stuff.

They decided they would head south toward Dorea, one of the largest towns in all of Serne. They pass through They'n on the way and they did spend the night here once more. I believe the druid was absent for this session.

They'n consists of:

Blacksmith **
Korbak's Magical Goods *****
Alchemist **
Tailor/Fabrics ***
Food and Drink **

The Riverside Inn **

They didn't do much here really, arriving quite late and heading straight for the inn just to sleep there. It was quite a rowdy place and the barbarian was right at home, jumping on the opportunity to arm wrestle for silver. After winning a series of increasingly difficult arm wrestles, the barbarian managed to escalate some of the banter into a fight. The warforged watched on indiffirently and the barbarian decided to pick someone up and throw him backwards over his shoulder onto his head.

Me: "Alright, roll and add your melee modifier."
Kronus: "Alright... I rolled a 20, soo..."
Me: "That's a critical hit. Roll it again to confirm."
Kronus: "Will that do?"
Me: "... You crit. Damage?"

He rolled ridiculously high on the damage and so I ruled that he, rather than throwing the man backwards, lifted him and then dropped himself backwards whilst holding him around the chest.

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>>30631061
Oh boy story time is back.

>>30631061

The entire inn fell silent to the sound of a resounding collapse, and Kronus stood up to find he had killed the man. I believe Grind was already out of the door by this point, understanding the law of dwarves hard-wired into their machines was probably similar enough to human law that manslaughter = bad. The guards were called but within moments our two party members were GONE.

No guards had ever seen the Half-Orc and Warforged wandering around so they were never hunted down for their crimes not to mention that everybody, even the barman, was beyond drunk.

First spending their night in the forest, they continued on their way to Dorea (Nobody in the bar had any information by the way).

The druid is back from this point.

Dorea is a pretty big town, but nobody would call it a city. There is a lord who lives here; a young man with a wife and a single son.

Dorea has:

Blacksmith ***
Alchemist **
General Store **
Tool Shop **
Tailor ****
Butcher ***
Market **
Carpenter **
Bath House ****

Inns:

The Stag ****
The Mouldy Boat **
Dead's End 1/2 a star; it's basically a skeleton house for druggies except that they actually sell alcohol. It's right on the edge of town.

So they roll up to town in the morning and just spend the day looking about. They go to a couple of inns and ask around for rumours, or in the words of the Warforged:
"We're on a quest! Looking for a stone. Made of brass, about 'yay' big." and he would gesture its size "has one to eight sides."

They spent hours asking around, had a bathe in the bath house (The druid definitely needed it) and booked a room at The Stag because the bath house had a deal going on with the bath house.

They saw the Lord wandering around the town with his family, visiting shops and talking to townsfolk and they noticed something peculiar hanging around his son's neck.

It was a circular piece of polished brass, about the size of the child's hand and set into a plate which hung from his neck.

>>30631339
> It was a circular piece of polished brass, about the size of the child's hand and set into a plate which hung from his neck.

This is gonna be good.

>>30631339

The party knew vaguely what they had to do... But how would they do it?

They had no rogue, so theft would be difficult but they couldn't take it by force from the child of a lord and there was no way they'd just give up what they learn (When asking around a bit about the amulet specifically) is an heirloom.

They eventually decide the only course of action reasonable to take is that they will steal the amulet. The half-orc will hang around town such as the pool and just be seen in the inn because HULK SMASH doesn't normally go down to well when commiting a robbery. The Stag was close enough to the house that he could be there within moments if needs be.

The plan laid out was that our wizard would fly up to the chimney and then cast gaseous form and navigate his way through the house and the druid would come up in a few minutes and come in through one of the top door windows. They guessed that the chimney led to a ground floor fire place so the warforged would need to get to the top of the house.

I'm going for food now, I'll write up what happened in the house when I return.

>>30631586

As their plan dictated, our heroes acted. Grind the Warforged Wizard levitated himself with ease, out of sight and came up over the house and dropped himself, his body turning into a green gas as he fell into the chimney. He found himself in the courtroom of the manor, a large open room where parties could be held or meetings had. There was even a small bar off to the side of the room, flanked by doors which based on the geography of the house were the only ones which would actually lead anywhere other than outside.

Floating out through the keyhole, he went directly up the stairs he found in the middle of the room. There was a single quiet guard patrol on the first floor and another on the ground floor, easily avoided in the gloom by a cloud of gas. He was on a mission and was not distracting himself with anything that might be in the other rooms; they would get into the house, get the amulet and then they would get out.

Directly above the previous set of stairs existed the second which led up to the top floor. There were four single doors and a set of grand double doors here; this was assumed to be the master bedroom so they could ignore that door however there were four rooms of varying size to pick from. The two rooms closest to the master bedroom turned out to be children's bedrooms, one with the sleeping boy and the other outfitted for another child though the lady of the house did not look like she was expecting. The final two rooms were where family heirlooms and treasures were kept including the signets of their house.

The druid now felt it was time to join the Warforged and she promptly appeared through one of the windows that he opened up in a treasure room in his normal form.. However, he had entered the room via gas and she was out of Wild-Shape for the day by the time she had turned Elf once more and taken some of the loot. The Warforged left her and went for the boy and the druid now had to figure out a way out of the room.

>>30632184

The druid had no way of getting out of the locked room except either jumping out the window or some way of breaking the door's lock and getting out. She opted for the latter and poured a vial's worth of acid over the handle and the lock and after about a minute the lock broke free. By now the warforged was almost stirring things up.

He had found the boy's room and had turned into his regular form to try and carefully remove the amulet from around his neck. A warforged. Mage. With loads of broken gears. Size category large. Needless to say sleight of hand was not his strong suit. The boy's perception beat the warforged's sleight of hand by quite a lot and his eyes shot open.

The boy awoke to find the face of a strange machine right up against his own, glowing red eyes in the darkness. Fortunately, he didn't scream immediately out of shock and the Warforged had time to set off a single spell.

Baleful polymorph.

By the time the boy opened his mouth, he emitted a small bark before whimpering under the now proportionally much larger robot who had come upon him in his sleep. The druid was quick to take the puppy and calm him with her spells and knowledge of animals and the warforged took the amulet that the boy wore and they made quick their escape.

The warforged became gaseous a third time and began to make his way down the stairs (I don't remember why he decided to leave in this direction). It was as he came down the stairs that the player revealed a snippet of information.

WF: "Hang on, wait a sec... I only took gaseous form twice today. Can we rewind?"
Me: "Nope."

By my own fiat it was decided that the warforged had successfully become gaseous once more but had shorted out whilst at the top of the stairs. THUD. He landed half-way down the stairs and the shaking of the house alone would have been enough to wake every inhabitant.

>>30632299

"Who's there!?" called out an authoritative but slightly confused voice from the top floor. The warforged stood and chose to rise the stairs instead of go down into the guards. The lord of the manor gave him a confused look, along with the druid who left his son's room carrying a puppy, and as he went to investigate why people had been in his child's room the Warforged used Fabricate to turn a column of the house, including the ceiling into oil. The lord of the house stood in the middle of this pillar and fell through the floor, breaking both his legs as he hit the ground floor before the Warforged told me he tossed in an alchemist's fire.

Needless to say, the house went up in flames and the horrific screams of the lord burning alive from downstairs soon followed.

Druid: "Is he alright?"
Me: "What? No."
WF: "Is he alright!? He's covered in oil BURNING to death what do you think?"
Druid: "But like... Could I save him."
Me: "He's on fire, writhing around and dying."
Druid: "But could I save him?"
Me: "All of his skin in melted away by now."
Druid: "Yeah, but... Could I sa--
Me: "No, you can't save him."

They hauled ass down the stairs, the guard having disappeared possibly into the flames. The warforged decided to fly straight up through the hole he created in the ceiling and into the night. The druid decided they needed to save people and the Half-Orc came running up to the house to see what the fuck was going on.

The druid decided that people needed to be saved and the Warforged landed again outside of the front of the house. The puppy was hurled like a rugby ball through the flames (Wrapped in a blanket) into the loving hands of the Warforged for safety and the party began rescuing staff from within the house.

Everyone who had seen them trespassing in the house was now dead or a puppy and all that had seen a Half-Orc came running up to the house and start helping and the Warforged descended from the heavens like a physically disabled iron man.

>>30632463

The heroes were praised for saving staff members of the household and any witnesses to otherwise were as good as gone. The lady survived the fire but never saw any of the party members clearly and their son was presumed dead. The party would later discovered that the lady of the house was going through a rough emotional time already as she had miscarried a few months before the party arrived and was holding her sanity together from the love of her husband and living son.

They never returned to Dorea.

>>30632532

I'm taking another break for a short while.

People still lurking? What do you think so far?

>>30632637
I'm still lurking.
It's pretty good so far. Keep it up.

>>30632637
Enjoying it greatly so far. I also like how you make the players pay for their ramifications.

10/10 would want to game with.

Also makes me wish more people would post more full campaigns.

>>30632637
Dont stop

>>30632532

So now they had a grand total of four keys (And I'm struggling to remember where all of the others came from if I am honest; I have notes for some of them but not all; I currently have no account for three of the keys).

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>>30627377
Sounds like breath of fire's plot line. Goddess keys, Tyr, war and whatnot.

Grind lurking

>>30633765

I just glanced back at the page and looked straight at that post. "Don't stop." It sounded incredibly sexual in my head.

I will be continuing, tomorrow if not today. There is a lot to write and first I wish to remember it and just get a sort of timeline of events going in my head so I don't come to dead-ends every other post.

I've been talking with the player who was Grind (>>30634775) and trying to pin down where they found the various basic keys and there are still two unaccounted for.

To be fair, the other two would've had "You find it in a shop" or something like that (I actually just remembered what one of them was and it was almost exactly that, so I will include it but it will be perhaps a paragraph of story.

>>30635893

Bumping. Nothing to post just yet but would prefer this thread didn't die.

>>30634698
is she... going Super Saiyan?

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>>30635893
I'm imagining Grind looks sort of like this, but more hunched over, and with exposed gears and stuff instead of wood.

Bump

bump

>>30647478
>>30642684

Thank you for bumping.

>>30632532

So the party have the new key-stone and are half-way to having a complete set. They went to the largest town in all of Serne... It was time to hit the city.

Bal-Sagoth. A great fortress of a city built by the followers of Torag. Ruled over by The King (This was the only name that was ever used), a half-orc who will be succeeded by his son Torag, who's namesake is the god himself.

The smiths of Bal-Sagoth are legendary well beyond the borders of Serne for the quality of their steel and craftsmanship and even the throne-room of the palace itself hosts The King's personal forge where he fabricates weapons and armour for his own personal use and to gift to his friends, family and those he deems worthy.

Our party head off towards Bal-Sagoth, with a brief stop-off in Kyne, a large hamlet a few days from the city. Upon arriving into the small settlement the party discovered two young boys in a heated dispute over... Something. They decided to go to the inn for the night.

It took quite a lot of "Those boys are still arguing and it's really bloody annoying." for the party to eventually go out and talk to them... In the morning after a good night's sleep of course!

The boys now were inside of the house but there was the sound of things crashing around and of course the two very similar sounding raised voices.

They knocked on the door, and the two boys (Now it was noticeable they were twins) appeared, wrestling their shoulders to stand in the centre.

They were asked why they were arguing and the boys both told them, inviting them into the house during the brief story, that their father had died and his will read "I leave all of my worldly possessions to my beloved son" in a rather scrawly smudgey kind of way that peasants who can barely right accomplish. The man who had died, however, was clearly a hoarder.

>>30649530

The party just stared on indifferently as the boys forgot about their presence and continued their arguing over who their father left his stuff to. It was a lot of stuff. Looking briefly over the piles of books, sheafs of paper, various piles of cheap souvenirs and artefacts the eye of the party was drawn to a small piece of brass, about five inches across. It had six sides.

Despite Ao's best attempts at something of a morale dilemma for the party, the party just quietly took the six-sided key-stone (Of which they now had two) and slipped away. Because "fuck side-quests" is the motto of this party.

They simply continued on their way to the city, spending their nights in the forests and just general adventuring stuff. I posted in the last thread, I don't believe I did so in this one, that we came up with the idea of a montage of each of these travels where in the background the party are fighting of CR 1/2 creatures in the night, lighting the fire, tending to the stew pot and all that... Except the warforged, who stood taking up an entire third of the right hand side of the "screen", just staring off at something behind the "camera" to the top left and doing nothing at all.

>>30649530
>to my beloved son
#1 troll.

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>>30649608

I really do enjoy these comments as I post. This one made me laugh.

>>30649586

Bal-Sagoth soon appeared upon the horizon and I didn't make the party role-play from here so just as quickly they were coming up to the gates.

Bal Sagoth includes:

The Anvil *****
Korbak's Magical Supplies *****
Denal Weapons ****
Denal Armoury ****
+ Loads more shops
+ A ridiculously huge market

The three inns of note:

The King's Head ****
The Hammer ***
Ale'n'Steak **

Pic related is a very grey version of Bal-Sagoth. Red is the city gates and blue is the palace grounds. All the black-lines represent walls and light grey represents "streets".

In the market spreads around the central courtyard which is pretty huge and hosts a large fountain in the centre. Down the east and west streets, the market continues getting more and more dodgy as you near the walls, but then a little bit better again right by the walls as this is where the most frequent guard patrols pass.

The party headed up into the main courtyard and just began having a look around, quickly noticing a bit of a kerfuffle going on outside the front of the palace.

>>30649777

I just remembered there was another person who joined for just two or three sessions who played a rogue in this session and an alchemist later on. We'll just assume he's the same guy who multi-classed.

The party went into the palace courtyard/gardenish sort of area and watched (This area and even some of the palace grounds are open to the public).

Six figures, clad in a sort of sand-blasted finished armour very well made. Red cloaks hung around their shoulders and the faces of all but one were covered by their similar looking helms. They each had a shield upon their back made of steel and an ornate hammer hanging from their belts.

The party (Except the warforged) could immediately recognise that these were paladins and it didn't take much more intuition (So it was basically just the druid by this point) to see they were followers of Torag.

What might be surprising is that the bare-headed paladin seemed to be having a heated argument with a half-orc who towered over all but one of the Paladins, including the man he was arguing with. They were too far away to hear what was being said but eventually the half-orc figure, who seemed to be escorted by an elf in very ornate and lithe armour, waved his hand dismissively and stormed into the palace. The paladin replaced his helmet and then all six of them hurried off towards the city gates.

The party made some quick deliberations and followed them, catching them as they retrieved their rather hefty looking steeds from the stables.

"Excuse me! We're on a quest! Looking for a stone. Made of brass, about 'yay' big." and the Warforged would gesture its size "has one to eight sides."

The paladins stopped and one came over.

"What kind of stone?"

The Warforged produced one of the six-sided stones and held it up to the Paladin who took it and examined it. He then gave a very subtle nod and rode off, taking the stone with him.

anybody lurking?

You guys better not let this thread 404 before i wake up, i wanna be able to read the full story

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>>30649922
no.
Nobody here at all eheheheh.

>>30649922
Lurking

>>30649899

To clarify here and now, paladins have a rather high level of sort of "legal authority" in that they can break laws as long as they can justify it. The odd theft every year or so normally doesn't even get questioned but of course a paladin who pillages and rapes an entire village might be asked a few questions as to how that was helpful to any kind of holy quest. People have impersonated paladins in the past and abused this innate trust.

Basically, paladins are allowed to steal if they have good reason.

Our party was not amused that they had just taken one of their key-stones, but the warforged had played sensibly and used the key that they had a copy of. The rogue fired an arrow off at the paladins and hit and did damage, but the paladin took it like a boss and kept going.

They had to take time to get their own horses from the stables and sort out everything before they could pursue however and it was a good half hour before they managed to set off after the Paladins. In a bit of a wild goose chase, they pursued them across the river serne and then past Key-hole, up through Lansing and down to Morith.

This is where they decided that the paladins had escaped them and that they must strive on. The rogue made some deals with "contacts" he had and they even visited an "underground" hidden village where thieves, assassins and the like could get together and make deals or just enjoy one-another's company. They managed to obtain another of the key-stones here and we will say that it was the three-sided one.

They now have the circle, the triangle, the square, the pentagon and the hexagon. Three more to go of which I have actually all got accounted for...

The party returned to Bal-Sagoth and spent some time looking around the shops and stalls. They found another stone, the leaf, at a crappy little stall down the western arm of the city (Told you some of them were crap) and they enjoyed spending time at The Stag but eventually they went on their way.

>>30649928

I'm regularly taking screen-shots as people seem to be enjoying this and Grind's player has also asked me to do so. I'll post them all in another thread one-day, perhaps.

>>30650099
You are a god among men.

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>>30649922
Of courshe

>>30650090

So did the party now have an enemy? Should they warn the university of this threat or just continue upon their quest and face them when fate brought them together once more.

The party decided their best course of action was to just resume their quest... After all, there were just two more stones to find before they went looking.

I will now need to take a break and actually figure out what the fuck happened next.

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>>30650250
>I will now need to take a break
b...but you just got started

>>30650250

Alright, we've figured out pretty much the entirety of the story line now. I think we're half-way or a bit more now.

>>30650289

I do apologise, I just didn't want to start on another part of the story and then realise that something else was supposed to happen first.

>>30650250

So decided upon their task and after asking around some of the inns, stalls and random people the group managed to discern that the people of Rust had some weird stone on display there and it might be what they were looking for.

So off they went to Rust! Or rather, I believe, the Warforged went alone to Rust as the party went on that chase in the western part of Serne. Warforged do not rest and I've worked out the distances so I think the timing actually works pretty well that the Warforged could just go straight to Rust and back with a day or so to get the stone.

So our Warforged arrived in town. Rust was a mining community who had incredible luck it seemed. Every day they would find dozens of precious stones and new veins of iron, mithril, gold and platinum. This was a wealthy town, though quite a lot of money was spent upon hiring more and more workers to mine in their ever-expanding system of tunnels.

The warforged arrived in town and did some looking around and discovered that the stone normally on display (In a beautiful crystal cabinet) was no longer there, rather the owner of the town (Yes, owner) was wearing around his neck! Something he quite regularly did, apparently. The town believed the stone brought them luck and he would frequently don the stone and delve into the mines and just get seen by people so that his image and that of the stone might keep spirits high.

This stone was not flat and it was not brass. It was a glossy marble, brown with black streaks and the occasional speck of red or white. It was cylindrical in shape, and the end was somewhat jagged and gnarled. At first glance, it looked like it had be broken away from a much larger piece but looking at it for long revealed to the warforged mage that there was a great level of order going in that chaos.

>>30650513

Our party mage, alone in the world, quickly deduced that the stone would fit into the central hole in the door beneath Mount Isan and that they would need this. So how does our Warforged handle this new situation? He stands at the edge of the town, watching this man and waiting until he was close enough. Then the time was right...

"Baleful polymorph."

The cheery man who garnered a lot of attention from the local townsfolk disappeared, leaving his clothing and equipment behind. The stone he wore round his neck levitated into the air and the people followed it as it shot through the air and into the hand of the Warforged who promptly took off, leaving hundreds of people stunned and a newt in charge of Rust.

He made it to Bal-Sagoth soon enough with his new find and presented it to the party and the decision was made to return to the university.

They did so and found someone they did not expect outside the front of their large doors. Half-a-dozen armour clad paladins who seemed to have just gotten finished with whatever they were doing and it seemed they failed to get into the university.

They approached one another and the party decided that it probably wasn't the best of ideas to try and take on all of the paladins now and maybe they could open a line of dialogue.

The paladins ushered a warning unto the party.

"These wizards are evil as is their quest."

However, as the party were quite obviously dead-set upon helping them the paladins said that they would help the party. If the unbinding of the evils this quest would lead to was inevitable, then the paladins would have no choice but to destroy it instead. They also informed the party that they had many of the keys for the door and they found that between them they had all of the basic key-stones except for the eight-sided stone.

The paladins went on their way and the party entered the university and sold their stones and the newest key-stone to the university for the hefty sum of 20,000G each

>>30650684

So our party, each member now 20,000 gold richer, decided that they would return to Bal-Sagoth and splash out a bit and there they could also ask for the help of Korbak, a wizard who they had met a few times in many of his shops across Serne, in locating the last key-stone.

They didn't take long to arrive, once again ignoring the two boys they found arguing in Kyne, and once in the city they purchased some rather fancy new goods.

Our party wizard purchased a robe of useful items and the barbarian commission the fanciest sounding sword he could think of.

The two-handed weapon was incredibly long and enchanted with flaming burst which he could turn on/off at will. It split into three weapons; two regular swords which were simply a split straight down the middle. However the core of the weapon held a blade fashioned of pure silver so that the he might be more effective against the incorporeal. He didn't like the idea that there existed things he couldn't hit.

The druid fancied herself an oath bow and some fancy new things to accompany this purchase and the alchemist rogue didn't buy anything except ingredients and maybe some poisons.

None of these purchases were as important, however, as the Warforged's prized possession... This item was actually a gift from the great wizard Korbak and would serve our spell-caster well for many, many years. The Warforged gained a wizard hat. A roughly round brim and a pointy tip, dropping off to one side. Grind was now a true wizard! A happy one, at that.

Asking Korbak for help, they divined that the nearest eight-sided stone of the description they made was currently at Tusk's Mercenary camp, all the way up he other end of The River Serne.

They implored the help of the old wizard and he reluctantly obliged them, saying they could make use of his door which would put them in his shop in Keyhole.

>>30650803

The door of each of Korbak's shops was enchanted with powerful meta-magic auras which allowed, very specifically, the use of dimension door to project onto any other doors attuned to that one (Which pretty much means all his shops).

The party stepped through and arrived in Key-Hole. A small village which lived mostly off of farm-land and doing menial jobs; there was not much as far as shopping went.

The village was named for the distinct canal which was cut out from the not-so-clean River Serne and diverted a flow of water into a large round basin which the village was built around. The canal and the basin were lines with white, quarried stones which were covered in tiny writings of an unknown dialect. The writing did not glow, which was considered somewhat unusual as it was wide-spread belief that these stones were magical and cleaned the water which was sparkling and pure by the time in reached the basin.

Around the basin, an iron rail was build into the stone-work for people to hitch horses to and they could drink freely of the water there. The party spent the night in the inn and then in the morning they began getting ready and began to set off.

Just as they were leaving, the druid noticed that in the centre of the well there was a circle of blue in the pattern of lapis lazuli. She figured this was a key-stone, just like the one the warforged had retrieved from rust.

"It's not gonna be a key-stone, get out of the well and let's go."

This is what Grind's player told the druid's once she was practically in the middle of the basin, getting many funny looks and trying to pull this circle free.

"But it's a key-stone!"
"It's really not, you just look silly now and you're going to get us arrested or something let's just go to tusk's."

>>30650945

She gave up, annoyed, and they carried on their way. They arrived at Tusk's and approached some of the burly looking figures out the front and asked if they could look around the building and the camp (Their map had been enchanted now to tell them the location of the eight-sided stone).

The mercenaries regarded those who had approached them, particularly the warforged. One of them went over to the "wanted" board which was standing there and returned with a piece of paper which he showed to his friends.

Moments later, they were politely informing the warforged he was under arrest as there was a bounty upon him from the people of Rust. The party couldn't really protest and within the space of thirty minutes of arriving the warforged was tied up in the back of a cart and hauled away.

The druid just went about looking for the stone (The rogue and barbarian weren't present; the rogue was with his "contacts" and I believe the barbarian was killing prostitutes in Bal-Sagoth).

She followed her map and zeroed in on a rather small room which she entered and found to be full of artefacts, oddities, scrolls and books. The marker on her map had also gone, to her confusion. She looked around a bit anyway for the stone and was unsuccessful. Checking her map once more, she found the marker was back and that the figure was... Well, it was in the room once more.

She turned to find a floating orb of scales and meat, all mouth with a single great eye in the centre and a series of storks each with more eyes attached to the ends regarding her with some level of disgust. It promptly vanished and the magical energies used for the teleportation were almost palpable. Checking the map revealed the marker had gone, however the druid now knew exactly what to look for.

>>30651008

Right, that's almost another hour passed. I am going to actually get out of bed and have something to eat now. I shan't be gone long!

>>30651008

The Warforged spent his days and nights on the way to Rust under the constant watch of the mercenaries as he sat there just tied up in the back of their cart.

Arriving into Rust he was met with an angry mob of people, including the owner of the town. The mercenaries collected their payment and then went on their way. He was accused of various crimes including theft and attempted murder mostly, but the townsfolk were mostly pissed off that he had taken the stone. Since he had stolen it, the town had found no more precious stones. No more rich mineral veins and the workers were all demanding pay which for the first time in hundreds of years the town was unable to deliver to them. They had gone broke very quickly due to the volume of employees they had who they needed to pay, along with spending hundreds of thousands of gold on wizards to reverse the polymorph that had almost killed their leader and the mercenaries bringing the Warforged in.

The warforged would be buried under tonnes of rock in one of the many now useless mines. People gathered as he was forced into the hole and then mighty contraptions the town still had in their possession piled in huge loads of rock on top of the wizard.

For days he lay there in the rubble, deciding rather quickly to emit an incredibly loud and high-pitched wail to try and annoy his way to freedom but alas this did not work. Unable to move his body beyond his head, any spell that might have been key to his freedom could not be cast but on the second day something in the rubble shifted...

Unbeknownst to the party, they had always been one member stronger than was readily apparent. This had been the case for months now, ever since they had left the Necromancer. As the Warforged had no real way of receiving sensory input from the metal plates which covered his body, a small animated hand had successfully crawled inside of hid body and had been residing there ever since Darkwood.

>>30651428

The hand, which the Warforged promptly named Larry, had the strength to slowly shift rocks and dirt individually off the Warforged until one arm was free. Within seconds of this occuring, our mage secreted Larry under his hat (Where he would continue to live for many years to come) and imbued the powers of his magic, blasting his way out of his living grave and walking out into the town.

He was met with protest and shock from the angry denizens of Rust and he offered a simple question to them.

"You don't have any money left, do you?"
"No."
"Baleful polymorph."

Yet again he turned the owner of the town into an amphibian and then he simply walked out of the town, sure that they could not afford further mercenaries and his power intimidating enough to the surrounding people that none would dare challenge him now.

He travelled back in the direction of Tusk's mercenaries, who no longer cared about him since they had their reward, and then the party returned to Bal-Sagoth to retrieve the prostitute killer and then decide which move to make next.

The Wizard, based on the description of the creature our druid had given, was able to discern that the key must be in the possession of a beholder, a creature of the underdark. They returned to the university and asked if they knew of a way into the underdark. They did not... However they could provide the party with the location of someone who did.

>>30651489

For the record, I believe the Warforged was lawful neutral in that he had no real understanding of the concepts of Good and Evil and lawful just because it's built in, but law in Serne is quite similar to Fallout 3 except for in some of the larger towns and Bal-Sagoth.

>>30651541

Once again, the party travelled to Altec and entered the cramped and rather crappy general store. The Warforged and Kronus spoke with the owner of the store and the druid went and spoke with the plants half-dead on a shelf (Fucking druids) who she soon moved to the window-sill.

He informed them that he did indeed know the location of an entrance into the underdark and that they must follow him. He opened the trap-door to his basement and led the party downwards through a corridor and into a room filled with various junk and with a large, old looking armoire, stained a very dark brown colour standing close to the middle of the room. He said that this was a favour out of good will for their patronage, unlocking the armoire and revealing a set of stone steps descending down into gloom. Into the underdark.

>>30651582

They descended into this strange world, fortunately everybody had at least low-light vision if I recall correctly, but spells would've easily fixed anybody who didn't anyway.

They had no clue how to navigate the halls and corridors of the underdark so they simply began walking, fortunately only having the single direction to go. It was not long before the party happened upon some demon-worshipping driders who followed the demon lord of sex or something. The barbarian wasn't present, the Warforged was sex-less and the rogue/alchemist was out of sight so it was very quick that the leader of the group of driders approached the druid and offered to take her back to their lair. I didn't go into much detail. The warforged gave a blunt 'no' and so the driders reacted by attempting to take her by force. The lead drider, the only female, sank her venomous fangs into the druid and paralysed her and attempted to take her but the warforged had other ideas. He destroyed the drider before she even had a chance to flee and then began to run away.

Our alch rogue had randomly decided that his character was insane and that he should roll will saves to keep his sanity, making up the DC himself and rolling whenever he saw fit without informing me what was going on. Apparently at this point he was drooling and gibbering back down the corridor a bit. The druid was asleep and escaping in the arms on the warforged. The rogue claimed someone would have to "snap him out of it". I told him that either his character got up and followed them or he could continue being insane in which case he would be left behind and would have to re-roll. He followed. Our wizard coated the walls of the cave with ice behind them, causing driders on the ceiling to fall of and those on the floor to go skidding and they had a successful escape.

>>30651702

Later on they would come to have another struggle with more driders, but this was nothing that the party couldn't handle (Though I do believe the only bomb ever thrown by the alchemist was done so here and ended up failing so badly that it hindered the party).

They eventually happened upon a small ruin, which overlooked a massive chasm filled with insects, mostly locusts, but also huge grubs and beetles and lit with an orange glow.

At the centre of this writhing mass sat a rather bored looking figure atop what could perhaps be described a throne... Though it was built to fit the hideous form of the individual who below the abdomen was locust in form as well as his head; his body however was that of a titan-sized man and in his hand sat a skythe fashioned from the spine and head of a bird with an un-naturally long and slender beak forming the blade.

The insects appeared to be slowly devouring the rock around the chasm, and it was soon apparent that the room they stood in was slowly being devoured as well when three locusts appeared in front of the party. They stared at one-another for a few moments before the locusts parted and the demonic figure in the room now had his attention fixed upon his new visitors and he beckoned them down.

>>30651853

They were brought on the backs of these great insects over to the hideous demon lord in the chamber. He introduced himself as Deskari and the warforged introduced himself with his serial code before proclaiming "We're on a quest! Looking for a stone. Made of brass, about 'yay' big." and he would gesture its size "has eight sides."

The demon lord said he did not know of the object but that he wanted the party to do something for him. He said that he had been summoned to the natural plane by someone, he had little idea who or how many, but that he was trapped here until they were all dead. He said he would not have his minions devour the party alive if they promised to kill whoever bound him to this plane.

The party happily agreed to not get killed, and the demon lord sent them on their way and said that there was a door which his insects, nor the demon lord himself, could breach as they were beings of the abyss. The party should have no such trouble getting through the door however.

They waded through the mass of locusts and "other", mostly having a decent route as the insects more often than not got out of their way due to the will of their lord. They reached the door, which the insects gave a wide berth, and simply entered to find themselves in a small circular room with a helical staircase around the edges. There were many books here and this was clearly some sort of library or study.

Climbing a single set of stairs, they found a young drow boy, no older than a century, cowering in the corner, clutching a book and covering his ears muttering about "the sounds of the insects" which the members of the party who spoke undercommon understood (The Warforged and the rogue, I think).

As per the party motto of "fuck side quests", instead of talking to the drow or finding out his story or maybe fixing this problem in a more technical manner, they went full murder-hobo and just beat him to death there and then.

Still lurking, guys?

>>30652015

The effect of killing the boy was near immediate. He was the only one soul-bound to the demon lord and holding him on this plane so had stumbled into more power than anybody might've guessed. The wards against abyssal creatures vanished and the demon lord also presumably disappeared, leaving behind a legion of hungry hungry insects who were now trying to get through that door because they could smell food.

The party high-tailed it up the stairs quite a bit, before discovering that it was sort of a reverse tower build into a house of a drow noble. They searched the house and found some other drow killed in their sleep with runes and symbols surrounding, or even drawn upon, their bodies.

Did they investigate? Hell no! They walked out of the house and found themselves in a rather large city, build in a huge cavern deep beneath the surface of the earth.

The cavern was surprisingly well-lit and a human would have little trouble navigating the streets of The City of Lights, named for the small motes of blue light which floated around in the thousands keeping the city visible to the inhabitants.

The party made for an inn, finding one successfully and getting some funny looks but not too many aside from the elf. The city actually had guards; a host of warforged who lost their dwarven masters and came into the service of the mysterious and unknown leader of the city. Some were convinced nobody was really in charge.

They got drinks and talked to some people and it didn't take long to discover that there was a beholder city maybe a day away from the city who used to launch regular attacks upon the city but just stopped quite suddenly one day and haven't been back since.

There were some comments from people in the bar as to how the beholders were hated and insane and how you could never tell two of them apart because they looked too similar.

>>30652394
You better keep going.

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>>30652394

Still here. Still reading. Continue.

>>30652394

It was decided that the party would go through the tunnels they were shown (And given directions for) to the beholder city. It took a little more than a day because this was their first time in the underdark and navigation was a completely different kettle of fish here.

But soon they arrived at where their map ended and what was suspected to be the entrance to the beholder city. At first it seemed like a dead end, but the tunnel actually continued... Just at a 90 degree angle going straight upwards.

But this was no trouble for our warforged who promptly got ready to cast fly. After some conversation, the warforged would scout as the beholders would probably hate a construct slightly less than other actual living beings.

So he flew up and within two minutes he came out into a vast cylindrical room with dozens, if not hundreds of beholders all swarming about. He was spotted and simply teleported back to the party. So he tried again.

This happened a few times before the beholder who was teleporting him got annoyed enough and demanded he state his business or he would be destroyed.

"I'm on a quest! Looking for a stone. Made of brass, about 'yay' big." and would gesture its size "has eight sides."

The beholder was annoyed but thought it easier to get rid of the Warforged and something it didn't want rather than cause a fight, also noting that Warforged were the guardians of the City of Lights.

Soon a melted, stinking pile of what was once meat was brought to our wizard, with the key he sought in the pile. The beholder who "owned" the key was destroyed because he'd been visiting the overworld and smelled different. They were unable to destroy the key-stone which also harboured a similar smell to the beholders. They teleported him away a final time with the warning that he would be wiped from existence if he returned.

Pleased, the party then went back to the city of lights and got directions to the overworld.

>>30652577

Nothing eventful happened between now and their return to the overworld, so we'll jump straight to when they returned to the university.

Arriving there, they provided the final key to the wizards who were very happy. Keep in mind that since our campaign began many months have passed in-game. Somewhere between a year and half a year.

The wizards ask the party to escort them to the door once more and defeat any creatures within so that the wizards may then investigate. They are asked to return any artefacts they find to the wizard.

So to Mt Isan they return for the first time since our story began and the paladins are there waiting for them with the final key. Jeremy isn't too chuffed but trusts the party to get the job done. They delve into the small, empty ruin and find their way to the door. The keys are placed into the door and the slab of rock sinks backwards into the wall, before splitting down the centre and parting. Jeremy teleports now as the party will do their shit.

Entering the room, they find that it is a towering hemisphere with a single small slab in the middle of the room. There is no time to investigate however as the mountain begins to shake and four enourmous figures pull themselves free of the walls, moving for the first time in millenia, to ward of these intruders.

>>30652691

The party, and the six paladins with them, found themselves pitted against three greater earth elementals and a single elder earth elemental.

Roll initiative.

The party quickly engage the elementals, going for the elder and one of the greater elementals while the paladins split off and engage the remaining two greater elementals.

The battle is fierce and long and the ground trembles and the mountain groans under the pressure of these titans of rock moving and the powers at work deep within the stone.

One by one the guardians fall to the combined abilities of our heroes and after a gruelling and difficult battle the party, beaten and bruised, stand in a silent chasms with the great piles of rock; all that is left of the colossi felled today.

Around the great piles of rock and through the gloom the paladins have vanished and have taken with them whatever was upon the pedestal at the centre of the room.

Bruised and in need of rest and repair, our party are unable to pursue the paladins who have made quick their escape and they must leave. The door closes as they leave the chamber and the nine keys are retrieved from the door to now be in possession of the party.

They decide the best course of action would be to return to the university.

I'd like to apologise if the fight seemed a bit shit but I can't really put much drama on the dice rolls and nothing spectacular happening jumps to mind.

>>30652794

I went for food. Back now.

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>>30653192
GOOD! CONTINUE THE STORYTIME! Pls.... A-anon. Please continue....

>>30652794

Our party return to the university and tell Jeremy of what happened and return the keys to them. He's a tad annoyed that the paladins did away with the artefact but he says it is no bother.

There are two keys left to find which are similar to the one they found in Rust, the party are told, which open doors incredibly similar to those under Mt. Isan.

Their location is unknown but they need to be found, so once more get out there and get lookin'!

And so the party did. The druid brought up the subject of Keyhole, stating that she was sure there was a key there and that it was worth checking it out at the very least. They set off to Key-Hole and I think the barbarian climbed in to the water basin this time as the druid's puny, weak fingers were unable to pry the stone free.

Indeed this was one of the stones they sought! But at soon as it was removed, the murky and disgusting waters of the river Serne began to flow into the basin spoiling the lovely waters that were here. The stone was replaced and once again the waters became pure and fresh!

They decided that the best course of action was to leave the stone here until they knew exactly where they had to take it. They figured out by now that the stone door was beneath a mountain... The water door was likely in the river!

The druid was sent off and turned into a frog and went down into the water and spoke to one of the giant pike that live there. She described the round door she sought and the pike informed her that here was something like she described.

The warforged went with her to investigate after she returned to tell the party (Which was just three again as the rogue was gone now) what the pike told her. The fish led her to the main sewage pipe coming from Bal Sagoth and into the river and left them here.

>>30653416

They went into the pipe and eventually surfaced and continued on until they found metal bars preventing their passage. It was a few minutes before they realised (With leading questions from the DM) that there was no way a fish could have ventured beyond the surface of the water.

The round shape of the pipe had led the pipe to think the druid meant exactly that. It's a bloody fish, not renown for their smarts. They realised this was a waste of time and left the sewers.

The party returned to Bal-Sagoth and asked around some more though nobody had any idea where they could find the things that they were looking for... So in their boredom and having no clue what to do next the party went to Korbak and purchased, of all things, a deck of many things.

The party found a quiet room in an inn and they each sat around the table and stated a number before taking it in turns to draw cards from the deck...

All in all, through use of wishes obtained from the cards and various other means the following happened:

The Barbarian gained a castle.

The Warforged gained 100 diamonds the size of his fist and a follower who was called Johnathan. He lost his soul.

The druid became imprisoned and vanished.

Johnathan was told to draw some cards from the deck as well. He learned the problem to his next dilemma which was how to retrieve his master's soul; the Wizard's ethereal form was upon the celestial plane in Iomedae's domain and they would simply need to travel there and lead the soul back to the body.

>>30653717

The party, or rather the barbarian, turned to Korbak with help. For now, the druid played as her wolf companion who stuck around and the warforged played as his new servant Johnathan.

Korbak informed them that the easiest way, an least expensive, would be to enter the astral plane and go to the celestial plane from there. A portal was created and off they went.

They floated around some in a slightly less-than-corporeal form and they aimed themselves towards the celestial plane and off they flew, a blindingly warm light washing over them before they materialised in the celestial plane. Or at least... Two of them did. The barbarian was evil enough that he pretty much bounced off and he materialised elsewhere.

>>30653908
That makes me lol. Celestial realms be like AW HELL NAW WE AINT LETTIN DAT WHOREKILLER UP IN THIS BITCH!

>>30653908

So the barbarian woke up, laying on his back on a nice comfy patch of grass. He looked up and looked around and found himself in a beautiful glade in the woods with none of his companions around. Climbing a tree, he looked around to see if there was anything "obvious".

A few miles away, yet still visible, was a gigantic oak tree which towered far above the rest of the canopy. He made his way towards that.

Up in the celestial plane, the druid's wolf and Johnathan made fast towards the fortress they found themselves outside. The gates were open however they were watched by armoured figured standing upon the battlements and patrolling the ground. They walked through some rather basic, contemporary gardens and into the main building, following the echoing sounds of metal against metal.

They soon happened upon a tall, muscular figure working some white hot metal against an anvil.

They asked some questions of the being who turned out to be Torag himself. His fortress stood at the entrance to the plane such that his forces might protect the celestials should they come under attack. He allowed them to pass through his fortress and towards Ioemedae's stronghold.

This they did and eventually found their warforged mage and also the spirit of the paladin who was given the honour as serving as a member of Ioemedae's home guard. They brought the soul of the warforged back to the entrance of the plane, who swore his allegiance to Torag and said he would wear his holy symbol once he was back in his body; the god was reluctant to allow a soul to pass back into the natural realm but he was soon convinced.

>>30654686

So our party is slightly more whole once more and once Grind's spirit was returned to his body he found himself bearing a small anvil welded onto his breastplate. Time to find their barbarian and druid.

They figured Korbak had probably helped them enough by now that he'd start to get quite annoyed at them, so they returned to the university for help. The wizards divined the locations of their party members; the druid was in the abyss and the barbarian was on a rather strange sub-plane of the natural realm itself. They said that getting the druid back would be relatively easy and that helping was the least they could do after the adventurers were helping them. A few students were gathered and were given a bit of a lesson and told to all join their powers together and open a rift into the abyss, then Grind would need to call her name into the Abyss and she should be brought into the material realm.

"Chatalis." he uttered into the rift and soon something did come through. With a lot of squelching and squeezing, a figure quite a bit bigger than expected eventually slid out of the rift and then landed upon the floor with a wet 'slap'.

A giant beetle was not what they had expected, let alone a bloated one which began (Or more likely 'resumed') laying large white eggs. The wizards deliberated and discerned that this was indeed her friend... Mutated and warped by one of the demon lords into this new form to be of some use to them. They either would not or could not reverse the effects, so the party were advised to seek out someone who could bestow upon them a wish or a miracle.

Our 'druid' was transported via two carts pulled by donkeys that the wizard pulled from his robe of useful items and she was pulled as far as The Great Crossroad before the wheels of one cart buckled and then as all the weight rested upon the other than gave out almost immediately after.

>>30655840
That's way gross man.

>>30655840

Quite a crowd was gathering around the giant, grotesque hulk and many people came round wanting to look and a few people wanted to end the life of the monster.

Johnathan was instructed to keep watch over the beetle, and the druid's faithful companion would also remain as our warforged ran, flew and teleported as far and often as he could getting to Bal-Sagoth far faster than any of the others could have done. He called upon Korbak, who demanded payment this time, which was provided in the form of ten solid diamonds. Needless to say, Korbak arrived literally within seconds using his far more powerful magicks to travel and he then investigated the beetle he found and reversed the effects of the demon lord's power over the course of some hours.

They were all transported back to Bal-Sagoth and then Korbak when about diving the exact location of Kronus and brought him back to the party as well, for another two diamonds.

Our barbarian informed the party that he had met "some bloke" called Gozreh "or summin'" and he was the god of nature. The half-orc was allowed to play around and experiment with the very fabric of nature and he created a bonsai tree which had leaves nearly identical to that of the cannabis plant including high levels of THC.

Within the decade, this plant was a popular one to be found in the windows of most houses.

>>30656197

I've taken screenshots of all my story posts so far up to this point.

I'm going to bed now and won't be posting again for another 12 hours because university.

>>30658318
I'll do what I can.

>>30658318
Good night to you, and thanks for a good story.

>>30658384

Thanks anon, I would love to return to an open thread to continue the story in.

Bump for preservation's sake.

Bump

Bumping. Just five hours guys.

Bumping

I'll be writing again in about an hour.

bump

>>30667300

Right, I have found a nice and relatively quiet corner to sit and write upon for of the story.

>>30656197

So our party was finally whole once more and in Bal-Sagoth. So what was the party to do? Perhaps procure another deck of many things?

Surely they weren't that stupid.

Returning to The Stag, our Wizard pulled out the second DOMT and placed it in front of JEremy the level 4 fighter in his service and instructed him to draw all of the cards.

This Johnathan did and using up his wishes and abilities gained from the deck itself and through sheer luck he managed to survive the ordeal... Become level seven, gain a castle which he gave to his master and he then also gained a level 4 fighter in his service. We named him Johnathan.

The party now turned their attention back to their quest. They were not sure where to look for the water door ow and so headed back to the university to tell them that they had found the water key and would retrieve it once they could leave for the door it unlocked.

Upon arriving at the university however, they realised that they would have to wait. A gigantic storm was swirling around the top of the university, flashes of flame and light coming from within the whirlwind.

Thinking back to what the barbarian had discovered on the roof of the university, they figured that it must have been the door of wind and now the wizards had opened it and were in the process of battling the things which protected whatever artefact lay within that sphere.

There was no way the party were getting to the top of that university on the outside, with winds so fierce barring their path... Or was there? After a couple minutes of desperately trying to fabricate a plan, the druid changed form into that of a bird of prey and the Warforged shifted into a chromatic dragon. Bursting into the air, they both aimed to get to the eye of this storm.

>>30670103

The dragon arrived to find many of the council members fending of a single gigantic creature made of swirling torrents of air; barely visible against the background of other winds. Valiantly he fought against the creature, the councilors of magic unleashing their powers in turn and the creature was soon brought low.

The winds around the roof weakened and out came a second elemental. Weakened, but not yet broken, the wizards fought on, fighting the raw powers of nature with the controlled and precise formalities of magic. As each of the elementals was destroyed, the winds would weaken and another would appear until at last but one remained and the storm around The Lonely University died.

The druid now had her chance to join into the fight and help and all of them working together to defeat the last of these guardians.

The barbarian did nothing in this battle, getting a largely-obscured observation point from the floor quite a distance below.

Eventually the fight was over and the party members on the roof got a good look at the artefact which was inside of the now open sphere.

It was a very similar stone to the one that had been used to open the door under Mt. Isan and the one that they had found in Keyhole, except this one was a deep black flecked with purple. Jeremy took this and secreted into his robed before thanking the party for their help, if it was unexpected.

He was brought up to date on the water-key and Jeremy advised that there was an area of the sea not too far from Bal-Sagoth docks (A day or two) where more ships had gone down than any others on record that came to Serne.

They figured that this must be the door and so they went to Keyhole and stole away with the water key, leaving the water basin filled with filthy water and the inhabitants of the town to contract cholera and all manner of diseases from the waters of River Serne.

They promised to return the stone but nobody could really prevent them from taking it anyway.

>>30670103

I regularly got Jeremy and Johnathan's names mixed up during the campaign and it seems I am continuing that trend here as well.

who's still here?

>>30670291
Lurking

>>30670193

So they travelled off to Bal-Sagoth docks and decided that the much more intelligent option than using one of the Warforged's longboats would be to commission a large caravel, with a substantial ten diamonds given as a guarantee the ship would be returned intact.

And so the party sailed towards the region they had been told, leaving late in the day and arriving late the morning after next. The warforged use magically re-inforced rope to suspend himself beneath the surface from the boat so he could get a good look round and find anything of note.

The place was a graveyard. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of ships all lay at the bottom of the ocean. None of them seemed to have taken enough damage to warrant sinking and bringing the whole crew down with them, but here they were stretching into the dark gloom of the ocean. Our mage led the party to where the sea bed sank downwards, finding a sink-hole of sorts where a circular panel was revealed with eight slots and a circular hole in the centre.

The keys were placed where they were needed and our wizard prepared to enter the hole. A resounding boom echoed outwards, rippling through the ocean as the stone slab dropped a foot or so and then split in two and opened. Grind had no time to enter the hole as a powerful torrent of water threw him upwards and then into the sky.

He never hit the ocean surface again or even the deck of he ship, transmutating in mid-air into the same draconic form he had merely a week ago. His flight brought him round and he took the barbarian from the deck of the ship onto his back.

Casting his own magic from his draconic form and making use of his breath attacked the duo made daring fly-by attacks against the hulking water elementals which surrounded the ship and shaded them from the sun each rising

One stood slightly bigger than the other elementals, towering a full 40 feet above the surface of the water.

>>30670291
lurking

>>30670376

Tides turned and waves crashed as the fight ensued, the druid calling forth the powers of nature and invoking the powers of the storm herself to bring crackling electricity into the beasts.

The fire of the barbarian's weapon produced torrents of steam with each blow delivered unto the water elementals and powerful breath attacks and spells were used with effective force against these sentinels until in turn each was eventually brought low and each in its own right producing massive waves as its form crashed into the surface of the ocean and became part of the world once more.

The ocean was quiet once more, the soft sound of waves lapping against the sides of the ship and over one-another was all that remained and the party rested for a moment, congratulating themselves on another well-earned victory.

Once more our mage descended into the depths and into the cavern he had opened, retrieving the keys used and the final one from within which was black in colour.

They would now return to land, already sick of the rocking of the ocean.

>>30670399

Coming into dock, there were a few who gave them odd looks as they had left just a day and a half before the oddly large waves had arrived. Luckily, no damage was done and the owner of the ship was incredibly glad to have his property back and the ten diamonds were returned to the party.

Another group of people were gathered at the docks, however. They had been waiting for the party to return.

"We did not catch you in time, obviously. We would have liked to have help."

The paladins had tried to catch them before they set sail but the party was quite time efficient it seemed and they had already disappeared over the horizon before the armoured knights had even made it to the docks.

They exchanged words and the paladins explained in a little more depth as to why the university was evil. They told them that whilst they were not sure of the powers that would be unlocked, they knew they would bring destruction and ruin to the world. The paladins intended to take the black keys and return them to their order to once more scatter them this time under the watchful eye of Torag's warrior-priests.

The party said that they were convinced and that they would continue to work with the university to get the black keys however they would then give these to the paladins. As a show of faith, the latest black key retrieved was given to Sir Irium, the head paladin who now had two in his possession and a third they knew was in the university's hands which was no bother as all of the keys would be needed in the university wished to finalise their plans.

The party informed them that they did not know where to start looking for the final key, that of fire, and the paladins were happy to inform them they knew exactly who owned it; the king of Bal-Sagoth. This was why the paladins had been there months ago and the party caught them just after they had tried to convince the king to relinquish it.

>>30652394
we're here

>>30652394
We never go away

>>30670459

The water stone was returned to Key-hole, to the delight of the somewhat smaller population of the settlement and the party then went on their merry way once more to Bal-Sagoth. Before approaching the king they decided that they would first figure out exactly where the fire-door was located. It was quite an easy decision as the points where the last keys were found were pinpointed upon the map and the last logical location was that of Mt. Dal'ur; the only volcano which graced Serne with the mineral rich lava flows. These flows helped to create the now vast expanse of the Ira Farmlands in the south-west which pretty much supplies crops to the entirety of Serne and even some kingdoms outside of the region.

They approached the palace with the paladins and asked for an audience with his majesty and eventually they did manage to meet with a member of the royal family... His son, Torag (Random fact: I came up with the name Torag in an earlier game before knowing of the god. I changed some of the fluff a bit for this campaign to account for this).

They spoke to Torag and told him of the foul dangers at hand and what was at risk if the paladins could not secure the final key. The university would surely come looking for themselves and might even take the key by force.

The prince told them that the quality of the city's steel comes from the powers of the key and that they would be ruined should the key leave the city walls. Eventually, however, he is convinced and behind his father's back he retrieved the red stone set into the side of the royal anvil. He said he will make something up as to why the people cannot smith for a while and he will suffer his father's wrath himself.

The party do away with the key and the paladins say they shall remain in the city to aid the king in any way they can as a sort of forced payment for the borrowing of the key.

I'm writing this from UWE in Bristol by the way if anybody happens to also be here.

>>30670291
Had shit to do for like a day and a bit.
Back to lurking.

>>30670477
>>30670502

I asked that last night, haha.

>>30670560

Our three adventurers head to the volcano. It is a long ride, but the party purchase new carts and put their donkeys to use pulling them along because rich adventures don't need to walk.

They travelled unmolested and it was pretty boring up to the point they got to the volcano and scaled the side. There were a number of caves but they eventually found one quite close to the top which was pretty damn huge. They entered here.

Coming into the volcano, the party soon stumbled into some kobolds who were almost laughably dispatched. Entering through a series of tunnels, they eventually found a large cavern within the warm rock of the mountain filled with gold. Only the barbarian failed the knowledge check to figure out that there must be a dragon in here.

A dragon which was happy to make itself known, pulling itself out from behind half buried under a mound of gold and it was soon evident that she was taking care of an egg.

"And who are you that enters my home?" she asked of the party.

"We're on a quest!"

As always, the Warforged was more than happy to play party face. He told his tale of how they were looking for a particular door and that she could just let them through and they'd be out of her hair -- er, scales -- in no time. She asked why she should let them live, let alone allow them to pass through and eventually the Warforged convinced her that they would be no trouble. They had even spotted the door by now and the warforged mage-handed all of the keys into the door anyway. The slab of rock opened up as was expected and a rush of even hotter air came flooding out into the room followed by four hulking beings made of flame.

The largest and first to emerge examined the chamber and said something to the dragon in a language the party did not understand. Unexpectedly, the dragon abandoned her egg and retreated into the cave and out of sight.

"Baleful polymorph."

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>>30670645
>Baleful polymorph
Oh god.
This is gold.

Dont keep us hanging OP

>>30670645

Whilst the elementals were cockily talking to the dragon, our mage took the opportunity to try and turn one of them into a rabbit. The greater elemental failed it's will save (DC 22 FFS) and shrunk down into a small, furry hopper. For about a millisecond.

When a flame is extinguished, the heat it was emitting takes some time to dissipate. The hotter something is, the longer it takes to cool down; some smelting furnaces can take weeks to cool down.

A rabbit appeared inside of an intense area of heat. The water in its body vaporized instantly and explosively, sending chunks of burnt rabbit flying across the chamber.

One down...

Yet another mighty battle ensued and the destructive forces of nature were once more unleashed as the party fought valiantly to bring down their enemies.

Down one in number from the start, the elementals stood little chance against the combined powers of our Barbarian, our Wizard and our Druid and despite their best efforts these beings also feel to the might of our heroes.

The wizard and the druid unleashed the forces of water and ice to combat the raging torrent of heat that was the fire elementals and great globs of gold which grew molten from missed strikes and would then solidify in the air left rain-drop shapes lumps of precious metal scattered amongst the dragon's horde.

The barbarian, of course, did what he was best at. He ran at them and he hit them. Somehow he escaped suffering relatively minor skin melt and a palty 10% of his body was covered in third degree burns. Nothing serious.

The dragon returned to her egg once the battle was over and said nothing to the party but the look in her eyes simply dared them to do anything but leave as soon as they could.

The stone was retrieved with magic (So the party didn't have to walk aaaaaaall the way over there) and then they left, descending the mountain-side once more.

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>>30670745
I was extremely non-disappointed at the result of that spell.

Oh god, I'm sitting outside the lecture hall which hosts the gender studies lecture at this time on Thursdays... Womyn are gathering...

>>30670745

The party discovered that the battle had caused something of an eruption and large areas of crops and livestock had been destroyed. Ira wasn't too happy with this, but fortunately the farmers didn't even know that the party had gone up the mountain-side let alone that they might be responsible.

With haste, they travelled away from Ira and found the paladins were waiting for them near the Serne Bridge. The stone was given to them and the paladins thanked them for their help. They said they were leaving Serne and the party offered to join them to the border where the River Serne enters through the mountains.

Their offer was accepted and together they travelled. Their first night went by find without a hitch, but the second night... Not so well.

A trio of creatures, bodies formed of shadow and eyes glowing a malevolent red through the darkness came upon the party as they slept. The night-guard had no knowledge of their existence until the pained noises of Sir Irium's death throes alerted the other eight that something was up. They only saw the creatures as they fled into the night, disappearing with the stones that they had taken from the paladin.

Distraught but still composed, the paladins soon deferred leadership to the tallest of the part. A half-orc by the name of Orion and the single figure who stood over The King. They said that they had no choice but to give Sir Irium a proper burial now and that as a result the party must follow the foul creatures of the night to their source; undoubtedly the university.

Our heroes departed from the holy knights, exchanging goodbyes and their condolences. The paladins wished them luck and the party was sure that they would need it...

It took them quite some time to arrive at the university where Jeremy was waiting for them.

>>30670818
>gender studies
FALL BACK MEN
Nothing can stop the white-hot rage of white liberal SJW tumblrites.

>>30670814

That .gif will haunt me for many nights to come...

>>30670818

He quite politely informed them from just within the gates that their service was no longer required and in a few more words basically told them to fuck off.

The party said they were working with the paladins and knew that they were unleashing a terrible evil and that the wizards must either stop what they were doing or they would be stopped with force.

Jeremy went to laugh in the faces of our three heroes, though because of the druid the party as a whole was like 12 individuals strong. Here's who was present:

Kronus the Barbarian
Grind the Wizard
Chatalis the Druid
Johnathan the level 7 Fighter
Johnathan the level 4 Fighter
The druid's wolf
The puppy in the druid's care (He's still alive)
An ent the druid summoned
Two more ents the other ent summoned
Two great eagles the druid also summoned

Exactly 12...

The wizard's laugh was cut off as a thundering boom echoed out from within the tower. He went a little pale as a second ground-shaking noise resounded from the building. He then disappeared as the foundations gave way and the entire tower sank into the floor and then into a dark chasms.

Mists began to flow from within those depths and storm clouds began to gather as raindrops appeared in a drizzle before becoming a torrent. For a moment the world was silent, before an the groaning of an ancient power which had lain dormant for many centuries woke up to find the world had changed in many ways that it did not quite appreciate.

>>30670873

I'm going to be a dick and choose this opportunity to take a break, gather my thoughts. I might continue this before my next lecture though the ending post to our campaign might not come to fruition until I get home in four hours time.

I don't know how to make fights particularly exciting... A 17 appearing on the dice might have been exhilarating at the time but it's been so long by now I can only remember the vague happenings of individual battles.

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>>30670873
>That last paragraph

IT is OFFICIALLY happening.

>>30670895
GOD DAMNIT KEEP GOING


EMPERORS onodera

>>30673167

Fine, fine.

>>30670873

Our party watched on for any signs of movement. Anything that may have survived the collapse of the university or anything that might crawl out from the darkness. Through the mist, they saw motion and eventually a giant hand rose out from the pit and sank into the earth. This mighty limb hauled out of the pit an incredibly primitive humanoid form, though huge and exuding raw power from within.

It was still weak from its isolation beneath the earth, sealed behind unimaginably powerful wards and arcane materials so that it might never make contact with the elements it drank from.

Electricity rippled across its form and with little thought the world around it bent to its will, the raw fabric of reality bowing to this ancient and powerful manifestation of the elements in sentient form. It was still partly obscured by the thick fog which had come from nowhere and as the party readied to attack elementals were summoned with barely any exertion from the being who's name was lost to time.

If this being was to be defeated, it would have to be now while it was at its weakest and drawing upon the old legends the party knew that the gods would give our heroes precious little time before they would surely interfere once more, wiping out perhaps far more than Serne alone.

The adventurers were attacked from many sides by elementals of various powers, however whilst the force had a deadly variety as a whole they were weak to one-another and were not quick to come into proximity with denizens of the other elemental planes.

Through the skill of our party and with the help of their many, many companions they fought bravely and valiantly through the swathe of foes and towards the mighty being that had created them.

The Barbarian charged.

>>30673768

As the power of the storm was unleashed by the druid, the ents providing artillery by launching great stones and the eagles coming down to attack, the reckless yet brave half-orc came to take this divine being, a god, in melee combat.

Blows were struck against the mighty being and further hordes of elementals rose up to hinder the attackers of the awaken being. Wielding a sword in either hand, each blow landed a burst of flames which washed over the giant being.

However, this creature had borne fire itself and the barbarian's blows came to a much lesser effect than was hoped for. The fight ensued and as great ents fell around him and mighty birds were torn from the sky soon our Half-Orc adventurer was too brought low before this mighty being.

It had sustained damage, however, and it began to retreat into the mist once more. Our Warforged mage and our Elven Druid continued to fight on bravely and heroically, driven on with the rage one can only know from the devastation of death. Mighty spells were brought to the fore and swathes of elementals were destroyed as fast as they were created and our heroes gained upon the god.

They battled for many hours against this foe but for all the damage it sustained it would simply not die. Our druid was weak, her wolf was near death and the warforged was in dire need of reparation.

>>30673768

The Half-Orc lay in the mud, his body washed over by rain and his body grew cold. Abandoned in the mist as the fight's progression had led it elsewhere, a figure appeared in the mist and approached the still fresh corpse of Kronus.

"It is not your time to die... You must undo the workings of my colleagues."

Life filled the barbarian once more and he rose, over-come with rage at his earlier defeat to find himself in the presence of someone he had not seen in many months. The death-less form of the Lich of Darkwood stood before him, clutching a staff as his power had been drained. The Half-Orc was not a member of the undead legions... The Necromancer had drawn upon the raw energies vibrant in the air and used their reality-warping powers to bind the Barbarian's soul back to its body and repair the damage that had been done. It had been taxing upon the lich, but he felt his work had been done.

The Warforged and Druid fought on in the torrential rain, worried that they would not be able to defeat this powerful foe. With a familiar voice screaming raw hate, they turned to see their old companion come charging out of the fog and straight towards the bastard who had killed him.

Entering once more into single combat, fueled by hate and the pure desire to destroy this creature Kronus, the Half-Orc barbarian battled on. Our heroes were invigorated by the sight of their companion, confused but un-questioning for now as to how he had risen from the grave. They continued their assault now with renewed faith that they would leave this fight victorious and soon the barbarian brought low the divine being...

And yet it was still not dead. Even when it stopped fighting and could not stand, nobody could look upon it and doubt that it was still alive.

A flash of light came down from the heavens and the god was enveloped in a pure light, blinding all of those nearby and forcing them to look away.

>>30673852

The lied soon died away and the party blinked away the after-effects to find that a large iron sphere had replaced the form of the god and in-front of it stood the form of Sir Irium, translucent.

The paladin informed the party that once again Torag and his god-allies had sealed away the creature, for it could never truly be destroyed. By its very essence it was bound to the multi-verse; the embodiment of the raw elements and even the gods themselves did not have the powers to end existence.

Sir Irium presented four black keys and said that they must be scattered once more. He informed them his companions were still in Serne and it should not be difficult to find them and relinquish some of the keys, or all if they saw fit, to the Paladins and their order. The party were also called to audience with Torag.

The knight then departed once more and the great sphere sank into the earth and out of sight as the ground above it moulded about its shape. The threat was dealt with and Serne was safe once more. The party shared in comraderie and congratulated themselves and one-another on the victory before setting off once more to another adventure.

>>30674036

Thanks to all who've been reading this. I never really intended to write up the whole campaign, I just began with some of Grind's shenanigans and it escalated.

After the story, a couple of things happened in "closure" of the campaign.

The druid went off to live her life in the woods, as is expected.

The barbarian calmed down significantly when his "bud bonsai" began to sprout up and he began smoking it.

The Warforged took up residence in his new castle atop Mt. Isan where, through the cunning use of magic, ended the aging process for himself and began to live eternal, guardian of one of the key-stones. He also mastered the subtleties of time control and was able to move back and forth at will. He eventually became known as Korbak (Who was a far more significant NPC in the actually playing of the campaign).

Thank you all again.

>>30674182
>Grind became Korbak
Well that was unexpected.

>>30674219

It had been kind of hinted at very subtly all the way along.

Korbak hated the university.
Korbak had been inside of the Necromancer's labyrinth.
Korbak didn't even flinch at the Warforged's first appearance.
Korbak had literally everything they needed as they needed it.

Occasionally one would see a flicker of movement in Korbak's shops, very few noticing that it was a severed hand running around.

so what did you guys think?

>>30674776
9/10, would participate in. I liked parts where rogue had to be emulated... everytime ending in disaster.

>>30674796

I am currently running another campaign containing the paladin, Grind and Kronus (Well, their players) following demons.

>>30674776
I liked it. Was a bit hard to follow at times, as I guess you left out a lot, but still enjoyable. How much did you railroad your players in the actual playing of the campaign? How many sessions did it take you?

>>30674992

We didn't rail-road at all they just stuck to the quest at hand and shit happened on the fly.

The underdark was, I guess, kinda rail-roaded but there's not much you can do except for "we continue down the tunnel".

Sorry if it was difficult to follow but yeah, I left out some stuff just because it had no relevance. I tried to make up the gaps by saying that they went to a place before writing about it. The map hopefully made things easier.

How many sessions? Errrr. Weekly sessions for the better part of a year so 30-40 I think.

>>30674992

The anonymous who you replied to wasn't me btw.

Please someone compile all of this, it's so worth saving to re-read our share
Terrified it'll be gone before I can get home from work and try and copy it all myself

>>30675446

I've got screenshots of it all.

>>30675484
GbrlGld14789@gmail.com
If you don't plan on going thru the trouble of setting up a download link, mind going thru the trouble of emailing me the screenshots you've got?
And regardless, thanks for sharing this shit, 10/10

11/10 did play

>>30675775
2,482,372/10
Would party woth.

>>30675563

Bumping for this guy.

>>30674182
>He also mastered the subtleties of time control and was able to move back and forth at will.
>Time Travel shenanigans
I called it!
>>30628846