Drinking & Dragons

Wild:33 I thought of the Children, they're delicious

From Drinking and Dragons

Starring: Nathaniel, Bo, Fuelwen, Splat, Brilla
Guest Starring: Sid, the Leonal, Pinky One-Horn, Killibron
Challenge: Elysian happiness, Brilla's ancestor Amon, Great Fortress Democracy
Location: The Seas
Date Played: 28 Mar 2010


Island Hopping

Leaving Storybook Island

Fuelwen: Bo freed some food from the flesh farm on Storybook Island. These were tortured incompetents, useless for anything but eating. Had I been not recovering from the previous battle (during which I didn't feel quite myself), I might have had more to say on the subject. Really, it was a waste of cargo space, but we had little to fill our hold with anyway. We took them with us.

Brilla: Why isn't anyone stopping him! I mean me! Errr... I mean him! He just wants to take all these people that Bo is freeing and selling them into slavery. Why can't they see this is something I wouldn't do!

Come on someone! I at least expected Nathaniel to stop me/him from doing this...

Nathaniel: With Lovie defeated we make haste from her manor, but not without taking a few items that radiated magic with us, gaining me a Tome of Ancient Lore. Once out and about on the island, we are contacted by Ashtoft the mummy lord and Lovie's (former) nemesis.

Ashtoft reminds me that I am now unbound and he offers to have me bound to his existence. Once complete I feel odd and nearly a week later I resolve that I am now a positive energy undead, like a mummy. Given that our crew has just slain, permanently, one of the island's most prominent persons, Ashtoft encourages us with a map to the docks to leave the island with haste. We do so.

Sorceria

Fuelwen: Offering was a vile place, run over with Kobolds. But it was a place we could sell the food into slavery. It was a step up for them, and honestly- I can't imagine that the buyers got a good deal. Still, I think it was better than letting these people run around free. They would have only hurt themselves.

In retrospect, this was the first time I noticed something odd about Brilla. She used fiery breath to kill a few Kobolds as they mounted our ship. I was surprised, but thought it was a proportional response, and simply assumed Brilla was learning new invocations or bindings.

Brilla: Well, now I can expect myself to get a reputation as a slaver. Way to go crew...

Amon has a bit of a temper as well. Some of my preservation for the ship and it's crew must have some hold on my being as he lashed out at some koblods that were entering our ship to "improve" it. I would have just yelled at them to get off the ship, but outright killing is a bit too far.

I'm trying my best to regain control, but it is very hard. I'm starting to worry that I may be lost forever.

Nathaniel: While on the island I acquired both a dwarven corpse and four kobold corpses to animate. Brilla sold off the lifeyard creatures for a profit of 150gp.

Delebland, Offering, Elysium

Fuelwen: We returned back to dwarven controlled waters and found ourselves on Delebland, an island consecrated to Deleb. Another scholarly island, this was a wonderful opportunity to do yet more research. Most interestingly, we discovered that it had a portal that connected to Elysium and its location was known.

Bo, Nathaniel and I decided to travel to Elysium, but Brilla declined. This was the time when I actually asked Brilla if she was feeling herself. She had never eschewed planar travel.

Still, we split the party. I was wary about Elysium- it had a tendency to "trap" people with its lazy lifestyle. Still, the possibility of gathering samples and increasing my knowledge was too much of a temptation. I was more worried for Bo than myself. We explored, encountered one of the realm's guardians. I didn't feel much interest in interacting with the locals, but Bo did. He brought back a guardian set on acting as a guide for us to bring us in line with some code of behavior or something equally ridiculous.

Brilla: It looks like some of "my" actions drove off the more honorable crew. Looking into his thoughts he seems to have a great idea where to get some new crew too.

I had some hope that Amon would go with the group to Elysium, but I was very, very wrong. That plane of good may have driven him out of my body, or in the least they would run across an entity that would. In the least, they may have found something to kill me, which at this point would be better than watching from the inside. I don't even care if I ascend to a circle anymore, I just want to stop hurting people.

While the rest of the group was gone Amon sailed the ship to find a bunch of thieves and pirates to run the ship. This is getting worse and worse as things go on.

Nathaniel: One of the items that we collected in haste from Lovie's estate, a magical longspear, was sold for a hefty sum. While I was off seeing to the sale, many of our crew elected to leave the ship due to several reasons, 1) animating of dead on the ship and 2) the sale of slaves. I just do not understand why creatures are so opposed to reanimation. The soul has departed the body and an animated body is far more useful than being turned into dust!

We discovered that the portal on this island was known, and thus we traveled to Elysium. The plane is beautiful and comfortable and relaxing. We seek out and find a marble temple at the bottom of a cliff, which is being tending by a solitary leonal named Sid. When words fluttered out from his mouth it was like hearing a long lost friend—his words were in common! I inquired about the language and it seems that it has not been removed from this plane.

Eventually some of the plane's petitioners came to the temple, showing Bo and myself how to cast various spells. To show proper respect to the plane, I chose to learn how to transform myself into a creature from the upper planes.

When it came time to leave we learned that Bo had encouraged Sid to join us on the Prime Material and on our adventures. Given that Sid was prone to judging others strongly, I felt this was a bad idea and was irritable.

Training sans Montage

Fuelwen: Well, as it turned out, Brilla was possessed by a demon. After she killed a few more crew, caused a mutiny, and essentially destroyed much of the work I had put into building us a reliable crew, we dispatched the demon and the guardian left.

Brilla: Bo brought back a celestial to help bring some order to the group and teach some leadership and motivational skills to us. I really had hope that the Leonal could see through the possession, but to no avail.

A few nights after we set sail I was attacked by one of the crew that we hired. Normally, I would have protected myself. Amon took this a step too far. He was toying with the halfling, waiting for it to reach Bo's door before finishing him off.

The crew was all called above deck to be reprimanded. This is where things got pretty crazy. The was mutiny left and right, yelling people, and tempers flaring. This is when the Leonal let out a mighty roar, quelling everyone on the ship and luckily sending Amon back to where he was from.

I was broken after this ordeal, and made apologies where due. I had a private talk with the Leonal afterward about what I planned to do next. I told him that I now plan to set aside my mission for now to warn the others of my island of Amon and Venta so to save others who may try to follow their path. With that, he said his job was done and that he planned on leaving the next morning.

Nathaniel: Once all hell broke loose, I wanted to make sure that Brilla was safe and secure, and instructed Demon Taint to pin her. I was immediately blinded by the overreaction of Sid, who then took it upon himself to nearly destroy Demon Taint.

Once everyone was calm we had a trial for the mutinous crew. We scattered them to uninhabited islands.

Great Fortress

Fuelwen: Great Fortress and my interests there are in dire straits. The government has taken a paternalist approach to, well, everything. They're micromanaging the Pink Priaprism into oblivion thanks to a new political party: "Think of the Children". Rubbish, rubbish and offal, these toothless failures have turned our haven into a dead end.

One Horn is doing what he can under the circumstances, and I've agreed that he deserves a raise for his trouble. It's becoming a bit of a joke around the party that our bartender is always happy to see me return, as he gets a raise every time.

Brilla: Evidently we had a great battle of litigation waiting for us when we got to the Pink Priaprism. A group named Think of the Children seems to have upset the balance of the local government and things are now being changed with rapid effect.

We were also somewhat tricked into taking a trip with the tavern again. It was pretty uneventful, and gives me more reason to dislike Killibron.

Nathaniel: One Horn tells us that our Narzugon "friend" was looking for us. When he couldn't find us, he burned down the stable. Killabron continues to be himself—self-centered—but he did calculate the that center of the tavern's dimensional space was the hearth.

A Whole New World

Fuelwen: With nothing but headaches in Great Fortress, we set out of Lull on the first leg of a longer journey. I noticed an odd formation in the reef, almost a gateway shape. And some combination of phenomena triggered that natural gateway and sent us into the planes, this time to the Beastlands.

I love it here. This is my Elysium, so much so that I must be wary to not let myself get swallowed up in the hunt. There is so much prey, so delicious and fertile that I could spend all my days beneath the waves, drinking the blood of my victims. Fortunately, with our party, there isn't much room for such distractions. We landed at a gigantic island, a scale like I have never seen, and not five minutes later does some strange fairy elephant come to enlist our aid- some menace is rushing in from the forests, and we must stand or become its prey.

On a related note, I wonder if I may find Sekolah here. I learned that it does visit this plane.

Brilla: We set out to Lull, it being the next logical step in our journey. It was odd, though, that the sun didn't set as we were sailing. We soon realized that through some strange change of events that we entered the Beastlands. As a bonus, we were able to treat ourselves to some very large tuna.

We were cautious upon arriving to the island. This is a new environment and I'm not too familiar with the plane, so I'm not sure what to expect.

Soon after arrival we were greeted by a pygmy elephant with wings that told us that help was needed fighting off some demons that have invaded the plane. I feel as though I owe the celestial host, so I am more than ready to meet our foes.

Nathaniel: Like the ancient heroes Gilligan and the Skipper, we set sail for the three hour tour and ended up somewhere strange, with a Holiphant telling us that "they are coming!". This upcoming battle sounds like a great opportunity to use Holy Transformation!


Rewards

  • Wiki:
    • Fuelwen: You've been gathering quite the collection of specimens. +2 caster level to spells utilizing material components. You can add a material component to a spell that does not normally need one with a Spellcraft check DC 15 + Spell level. Usable 5 times.
    • Brilla: New found sense of personal conviction. +1 to resist possession-style effects, including your binding checks to resist influence.
    • Nathaniel: Paging through your prayer book, you find Lesser Holy Transformation scribed in it. Not in your own writing, but fully intelligible to you. It's permanently Extended, with no spell level adjustment. It also seems like this version's modified to come with a breastplate, heavy shield and a longsword.