Cognisant
Prolific Member
- Local time
- Yesterday 7:13 PM
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2009
- Messages
- 10,564
I think the best case I have for transitioning to an in-forum table is the story I've been yet unable to tell and even if the latest session went perfectly it would still take several sessions to tell on the roll20 tabletop.
Had my ISP not royally screwed me the party would have progressed through the dungeon until encountering the Guardians, these animated metal soldiers and their clockwork captain would have kicked your asses, taken you prisoner then disposed of you down a seemingly bottomless pit. Rather than dying you would have fallen into a underground lake rich in luminescent algae them swam to shore whereupon a small party of drow would race by laughing their asses off.
They weren't laughing at you, they'd just antagonised a goblin army by shooting fireworks into their camp (just because it was funny) and now by their recommendation you're running after them because assumedly wherever they're going is relatively safe. The drow pranksters lead you to the drow citadel (needs a name) which is a city carved into a mountain like column in the centre of a massive underground chamber, lit from below by lakes of luminescent algae with long mines-of-moria like stone bridges leading to it.
There's a picture of it I made, I'll upload it when I can.
So that's the end of that session, the Guardians were created by an alliance of four elder races in the ages before mankind when they sealed the primordial daemon lords (the original horsemen of the apocalypse, their thrones and titles since having been claimed by lessor daemons) the Guardians who threw you down the pit were specifically guarding the prison of Horeksim, the primordial daemon of war, the one who appeared before you as an apparition in the town's sewer/dungeon.
Horeksim was never defeated, indeed as the creator of the very concept of war it's arguable that defeating him by warfare would only make him more powerful, instead with both divine and infernal help (daemons aren't loyal as such) the four elder races tricked him and sealed him in a pocket dimension inside which time has been halted, yet he was still able to contact you through the scrying pool, he's just that powerful.
The Guardians themselves are constructs that create more constructs by enslaving spellcasters and ritualistically murdering people to create soulbound constructs (which are like a different species, but still bound by to the same cause) the eldest are mithril/adamantium masterwork golems made by the four races with combined divine/infernal help (the war to seal the primordial daemons is the reason why these metals are so rare) who being bound only to the duty of preventing the apocalypse were the ones who created the first simple golems, poor imitations of themselves.
The practice of using spellcasters to make new constructs is a fairly recent innovation in their tactics but a game changing one because with their help the Guardians are developing more sophisticated constructs including clockworks, the soulbound and various kinds of undead, there's even plans for artificial life being developed as an extreme final solution.
Anyway getting back to the drow citadel the leaders of that place are really interesting too, in drow society if a child is born weak, sickly or worst of all crippled the kindest thing the mother can do is kill it, unfortunately this poor child was born bind, deaf and to a poor family that needed the money. She could have been raised to be a helpless prostitute but her misfortune was even greater than that, she ended up in the demented hands of a fleshwarper, they're kind of like alchemists but really really fucking crazy, they craft monsters out of people for the sake of monstrosity itself.
The process is long, painful and indescribably horrific but she survived to become a runt of a drider, still blind and deaf, despite that a drider no matter how meek has value so she was bought and used like as guard dog for a merchants storehouse, her new arachnid heritage benefited her in this enabling her to weave ensnaring webs and capture would-be thieves alive, for this fact alone she turned out to be a good investment. Finally good fortune visited her in the form of a soulbound doll, a scout from the relatively nearby Guardian stronghold, by pretending to be a normal doll it had been picked up by an unsuspecting drow and sold to the merchant who owned this storehouse, a typical infiltration tactic for these things.
That night it set out to continue scouting and almost immediately flew into one of the drider girl's webs, stuck fast, and with nothing else it could do it tried negotiating with her, telepathically, after all these things don't exactly have vocal cords. Now the loss of one's eyesight or hearing can result in a greater reliance on one's other senses, for a girl that never had either she learned to compensate with a strong but primitive empathic ability, she could sense her owner's emotions without his consent, indeed not just his. By chance the Guardian scout found itself the tutor of an incredibly powerful psyonic, one that had the ability to read people's minds with or without their consent, even to delve into their memories and like a spider on a web her presence was never felt.
A mind that knew nothing but suffering & subservience blossomed into sentience, learning by the memories of all who passed within her considerable psyonic range and she soon found a kindred, a tiefling gladiator it the city's arena. Seen as nothing more than an aberration he was raised to fight, to kill, to survive, even amongst gladiators this boy was shunned for fear that his fiendish taint would bring them back luck, not to mention the normal xenophobia of someone who looks different.
So raised in the complete absence of kindness he fought, he killed and he thought nothing of it, he didn't even fight for the crowd his unusual appearance and effectiveness made him notable and in time a celebrity, the demon of the arena, the monster that just won't die. His detached, almost mindless way of fighting drew her to him instinctively (arachnid instincts) and the excitement of watching him was burned into the memories of so many, so with her mind she reached out to him and then they turned that city upside down.
You may have heard rumours of drow worshipping a drider or of a city where tieflings are accepted and without a doubt the citadel is the source, they rule it now, drow are notorious for scheming against their superiors but who could possibly out-scheme the (alleged) goddess of fate and even if you could who would be crazy enough to challenge her dual vorpal whip wielding tiefling magnus bodyguard and his regiment of arena champions?
Interestingly they never took revenge, he's too zen to bother with malice or grudges (dude doesn't even speak, if she's the goddess of fate he's the instrument of it) and she is regarded by the fleshwarper that made her as his unintentional magnum opus, he loves her like a daughter (in his twisted way) and she cares for him in kind, even lets him continue with his experiments, perhaps the citadel is so welcoming of monsters because it's ruled by the epitome of monstrosity?
The soulbound doll remains a member of her court and the Guardians maintain a church/embassy/thing in her city, they trade for slaves and serve as auxiliaries to the city guard (having slavers in your judicial system does wonders for preventing crime) they even help with waste disposal and accounting (having slavers in your tax system does wonders for rectifying tax evasion).
The merchant is an Obitu, used to pretend he was an awakened lich or an animated skeleton owned by the shop's true owner, now he doesn't have to and his shop has changed from selling typical drow crap to wildly esoteric crap because a lot of the rouges that can't steal stuff anymore (for drow it's a hobby) have taken appraising and collecting certain things, the treasure hunter's itch I suppose.
As you can see I daydream a lot and I like to write
Had my ISP not royally screwed me the party would have progressed through the dungeon until encountering the Guardians, these animated metal soldiers and their clockwork captain would have kicked your asses, taken you prisoner then disposed of you down a seemingly bottomless pit. Rather than dying you would have fallen into a underground lake rich in luminescent algae them swam to shore whereupon a small party of drow would race by laughing their asses off.
They weren't laughing at you, they'd just antagonised a goblin army by shooting fireworks into their camp (just because it was funny) and now by their recommendation you're running after them because assumedly wherever they're going is relatively safe. The drow pranksters lead you to the drow citadel (needs a name) which is a city carved into a mountain like column in the centre of a massive underground chamber, lit from below by lakes of luminescent algae with long mines-of-moria like stone bridges leading to it.
There's a picture of it I made, I'll upload it when I can.
So that's the end of that session, the Guardians were created by an alliance of four elder races in the ages before mankind when they sealed the primordial daemon lords (the original horsemen of the apocalypse, their thrones and titles since having been claimed by lessor daemons) the Guardians who threw you down the pit were specifically guarding the prison of Horeksim, the primordial daemon of war, the one who appeared before you as an apparition in the town's sewer/dungeon.
Horeksim was never defeated, indeed as the creator of the very concept of war it's arguable that defeating him by warfare would only make him more powerful, instead with both divine and infernal help (daemons aren't loyal as such) the four elder races tricked him and sealed him in a pocket dimension inside which time has been halted, yet he was still able to contact you through the scrying pool, he's just that powerful.
The Guardians themselves are constructs that create more constructs by enslaving spellcasters and ritualistically murdering people to create soulbound constructs (which are like a different species, but still bound by to the same cause) the eldest are mithril/adamantium masterwork golems made by the four races with combined divine/infernal help (the war to seal the primordial daemons is the reason why these metals are so rare) who being bound only to the duty of preventing the apocalypse were the ones who created the first simple golems, poor imitations of themselves.
The practice of using spellcasters to make new constructs is a fairly recent innovation in their tactics but a game changing one because with their help the Guardians are developing more sophisticated constructs including clockworks, the soulbound and various kinds of undead, there's even plans for artificial life being developed as an extreme final solution.
Anyway getting back to the drow citadel the leaders of that place are really interesting too, in drow society if a child is born weak, sickly or worst of all crippled the kindest thing the mother can do is kill it, unfortunately this poor child was born bind, deaf and to a poor family that needed the money. She could have been raised to be a helpless prostitute but her misfortune was even greater than that, she ended up in the demented hands of a fleshwarper, they're kind of like alchemists but really really fucking crazy, they craft monsters out of people for the sake of monstrosity itself.
The process is long, painful and indescribably horrific but she survived to become a runt of a drider, still blind and deaf, despite that a drider no matter how meek has value so she was bought and used like as guard dog for a merchants storehouse, her new arachnid heritage benefited her in this enabling her to weave ensnaring webs and capture would-be thieves alive, for this fact alone she turned out to be a good investment. Finally good fortune visited her in the form of a soulbound doll, a scout from the relatively nearby Guardian stronghold, by pretending to be a normal doll it had been picked up by an unsuspecting drow and sold to the merchant who owned this storehouse, a typical infiltration tactic for these things.
That night it set out to continue scouting and almost immediately flew into one of the drider girl's webs, stuck fast, and with nothing else it could do it tried negotiating with her, telepathically, after all these things don't exactly have vocal cords. Now the loss of one's eyesight or hearing can result in a greater reliance on one's other senses, for a girl that never had either she learned to compensate with a strong but primitive empathic ability, she could sense her owner's emotions without his consent, indeed not just his. By chance the Guardian scout found itself the tutor of an incredibly powerful psyonic, one that had the ability to read people's minds with or without their consent, even to delve into their memories and like a spider on a web her presence was never felt.
A mind that knew nothing but suffering & subservience blossomed into sentience, learning by the memories of all who passed within her considerable psyonic range and she soon found a kindred, a tiefling gladiator it the city's arena. Seen as nothing more than an aberration he was raised to fight, to kill, to survive, even amongst gladiators this boy was shunned for fear that his fiendish taint would bring them back luck, not to mention the normal xenophobia of someone who looks different.
So raised in the complete absence of kindness he fought, he killed and he thought nothing of it, he didn't even fight for the crowd his unusual appearance and effectiveness made him notable and in time a celebrity, the demon of the arena, the monster that just won't die. His detached, almost mindless way of fighting drew her to him instinctively (arachnid instincts) and the excitement of watching him was burned into the memories of so many, so with her mind she reached out to him and then they turned that city upside down.
You may have heard rumours of drow worshipping a drider or of a city where tieflings are accepted and without a doubt the citadel is the source, they rule it now, drow are notorious for scheming against their superiors but who could possibly out-scheme the (alleged) goddess of fate and even if you could who would be crazy enough to challenge her dual vorpal whip wielding tiefling magnus bodyguard and his regiment of arena champions?
Interestingly they never took revenge, he's too zen to bother with malice or grudges (dude doesn't even speak, if she's the goddess of fate he's the instrument of it) and she is regarded by the fleshwarper that made her as his unintentional magnum opus, he loves her like a daughter (in his twisted way) and she cares for him in kind, even lets him continue with his experiments, perhaps the citadel is so welcoming of monsters because it's ruled by the epitome of monstrosity?
The soulbound doll remains a member of her court and the Guardians maintain a church/embassy/thing in her city, they trade for slaves and serve as auxiliaries to the city guard (having slavers in your judicial system does wonders for preventing crime) they even help with waste disposal and accounting (having slavers in your tax system does wonders for rectifying tax evasion).
The merchant is an Obitu, used to pretend he was an awakened lich or an animated skeleton owned by the shop's true owner, now he doesn't have to and his shop has changed from selling typical drow crap to wildly esoteric crap because a lot of the rouges that can't steal stuff anymore (for drow it's a hobby) have taken appraising and collecting certain things, the treasure hunter's itch I suppose.
As you can see I daydream a lot and I like to write