The Many-Fold Path, DD3.5, Marietta Ga

**xawakening** · 11-08-2011, 05:47 PM

Next session is December 4th at 1PM for those who want to stop by ad observe.
Lats session, 1 observer came and half an hour into the session decided to make a character.

**xawakening** · 11-22-2011, 11:18 AM

Harkaad Nuptuals, Day of Green 18

The Harkaad ancestral lands are tough and demand much from anybody
who would tread on this blasted rocky earth. The ancestor spirits who
roam do not grant favors or answer the prayers of the weak; rather
they take great pleasure in watching the strong cull the weak and even
greater pleasure in watching the weak overcome themselves and usurp
the formerly strong in ritual combat. Today was a day the ancestors
would look down on the earth and celebrate mightily for their Harkaad
descendents were living life fiercely and proudly and bringing great
honor to the tribes.

However Bahir, Omrin, Ardem and Liam had no idea what they were
walking into that bright and warm day. The party, being low ranking
and expendable pawns that nevertheless showed great promise, were
recently inducted into the mysteries surrounding an intricate
conspiracy concerning the nature of civilization as they know it.
Shock and disbelief still rippled through them and they all questioned
in their hearts what was actually true and what they were only told
was true. The party’s quiet introspective journey was shattered by
what sounded like a battle ahead and they all prepared for combat as
they jogged ahead.

The battle turned out to a Harkaad wedding which was a comforting
sight for some party members and a terrifying and barbaric spectacle
for others. Battered men in various stages of drunkenness and injuries
laid out on a raised platform and raised a tremendous din as they
cavorted and celebrated. That however was not the main cause of noise
for a large group of women fought a brutal melee in a rough circle
directly in front of the men and the sounds of their fists smashing
bone and muscle along with their battle cries was nearly deafening.

The bride was in the middle of the melee and was fending off all her
rivals with consummate skill but her fatigue was beginning to show.
She was a remarkable specimen with broad shoulders and even broader
hips, long red hair braided into a whip-like weapon tipped with a
dagger, and prominent bony ridges all over her body. She glistened in
the sun from sweat and livid bruises lit up her sun-kissed olive flesh
with angry welts of red and purple.

Upon seeing Bahir walking up so proudly and without a mark on him she
was filled with a rage that consumed her rational mind. Bahir seemed
uppity, weak, and callow for not having participated in the battle to
win her favor (that he just arrived did not mitigate this offense) and
she burned to assert her dominance by charging directly towards him.
Bahir shed his gear and rushed to meet her with a mad scream.

Omrin and Ardae feared this would escalate into a war and Omrin took
stock of his weapons and skill but felt worried given the possible
number of blood frenzied opponents he might face. Ardem leapt backwards and quickly
assumed a roof with characteristic stealth to take a sniping position on top
of the trade warehouse.

Bahir and the bride both dove at each other and their bony head
ridges smashed together leaving both brawlers somewhat stunned but the
bride, in her fatigue, was visibly more shaken yet her resolve did not
waver. She pressed the attack but was clumsy and drained from her the
day’s activities and Bahir dispatched her with a few strikes to the
head and body. The bride collapsed and the men folk gasped as Bahir
placed his boot across her heavy breasts and claimed her as his own.

The groom let out an unearthly howl and despite his wounds and
massive state of inebriation leapt from the platform and began running
towards Bahir. The groom’s running quickly devolved into an
animalistic on-all-fours gallop and Bahir charged him in like fashion.
Their impact was thunderous but their fight was brief as the groom was
so weakened from earlier fights Bahir rendered him unconscious with
only a few blows as well.

Not to be upstaged by this, Bahir grasped the bride and groom by an
ankle and began dragging them both to the coupling area – soft green
moss arranged in open view – while announcing he claimed both bride
and groom on this fine wedding day. What followed would become the
subject of a ballad so graphic that Omrin would be forbidden from
singing it in certain social circles. The revelry continued well into
the night and the party was lusty, loud, and pristinely uncivilized.

Bahir would be inducted into the Scorpion Tribe as a husband-wife the
following morning in a brief ceremony culminating with a tattoo
marking the rite of passage onto his chest. Forever would he be a
member of this tribe as well as the Hawk Tribe. Fortunately, however,
the urinary tract infection he received during the orgy would not last
forever.

**xawakening** · 11-27-2011, 03:17 PM

Our next session is December 4th at 1PM for anyone that wishes to come by and observe. Please PM me for more details. Space is limited so you can't just show up.

**xawakening** · 12-06-2011, 08:03 PM

We're now up to two games a month, on Sundays. Next session is on the 18th. If you want to come buy and observe, please rsvp via PM so I can make space.

**xawakening** · 12-19-2011, 12:53 PM

Wow! Have we had an exciting and surprising two games in a row!

Gaming Statistics: We've converted to Pathfinder and we're playing on Saturdays now, several times a month. Our next session is 01.07.2012. Its still a homebrew, still a Gamma-World/Eberron like setting with strong Dark Sun leanings. Its a different world and there's a lot going on. New posts will be up soon to catch you guys up on what's been happening.

**xawakening** · 12-19-2011, 08:41 PM

Ardem’s Journal, Green 12-18

Where to start? It has been an odd week in an odd month, in a bizarre spring so far. From our first mission to discover plague, we ran afoul with rotting shambling monsters that could not bear the touch of sun or fire (and of course we burned down the ENTIRE town to take care of them during the day) to a monstrous thing, a gigantic eyeball on a long serpentine body from which we ran like al those smart enough to know to do.

We returned to Derayn and the Peacekeeper Enclave there and found ourselves between missions. Of course, Healer Ardra (the conniving sheep’s offal), found something for us to do and introduced us into her faction, to track down the Seeking Runes, the meaning of which a hidden sect of Druids had been searching for centuries to define.

Meanwhile, Liam and Bahir had been off and found us coin-work, a missing caravan a week away, lost between Derayn Caer and Ymirrin Caer. Since there was only one route it seemed odd that one would go missing and remain lost for more than a few days, which we should have realized at the time.

But we did not.

So off we went in search of the missing caravan and stayed at several inns along the way, our Peacekeeper status earned us a place to sleep that was dry and our coin earned us better that Evermore Stew (shudder) en route. We noticed during our trip that it seemed that we were being followed, though by who or what we could not say. Now and again the Bard, Omrin, caught traces of necromantic magics, similar to the kind we encounter in what is now called the Pit of Sylmar.

Finding no enemy to battle, we simply hurried.

On the fifth day of our travels we came into the Anvil, the vast desert that is the central Caer where the Harkaad reside. It was brutally hot, the lowland winds were strong and whipped sand around though as long as we remained on the White Road we remained protected from that, some what.

And then we came across the Harkaad wedding.

The sordid details of that, I believe are found in other writings by my fellow. I have to admit I was amused when Omrin offered to suck the poison from Bahir the next morning.

Ugh.

We knew that the new few days we would be without shelter and food cooked by better hands than ours, and our hosts knew it too. Still, they did not commit heinous acts upon our purses and we left relatively weighed with supplies. Two day later, having come around the curve of the Anvil, we found ourselves at a sight that one had to see to believe.

From the anvil seven great canyons radiate outward and each ends in the Caer of a specific race or a territory held by them. Here, as we found it, the White Road split with the left branch headed into a canyon and the other headed on around the Anvil. Of course this was no great thing!

I’m short, not stupid!

But what we saw was the Bulwark.

The Bulwark was, in fact, a rock fall that had happened a century before and buried a Dwarven Keep at the border of the Anvil next to the White Road. The Dwarves had never searched out and recovered the facility and the White Road, using the ancient magic that somehow kept it clear an intact, had disappeared the stone on and above it, straight up, hundreds of feet and several miles along the canyon.

It was here that we decided to make camp as a small sandstorm was blowing in. In that eve, our troubles would begin.

End pt 1

**xawakening** · 12-24-2011, 06:30 PM

Ardem was on watched as Ruagh, his companion, alerted him that his Master was approaching with another person. Ardem moved around to that side of the camp and approached them while they were still a quarter mile away, able to be scented if not yet seen.

They met several dozen yards outside of camp, Salvernus his old Master and a human he wasn’t familiar with (dressed as a Peacekeeper), though Salvernus was dressed as he always was: in camoflague. Escorting them was a wolverine of exceptional size and as Ardem’s companion approached Salvernus’, they greeted each other with soft antagonism and growling.

Much like their tool-using humanoid companions.

“Ardem,” Salvernus acknowledged him with his name only and no other outward action, though he grated his name out like it tasted sour. He prodded the human Peacekeeper to take a step forward, a simple-looking man a bit older than Ardem and, of course, taller.
Everyone but a Dwarf or a Halfling was taller than Ardem.

“Salvernus,” Ardem greeted him the same way, more neutral in his tone.

Salvernus quirked a silver eyebrow and stared at Ardem for a moment. “It seems you have survived your own actions and the retribution of the council.”
“As have you,” Ardem replied flatly, pointing out that Salvernus bore the same disgrace and the same burdens handed down from the council. He decided to change the subject, “You have a package for me?” his eyes cut to the human.

“Since you… killed… the last one,” Salvernus grated out slowly, “a faction of the council decided your group needed another one. Do TRY to take better care of this one will you?” he mocked.

“I never waste good material,” Ardem replied, another subtle dig.

Only the faintest flicker in Salvernus’ eyes indicated the hit. He curled his lip into a faint sneer, “This one is called Rowan. He’s Fey-Blooded.”
“Just your type,” Ardem replied, rolling his eyes slightly.

Salvernus began to snarl and caught himself and then paused, regarding Ardem. “I see..not ALL of my students are failures.”
“You trained me,” Rowan chose that moment to speak up.

“Clearly he doesn’t have the instincts of survival,” Ardem commented deadpan.

“But I can run fast!” Rowan replied, beaming beatifically.

Salvernus smiled slightly, “I’ll leave the two of you to get acquainted while I go and do some... real… work.”

Pt 2

**xawakening** · 01-05-2012, 02:13 PM

Just sending an fyi reminder of this Saturday is our game. You're invited to come by and observe or jump in if you like. We start at 1PM and play until 6 at:
1283 Houndslake Dr, Marietta Ga 30008

And here's a brief overview of what happened in the last two session, which changed the scope and the landscape of the game entirely. I'm one of those GM's who has a plan and am happy to give my players their hooks and let them make of them what they will. I'm also happy to let them lead themselves down the merry path to hell, if they want to go there.

In the last two sessions the players (through their characters) winnowed out what was happening, what was being done to them and made contact with the "raiders" they had sort of been sent to hunt down and spy on and report to the bigger fish to take out. After artful use of spells and amazing skill rolls (natural 20's!) they managed to negotiate and learn that the "raiders" were in fact ruin-delvers seeking artifacts from the distant past in their little "pocket dimension" that the Druids had created and were maintaining as a static little ant farm. But for those who had the skills and the power, there were cracks in the "jar" that could be exploited to get in and out.

The characters negotiated their passage out in trade for the very thing the ruin delvers had been looking for but the party had found first, thinking it was useless, if clever, junk.

Before they departed they were warned that the laws of the dimension they were in didn't always translate out well and that sometimes people from inside disappeared when they passed outside or, worse, were unrecognizable when they arrived. In almost all cases, anyone from Inside was changed in some way when they went Outside.

The party, realizing that they were dead if they went back to the Druids with the knowledge they had, stood better chances of surviving this way and unanimously voted to make the shift. We ended the session with them transporting out, the raiders using "devices" of some sort to cause that to happen and then they were unconscious.

During their "unconscious" time, we're converting from DD3.5 to Pathfinder, which the players voted unanimously was a preferred system (I agreed) and they and I have worked to rebuild their characters in the new system to approximate what they were in the old build. So far everyone is thrilled with what they've been shown, though none of them know about all of the alterations, of course.

So this is where we are.

They will be waking up in the next session to discover some rather unpleasant things about their status in the new society but, the raiders, have negotiated on their behalf and used their "share" of the reward since they helped find the item they had been sent in for (they may be evil but they were lawful!). We're now exploring the world of Faerun thousands of years after the moon was dropped on the planet and it has had some time to recover. There are some basic facts that are unchanged from the original campaign notes:

There are no Gods.

There are very few Wizards.

Add to this the following:

Most of the "world" is a vast wasteland with tiny green dots of oasis in which most civilization exists.

There are some new races on the playing field.

The average critter you run into "out there" isn't a cake walk due to exposure to weird magical energies and seeping extraplanar fissures that are polluting the world.

The use of "devices" (i.e.: technology) is a lost art being recovered from ancient ruins and had been widely used, alongside magic, when the cataclysm happened all that time ago. At this time most of these are limited to handheld items that provide small skill bonuses and limited magic-like abilities. Craft Devices is the same as Craft Wondrous Item but requires 3 skill points spent in two appropriate Craft skills (jeweler, glass, blacksmith, cloth, etc).

Clerics and Paladins are dedicated to "ideals" not "personifications" and thus can be wildly different.

All the base normal classes are available for play, with archetypes, including the Oriental versions.

At this point we're level 6 under fast progression rules.

**xawakening** · 01-08-2012, 12:02 AM

A post that updates a synopsis of how it all went down int he session prior to this last one.

The investigation into the collapsed dwarven fortress had, so far, gone both disturbingly well and horribly awry. Omrin had "disarmed" a series of traps using his rather unorthodox method of lodging so much of his torn flesh into the gears to render the trap mechanism inoperable. Liam exhibited new supernatural abilities, that had lain dormant, to save the party at an opportune moment. And Bahir valiantly charged and attempted to pummel a friendly kobold to death (a misunderstanding at the time). All in all the mission was going as expected.

What followed was a frightening discovery of forbidden magic and technology, druidic hypocrisy, assassination, and the realization that the party could never go back to their lives. The druids would eliminate the party for their knowledge. The only way forward was to leave the caldera by any means possible.

The path out opened by a most unlikely route when the party parleyed with a group of lawful evil treasure hunters who also prowled the ruins. The treasure hunters sought relics and could take the party out using methods otherwise unusable to the party. Bahir had, almost by accident, picked up a curiously wrought crown dropped by the assassinated dwarven king and this was the item the treasure hunters sought. Tense negotiations followed as the party learned what the passage outside actually entailed.

Apparently, the druids had created a false world where man and other animals were forced to conform to a strict set of guidelines - their very natures subverted by powerful magics. Leaving that bubble was potentially fatal by itself but the party was forced to face that possibility (and entrust their survival and care to a group of opportunists) or go into eternal hiding hoping they could avoid the druids.

Vows were exchanged and a contract written up and signed in blood by all members.

As the group prepared to leave, Bahir remembered his promise to the pixies whom the dwarves had imprisoned for use as light sources. The queen of these fell creatures, who were quite blood-thirsty and capable of rendering a grown man to pebble sized pixie excrement within minutes, spoke to the party and was eager for her freedom and made a promise not to eat them. The pixies held the dwarves in great contempt and anger for their treatment and Bahir suggested a method to take the queen and her court directly to the dwarven capital for a reckoning. It was a harsh justice but it would have the added effect of causing chaos and covering the character's egress.

In what would be known as the Cleansing of the Dwarven Caer, the party departed the caldera but vowed to return and free their friends and family from the tyranny of the druids. Some moral tumult was felt over the massacre of tens of thousands of dwarves but then Bahir let out a mighty belch and realized it was only indigestion he had felt.

---------- Post added at 12:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:01 AM ----------

We're gaming on Saturday 1.14 and 1.21 at our normal times and in our normal place and still have 1-3 slots open.

**Kaidoz** · 01-23-2012, 01:37 PM

I would love to know a lot more, I am looking for a regular game and this one seems really near to me!
Please let me know if you have room and what I need to know.

Thanks in advance,
Kaidoz
Kaidoz@me.com