/vx/ - Videogames and Paranormal

DAY 45: Morning
It has been two days since the Battle of Brindol, and one day since the medal giving ceremony (rest day). Lord Jarmaath has just given the PCs their mission, and they've set out on their adventure.

As soon as they teleported, they would have witnessed the absolute destruction that the Red Hand wrought across Elsir Vale, much of the plains reduced to wasteland, and much of the Witchwood burned to the ground.

Oh, and somewhere along the way they met Sothrom, an edgy, red-and-black, Malarite tiefling Scout/Druid/Daggerspell-Shaper who want revenge on the Red Hand for displacing and slaughtering so many of the Druidic circles across Elsir Vale.

And before anyone else asks, I will no longer be accepting new players into this campaign, since it is nearing its end already.

Party of Aral, the Elven Arcane Hunter, Nightshroud, the Pelorite Murder Nun, and artorias, Champion of the Platinum Dragon with his Daughter Billie, the Steel Wyrmling, are joined by a Sneaky Druid with a bat and snake obsession. i can't remember his name OOC so i'm calling him Batboy to make it easier.

>party distributes loot after the successful defense of brindol. Artorias saves us copious amounts of time with his hunter skills.
>we encounter devils, they are no match for little miss nightshroud and her blade, now named Sunset Bliss/
>next, Ogres, Captain is sliced to ribbons by sunset bliss, rest of ogres are afraid and run away leaving a smelly yellow trail of cowardice
> batboi scouts the complex with the help of telepathy and scrying from items. we learn where last 3 dragons are
>artorias, billie, nightshroud and aral solid snake thier way through a bunch of blackspawn raiders, nightshroud and aral do most of the stealth killls
>encounter 3 dragons, one big and blue, a small green one that hates aral, and the white maiden that fled a campfire back to her boyfriend seto kaiba.
>billie saves us from death by electrification, nightshroud taunts the yugioh reject into attacking her. lucky reflex save to not be crushed and a bloody shredding by sunset bliss
>green dragon on aral thinks he knocked little nightshroud to her death trying to take out aral. cue the small young nun literally running up the cliff, teleporting, well, shadow stepping and slicing the green whelp.
>batboi grovels and dispels as a failed bluff. mentioned it out of sequence.
>blue dragon has a hard time keeping artorias or batboi in his belly and tries to fly off with artorias. travel devotion, pounce, flight from sunset orange angel wings bestowed by a cookie, one miss, one fumble, and two crits,with 1 normal hit, blowing action points, the lithe, petite half pint of a nun frees artorias by cutting blue coward to tatters. sunset bliss.
>artorias gets new belt and boots, billie gets new pick, nightshroud still has a small horde pf magic cookies. druid almost died thrice again.

1 Yrthrak, 4 Bearded Devils, 17 Lemures, 4 Ogres, 1 Ogre Barbarian, 6/30 Blackspawn Raiders, 1 Juvenile Green Dragon, 1 Adult White Dragon, 1 Adult Blue Dragon, fought under unfavorable conditions.

6 Encounters in total, all with an ECL 1 party in about 7 hours. Story progress was made, And we ended at a good stopping point. I think today was a great session, if I do say so myself.

>>150366
*ECL 11

Welcome to Red Hand of Doom part 5! In this part, we go forth and snuff out the draconic hellfire threatening not just the continent, but the entire world by this point while it is still but an ember (we hope!)
>Where we last left off...
>Lord Jarmaath told us of some real fuckery going down in the mountains a day after we finished dealing with all the fuckery in the city
>Shit
>And we're the only dudes badass enough to handle this threat, aren't we?
>Maybe
>Maybe not
>However, the only way we'll find out is by going there and dealing with it!
>So Immerstal gives us a scroll that lets us teleport as close to where we need to be as we can
>And as it turns out, we can get pretty close!
>We're dumped off somewhere I'm not entirely sure of, but Aral's been here before so he's got this
>We even pass by an orc's corpse that he seemed to recognize! (Fs in the chat for Brozal)
>Well, either that or he was staring at the copious amount of light sources orbiting the now desiccated corpse
>Oh well, onwards!
>Oh, and somewhere along the path we run into a disgruntled druid that's upset that the gobbos turned his favorite tree into sawdust or something, point is he's Morthos's new character... Something starting with S?
>Eh, I'll call him S anyway
>We move into the mountains along our path, but are oh-so-rudely interrupted by a scream
>Turns out to be some retarded wyvern or something, >That Guy called it a Yrthrak
>It's bodied in about a turn, iirc
>Moving on!
>The next interruption we face is from a group of ugly motherfuckers who look like the bastard child of an ugly tiefling and a hobgoblin with excessive hair
>These guys jump us and summon in a bunch of little ugly jello-looking bastards that barely pose a threat
>Everybody but Artorias focuses down the hairy hobtieflings and sends them back to the pit they crawled out of, while Artorias burns another electric judgement and fries all the little blobby guys
>Demons BTFO
>Carrying on...
>After another while, we find a large group of ogres
>They don't seem to be doing anything nefarious from what I can tell
>Pretty much just vibing, iirc
>However, the other party members judge them worthy of death and thus physically remove them from our path
>Artorias just kind of stands there and watches
>After all, he doesn't really care if everyone else decides to go full murderhobo so long as nobody goes crying to him about getting stupid injuries afterwards
>The remaining ogres all flee, and nobody can be asked to follow them
>We've got bigger fish to fry!
>Speaking of, our path takes us to our destination
>Or, at least the entrance
>A big fuckoff Mordor-type door, embedded within a statue of the 5-headed bitch queen herself
>And loitering about the statue are three dragons and an assortment of blackspawn retards raiders
>S transforms into a bird, Aral burns his last telepathy scroll, and we finally burn that scrying shard to keep an eye on S as he does reconnaissance for us
>One of the African Americanspawns decides to plink at our birdie, but luckily misses
>After that, he gives us a good view of the three dragons
>A green boy that Aral recognizes, a white girl that's instantly recognized by the red mark on her ass, and an as-of-yet unencountered blue boy
>After we finish miscellaneous other things in terms of planning on how to do this, we go forward and put our plan into action!
>S comes back to us and flits around to notify us of incoming Darkiespawns while Aral and Umbrie hide behind a rock and Artorias and Billie stay the fuck back to avoid tipping them off
>Once the Coonspawns arrive at the rock, Aral and Umbrie beat the shit out of them and dump their corpses so as to not arouse suspicion
>The party spends the better part of an hour moving forward like this, but eventually we make it to the final big rock of hiding before the dragons
>Time to initiate phase 2!
>Aral uses a message spell to try to isolate the blue dragon so he can be dealt with first
>"Hello, have you accepted Bahamut as your lord and savior?"
>laughingwhores.png
>Blue boy tries his best to intimidate us by putting on an illusion show with the statue, but nobody buys it
>"What have you brought for Tiamat?" or something like that
>>That Guy tells us taht it's an open conversation at this point, so Artorias does what he does
"I brought my foot. You can either put it up your ass yourself, or I can do it for you."
>With that, all three dragons come over and attack!
>Blue leads off by almost TPKing us with lightning, but Billie shields us like the little hero she is
>The other two come by and also use their breath weapons, with the familiar individuals getting some banter too
>Aral gets called out by Greenie for losing their last match, and Umbrie gives Whitey the second worst burn she's suffered from us
>Artorias lays down some buffs, Aral gets to shooting, Umbrie gets to slashing, and S tries to bluff his way through the fight
>The dragons aren't having that though, so he quickly switches to a secondary buffer and a debuffer
>It doesn't take long of this for the white dragon to go down, seeing as how she was getting focus-fired by Aral and Umbrie together
>3/5 dragons dead
>After that, the green guy dies and S almost gets eaten by Blue
>4/5 dragons dead, 2/2 of Morthos's characters dead in their introductory sessions
>But wait, he somehow teleports out of the blue dragon's mouth and flies away!
>By now, it's just the blue dragon left
>Everybody's damaging him as best we can, but he's especially tanky due to magically buffed AC and spell resistances
>Motherfucker
>But at some point, S zaps him with a dispel magic!
>The opening we needed!

cont.

>>150371

>From here, all that's left is to get him close enough for us to really start putting damage on him!
>Artorias decides that that will be his job, and taunts Bluey again
"Tell me how the dirt tastes, kobold!"
>This pisses off Bluey enough to get him to charge down Artorias
>However, instead of fighting like an honorable being would, the bastard instead decides to EAT him
filename.png
>Billie's flipping out at this point, and while Artorias is somewhat accepting of this fate, I am not
>OOC I'm worrying pretty hard, but I have faith that the others can get me out
>Umbrie IC decides that now's time to get out her own set of magic flight, and chases Bluey into the air, dealing more damage as she does
>Aral also contributes with more arrows, and S probably does something too, but I can't for the life of me remember
>Sorry, dude
>I even contribute where I can by uvula-punching my captor with a 40 dmg double smite, preventing him from using his breath weapon again now that it was recharged!
>Unfortunately, that doesn't force him to regurgitate me via gag reflex
>Shit
>To make matters worse, he's taken enough damage to start fleeing
>And as if that wasn't bad enough, he's also got more of those defensive spells back up!
>SHIT
>Umbrie manages to get a few more solid hits in though, and Aral manages to get a couple arrows past his defenses
>However, in a stunning turn of events, Umbrie manages to land and confirm two crits in a single turn and not just vivisect, but slice and dice Bluey into purple chunks!
>Artorias is grateful for the rescue, and Billie is overjoyed that her dad isn't dead
>Artorias blows a bunch more charges on his now dwindling stack of vigor wands, and we go to check out the loot
>Artorias walks away with a shnazzy new belt of Chadly Might, giving +4 to strength, and a pair of boots that give me better movement and some good jumping ability for once
>S walks away with a staff of fire that lets him do all sorts of pyromaniac shit
>Aral and Umbrie settle for the usual share of the gold
>And Billie not only gets an upgrade to her war pick, but she also gets to walk away with all the miscellaneous high-value objects that aren't money or gems
All in all a good session! Tune in next time to see if Tiamat's flavor of Mordor tastes better or worse than Sauron's! All this and more, next time on Red Hand of Doom!

>>150374
Man, that version of the image turned out like shit. Photoshop is not an exact science... Take a better one!

Night Shroud is a slight statured young maiden of 5'1" and 90 lbs. pale and smooth with long black hair and huge blue eyes that evoke a combination of youth alongside vulnerability. making her come across as a bit fragile to onlookers as she maintains an optimistic radiant smile anyway.

her dress, appearing black with faint blue accents, appearing somewhat elaborate, is a modified pelorite nun's dress with gothic accents. appearing white with red accents in the sunlight.

at her hip is a hilt, that when drawn and infused with qui, creates a massive blade of sunset orange plasma, roughly the size of something out of some shonen. final fantasy, berserk and bleach being good examples.

she radiates like a christmas tree to a detect magic spell, a box of cookies usually in easy reach, a multipocketed primary backpack for her stuff on one shoulder, with a bag of holding on the other. shuriken inside her inner skirt pockets.

her body radiates the sunset orange light of the union of shadow and sun, not visibly, but in her cheer. though she is very direct in combat, she tends to get cheery, is prone to overconfidence at times, and enjoys a good round of high fives or headpats.

though patient enough to wait second in the queue for headpats. she has proven sheer feets of mobility that while not as impressive as an eagle, are impressive coming from one seemingly as small and frail as herself.

her fighting style, the dance of the sunset lion, combines shadow and sun with her blade, which she has named sunset bliss in recent times, has been known to strike true when the demand is most needed.

now with the murder of 5 dragons on her belt, you would think she would retire a legend and settle down as a mentor, but alas, a ritual must be stopped, and she has the desire to add insult to injury, not only does she want to stop tiamats rebirth, but he wants to rub salt into the wound of the cultists' failure.

impulsive at times, sometimes reckless, other times a gloryhound, other times patient yet desperate for approval. wearing a commander medal resembling an orange sun. she now calls herself "Night Shroud the Cheerful Maiden of the Sunset." and Tiamat has seen her last Sunset. but one day, her legend will be immortalized for the people of brindol. for immortality as a legend, is the only true acceptable form.

will the little one become a legend? or will she die trying? will she tear these cultists a new peehole? only the story will tell.

>>150374
>>150360
Awesome recaps, and the pic is incredible. Take your action points as usual.

I would like to highlight out this is the fourth time that Aral has cast Fireball directly at the ground when he was surrounded. Zero fucks given.
And the time that Night Shroud finally used the Celestial Aspect wafer to grow wings to finish the fight with her pouring charge, despite the Blue Dragon retreating into the air to heal up and harass you guys with debuffs and spells while he waited for his breath weapon to recharge.
Sothram's shapeshifting and scouting abilities proved to be essential in evading the Blackspawn Raider scouts and neutralizing them without raising the alarm. His Dispel Magic attack was also able to lower Big Blue's AC to a hittable range.
Billie had her time to shine: Big Blue had stacked all if his Metabreath feats and Empower Supernatural Ability into that opening attack while you guys were all neatly lined up on the bridge. It would have dealt 192 damage to anyone who failed the save, lucky she blocked it.

All in all, I think this Dragon fight was amazing. Not to short, and the party was only able to win through their strategic cooperation, with a touch of splendid luck. Everyone survived, but just barely.
[-]I had half a heart to give all of the dragons Wings of Cover and Blood Wind too, but I figured the enormous AC was enough. I am a merciful god.

>>150376
Yes, yes. A very nice description of our Pelorite Sword Maiden.

Why are bad gurls always so hot?

>>150385
It's one of the great mysteries of life.

I missed the part of the post where I should describe myself for an extra action point, so I'll do that now!

Standing at a somewhat impressive 6'4, Artorias Greenmarsch is a middle-aged cleric for the Platinum Dragon, Bahamut. An easy way to tell this fact would be the artifact atop his head, the Platinum Helm, something he almost never takes off. However, if someone did happen to witness him do exactly that, they'd notice a helmet- shaped mass of brown hair on top of his head and a pair of similarly brown, tired eyes embedded into his skull. That's not something most people get to see though, and instead are left with simply the visage of a tall man clad in sturdy armor wielding a mace and shield radiating holy energy off of them. A frightful presence for his enemies, and a relieving one for those who have either hired him for his skills or seek the aid of his church. Underneath the surface though, Artorias has grown jaded and pessimistic over the course of his life. He first joined his church because the only other option was to take up his father's profession, and farming sounded boring. However, his training would have him absorbed into his kingdom's military, something which turned out to be much less interesting than he thought initially. Turns out getting used mostly for healing magic will do that to a man, who would've guessed. Still not wanting to back out of what he'd chosen, Artorias slogged his way through his service until it was time to leave. Upon doing so, he decided it was a better idea to travel around the continent and provide help where he could, and his church let him do so with the blessings of a very shiny artifact helmet and a not as shiny egg to watch over. From there, he wandered for the better part of two decades until someone from his church managed to get in contact and steer him over to his current adventure. The rest, as they say, is history!

Not to shill an e-celeb but I think this guy makes good D&D lore videos. Thought I share a video he made on Tiamat since it's kinda related.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRDa39nARHo

>>150607
this is better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6uRe0fV2DM

Welcome back to the Red Hand of Doom part 5! All 5 chromatic dragons are dead, and the longest-lived three party members, Aral, Artorias and Umbrie, are making their way into Not Mordor with their new druid friend Sothram (I know his name now!)
Anyway...
>Loot's distributed, and Aral's player gets messed up and has to go to the hospital, so Aral probably left something in the oven and dips out to check on it
>When we're done with that and have our shiny new digs, we set to opening the door
>Well, we would if we hadn't gotten blasted with every kind of energy damage at once
>My Miracle Cape of Kickassery saves me from quite a bit of damage, but not everyone can be so blessed
>No, I'm not mad that I'm still the only one that took damage because of reflex saves!
>Fuck you, I can fly!
>Moving on, this alerts the guards and we hear the dummy thicc ass claps of several blackspawns rushing to our position to stop us from breaking and entering
>Little do they know, we are incapable of giving a shit
>They try to plink us with arrows, wind wall stops that
>They try to get into melee, we flip them off and run inside the remains of the door
>They follow us in, and they get caught in the blender created by Sothram as a big cat and his pet dinosaur
>Meanwhile, Artorias, Billie and Umbrie start dealing with the zombie wyverns and the blue faggots
>At first there are six of them, but then two are outed as illusions
>The remaining four get the shit beaten out of them and die, leaving the wyverns who also die
>Solid, room cleared!
>The party deliberates for a while, but we ultimately decide to go north
>Of course, all paths lead north but we didn't know that yet
>Anyway, we walk until we find a kitchen inhabited by an elf slave and a pair of , and I cannot stress this enough, BEARDED devils
>These two chucklefucks are all like "Shit, it's the feds!" and they try to summon their buddies to mess us up, but all it does is add another corpse to the room
>After this, Sothram's dino fills us in that the occupants of the previous room have gotten back up and started putzing around like they weren't supposed to be rotting in hell
>Of course, such blatant acts of defiance towards the natural order and our might cannot be left unpunished
>Fearing every enemy having the potential of spontaneous resurrection, Artorias curb stomps the dead devils with Billie's help and then joins the rest of the party in dealing with this
>We ditch the elf for a hot minute and go back to undo the fuckery, only to find that two of the four zombie faggots have fucked off to either side of north
>Umbrie gives chase after one while Sothram, Artorias, Billie and the dino all deal with the remaining undead
>The undead become the redead aside from the two that escaped, and everything that can be coup-de-graced is, leaving nothing for us to do except go back to our chosen path
>Oh, and the elf
>She's an elf slave, so you know what that means!
>Luckily, we all pass the litmus test to see if we're all relatively stable individuals and find that she's a princess of peepeepoopoostan or something
>Artorias really doesn't care since she has no skills remotely useful to the party at the moment, and this gets him into a small argument with Sothram, who's trying to play hero and get the fair maiden out of the asshole's murder dungeon
>However, to do so now would be a waste of time we don't have and resources we desperately need, so instead we find a way to barricade her inside a storage closet until we're done brutalizing the population
>Speaking of, we keep going north and find an empty room
>Said empty room only has doors, so we choose the door that keeps going north
>When we do that though, Umbrie gets shot by a crossbow and takes a bit of damage
>Fighting time!
>In this corner, a gagglefuck of blackspawn retards and one of the missing blue zombie faggots!
>In the other, a hardened team of mercenaries bent on destroying everything related to Tiamat's long life of mistakes!
>The blackspawns are dealt with rather quickly (no surprise,) but something happens that throws us for a slight loop
>the faggot takes a dead bronze dragon mounted to the ceiling and reanimates it!
>Everyone but Artorias is perturbed, and everyone but him and Billie are forced into a save against fear
>Everyone saves (I think?), and Artorias leads off this fight by yelling a challenge to the blue cunt
"Next time we kill you, you STAY DEAD!"
>And with that, he charges the undead dragon and promptly whiffs his hit
>fug
>Billie plinks at the corpse dragon, Sothram does some bat things, and Umbrie turns back into a human blender, reducing the blue faggot to rotten chunks
>No more reviving for you, retard!
>Artorias is left staring at the underside of this bronze dragon though, so he does what any sensible Bahamut Enjoyer would
>He charges up a heal spell and tags the dragon with it, disintegrating its body and letting it go to its eternal rest forevermore
>Once all the ballbusting is over, we collect ourselves and refill our health pools before combing over loot and then calling the session there because Sothram's player had to go do stuff
Next time on the Red Hand of Doom part 5, the party journeys further into the dungeon in search of the evil bastard conducting it! Can they find him? Will the party be complete when we take on this ultimate threat? Is Aral's player going to be alright? I sure hope so, he's a cool dude! Anyway, all matters both pressing and not as pressing aside, I bid you all good day and I'll hopefully see everyone gain next week!

Welcome back to the Red Hand of Doom part 5! We've entered the final stretch and the final dungeon, where the party has met faces both old and new! Everybody's still alive (including Aral's player IRL, so yay!), so don't worry like I did! Where we last left off...
>Everybody's standing around in the barracks, debating on what to do next
>After much deliberation, it is decided that we will go back into the corridor leading north
>Upon reaching the area, we see a door
>Knowing the almost certainty of having enemies be beyond this door, we decide to listen in and see just what we're dealing with
>While doing so, we recognize a certain goblinoid voice!
>Said voice is regaling a bunch of less-than-impressed goblinoids about his escapades and how he escaped the clutches of the great enemy, yadda yadda...
>Anyway, I put two and two together (or >That Guy decided to throw me a bone) and made the educated guess on who this goblinoid is!
>It's Piss Goblin!
>Somehow after being cut loose due to lack of further use, he got rescued by an ethereal dragon and was brought back here where he made up a bunch of grandiose tales about resisting us even though he fed us all the information we needed to get through RHoD parts 2 and 3
>Retard
>By this point though, Artorias knows exactly what he's going to do
>With Billie's help, he stealths his way up to the door and then kicks it open with full force to reveal a room of stunned gobbo clerics
"YO PISS BOY, YOU'D BEST NOT BE THROWING SHADE!"
>Taking advantage of this psychological flashbang, Artorias decides to fry everyone where they stand
>Electric judgement doesn't go off, however, so he immediately turns 90 degrees and begins beating the final blue cunt about the head and face with a macho belt-empowered mace
>Oh, and the enemies wasted their time going invisible against a party with heavy blindsight/sense/gaydar usage
>Some pathetic beta cleric attempts to stop Artorias's chadly rage, but only succeeds in making himself the next target
>Meanwhile, Aral is working on pincushioning things nearby (some summoned hellhounds iirc) and Sothram is doing much the same, getting into fights and his dinosaur's kicking 3 different kinds of ass
>Billie does her best to taunt the cleric currently "fighting" Artorias, and does so with a magic missile
>After blue retard #4 is dead for good, Artorias begins splattering the goblin that dared to smite HIM of all people, but Billie beats everyone to the punch with their respective kills by just blowing up the room
>Every enemy took a small pile of damage and every wall nearby was blown out, leaving the area nice and open
>Also, everybody but Piss Goblin, his wyrmling, and one other guy is now paste on the remaining walls
>Anyway, Artorias and Billie fly up to challenge Piss Goblin for the title of who the real dracolyte is, and whiffs the charge
>No worries though, Aral's got the remaining guy and the wyrmling!
>Not Billie goes down in a hail of arrows, leaving Billie as the superior dragon, and Piss Goblin's remaining buddy decides to cast a spell to try to save his ally from a grisly fate
>Of course, this only delays the inevitable
>One hold person and one 20th level firewall later, Piss Goblin's a charred skeleton on the floor and everybody in the room that challenged us is dead!
>To celebrate, Artorias decides to send this crude imitation out with not a bang, but a steady stream if you know what I mean
>And Billie being the impressionable child she is, she also helps out
>If there's a limit to how proud a parent can be of their child, Artorias is somehow past it
>Without further ado, the party continues deeper into the temple, finding many new and heretical "interesting" sights along the way
>Also, plenty of cramped passageways
>Way too many of them
>Like would it have killed the architects to make the halls wider than 5 feet?
>Oh well, we're approaching an area where it widens out!
>Umbrie takes point into the wider room and immediately gets jabbed with a stinger!
>After the fact, she also notices that the room's crawling with wyverns
>Not an impossible fight, but definitely not ideal
>Aral casts delay poison on himself and follows her in, immediately getting jabbed and grabbed by one who then hauls him into the air
>Sothram and Artorias make the correct decision to stay inside the hall and let Umbrie and Aral handle this, until I get the bright idea of going in to help
>Artorias immediately gets jabbed, crit multiple times, and dragged into the air by two of them
>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.mp4
>While I lament my decision to the highest degree possible, Aral and Umbrie do their best to get Artorias out of his predicament
>They succeed, but at the end of the fight I'm out an action point and a healing kit to pay for my fuckup
>After this, the party goes back to deliberating on what we should do
>However, Billie decides to take point down the only available path since the adults are all being dummies
>She wanders down a cave path and Artorias sprints after her to make sure she doesn't get into any trouble like a good parent, and everybody loosely follows
>Not that a good parent would bring their 1-month-old daughter into a fortress and have her help fight off fully armed and armored militants, but Artorias isn't a normal parent and Billie isn't a normal child
>Anyway, tangent over!
>The party continues down this tunnel until they reach a wide open area where Billie immediately gets acid attacked!
>Artorias dashes into the scene to find whatever careless individual(s) dared to attack her, and sees a pair of greenspawn razorfiends!
>There are more than a pair though, so the party piles into the cave and takes them on!
>Nothing too special happens here, other than the razorfiends proving their strength better than every other time we've fought them
>Good for them, they still bleed all the same
>Anyway, things start getting interesting again when Umbrie gets knocked down a nearby hole
>A hole that's strangely deep and dark
>And has something in it besides the wounded sword sage

>>151012
>It's a roper
>Yep, some big ugly tentacled monster is currently trying to brutalize our heavily weakened and only female PC
>Nothing against >That Guy for this, it's just how the module was made and the dice were thrown
>Everybody now hears a cacophony of noise rise out of the pit, but Artorias is unable to act due to him still being in the process of pulverizing a razorfiend, Aral's out cold, and Sothram's trying to heal Aral
>Billie, however, zips into action and flies down the whole to save Umbrie!
>However, plans don't always go as such
>Yep, it caught her too
>So now there's two girls, one of whom is self-described as and the other an actual loli, stuck in the grasp of a tentacle monster
>You can't make this shit up
>Well, you can't make it up and remain a respectable person to play TTRPGs with
>Seeing the problem she's now faced with, Billie switches to plan B and coats the roper with an unhealthy layer of corrosive slime
>To make matters better, Umbrie uses the opening this presents to cut the roper to ribbons (aren't I funny?)
>After this is all taken care of, the two of them come back out of the super deep pit and join back up with the rest of the party
>Potions are drank, spells are cast, action points are burned, and everybody's ready to go on
>Only the next room contains ominous chanting!
>Could this be the ritual we need to stop?
>There's only one way to find out!
Next time, on the Red Hand of Doom Part 5: The climactic finale? Will the party finally find the monster responsible for the goblin uprising and put him down for good, ending his schemes? Or is there more to this temple, and we still are but scratching the surface? Who will live? Who may die? All this and more, next time! Until then, I bid you all good day!

>>151013
>>It's a roper
A modified dragonspawn roper, yes.

>>151013
>>Nothing against >That Guy for this, it's just how the module was made
Yeah... That totally wasn't me at all...

>>151012
>>Electric judgement doesn't go off
Oh, it did indeed go off, it's just that these Clerics had all Bolstered themselves and eachother against turning. Since you did make a good religion check earlier, you might know that this sect has the power to rebuke dragons, and Clerics with that power can use that ability to bolster.
>small pile of damage
It was 12d6 and they all failed, lol. They only survived due to contingent spells and faustian pacts.
>would it have killed the architects to make the halls wider than 5 feet?
The crammed passageways tht you described were secret tunnels, not meant for large creatres move through.
However, it's worth noting that the main hall was more than accoodating, and even a dragon could have crawled through the enormous duble doors to partake in the grand temple of Tiamat (the place where you guys met the wyverns).
>>Nothing too special happens here
I mean, there was that part where Aral nearly died (-6 HP) after taking two crits.
>>So now there's two girls, one of whom is self-described as and the other an actual loli, stuck in the grasp of a tentacle monster
Yeah, I didn't think of it like that at the time.
I originally was going to have the Roper pin Night Shroud and plug up her mouth to make her unable to scream so Billie would have not gone after her, but wanted it to try to do some damage before Night Shroud cut it to pieces.

So what levels are the players and have you fought Tiamat yet? ;^P What divine ranks do you guys have? Are you a demi-gods or lesser deities?

>>151025
They are levels 10-12

The lowest ECL character I made that killed a god was my ubercharger barbarian, at ECL 12.
I jumped right through it with a Nat 20.
The DM was so pissed off he retconned me out of existence.

>>151025
They are nearing the finale of the adventure. They have not fought Tiamat.
Iirc, Tiamat's Avatar is a CR 26 encounter, and her actual CR is open ended.

>>151028
I see.

>>151200
Eh, you could do better on the details, but I'm going to give you the action point just because the next fight is really, really hard.

>>151200
>i don't know what to call this coward
I mean, he did stay in the treasury and fight to the bitter end when he had the option to Greater-Teleport away. Lawfully devoted to the bone.

Welcome back to the Red Hand of Doom part 5! Where we left off, we found a room with a bunch of chanting coming from it and ended the session there, anticipating the end! Will it play out as so, or will something else entirely happen? Pay attention and you'll see!
>Aral sneaks in to the room with all the chanting in it and finds a shitload of clerics all mumbling incomprehensibly around an obviously evil altar
>Around this time, Artorias's gaydar goes off in a big way!
>Is it more ground-swimming necromancer asswipes?
>Not quite
>Multiple ghostly hands reach out of the walls and try to touch people inappropriately, and when they usually end up failing, the owners of said hands are found to be a bunch of modified wraiths serving Tiamat!
Everybody reacts, causing even the clerics in the altar room to start getting ready for battle
>All the wraiths are dealt with quickly, so much so that Artorias only has time to create a spiritual weapon
>Not even use it, that's how fast!
>Up next is the clerics to deal with
>They piss themselves and go invisible just like with Piss Goblin's friends, and surprise surprise, there's two more in special armor colors here!
>Red and Green join their compatriots in being little babbies, and then the whole lot of them do the most original thing we've ever seen hobgoblin clerics do
>Anyway, a pile of hellhounds come out and Artorias Electric Judgements a few of them
>Billie, deciding the dogs couldn't die fast enough for her, lets loose her ult to explode the entire area, killing the hounds, a bunch of the clerics, and becoming the reason that the wraiths died so quickly
>All that's left is Red and Green, and everybody starts piling in on Aral to deal with them
>Red lets loose a massive pile of fire and evil damage, causing everyone but Sothram to take damage and Green does something that everybody but Aral misses
>What Aral misses is the wisdom save to avoid domination
>He also narrowly misses Artorias with a fully charged "fuck you and everything close to you" shot, and misses the fact that Summer Star tried to dominate him as well
>And because this fact was poorly explained, the poor guy wastes an action point on succeeding against this new domination and stays mind controlled!
>To be fair, I think all of us missed that fact though
>Artorias absolute defenses to avoid becoming a teamkill statistic and has Billie get behind him to avoid becoming a target too
>Also, a telepathic shout goes off to Umbrie so that she gets in here and helps to solve this problem
>Luckily, she's able to do just that!
>Green gets his face punched in and dominated Aral finally loses to Summer Star after dealing some more damage to us, leaving just Red
>Red also goes down quickly enough after flubbing more attempts at domination against Umbrie, and then everything quiets back down
>Nice, time to heal!
>Wait, why do we still hear chanting?
>And why is it now getting louder?
>oh shit oh fuck oh shIT OH FUCK OH SHIT OF-
>A half dragon stitched demon rises out of the corpses and glares at us menacingly
>I personally feel the beginnings of a brick forming in my intestines, but it teleports away instead of fighting us
>Brick production stopped
>Good, now we can get back to not dying!
>A new secret door is found and more pathways are found as well, so we go ahead and start looking around in it
>1st room is a room with an altar, one that after some investigation bears the signs of being used to summon a greater planar ally!
>Artorias is 99.9% sure that something's going to go horribly wrong if this thing is touched, but Umbrie decides that it's better to summon a friend than to save our sanity and potentially our lives
>Everybody else goes off and does their own thing for a bit, but Artorias stays in that room while the summon happens
>It's a damn good thing too, because what ends up trying to claw its way out of the summoning circle is NOT a servant of Pelor
>Artorias rushes down Umbrie in a charge and properly vibe checks her into not summoning a fucking pit fiend, and the pit fiend walks away from the now interrupted summoning disappointed
>Artorias is thinking very heavily about reinstating the "DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING" rule from the Ghostlord's lair, but instead marks this area as "destroy carefully" for when Pelor's operatives are sent in to demo op this entire temple
>Now, on to the next room!
>Artorias's gaydar pings twice for this one, so it's probably going to be some powerful monsters, right?
>Heh!
>Artorias SWATs open the door and everybody else is lined up behind him to help with the threats present, but the only things in this room are a 5-headed draconic bong, an immense bed, and some goblin whores
>Unexpectedly, Artorias is forced to make two will saves
>The first save is made, because fuck thots
>The second save, however, is missed because fuck thots
>Despite all of his enormous reserves of racism, this goblin somehow cuts through enough of Artorias's mental faculties to influence him
>Outside his head, he seems entirely fine with this turn of events and even shuts the door on everyone else
>On the inside though, he is BEYOND ANGRY
>And of course, everyone in the party has spent enough time with our favorite cleric to know that he'd sooner stab himself than subject himself to the whims of a goblin, no matter how thicc
>Either that, or OOC I was screaming as the gobbos ordered my character to take off his pants
>So as I REEE for help OOC and Artorias REEEs in his head, everybody else makes a battle plan
>Umbrie breaks in the door, Aral suppression fires into the room, and Sothram stops Billie from witnessing the different brand of horrors present in this fight
>The nature of her birth may not have spared her from witnessing combat, but I won't let her lose every part of her innocence within her first year of life!
>She's just a babby, damnit...!

>>151203
>Anyway, the plan goes off with more than a few hitches
>Umbrie blows the door open and starts trying to beat the shit out of the whores, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to phase them
they also try to charm her, but she's not gay lmao
>Aral also does his part and attempts to pincushion them, but again it just doesn't seem to affect them
>The fuck?
>Sothram's overgrown pigeon also does his job and keeps Billie put, much to her frustration, but he himself decides that getting into a charisma fight with what his feats tells him are succubi is a good idea
>This somehow doesn't work, imagine that!
>Now the cleric and the druid are undressing themselves against their will, fantastic!
>Artorias manages to slip in a backhanded compliment to one of the two disguised fiends and amasses enough willpower to keep his helmet on, and Sothram manages to interpret the command in such a way that he doesn't immediately lose his clothing
>Around this time though, Umbrie and Aral finish downing one of the two whores and the other looks more offended than worried as she grabs her compatriot and teleports out
>Everybody gets their clothes back on, though the charm remains active
>Unfortunately, I have no spells that let me fix that fact and so they'll just continue being a problem if we encounter them again
>Everybody searches the room, and we find a bunch of less-than-useful junk and 5 keys to the temple treasury!
>If only we knew where that was...
>Oh well, on to the final room on this floor!
>We open the door and...
>Well, what do ya know!
>It's the treasury, and there's a thorny devil and a bunch of bearded devils guarding the 5 chests!
>It's a tough fight, but ultimately a demonic manticore is still just a manticore
>Also, bearded devils suck butts
>Some highlights include Artorias spending multiple turns standing in dragonfire of all types and being incapable of giving a shit, followed swiftly by him traveling back in time a few seconds through a Dragonbreak and saving the party from a TPK!
>Either way, the threats are dealt with and we now have the ability to bankrupt the church of Tiamat!
>However, financial warfare is for jews and we aren't jews
>However, we have now cleared out every non-mandatory encounter in this floor of the dungeon!
>Neat...
>Well, all that's left is to go up a tube in the altar room and see if there's anything more pressing upstairs from here
Next time, on the Red Hand of Doom part 5! Will the party finally find the ritual that they're supposed to stop and kill the BBEG of Tiamat's band of green simps? Will we get caught up in another session of accomplishing roughly nothing? What kind of loot will be in the chests? Can Artorias and Sothram avoid the succubi for long enough to not be forced into simping again? Will Billie have the rest of her innocence removed at the hands of disgusting fiends in that event? I hope the fuck not! Either way though, the answers will only come in the next session of Red Hand of Doom part 5, so tune in next week! Until then!

It's quite possible that our next session may be our last, or second-last. The adventure is coming to its climax, and I've been preparing precariously to make sure the next session is as fun as possible.

I'm typing this now, because I want to get it off of my chest in case there's some sort of freak accident that disintegrates the group within the next week: thank you all. I've really had fun with this adventure over the course of this past year, and I hope all if you did as well. I've learned a lot about DMing long-term campaigns, and I really appreciate all of your patronage and patience with me. There were creative/fun things I tried to do that never came to fruition because of my own inadequacy, I made a ton of stupid mistakes, and this campaign lasted two months longer than I intended it to, but I do flatter myself in claiming that this campaign wasn't terrible. Running this game has honestly been the highlight of my year, and for that I thank you. To those I started the game with, and to those who joined later, you've all been a blessing.
So thanks guys, it's been a pleasure to play with y'all.

Welcome back to the Red Hand of Doom part 5, the likely second to last update! Where we last left off, the party had just gotten access to the Red Hand's coffers and has intentions to loot the whole building! Anyway, without further ado...
>Everybody's standing around the red chest, waiting for it to open and show its bounties when it unleashes a belch of fire!
>Almost everybody's fine and whoever isn't only took single digit damage
>No problemos, but the other chests are going to be opened by one person with good reflex saves...
>Once that's over and Umbrie's none the worse for wear, we get to inspecting the loot!
>Lots of random monies, some armor for Sothram and a chug jug that turns him into a hell lion, some new gear for Umbrie that means I get her hand-me-downs, and Aral gets some new stuff too
>Also, a fat wad of healing items!
>Always gotta have more of those, after all
>Anyway, when everybody's sufficiently decked out and ready, we all head back out and do some final preparations before going in to fight the evil goblin man
>Everybody's healed up to full and Artorias spends a hot minute summoning a new fren to help us out in our time of need
>Enter Raz'Thael (Rachel) the Trumpet Archon!
>She's somewhat strung out when first summoned because we ended up dragging her away from defending the Platinum Palace while Tiamat was trying to piss on it or something, so we have to explain why we dragged her away
>Turns out stopping Tiamat from being able to invade the materium is a good enough reason!
>She gives her price, and we buy 12 minutes for 100 GP
>We'll only need 11 ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
>Innuendos aside, with that deal done we start lathering on the buffs
>Everybody gets plusses to AC at the very least, a few people get buffs to strength, and a couple more get buffs to constitution
>Also, can't forget the mass resist energy!
>Let's not forget that which has saved us from many dragons before
>Once all that's done with though, Artorias casts mass fly and we all ascend through the hole!
>Once we reach the next area, we land and strike our epic hero poses
>We also do our best to taunt the people amassed, but they're all firmly ignoring us out of annoyance
>Also, we can't talk
>Shid
>We have a second to adjust to this before big blue half dragon gobbo man orders all his assembled lackeys to kill us
>Oh, did I mention that everyone special we met before in this dungeon is here?
>Yeah, Thot 1, Thot 2, Raggedy Asshole the stitch demon, and 5 different colors of "Why won't you die!?"
>They all begin assaulting us, and the battle starts off with them trying to body check us back down the hole
>When that doesn't work, we actually get in proper fights!
>I make Raz'Thael cast some spells trying to get rid of Patches, but unfortunately that does nothing to help
>Artorias gets knocked down the hole but immediately flies back up, Aral almost follows him but doesn't, and Umbrie, Billie and Sothram start putting fists to faces
>Artorias And this is pretty much the status quo for the first half of the fight
>Artorias stays back and buffs/manages summons, Billie plays firm support, Umbrie draws mad aggro and pumps DPS, Aral pincushions things, and Sothram uses the power of his new edgy fursona to show the tiamat worshippers what real darkness looks like
>Beavis and Butthead the Kaortic Hulks make a reappearance and help out with the bodying, and Raz'Thael makes another attempt to dispel at least one of Blue Gob's summons before running out of spell slots to do that and just doing what Artorias is doing too
>The rabble is dealt with in relatively swift fashion, leaving us with just the blue boi himself
>A dispel evil breaks the shield he put around himself, and he emerges in his full power to fight us
>And in his first attack, he chops down half my health bar
>fUCK
>Oh well, this isn't the first time this has happened, it probably won't be the last?
>Still, not good
>But alas, the fight's just begun!
>The guy's put himself behind so many proxies that it's hard to touch him, and so we're there for a couple turns trying to figure out what to do when I decide to hail-mary one of Raz'Thael's spells at him
>Holy word goes off, and while Sothram is rendered blind and deaf, blue bastard's just fine
>He also responds in turn with blasphemy, rendering us dazed and confused
>To make matters worse, he hits Billie with a bad touch!
>It's at this point where IRL I start thinking that a TPK's inevitable and all is lost, and to add insult to injury my imaginary daughter's about to be mindbroken by the TTRPG equivalent of an ugly bastard
>However, good still prevails!
>We manage to beat him to within an inch of his life and Artorias manages to save his daughter, letting Big Blue Butthole live for just long enough to see a touching reunion between them
>When the last light leaves his eyes, Tiamat decides to punch through the border between realities and pay us a visit!
>She eats blue's corpse before the sheer magnitude of her coping and seething causes the entire thane to crumble around us!
>We run back the way we came, making sure to stop back and grab the elf lady before leaving, only to find that she turned to goop just like every other monster and corpse in the building
>When we get out all the way, we finally stop to take a look at what the fuck caused all this
>Surprise, it's an Aspect of Tiamat and she's just as pissed as the real deal!
>Before we deal with that though, it's time to go home and get some rest...
Next time, on the Red Hand of Doom! The true final battle awaits, the fate of the continent and maybe even the world hinges on tomorrow! Will we succeed, or will the world fall into draconic darkness? As always, find out next week in the Climactic Finale! Until then, and as always, it's been an honor!

>>151689
>100
1200 gp

And so ends the tale of Azarr Kul, Fighting Son of Tyrgarun.

With Azarr Kul slain, the PCs have decapitated the Red Hand horde. With no Wyrmlords alive, the remaining hobgoblins scatter back into the wilds, to be hunted down and slain by vengeful humans or elves over the next several months. The PCs still have to deal with a rogue aspect of Tiamat, but they can at least take the time to rest and recover.
The aspect is here to stay—it has been called to the Material Plane and has no intention of leaving until it razes Elsir Vale. Fortunately, the aspect of Tiamat has no capacity for or interest in leading a horde, so it amounts to a single, powerful, rage-filled creature hell-bent on vengeance. The PCs don’t need to defeat it now—in fact, escaping the Fane is a wise move.

Upon their return to Brindol, the PCs find the city already returning to normal. Many of the refugees have returned to town, while those who had homes in the western Vale begin the trip back home to rebuild. Many have died, but many more have lived due to the PCs’ intervention. The party are hailed as heroes, and rightfully so.

Lord Jarmaath makes good on his promise to reward the PCs, and not long after they return they receive an invitation to visit him at Brindol Keep.

Aral Tel'thuen'slaugh Avaemaskan: For your skill as the undisputed deadliest archer in the vale, and also the most powerful Wizard, the Tiri Kitor Elves have decided to return to you all pieces of the Green Runner's Array.
In Addition, you recieve a Survivor's Pouch, and a stack of Fifty +1 Spitting Razorfeather Serpentongue, Razorsharp, Serrated, Dragonfang (acid) Arrows.

Night Shroud: For your labors in service of the church, your rank among the Shadow Guard has risen to Shadow Apostle (that means Greater Invisibility 1/day).
You recieve two items to commemorate your skill in the Shadow-Sun style: The Shadow Hands (which double as a set of +4 Gloves of Dexterity), and the ruby Slippers of the Setting Sun. Both Items are Scholar Tier.

Artorias Greenmarsch: you have come to the end of your crusade, and to signal your victory, your holy symbol has turned to Platinum, a documented miracle among the champions of Bahamut. It now functions as a True Holy Symbol, and grants the Improved Granted Power of the Luck domain.
For your Labors, you recieve a set of +3 Platinum, Spell-storing, Dwarvencraft Full Plate, with the Ornate and Dragoncraft Qualitues (Force Resistance 5, count as medium), emblazoned with the crest of Bahamut.

In addition, as documented before in the Church of Bahamut (and this adventure), Azarr's Chromatic Rod transformed shortly after his death, morphing into a single dragon's head made of platinum. It functions as a typical chromatic rod, except that it counts as a +1 razorsharp, dragonfang (+1 force damage) Platinum Heavy Pick (1d8), and can be weilded as freely as if it were a morningstar. It may cast Surge of Fortune and Dispel Evil in place of Insect Plague and Dominate Person.

Sothrom Sokamad: Lord Jaramath was a little disturbed to see you, since he didn't recall comissioning a tiefling shaman, let alone a monster cat. Nevertheless, he rewards you adequately, with a fully-charged wand of Flamesands (9th CL).

It's been a great time playing with you guys. I've learned so much about DMing in the past year. Still, all good things must come to an end, and I think this ending was quite satisfying. Let's stay in touch, and maybe even work out a post-game or another adventure some time. I would gladly host another game for you all, or play a game that any of you guys ran.
Bye for now.

RED HAND OF DOOM: COMPLETED

And so the conclusion has come... Let's finish this story, shall we?
>The aspect of Tiamat is running rampant across the veil, and the gang's got to stop this monster before it goes and ruins everything
>We all head back to Brindol to make sure that we're fully kitted out with everything we need, and Artorias picks up some surprise tools for later!
>One long rest later, we head out on our owls to go track down this super dragon and find it terrorizing some piggies on a plain
>We go hide behind some hills kinda far off and apply our buffs and call Raz'Thael back because she didn't get to do much before, and we find out some 20 minutes later that the Aspect is coming towards us!
>Initiative is rolled, and I somehow don't end up going last this time!
>Aral goes first and puts up a wind wall, attempting to do... Something, I'm not quite sure
>After that, Artorias pulls out a silver scale and special summons Blue Eyes Platinum Dragon to the field!
>After that, the Aspect of Bahamut flies over to its demonic cousin and hits her with his breath attack for a handful of damage, pissing her off further
>Raz'Thael slaps down a knife wall directly in front of the Aspect of Tiamat's flight path, pissing her off even more
>And lastly, Billie does her thing and casts haste
>Now on to somebody besides my turn!
>Umbrie flies up and lands on top of the 5-headed whore, dealing a hefty chunk of damage and pissing her off enough to firmly draw aggro
>Sothram does something here too, I think I was in the bathroom during this
>Finally, it's the aspect's turn!
>She first blasts us with a cone of fire, making us all roasty toasty before turning all of her other heads' attention on Umbrie and attempting to turn her into a tasty snack
>She fails at this, but nonetheless takes a nasty chunk out of her HP
>Next turn, Aral pincushions the Aspect for loads of damage
>Artorias lays down the first anti-dragon buff, giving everybody +4s to AC and saving throws
>Raz'Thael attempts to banish the Aspect, but unfortunately fails due to it being a beefy bitch
>Mini Bahamut does some flybys, forcing Mini Tiamat to waste her wings of cover
>Billie gives herself a divine power
>Umbrie's turn, and she goes right back to smacking around Mini Tiamat, dealing a fat wad of damage again
>Sothram uses his turn to start debuffing as well, if I remember correctly
>The Aspect's turn once again, and she elects to hit us with two breath attacks and start trying to beat up Mini B-hams
>Lil B-daddy takes it like a champ and we all take cold and acid damage like bitches, bringing (at least Artorias) down to half health
>Next turn: Aral lays down some epic damage and Umbrie manages to deal 300 damage in a single turn, Raz'Thael whips out a smite and deals a chunk herself, Artorias lays down his second anti-dragon spell letting everyone make saves against breath attacks better, and Sothram makes a dispel that manages to cut through some of the 5-headed whore's magic
>The Bitch-Duchess also does some more breath attacks and makes some more swipes at everyone engaging her in melee
>And finally, Aral hits the Aspect with a dispel that finishes off the rest of her magical bonuses and leaves her even more heavily damaged and debuffed
>Sensing the opportunity to strike, Artorias flies upwards with his new weapon in hand and charges up two strikes at once
>Combined with a released Surge of Fortune from the weapon itself, the double smite crits and subsequently confirms from a good roll meaning damage is now quadrupled!
>47 becomes 188, and the Aspect of Tiamat is blown apart by the sheer abundance of holy magic directed into its body!
(breaking now from what occurred afterwards for an in-game ending)
>As the battlefield is now strewn with technicolor chunks, high fives are given and hitpoints are refilled
>The Aspect of Bahamut and Raz'Thael both return to their homes in Celestia when their summon durations run out, and the party journeys back to Brindol to give word of the final victory to the city
>Much celebrations are had, and maybe the party goes out to get rid of the Ghostlord so the land stops being converted to the thornwastes, or maybe they don't
>That, however, is a story for another day, and should that day never come, then Artorias can be found where he's always found
>On the road between towns, offering service for just cause or proper coin
>However, unlike before, it's not out of any sort of disillusionment with his circumstances, but rather a newfound appreciation for what he does in the world
>That, and he has to set a good example for his daughter :)
But anyway, that's merely one epilogue to one part of the story. Who knows, maybe he and Billie will return to save the world again! That, however, is for another campaign. This has been the Red Hand of Doom as chronicled by me, and until we meet again!