Your senses are dead. You see nothing. You hear nothing. You smell, taste and feel nothing. You simply exist unto yourself. And yet, you are not even aware of yourself — your own skin and bones and muscles and smell and taste. Normally, this would worry you, but you aren’t worried. In fact, you feel no emotion, either. You are completely calm. You acknowledge that this is happening, yet you aren’t even capable of analyzing it. It is just knowledge. It is what is.
How long this takes place, you have no idea, nor do you care. But it does begin to change. You suddenly realize that the darkness isn’t quite as dark as it was. This is interesting to you. Wait, is that … Yes, it’s the faint odor of wildflowers. You are breathing. You take in a deep breath and there’s that faint odor again. The darkness is getting steadily less dark. You can’t make out anything, except for the lessening darkness. Oh, there’s pressure on the souls of your feet. In fact, you have weight again. You’re standing on something. You look down, but there’s still just that lessening darkness. But you’re definitely standing. And there’s pressure on your shoulders and something brushing your skin. Clothes. You’re wearing clothes. It’s still dark, but you can tell it’s your clothes. You breathe again. With that breath, there’s a tickle on your cheeks — a breeze. And you hear the rustle of leaves. You squint your eyes, but, still, there’s only that lessening darkness. It reminds you of swimming — how under water, the light is cloudy, and it’s hard to see anything clearly that isn’t right in front of your nose. This is amusing to you. Emotion.
“Thank you for coming,” a voice says from a long way off. It sounds like it’s all around you. This is interesting, but not worrying. “I’m so excited that you have answered my notice. You have exactly the skills I’m looking for.” The voice is growing stronger. It sounds male, but you aren’t certain. “Will you please follow me to the bar?” This sentence doesn’t make sense, and yet you know what to do. You begin walking, and as you step forward, the sound of soles scraping and bumping against wood planks meets your ear. The further you walk, the less you hear those rustling leaves. The less you can smell the wildflowers. Out of the darkness looms something darker than the lessening darkness. It fades away up, down, left and right back into the darkness. But as you continue forward, a rectangular place distinguishes itself from the darker place. Its light grows and draws your eye. It begins to sharpen, as do shapes within the lighter rectangle. When you stop, you blink at the rectangle. There you are, looking back at yourself. A mirror. You’re looking into a mirror. “Please, take a look at yourselves. You’re perfect.” You first examine your own face, then let your eyes travel down the line to the faces of five others as well. Here you all are: a firbolg, two half-orcs, a dwarf, a tiefling, and a halfling. “Perfect,” the voice says finally.
You turn away from the mirror to look in the direction of the voice and the darkness and the mirror disappears. The six of you are standing (floating?) in a semi-circle around a gray-haired elf who is standing (floating) before you — all of you surrounded by a kind of half-light. He is dressed in smart robes of crimson and silver. On his head is a short, but pointy hat. It is also crimson and silver. His face is aglow with a warm smile. “I’m sure you are all wondering about the job,” he says rather pleasantly. He was the one speaking before. But you already know that. “Let me introduce myself. I am called Jonez. It has been my work these past two centuries to study combat. I’m not so much one who strategizes, but a researcher. I let others use my research to learn and do whatever they wish with the knowledge. What I have hired you six novice adventurers to do is to fight. And don’t worry — I am using a most complex configuration of spellsto insure your safety and provide completely balanced combat.” At this point, he looks fit to burst with pride. “You will be battling … yourselves!”
With a flick of his wrist, six individuals complete the circle around the elf. As if another mirror has appeared, the six of you appear behind Jonez, standing serenely. Their eyes travel around the opposite semi-circle, just as your eyes travel around their half. What you realize, in looking at your own duplicate, is that they aren’t mirroring your every minute movement. Their arm twitches independently of yours. Their eyes travel to another individual, even though you are still looking at them. But their appearance is exactly the same down to armor, weapons and supplies.
“These six, fabricated by magic to be exactly like you in every way,” he says to your half of the semi-circle, “will work as a team to attempt to defeat you as you work as a team to defeat them. When one team triumphs over the other, the battle will conclude. During my 200 years of studying various adventurers, I have collected the knowledge of study and growth of various class paths. Once a battle is complete, you will, through the power of my spells, complete the knowledge you would have garnered during several such battles in order to advance your abilities prior to the next battle. With each battle, I will gain even more valuable knowledge, and you will continue to grow stronger. It is my theory that 20 battles will provide me with all the necessary knowledge I desire from this experiment. At the conclusion of the 20th battle, your job will be complete, and you will receive your reward.”
Several questions rise to the surface of your thoughts, but before you can say anything, the elf, who has produced a wand and a strange book from his robes, waves the wand in an indecipherable pattern, and says, “Let’s begin.”
Unlike the deadness they felt at the beginning of this tale, your senses are now suddenly bombarded by light, sound and odor. You cover her eyes with an arm and make a small sound in the back of your throat as you attempt to recover from whatever it is that has assailed you. As your eyes become adjusted, you look around and find yourself standing in a line with four of the other five would-be adventurers looking down a country lane in a sunny wood. Eighty feet away stands a line of familiar individuals — your copies — also recovering from the shock of leaving that strange mostly nothingness and arriving rather rudely here in this wood.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Nehalr copy will see Oritar approaching and will hex him (disadvantage on str checks) and follow it up with an eldritch blast Attack: 23 Damage: 9 (damage is wrong, should be 10 did a d8 instead of d10)
Urilan's mastiff moves to G7 and both the Mastiff and Urilan dodge (for now)
"Eh?" a barefoot dwarf on the tall and slender side blurts out as the group appears in the countryside. Mako sees a copy of the firbolg drop the original like a sack of potatoes and moves forward with a jolt, shambling hide armor rustling underneath twigs and an actual bird nest embedded into brown, matted hair beneath a voluminous beard.
Mako steps forward and casts fog cloud on a point in the middle of H9/I9/H10/I10 ahead of him. A 20-ft radius sphere of roiling, thick, pea-soup-like fog manifests from the ground and covers part of the battlefield. The dwarf keeps moving forward 25 feet to I6 and just slips into the fog (if that's not quite enough to get me there in his movement, I'll place it such that I can just get into the cloud).
Action: fog cloud (no bonus action) Movement: 25 feet forward
*****
Oritar's copy will move forward, mirroring his original's spitting onto the maul and causing it to ignite. He moves forward 30 feet to M11. If Oritar Prime is in range at M11, he'll take a swing with his maul:
Attack: 12 Damage: 14, with 3 damage from crimson rite
If he's not within melee range, he will take the dodge action.
Folwyn's Copy will move forward 30 feet to N11 (with the assumption the Oritar is actually at M7, not M11) he will make a thrown handaxe attack at Oritar.
Attack: 11 Damage: 9
Folwyn will move forward 30 feet to N7 and make a thrown handaxe attack at Oritar's Copy
Assuming the Dodge is in effect Attack: 15 Damage: 4
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Mako's copy will cast Entangle on a square with opposite corners of F8 and I5 (becomes difficult terrain and those in the area now make strength save or restrained). He then touches his quarterstaff and casts Shillelagh on it.
Seeing this spell start to restrain some of their teammates, Nehala will move to G3 and cast Hex (targeting strength checks) followed by Eldritch Blast, both on the Mako copy.
(OOC: Can you cast a spell and cast a bonus action cantrip on the same turn? If so, Mako Prime would also have cast Shillelagh on his quarterstaff as a bonus action. But I thought you couldn't, though I could be wrong...)
Sorry to back us up a little, but Folwyn and his copy were to be in column H, not column N. I'm a fan of symmetry. Please revise from post #6 to make any adjustments you need/would like to make. I don't want this to become a free-for-all on re-rolling, though. If you made rolls, but need to apply them to new actions, do that. A word about fog: If at least 75% of a square has fog, someone standing in that square is considered fully obscured.
Folwyn and his copy will both then move at diagonal, Folwyn will end at L5 and Folwyn copy at L13 both avoiding the fog. Both will hold handaxe attack actions in case someone comes into rang of 20 feet, but doing a rough look, I don't think that will happen.
My moves also stay the same, although if we aren't happy with the targeting of the entangle spell due to the fog cloud I'm willing to change it. My thought was Mako copy would have a general idea of where people went into the fog and would be able to make an educated guess of where to place the area, but I'm cool either way. If it stays the same, I believe Mako and Urilan primes need to make strength saves to avoid being restrained.
I'm back, everyone! Thanks for your patience. Now, let's see what trouble everyone's caused.
@laa2736: Nehala cannot move to G3 and cast Hex on Mako copy. The fog cloud obscures her view of him. She would have known this. If you would rather she moved where she can see him, I will allow you to do that and cast hex, but the rolls for eldritch blast will stand.
@jasmol81: Urilan copy moved within 20 feet of Folwyn. If you get on before I get back on, go ahead and roll your readied handaxe attack. Otherwise, I'll roll for you when I summarize.
Be back later to summarize round 1 and start round 2.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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The Mastermind’s Mirror
Your senses are dead. You see nothing. You hear nothing. You smell, taste and feel nothing. You simply exist unto yourself. And yet, you are not even aware of yourself — your own skin and bones and muscles and smell and taste. Normally, this would worry you, but you aren’t worried. In fact, you feel no emotion, either. You are completely calm. You acknowledge that this is happening, yet you aren’t even capable of analyzing it. It is just knowledge. It is what is.
How long this takes place, you have no idea, nor do you care. But it does begin to change. You suddenly realize that the darkness isn’t quite as dark as it was. This is interesting to you. Wait, is that … Yes, it’s the faint odor of wildflowers. You are breathing. You take in a deep breath and there’s that faint odor again. The darkness is getting steadily less dark. You can’t make out anything, except for the lessening darkness. Oh, there’s pressure on the souls of your feet. In fact, you have weight again. You’re standing on something. You look down, but there’s still just that lessening darkness. But you’re definitely standing. And there’s pressure on your shoulders and something brushing your skin. Clothes. You’re wearing clothes. It’s still dark, but you can tell it’s your clothes. You breathe again. With that breath, there’s a tickle on your cheeks — a breeze. And you hear the rustle of leaves. You squint your eyes, but, still, there’s only that lessening darkness. It reminds you of swimming — how under water, the light is cloudy, and it’s hard to see anything clearly that isn’t right in front of your nose. This is amusing to you. Emotion.
“Thank you for coming,” a voice says from a long way off. It sounds like it’s all around you. This is interesting, but not worrying. “I’m so excited that you have answered my notice. You have exactly the skills I’m looking for.” The voice is growing stronger. It sounds male, but you aren’t certain. “Will you please follow me to the bar?” This sentence doesn’t make sense, and yet you know what to do. You begin walking, and as you step forward, the sound of soles scraping and bumping against wood planks meets your ear. The further you walk, the less you hear those rustling leaves. The less you can smell the wildflowers. Out of the darkness looms something darker than the lessening darkness. It fades away up, down, left and right back into the darkness. But as you continue forward, a rectangular place distinguishes itself from the darker place. Its light grows and draws your eye. It begins to sharpen, as do shapes within the lighter rectangle. When you stop, you blink at the rectangle. There you are, looking back at yourself. A mirror. You’re looking into a mirror. “Please, take a look at yourselves. You’re perfect.” You first examine your own face, then let your eyes travel down the line to the faces of five others as well. Here you all are: a firbolg, two half-orcs, a dwarf, a tiefling, and a halfling. “Perfect,” the voice says finally.
You turn away from the mirror to look in the direction of the voice and the darkness and the mirror disappears. The six of you are standing (floating?) in a semi-circle around a gray-haired elf who is standing (floating) before you — all of you surrounded by a kind of half-light. He is dressed in smart robes of crimson and silver. On his head is a short, but pointy hat. It is also crimson and silver. His face is aglow with a warm smile. “I’m sure you are all wondering about the job,” he says rather pleasantly. He was the one speaking before. But you already know that. “Let me introduce myself. I am called Jonez. It has been my work these past two centuries to study combat. I’m not so much one who strategizes, but a researcher. I let others use my research to learn and do whatever they wish with the knowledge. What I have hired you six novice adventurers to do is to fight. And don’t worry — I am using a most complex configuration of spells to insure your safety and provide completely balanced combat.” At this point, he looks fit to burst with pride. “You will be battling … yourselves!”
With a flick of his wrist, six individuals complete the circle around the elf. As if another mirror has appeared, the six of you appear behind Jonez, standing serenely. Their eyes travel around the opposite semi-circle, just as your eyes travel around their half. What you realize, in looking at your own duplicate, is that they aren’t mirroring your every minute movement. Their arm twitches independently of yours. Their eyes travel to another individual, even though you are still looking at them. But their appearance is exactly the same down to armor, weapons and supplies.
“These six, fabricated by magic to be exactly like you in every way,” he says to your half of the semi-circle, “will work as a team to attempt to defeat you as you work as a team to defeat them. When one team triumphs over the other, the battle will conclude. During my 200 years of studying various adventurers, I have collected the knowledge of study and growth of various class paths. Once a battle is complete, you will, through the power of my spells, complete the knowledge you would have garnered during several such battles in order to advance your abilities prior to the next battle. With each battle, I will gain even more valuable knowledge, and you will continue to grow stronger. It is my theory that 20 battles will provide me with all the necessary knowledge I desire from this experiment. At the conclusion of the 20th battle, your job will be complete, and you will receive your reward.”
Several questions rise to the surface of your thoughts, but before you can say anything, the elf, who has produced a wand and a strange book from his robes, waves the wand in an indecipherable pattern, and says, “Let’s begin.”
Unlike the deadness they felt at the beginning of this tale, your senses are now suddenly bombarded by light, sound and odor. You cover her eyes with an arm and make a small sound in the back of your throat as you attempt to recover from whatever it is that has assailed you. As your eyes become adjusted, you look around and find yourself standing in a line with four of the other five would-be adventurers looking down a country lane in a sunny wood. Eighty feet away stands a line of familiar individuals — your copies — also recovering from the shock of leaving that strange mostly nothingness and arriving rather rudely here in this wood.
Dorro's initiative: 11
Folwyn's initiative (if he shows): 12
Mako's initiative: 14
Nehala's initiative: 20
Oritar's initiative: 12
Urilan's initiative: 18
Which team goes first: 1=primaries, 2=copies: 2
Round 1: Dorro copy, Oritar, Nehala copy, Urilan, Oritar copy, Mako, Folwyn copy, Folwyn, Urilan copy, Dorro, Mako copy, Nehala
Same as previously posted:
Mako controls Oritar copy
Dorro controls Urilan copy
Oritar controls Dorro copy
Nehala controls Mako copy
Change from previous posting:
Urilan controls Nehala copy
Folwyn controls Folwyn copy
If Folwyn shows, he'll jump in and control himself and his copy.
Originals have a bit, black O around them. Copies have a big, white C around them.
Dorro's copy stays where he is and casts guiding bolt at Dorro.
Action: guiding bolt: 13, damage: 13 radiant damage
Dorro crumbles under the bolt of radiant energy. He is unconscious.
Oritar bites his lip and spits on his maul. The weapon's head bursts into magical flames. He moves forward 30 feet (M11).
Bonus: crimson rite
Nehalr copy will see Oritar approaching and will hex him (disadvantage on str checks) and follow it up with an eldritch blast Attack: 23 Damage: 9 (damage is wrong, should be 10 did a d8 instead of d10)
Urilan's mastiff moves to G7 and both the Mastiff and Urilan dodge (for now)
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
"Eh?" a barefoot dwarf on the tall and slender side blurts out as the group appears in the countryside. Mako sees a copy of the firbolg drop the original like a sack of potatoes and moves forward with a jolt, shambling hide armor rustling underneath twigs and an actual bird nest embedded into brown, matted hair beneath a voluminous beard.
Mako steps forward and casts fog cloud on a point in the middle of H9/I9/H10/I10 ahead of him. A 20-ft radius sphere of roiling, thick, pea-soup-like fog manifests from the ground and covers part of the battlefield. The dwarf keeps moving forward 25 feet to I6 and just slips into the fog (if that's not quite enough to get me there in his movement, I'll place it such that I can just get into the cloud).
Action: fog cloud (no bonus action)
Movement: 25 feet forward
*****
Oritar's copy will move forward, mirroring his original's spitting onto the maul and causing it to ignite. He moves forward 30 feet to M11. If Oritar Prime is in range at M11, he'll take a swing with his maul:
Attack: 12 Damage: 14, with 3 damage from crimson rite
If he's not within melee range, he will take the dodge action.
Folwyn's Copy will move forward 30 feet to N11 (with the assumption the Oritar is actually at M7, not M11) he will make a thrown handaxe attack at Oritar.
Attack: 11 Damage: 9
Folwyn will move forward 30 feet to N7 and make a thrown handaxe attack at Oritar's Copy
Assuming the Dodge is in effect Attack: 15 Damage: 4
Urilan's Copy screams in rage and spurs forward the Mastiff. (Mastiff Dash to M8.)
He swings his greataxe at what's left of Oritar.
Attack: 24 Damage: 15
---
Dorro makes a death save: 2
(Hate to burst the crit bubble, but Urilan attacks at disadvantage, heavy weapon but small creature)
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
Ah, ok. That's curious. Rage strength check bonus won't change that either.
Disadvantage roll: 3
Mako's copy will cast Entangle on a square with opposite corners of F8 and I5 (becomes difficult terrain and those in the area now make strength save or restrained). He then touches his quarterstaff and casts Shillelagh on it.
Seeing this spell start to restrain some of their teammates, Nehala will move to G3 and cast Hex (targeting strength checks) followed by Eldritch Blast, both on the Mako copy.
Attack: 18 Damage:11
(OOC: Can you cast a spell and cast a bonus action cantrip on the same turn? If so, Mako Prime would also have cast Shillelagh on his quarterstaff as a bonus action. But I thought you couldn't, though I could be wrong...)
(OOC: you can cast a spell of level 1 or higher and a bonus action cantrip in the same round, but not two spells, even if one is a bonus action)
(or an action cantrip and a bonus action spell)
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
Sorry to back us up a little, but Folwyn and his copy were to be in column H, not column N. I'm a fan of symmetry. Please revise from post #6 to make any adjustments you need/would like to make. I don't want this to become a free-for-all on re-rolling, though. If you made rolls, but need to apply them to new actions, do that. A word about fog: If at least 75% of a square has fog, someone standing in that square is considered fully obscured.
As of the end of post #5.
Urilan's Copy doesn't change his move. He moved to M8 (Mastiff Dash) and missed Oritar because he's hefting a sword that weighs more than he does. :)
Folwyn and his copy will both then move at diagonal, Folwyn will end at L5 and Folwyn copy at L13 both avoiding the fog. Both will hold handaxe attack actions in case someone comes into rang of 20 feet, but doing a rough look, I don't think that will happen.
My moves also stay the same, although if we aren't happy with the targeting of the entangle spell due to the fog cloud I'm willing to change it. My thought was Mako copy would have a general idea of where people went into the fog and would be able to make an educated guess of where to place the area, but I'm cool either way. If it stays the same, I believe Mako and Urilan primes need to make strength saves to avoid being restrained.
Are we moving forward? Here's a Mako Prime strength save if so: 14
Urilian str save (think it isn't needed, mastiff is the one on the ground but just incase) : 23 (unfortunately forgot to rage)
Mastiff:18
After joining more my signature got out of hand so I am now a proud member of the extended signature club!! :)
I'm back, everyone! Thanks for your patience. Now, let's see what trouble everyone's caused.
@laa2736: Nehala cannot move to G3 and cast Hex on Mako copy. The fog cloud obscures her view of him. She would have known this. If you would rather she moved where she can see him, I will allow you to do that and cast hex, but the rolls for eldritch blast will stand.
@jasmol81: Urilan copy moved within 20 feet of Folwyn. If you get on before I get back on, go ahead and roll your readied handaxe attack. Otherwise, I'll roll for you when I summarize.
Be back later to summarize round 1 and start round 2.