((Just FYI, I'm flying off for a wedding tomorrow so I will probably be scarce the next 2-3 days. I'll probably pop in a couple times a day but I can't promise much else))
((It's cool, we're mostly in wrap-up mode now anyway. Once we get done here with all the story telling from everyone, we'll tie this off and I'll be on hand to answer any burning questions about this adventure and be able to sort of give a "making of" tour for you guys if you'd like.))
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Mirabel nods. "There are tales of other planes, other worlds, and some that have the means to travel between them. It's not without danger, though, and I expect our tusked friends brought something with them that they did not plan for." He thoughtfully scratches his chin. "Back home, we told stories of ships that could travel the Astral Sea. Spelljammers, we called them."
He takes a long drink from his mug and quietly laughs to himself. "Never expected to find evidence that they existed."
Peren looks over at Mirabel and says “ I met a Ranger in the woods one day while traveling and he claimed that he could travel between planes. He called himself a Plane Walker. Like you Mirabel, I was not sure I believed him, now I think he may have been telling the truth.
Gavin addresses Elder Merric, “The Band of the Hand has successfully rid your town of the dragon and made sure no others like him can come the same way he did. We fought dire wolves, ice sentinels, survived magical traps that left Kathra tattooed, and defeated a crystal dragon. The building in the glacier is no more after a giant avalanche that killed our new friend. Would have killed me too if not for him saving me. I think your town and it’s people can rest easy and enjoy your harvest. Before you have any further questions for us, (increases his voice so all can hear) I ask that we raise a glass to Rhudall. The brave walrus man that fought beside us and made this town safe again. May he be feasting and drinking with his gods this evening!”
At that, Gavin raises his glass “To Rhudall!” And finishes his flagon.
Thont simply observes - both in the reactions and how people tell tales of experiences he has had himself, how perceptions are formed, and how stories are sown...
Merric sits back and looks at all the trinkets on the table. "This walrus man you spoke of....Rhudall. He seemed quite a brave individual from your stories....but what of his people? You say they built a strange outpost not days away from our town unbeknownst to even our local hunters. Do we have anything to fear should they come to rebuild again?"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
You should not fear them - but I cannot say you shouldn't have fear of the afflictions that seem to have come from afar. That dragon itself may have once been peaceful but seemed stricken. There must have been an advantage to building in that area, be it view of the stars or possibly something more to the area. Being on guard about the area would be smart. But fearing the walrus people is not something I recommend. They were stewards, not sell swords .
Merric nods. "You have done a wonderful thing for us then, and you have our thanks. By your words and deeds, our town will hopefully see many seasons free of the tribulations of the cruel and unforgiving dangers of our world. You are heroes, and you have our thanks. Normally there would be great festivities for an occasion such as this, but with our joyous temple in ruins, you'll have to forgive as we make do here with what we can." Looking over to the proprietor of the Davy Lamp, he says, "Armond! Make this a night we shall never forget!"
Armond smiles widely and rushes over to the kitchen window, banging on the metal plate by the wall. "All hands to the kitchen! Tonight we celebrate!" All around cheers go up from the assembled mass of villagers. Many come to shake your hands, pat your backs, and give their thanks. It is truly a wondrous evening.
In the morning, when you finally make it out of your rooms, you find a parcel waiting for you on a table near the bar. It is your payment, as promised, as well as a hand written note from Merric, likely penned by Grassly, thanking you for all you have done and wishing you well on your adventures to come. You pack your things and pick up a small food parcel from Armond on the way out of the Davy Lamp. Turning left, down the road, you exit the wooden gate posts of Refuge, certain that you'll always remember the brief time you spent among these folks and the mind-boggling adventure you shared in the mountains above.
Right, so anyway, thanks for playing. It was fun having you as my group for this. If you want to ask anything about this adventure or see some fun background info, I'd be happy to share it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Thanks again Meta, it was a lot of fun and please share some of the background. I would like to run this campaign with some of my friends in the future
Sure! Here's a link to the PDF for the dungeon. I originally picked it up from the people who run the annual One-Page Dungeon Contest. I got the map for Refuge from the Ventus Maps tumblr account that I follow. From there I sort of stitched together some NPCs and a story that would happily marry the two together. The puzzle that uses the runes I found in some other old adventure and tweaked it to fit.
As for an adventure timeline, I sort of had it worked out like this:
About 5ish years ago: For some, unknowable reason, a group of Vinteralf (walrus-folk) from the Astral Sea set up an observation station buried within a glacier deep in the Storm Horn mountains. They construct their fantastical building mostly through arcane means like Stone Shape and maybe more mundane technologies. The magical power-source at the top of the structure is enchanted to emit a sort of cloaking field that hides the building or subliminally encourages folks to not be in the area. Occasionally, as needed, two Vinteralf go down the mountain to the town of Refuge disguised as burly trappers via the help of Disguise Self spells to gather supplies. (These are the two mountain men that later go "missing.")
About 3 months ago: For whatever reason, whether it be some strange starry alignments being observed or maybe other concerns, the Vinteralf at the station call home for some help. A contingent of Vinteralf warriors, led by Prince Thavir respond. However, their journey is interrupted by an interaction with a dangerous denizen of the Astral Realm, the corrupted Prism Dragon, Jokun. The dragon and the Vinteralf ship have something of a firefight high in the skies above Refuge before Jokun is driven away and the ship crashes miles from the observation post. Jokun finds the observation post, attacks it by blowing a hole in the roof and mostly killing everyone inside. During this attack, one of the Vinteralf in the forge spills some enchanted liquid metal that they were working on in the forge down the slag shoot. Jokun then makes its lair in the remains of the station and begins to hunt in the surrounding area. Around the same time, Prince Thavir and his crew that survived the crash travel to the fallen outpost, but realize they can't get into the building directly because Jokun will see them out on the open glacier. They decide to tunnel in under the glacier and eventually find the cavern now formed by the melting glacier due to the heat of the enchanted metal that was spilled. The Vinteralf squeeze up the slag shoot and try to assault the dragon by surprise. The attack does not go well. They manage to drive off Jokun to another area of the outpost, but they cannot defeat the dragon. After a while, supplies run too low and they huddle together to hibernate, hoping help will eventually arrive. Before going under, Thavir sends one of this men to sneak down the mountain to see if there can be any help found.
A few weeks ago: The lone Vinteralf soldier makes contact with a group of travelers. The meeting doesn't go quite as planned as the language barrier and the sight of a strange walrus man freak out the travelers and they attack. During the fight, there is an avalanche that wipes out everyone. Later that night, Jokun arrives to investigate and takes the more plump Vinteralf body away to store and eat later.
A few days ago: The halfing Farfoot brothers volunteer to go look around. They find the outpost and camp out in front of it on the banks of the steaming stream. In the morning they explore the structure by climbing up the glacier and using the large tunnel. In the main dome, the brothers find a rune covered disk before getting attacked by Jokun. Both are caught up in the dragons crystallizing mist attack, but Tommin breaks free and makes a run for it with the disk. Sometime at night he makes it back to town and bee-lines it to the temple to tell Sister Aria about the strange dragon and other stuff. Unfortunately, Jokun has followed Tommin and obliterates the temple with its breath weapon.
Meta, you did a fantastic job building and running this adventure. First time for me in ‘play by post’ and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The setting, the detail in your descriptions which allowed me to visualize what was going on around me made this work better than anticipated. During the descent from the glacier I truly felt a bit of anxiety and your post on when we were running down the valley I could have sworn I heard the theme song from Raiders of the Lost Ark playing in my head :)
And thank you to the other PCs! I thought we made a nice group, and if we lived close to each other would definately like to run a home game with all of you, including Meta.
I do have some questions but I will post those later today.
Thanks to everyone, this was a fun part of my day for the last few weeks!
I would happily bring Mirabel back for further adventures if the opportunity arose. This was my first PBP experience as well and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I echo everyone else’s sentiments! This was my first PBP too, and while I felt a little catch-up-y most of the time (and am sorry for that), I did really enjoy it!
((Just FYI, I'm flying off for a wedding tomorrow so I will probably be scarce the next 2-3 days. I'll probably pop in a couple times a day but I can't promise much else))
((It's cool, we're mostly in wrap-up mode now anyway. Once we get done here with all the story telling from everyone, we'll tie this off and I'll be on hand to answer any burning questions about this adventure and be able to sort of give a "making of" tour for you guys if you'd like.))
((Thanks Meta, It was fun, if you ever run another game online I would like to join in))
Mirabel nods. "There are tales of other planes, other worlds, and some that have the means to travel between them. It's not without danger, though, and I expect our tusked friends brought something with them that they did not plan for." He thoughtfully scratches his chin. "Back home, we told stories of ships that could travel the Astral Sea. Spelljammers, we called them."
He takes a long drink from his mug and quietly laughs to himself. "Never expected to find evidence that they existed."
Peren looks over at Mirabel and says “ I met a Ranger in the woods one day while traveling and he claimed that he could travel between planes. He called himself a Plane Walker. Like you Mirabel, I was not sure I believed him, now I think he may have been telling the truth.
Gavin addresses Elder Merric, “The Band of the Hand has successfully rid your town of the dragon and made sure no others like him can come the same way he did. We fought dire wolves, ice sentinels, survived magical traps that left Kathra tattooed, and defeated a crystal dragon. The building in the glacier is no more after a giant avalanche that killed our new friend. Would have killed me too if not for him saving me. I think your town and it’s people can rest easy and enjoy your harvest. Before you have any further questions for us, (increases his voice so all can hear) I ask that we raise a glass to Rhudall. The brave walrus man that fought beside us and made this town safe again. May he be feasting and drinking with his gods this evening!”
At that, Gavin raises his glass “To Rhudall!” And finishes his flagon.
”What else would you like to know Elder Merric?”
Thont simply observes - both in the reactions and how people tell tales of experiences he has had himself, how perceptions are formed, and how stories are sown...
Merric sits back and looks at all the trinkets on the table. "This walrus man you spoke of....Rhudall. He seemed quite a brave individual from your stories....but what of his people? You say they built a strange outpost not days away from our town unbeknownst to even our local hunters. Do we have anything to fear should they come to rebuild again?"
You should not fear them - but I cannot say you shouldn't have fear of the afflictions that seem to have come from afar. That dragon itself may have once been peaceful but seemed stricken. There must have been an advantage to building in that area, be it view of the stars or possibly something more to the area. Being on guard about the area would be smart. But fearing the walrus people is not something I recommend. They were stewards, not sell swords .
Merric nods. "You have done a wonderful thing for us then, and you have our thanks. By your words and deeds, our town will hopefully see many seasons free of the tribulations of the cruel and unforgiving dangers of our world. You are heroes, and you have our thanks. Normally there would be great festivities for an occasion such as this, but with our joyous temple in ruins, you'll have to forgive as we make do here with what we can." Looking over to the proprietor of the Davy Lamp, he says, "Armond! Make this a night we shall never forget!"
Armond smiles widely and rushes over to the kitchen window, banging on the metal plate by the wall. "All hands to the kitchen! Tonight we celebrate!" All around cheers go up from the assembled mass of villagers. Many come to shake your hands, pat your backs, and give their thanks. It is truly a wondrous evening.
In the morning, when you finally make it out of your rooms, you find a parcel waiting for you on a table near the bar. It is your payment, as promised, as well as a hand written note from Merric, likely penned by Grassly, thanking you for all you have done and wishing you well on your adventures to come. You pack your things and pick up a small food parcel from Armond on the way out of the Davy Lamp. Turning left, down the road, you exit the wooden gate posts of Refuge, certain that you'll always remember the brief time you spent among these folks and the mind-boggling adventure you shared in the mountains above.
Right, so anyway, thanks for playing. It was fun having you as my group for this. If you want to ask anything about this adventure or see some fun background info, I'd be happy to share it.
Thanks again Meta, it was a lot of fun and please share some of the background.
I would like to run this campaign with some of my friends in the future
Sure! Here's a link to the PDF for the dungeon. I originally picked it up from the people who run the annual One-Page Dungeon Contest. I got the map for Refuge from the Ventus Maps tumblr account that I follow. From there I sort of stitched together some NPCs and a story that would happily marry the two together. The puzzle that uses the runes I found in some other old adventure and tweaked it to fit.
As for an adventure timeline, I sort of had it worked out like this:
About 5ish years ago: For some, unknowable reason, a group of Vinteralf (walrus-folk) from the Astral Sea set up an observation station buried within a glacier deep in the Storm Horn mountains. They construct their fantastical building mostly through arcane means like Stone Shape and maybe more mundane technologies. The magical power-source at the top of the structure is enchanted to emit a sort of cloaking field that hides the building or subliminally encourages folks to not be in the area. Occasionally, as needed, two Vinteralf go down the mountain to the town of Refuge disguised as burly trappers via the help of Disguise Self spells to gather supplies. (These are the two mountain men that later go "missing.")
About 3 months ago: For whatever reason, whether it be some strange starry alignments being observed or maybe other concerns, the Vinteralf at the station call home for some help. A contingent of Vinteralf warriors, led by Prince Thavir respond. However, their journey is interrupted by an interaction with a dangerous denizen of the Astral Realm, the corrupted Prism Dragon, Jokun. The dragon and the Vinteralf ship have something of a firefight high in the skies above Refuge before Jokun is driven away and the ship crashes miles from the observation post. Jokun finds the observation post, attacks it by blowing a hole in the roof and mostly killing everyone inside. During this attack, one of the Vinteralf in the forge spills some enchanted liquid metal that they were working on in the forge down the slag shoot. Jokun then makes its lair in the remains of the station and begins to hunt in the surrounding area. Around the same time, Prince Thavir and his crew that survived the crash travel to the fallen outpost, but realize they can't get into the building directly because Jokun will see them out on the open glacier. They decide to tunnel in under the glacier and eventually find the cavern now formed by the melting glacier due to the heat of the enchanted metal that was spilled. The Vinteralf squeeze up the slag shoot and try to assault the dragon by surprise. The attack does not go well. They manage to drive off Jokun to another area of the outpost, but they cannot defeat the dragon. After a while, supplies run too low and they huddle together to hibernate, hoping help will eventually arrive. Before going under, Thavir sends one of this men to sneak down the mountain to see if there can be any help found.
A few weeks ago: The lone Vinteralf soldier makes contact with a group of travelers. The meeting doesn't go quite as planned as the language barrier and the sight of a strange walrus man freak out the travelers and they attack. During the fight, there is an avalanche that wipes out everyone. Later that night, Jokun arrives to investigate and takes the more plump Vinteralf body away to store and eat later.
A few days ago: The halfing Farfoot brothers volunteer to go look around. They find the outpost and camp out in front of it on the banks of the steaming stream. In the morning they explore the structure by climbing up the glacier and using the large tunnel. In the main dome, the brothers find a rune covered disk before getting attacked by Jokun. Both are caught up in the dragons crystallizing mist attack, but Tommin breaks free and makes a run for it with the disk. Sometime at night he makes it back to town and bee-lines it to the temple to tell Sister Aria about the strange dragon and other stuff. Unfortunately, Jokun has followed Tommin and obliterates the temple with its breath weapon.
The story picks up from there.
Meta, you did a fantastic job building and running this adventure. First time for me in ‘play by post’ and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The setting, the detail in your descriptions which allowed me to visualize what was going on around me made this work better than anticipated. During the descent from the glacier I truly felt a bit of anxiety and your post on when we were running down the valley I could have sworn I heard the theme song from Raiders of the Lost Ark playing in my head :)
And thank you to the other PCs! I thought we made a nice group, and if we lived close to each other would definately like to run a home game with all of you, including Meta.
I do have some questions but I will post those later today.
Thanks to everyone, this was a fun part of my day for the last few weeks!
This was fun as hell and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. I would be glad to play again with y'all any time.
I would happily bring Mirabel back for further adventures if the opportunity arose. This was my first PBP experience as well and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Well the good news is that I've got another two or three of these in the pipe, so you may get that chance.
I echo everyone else’s sentiments! This was my first PBP too, and while I felt a little catch-up-y most of the time (and am sorry for that), I did really enjoy it!
Great job Meta! And great job everyone else!
Peren would love to adventure with you guys again
Lets stay in touch until Meta is ready to start the next adventure
Meta you are an awesome DM