The (overly) serious D&D interest thread...with discussion re: players

First one's almost done (revamped)

I couldn't remember the name of the Kalar mooks in question, so I made up names for the two who went unnamed in Constantine's journals. If anyone does remember, I'll switch out the proper names. I also took a little bit of artistic liberties with the timing of the drunk Kalar (who I've named Alain) falling asleep, since the scene plays out a bit better that way.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Alain was shaken into consciousness outside of the armory on the fifth floor. "Beauty rest over, buddy," said Rich, his voice still strained and unfamiliar.

"Already? But my head doesn't feel any better," protested Alain. If anything, the pounding had gotton worse.

"We don't want the guards to be on full alert longer than they have to be. Up you go."

Alain gratefully accepted Rich's help as he struggled to his feet. Rich nearly lost his grip, but after several seconds, Alain felt his weight supported by Rich's left shoulder. Together they stumbled over to the inner gate.

"Hey there! It's Rich! There's been a false alarm. Alain had a bit too much to drink and thought he was being attacked by forest animals. Can you let us in?"

Silence reigned for what seemes like several minutes, but which only could have been a few seconds. A voice from beyond the gate called back: "You don't sound like Rich. Besides, you know the protocals—we can't open the gate for you."

"It's Rich—he just has some dust in his throat from when he went down to the first floor," slurred Alain, trying to get his tongue around some more complicated words. "Rich's been kind enough to help me upstairs so we could report the mistake."

"When we finally get out of lockdown," called out Rich, "you can explain to the boss why this mess didn't get sorted out sooner." The room fell silent again. "Well, are you going to let us in or not?"

After several more seconds, the portcullis rattled upwards, giving Alain and Rich a chance to carefully shuffle through. The scarlet-cloaked gate guard watched them intently as they entered, his short sword in the key slot. As they passed, he turned to them and frowned. "I guess it's you two after all. I would get a move on—the boss is going to be angry with you enough as it is, and there's no need to make it any worse by dallying on your way up to him."

Alain gave a sad smile in thanks and let Rich carry him onward. They continued along the snaking corridor until they reached the second guard, who had also slid his sword into a key slot, this one disabling the traps in the preceeding corridor. He nodded in acknowledgement as they continued to the stairs and up to the sixth floor. Once up the stairs, Rich set Alain down and slid his sword into the floor key slot needed to disable the traps in the hallway.

"Here, let's go," Rich said, picking Alain back up and assisting him along to the doorway and through it to the far hallway. With the trap disabled, Rich and Alain made it down to the L-bend, where Rich gently set Alain down against the wall, facing the next corrider they would have to traverse—the corridor with the sliding pillars of fire.

"I'll let you rest here," said Rich. "I've got to go back to talk to the guards for a few minutes. Do you mind if I take your sword to disable the last trap from this side? I would hate to be caught downstairs without mine."

"Of course," said Alain. "Thank you again for helping me out of this mess."

"Don't worry," said Rich, smirking. "I'll take care of everything."

With that, he left. Alain didn't bother watching Rich go—the flames of the new trap drew his gaze to them as the pillars slid up and down the hallway. The lump on the back of his head still throbbed, its dull pounding in time with the clicks of the pillars as they hit the end of their path and traveled back to the far end of the corridor.

Thud, thud, click. Thud, thud, click. Thud, thud, click.

****

Rich had been sitting over him as he had come to. The furrowed brow seemed out of place on Rich's face—he wasn't usually a man to worry. Then again, Alain thought that Rich didn't usually wake up friends who felt as though their heads had been used for as a target for practicing a game of stones.

"Where's the hawk?" moaned Alain, attempting to lift himself into a sitting position. His head spun, forcing him back down on his back. A dull pounding echoed in his head.

"Hawk? What hawk? You had too much to drink, started yelling and feeling in fear, and then fell over and hit your head on the floor," said Rich.

"Really?" Alain stopped to think for a second. As he exhaled, he tasted alcohol on his breath.

"Yes, and you even put everyone on alert in the process. We have to get upstairs and tell them it was an accident."

"But the hawk-"

"Doesn't exist. Now, come on, let's get you up onto your feet." With considerable effort, Rich lifted Alain into a standing position. "Can you get your head together well enough to walk?"

"I didn't hit my head that hard," replied Alain, taking a few careful steps forward with Rich's support.

"You seem fine. Now let's see if you can get up the stairs."

The pair slowly made their way to stairs that would take them to the higher floors. It took Alain a few tries, but he finally got the hang of lifting his fee high enough to ascend the steps.

"You know, Rich, you're a good pal, taking care of me like this," slurred Alain. "You could have just left me back their to face Bradley's wrath on my own, but you're—you're taking care of things. A good pal."

"Don't thank me yet. We're still not out of this mess. Ah, and here we are, the fifth floor. No offense, but you're a bit heavy. Do you mind if we take a break?"

"No, let's take a break. Maybe the room will stop spinning."

Rich slowly lowered Alain to the stone floor against the wall near the stairwell. The pounding wasn't getting any better for Alain, and a bit of sleep sounded like a marvelous idea.

"Here, I'll just rest for a bit," said Alain. "You can—you can—" It became too hard for Alain to put the words together into something coherent. At least sleep would come easily and make his head stop throbbing.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

****

Things really started going hill that day when Rich got back from his expedition to the wine cellar. Not only was he empty-handed, but the itch he got in his throat from the dust also made him sound like a pansy. Still, at least the conversation was more interesting to Alain now that it had been thoroughly verified that there was no hidden stash of alcohol to be found—namely he had someone to back him up in his arguments with Gregor, or at very least not vocally disagree with him. That was rather unusual of Rich, but Alain didn't have a chance to thoroughly investigate the matter before a hawk flew up the stairwell and attacked Gregor's face. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that was only the second most surprising thing to happen in the span of six seconds: a muscular woman wielding two swords rushed up after the hawk and turned Gregor into a bloody mess.

"Let's get them!" yelled Rich as he began to cast a spell.

Alain wasn't going to let such a great destraction go to waste. "Idiot," he said, grinning, and ran towards the far staircase, activating his medallion. As he looked back over at Rich, he noticed a green-clad woman had also ascended the stairs and was in the process of loosing a stone from her sli—a searing pain flared in his right temple as the stone hit. Rich finished the preparation of his spell and raised his hand to cast it. Alain yelled out at the woman: "You bi—" and then sleep took him.

****

Thud, thud, click. Thud, thud, click. Thud, thud, click.

"Alain, wake up!" yelled Rich over the drums in Alain's head and the punctuating beat of the fire traps.

A tone like that was enough to pull Alain fully into consciousness. "What's wrong?"

Rich hastily explained as he pulled Alain to his feet: "We're under attack! You have to go quickly and tell Bradley what's happening. I'll hold them off."

"But-"

"What are you waiting for? Go. Go!"

Rich pushed Alain down the corridor towards the trap. Alain ran as fast as he could towards the flaming pillars—he was in no condition to repel invaders. It was all a matter of timing, and though Alain had doubts about his ability to snake between them in his dazed state, it was better than whatever unknown enemies were assaulting the fortress. When he reached the threshold of the trapped area, a horrible thought came to him: where was Gregor? Looking back at where Rich had woken him, Alain saw only a smirking elf. Betrayal! Before Alain could do anything about this realization, one of the pillars caught him and the burning agony consumed his thoughts before silencing them utterly.

edited 10th Nov '10 10:18:53 PM by Ironeye

Mannn.... I'm kinda bummed that I don't get to Roleplay the Constantine/Adellion battle.

Roleplay it? I thought you said that Constantine would one-shot Adellion and be done with it.

I said he COULD. Not that he WOULD.

He would wear him down body and mind before crushing him beneath his heel and giving the final "Reason You Suck" Speech.

I'm still a little pissed that I set up a rivalry with the one character who got the Plot Item of Uber Pwnage. Then again, for a beguiler, getting into a fair fight would be doing it wrong.

The possibility was brought up last night of running a special session just to get this Character Development-critical Curb-Stomp Battle out of the way. arim, you up for it?

I don't see why not. I'll get on Vent tomorrow evening so that we can discuss it.

I am unclear as to when Ironeye's Vent hours are this evening, as he has to drive home for the holiday, but he assures us he'll be on at some point.

I'll be on until 8:30, at least. On the other hand, both Lance and I think this is a bad idea since we're leapfrogging past the intervening character development.

Hm, good point. Especially since there's no possible way, starting tonight, that we could, perhaps, address ways of building up properly to the fight without the formality of playing through all of it. You know, like cooperative fiction or something. No chance at all of that happening.

hehehe. yeah, not tonight, especially not as wiped as I am. but yeah, I'll attempt to do some more fiction this weekend. before then is a bit filled up with thanksgivingy things.

So for our possibility of a new game of D&D, I'd like to know what supplements will be allowed.

Because I want to play a Warforged Warlock 8D

Or something Psionic. When arim made the connection of the psi points or whatever they're called to MP, my interest was piqued: "Yay, caster classes that don't use vancian bullshit!"

edited 9th Dec '10 3:39:42 AM by Matrix

Well, Ironeye and I (there's that amusing little phrase again) haven't discussed it yet. I guess my default preference would simply be to allow everything I allowed last time (Core, the Complete books, PHB 2, the Spell Compendium, and the Book of Nine Swords) as well as the Expanded Psionics Handbook. I still need to look through the rest of my Eberron books to determine which ones need to be made available to the players and which ones would be better used solely as GM references.

On a related note, I've found a book that may be more useful to players than the campaign setting: http://www.4shared.com/document/2PQow5hp/Players_Guide_To_Eberron.html

Hey, you're the D&D guy—I trust your judgment there.

Oh, I've started working on the questionnaires, and I realized that it will be much easier if we know the starting city and the party's purpose (after which I can bust out the group template on the players, of course). Do you have a preference, or should we leave it up to the players?