Sean's Campaign - Session #22
Sorry for the big delay, the past few weeks have been a bit stressing.
We took off our last Friday because 4 of the 7 of us couldn’t play. Which I’m sure earned a few points for those of us who could play, but had wives.
And now this campaign is on a deadline. If you don’t know why, take a look at my wife’s blog.
On there, you’ll see why I’ll have to take a hiatus from gaming for a while.
In fact, several of us might be taking some time off.
Dale’s son’s school activities will be taking Dale away from the game again at the beginning of next school year.
Joy may be out as well at that time as she’ll be starting her final year of college.
Brian is usually pretty open in the summer, but when the fall begins he’s lucky to be around half the time.
Allen may be leaving us entirely once the summer begins.
That leaves Aaron and Justin with a free schedule for gaming.
So right now there is a good chance that from early September to late November we won’t get much gaming done.
I don’t think it could be much longer. I can’t go without gaming for that long. Every true gamer understands that.
I don’t want to rush this campaign, but I don’t want to stop on it either. This campaign is supposed to go up to level 30, with the levels averaging once per 3 sessions. The average level is 12 right now, meaning reaching level 30 will take over a year of steady gaming.
So right now I think we might put a pause on this game for a while and give Dale the chance to run his beloved The Return to Castle Ravenloft.
He’s been itching to run that thing since he bought several months ago.
There will be no podcast of this session, and once we go on hiatus, I doubt I’ll have time to do any more afterwards.
No Brian this week, so Allen took over Zelast.
Thanks to the PC’s efforts to aid the city of Lataan, the city was able to repel the hordes of General Takral.
The morning after the assault on the city was a beautiful early fall day. The city was in better shape than its citizens expected it to be.
To finish off this storyline, we had one last fight.
The scouts for the city reported that the enemy was in full retreat, and not in a very orderly manner.
So the knight captain called for one last assault against the horde before they could regroup and try again.
Instead of performing another giant melee, I had the party have its fight against a troupe of fire giant weapon-smiths and armor-smiths.
So it was the party (7 PC’s ranging from level 10 to 12) versus 4 fire giants (CR10) and a fire giant priest (level 10 cleric, CR15).
I started the group off in a kind of chaos to simulate the rest of the battle going on around them. Both sides were allowed to have cast all spells that had durations of 1 minute per level or longer. This gave both sides several good buffs.
As usual, Ari’s and Artemis’s early spells involved nuking while flying and invisible.
Zelast and an enlarged Sorra charged right at the entry area to the forge of the giants.
Lindo charged up to the wall, but only did so to get a good point to do some spring attacks.
Ysilia followed the fighters, but stayed away from melee distance.
Trebor moved and shot his bow.
The giants threw rocks on the party, but the DM couldn’t hit squat thanks to his usual pathetic rolling.
The priest cast combat buffing spells, including Righteous Might changing his size from large to huge.
The middle rounds were simple chaos.
The entry way to the forge area created a bottle neck, preventing the giants from getting more than a couple combatants on the field of battle.
Ari kept up her nuking, but Artemis held back after only a single Cone of Cold.
Lindo jumped into combat, hit a giant for a few points of damage, and then ran away. He really couldn’t take more than a hit or two from a giant before he was in bad shape, so it was no big surprise there.
Ysilia spent her time healing Sorra, Zelast, and Lindo using her ranged healing spells.
Zelast joined into the bottleneck and took on a giant and gain any hit points lost back by channeling Vampiric Touch.
Trebor safely fired from range, using all of his attacks to do moderate damage to the heavily armored giants.
Sorra was trading blows back and forth with one giant. After she dropped that giant, she received a free swing on the fire giant priest when he was casting another spell. Sorra critted, and did over 90 damage thanks to all of the buffs and her power attack. That made the priest really mad.
The response to the attack was a furious assault. After only two swings Sorra went from nearly max to -5 hit points.
That was a bit of a turning point for the fight.
Instead of using mass damage spells, Artemis opted to cast Greater Invisibility on Trebor so he could get his sneak attack damage against the giant. But what they didn’t know was that the priest had Invisibility Purge active – so it was all a waste of time.
Lindo got in one last spring attack before pulling back.
Zelast, not able to hold against multiple giants, and especially not that priest, did a fighting withdrawal. Eventually he did fall once the giants were able to flood onto the battlefield.
Ysilia was able to Revivify him, but he played dead afterwards because he still had giants nearby.
While two giants took on (and out) Zelast, another one went after Lindo and Ysilia. Lindo kept up the spring attacking. He was able to some damage while forcing the giant to move to attack him. This also forced the giant give up his extra attacks.
The giant priest headed straight to the casters once his Invisibility Purge found them. But they had backup spells – like Fly and Mirror Image. By the end he had too few hit points to be able to do anything. Once Trebor, Ari, and Artemis dropped him (and another giant) they all turned invisible when the purge dropped with him.
Now we come to the “Boohoo!” bit of the night.
While the casters were finishing off the priest, Lindo and Ysilia had to deal with their giant. The set up went something like this; the giant would run after Lindo and get a single swing in for about half his hit points, Lindo would take a single swing and run away or spring attack if possible, then Ysilia would heal him unless someone else needed it more.
On one particular round of this, Lindo failed a tumble check (because I don’t care what the rules say, a natural one on a tumble check is a failure). He ended up only having 11 hit points after getting away from the giant. But instead of being the valiant lawful good monk he’s supposed to be, he chose to leave Ysilia in a position where the giant would charge her instead of him. Literally, he stood (cowered) behind the non-combatant healer who would have healed him moments later.
So I had Allen make a charisma check (Lindo has an 8 charisma). He rolled a 2, which became a 1. Now had he rolled a natural 20, Ysilia would have taken the hit. Had he rolled around 11 or better, she would have simply gotten behind him and healed him, thus forcing him to take the hit. But a 1 caused Ysilia to show Lindo where he stood in the pecking order; she ran away from Lindo and got close to Zelast in order to heal him on the following round so he can get back in the fight.
The following round the two remaining giants had only 2 visible, standing targets - Ysilia and Lindo. One charged Lindo and critted him for over 70 points of damage, leaving him well under -50 hit points. The other giant came to say “hi” to Ysilia with a single swing with a full power attack. She was already damaged, and this attack left her with -15 hit points.
The following round, an invisible arrow and spell barrage dropped one of the two remaining giants. The last giant, not seeing anyone to hit, ran away.
Final body count – Lindo, Ysilia, and Zelast (for one round)
By the end of the night, the party rejoined back at the inn. The recently raised Lindo and Ysilia were not on speaking terms.
In fact poor, picked on Allen pouted for the next hour (he really hates it when things don’t go his way). He declared that Lindo will never rely on Ysilia for anything ever again. Oddly enough, he’s probably right, since at the time I hadn’t decided that the campaign would be taking a break for some months.
Later that night the new knight captain came and informed the party of the results. The previous knight captain had been disintegrated by a beam from “some floating round creature”. He also told the party that they should leave town early the next morning, because that is when he planned to tell the merchant houses about the deal that was made with the dragons. He was fairly sure that the houses would not be happy and they would probably be out for blood.
The party understood and left the next morning, but they would have to return within a couple of weeks to return the merchants who paid for a flight on Ari Airlines.
Fast forward nearly two weeks and you have three of the group who have signed up to be in the great tournament to fight for Princess Alena’s hand in marriage.
Note: I very regretfully had to put this part of the game on the fast track. Joy, who plays Ari, may not be around for three weeks or longer, so I needed to get the tournament done with by the end of this session. I don’t regret the actual fast tracking, but rather the extra role-playing and other opportunities for everyone else in the group to get to add to the game. Something that should have taken 4-6 hours of game time was concluded in less than 2. The weirdest part is that I usually want things concluded quickly.
The rules were simple enough:
- Only humans could compete (oddly enough there was not a “no women” rule)
- You can only come in with the clothes on your back and with no spells on you. All equipment would be provided for you (which usually were weapons and armor with a +1 enchantment).
- 100gp entry fee
- Betting was only allowed through the recently opened casino (imagine a casino that used divination spells instead of cameras)
- If you killed your opponent, you pay for the cost of his raising.
- The combats would be fights to unconsciousness, inability to continue, or death. You may not yield.
- You may not leave the fighting arena, nor can you fly more than 40’ above it.
- If you killed someone in the crowd, you would be held criminally accountable – so be careful with those ray spells.
- You would have two rounds to self-buff with any spells you might have.
- You can have a single coach near the ring (in other words, no one but the coach can help the player).
- The audience was safely 20’ away from the arena itself.
- The combatants would be placed into a set of single elimination brackets, with no more than 128 entrants into the brackets (excess entries would be trimmed down).
Note: Unofficially anyone was detected to be evil was not allowed either, but some other reason was given for the exclusion.
Lindo, Sorra, and Ari joined signed up for the tournament. I had planned this set up specifically for Ari, but had expected someone else in the group to try.
But what Allen and Aaron didn’t realize was that they were going to be made examples of (I could have handled things slightly differently, but I can only do so much when trying to rush things).
Day 1 – 128 combatants
Bet’s placed on this day to determine the winner would be paid 50 to 1 (1000gp max bet). Trebor bet 1000gp on Ari. Artemis bet 500gp on Sorra.
Ari would be fighting someone named Fry.
Sorra would be fighting someone named Crosar.
Lindo would be fighting someone named Umbra.
Lindo was up first (highest d20 roll went first).
Allen rolled poorly for initiative while I rolled high, so Umbra went first.
Umbra started off with a Quickened Ray of Enfeeblement. I rolled a nat 20 for the hit and confirmed the crit. Lindo lost 2d6 + 10 strength points. The rolled result was 16, Lindo’s natural strength.
Combat over. That didn’t help Allen’ pouting hehehe.
Next up was Sorra.
Sorra charged her opponent to try to prevent any free spell casting.
Crosar levitated straight up, and then proceeded to nuke Sorra from 20’ high with spells like Horrid Wilting.
Aaron conceded the fight.
Ari’s combat was much simpler.
She cast Fly and Greater Invisibility during her two buff rounds. Something she did for every fight thereafter.
Her opponent never had a chance.
She had to shell out 5000gp to raise Fry from the dead. Princess Alena reimbursed Ari for that cost, but only this one time.
Day 2 – 64 combatants remaining
Betting to declare the final winner would pay 10 to 1 now. Sorra put 1000gp on Ari.
Ari’s opponent was a violent, sexist man named Groyen.
He made several not-so-nice comments about what women should be doing.
Ari had to pay another 5000gp to have him raised.
Day 3 – 32 combatants remaining
No further betting was bothered with by the party.
Ari’s opponent this time was a well respected paladin named Portan. He was quite nice to Ari prior to the match.
Artemis used his charisma skills to gather information about the man the night before, and he simply found out that Portan was a stand up guy.
Ari killed him too. Artemis had to help her pay the money this time around to have him raised.
Day 4 – 16 combatants remaining
Ari had been given a new title; “the bloody princess”
Her opponent for this round was a monk named Twillen.
Ari didn’t kill him, but she won.
Her invisible flying was paying off heavily, making me regret allowing both to be used at the same time.
Day 5 – 8 combatants remaining
The Bloody Princess’s opponent this time was a man named Nevril.
Artemis’s information gathering turned up that Nevril was a priest who had seen more than one war in his day.
But his luck was only slightly better than those who had to fight Ari so far.
His defensive and healing spells gave him more time, his lack of maneuverability while in heavy and her invisible flying proved to be too much.
And once again she had to pay to have her opponent raised. She had to start borrowing a lot of money from her group-mates.
Day 6 – 4 combatants remaining
Ari vs. Umbra and Crosar vs. Verm
Artemis’s information gathering showed that Umbra had disintegrated or turned to stone all of his opponents except one (Lindo). His spells were simply all or nothing spells geared towards the weaknesses of his opponents.
The night before this match, Umbra visited her at the Roaring Bull Inn and offered her a bribe to take a dive. She wanted money up front, and he wouldn’t agree to that.
This fight was much more even, both of them are wizards after all.
Ari did her usual buff spells, and Umbra cast a couple of his own.
She cast her usual orb type spells or continuous damage spells.
Then he cast a third buff spell on himself.
Ari responded with a Dispel Magic on him. That stripped away his first two buff spells but left the third – See Invisible.
He cast Disintegrate at her and hit with the ray. She had to use a DM Bribe (Gummi-savers) and all 4 of her d20 re-rolls until she finally made that DC21 fortitude save.
She kept going with the damage spells.
He responded with a Baleful Polymorph spell. She had to save or be turned into a fluffy bunny. She saved.
Her last spell at him was an Orb of Cold.
She had to pay 5000gp to have him raised.
Day 7 – The Championship Match – The Bloody Princess vs. Crosar the Heartless
Artemis’s information basically told him that this guy was a powerful warmage with no guilt. He carelessly killed his opponents without a second thought. He freely used disintegrating spells, death spells, and damage spells with abandon.
Crosar came to talk to Ari at the inn and offered her a chance to quit or he would be forced to kill her. She laughed at him and more or less told him to kiss her ass.
Even the king showed up to Ari’s heavily protected room to make it clear that Ari had to win because he could not let his daughter marry someone like that, even if he did pass those Detect Evil spells. This fellow acted as though he had no soul.
Ari agreed, but of course she had to request some money to pay for some Raise Dead spells…
Seats to this event were sold at a premium price, and the place was packed.
On the north side of the circle was Crosar with Umbra as his coach.
On the southern side of the circle was Ari with Sorra as her coach.
Moments before the fight was to begin a man rushed into the area of the arena, with several guards trying to restrain him.
He yelled to Crosar and Umbra “They’ve found him!”
Moments later Crosar, Umbra, and the new man teleported away.
The king immediately stood up and declared Ari the winner and promised everyone their money back for the seats (to prevent a riot).
Ari had a nice payday. The princess saved the other princess and earned 50,000 gold in the process.
Sorra won 10,000 gold from her bet placed on Ari.
Trebor won 50,000 gold from his bet.
I’m sure all of that will go on to be converted to magic items.
Lindo got his Monk’s Belt created finally. At least something went right for him this session.
To be continued…eventually…
We took off our last Friday because 4 of the 7 of us couldn’t play. Which I’m sure earned a few points for those of us who could play, but had wives.
And now this campaign is on a deadline. If you don’t know why, take a look at my wife’s blog.
On there, you’ll see why I’ll have to take a hiatus from gaming for a while.
In fact, several of us might be taking some time off.
Dale’s son’s school activities will be taking Dale away from the game again at the beginning of next school year.
Joy may be out as well at that time as she’ll be starting her final year of college.
Brian is usually pretty open in the summer, but when the fall begins he’s lucky to be around half the time.
Allen may be leaving us entirely once the summer begins.
That leaves Aaron and Justin with a free schedule for gaming.
So right now there is a good chance that from early September to late November we won’t get much gaming done.
I don’t think it could be much longer. I can’t go without gaming for that long. Every true gamer understands that.
I don’t want to rush this campaign, but I don’t want to stop on it either. This campaign is supposed to go up to level 30, with the levels averaging once per 3 sessions. The average level is 12 right now, meaning reaching level 30 will take over a year of steady gaming.
So right now I think we might put a pause on this game for a while and give Dale the chance to run his beloved The Return to Castle Ravenloft.
He’s been itching to run that thing since he bought several months ago.
There will be no podcast of this session, and once we go on hiatus, I doubt I’ll have time to do any more afterwards.
No Brian this week, so Allen took over Zelast.
Thanks to the PC’s efforts to aid the city of Lataan, the city was able to repel the hordes of General Takral.
The morning after the assault on the city was a beautiful early fall day. The city was in better shape than its citizens expected it to be.
To finish off this storyline, we had one last fight.
The scouts for the city reported that the enemy was in full retreat, and not in a very orderly manner.
So the knight captain called for one last assault against the horde before they could regroup and try again.
Instead of performing another giant melee, I had the party have its fight against a troupe of fire giant weapon-smiths and armor-smiths.
So it was the party (7 PC’s ranging from level 10 to 12) versus 4 fire giants (CR10) and a fire giant priest (level 10 cleric, CR15).
I started the group off in a kind of chaos to simulate the rest of the battle going on around them. Both sides were allowed to have cast all spells that had durations of 1 minute per level or longer. This gave both sides several good buffs.
As usual, Ari’s and Artemis’s early spells involved nuking while flying and invisible.
Zelast and an enlarged Sorra charged right at the entry area to the forge of the giants.
Lindo charged up to the wall, but only did so to get a good point to do some spring attacks.
Ysilia followed the fighters, but stayed away from melee distance.
Trebor moved and shot his bow.
The giants threw rocks on the party, but the DM couldn’t hit squat thanks to his usual pathetic rolling.
The priest cast combat buffing spells, including Righteous Might changing his size from large to huge.
The middle rounds were simple chaos.
The entry way to the forge area created a bottle neck, preventing the giants from getting more than a couple combatants on the field of battle.
Ari kept up her nuking, but Artemis held back after only a single Cone of Cold.
Lindo jumped into combat, hit a giant for a few points of damage, and then ran away. He really couldn’t take more than a hit or two from a giant before he was in bad shape, so it was no big surprise there.
Ysilia spent her time healing Sorra, Zelast, and Lindo using her ranged healing spells.
Zelast joined into the bottleneck and took on a giant and gain any hit points lost back by channeling Vampiric Touch.
Trebor safely fired from range, using all of his attacks to do moderate damage to the heavily armored giants.
Sorra was trading blows back and forth with one giant. After she dropped that giant, she received a free swing on the fire giant priest when he was casting another spell. Sorra critted, and did over 90 damage thanks to all of the buffs and her power attack. That made the priest really mad.
The response to the attack was a furious assault. After only two swings Sorra went from nearly max to -5 hit points.
That was a bit of a turning point for the fight.
Instead of using mass damage spells, Artemis opted to cast Greater Invisibility on Trebor so he could get his sneak attack damage against the giant. But what they didn’t know was that the priest had Invisibility Purge active – so it was all a waste of time.
Lindo got in one last spring attack before pulling back.
Zelast, not able to hold against multiple giants, and especially not that priest, did a fighting withdrawal. Eventually he did fall once the giants were able to flood onto the battlefield.
Ysilia was able to Revivify him, but he played dead afterwards because he still had giants nearby.
While two giants took on (and out) Zelast, another one went after Lindo and Ysilia. Lindo kept up the spring attacking. He was able to some damage while forcing the giant to move to attack him. This also forced the giant give up his extra attacks.
The giant priest headed straight to the casters once his Invisibility Purge found them. But they had backup spells – like Fly and Mirror Image. By the end he had too few hit points to be able to do anything. Once Trebor, Ari, and Artemis dropped him (and another giant) they all turned invisible when the purge dropped with him.
Now we come to the “Boohoo!” bit of the night.
While the casters were finishing off the priest, Lindo and Ysilia had to deal with their giant. The set up went something like this; the giant would run after Lindo and get a single swing in for about half his hit points, Lindo would take a single swing and run away or spring attack if possible, then Ysilia would heal him unless someone else needed it more.
On one particular round of this, Lindo failed a tumble check (because I don’t care what the rules say, a natural one on a tumble check is a failure). He ended up only having 11 hit points after getting away from the giant. But instead of being the valiant lawful good monk he’s supposed to be, he chose to leave Ysilia in a position where the giant would charge her instead of him. Literally, he stood (cowered) behind the non-combatant healer who would have healed him moments later.
So I had Allen make a charisma check (Lindo has an 8 charisma). He rolled a 2, which became a 1. Now had he rolled a natural 20, Ysilia would have taken the hit. Had he rolled around 11 or better, she would have simply gotten behind him and healed him, thus forcing him to take the hit. But a 1 caused Ysilia to show Lindo where he stood in the pecking order; she ran away from Lindo and got close to Zelast in order to heal him on the following round so he can get back in the fight.
The following round the two remaining giants had only 2 visible, standing targets - Ysilia and Lindo. One charged Lindo and critted him for over 70 points of damage, leaving him well under -50 hit points. The other giant came to say “hi” to Ysilia with a single swing with a full power attack. She was already damaged, and this attack left her with -15 hit points.
The following round, an invisible arrow and spell barrage dropped one of the two remaining giants. The last giant, not seeing anyone to hit, ran away.
Final body count – Lindo, Ysilia, and Zelast (for one round)
By the end of the night, the party rejoined back at the inn. The recently raised Lindo and Ysilia were not on speaking terms.
In fact poor, picked on Allen pouted for the next hour (he really hates it when things don’t go his way). He declared that Lindo will never rely on Ysilia for anything ever again. Oddly enough, he’s probably right, since at the time I hadn’t decided that the campaign would be taking a break for some months.
Later that night the new knight captain came and informed the party of the results. The previous knight captain had been disintegrated by a beam from “some floating round creature”. He also told the party that they should leave town early the next morning, because that is when he planned to tell the merchant houses about the deal that was made with the dragons. He was fairly sure that the houses would not be happy and they would probably be out for blood.
The party understood and left the next morning, but they would have to return within a couple of weeks to return the merchants who paid for a flight on Ari Airlines.
Fast forward nearly two weeks and you have three of the group who have signed up to be in the great tournament to fight for Princess Alena’s hand in marriage.
Note: I very regretfully had to put this part of the game on the fast track. Joy, who plays Ari, may not be around for three weeks or longer, so I needed to get the tournament done with by the end of this session. I don’t regret the actual fast tracking, but rather the extra role-playing and other opportunities for everyone else in the group to get to add to the game. Something that should have taken 4-6 hours of game time was concluded in less than 2. The weirdest part is that I usually want things concluded quickly.
The rules were simple enough:
- Only humans could compete (oddly enough there was not a “no women” rule)
- You can only come in with the clothes on your back and with no spells on you. All equipment would be provided for you (which usually were weapons and armor with a +1 enchantment).
- 100gp entry fee
- Betting was only allowed through the recently opened casino (imagine a casino that used divination spells instead of cameras)
- If you killed your opponent, you pay for the cost of his raising.
- The combats would be fights to unconsciousness, inability to continue, or death. You may not yield.
- You may not leave the fighting arena, nor can you fly more than 40’ above it.
- If you killed someone in the crowd, you would be held criminally accountable – so be careful with those ray spells.
- You would have two rounds to self-buff with any spells you might have.
- You can have a single coach near the ring (in other words, no one but the coach can help the player).
- The audience was safely 20’ away from the arena itself.
- The combatants would be placed into a set of single elimination brackets, with no more than 128 entrants into the brackets (excess entries would be trimmed down).
Note: Unofficially anyone was detected to be evil was not allowed either, but some other reason was given for the exclusion.
Lindo, Sorra, and Ari joined signed up for the tournament. I had planned this set up specifically for Ari, but had expected someone else in the group to try.
But what Allen and Aaron didn’t realize was that they were going to be made examples of (I could have handled things slightly differently, but I can only do so much when trying to rush things).
Day 1 – 128 combatants
Bet’s placed on this day to determine the winner would be paid 50 to 1 (1000gp max bet). Trebor bet 1000gp on Ari. Artemis bet 500gp on Sorra.
Ari would be fighting someone named Fry.
Sorra would be fighting someone named Crosar.
Lindo would be fighting someone named Umbra.
Lindo was up first (highest d20 roll went first).
Allen rolled poorly for initiative while I rolled high, so Umbra went first.
Umbra started off with a Quickened Ray of Enfeeblement. I rolled a nat 20 for the hit and confirmed the crit. Lindo lost 2d6 + 10 strength points. The rolled result was 16, Lindo’s natural strength.
Combat over. That didn’t help Allen’ pouting hehehe.
Next up was Sorra.
Sorra charged her opponent to try to prevent any free spell casting.
Crosar levitated straight up, and then proceeded to nuke Sorra from 20’ high with spells like Horrid Wilting.
Aaron conceded the fight.
Ari’s combat was much simpler.
She cast Fly and Greater Invisibility during her two buff rounds. Something she did for every fight thereafter.
Her opponent never had a chance.
She had to shell out 5000gp to raise Fry from the dead. Princess Alena reimbursed Ari for that cost, but only this one time.
Day 2 – 64 combatants remaining
Betting to declare the final winner would pay 10 to 1 now. Sorra put 1000gp on Ari.
Ari’s opponent was a violent, sexist man named Groyen.
He made several not-so-nice comments about what women should be doing.
Ari had to pay another 5000gp to have him raised.
Day 3 – 32 combatants remaining
No further betting was bothered with by the party.
Ari’s opponent this time was a well respected paladin named Portan. He was quite nice to Ari prior to the match.
Artemis used his charisma skills to gather information about the man the night before, and he simply found out that Portan was a stand up guy.
Ari killed him too. Artemis had to help her pay the money this time around to have him raised.
Day 4 – 16 combatants remaining
Ari had been given a new title; “the bloody princess”
Her opponent for this round was a monk named Twillen.
Ari didn’t kill him, but she won.
Her invisible flying was paying off heavily, making me regret allowing both to be used at the same time.
Day 5 – 8 combatants remaining
The Bloody Princess’s opponent this time was a man named Nevril.
Artemis’s information gathering turned up that Nevril was a priest who had seen more than one war in his day.
But his luck was only slightly better than those who had to fight Ari so far.
His defensive and healing spells gave him more time, his lack of maneuverability while in heavy and her invisible flying proved to be too much.
And once again she had to pay to have her opponent raised. She had to start borrowing a lot of money from her group-mates.
Day 6 – 4 combatants remaining
Ari vs. Umbra and Crosar vs. Verm
Artemis’s information gathering showed that Umbra had disintegrated or turned to stone all of his opponents except one (Lindo). His spells were simply all or nothing spells geared towards the weaknesses of his opponents.
The night before this match, Umbra visited her at the Roaring Bull Inn and offered her a bribe to take a dive. She wanted money up front, and he wouldn’t agree to that.
This fight was much more even, both of them are wizards after all.
Ari did her usual buff spells, and Umbra cast a couple of his own.
She cast her usual orb type spells or continuous damage spells.
Then he cast a third buff spell on himself.
Ari responded with a Dispel Magic on him. That stripped away his first two buff spells but left the third – See Invisible.
He cast Disintegrate at her and hit with the ray. She had to use a DM Bribe (Gummi-savers) and all 4 of her d20 re-rolls until she finally made that DC21 fortitude save.
She kept going with the damage spells.
He responded with a Baleful Polymorph spell. She had to save or be turned into a fluffy bunny. She saved.
Her last spell at him was an Orb of Cold.
She had to pay 5000gp to have him raised.
Day 7 – The Championship Match – The Bloody Princess vs. Crosar the Heartless
Artemis’s information basically told him that this guy was a powerful warmage with no guilt. He carelessly killed his opponents without a second thought. He freely used disintegrating spells, death spells, and damage spells with abandon.
Crosar came to talk to Ari at the inn and offered her a chance to quit or he would be forced to kill her. She laughed at him and more or less told him to kiss her ass.
Even the king showed up to Ari’s heavily protected room to make it clear that Ari had to win because he could not let his daughter marry someone like that, even if he did pass those Detect Evil spells. This fellow acted as though he had no soul.
Ari agreed, but of course she had to request some money to pay for some Raise Dead spells…
Seats to this event were sold at a premium price, and the place was packed.
On the north side of the circle was Crosar with Umbra as his coach.
On the southern side of the circle was Ari with Sorra as her coach.
Moments before the fight was to begin a man rushed into the area of the arena, with several guards trying to restrain him.
He yelled to Crosar and Umbra “They’ve found him!”
Moments later Crosar, Umbra, and the new man teleported away.
The king immediately stood up and declared Ari the winner and promised everyone their money back for the seats (to prevent a riot).
Ari had a nice payday. The princess saved the other princess and earned 50,000 gold in the process.
Sorra won 10,000 gold from her bet placed on Ari.
Trebor won 50,000 gold from his bet.
I’m sure all of that will go on to be converted to magic items.
Lindo got his Monk’s Belt created finally. At least something went right for him this session.
To be continued…eventually…
posted by BlueBlackRed at 10:07 PM
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