C1 - Titans of the Demon Wastes - 2016 - 3 - 20 -- Season 3 Episode 05

Season 3 Episode 05 - Saying Hello to Old Friends The team take sthe offensive at 6 hours til Super Thursday by hustling back up the dammed river tube to the jellyfish forest.  There they work their way into the Lair of the Vampires.  Black Poodle on guard immediately blows their cover as Gang silently blunders into a small pack of them... sending the canines howling further into the cavern to alert their masters. at the entrance is a large next where the Black Poodles have been resting on the material side.. Feng finds an abandoned, deformed newborn blinkdog nearly dead.  he tucks the little creature ito his pack for later use. lots of carpet in this place... as well as literally tons of crates stacked up creating a barricade half way into the cavern... Gang get sjumped by a bunch of Poodles while navigating around the obstruction to find undead... the team kills the dogs readily---  one was a nursing mother, Feng collects unused milk to feed the newborn stowed away. Poking in furhter, mrore carpets.  light sconces, and side chambers.  Gang scouts ahead right into a vamped Graal the Rage.  larger than undeath and swnging a mace spiked with wyvern stingers, the undead ogre lays pain down first on gang then on feng.  While Barbarian Slug Fest continues on, human vampires emerge from another side chamber along with the missing warforged, Havok. much radiant damage and stabbing death from Gang and Maheva lay down the vampires who all turn to mist and recede back into the chamber they came from. Maheva taps Havok with a Dispel Evil and he drops inert. More Vamps emerge from the misty passage and Ellis has a well-placed lightningbolt rip through the lot of them, followed up by a strategically placed Spirit Guardian from the Air Cleric.  RThird wave of vamps push out the passage .. followed by a now-undead Meri the Enchantress.  Ellis shuts down her arcana and starts shredding on her as Feng and Maheva finish up the last vamp wave... sending them all one way or another down the misty passage from which they came. Finally, Graal takes enough damage to drop an explosive Flash Bang thurning him to ash while dealing out more damage to Feng.  No new signs of attack.. Meri must have slipped away somehow.  The team starts smashing coffins strewn about everywhere. 1 gold sarcophogus 3 stone coffins 7 empty wooden coffins with mints on the pillows 9 coffins with misty vampires rebuilding wtihin. smash everything burn it all down  and get out.  With the lair a literal inferno underground, the team boot-scoot the hells out back to the fleet. 4 hours till Super Thursday. 2/3 to level 12

sidenotes/personal observations: - Ellis turning a bunch of crates into companion cubes was both inspired and helpful. we need a dozen chainsaws for animation purposes asap. or wooden stakes considering who we're dealing with ? - Graal had a separate coffin for his mace. taking that item away from him when we run across that f'er again would probably make him throw fits - Havok had his crystal removed (assuming he followed Warforged SOP and had one to begin with) yet he was glowy-eyed and all ready to get stabby. this is troubling. i figured Warforged were immune to being vamped because ... well ... no blood. but if they can be turned into vapiric meatpuppets or charmed ... they're tough. and does the no crystal mean he was more of a golem ? considering he got knocked the fuck out before too much action i think we got lucky, but also don't know what happened to him. - Bloody Poodle is a badass. Havok, Graal, Merri ... those were major players. especially if they run in groups or know someone's a threat (like Havok did). no prisoners, no gloating, no negotiations. turn her to dust and do spotchecks later is what I'm thinking. - Feng and Gang are gonna need access to magical weaponry to be able to do considerable damage. Gang's got a dagger that'll work out if memory serves. i might have to bug someone for a temporary enchantment - what happened to the group of goblins that were running with Merri and Graal ? the ones with the blowguns. did hey ever deliver the pendant to that one goblin's kid ? did they get turned ? eaten ? - to-do list: reverse engineer Havok's beartrap-on-a-chain shooting arm and turn that into a mounted version for the ship(s) . being able to pick someone off of the ground or an opposing ship and drag them over would be HIGH-larious. "That's a nice captain you have there. We'll be taking him." *twang* *yoink* - 4 hours to go, still no sign of poodle. if she was smart she'd cancel super Thursday and cite non-health reasons or a wardrobe malfunction until making more minions. also: no sign of Frank. Frank must die. He's the posterchild for the gothed out masses. You kill Frank you show them that eternity might be shorter then they thought. vamps intel: - immune to any charm related spell - seem to take less damage then expected from mundane (yet pointy) weapons - have pulled shenanigans like turning into swarms of bats to move around - suck blood to regain HP - reform in their coffins after being dispatched (or maybe just the closest coffin?) - retain class levels of their previous existence - really really don't like fire, magical poison and holy wrath. lightning also shreds them.

I see no mention of the extra large Graal pillow I stole as loot.

cr4ap I forgot all about that

any thoughts of your next moves this sunday?   4 hours to go... the town is gonna be buzzing with excitement bloody poodle should be present at any time this is certainly angled to look like the best chance to claim ownership of your spider cruiser -- LavoR-Hai -- from Admiral Heron.  

Frankley, Gang would've considered it his no matter what happened, but having Heron be OK with that would be beneficial. Anyways, we need more information. We know when it is, approximately where it is, and what will happen, but nothing else. We need to do some espionage and find specifics. Robes, special weapons, spell scrolls, fireworks, seal of official vampirism, anything. And then, we need to fuck with it, in the most entertainingly effective way possible. I assume that's viable in 4 hours. Even if we can't outright stop the event, it should give us an advantage when we go head to head(s) with Poodle during the ceremony. Whatever it is. Viva la counter-revolution!

If the town is chock full of nutters who are apparently on speaking terms with vampires, why haven't we  / aren't we considering "persuading" a few choice/well connected members of the township to be our eyes, ears, and detectives in finding out what we need to know?

doing recon sounds like a good idea. i see two challenges with having it done by properly motivated locals. they're vapire-charmed meat popsicles for the time being and probably less then inclined to provide information without sounding the alarm afterwards. but with the help of a few convenient spells or some blunt force trauma.Nonetheless: in spite of this grassroots power to the people facade i assume they're being treated like mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed bullshit). any information we get will be the official party line disseminated by the poodle marketing and PR department. My vote for getting some real intel ? grab one of the second/third tier vamps. Graal, Merri or BP's big 3. obvious problem: they're much harder to manhandle (or womanhandle) then dirtfarmers. and currently either hiding, MIA or dissolving. things I'd be interested in finding out are - are there any changes in the event schedule or lineup during super Thursday - tactical information on location of the event ( entrances , exits, potential ambush points, staging area for the green room & pre-game show, VIP seats) - how did Bloody Poodle *get* to BloodCrescend ? on foot ? in an airship? as a bat ? Airdropped from her space station? delivered in a coffin by UPS? through the Spirit world ? teleportation ? knowing this might help us cut off her escape route. and if the gerbil falls in the blender I'd rather be in a position to shoot balista bolts at her from a ship as she runs then watching her go poof and not be able to follow and dust her. - how many of her turned and inner circle are left and what is the location of their backup lair. if we don't want to deal with a vampire outbreak 2 months from now we're gonna need to kill every last one.

I meant to post this in rawr.  my bad. :P To Thunder's point;  yeah you can gank the ship and flip the bird... but Heron is a notable rank in the Droaam military.  There's favors to be had and a possible plot extension out of the Demon Wastes into Droaam itself if you push it. Town foray sounds viable.  I was looking for an excuse to flesh out the community map a bit more anyway. :) This is plenty for me to build with on top of the event timeline I already have fleshed out that y'all will no-doubt turn on it's side. Be welcome to expand on the thoughts and continue the conversation... I have my core direction pointed out in the meantime. Thanks all!