Ronin Session 41.5

(It's a tiny one, but we got something done.)

The group passed into the Fire Plane, finding themselves on a massive iron meteor hurtling through an endless fiery sky. The only information they had to go on was what the Lady mentioned, that they searched for the Brand, capable of killing her, and that it rested near a forge. Spotting what seemed like architecture in the distance, they crossed a steaming plain of rubble, laced with sulfur, and encountered a sudden meteor shower. Pellets turned to bullets as the bits of space metal flashed and fell. They cut up the group pretty bad, but none worse than Sera, who was completely torn apart until nothing was left but a scraps of elf.

The horrified surviving trio made for the shelter of the huge structure on the horizon, shaped like an anvil and made entirely of iron. Passing under its open archways and into a smoky expanse, they rested a moment and were met with a dull roar. From out of one of the several stairwells leading into a brightly-lit second level came a Salamander, brilliant red and serpentine. He slithered at Matthias, even as the bard tried to hail him, though caught by surprise he forgot he was still holding his glaive. The Salamander slashed wildly, missing, and continued out of the complex, as if running away from something.

Collecting themselves and knowing that the Brand they sought was probably down near the roaring, they entered the smoky depths...

Archdruid Session 43

Sev, Rend and Sirocco followed Dante across Saspien and to the way point nestled in the haunted Tirian Wood. He activated it and sent them on their way with his thanks and the promise of the vampire army in several weeks' time. The group passed out of the West and back home, to the Northland, to find the barbarian village that held the totem burned to the ground.

The group quickly became aware of three watchers on the tundra, barbarians barely out of boyhood, who questioned them and were all-around wary until Sev proved he was the archdruid, and that the troll wasn't going to eat them. They accepted Sirocco's offer of food and called their mammoths. They introduced themselves as Kleid, the leader, Bunk, the pudgy one, and Foolwolf, the clumsy one.

They trekked all day, passing well north of Veluvia's ruins, and finding them covered in perpetual black clouds. They camped for the night in the heart of the Roam, all the while having followed a large amount of tracks heading for the distant woods on the horizon. Sev lamented at how much of the former woods were indeed destroyed.

The boys, led by Sirocco, went out for a hunting lesson, whilst Sev and Rend kept the fire going while the trained mammoths circled the camp like a wall as was their routine. Two hours later they returned with a healthy-looking reindeer buck. A meal was had and words traded, as the boys asked the trio a little more of their experiences, talk inevitably leading to the Ice Queen.

In a remark about how she's consistently underestimated the group, a hideous looking aberration a little taller and thicker than Rend and resembling a blue centipede leaped onto one of the mammoth's backs and in seconds ate a tunnel through its back and out its stomach. It gave Shalraza's regards for the murder of her son and attacked, proving as strong as Rend and quite resilient.

Despite the few powerful hits Rend has managed, the fight is looking uncertain...

Meanwhile, Serren stayed behind in Saspien, looking to get rid of the Clutch of Mengorot and in the process make a little something in a side deal. After negotiations with Uldina the Puzzler, he bought Tazjaree's freedom and a night's pleasure. However, after giving Tazjaree the slip, she attempted to escape, finally being caught and knocked unconscious above the ziggurat. Serren performed strange summonings and magic to wipe her memory of what he didn't want her to remember and make her a unwaveringly loyal servant and consort.

Ronin Group: No Session Friday 2/29

Sorry guys I can't make Friday.

Let's reschedule for either sometime before or after (just not Mondays at 8:30pm). I can make any day work for me, so post what's good for you.

Ronin Session 41

Izaki awake and the group reunited, they forced open the freezing black ice doors and entered Angel Mountain. Easier said than done, as Sera found out when bare skin touched the black ice and seared with a cold akin to fire.

Dispelling the darkness, the group found themselves in a huge entrance hall with monolithic ice sculptures of a winged woman lining either wall. Up ahead was another black ice door, with a lizard's head carved into it. Finduilas speculated from her studies it was a dragon.

In a tremendous feat of strength, Matthias and Finduilas managed to fling the great portal off its hinges, shattering in on some steps. The stairs led into a bowl shaped room with an ice floor. At the far end was a quicksilver throne, bits of armor and hide littered around it. On the throne sat what looked like a dead, frozen king.

The group quickly discovered through a grizzly shadow that the king was in fact a white dragon! The dragon proved lethal in its attacks, but somewhat weak on the defense, and the group managed to kill it before it took out the kitty-with-sword.

Up until this point, Karb had been with the group, but he conveniently vanished. Sera began a bloody skinning process on the dragon, lusting for its precious scales and blanketing the ice with red. Amidst the skinning, the Entombed returned with two savage, pale bear-men at his side. He listed the offenses the group has committed and was nearly swayed by Matthias to simply take them to his Lady. However Sera was not in the mood to be a blood sacrifice and fought him, though half-way through the battle seemed to surrender to the idea for the better of the group. She tossed her things away and allowed the Entombed to drag her into ice.

Finduilas and Izaki fought hard to eventually crack and melt the ice, then retrieve Sera. The bear-men fled with their tails between their legs, and the Entombed, most annoyed with the group (this being the third time he'd faced them) damned them all to hell and left the job of their deaths to an unmet woman named Kurtlmach.

Izaki brought Sera to steps, the rest joining him. Finduilas quickly stripped and used her own body heat to get Sera warm again.

It wasn't long before the shadows deepened, lights went out, and the Lady of Black Ice herself materialized before the group. Savvy diplomacy on the part of Matthias prevented total annihilation, and gleaned a few choice pieces of information.

The Lady has no objections to the group destroying the link that connected Shalraza to the ice plane. In fact, she wanted it destroyed. In a glum gesture, she revealed that she herself was the link. A suicidal planar queen explained the only way to kill her was to enter the Forges of the Fire Plane and retrieving the Brand, an item able to impart the heat of a world core into the Lady and end her. In the blackness, she opened a portal, and the group followed a rush of heat into the unknown with but their wits and a protection from fire spell the Lady cast with an unknown duration.

Experience: 2500

Archdruid Session 42

When Ixitila's head finally died, Serren's pet Fluffy devoured the head with promise of regurgitating it later or selling it in Torment. Sirocco spilled out of gray limbo covered in paint and the group was again fully reunited. Radiance thanked everyone and the mural shifted into a depiction of victorious angelic hosts pouring out of On High and chaining the Seven and their armies. The group was finally able to rest in peace for eight hours straight, removing fatigue and regaining spells.

During this time, Sirocco also gathered what treasure he could find, mostly stolen art pieces from the various houses, no doubt to be used for expensive diabolic summoning rituals. It's curious what materials were needed to summon Ixitila.

Rend led the way down the cramped halls and to the exit, where the group was met by the pleased King Dante and the even more pleased house master Husifar. Sirocco dumped the stolen goods out and Husifar summoned a giant red ant colony to shuttle the materials to their proper sections of the ziggurat. Husifar then presented the party with some specially concocted parting gifts, new mounts!

Rend recieved a fiendish rhinoceros figurine of wondrous power, a beast he ended up naming Havok.

Sirocco received a wind wolf figurine of wondrous power, which he named Enilatipac.

Sev's Fox and zebra mounts were merged into a swift and agile zebrox.

Serren's old mount was eaten during some combining complications, so they gave him a maladjusted nightmare named Tempest.

The animals and their riders had a rather scary encounter with farts, shit and impromptu baths, but it seemed to illustrate just how perfectly each mount fit the owner.

Dante offered to take the group to the waypoint and send them north, but supplies and new equipment were needed, especially with the coffers of House Al'Zareef at their disposal. Each went about their merry way shopping and trading for things that suited them.

Meantime, Serren and Husifar discovered a terrible truth, that the five rings taken from the efreeti were none other than the Clutch of the Mandarin, a set of five that drove the wearer mad and funneled the essence of the demon lord Mengorot into the host. Apparently the group wasn't facing an efreeti back there, but Mengorot, using the dark djinni as a puppet to toy with them. Serren speculated fiercely on ways in which to entomb the demon lord using the five rings.

With the group fully stocked and loaded, they are poised to reenter the Northland and face the terrors of Shalraza and her armies.

Archdruid Session 41

Riding the giant pegasus provided by the angel Radiance, the group sailed the painted skys and entered a paint storm, with feather-stroked clouds, liquid wind like a river current, and sheets of colorful rain. It wasn't long before the three were soaked, and then the "Whooing" began, echoing shrieks of owls and men crossed. Rend spotted them out the corner of his eye and cried a warning before four of the rainbow-colored owl mutants, which I call Pollocks, attacked. The battle was fierce and chaotic, Rend fighting on a wing and causing the mighty pegasus to spiral groundward. Serren fighting in the air against two himself. Sev morphing into a bat-like creature and tearing eyes out on the pegasus's opposite flank. Pollocks fought with razor claws that managed to sink and tear Serren off the horse, but worse was their liquefying gaze, which thankfully was resisted lest Rend or Serren might have suffered a Flesh to Paint spell. Through magic, claw and steel the trio dispatched the Pollocks just 250 feet off the ground (having plummeted 750), where the massive mount righted itself and they continued, paint-drenched and weary, through the storm sheets, the neon lightning, and the roiling, rumbling thunderheads toward Ixitila's mountain.

In time the passed into the eye of the storm, revealing a soft-brushed blue sky with white clouds. The summit of the mountain was also laid bare, a barren peak but for a circle of seven cairns at its upper most region. The pegasus landed, exhausted from stormriding and the fight. Sev and Serren examined the circle, which held a static charge. Alien runes covered each of the twenty-foot pillars and the mage discovered what each name read, though kept it to himself. After evoking Radiance for guidance, Ixitila's thunderous voice answered. In a massive bolt, he fried the pegasus into vapor. Then lightning began to hit the circle's center as the group and the demon prince traded words.

When the demon has healed enough of his wounds, he manifested on his new home plane in all his heinous glory:

Standing in the white space of the cairn circle stands a hideous behemoth that strikes fear into every fiber of your being. You lose control of your bowels in the face of the thirty foot demon prince, looking like a cross between a bloated bearded dragon and a giant rottweiler. Albino scales mix with matted, black fur across a twisted frame of bulging muscles.

His face is impossible to look directly at, no matter what your will power, akin to looking at the sun and surely capable of burning away your sight. From what you can gather from side-glances its a ruined mess of teeth and flesh designed to be as offensive as possible by abyssal architects beyond mortal comprehension. You are able to look at his jagged three horns like lightning bolts of bone, though, and his four paws of mangled nails and scales wrapped in razor wires.

He exhales, a cloud of lethal, red fumes, and speaks again, his very words paining you. "NOW DIE."

A long and arduous fight ensued, the demon prince barely getting scratched, but in turn hardly doing much to the group. This violent stalemate saw Sev and Ixitila locked in struggle, while the mentally controlled Rend kept Serren occupied. On they fought and avoided or healed each other's attacks, until Serren summoned another water ball which created a rapids sending Rend, Ixitila and Sev down the mountain. Along the way Rend escaped, but was hit with a vertigo spell and sent careening, while Sev created a bubble that shielded him enough to stop the tumble. Ixitila, having at least sent his own electrical current through Serren's for a maximized effect, continued on his way toward the mage, who was thankfully protected throughout the encounter from electricity (and shared such a boon on the rest of his party, lest things would have seemed much more dire). When Serren struck Ixitila with a vertigo spell, the entire plane began to spin violently and all ranged combat and even movement was halted. Ixitila receded back into the fabric of the plane itself, for here he was a god in many matters.

While the plane spun, Radiance managed to show the group the way out to the East. The group followed east once the spinning stopped, discussing aloud the potential for Ixitila to become an ally and overtake the other demon lords once all was said and done in the outside world. Things mostly fell to deaf ears, and Rend and Serren got in an argument. Near the edge of the plane, Ixitila did speak up, possibly considering a deal, but Serren's clumsy attempt at diplomacy led to a statement that ended negotiations.

He and Rend exited the plane, but before Sev could the demon attempted to make a deal with the archdruid. The goblin agreed and exited the plane. Rend was sleeping by that time, exhausted, and even Serren was quietly meditating for his alloted two hours. Sev had a seat and began a mock ritual, feigning to be able to destroy the mural. All the while he watched as Ixitila crept along Serren's blind spot in order to get a surprise attack. Once at the cusp of the plane, Sev raised his knife to Rend's throat and gave the signal. Ixitila leaped out of the mural and took a bite out of Serren, though luckily the mage had enough spells left to shield most of it. Sev took the opportunity while Ixitila was half in and half out of two worlds to thrust his hands into the painted plane and cast a sleet storm, and act that melted the painted portion of Ixitila's body and severed his real-world head. The ten by ten demon maw fell to the floor and began snapping and thrashing in a violent death throw, trying to take something with it before it died.

Ronin Session 40

The imp took the group further down the Vrauktom's shore, a frozen little strip of beach leading to his Lady. Butting on the right was the endless mercury seas stretching the gap between the planes of air and water, and beyond that a cosmic vista of angry stars, lancing dust trails, and gathering storms so massive they dwarfed planets. To the left, the sheer ice cliffs that comprised most the isle, alien shapes reminiscent of long-forgotten terrors, primal fears mortal races spent millenniums repressing. In the gray haze of the distant shore, the group could ever more clearly make up an ice mountain in the shape of a winged woman, what they began to refer to as Angel Mountain, assumed the Lady's abode.

Along the way, the frozen shore grew deeper and deeper with snow, first to the shin, then the waist, and by the highest sprawls chest-deep. Also along the way, the group passed by albino savages known as the frostfolk, a proud, aggressive culture that, if they smelt but a moment of weakness, attacked with unrelenting ferocity. The first camp the group passed, it only numbered four, and they managed to walk by without incident. A little further on, they passed a camp of twenty, which tested them with howls and clanged weapons. Again the group managed to keep their reserve, though some just barely. However, when the snowy mists revealed twenty campfires and about two hundred frostfolk camping the shoreline, the group wisely opted to go around them.

Izaki opened his magic origami boat, placing it in the water and watching as it grew into a 4 person dingy. The group entered, Izaki using weretiger oomph to launch them all over the waves and into open water. As they passed the shores where the frostfolk camped, all were startled as massive whale-like creatures with serrated fins and toothy beaks exploded from the sea, things the imp called malasyneps. They disturbed the water, rocked the boat, and splashed the stinging mercury onto the group's exposed skin. Worse, the creatures were jumping and landing closer and closer.

The frostfolk immediately dragged out kayaks and canoes loaded with spears and nets and cast off. Two of the malasyneps seemed to sense the danger and swam off, but one leaped so close to the group's dingy that it nearly capsized (but for Sera's skill with boats). Finduilas was flung from the boat, but managed to catch the violent planar winds toward the shore, where she just managed to crash land, lest she be smacked against the sheer cliff wall.

The malasynep bull leaped out of the water once more, this time aiming to land right on top of the dingy. In a desperate counter, Sera launched her magic box and said the power word. The box transformed into a large boat within the creature's mouth just as it was biting down. Shards and splinters of wood pierced the monster's soft palate and skewered its brain. It fell limp, just missing the boat thanks to Sera and Izaki's mighty pull. The made it to shore, even as the hundreds of frostfolk passed them by in their own, intent on salvaging the kill.

Once ashore, everyone began washing in the snow, trying to get the burning mercury off their skin. The imp revealed his name was Karb and continued to lead the way. Not too long after, the group reached two twenty-foot cairns, frozen over and rune-riddled. Karb passed through them, remarking this was the beginning of the Lady's estate. When the group walked through, the runes glimmered momentarily and went dead. Wasn't long after a mighty hulk burst from the waist-deep snows, a blue cadaver entombed in a suit of ice. He and Karb traded words, as they were familiar. The imp tried to convince the undead gatekeeper to let them pass, but things got ugly and the group had a fight on their hands.

The managed to wound the entombed enough for him to retreat back into the snows. From there, Karb led the group another hour to the base of some stairs. Hundreds of feet up was the narrow, black ice doors leading into the Angel Mountain. Everyone but Sera had some means of flight, thus she hitched a ride on Izaki. When they reached near the top, they found the entombed waiting for them, and three icy hags by his side. The filth-caked crones launched into the air and attacked the group, one pulling Sera from Izaki's arms and letting her drop to her impending doom. Finduilas summoned a celestial griffon, which managed to catch Sera, but then began to ice over from the extreme conditions of the plane that it was not properly protected from. Another hag summoned a funnel of boreal wind to slow the griffon, and it seemed Sera and her savior would fall. She made a leap for the stairs, but tripped, and went plummeting to her doom. It was a VERY close call before Finduilas could reach Sera, both only several dozen feet from the ground. The cleric managed to cast an air walking spell on the pirate, then pull up, though she still crash landed hard.

The boys took care of the rest of the hags above, but Izaki was knocked unconscious in the process and began to plummet to his death. Before Matthias could decapitate the last hag, the wicked woman summoned a wall of ice in mid air, which fell hurtling toward Sera, Izaki and Finduilas. Sera just barely caught Izaki as he whizzed by her, then dodged the ice wall. Finduilas cleared away from the wall as it shattered across the ground, but the shards caught her in the wings and body.

The four regrouped on the small platform before the black ice doors leading into Angel Mountain, on snows chest-deep. The entombed had long since retreated into the ice doors, as if he were some sort of ghost, and things were silent but for the howling winds against the sea-side slopes. Waiting for Izaki to come to, the group regained their composure and healed up, knowing inside would probably be twice as hard as the journey to.

New Schedules and Things

Archdruid Group:
Makeup Session Sunday 2/17 at 7pm EST
New Session Time: Mondays at 8:30pm EST

Ronin Group:
Makeup Session Saturday 2/16 at 6pm EST
Session Time remains Fridays at 7:30pm EST

This is so that I can entirely focus on one group at a time.

Archdruid Session 40

The battle versus Ixitila continued, the demon prince taking some serious punishment, but managing to black-out Rend and flee into the mural. The group watched his salamander form disappear further and further into the landscape.

Closer inspection revealed the circular painting depicted the first outsider bindings, that is the binding and imprisonment of the Seven Demonlords. There was also a painting of a young girl hugging pure light, with seven beams lancing out and chaining each of the Seven like collars.

Serren's further inspection and probing activated something rather extraordinary. An angel descended from the ceiling, revealing that she had been bound to the mural to aid those worthy enough to search for the Hoping. And what was the Hoping? A powerful artifact that could open a gate between the material world and On High, spilling an irresistible army of angels and good cosmic beings.

The angel didn't have the Hoping, but she knew the location, inside an angelic girl named Ilpa. Ilpa was currently trapped in the roots of Veluvia, under the notion that the Northland had already fallen and the world doomed. The angel, whose name was Radiance, charged the group with saving Ilpa and retrieving the Hoping. Its power could turn the tide of the Northland war and quell the Seven before they reached full strength. However, she warned the fallen city was overrun with monstrous spiders and a small but formidable demon contingent, led by one of Shalraza's star generals.

Before the group entered the mural to finish Ixitila once and for all, Radiance granted each of them a small boon. Then they were off into the painting, which turned out to be a liquid plane, where spells and actions reacted differently than might have been expected. After encountering camouflaged monsters known as Smears, the group hopped onto a giant winged horse (provided by the angel) and pursued Ixitila to the Sole Mountain.

Meanwhile, Sirocco had gotten himself in a bit of a bind, passing through a drawn door and falling through a series of colored limbos with no exit in sight.

Experience: 2200

Ixitila Map

Archdruid Makeup Session

Monday at 7:30pm EST!

Ronin group, I am working on your makeup date as well.

I am still alive!

Sorry for the lack of communication and sudden canceling last night. But I am still here and committed to DMing the next session (likewise DM24601 is for the Ronin Group).

Make up sessions are in the works. I just need to confer with DM24601 on the best days for him.