GM: Brian Engard
Players: Rhea Friesen, Sam Simons, Andreas Stein, and Sean Nittner
System: Dungeons & Dragons 5E
Setting: Ebberon
Tis the season for sickness. It the flu isn’t hitting one of us, it’s getting the other. Brian was well for this game but Morgan was fighging off some con crud from OrcCon, and couldn’t make it.
Everything is Awesome
In preparation for the Awesome Points mechanic [1] Brian had us all jump up to level 4. Oooh baby, feats or ability score increases! I opted for Keen Senses for Dermis, as I liked the idea of their internal bio-metrics being able to tell us things like the exact time, recalling information, and knowing direction. Also, it comes with an Intelligence bump. Woot!
We started the game and spent a bit of time with everyone getting hit points, new abilities, and more spells. Fun times!
Hot Boxing
Prepared to stow away in the crate of Warforged, after some deliberation we all piled into the crate, had Keer and Vathra board us back up and then waited. And waited. And waited.
While we Dermis had some more time to inspect the warforged and noticed they had no makers mark but that they were all identical so they must have been made in a creation forge, though not necessarily by someone from House Cannith.
Fieri got really bored and lit up a pipe. Smoking out everyone who breathed inside the box and getting most of them a little high!
Störm spoke some of her captivity frozen in stone. Dermis asked her to tell them about it, and it sounded very sad. 200 years of waiting to be released, only semi conscious of the passage of time.
Pretty inebriated by now Fieri just started saying the word “crate” over and over again. Fascinated by the sound.
TEN HOURS LATER… we heard the voice of a woman saying “Inspect the crates. Make sure they haven’t been tampered with.” We tried to stay very quiet but Fieri started laughing. Dermis asked politely if they could cast a sleep spell on Fieri but the gig was up. In a panic Dermis cast the spell, which knocked her out as well as a few guards just outside the crate. Oh crap, we blew it.
They started tearing the crate apart but before they did Dermis cast invisibility on Raj.
When it was opened, the guards were standing their with crossbows trained on us. Thorgul was standing over Fieri protecting her. Dermis was hiding among the other warforged that had gotten knocked over. The dragonborn were in plain sight.
The woman leading the guards looked to be of unnatural beauty. While they just wanted for us to stand down, she seemed intent on killing us, or possibly, capturing, torturing, and then killing us. Störm attempted negotiations, which failed to improve her mood, but did give Raj time to slip behind her with a dagger to her throat (we’ve seen this before).
Fighting the Inspired
The beautiful woman looked derisively down at the dagger touching her throat and said without flinching “You know the standard protocol”. As Raj went to cut her throat all of the guards turned their crossbows and fired on him! Some of them hitting her but not caring!
A fight broke out. Störm dove in with her sword, Agron fired her bow, Raj fought dirty with his dagger, and Dermis used offensive magic! I like to think in retrospect it was because they subconsciously realized they were fighting an Inspired, who’s very existence is an abomination in Dermis’ eyes.
Some of the guards died, but Agron was able to bandage up some of them, and from those who lived we gathered information.
- The woman’s name was Ambassador Jorah of Riedra, she was an inspired, revered by the people of Riedra.
- She hired the guards to take the crates to Lathleer.
- The Inspired have mortal vessels “grown” and prepared for inhabitation.
Loot taken from the fight
- Potion of Healing
- Silk gloves (25gp)
- A fine rapier (25gp)
- Cap made of rabbit fur (25gp)
- Cloak trimmed in rabbit fur (25gp)
How to chase down the goods
Raj is going to impersonate Jorah, the living guard are going have been hired to accompany us, and WE’RE going to deliver the package.
We joined a merchant caravan led by the goblin Kasbus, his good friend and life coach Asara (and acolyte of the silver flame). The crew consists of humans, elves, a tiefling, bugbears, and an orc.
Along with us is also Orbin, the merchant we met on the airship.
Thoughts on this Game
[1] Awesome Points Rule. I’m pretty excited to see how this plays out.
At the start of a session, there are a bunch of Awesome Points in a bowl in the center of the table. This number is 2x the number of players, so it’d be 10 in our game. Any time someone does something awesome, anyone in the game can reach into the bowl and hand that person an Awesome Point. There’s no limit to how many you can have, or to how many people can hand you one at once, and you can earn Awesome points from an action in which you spent Awesome Points.
But, when the bowl runs dry, it’s dry.
I start with a stack of Awesome Points, which I can spend to pull bullshit on you guys. Basically, I do something nasty to you, I throw some Points in the bowl. When you spend Points, they go to my stack. Circle of life.
You spend Awesome Points to do Awesome Things. We can have some fun with this at the table, but a baseline would be:
- 1 Awesome Point to get advantage on a roll.
- 2 Awesome Points to have some convenient coincidence provide you with something cool to do.
- 3 Awesome Points to use an ability you’ve already burned up for the day/short rest/whatever.
- 4 Awesome Points to make up an NPC or a plot detail on the spot.
Here’s the really, really awesome thing about Awesome Points: once everyone in the party has spent 12 Awesome Points apiece, everyone levels. Boom.
I’m not sure if Brian picked the Inspired as an enemy with a warforged in mind, but I gotta say, the idea of an artificial (yet sentient) construct who reveres organic lifeform seeing a astral incorporeal creature that wears people like meat suits, is pretty damn awesome. Like, there aren’t a lot of things that are abhorrent to Dermis but THIS is one of them!
I wonder what Orbin is up to. Somehow I don’t think it’s coincidence that he keeps on ending up traveling with us. Should be fun to find out.
Quote of the night: “The inspired vessels are engineered to have a fierce beauty, like a fucking tiger!”
