GathUh (Alan), RaOn (Joe), AtGox (Paul), TiTep (Jim), and BraNath (Darren)
First order of business: Rules decisions. Mark proposes two rules changes to RQ.
1) Instead of checkmarking everything you use and having people constantly switching to weaker skills to get a check, he proposes a "5 checkmarks per game" rule where it's presumed you are working on 5 things the whole time and you pick what. At first we opted for the old (best) way, then there was a gradual shift by Joe and then Paul to the Dark side, so we're using the new rule rather than doing things the time-honored way.
2) Something about FREE INT. No, Mark isn't giving away INT. "Free INT" has to do with sorcery spells and how much you can know, which is why I didn't pay ANY attention to it, playing a spirit magic practitioner. I think in the end the new rule was adopted. Ask someone besides me about it if you really need to know, for I am just a simple caveman rules lawyer. Your new fangled changes confuse and frighten me.
The focus of the game so far is that we have been asked to help expand the boundaries of our city. We are to clear the surrounding area of dangers for a ways and then to guard the work crew as they do their thing.
Our first encounter: some sort of panther, who runs off. We see him a few other times but he never attacks.
Second encounter: Outcasts live in their own tiny little bit of collapsed ruins. GoxTon orders them to vacate the area, then softens it to "vacate the area by tomorrow".
Third encounter: armored rats called Rubble Runners, who rush us and target the humans specifically, ignoring the charnoc. There's a fight and I believe no humans end up injured, and the charnoc are dinged up, but one goes down.
Next day we go force those people out. They try to argue logic with us about being free, but we'll have none of that, cuz the highway is coming through! Eminent Domain! They relent and leave, with a small gift of GathUh's lunch.
Fourth Encounter: While scouring the area we are beset by enormous frogs. They take turns lashing out with their tongues, grabbing our charnoc (Zombies and Skeletons) and pulling them up to be devoured. They actually do a pretty good amount of damage to the charnoc, but are finally nuked by the outrageously strong blows of the guardian TiTep.
Fifth Encounter: That panther is back, but this time he appears to be possessed and ridden by a tiny being. This "night rider" proceeds to spy a newer, stronger target to ride-- TiTep! A fight ensues and it gets its arm cut off before it gets squashed by a maul. The cat I believe was taken down with arrows or spells... maybe both. I think a spell finished it? Anyway, it's down.
Sixth Encounter: A cellar is found! We are instructed to investigate it, as part of our charter. We go down there and are beset by a horrible, horrible slime chaos creature of some sort. It dissolves Charnoc as fast as it can. We end up retreating but it follows us. Problem is we move the same speed over the rubble, so it becomes a matter of strategy... it could choose between following us, the sounds of the nearby work crew, or head to the city walls in the distance. It follows us, which is both good and bad.
See, this thing dissolves all weapons that touch it, which leaves us with just spells. [joe's character]'s lightning spells don't seem to hurt it much if at all. BraNath's disruption spell does a weak 1-3 points per attack, if he casts successfully and overcomes its magic points. Fortunately he does just that more often than not during this fight. We are on a high ledge with the ooze being held off by sacrificial charnoc when [joe's character] successfully hits it with a formset fire sending fire from his torch onto it and snuffing out its last few hit points.
We search below and find a lump of gold. Divided up between us (5 ways), the Guildsmen will lose half of their share and the Scholars will lose all but 10%. But hey... treasure.
Pressing our luck we decide to look below by following a fairly smoothly dug tunnel. We send down TiTep, who finds there's some kind of horrible creature (a pic of which Mark sent out yesterday); it's some sort of demonic thing that appears to be a large mouth with six taloned limbs radiating out from it. It tries to follow him back up by not using the tunnel but burrowing up underneath us. Surprisingly, it got taken out fairly quickly due to cutting off its limbs. I believe it lost 3 successively and then it was done.
For our trouble we gained a bronze shield and sword which were left down in the tunnel.
GathUh (Alan), RaOn (Joe), AtGox (Paul), TiTep (Jim), and BraNath (Darren) are joined by LeBon (Robert).
There's some discussion of division of stuff/money from last game, some experience checkmarking, and we're good to go once Robert finishes enough of his character.
Our new mission: There is concern that our walls might not be enough given the barbarias, the Knor, who are slowly taking over the entire continent, and so we are charged with trying to invade the city. We are to go outside, pretend to be Knor, and invade. These are "touch football" rules though, no killing. We really just need to get someone inside.
There's lots of plan-making and camp-setting up, and during this time it is discovered that nearby there is a tunnel that goes underground. Since some of us are not present (They're off digging holes to tunnel under the wall), the boss, AtGox, wisely has us not go in. We just make a note of the place for later.
A familiar is spotted, but the decision is made that we will remain where we are. During the night, the familiar returns and a city wiz uses it to cast spells at us by remote. We end up breaking camp and making a beeline for the tunnel we found earlier. Once inside we discover it is relatively safe... at least until we are ALL down there.
I forgot to mention the Scribe. It seems that we have been charged with bringing a scribe with us (an NPC) to detail everything that happens. What, they don't trust our reports? Whatever.
The scribe is relevant because he manages to kick a skull that was on the ground and a couple rounds of spirit combat later, he is possessed. His possessor is a man who claims to have been wronged. He was an artist and craftsman in life, but his great works were claimed by another. He cannot rest until we defile the tomb of the man who wronged him. He will then release the scribe. We further bargain that if the spirit knows anything about a way of getting under the walls and into the city nearby he will tell us.
The spirit guides us to the tomb of the unknown plagiarist. Two of our Charnath lead the way and that's good because they take LOTS of damage from some sort of warding at the entrance. What's left of them is still moving enough that it activates a handful of zombies (5) that are the guardians of the tomb. What happens next is some tremendously clever combining of magic and skill: We can only get in there if we destroy the wards, and when we do enter we'll be attacked, so RaOn and AtGox combine their talents... AtGox animates the wood of a torch so that it can move into the area, and RaOn commands the fire to leap onto the wards, burning them down, and then to burn the zombies.
Not much happening up here on the top level, so we follow the stairs down. Next level has no warding, but the room is no less dangerous. We are attacked by two ghosts (One casting Befuddle and one casting damage spells) and a scary floaty head which screams and tries to bite us.
We don't seem to be able to find a way to beat the ghosts and much of the damage we do is bouncing off of the defenses of the creature. It goes down via a lucky impale by BraNath. When the head drops so too do the ghosts, who just fade away.
When we're done trashing the tomb we head back up and the scribe is there and no longer possessed. The ghost did not run off without leaving us something though: It scrawled in the scribe's papers a crude map of a tunnel that may be used to get under the walls. But that's academic, because one of the things we found below was a piece of society-changing magic which allows Sorcerers to heal! Not as well as spirit types, but still, a nice move forward, so returning that to the city becomes more important than carrying out the mission.
It turns out no one else completed their mission successfully and ours is scrubbed rather than restarted. We do our journal write-ups and TiTep and BraNath succeed, and thus collect some fame (infamy).
After the dinner break (and leveling up our chekmarks and training for six weeks) we are sent to clean up an Outcast shanty town, District 9 style, because it may be diseased. Funny thing happened on the way there: 5 Knor show up! They scream, point at us, and then charge. Their leader enchants his sword and then all five spell themselves into a frenzy! Charnath are put in their path to help slow them down but they still manage to do some serious damage to our enforcer, TiTep. GathUh pulls him back out of the fight and interposes himself into the fray to give BraNath a moment to heal TiTep back to standing. BraNath also uses his newly learned "Dispel Magic" to take out the lead Barbarian's shiny sword spell. Something that someone did (I think it's one of you spell casters) caused their leader to fight at a decreased attack percentage, so a lot of his hits became misses!
When they were all down, we roped up the leader and took him in. The city took him in for questioning.
RaOn (Joe), TiTep (Jim), GathUh (Alan), AtGox (Paul), BraNath (Darren). LeBon opted not to participate.
Apparently we are "outside the box" thinkers and therefore we are given a helpful tool: A skull with the spirit of an ancestor bound to it which we can consult for information.
But we have to finish up what we were sent to do last game before barbarians so rudely interrupted: Check for disease in the small villages outside the city walls.
This took on an interesting dynamic. At first, our leader (AtGox) was not present so we began our investigation with the #2, GathUh leading the way. While it was by no means a perfect success, things were mostly favorable. When AtGox shows up and takes over, two things happen: The tone of the investigation changes to be more forceful, and TiTep turns evil. Yep, for some reason Jim's frustration exposes itself with him wanting to pretty much burn every building down to stave off any disease issues.
Here's the quick hits as to what happens during investigation:
We go back to the city to get fixed up because we're very diseased. Those who had blacktongue are cured but now have gray-tongue.
Our Outside-the-box-ness gets us sent on another mission. This one involves performing an exchange: A sealed box of trade goods in exchange for a special red crystal that is held by one of the Outcasts who is a big deal. They won't tell us what's we're trading or what the crystal does.
We get there and find out that this guy (who resembles a jawa) does not want to give up the crystal for the agreed price because there are other outcasts who have decided it belongs to them and they have threatened him. He sets conditions: If we protect his little castle until morning against the invaders, who are said to be monkey-men, and keep them from getting to him in his hidey-hole. We begrudgingly agree (with some compensation agreement based on damage sustained to the building and his stuff.
So, Monkeymen. They find two points of entry (Coming through a roof and the front door). But they have help: A centaur coming in the back door. And you haven't lived until someone half-horse comes in through your back door. He is accompanied by a lizard man.
The Charnoth are invaluable in the conflict, stemming the tide of monkeys (Mine did way more damage than I did). BraNath has to keep casting Dispel to get rid of the demoralize spell that the female lead monkey keeps casting. AtGox and TiTep are sustaining the serious damage, though I'm pretty sure everyone is dinged up in some regard. We destroy all invaders except for the Lizard Man, who flees out the back door at the suggestion that he's alone and should consider running.
This is where i had to leave, already 15 minutes late, so I didn't hear any post-fight.