The new gods returned from their meeting with death, tired and sore and ready for rest. Esmerelda retired to her lair to study the Wish spell, and Elda Gem took the Milkstar, the artefact milk jug created by Amun Khara, and began cooking wondrous meals.
Namjoon was training and sparring whilst Yugom drank, and Sol and Leorah were standing watch on the divine plane. Meena was winding down in her room when the angel attacked her. A great golden skinned figure of terrible beauty, the angel apologised through tears as he struck her with his sword. Meena fled and raised the alarm as the attack starrted in earnest.
Hundreds of angels were winking into existance around the temple of the well. Sol and Leorah, aided by Ubitysa, defended the well from an endless onslaught. As the rest of the new gods rushed to help them, Leorah called out and told them they had to go and kill the king of the gods now, as the angels would never stop coming as long as he was alive.
The new gods, minus Leorah and Sol, began to climb and fly up the goat-path that lead to the King of the Gods home at the summit of Cloudpiercer Mountain. Above them the stars were blinking out, one by one.
As the night turned into day, the gods saw the landscape below blanketed by the deadly silver mist, and the sky was overcast with dark grey clouds. The new gods saw what they first thought were meteors, falling from the sky, but on closer inspection, they realised they were dragons, falling through the clouds, with trailing lines of mist that they clawed and flamed at madly as they fell to the ground below.
The King of the Gods awaited them at the end of a trail, on the other end of a broken bridge, in an ancient temple of the same style as the well of souls. He was flanked by his bodyguard of angels.
They spoke briefly, and the king admitted his hubris created the fog, and offered them a chance to join him, and they would keep the people of Sorefoot Sanctuary safe as they waited for the fog to pass. He also told them they knew nothing about being gods.
The new gods were unimpressed with his plan to be vassals to a king in a dead land, and told him that it was time for the old world to die and a new world to be made in its place.
The king acknowledged their call to battle, and reached up and plucked the sun out of the sky, placing it in his lantern.
The battle was long and arduous, with the king being a masterful sorceror and warrior, and the lantern producing scalding radiance which took a heavy toll on the new gods. Eventually Yugom wrenched the lantern from the king, and placed the sun back in the sky, burning himself terribly.
Elda Gem used her potent healing magics to keep the gods alive, even bringing them back from the dead on several occasions.
Esmerelda released the imprisoned apocalypse beast, and Amun Khara leapt upon its back and wrestled it to attack their enemies.
Namjoon and Meena dealt death wherever they went. Meena's bow sang and Namjoon's flaming spear struck over and over again.
The King's bodyguard were slain, and the apocalypse beast fell into the fog below.
Eventually the new gods prevailed and struck down Orolt, the king of the gods. He instantly dissolved, leaving only his crown behind.
Looking around, the new gods realised the mist had enclosed the entire world. The site of their battle was a tiny bubble in an eternal sea of oppressive grey fog.
The crown lay between them, and when Amun Khara picked it up, it spoke of how he could slay his friends and become the new king. It was quickly dismissed, as the new gods had been friends for decades.
When the crown's manipulations were stripped away, it repeated two words endlessly: Belief, Sacrifice, Belief, Sacrifice, Belief, Sacrifice, over and over again.
The new gods tried to send message spells and scry Leorah and Sol, but received no answer. They were lost to the fog. They discussed what to do next.
They knew the fog was made up of the remnants of souls that the king had taken too much essence from, just fragments of personality, starved of life and identity.
Esmerelda was the first to act, taking her draconic form and flying into the fog, lowering her defenses. She felt the fog draining away her own divine soul - her life essence.
Understanding oblivion and death better than most, Esmerelda decided to turn back. But her actions inspired Namjoon, who took a leap of faith off the side of the mountain into the fog. Namjoon gave almost all of himself to the fog, sacing only a shred for himself. He landed on the ground in front of the injured and maddened apocalypse beast.
The new gods that remained, Meena, Yugom, Elda Gem and Amun Khara, gathered around the crown, and gave themselves entirely to the fog. They heard a million voices call out to them: "Everything was taken from us. And you have sacrificed yourselves to us willingly, and given it back. And now we return it once again to you, willingly, power returned a thousandfold."
So Meena, Yugom, Elda Gem and Amun Khara, were the first to achieve apotheosis. They destroyed the apocalypse beast and Namjoon joined them, then they appeared, with Sol and Leorah, around Esmerelda.
Yugom said:
"Esmerelda... Let go. Come Home""
And she did. And they were the new gods.
Friday, February 14, 2020
Thursday, January 9, 2020
Godsgrave Session 10 Recap
The new gods set out to confront the god of death, who was on the edge of a small village in a mountain valley built around an ancient monastery where nobody would stay dead. The new gods teleported to the edge of the monastery and interviewed a death addict before meeting up with the village elder and discussing issues of the village and the god of death over wasabi tea.
The elder negotiated rescue for those who wished to leave, as the village was entirely surrounded by the mist. The gods began ferrying people through the faerie rings, back to Sorefoot Sanctuary.
In return she told them that the god of death had asked her to pass on that he wished to talk to the new gods.
They travelled to the rice paddies that the god of death was tending, and spoke with him. He confirmed their theories, explaining that the fog was created by the remnants of souls harvested by his new scythe. So much of the soul was taken and given to Orolt, the king of the gods, that all that was left was shreds of memories, accompanied by a strong desire to live, feel, or be whole again. Mortals in the fog died as tiny candles, snuffed by an ocean that desired to feel warmth. Gods survived, but as fractured, mad things.
The God of Death warned them that when he died, his scythe may turn on them, and quickly ceded his mantle to Esmerelda, dissolving into a star of Darkness. Esmerelda instantlty absorbed the star and became The Pyschopomp.
The scythe instantly cracked and fractured, leaving a whole in reality in the form of an enourmous cruel insect. Undead burst from the ground in droves, and the scythe would also reach into the fog, launched spears of the soulmist at the gods.
The gods prevailed, and returned home to plot their war with the king of the gods.
The elder negotiated rescue for those who wished to leave, as the village was entirely surrounded by the mist. The gods began ferrying people through the faerie rings, back to Sorefoot Sanctuary.
In return she told them that the god of death had asked her to pass on that he wished to talk to the new gods.
They travelled to the rice paddies that the god of death was tending, and spoke with him. He confirmed their theories, explaining that the fog was created by the remnants of souls harvested by his new scythe. So much of the soul was taken and given to Orolt, the king of the gods, that all that was left was shreds of memories, accompanied by a strong desire to live, feel, or be whole again. Mortals in the fog died as tiny candles, snuffed by an ocean that desired to feel warmth. Gods survived, but as fractured, mad things.
The God of Death warned them that when he died, his scythe may turn on them, and quickly ceded his mantle to Esmerelda, dissolving into a star of Darkness. Esmerelda instantlty absorbed the star and became The Pyschopomp.
The scythe instantly cracked and fractured, leaving a whole in reality in the form of an enourmous cruel insect. Undead burst from the ground in droves, and the scythe would also reach into the fog, launched spears of the soulmist at the gods.
The gods prevailed, and returned home to plot their war with the king of the gods.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
This Rule Sucks: Legendary Resistances
So my players fought The Tarrasque recently and I felt for my bard's player. He spent the first three quarters of the fight burning through the legendary resistances, then cast Otto's Irresistible Dance, which would have been an excellent strategy, if it didn't count as a charm effect, which the Tarrasque is immune to (I have an issue with immunities also, but we'll look into that later). His last few spells were resisted due to the Tarrasque's "advantage on all saves" effect.
My monk's player never landed a stunning strike, The Tarrasque never got stuck in the wizard's Mud to Rock spell, and so on and so forth.
Saving throws in general are just a reversed version of how attacks work in Dungeons and Dragons.
For regular attacks you have:
The attacker rolls a variable attack roll on d20 + modifiers =/> a static defense number (Armor Class)
For saving throws you have:
The defender rolls a variable saving throw on d20 + modifiers =/> a static attack number (Save DC)
Mathematics-wise, they are exactly the same thing. Some players seem to prefer attack rolls as they get to roll the shiny math rocks, and don't like saving throws as someone else is rolling the dice.
So saving throws are just attacks, expressed slightly differently. Now imagine you're attacking an orc and you roll a critical hit. You start to cheer, only to have the GM go: "Nuh-uh, he dodged".
When I was a kid and would play make believe, there was the one kid, you know the one. You shoot him with your laser, he has a laser proof shield. You shoot him with your machine gun, he has a bullet proof shield. You cast a spell on him, he has a magic proof shield. You hit him with a billion trillion infinity double gun, he has an everything proof shield.
That kid grew up to work at Wizards Of The Coast and he designed legendary resistances.
That's not really fair. Legendary resistances are an attempt to keep the big boss fights feeling interesting, if they didn't exist, players would spam their crowd control spells until something took hold, and then bypass the fight. But I always feel like the kid with the everything-proof shield when I use them, as i'm effectively just going "nuh-uh it doesn't work!" when the player has already succeeded.
The other thing i've always noticed with Legendary Resistances, whenever they're used at the table, the other players always console the player who's spell or ability got legendarily resisted.
"No that's good, he's only got two left now!"
"Good job, we've got to burn through these fast."
The very fact that players need consolation for burning through Legendary Resistances is proof to me that they are unsatisfying. Nobody ever needs to be consoled after rolling a critical hit.
So how do we make this more satisfying for players? Two options sort of stand out to me. One is from the truly excellent blog goblin punch which none of you should go look at because it's far too good and I don't need to be living up to those sorts of standards.
My first idea is to simply keep Legendary Resistances, but make them take a round to come into effect. You put the dragon to sleep. For 1 round. Then it wakes up. Simple, but I could see it completely invalidating Legendary Resistance as keeping a boss out of the fight for a whole round multiple times could make the Legendary Resistances effectively pointless.
The other solution is from goblin punch, and it's pretty simple and elegant. He calls them ablative saves, and it works like so: the boss fails a save, but chooses to resist. He then takes a flat 10 or 20 damage. Goblin Punch is an OSR blog, with much lower hit point totals than fifth edition, so I would simply tweak it to:
Legendary Resistance:
When the creature resists a spell effect, it takes damage equal to the spell's level times 10.
This means that you can still burn through with low level spells, but if a high level spell, gets resisted, it provides the consolation prize of a bit of damage.
My monk's player never landed a stunning strike, The Tarrasque never got stuck in the wizard's Mud to Rock spell, and so on and so forth.
Saving throws in general are just a reversed version of how attacks work in Dungeons and Dragons.
For regular attacks you have:
The attacker rolls a variable attack roll on d20 + modifiers =/> a static defense number (Armor Class)
For saving throws you have:
The defender rolls a variable saving throw on d20 + modifiers =/> a static attack number (Save DC)
Mathematics-wise, they are exactly the same thing. Some players seem to prefer attack rolls as they get to roll the shiny math rocks, and don't like saving throws as someone else is rolling the dice.
So saving throws are just attacks, expressed slightly differently. Now imagine you're attacking an orc and you roll a critical hit. You start to cheer, only to have the GM go: "Nuh-uh, he dodged".
When I was a kid and would play make believe, there was the one kid, you know the one. You shoot him with your laser, he has a laser proof shield. You shoot him with your machine gun, he has a bullet proof shield. You cast a spell on him, he has a magic proof shield. You hit him with a billion trillion infinity double gun, he has an everything proof shield.
That kid grew up to work at Wizards Of The Coast and he designed legendary resistances.
That's not really fair. Legendary resistances are an attempt to keep the big boss fights feeling interesting, if they didn't exist, players would spam their crowd control spells until something took hold, and then bypass the fight. But I always feel like the kid with the everything-proof shield when I use them, as i'm effectively just going "nuh-uh it doesn't work!" when the player has already succeeded.
The other thing i've always noticed with Legendary Resistances, whenever they're used at the table, the other players always console the player who's spell or ability got legendarily resisted.
"No that's good, he's only got two left now!"
"Good job, we've got to burn through these fast."
The very fact that players need consolation for burning through Legendary Resistances is proof to me that they are unsatisfying. Nobody ever needs to be consoled after rolling a critical hit.
So how do we make this more satisfying for players? Two options sort of stand out to me. One is from the truly excellent blog goblin punch which none of you should go look at because it's far too good and I don't need to be living up to those sorts of standards.
My first idea is to simply keep Legendary Resistances, but make them take a round to come into effect. You put the dragon to sleep. For 1 round. Then it wakes up. Simple, but I could see it completely invalidating Legendary Resistance as keeping a boss out of the fight for a whole round multiple times could make the Legendary Resistances effectively pointless.
The other solution is from goblin punch, and it's pretty simple and elegant. He calls them ablative saves, and it works like so: the boss fails a save, but chooses to resist. He then takes a flat 10 or 20 damage. Goblin Punch is an OSR blog, with much lower hit point totals than fifth edition, so I would simply tweak it to:
Legendary Resistance:
When the creature resists a spell effect, it takes damage equal to the spell's level times 10.
This means that you can still burn through with low level spells, but if a high level spell, gets resisted, it provides the consolation prize of a bit of damage.
Godsgrave Session 9 Recap
The new gods were preparing to hunt down and find Bellephon, the god of war, when they were approached by the people of Sorefoot Sanctuary, who were quickly running out of food due to the rapid increase in population from all of the places the new gods had evacuated.
Esmerelda had locked herself away to complete some mysterious arcane ritual and was unreachable by anyone. Leorah, Sol, Elda Gem, and Amun-Khara were all busy defending the well of souls from spiritual assault.
With the mortal population on the brink of starvation, Meena led a magical ritual and taught the smallfolk how to eat dirt and rocks to take some pressure off the food stores. Yugom taught the people to fill their bellies with work, but found that he was just delaying the problem.
Eventually the new gods decided to visit the king of the giants, and barter, trade, or steal milk from his magic cattle. Amun-Khara created an iron flask which could hold a vast amount of milk, and gifted it to the group.
On their way to the Giant King, they stoppped at Namjoon's hometown, as he was anxious to check on his family.
They found the city overrun with fog, and no sign of Namjoon's Kin. Esmerelda scried Namjoon's wife to discover she was leading an evacuation to Sorefoot Sanctuary. This relieved the new gods but also increased the urgent need for food.
Esmerelda appeared to the new gods as a great golden dragon, having completed her true polymorph spell, and flew them to the giant king's castle in the sky. There the new gods gambled with the king, winning an eating contest by eating a sword, losing a poetry contest, and winning a contest of strength through a mixture of strength and cunning by picking a lift were the king would have to bend over, a painful thing as he had swallowed a sword during the eating contest, and were granted access to the magic cows. They filled the iron flask with milk, creating the sacred artifact, The Milkstar.
Elda Gem used the Milkstar to create an enormous feast, and the food shortage crisis was solved, allowing the new gods to turn their focus to the god of war.
Ubitsya had tracked down the god of war, who had rode into the mist to defeat it and apparently vanished. Bellephon had a magic sword, of many wondrous properties, one of which being it could never be disarmed from the wielder. To take the sword, you had to kill the owner. Ubitsya discovered that Bellephon had hidden inside the sword, and given it to a little girl called Lucy.
The new gods tracked down Lucy in the centre of a village full of dead bodies. Lucy told them how her village had been attacked by raiders, and the magic sword had appeared beside her while she was hiding, and she took the sword and killed the raiders.
Lucy then fainted, and the sword unfolded and grew into a strange peacock with a scorpion tail, made entirely of blades.
The new gods fought long and hard, refusing to strike down Lucy, and the cowardly god of war used her as a human shield many times.
They destroyed the blade, killed Bellephon, and Namjoon took on the mantle of the god of war.
Esmerelda had locked herself away to complete some mysterious arcane ritual and was unreachable by anyone. Leorah, Sol, Elda Gem, and Amun-Khara were all busy defending the well of souls from spiritual assault.
With the mortal population on the brink of starvation, Meena led a magical ritual and taught the smallfolk how to eat dirt and rocks to take some pressure off the food stores. Yugom taught the people to fill their bellies with work, but found that he was just delaying the problem.
Eventually the new gods decided to visit the king of the giants, and barter, trade, or steal milk from his magic cattle. Amun-Khara created an iron flask which could hold a vast amount of milk, and gifted it to the group.
On their way to the Giant King, they stoppped at Namjoon's hometown, as he was anxious to check on his family.
They found the city overrun with fog, and no sign of Namjoon's Kin. Esmerelda scried Namjoon's wife to discover she was leading an evacuation to Sorefoot Sanctuary. This relieved the new gods but also increased the urgent need for food.
Esmerelda appeared to the new gods as a great golden dragon, having completed her true polymorph spell, and flew them to the giant king's castle in the sky. There the new gods gambled with the king, winning an eating contest by eating a sword, losing a poetry contest, and winning a contest of strength through a mixture of strength and cunning by picking a lift were the king would have to bend over, a painful thing as he had swallowed a sword during the eating contest, and were granted access to the magic cows. They filled the iron flask with milk, creating the sacred artifact, The Milkstar.
Elda Gem used the Milkstar to create an enormous feast, and the food shortage crisis was solved, allowing the new gods to turn their focus to the god of war.
Ubitsya had tracked down the god of war, who had rode into the mist to defeat it and apparently vanished. Bellephon had a magic sword, of many wondrous properties, one of which being it could never be disarmed from the wielder. To take the sword, you had to kill the owner. Ubitsya discovered that Bellephon had hidden inside the sword, and given it to a little girl called Lucy.
The new gods tracked down Lucy in the centre of a village full of dead bodies. Lucy told them how her village had been attacked by raiders, and the magic sword had appeared beside her while she was hiding, and she took the sword and killed the raiders.
Lucy then fainted, and the sword unfolded and grew into a strange peacock with a scorpion tail, made entirely of blades.
The new gods fought long and hard, refusing to strike down Lucy, and the cowardly god of war used her as a human shield many times.
They destroyed the blade, killed Bellephon, and Namjoon took on the mantle of the god of war.
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