LIVING IN NOD designs

posted by Thadrine @ December 6, 2007   Forum Link

posted by Thadrine @ February 5, 2007   Forum Link

posted by Thadrine @ December 7, 2007   Forum Link

Session 10 January 25, 2007

• With the Dragon Orb in hand, the group was given the task of eventually delivering the Orb to the Crimson Codex to complete the agreement between them and the Triumvirate.  Ateros, being a specialist on dragons, knew that the Dragon Orb’s original purpose was an information storage device and power source for ancient dragon starships.  The memory core was heavily damaged, but he was able to pull bits and pieces of video out that gave an incomplete picture of the past.
• Dragons were the first species to explore the stars, being long lived enough to survive slower-than-light transit times.
• Dragons broke down along two philosophical lines, order and chaos.  The orderly groups believed the lesser races should be molded and shaped through direct means.
• One way the orderly groups did this was by forming conquering armadas in an attempt to take over or eradicate opposing views.
• One such armada was centered on an oppressive religion and led by a near divine creature names Arius.
• The group decided that while delivering the Orb was important for Kain’s new positions, finding a means of ridding the universe of the God’s Plague should take a higher priority.  Thus, the group started making its way to Cathon, where the location of Esperion is rumored to rest.  After several weeks of traveling they heard news of the destruction of Fastoon, whose population had been mostly killed off in a matter of days.  Thinking this might have something to do with the Duke or the God Plague, the group made the short jump there.
• The devastation was as bad as had been reported.  The Odin government hadn’t had time to set up a perimeter to prevent looting or organize aid so the group had no problem making it to the surface.
• After some searching they managed to find survivors, who described an armada appearing and demanding submission to a religion called Origins to worship the Ori.  It was led by someone very similar to the divine creature Ateros had seen in the records of the Dragon Orb.
• At this point Ateros managed to find a message for the group waiting in the remains of the planetary network.  The Duke claimed to have made a temporary truce with Odin so he could get the God Plague and find a way to destroy it.  If the group didn’t hand them over it would be responsible for the renewed hostilities.
• Despite how authentic the message appeared on the surface, careful analysis of all parts of the message led the group to the conclusion it was a lie perpetrated by the Duke to trick the group into handing over the warheads.
• The message also provided an access point to one of the Duke’s comm. channels.  Searching it revealed correspondence between the Duke and some arms dealers trying to sell him more God Plague warheads.
• The group headed to the planet Meridia and its capital city Obad-Hai, near where the Duke wanted to meet the group and the location of the transmissions from the arms dealers.
• Searching the computer networks revealed the presence of the dealers, who kept their identities closely guarded.
• The group sent messages to both the Duke and the dealers, changing the time and place of the deal for each side.  This would hopefully send the Duke on a wild chase while we bushwacked the dealers and grabbed their warheads.
• They arranged a meet with the dealers out in an asteroid belt away from watching eyes.  This would allow the group to hopefully get the warheads and leave unchallenged.
• Blade Shade hid most of the group in plain sight while Kain disguised himself as the Duke.
• Once the trio of sellers arrived Blade was sure that their leader had not been expecting to see the Duke and that he had met the Duke elsewhere before.  Unfortunately, Kain took this to mean that the dealers had worked with the Duke before, exposing him as a fake since the dealers had not.
• A short fight broke out between the two groups as Ateros shut down the disguising screens.  Derrigen stopped the fight when he realized that neither side had anything to fight over.
• Derrigen brought his much larger Imperial cruiser around and everyone headed towards Cathon.  On the way several of the Duke’s cruisers were detected following them.  Derrigen chose to jump in close to the planet to try and land before the Duke’s ships could catch up.
• Derrigen was able to safely bring his ship in, but for some unknown reason the reactor suddenly started going critical.  This forced everyone to evacuate to Kain’s ship, a prospect several in the group found unsettling given its pink nature thanks to Bella Luna.
• Derrigen had grabbed Lyra and started running for Kain’s ship, finding a bloody and beaten Ateros on the way.  Anika had attempted to teleport herself to the ship and missed.  The rest of the group went through a portal created by a fake Ateros; except Darcon, who refused to go.
• Darcon caught up with Derrigen, Lyra, and the real Ateros and explained that the Ateros on the bridge was a fake and had probably sabotaged the reactor.
• Each group went there separate ways.  With Blade Shade, Kain, Adley, Bella Luna, and the fake Ateros making their way to the ancient temple, and Derrigen, Darcon, Lyra, and Ateros fleeing the ship on foot, with Anika missing and lost.

Session 9 July 4, 2008

• The scene opens up on the Duke of Edinburgh’s ship as it arrives at the Wellspring of Knowledge in hyperspace.  The Wellspring is so old no one knows who built it, not even the gods.  The Duke has heard that the Wellspring contained knowledge about a cure for the God Plague, and he wanted it destroyed.
• All of them recognized various architectures and temples to different gods, built at different times of human history.
• The Dark Hero made his way to a garden, a temple of the druids who were rumored to have spread the first God Plague and created its antidote.  He spoke with the trees in the grove and learned of a strange temple a short ways away as well as the fact that the Wellspring was still inhabited by dragon-like tauroids.
• The Dark Hero’s ability to communicate with anything allowed them to easily make their way to the temple without incident.
• The temple was an odd, unadorned structure that simply contained doorways.  On the other side of the doorways was emptiness that extended beyond the reach of our senses, definitely much farther than the physical limits of the Wellspring.
• The Champion of Light, crazed creature that it was, simply opened a door and walked through.  It closed behind him and would not reopen to the remainder of the group, despite repeated tries.
• The rest of the group eventually just went through a different doorway, and ended up in a featureless room with a single door.  This door apparently led to the temple proper, hidden away in an extradimensional space.
• The part of the temple they saw consisted of three parallel corridors separated by stone walls.  After being deposited part way down the outside corridors, both groups made their way towards an opening in the walls.
• The Champion of Light found a dracotaur standing guard over a pair of crystal spheres, one red and one blue.  Believing these to be the cure and spoiling for a fight, he grabbed one sphere began attacking the guardian after she grabbed the other sphere.
• The rest of the group, having entered the temple through a different doorway, came upon the fight and joined in, the time for talking to the guardian having passed.
• The dracotaur proved to have inherited many aspects of her ancestors, being well prepared with area attack to fight multiple opponents.  The group mostly took cover and sniped at her while the Champion of Light stood toe to toe with her.
• Things were starting to look good for the group until another band of travelers entered the temple.  They proved to be very capable and the group was hard pressed to beat them.
• At this point the Technomage let his true colors shine and began aiding the enemies of the Duke.  Healing their injuries and attacking his former allies.
• Once the Champion of Light had dropped the guardian he turned his attention towards their new opponents, only to miss the opportunity to grab the second sphere when the teleported grabbed it and moved it beyond his reach.
• Their brick easily got a hold of the Dark Hero and began trying to pummel him unconscious, a task made difficult because much of the force of his blows were being absorbed and healing his opponent.
• The Duke was able to gain momentary control of the teleporter and had him bring the second sphere back, but was unable to get the sphere once his opponent broke free of his mental grasp.
• The Duke and his allies made one last attempt to grab the second sphere and not lose control of their own before the teleporter grabbed his allies, the Technomage, and the Dark Hero and teleported away, leaving one sphere in the possession of each group.

Session 8 December 30, 2007

• The scene opened on Alutia at a hotel restaurant with Prof Xavier and Macbeth waiting for Tao, local syndicate boss.  They hoped to clear Xavier’s name, he had lost an important piece of cargo meant for an agreement between the Triumvirate and the Crimson Codex.
• Tao showed flanked by a pair of women, one of whom was Serenia, Xavier’s girlfriend who had infiltrated the Triumvirate.
• Rather than talk any kind of deal, Tao pretty much just talked down to Xavier, revealed the fact he knew Serenia was working for them and had her shot down, making quite a mess.
• When Xavier got up to do something about this Macbeth shot him, pissing him off but mainly just killing him.
• We then backtracked to Iserlohn just as the Imperials arrived.  With no reason to stay we decided to sneak off the fortress with the rest of the civilians.  This went off without incident and we started making our way to Alutia, the last place Xavier had known his girlfriend to be.
• Once we got there Xavier used his mental powers to track down Serenia, who was rather surprised at his arrival.
• We met up with Serenia and Macbeth, who were apparently in the process of trying to clear Xavier’s name and prove that Tao stole the artifact that was supposed to seal the deal between the Triumvirate and the Crimson Codex and set Xavier up to take the blame.
• Xavier was suspicious of Macbeth’s motives; he probably thought there was something going on between Macbeth and Serenia.
• After Xavier left, Macbeth spoke to us about his real plan.  He had acquired a device that could bring someone back from death, which Blade didn’t think was very impressive.  Apparently Serenia and Xavier were both going to die to keep Tao distracted while the rest of us snuck into Tao’s office and located the artifact he had stolen.
• The first part went like it was supposed to.  We also had little problem making our way to the large vault he kept various valuable things in.  The plan went out the window when Preoir, a powerful sorceress working for Tao, walked into the vault.
• She teleported Ateros up to the restaurant just as two squads of chemically augmented troopers burst in to both the vault and the restaurant upstairs.
• Macbeth revived Xavier, who almost shot him in return, and then revived Serenia who spend the rest of the fight unconscious after the troopers opened fire on everyone.
• Down in the vault, Adley begins protecting everyone on both floors, thanks to the fact his eyeball is resting in Xavier’s pocket.
• Blade keeps pressure on Preoir, preventing her from summoning more help and tying up a pair of the teleporting troopers.
• Anika is harassed by a pair of troopers as she tries to find a way to get the artifact we’re after out of its security case.  She eventually just turns herself incorporeal, slips inside the case, and grabs it before teleporting herself and Adley up to the restaurant.
• Upstairs the group is hard pressed.  Xavier has managed to take control of one of the troopers, but the rest are proving much harder to take out.  Macbeth manages to pull a nice stunt and freeze all the troopers long enough for Anika to blast them out of the fight.
• At this point Tao reappeared.  He had been watching the upstairs fight the entire time and seen through Macbeth’s ploy to distract him from our trip to the vault.  He’d had the artifact with him the entire time.  It turns out to be a Dragon Orb, capable of controlling dragons and creating shadow copies to control if natural ones happen to not be around.
• Tao summoned up a shadow copy of a huge black dragon and had it breath fire on everyone in the room.  Tao had a conspicuous unburnt sphere around him afterwards.
• Ateros ran up to Tao and realized that his psychic sword and telekinetic blasts would be unable to directly affect the mobster, but it would also keep him safe from the dragon’s breath.
• Adley’s powers, however, were unaffected by Tao nullifying field and he was able to rip the orb from Tao’s hand and bring it over to Anika.
• Tao countered his lack of direct control of the dragon by hitting it with a mental effect that turned its own mind into a copy of Tao’s.
• Anika was able to use the orb to gain a measure of control over the dragon, but the only real affect she had on it was having it waste time trying to overcome the orb.
• Blade’s powers may have been nullified around Tao, but Entropy was immune to this effect and was quite capable of hurting the physically unimpressive mobster.
• Preoir eventually made her way up to the restaurant level and prevented us from having much effect on Tao by constantly regenerating his battered body.
• Anika finally managed to dispel the conjured dragon as Adley forced all of his power into creating a restraining chair capable of nullifying and holding Tao.
• Once Tao was out of the fight, Blade stared down Preoir long enough for the group to recover and escape with the Dragon Orb.
• With the Dragon Orb in our possession and proof that Tao had stolen it for himself and set up Xavier to take the blame, Xavier was able to claim Tao’s position in the Triumvirate and complete the deal with the Crimson Codex.

Session 7 December 28, 2007

• Having made our way to Cathon after visiting Alutia and dealing with Professor K’s problems, we landed a few miles away from what we believed to be the ancient temple we were looking for.
• The temple was designed like a coliseum and built into a mile-high cliff face.
• No sooner had we arrived then our presence was immediately noticed.  Demonic creature led by a powerful archon began chasing us through the ruins.  These defenders were very powerful and after defeating only a few of the weaker ones we decided to make our escape, pulling Adley out of the dog pile the demons were creating on him.
• Having reached the top steps that led deeper into the temple, we paused.  Only to have the archon teleport between us and the deeper chambers.  She then gated in several more infernal creatures and pressed the attack.
• However, her actions seemed to have aroused the notice of the temple’s try guardian.  A death slaad burst out of one of the side chambers and recited a Draconic incantation that turned on the defenses of the temple.  The most obvious defense was that all the walls and pillars became sheathed in powerful hellfire.  This incinerated most of the infernal assault force but also overcame the psychic Ateros.  Adley finished off the remaining shock troops by slamming them into hellfire-wreathed pillars.
• After that it devolved into a three-way fight between us, the archon, and the death slaad.  After much teleporting around the landscape of the outer chamber, we eventually managed to drop the archon and Adley finished off the death slaad by turning it into cake.  We weren’t sure if the slaad could resurrect itself, but we figured since it quickly turned from cake into burnt charcoal dust this wouldn’t be a problem in the immediate future.
Session 8 December 30, 2007
• The scene opened on Alutia at a hotel restaurant with Prof Xavier and Macbeth waiting for Tao, local syndicate boss.  They hoped to clear Xavier’s name, he had lost an important piece of cargo meant for an agreement between the Triumvirate and the Crimson Codex.
• Tao showed flanked by a pair of women, one of whom was Serenia, Xavier’s girlfriend who had infiltrated the Triumvirate.
• Rather than talk any kind of deal, Tao pretty much just talked down to Xavier, revealed the fact he knew Serenia was working for them and had her shot down, making quite a mess.
• When Xavier got up to do something about this Macbeth shot him, pissing him off but mainly just killing him.
• We then backtracked to Iserlohn just as the Imperials arrived.  With no reason to stay we decided to sneak off the fortress with the rest of the civilians.  This went off without incident and we started making our way to Alutia, the last place Xavier had known his girlfriend to be.
• Once we got there Xavier used his mental powers to track down Serenia, who was rather surprised at his arrival.
• We met up with Serenia and Macbeth, who were apparently in the process of trying to clear Xavier’s name and prove that Tao stole the artifact that was supposed to seal the deal between the Triumvirate and the Crimson Codex and set Xavier up to take the blame.
• Xavier was suspicious of Macbeth’s motives; he probably thought there was something going on between Macbeth and Serenia.
• After Xavier left, Macbeth spoke to us about his real plan.  He had acquired a device that could bring someone back from death, which Blade didn’t think was very impressive.  Apparently Serenia and Xavier were both going to die to keep Tao distracted while the rest of us snuck into Tao’s office and located the artifact he had stolen.
• The first part went like it was supposed to.  We also had little problem making our way to the large vault he kept various valuable things in.  The plan went out the window when Preoir, a powerful sorceress working for Tao, walked into the vault.
• She teleported Ateros up to the restaurant just as two squads of chemically augmented troopers burst in to both the vault and the restaurant upstairs.
• Macbeth revived Xavier, who almost shot him in return, and then revived Serenia who spend the rest of the fight unconscious after the troopers opened fire on everyone.
• Down in the vault, Adley begins protecting everyone on both floors, thanks to the fact his eyeball is resting in Xavier’s pocket.
• Blade keeps pressure on Preoir, preventing her from summoning more help and tying up a pair of the teleporting troopers.
• Anika is harassed by a pair of troopers as she tries to find a way to get the artifact we’re after out of its security case.  She eventually just turns herself incorporeal, slips inside the case, and grabs it before teleporting herself and Adley up to the restaurant.
• Upstairs the group is hard pressed.  Xavier has managed to take control of one of the troopers, but the rest are proving much harder to take out.  Macbeth manages to pull a nice stunt and freeze all the troopers long enough for Anika to blast them out of the fight.
• At this point Tao reappeared.  He had been watching the upstairs fight the entire time and seen through Macbeth’s ploy to distract him from our trip to the vault.  He’d had the artifact with him the entire time.  It turns out to be a Dragon Orb, capable of controlling dragons and creating shadow copies to control if natural ones happen to not be around.
• Tao summoned up a shadow copy of a huge black dragon and had it breath fire on everyone in the room.  Tao had a conspicuous unburnt sphere around him afterwards.
• Ateros ran up to Tao and realized that his psychic sword and telekinetic blasts would be unable to directly affect the mobster, but it would also keep him safe from the dragon’s breath.
• Adley’s powers, however, were unaffected by Tao nullifying field and he was able to rip the orb from Tao’s hand and bring it over to Anika.
• Tao countered his lack of direct control of the dragon by hitting it with a mental effect that turned its own mind into a copy of Tao’s.
• Anika was able to use the orb to gain a measure of control over the dragon, but the only real affect she had on it was having it waste time trying to overcome the orb.
• Blade’s powers may have been nullified around Tao, but Entropy was immune to this effect and was quite capable of hurting the physically unimpressive mobster.
• Preoir eventually made her way up to the restaurant level and prevented us from having much effect on Tao by constantly regenerating his battered body.
• Anika finally managed to dispel the conjured dragon as Adley forced all of his power into creating a restraining chair capable of nullifying and holding Tao.
• Once Tao was out of the fight, Blade stared down Preoir long enough for the group to recover and escape with the Dragon Orb.
• With the Dragon Orb in our possession and proof that Tao had stolen it for himself and set up Xavier to take the blame, Xavier was able to claim Tao’s position in the Triumvirate and complete the deal with the Crimson Codex.

People	Places
Serenia (Xavier’s girlfriend)	Alutia (Last known location of Serenia)
Macbeth (Friend of Xavier, owns our ship)
Tao (Local head of Triumvirate, set Xavier up for a fall)
Preoir (Powerful sorceress and demon summoner)
Triumvirate (Syndicate Xavier used to work for)
Crimson Codex (Magical group trying to come to a business arrangement with the Triumvirate)

posted by Thadrine @ December 7, 2007   Forum Link

posted by Thadrine @ February 5, 2007   Forum Link