April 25th

Map of Nimbral (pdf)

After spending some days relaxing in Corwell, the party set sail to Lantan on the Fantastic Clerk under captain Lonan. The autumn winds occasionally brought them a chill, but as they moved south it wasn't unbearable. They landed in the city of Sambar and then went to the High Holy Crafthouse of Inspiration. They saw the workshops of the gnomes and a few humans who worship Gond, and they met Lappantrogola, a leader of the Elevated Linear Surface Transportation Development and Optimization Team (ELST-DOT).

It was explained in no uncertain terms to them that Gond tells the gnomes which of their inventions may leave the island, and the airship was not among them. Cenobio tricked the talkative gnome Zargofoop into giving him important information. Not a smith as he claimed, Cenobia was actually a bit of an evil pirate from Nelanther. He is the leader of a group named "Deadwind." One night he made off with the ship, and reports had suggested it was somewhere southwest of the Moonshaes. That was, at least, its last known heading.

After training, painting the second ship white, and naming it Leocadio in honor of the long-lived unicorn, the party set off to the west, searching the water and skies for any sign of the other flying ship.

The first thing they saw out of the ordinary was a winged horse and a man standing on a tiny rock in the ocean. The brought him aboard. His name was Major Kiley of the Flying Hunt. His Pegasus was named Olimpo. They were exhausted.

Kiley told the party the story of Nimbral, an island to the west. It is a large island, but very isolated. The island is enclosed by a ring of impenetrable mountains except for one secure port, named Seaport. The Flying Hunt are men with pegasi who defend the island. They have been able to turn back Nelanther pirates before and other such desirables. There is very little trade, and the port is used primarily for local fishermen. However, four days before the flying ship had entered the land by flying over the mountains and approaching the Eerie from behind. Caught by surprised, the Flying Hunt was destroyed. Kiley himself was patrolling at the time, and decided to seek help outside the island.

With this information, the party headed inland. They sent Kiley down to gather information in Seaport. King Gregory Haslan had been killed along with his family. The pirates controlled the castle, Silver Spires. Every so often the other air ship would tie up to one of the spires and unload their goods. The pirates had burned parts of the city and generally were not well liked.

The party then looked to the nearby black tower of Nard, an old wizard. Nard did not want to get involved in the politics and insisted everyone would be ok. The party tried to convince him that it was in his best interest to help the people out, but he just offered them tea and said there's nothing to worry about.

So the party decided there probably wasn't a rigid schedule with delivering goods, and they pulled up to the tall spire with their own oddly painted airship. They assumed correctly that the pirates would assume their airship had been painted before they would assume there was a second airship pulling up to the spire. A battle ensued, and the party was victorious. Then the party wasted a bit of time working out some plans, and they ended up with a long battle in a narrow stairway. This was the worst battle in the history of D&D, and all parties were fortunately aware of it. They withdrew and flew high, awaiting the pirates airship.

Fireball is a great tactic against something with sails. The pirates know how to handle it, but they did lose speed and maneuverability. The pirates ditched their ship into a river, and the party then burned it up. The floating gold bits passed their own ship and sailed high into the sky. The immovable rods were recovered by Zargofoop. The pirates fled into the Silver Spires. The party then destroyed the normal ship of the pirates such that the pirates may not leave.

The party then went searching for someone to help them. They went to the Red Keep. They discovered then most people were wearing a lot of red. There was a guardsmen at the gate who assumed they were making up stories by being from places that didn't exist. They saw bold knights in shining metal armor jousting from atop prancing horses. They met king Kirkwell. He's a large, heavy, loud man with a full black beard. He is a violent fellow, always looking for a good war. He believes he is already stretched too thin with various plans to attack the other Rainbow Kings of the Golden Marches to go off fighting "a bunch of fairy men in a lost boat." He suspects the residents of Seaport will handle the situation themselves.

The party left this kingdom of red and went to the Riverlands. There they quickly met the river king, a triton named Telry who was in his "palace," Leryn Lake. Telry sounded somewhat sympathetic to their cause, but there wasn't much for him to do with fins and all of that. He just spends his time here with the nymphs, dryads, pixies, etc. He suggested the party spend the day swimming merrily with him in the water with his friends. Some of the party did, others pouted.

Then the party wanted to talk to someone from near Seaport, someone who might be directly affected by the pirates. They met Peter, a reasonable fellow. He had been named after the sea monster that appeared on all the maps of the known world. Peter did not like the pirates. He said he and his people hide when they see the pirates or the green dragon, Kaxalattic. Peter told them that, according to the legend here, centuries ago the wizards of the black towers were wicked men. When a green dragon appeared and made a home in the forest of Nerca, these men imprisoned this dragon. He did not grow during this time, but was contained as a statue so that if they needed to use him later they could. Seven large blue gems rested on seven columns around the statue of the dragon, containing him. The pirates saw the gems from above and did what pirates do, they took them. It has been a rough couple of weeks here to say the least.

The party then opted to train for several days as the beautiful leaves begin falling from the trees. During their training, they suddenly felt invigorated through their emerald heart, as if the land to which they are connected grew stronger. The source, they assumed, must be the tree they planted. They will begin their quest for whatever it is they want on the second day of Uktar.

None of us got seasick, which was good, but there were no sea monsters with tentacles full of treasure chests either. Journey was a wash.



As we expected, we got a good mix of retarded gnome devices here, including window washers that break windows. Retarded shit is one of the few redeeming features of gnomes!

Halflings have none, however.




WHY WOULD YOU LISTEN TO A SKY TYRANT



We had heard about it back in Gwenneth- it had been up to no good on a far coast.

After training, painting the second ship white, and naming it Leocadio in honor of the long-lived unicorn, the party set off to the west, searching the water and skies for any sign of the other flying ship.



WHO'S A PRETTY BIRD

WHO?



A "wizard" with no spell books and no visible magic anywhere. I don't know what the story is with these guys, but it's odd.

The fact that the entire island is archetypal is interesting enough- but what role these wizards play, it's hard to say yet.



Amusingly, the enemy camped out in a room that was custom fit for a fireball!

That worked out well for them.



We would have come out ahead unless they had reinforcements of very significant numbers. I wanted to see it for a couple more rounds because some time we might end up in that situation for a *real* reason- and it's possible that the enemy would have backed off instead of slowly dying to fists of fury, and taken up positions in their main room. But Yenrab got sick of it a couple rounds too early, and so we retreated.

It was a horrible battle. The only way it could have been worse is if you had a SWARM of things that could attack from range with a low base attack bonus.



No one can handle fireball!

I love that as soon as I hit 5th level, I just start pumping out fireballs and my contribution to the group goes from "situational" to "amazing".

Other valid tactics mostly included trying to improvise weapons and recruit sailors at Seaport- something that I didn't really like the sound of anyway.




With fire!



FIXED



This is better for the townspeople in the long run- having to chase down pirates with slave-bitches would be way lamer than just killing them all.

Somehow.




No one took my suggestion of viewing the nymphs naked seriously, a great pity. If Signy had gone along with it, maybe we'd have had a totally AWESOME story there.



How he managed it so far into subrational-land is hard to say- my guess is that he's connected to the culture of seaport, and is close to them.

By the way, if something untoward happens to Eron, "paladin from $color" is super high on my list of shit to play. He'd be like out of a storybook. That's the first concept to give serious threat to slutty pixie.



Even a small green dragon will have a treasure trove worth looting! Green dragons are some of my favorites, because you can actually talk with them before killing them.



Was the focus a small ball? "Go, Kaxalattic!"



KIND SIR WE SHALL NOT REST UNTIL WE HAVE TAKEN THE BLUE GEMS FROM THE PIRATES AND PUT THEM INTO OUR POCKETS, REST ASSURED WE WILL NOT FAIL AT THIS TASK



Cool cool.

Also note that the rogue continues to fail at rolling hit points. I'm going to offer to roll for him next time.

I would love to have a proxy roller for all future hitpoints. That sounds like a spectacular idea, in fact.

I'm all in favor or parlaying with, and then killing, a green dragon for his loot.

Weird. It's like the dragon suddenly got older and wants to eat a wizard on a stick for his birthday.

I simply wasn't in the mood to play with nymphs, especially after being able to do nothing but listen to the ramblings of a wizard for most of the game.

Simply fantastic