D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

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Wrathbone
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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:01 pm

That's fantastic.

Here's my 5 minute attempt at Korvak:
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(That's a cloak, btw, not a leaking armpit. :lol: )

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Sly Boots
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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:02 pm

The Orb of Time... one of my favourites 'memes' from the campaign :lol:

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Lenny Solidus » Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:10 pm

Raid wrote:
Thu Nov 03, 2022 3:46 pm
Image
Seeing the steady evolution of this as it went was an honour Raid bud, superb work and may there be plenty more to come. I know next to nothing of D&D, but I do know that he's fucking cool and worth every minute you spent on him.
Building the future, and keeping the past alive - are one and the same thing.

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Raid » Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:11 pm

Sly Boots wrote:
Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:02 pm
The Orb of Time... one of my favourites 'memes' from the campaign :lol:
Same. I love the ORB OF TIME.

(I also probably ought to mention that Lenny's given me some pointers, so he's seen this before you lot)

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Raid » Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:36 pm

Sly Boots wrote:
Thu Nov 03, 2022 3:58 pm
Is he staggering around in a fog of confusion having rolled a 1? :lol:
The image is from Arctiss' perception. He's actually fighting a group of goblins in a settlement, not crouched over a bandit camp in a cave.

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:59 pm

Raid wrote:
Thu Nov 03, 2022 4:36 pm
Sly Boots wrote:
Thu Nov 03, 2022 3:58 pm
Is he staggering around in a fog of confusion having rolled a 1? :lol:
The image is from Arctiss' perception. He's actually fighting a group of goblins in a settlement, not crouched over a bandit camp in a cave.
:lol:

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Mantis
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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 03, 2022 5:10 pm

That's fantastic, kudos on the progress. I wanted to do something similar at the conclusion of our first campaign but it never amounted to anything.

Pete is definitely catching up with your artistic talents though. Look at the rendering on that beard, phwoar.

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Nov 03, 2022 6:10 pm

:lol:

It’s like he’s posing for a Just For Mage advert.

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:49 pm

Can't believe we're actually done. One empty promise of a short campaign later and here we are at the 30 session finale.

Thanks for playing guys, it's been really entertaining to DM and I'm glad everyone enjoyed it.

For those mad enough to, I've uploaded all my session notes into a Drive folder. Worth noting that I realised about five sessions or so in how overbearing it was keeping track of my notes, so from a certain point fairly early on I started making changes and additions in red so that it was much clearer what was changing week on week. Most of the body of the DM Notes section stays the same between sessions so it isn't as much reading as it may initially seem. There are way more documents supporting all the background details on the casino and city encounters etc. but they're all a bit rough to upload and may contain future worldbuildery spoilers so I've left them off.

There's also my handy little Stryrox-aid document thrown in there at the bottom which Chris may be interested in reading just to see how bad it could have gotten for him. :lol:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Raid » Fri Nov 04, 2022 8:52 am

It's actually quite funny reading the Stryrox document because, although Arctiss was pretty steadfast in his desire to rid himself of the sword, as a player I was wondering whether I should be adding more nuance into their relationship. To read that the character was absolutely right and the guy playing him was starting to get hoodwinked is a weirdly meta headspace to be in. I suppose it's appropriate given that earlier in the campaign I'd tricked you as the GM into believing something wrong too.

The Arctiss - Stryrox relationship was one of my favourite things about this character, and it's one of the reasons I didn't really want to take him forward into a longer campaign as the end goal was always going to be either the decursing or preferably the destruction of those elements. I actually quite regretted that I tended to be pretty tired during those dream conversations between the two, but then not really being able to think of anything else to say and sticking doggedly to "Arctiss think Stryrox Bad" was part of why I ended up playing him the way I did and, it turns out, what may have saved him in the end.

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Mantis » Fri Nov 04, 2022 10:23 am

Oh for certain he was not a good guy. Thing is, if Arctiss had been more on board with his temptations then Stryrox would have rewarded Arctiss very well indeed. He was never just going to use him and then leave him to die if Arctiss played along, his goal was also corrupting Arctiss to his side, which would have been an interesting route to go down if you'd decided to play the character that way. I think ultimately it was the pursuit of more power that drove Sage down the path of corruption to the extent he did the things he did by the end of the campaign, either way he was very much not a "good" guy anymore even though he saved the world.

If we'd got to the stage where Stryrox was able to force charisma checks for charm on Arctiss I'd have PM'd you outside of the game to make sure you were happy with going down the evil route, because it would have come with some interesting boons.

And regarding the de-cursing. I was never going to let that just happen easily. The quest for the shard of starlight and the Wand of Gomoku would have entwined with whatever main storyline the party was involved in and no doubt taken you up quite a few more levels before you could be rid of him.

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Raid » Fri Nov 04, 2022 3:47 pm

Out of interest was Arctiss' initial plan to use the proceeds from the casino heist to pay for the de-cursing going to have been successful the way you'd planned the campaign? Was the whole Wand of Gomoku quest added later? I knew it wasn't going to be a simple matter of, say, getting one of the mages to cast a spell and that would have been that.

And would any of the rest of you have picked up the Blade of Stryrox had Arctiss been killed? As far as Arctiss was concerned Gronk was the only one he'd entrust it to if given the chance to pass it on on his deathbed, but given by the end of the campaign you all knew as many of the upsides and downsides as I did, I'd be interested to know what you'd have done if given the chance.

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Sly Boots » Fri Nov 04, 2022 3:54 pm

I have a feeling Gronk's axe of teleportation would have had to have been wrenched from his cold, dead, tiny hands :lol:

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Mantis » Fri Nov 04, 2022 4:08 pm

I didn't quite anticipate the lengths Gronk would go to make what was intended as a malfunctioning joke weapon which had got its previous owner killed an integral part of his entire battle strategy for the entire campaign. On reflection, the functions of it far outweighed the downsides. Giving the Gnome with tiny movement speed the ability to teleport his entire weapon range distance may have been a miscalculation on my part! It was funny though.
Raid wrote:
Fri Nov 04, 2022 3:47 pm
Out of interest was Arctiss' initial plan to use the proceeds from the casino heist to pay for the de-cursing going to have been successful the way you'd planned the campaign? Was the whole Wand of Gomoku quest added later? I knew it wasn't going to be a simple matter of, say, getting one of the mages to cast a spell and that would have been that.
:-k

The Wand of Gomoku element was planned from the start. But as to whether the original de-cursing spell would work or if the mage really was intending on betraying Arctiss. Who knows...

Korvak did influence you to change your entire fate with trying to unbind Stryrox based off of a dream he had with a mysterious woman he'd never encountered before and nor has he seen since. Just saying. :lol:

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Re: D&D Interlude: The Vault of the Lady Fortune

Post by Sly Boots » Fri Nov 04, 2022 4:11 pm

Mantis wrote:
Fri Nov 04, 2022 4:08 pm
I didn't quite anticipate the lengths Gronk would go to make what was intended as a malfunctioning joke weapon which had got its previous owner killed an integral part of his entire battle strategy for the entire campaign. On reflection, the functions of it far outweighed the downsides. Giving the Gnome with tiny movement speed the ability to teleport his entire weapon range distance may have been a miscalculation on my part! It was funny though.
Lol, it was easily my favourite DnD weapon I've used so far. Even the image of this little gnome paladin yeeting himself into every enemy's face was inherently hilarious :lol:

It would probably have been less desirable for a character who wasn't so melee focused, or whose battle plan didn't mostly draw from the Leroy Jenkins playbook, but it was brilliant.

Probably my favourite was in Renwick's castle taking down the four cultist dudes in two rounds, knocking them down in one hit before yeeting myself straight into the next one for my second attack :lol:

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