Brown's Megathread! (Recaps, musings, and thoughts! January 21st, White Meet recap part 2!)

brownhair798

@bl1ndn3rd

I've been using photoshop, but my method has been changing and developing over time. I don't suppose you really need photoshop to do it, but, its whats available to me - I select the areas I want colored using polygonal selection lasso tools, then instead of 'painting' the color on, I just change the entire selections hue and colorize it so that the shadow depth remains. Another option is, if you want multiple colors to overlay one another, to make multiple copies of the layer in different color, and do a soft edge erase in random areas so that it looks like multiple colors are blending together.

brownhair798

get hype
get cross
august 28th 2020

brownhair798

IT'S TONIGHT. EXPECT A FULL RECAP SOON.

GOD i am EXCITE right now.

brownhair798

*just flatlines.*



...everything was insane.

recap to follow.

Rob

your passion is amazing my man. underappreciated thread.

brownhair798

Alright. Where to start.

Stormhark. Located on the elevated landbridge that's wide enough to have a mountain range on it - The Leap - Stormhark acts as the crossing between the two realms of Jadus and Behr. Ruled by a greedy dwarf by the name of Gustav Plum, who taxes those who pass through the town until they're trapped between its gates, forever working for Plum to try and pay off their debt. Only the richest of the rich can travel through - Peasants and the poor are stuck.

Our story starts with the young kobold butcher Marizoo, who's older sister, Vylah, joined the Duke's guard as a way to try and pay off their debt. She's usually in constant contact, but over the past month she's gone missing without so much as a word. Then one day, Marizoo overhears from passing guards that Vylah is in the dungeon - That she did something to piss off the Duke...

So Marizoo does what any person would do when trapped in a situation like this with a bunch of other peasants - Stage an insurrection of the castle, rescue her sister, and overthrow the evil duke!

Enter the rest of our cast; Former Mercenary and current fireworks salesman, Rosello Delav, Keen Noblewoman who is inexplicably underfed, Mou Sersay, and the O'bannar sisters Chrysanthemum and Rutabaga (Or Chrys and Baga.)

Also, right at the start, I give them a little something to offset the fact that I restricted their character creation to 'peasant cards' which works less now that there aren't roleplay items, they each have a chance of convincing someone else in teh city - Other 'Uncrossed' as they're called - To assist them in the mission. They managed to get another O'bannar man who uses Charge, a Gnoll with a healing spell, and a Dwarf with a crossbow.

And so we join our would-be revolutionaries in the middle of the night on the north end of town...

-The chaos begins immedeatly.

I had a whole thing planned out where there were going to be wandering patrols, random loot boxes hidden throughout town, and methods of traversing the town itself either via the roads and alleys, or by jumping up to the rooftops and climbing across to reach the castle unseen. But rather than listen to any of those crazy ideas, the party decides they want to A New Hope this stuff.

Before I know it, the group is shuffling off through the town to incapacitate the first guards they find... And STEAL THEIR CLOTHES. Swipe Clothing is on the list of peasant possible skills, and two players took it.

I realize again that I need to pay closer attention to what my players pick. Or do I? Because lets be honest, this is kind of fun. I reward them for creativity, and you know what's creative? Mou bashing one of the guards against the back of the skull with a gnomish magazine - Because apparently they didn't get the memo that the Freemium Catalog was supposed to be an actual magazine magazine, and just assumed it was a big lumpy tome like most olde style bookies.

Laughs were had. Lore confirmed, freemium catalogs are like god damn phone books.

The second guard was not so easily incapacitated, and had his nose broken by Rosello. They're figuring out how they're going to knock him out with a second hit before he raises any alarm...

And then Chrys/Baga informs me 'Hold on. I need a selection of three random spells.'

Well what could that be for. Oh! They have the Magician Stone! So they get one of three random spells. ALright, alright, i'll do that...

Blanket of Death. The legendary that turns everyone in the battlefield into ageless.

What followed was a very in depth debate about the pros and cons of STARTING THE CAMPAIGN WITH TURNING EVERYONE IN THE AREA INTO AN AGELESS MINION. Some of us were just cracking up at the absurdity of it all, some people were for it, but eventually it was decided against and instead, Baga took the spell Trample... Immedeatly putting it into use and ROLLING OVER THE REMAINING GUARD who only had five health left, PULVERIZING HIM and killing him instantly.

Big ol bloody mess. Ignorable, yes? NO! Because there's another guard patrol inbound with one of their Pigpups, a half porc half potpuppy guard dog style thing that was sniffing out the blood. Chrys wheels around, tossing the bodies into nearby barrels, while Mou and Rosello switched into the gurad clothes. Yes, they both made it in, but Rosello did not get a very good roll - So he missed the pants.

Thankfully, Mou was quick thinking, and grabbed onto Baga, the smaller of the two rabbit sisters, (and the one who had just bloodied her gear by killing a guard) and pretended to do the whole 'We need to take this prisoner to Cell Block 1138' thing, because she's a RABBLEROUSER! It's dark, so when the new set of guards walks up with their pigpup howling at Baga, they don't notice the fact that Rosello is lacking any pants.

One of the guards does note that Mou should get a new helmet, as hers appears to be damaged - A strange, phonebook sized dent in the top of the helm. Good advice!

The guards pass by.

I'd like to point out by the way that i'm not giving you the exact rolls on everything, but rest assured that these things are happening in the players favor because of stupidly good roll luck.

Further into the town, they bump into a spot or two where they can get extra gear, promptly take it, and at one point I have to inform Chrys that she's just watched her sister steal something from her blacksmith shop. Hehehe.

So - They've got tow guys disguised, they move on towards the castle. To sneak over the wall? NO. THEY'RE confident enough to just try to WALK IN THROUGH THE FRONT DOORS. The guarded doors. With the guards. To the castle.

They run across another patrol on their way there, the rest of the party following along a good distance behind - And since they need to act natural to avoid the gaze of the guards, they don't signal anything to the group that there's another patrol coming up the path. Group 2 ultimately has to try to find their own way to follow them because, sure enough, they manage to convince the guards to let them in - In the process, revealing that one of the guards feels very sensetive about being referred to as 'Bub'. Poor Bub, forever questioning if he really has a 'Bub' sort of look to him.

Group 2 spots the new guards coming up the way, and go through a series of complex plans, panicking as the guards grow closer and closer, finally settling on the idea of Marizoo using Disguise to transform herself into an elven noble... Rolls go out, the disguise is... Not the best! Hearts are racing, fear is picking up-

The guards notice that Chrys is standing next to this noble and are just like 'sup' and walk past because Chrys is the blacksmith. Who made most of their gear.

I had a chuckle, the players grumble at me for messing with them, but the plan continues. Marizoo, like Mou and Rosello before her, just walks right up to the gates, unaccompanied, to try and talk her way in while Chrys and the other Uncrossed climb the wall as sneakily as they can to get into the Castle Courtyard. Now, Marizoo is young and has very little knowledge of elven nobles. I have her do an intel check, and she gets an average roll. I decide to play her a bit. I give her two names of high ranking female elves... And she has to choose one to claim that she is that person.

Gwenyth Sunsword. Who I would immedeatly have the guards recognize this person NOT being.

And Darcy Tarciel'embeart.

So, Darcy Tarciel'embeart is about to enter into the castle, when suddenly she is overshadowed by the form of a massive black boar porc in guard armor. With a refined but slow cadence, he offers to take her allllll the way to the big boss, Duke Gustav Plum himself - Although he does find it curious that a noble would find herself in a town like Stormhark, in the middle of the night, to discuss... What exactly?

"Trade"

TRADE! RIGHT! PERFECTLY GOOD SO LONG AS THE ROLL IS HIGH, which it was- I swear I am trying to kill these players, its just not working out so well.

God this is taking a while. You guys aren't really watching this as it unfolds but i've now been writing this file for about a week. This last campaign kinda emotionally took it out of me - SUPER FUN, but just DAMN was this one more intense to set up and watch happen.

Anyways.

So, the Porc (One 'Mister Gurl' because I thought i could make a joke about people assuming 'The Gurl' wasn't a ten foot tall hulking british porc), leads Marizoo right down into the heart of Stormhark Castle, while the rest of the team, who have now also infiltrated the walls, watch from the sidelines.

It's at this point we meet what was supposed to be the single most threatening element of this campaign - The Iron Maidens.

Flanking the inner gates of the castle are two dwarven women (I state you can tell they're dwarven women despite being fully armored because they're about dwarf sized and have the stereotypical 'boobplate' look to their armor.) They are not your typical guards however - Because they are armored. And armored more. And then armored more. These black-plated soldiers are so heavily armored that the ground practically shakes when they step around from how heavy the plating is, and to make matters worse - Each one has six massive single-shot hand cannons strapped to their armor, with no apparent extra ammo.

The implications are thus; These soldiers are so confident that they can properly defend the castle with less than six shots, they're willing to just stand there without extra ammo.

hooooo boy.

Walking through the castle, Marizoo notes that there are more of these supersoldiers, who Gurl introduces as the Iron Maidens merc company, who came from Thor's Reach and are mostly the displaced widows of dwarven warlords. Charming! Literal black widows with grenade launchers.

At the same time, Marizoo is noting that the entire castle (Which I had designed to have numerous ways to sneak through and not really all that many ways to just walk through safely) was stuffed to the brim with Pigpups, patroling guards, Iron Maidens, one -extremely- badass looking chef who was staring at her from behind an onion with a level of menace matched only by the Iron Maidens themselves, as well as what appeared to be a group of dwarven wizards off in one room preparing a truly magnificent multi-gate portal chamber!

But up up up the stairs she is taken, into the relaxation room of the lord of the land - Duke Gustav Plum.

More on that later. Because at this point, Marizoo's insistance on continuing this trade charade has resulted in the party being SPLIT. So I have to hop back and forth between the two, while I give Marizoo time to aptly figure out what the fuck they're going to say to try and keep Gustav distracted.

While all this is happening, the rest of the crew, team stealthy, has reunited - So that's Chrys, Baga, Mou, Rosello, and the three Uncrossed who have been following them into this insanity. Sneaking up to the east wing of the castle and peeking in the window, they spot... Well actually, exactly what they needed. A spiral staircase heading down into the ground - Aka a dungeon - And a sleeping guard on a chair next to a shiny new flail.

Rosello caaaaaaaarefuly opens the window and sneaks in, using a piece of magical expertise to more permenantly incapacitate that guard - The INTOXICATIONATOR spell, which has quickly become a favorite ability of my group.

The now sleeping and very drunk guard just falls over. Rosello tries to snag the flail- Manages to DROP IT, clanging on the floor, and Rosello spots a Pigpup across the hall take notice, and start plodding over towards the source of the noise. The group begins to shuffle in through the window and down into the dungeon, avoiding the Pigpup's gaze...

Back in the lord's chamber...

Gustav Plum is a simple man, of simple tastes. Which is to say he is a lavishly dressed goofy looking white haired dwarf who is clearly drunk out of his mind at this hour of night, while heaving a MACHINE GUN in his hand haphazardly. Yeah - Gherkin's Big Betty? This must've been designed by the same gnome. Marizoo of course has no idea what this device could do, just that it looks rather menacing.

Gurl makes some introductions, Gustav fails his perception rolls due to being drunk so he doesn't realize that this 'Elf' is actually a kobold using disguise. He does however question why on earth a Tarciel'Embeart has any interest whatsoever in his border crossing town, when she can just as easily do trade with the other nations of hte world with boats!

Tarciel'Embearts are known for boats, after all. Right? At least that's his reasoning.

I won't get into the exact details but what follows is a series of back and forths between Marizoo and the Duke, with the duke wobbling around and proclaiming random things about his town and Marizoo just trying to maintain her cover... While some sinister ideas swirl in her head.

You see, during character creation, Marizoo got ahold of a legendary spell. Rebirth. This spell has the potential to kill your character, and kill a target, and if both characters die, you are reborn as the target. Now... I have reasons that I really don't want this to happen.

Marizoo very much wants this to happen. She wants revenge - And she wants to initiate a full takeover of Stormhark by way of using the Rebirth spell.

My plan on the other hand... Was that Marizoo was going to be the next spirit host for this campaign. Which has been the primary theme of my campaigns so far, that these characters are going to house the knowledge of how to save the world from a coming apocalypse.

And i'm not havin' a great track record of it so far, with both my villians being either ousted from their hosts, or straight up killed, so I'd like to at least have the first protagonist spirit survive.

So. At this point, Gustav is ready to begin putting this so-called trade agreement into writing - Which thankfully leads them back past more guards, ensuring Marizoo keeps at least arms reach away...

MEANWHILE: DOWN IN THE DUNGEON

THe dungeon is carved out of the very earth and stone itself. A fetid pit with a sleeping (And quickly overtoxificated, and subsequently infini-barfing) pigpup in the corner, and a few guards in the next chamber, visible through a crack in a wall that looks out into one of the cells... Not just any cell - But VYLAH'S CELL! The girl they were here to rescue! Marizoo's older sister!

The guys... Start planning. And keep planning. And they keep going, going through all these different ideas, a few of which actually get put into action, but their planning is interrupted when one of the guards deeper inside the prison spots them, and engages in conversation- Everyone but Rosello hiding around the corner while they talk. IT's going well until the uh...

Until the guard realizes something that Rosello neglected - His pants. They're still not there from him messing up his disguise roll earlier.

The alarm is raised, combat begins, Chrys fills up the main passage using her scroll of magic stone, then bashes through the back of the prison cell with her brute force. An Iron Maiden appears on the other side of the cell gates, and readies her pistols - But turns them on the other guard as one of the party members makes use of a SWIRLY TWIRLY UMBRELLA to charm her! The other guard is killed almost instantly.

With Chrys commanding the Iron Maiden, she convinces her to start opening up the other prison gates, trying to free any others who were taken by the sinister Duke Gustav (Who the group is out of character falling in love with the drunken antics of), and a few discoveries are made.

First, in an attempt to disarm the Iron Maiden, Rosello makes good on an idea to cast bloom on her, to make her outgrow her armor and, by his own words, 'make her fingers too big to use the guns'. A bit of a roundabout way of disarming her seeing as how they have her charmed, but, I like the creativity. Where is the discovery in this? Well it turns out that when you get a crit on bloom, and target the person inside the armor and not the armor itself, and when that armor is UNGODLY THICK... Well.

Yeah she died. It was unpleasant and messy.

SECONDLY... She wasn't the only one who was dead. The Gnoll healer regretfully informed the group that Vylah had perished, likely only hours ago, in her cell.

The group had failed...

brownhair798

...That is until Rosello decided to break my game.

First off. He starts thinking about how he could potentially use the fallen Iron Maiden's weapons to enhance his own equipment. And while I deny him using the guns, I do give him his legendary for that, as his personal legendary's unlock pre-requisite was 'Rosello has a moment of inventive motivation'.

Resulting in him strapping his fireworks launcher ability to his flail.

Next, using a combonation of a legendary item he had gotten as a random treasure in character creation, the Monkeyfish Paw Wish, and an item called the Chipped Prism which lets you doublecast a spell... The card summons up a golden monkeyfish (Who I of course introduced as Lord Albert the Second, Lord of All Monkeyfish), and you cut off its left paw and that gives you a wish. Well - Because he used the chipped prism, this doubled the spell.

It went off perfectly the first time. He rolled decently on cutting off the paw, and used that paw to - What else? Ressurect Vylah! She comes back to life, scared and confused as to why there is a pantsless guard standing over her clutching a dead monkeyfish paw- He's about to explain it to her, when the chipped prism goes off, a second monkeyfish is summoned, and again

"I am Lord Albert the Second, Lord of all Monke- Oh god no-" Rosello is like 'gimme a moment' to Vylah, Chrys reaches over and pulls her out, positive that this was going to explode everything because in addition to rolling to cut off the paw, you also have to flip a coin to get the right wish. The first one had worked.

Now he was getting a second one.

Rosello goes to cut off the paw... AND ROLLS A 20.

....I mean... My own way of playing says that if you get a 20, you get like... double what you wanted. So guess what - On this run? Rosello discovers that ALBERT HAS TWO LEFT PAWS.

 And he cuts them BOTH OFF.

And he gets heads on BOTH WISHES.

So what does he wish for? First, he wishes for A SECOND PERSONAL LEGENDARY. He wanted a second one of those! Well- Hell no, that's... Wait.

...I went into my imgur files and brought up the ORIGINAL legendary I had set up for Rosello that I took out because it felt underpowered.

Now he has BOTH of these.

(He got a twenty on this crap, I can't exactly DENY HIM at this point)

His third and final wish? He wanted his own mercenary company - Not only that, in his own words 'And they're waiting for my signal to help me overthrow the castle!'

Rosello wants to take over Stormhark!

So after freeing the other prisoners, making all three wishes, getting both of his legendaries, embiggifying Baga, TAMING A PIGPUP BY THE WAY I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER HOW THAT HAPPENED BUT IT DID APPARENTLY, everyone climbs up the stairs, just as Duke Gustav and Marizoo are signing the trade agreement, in the room where the stairs to the dungeon were, and Marizoo is about to cast Rebirth and kill both herself and Gustav... When she sees her sister alive and well.

But now - The group, despite being very strong, is surrounded on all sides. There are guards, Mister Gurl, Duke Gustav who starts to bearserk, and all of the Iron Maidens...

Rosello asks me if he can give the signal. His plan was to lean out the window and fire off a firework... I decided to take it somewhere else.

One of the Iron Maidens catches his eye. She nods and quietly says 'On your signal, sir.'

All hell breaks loose. The Iron Maidens turn on Gurl, blasting a hole the size of a football through his shoulder, knocking out the less powerful guards and restraining the pigpups, the Chef, who was the secret leader of the Iron Maidens, whips his onion at another guard incapacitating them.

And I was hoping to at least get that boss fight out where Gustav goes BEAR FORM and reveals he has TWO MACHINE GUNS because bear + 2 machine guns = good boss design for my twisted little head-

-BUT THEN CHRYS INFORMS ME THAT HER MAGICIAN STONE HAS GONE OFF, GIVING HER A RANDOM SPELL... and she gets ANTI MAGIC ZONE. And completely nullifies the bearserk.

The group stands victoriously in front of Gustav, and exclaim that they're taking over the castle.

Gustav has no choice but to surrender.

But there are a few things left before the story ends. First off, Mister Gurl's enchanted sword, dropped from his hands, clatters over before Marizoo. Which... Again - Was one of these wierd prerequisite unlocks for a very special legendary to the overarcing story of my campaigns.

The idea is that if Mister Gurl gets disarmed, and Marizoo still has posession of her Crystal Ball, her Wooden Spear, and the Soul Puppet (which unbeknowest to her, the spirit mentioned earlier had taken up residence in) then she would unlock this - A spear which immedeatly fires a beacon up into the sky that can be seen clear across both continents - Signaling to everyone, to Lokeeda, Tasha, Felix, Porcio, Pixie, Bronk, Roxxa, Toby- To everyone who knew about this apocalypse plot... That the time had come for the HEROES to start gathering.

Here - At Stormhark Castle. It was time to start gathering, to save the world.

Mou at this point, feeling like her job is done, collapses and pulls out some elephelk bone powder just to take the edge off, only for her own legendary to unlock literally as the story was about to end.

Turns out that the real Mou was killed in a scuffle between herself and this gnome dealer in Stormhark, Ra'Thina, and by attempting to make use of the bone powder, which was a fairly expensive posession of the real Mou, she's unintentionally opened herself up to being haunted by the original's ghost. But, seeing that Ra'Thina had apparently done some good deeds, she agrees to keep the haunting to a minimum for the forseeable future.

AND THUS ENDS THE CROSSING

Marizoo is reunited with her sister

Everyone learns about the apocalypse plot

Duke Gustav Plum is imprisoned

The Iron Maidens become the personal guard of Rosello who takes over the castle and opens it up to travellers

The taxes are removed

Trade is re-opened between the two continents

And the heroes begin their journey to gather at Stormhark.

And THERE WERE ONLY THREE ACTUAL ATTACKS MADE for the ENTIRE GAME. Rosello and Mou trying to knock out the guards at the start, and then Baga trampling the one of them to death.

Not a single shot was fired by the players beyond that.

Truly - This went off the rails in ways that only Urealms can.

brownhair798

So, afterwards things to say:

First off, here is the legendary I had made for Chrys and Baga - Which I am canonically saying is now unlocked as their challenge was technically to help one another enough to unlock this...



Next: Here are some companion cards that I made for the Pigpups, as well as an entirely unexplored section I had planned out for if they tried to enter the castle through the graveyard.





Also, @Rob ;
Thank you again man, you have no idea how encouraging it is to hear you're liking this stuff. I'm trying to bring across the same energy you brought in your old games along in these ones, and although it feels like my stories are fucking up in -spectacular fashion-, i'm still getting the same joy of playing the game as I sensed you got in the old campaigns.

Next up: We have our next group of players ready, two of them have never played a game of Urealms before, Rosello's player is returning for another game, and we've got someone that I actually met here on the forums joining in. We've already made characters, so I'm looking forwards to how its going to go, buuuut.

I am changing up the format.

It was brought to my attention that having these spirit characters written out as they already were was kinda restrictive - So from now on, the spirits, while they're still going to be sought after, are going to be decided on -after- character creation, so we can set up the story around the characters, rather than have the characters set up around the spirit.

I'm gonna hope this works. But it might not.. .but it might! Who knows.


And lastly, I want to thank everyone who's been reading this stuff for taking interest in it. It's a lot of fun running these games, though admittedly, I kinda wish some day I'll actually get to play instead of making my own campaigns XD

Not right now though. I gotta keep making these for the fellas!

See you all next time, probably some time next month, as i'm gonna go a biiit slower on this one to counter the stress i'm feeling.

Crimson_Grove

Another great campaign! I can only imagine how good of roles they must of gotten to avoid combat. And a spirit lives! Hopefully they can organize against the apocalypse in time.

brownhair798

IT WAS BLOODY ABSURD HOW MANY 20'S THEY GOT

brownhair798

And here we have our characters for the next campaign.

And listen, before anyone makes a comment about the Shezaite, it was Deadbones who first brought the character Zanaria Vinisto, who was by his own terms, 'Like a good milkshake; Thick'

Lugra-Lugra just takes this to a new level.

So. What am I telling people about the next campaign? Nothing.

What do I know about these characters? Nothing.

Trying something new this time around. Seeing if it'll be easier for me to disconnect and treat characters with some viciousness if I know next to nothing about them going in, and they only explain it at the start of the game.

Here's what I know so far.

Lugra-Lugra - Shezaite Flamedanseur; Was at one point a gladiator slave.
Grendel - Gnoll Thane; Has a mustache, despite gnolls not being able to grow hair, and he has prepared a story around it. I am excited.
Nykini Isokini - Keen Booty Raider; Wears stilts under her pants to appear taller.
Bellflower Yorck - O'bannar Sharpsword; Wields a sword that was broken by Thor when he was really drunk.

brownhair798

In addition to working on the next campaign, I've been taking some time out to work on new races for future games. Well, I say 'new' because it's new to all these guys, but, these might be remembered by you Urealms veterans out there...

brownhair798

One last little bit of somefin somefin for ya'll to chew on.

Working on a new NPC that some of hte past campaign characters may've run into.



He's known simply as the Godkin.

brownhair798

This character is in Fjolren right now helping Tasha and Felix from Crimson Frost make a new legendary weapon - The Ascendant.



And here's some ageless, cause i know i'm gonna need them soon enough.

brownhair798

The campaign is as good as ready but I told folks it wouldn't happen until the end of hte month. I'll probably just keep polishing it until the last week in the month, but until then...

I do this thing occasionally where I make 4 characters based on a theme. Just set up the randomizer and throw in the custom races to the listings, see how stuff turns out.

Did that this morning with the theme 'Siege Team' - Aka a group of operatives that are meant to break through defensible positions. No colors here, might color them in later, but, the characters wound up very interestingly.

Not pictured, the leaders pet cyborg crocodile.



Characters, left to right;

The Doordog
Race: Snowbold
Class: Swashbuckler
Equipment: Elven vestments, Grapple-Cannon (Wild Earth Bow + Old Hand Cannon)
Notes: He got the furry attribute. As Snowbolds are already the furriest race in the listings right now, I just had to photoshop on one of those fluffy fuzzy dog faces over his face. I figure he's -barely- able to see, and deals with reinforced doors, walls, and barriers by either blasting them in or pulling them down.

Boss Shnozzle
Race: Goblin
Class: Spellslinger
Equipment: Numerous rare spells and gadgets, a magical revolver, and a giant Clockodile pet (not pictured.)
Notes: So this also acted as my chance to test out the goblins frankly absurdly powerful passive for stealing from the shop, just like they used to have. There are a lot more powerful items out there these days, so, I was worried it might not work. But y'know what? I think the fact that they have -awful- stats really helps to balance it out. He did wind up getting two legendaries out of the deal, but, other than that the commander here probably has the most stable gear set of everyone.

Boomsmif Vog
Race: Black Boar
Class: Thane
Equipment: A knife. Some armor. Three custom made bombs that when triggered create singularities.
Notes: There are -seven cards- in this characters build besides the starters (race/class/atr/corner). They got the insane attribute so i figured y'know what, this works. It includes a 10 gold dagger, a random piece of armor, an aura skill another character gave them, the skill 'Slamshock' - And three copies of the Legendary spell Black Hole, which cost him almost all his gold. It works.

Vanella 'Burns' Bernhiem
Race: Hobgob
Class: Bandito
Equipment: Holy warhammer, molotov cocktail, great personality.
Note: Vanella comes with her best buddy in the whole wide world, Chock, a gobolf wildmage. Hobgobs and Gobolfs are both not nessecarily liked by folks, so they stick together and watch one anothers backs.

Bish bash bosh, siege squad.

brownhair798

Hey all you sexy little beanbags! I got a treat for ya.


Still waiting on confirmations from one of our players, but it sounds like we're gonna be having the campaign in the next few days. Which means it's about time I unleash a little somethin for ya - A movie-poster style teaser for the campaign itself!

Edit: First week in october, sorry. We've got some scheduling issues.

Ladies and gentlemen...



In eastern Perif-Antodes, a caravan overturns after a strange creature runs it off the road. Toppling down a hill, it spills its occupants out on the edge of the Titanfall Woods, a mysterious forest split by a series of rivers and strange ruins. There are a lot of strange creatures around here that have been undisturbed since the days of the Birth of Magic, when the Giant Kings began their conquest of the realm of Jadus... But something stirs in the undergrowth, and it will be up to these four travellers to unravel... THE MACHINATIONS OF MISFORTUNE.

STARRING:
Bellflower Yorck as The O'Bannar Swordsman
Nykini Isokini as The Keen Pirate
Grendel as The Gnoll Thunder-Warrior
Lugra Lugra as The Shezaite Flamecaller
Nader Leomaris as Himself

And many more!

STAY TUNED FOR THE EPIC RECAP - SAME UREALMS TIME, SAME UREALMS CHANNEL

bl1ndn3rd

@brownhair798 ;
hey! Thought I’d let you know, Heroforge just updated, and added color, meaning you can add colors right there! Should help you out when making tokens and such as you won’t need to use a separate program.

brownhair798

...heroforge just became impossible for me to use.

i can't... i can't do the backgroundless images anymore

brownhair798

...I CAN'T... i... i needed that... and its broken now... i..


i cant do this now

brownhair798

Ugh. I guess i'm just subbing to yet another program to get past all this crap

Crimson_Grove

Good luck brownhair!

brownhair798

The spirits that are still kinda at the core of the full campaign story.

Bright blue spirit, far left - Genevieve, porc caravaneer
Purple spirit, mid left - Stanislaf Smearnog, berserk knight of Abracadab
Green spirit, left - Seeress Alai, elven clairvoyant
Red spirit, center-left - 'Itchy', goblin politician and community leader
Cyan spirit, center - Leilah, kobold turncoat turned sorceress
Green-blue spirit, center-right - Caarn, dwelf magical gladiator
Pink spirit, right - GG, gnome private investigator
Yellow spirit, far right - Alola, elven spirtualist
Black-purple spirit, center back - Strone of Tusc, black boar fleshweaver
Black-blue spirit, far back - Lokeeda, kobold cult mistress

brownhair798

SWEET HOLY HELL.

So first off, I'm finally getting used to the updates to Heroforge. I still am going to miss mucking around in photoshop, I feel like the uncolored skin look was really striking visually, and it's really hard to get that same feel with the new paint system. But, whatever, I paid for it, may as well use it - Expect the heroforge tokens to look a helluvalot prettier now that I'm not hacking them apart with oversaturation and contrast sliders. Should technically come out more fleshed out now that i actuallyknow what bits are what.

Second - I've been doing a test run of the Machinations of Misfortune campaign where I play as both DM and players for optimal player damage output, and boy oh golly oh geez oh gosh I think I've finally managed to hit the sweet spot by doing these tests of balancing out boss power to player power - Which I have never achieved in any of my other campaigns.

This might -actually- challenge them in a way that will keep them from one-shotting my monsters. I may even get a player kill!

Crimson_Grove

Cool! Glad to hear it's starting to work out.

brownhair798

Got some little teasers for the campaign following this one, whch is confirmed, will be taking place THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9TH, stay tuned for the recap!

But yes, teasers. Little... Things I have made.

Rob

Really great stuff my dude! I love your remixed race cards!

brownhair798

Thanks for the good word there, @Rob

brownhair798

Late night gift of cards on the DAY BEFORE CAMPAIGN 5.

Adding these into the decks for the next campaign.




AND I JUST REALIZED THERES A SPELLING MISTAKE IN THERE, GREAT.

brownhair798

Just about ready to start, and we had a last minute changeup. One of the players couldn't make it, but asked we not postpone, and requested that one of our friends take their place. So Lugra-Lugra will appear in a future campaign.

But in the meantime... Meet the A'talar sniper, Azatha.



Starting the game in 2 hours. Expect a recap in the next few days! Additionally, I'm going to start running these games a bit closer together - Ideally, 1 week before I run a campaign, I'll start work on the next one, and so on and so forth. Still about a month from announcement of a campaign to its play date, but, regardless, this should prove interesting and/or mental breakdown inducing. Stay tuned to find out which!

brownhair798

Slowly enters into the frame with a folding chair. Unfolds it slowly. Has some trouble getting the finnicky legs out. Sets it down, and sits.


...So. That happened.





Gentlemen. At the moment I begin writing this, the tenth day of the tenth month, I can only say that the previous night may have been one of the most exciting and demented nights I have ever experienced. What began as a simple campaign with three encounters, spiraled outwards endlessly to an intensity I did not think was possible.




So... Where should I begin.



Green is what I had planned.
Red is what happened.

All in all, I'm pleased that we went on script as much as we did.


Prologue; Meet the Team...

So, we begin our game, and I explain the general situation to the players. Up until this point, they have had no information given about just what is taking place in this campaign, nor have I been given more than the most nessecary information on the player characters and their identities or motivations. I have them line up and explain who they are. We are introduced to...


Bellflower Yorck, male O'bannar Sharpsword

He explains that his motivation in life is simple; Wait for the perfect opportunity to kill Thor. Yes, the god of revelry, creator of the dwarves, the Forn, and the great cheese wheel of which I am going to go as long as humanly possible without acknowledging. As it goes, the diminutive O'bannar have a fierce warrior spirit, and one that impressed Thor at one of his oft-held divine keggers was the ferocity that he saw in Great Grandfather Yorck. Thor insisted that they have a spar, and, well, the fight ended almost instantly with Thor pounding Yorck into a fine paste, and shattering his silver greatsword under his fist. Thor, to his credit, felt a bit of guilt and delivered the broken blade to Bellflower's Great Grandmother. Now, a thing to know about O'bannar, is that they take polyamory rather far, they'd be active enough to make Quintara Lotus perk an eyebrow, and as such, Thor breaking this sword did not enrage just one wife, but... Well, we don't have an exact number, but they were numerous. Thor however killed them just as quickly, and only Bellflower's great grandmother survived the ordeal. She later on gave the broken sword to the patient and wanderlust-filled Bellflower, who she saw fit to take up the family's quest of revenge against the reckless god of revelry.




Nykini Isokini, female Keen Booty Raider

Nykini comes from a long line of Keens. Or - Rather, a tall line. The Keens of the Isokini bloodline proudly stand taller than all other Keens, and her mother, Sun Gods rest her soul, stood a towering two foot three inches from the ground. Ever wishing to be just as imposing and dramatic a figure as her mother, Nykini has unfortunately broken the line of Isokini tallness as she stands at a meager 1 foot 11 inches. She's tried everything to try and extend her height - Magic, alchemy, special diets, training and exercise, but so far the best option she's figured out is to put stilts in her boots so that she can stand a little taller. Adorable.




Azatha, female Spellblade Suncleric

Azatha is a practitioner of a subset of the suncleric powerset that calls on all the light in the sky, and a healthy helping of arcane magic to pad things out. Honestly, given that the character was an emergency made character created mere hours before the game, there was not much time to make a storyline for her. We do know however that she came from A'talar, directly to the south of where the campaign takes place.

And that she loves that damn gun.




Grendel, male Gnoll Thane

Once the slave of a wealthy but vain man, known for a ridiculously fake mustachio, Grendel resented his master for his cruel treatment of both himself and other slaves in his employ. Pitfighting, menial labor, and so forth - The basic slave story. So when Grendel finally found a chance to kill his master with one of his own weapons, he opted to steal that faux facial hair, and wear it proudly as both a trophy, and a badge of his strength and freedom. Truly, the lizard with a pornstache would never be chained again if his numerous weapons had anything to say about it.


I inform the group that while travelling north out of A'talar, through Perif-Antodes, the great central wildlands of Jadus, that the ramsters pulling their cart were suddenly spooked by a large shiny beast, which resulted in the binds breaking, and the wagon careening off the road, down a hill, and over the edge of a cliff. They now found themselves in a river basin with no idea of where to go.


Obvious exits are south.


Part 1: The Puzzle Patch...

Non-obvious exits are upwards. The team tries to get the ramsters, which are now grazing on the grass at the top of the cliff, to come down by way of shooting at them.

It doesn't work.

They head south. Grendel notes there are totems around, weird little watchery-doos that follow their movements, and he confidently (and incorrectly) explains to the group that these are clearly totems of bearding, set up by local druids to help the animals grow a warm furry coat for the winter.


Not far from the start point, the group reaches the first challenge in the forests. A puzzle.

There's a stone circle, with a wooden figure sitting in the center. He's made of sticks, poorly painted, but looks jovial enough. There are a pair of glass jars on stools flanking him, one bigger than the other.

He instantly unnerves the group, but from all investigations, he's just an effigy of some sort.



Before him is a journal, chained to the ground. The lone passage within introduces the golem as 'Ozvaldo', and refers to this area as his 'Puzzle Patch'. In exchange for solving his puzzle, (which was to 'quench my thirst precisely' using the nearby river) the party will be rewarded with a special treat.

Now, I won't go into the exact details, but provided you've either played KOTOR 1 or seen Die Hard With A Vengance, you'll know that I employed the 3-5 jug riddle. The players took a bit of time to get this, and there were a few interesting attempts to solve it, one which almost resulted in the keen and the gnoll going into a full mouth kiss.

While the team was happily patting themselves on the back, none of them saw the stick golem starting to stand, its grin inverting into a frown, and its chest opening up to reveal a dark squirming void.

It was only upon the realization that he was not only standing, but growing, resulted in one of my players pointing out that the boat to leave up the river had been sitting by the shore this entire time, rendering the nessecity of this puzzle entirely moot.

Too late tho. #notricks.



Totally not Baldi from Baldi's Basics in Mathematics exclaims 'IT'S TIME FOR YOUR TREAAAAAAAAAAAT' and combat with the cabalist shadow-creature began. Ultimately, the fight, while prolonged, was not terribly dangerous for the group as his abilities were too commonly thwarted by the clever tactics of the team, and the employment of a barrage of status effects. The majority of the damage came from Grendel with his silver rapier dealing extra damage when he stabbed directly into the shadowy heart of Ozvaldo, while Azatha continued to lay down covering fire with her dragonfire longrifle and her blind spells. The final blow was struck by Azatha, who rather than making a final murdershot on Ozvaldo, fired her shot into the air to inspire her fellows to just begin ripping into him, unleashing a trio of slicing attacks made up of Grendel's silver rapier, Nykini's jeweled blade of the baringsters, and Bellflower's One's Sword.

As the stick golem fell apart, shadows fell on everyones eyes, and they heard a haunting whisper as the creature died - "I hear every door you open."

Further investigation reveled three things. One, trying to take the glass bottles from their stands (which Bellflower had taken interest in as they had a unique water-filling enchant he hadn't seen before that he figured he could 'weaponize' somehow,) results in the remains of Not-Baldi twitching and his sticks rolling about, Two, It probably wouldn't survive at all if they lit the whole thing on fire, which they did, sadly also destroying the magic bottles, and lastly, Bellflower's sword was suddenly trying to bite him. Ouch.

(Bellflower Personal Legendary unlocked)



Part 2: The Hail Hydra...