Warriors of the Empire of the Sun: Session IX

This was a session showcasing the Mass Combat Mini-game from Races of War. It is also the last session for the player of X37, which means the next session may be postponed, depending on scheduling for Tow's player and my ability to find a replacement player. 

Also, out of apathy for the game caused by the prospect of thinking of a new character, Cast decided to keep his character and we had a slight retcon of him taking a celestial hippogriff and arriving two days later. The hippogriff was already established last session, as the Empress had attacked an invading force on the capital, and in her fury a celestial hippogriff got sorta stuck on the Prime; this being the same fight that got Chantico's arm destroyed. Also, he finally got a magic weapon and switched out his sun plate for an adamantine carapace. 

Reconnaisance from Tow revealed that the orcish horde had been calling in the minor camps and consolidating for a larger attack. His attempt at clairvoyance revealed a giant salt crystal wielded by the war chief named The Knight of the Dunes (orc ghoul that looks desert mummified), and his sensor was spotted. 

The party decided to piss off the war chief of the orcish horde into attacking them, so they could intervene before reinforcements from the Wastelands could make the army any larger. They met on the open battlefield, with intermittent squares of light forest. 

Enemy Forces 

20 Orcs: Move 2, HP 3, Damage 3, Morale 1

5 Orc Elite (Warrior 2, Elite array): Move 2, HP 6, Damage 5, Ranged, Morale 1

1 Dustblight Cavalry (Ashworm mounts): Move 2, HP 14, Damage 8, Burrow (open terrain allows +1 Fortification), Morale 7

Player Forces 

12 Human Conscripts: Move 2, HP 1, Damage 1, Morale 0

2 Human Archers: Move 2, HP 2, Damage 2, Ranged, Morale 1

2 Human Pikemen: Move 2, HP 3, Damage 2, Morale 1

1 Undead Archers (X37's): Move 2, HP 6, Damage 5, Morale 2

Notes 
Marshal's warshout (+3 morale atk & damage): +3 unit damage to all units 
Marshal's other buffs: +1 unit damage to personally lead unit 
Marshal's healing aura: heals 2 unit HP at end of round (if they survive, fully healed) 
Tow's Invisibility Sphere: one-use 'first strike' given to unit, cannot be reapplied unless they are not attacked for a turn and move at half speed 
Tow's Major Image: Deals 3 HP to a unit, ignores terrain, only usable once per unit (concentration, so he just smacked a new unit each turn) 

Through judicious use of Set when in the light forest squares, Cast's whirlwind attack on a hippogriff dealing 1 damage to up to four orc units (DR 9 ~ unit DR 2 = 10 damage per orc unit entered, went into Marshal's unit for the healing aura afterwards), Tow's magic, they managed to route the orcish horde. 

They took out all but six orc units, at the expense of 11 conscripts & 1 pikemen. The warchief, who was the leader/commander of the dustblight cavalry, managed to personally escape; which greatly vexed the party. They began to torture the captured orcs, have Tow ransack his tent (teleporting once the camp noticed), and then have him go to the Green Oracle and fork over what money they had to the diviners. All this to find out where he was so they could gank him. 

At this point, I figured I might as well make him more important to the story and changed a few names and moved the timetable ahead. He fled towards a massive underground lake that is the heart of all the wells in the kingdom bordering the wastelands, and he is planning something that threatens the entire Empire of the Sun. 

They move as fast as they can, which takes half a day; except for Tow, who finds the local Elementalist that is the caretaker for the lake and is told the directions through the underground system to get to the area. He even allows Tow to cast misdirection with him as a source, so he will register as the Elementalist to all of the wards. 

Stopped the session on a 'to be continued', but I had everyone ding to level 7.

Warriors of the Empire of the Sun: Session VIII

A decent game today, though we were without Tow once again (car trouble). 

The party made their trek back to the capital of the Empire of the Sun, using the best horses of the kingdom to speed up the trek. Soru informs Marshal that he's been doing well getting a dojo formed, and his presence would be appreciated (think drill sergeant) as well as using his perceptive ability as a test for their stealth. Tezcateotl, excited with his progress, shows the new neophytes he's recruited as well as his undead crafting results. They reacquaint with Chantico, who is sporting a missing arm due to a particularly dangerous attack from the Blackened Grove when a strike team hit the capital. 

While the two go through town selling and upgrading their gear, Cast prepares for the coronation ceremony, which includes a solo fight against an elephant. A large part of the capital is there for the ceremony, and Cast ends up defeating the elephant with only 2 hit points left (it was an incredibly close fight, saved by his warhorse's extra attacks). This dismays Cast incredibly at the performance of his character, especially after looking at Marshal's numbers were he to fight the elephant instead. In fact, he decides to retire his character and make a new one, having Cast return to the kingdom to rule rather than adventure. 

In order to keep him involved, we used that one-shot halfling barbarian and had Cast's player use the stats, saying that he had family where the party was going and he'd help a bit before reaching the place. 

Their decision is to go forth and assist with the orcish horde under the banner of the Hungering Maw. Chantico, who is on break doing a couple minor items, have the day off long enough to be able to cast shrink item & two phantom steeds w/an Extend Rod. The halfling was small enough to be a passenger, and the shrink item was for a pair of heavy warhorse skeletons packaged in a chest and set for 'inactive' until reassembled (takes an hour and some negative energy); the latter a compliment of Tezcateotl. 

The travel is cut down from two weeks to two days thanks to this, where they find a village retrofitted into a defensive outpost about 15 miles before the border to the wastelands; the fight having gotten serious. There are three wounded Coronal Guard, about 200 basic soldiers, and five Coronal Guard patrols currently keeping an eye on the borders (one Guard plus seven very well trained soldiers). Marshal gives out a bunch of group healing activities and the party is appraised of the situation. There are four minor camps and a major one, sending small groups to test the border defenses and are likely massing a large attack. 

The party decides to attack one of the minor camps (after a patrol leaves, so their numbers are low), sending the halfing to the front to jump over the gate and open it. Inside, they fight 14 orcs, a dustblight (treated as children of the Maw, acting as leaders), and a dessicator with the swarm template (set for sand). Before the dessicator can do much, the rest of the camp is killed in fairly short order, the orcs in their dying breath tell the dessicator to run for the main camp. This keeps the party from a painful fight, as none of them have area attacks of note, but it does make them have to leave fairly quickly because the main camp will be alerted. 

Resting back at the outpost, the party waits an extra couple days for Tezcateotl to bring everyone's followers (assumed that Tow's running back and forth forth for information); namely by him purchasing transport wagons, converting them to be pulled by bipeds (along with Tow bringing the horse skeletons back for reassembly), and having them pull tirelessly.

Assault Apparatus: My Love, Strike the Glorious Sky!

There was an old Spelljammer supplement, called Wildspace, which told us of one of the more metal 'creatures' I've seen. It's a magic Gundam/Mecha, normally piloted by beholders...IN SPAAACE!! It is a glorious magical item, and I wholeheartedly encourage the entire party to commandeer a few of them, then fight others, possibly while someone plays an electric guitar in the background.

This is an equivalent conversion for semi-playability. For those who wish to compare it to the Apparatus of Kwalish, please be aware that I consider that item a waste of space. While its HP and hardness is crazy good, its AC is only good below level 4, it's swim speed is snail-like compared to anything you'd encounter underwater, and it attacks like an 8th level fighter coming to a 16th level party (which is when you can afford it). Now, reduce the Apparatus of the Crab to 9,000gp, then you'll have a potentially viable magic item with pros and cons. Or, keep the price, and instead use the statistics provided below.

Assault Apparatus 
This item appears to be an inert stone golem, 30' in height, but it has a secret catch (Search DC 20 to locate) that opens a hatch in the torso. Anyone, one Large character is the maximum capacity (or two Medium), who crawls inside finds ten (unlabeled) levers.

The device has the following characteristics: hp 200; hardness 20; Spd 50ft; Space/Reach 15 ft/15 ft; AC 26 (-2 size, -4 Dex, +22 natural); Atk +22 melee (2d12+15, 2 slams), +8 ranged touch (4d6, 2 light rays, 50' max range, no increments); Wave Motion Beam (10' wide, 100' long line, 16d6 magic missile damage, Fortitude DC 18 for half, 1d4 round cooldown) 

Lever (1d10)	Lever Function
1	Charge & attack target
2	Attack adjacent target
3	Total defense
4	Withdraw
5	Wave Motion Beam at target
6	Fire light rays at target
7	Stand or drop prone
8	Open/close 'eyes' with continual flame
9	Lift/drop adjacent target
10	Open/close hatch

Operating a lever is a full-round action, and no lever may be operated more than once per round. A verbal command is required, in Undercommon, to designate a target or direction for movement when a lever is pulled. If none is provided when a lever is pulled, a valid target is chosen randomly or a 1d8 is rolled for a direction moved. The device can function in water up to 900 feet deep or in the Plane of Vacuum. It holds enough air for a crew of two to survive 1d4+1 hours (twice as long for occupant).

Requirements

Strong evocation and transmutation; CL 19th; Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Construct, animate objects, continual flame, web, magic missile, searing light, creator must have 12 ranks in the Knowledge (architecture and engineering) skill; Market Price: 90,000gp

Warriors of the Empire of the Sun: Session VII

We've gotten back together and one of my old friends is visiting, so I cooked him up a spot character to join in (basic halfling barbarian). 

As they had 13 hours before midnight, the appointed time that shadow demon arrives to speak with King Brawn, Tow took advantage of this and started to rest in one of the guest rooms. During this time, X37 & Marshal headed down into the dungeon to see if there were any important political prisoners. There's a barbazu guarding the place, and doesn't believe X37's statement that the contract's been changed (no shadow to give the go-ahead), but does state that none of the prisoners are allowed out unless King Brawn's around to approve. When X37 pulls out Brawn's corpse to show him, the barbazu curses at his wording and lets them in, himself leaving since the contract's null with the boss dead. 

As an aside, Kast leaves orders with the guard to deny entrance to any of the barbarzu, stating that their king is busy. Since they don't know he's dead yet, they're not going to storm the place, so it suffices as a decent stalling maneuver. 

There are two specially designed cells, one holds our spot-player and another holds a political prisoner. The temp-player is held inside a magically treated iron cube less than 2' on a side, held up on chains above a 60' pit. Marshal suppresses the magic of the box, which makes it possible for X37 to make the DC 30 break check to open it. They find the halfling's equipment, the still beating boar's heart (magic Strength booster, requires periodic nibbling, regrows that damage), creepy; which amuses everyone. In the other room, the political prisoner seems to be a human heavily bound with ropes that are connected to a series of yet more ropes that hold up a 2 tonne boulder slightly above him (so if they're broken, the boulder falls and crushes him), the human can't see because he has a metal plate tied over his eyes, and there are mild burn marks around the area. The man is named Tenoc, where further detail on his origin will be revealed in the stat write-up with Tow (semi-cohort). Suffice it to say, he doesn't give much help for the moment, because he assumes it's just a torture ruse to make him think he's getting out; so they leave him for Tow to speak with. 

Once Tow finishes resting and recovering his spells, he goes down to the catacombs and uses hypnotism on Tenoc to convince him to assist in fighting the shadow demon. X37 goes into his true form and picks up the boulder, carrying it off, so now Tenoc can safely explode in flame to remove the rope. 

Midnight nears, and two barbarzu arrive to escort one of the nobles on charges of wrongful summoning, pushing him forward in chains. Everyone is in the throne room, hiding in illusions, along with an image of Brawn on the throne and a false cage for Kast. After a bit of cajoling, the barbazu are told to leave the prisoner, so they walk out the room. During the conversation, the noble seems dazed and confused, and said the thing he summoned was an item in his pocket, which turns out to be an darkness enchanted gem (later revealed to be a crappy 1gp onyx). As soon as the room is enveloped in darkness, the shadow demon springs out and pounces upon Kast for a fair bit of damage. The barbazu come charging back in, failing to summon a single lemure, and get slaughtered by X37. The shadow demon itself is beaten down before it can do anything significant (the barbazu had a damning darkness on them, but it was dispelled by Marshal when it came out). 

Tow and Marshal head up to the top of the castle/ziggaraut, create the largest floating head you can do with a silent image, while Marshal shouts as loud as he can to inform all of the barbazu that Brawn is dead and they must leave immediately. There's some clean-up over the next two days, and Gina eventually gets word (they don't know she switched sides) that they have a new contract. There's some sneaking around and ambushing, followed by awakening the barbazu in the dungeon (which makes it waste a round when it tries to teleport away and fails due to the depth of the dungeon) and hypnosis gets it to reveal that the new contract is with some 5' tall dwarf-like wizard that wears white robes, speaks High Infernal, provides virgins, and tells them to call him The White. 

While travelling to the capital to go through the coronation, the Empire proves reluctant to attempt to scry on The White since he's not revealed himself to be an enemy to the country, is obviously powerful enough to watch for scrying, and now has a small army of teleporting fiends that are individually on par with a Coronal Guard. Once I speak with the players again, after having initially given them nothing, I'll go ahead and let them have heard of someone that looks like The White with a good enough Knowledge (nobility) check; which will be a dwarf known for being the spokesman to a white dragon far to the north.

Warriors of the Empire of the Sun: Session VI

The party suits up and begins their 6 day journey of subtle entry to Crystalis, Cast's homeland, in order to free it of the oppressive reign of Brawn the Giant Slayer. Having heard rumours of a shadow demon and the impressive darkvision of the barbazu, they don't act until early morning, so they can act under the cover of the sun. 

Nearing the crafter's home that Sarou (Marshal's cohort) spoke of, they spied a pair of barbazu marching towards it as well. Hiding Cast, in case they recognized him, they walked up and bluffed their way as employees coming to deliver more precise orders. Believing them, the barbazu waited outside while the party interrogated before they collected the tax money. 

They obtained information on the secret entrance, a grain storage area that leads almost directly to the throne room, allowing the ice sculptors to go in without drawing attention to themselves. They're ice sculptors because King Brawn had been having a large amount of never-melting ice from the Frozen Islands shipped and stored within the throne room to add to the decore. 

Bidding a good day, they contemplate a manner to get past the two barbazu guards at the grain storage. Eventually, they just have Tow teleport between them and bluff that he's there to tell them the Empire of the Sun is invading along the road to the west and they need all the help they can get. They believe him, and the party gets four rounds before the barbazu figure out what's going on and give chase down the 5' wide tunnel. A dozen lemures block the hall, giving Marshal a chance to two round half of them as he chews through them (they had readied actions to charge once they had room) while X37 and Cast struggle against the two barbazu (bad luck for them, good luck for me). 

Shortly, they kill them all and get to the back door, which leads to a lush greenhouse with a small lake and a fountain made to look like a waterfall in the middle. There's a straw hat wearing hobo sitting on a rock in the lake, fishing. His face is painted to look dirty with a white frown over his mouth, and several brightly colored patches line his ratty clothes. One shoe is removed and a piece of string tied to a toe. The string led up to a crate (3' tall) near the back door, tied to a stick propping it open and a magic sword underneath along with a pile of gold. Figuring it to just be a joke, Tow walks over and grabs the sword, which makes the fisherman shout 'Aha!'. 

It also causes a concert grand piano to fall on Tow's head (6d6 damage). 

The party draws their weapons and readies to attack/defend against the man, who doesn't do much else besides introducing himself as Cali. They talk for a bit, and he says that he hangs around for the fishing, also informing the party the king is likely not taking visitors. At some point, Cali informs the party that not many people actually talk to him, as apparently they just snub him; what he'd really want is a catalogue. 

Assuming this would get on his good side, Tow teleports himself back to the Empire at a library and gets a catalogue of historical angels (no idea where they got that idea), then starts teleporting back. I figured teleport trap of the Jester is actually anticiapte teleportation, and had cast it on King Brawn earlier that day. This was within range, next room over from the throne room and all, which made the King come charging through in his full suite of demon armor, ice aegis. 

This ensues a battle, as King Brawn recognizes Cast and assumes the worst. King Brawn is a human Fighter 5/Barbarian 2, built on 28 point-buy and old age penalties, wearing magic armor/shield/strength/deflection. In the first round, the King 'calls in his last favour' from Cali, who assists for a single round...Low Comedy with a bucket full of chum, three cans of chicken soup (or shrink item alchemist's flasks), and sending three unseen servants (from servant horde) each with bumblebee shaped boxes w/fire trap next to the party; all while whistling 'flight of the bumblebee'. After that round of appreciably harming the entire party, he goes to nap and continue fishing for the rest of the fight. 

The fight is several rounds of doing nothing against Brawn due to his AC and lucky saving throws, followed by a couple real hits and Brawn using Lift and CdG on Cast; releasing him into the pond that is deceptive in its 30' depth (the ACP is enough to sink him). However, he's taken down and knocked unconcsious through Tow's whelm. 

After some interrogation of Brawn, who is ready to just die rather than suffer any further indignity, they find out that close to three months ago, Cali arrived as a wandering jester/moocher. Several days later, the shadow demon arrived and offered Brawn a chance for greater glory of the kingdom and for him to finally sire a child that could inherit the throne. Desperate to keep the family line going, he agreed and hired the Barghest's Maw to assassinate Cast (later finding out it's just as good if he's not there to question his rightful rulership during his rise to power, as detailed earlier). Later, a neophyte temptress demon along with a contigent of barbazu, and he gained the manpower to declare independence. 

Deciding it would be more useful, X37 simply knocks Brawn out and will later keep him imprisoned until he's good enough to be able to eat souls. 

X37 threatens to attack Cali if he doesn't comply and spill the beans as to who summoned all of the fiends that wander the kingdom, and is given a highly trapped envelope that he decides to try and read as close to the jester as possible. This barely hurts Cali, and gets ready to attack, but Cast talks the player out of the idea since he thinks the danger/effort is useless and won't get the information. With a grumble, the ghoul listens. 

They search the grounds, and all of the mortal guardsmen are relieved to see that it's the rightful heir to the throne and that the evil Brawn is defeated. Finally, they find the Queen along with the temptress who was to soon be the mother of Brawn's child (this was before the ritual was begun). The Queen reveals that she carries the child of Cast's father from shortly before he was killed (barely shows), which fits the rumours Cast heard of the Queen being seen in the town with his father shortly before he died; and did this out of loneliness and secretive rebellion against her power-mad husband. Figuring her to be safe, Cast opts to keep her as a duchess. 

As for the temptress, she has high society training; imagine the Companion from Firefly, only with darker background, and elevating Cast's status through pleasing other kingdoms fits within her capability. She never saw her summoner (much like that dretch from earlier), but found a note informing her of freedom if she worked with Brawn. Now, she is left as a freelancer, and living on the Prime is with the advantages provides in the Tomes. Cast decides that she's trustworthy enough to hire on, and she's introduced as his new cohort. 

Next week, the party begins the process in cleansing the land of the barbazu and finding out the location of the shadow demon.