Now What?

[Tahlvin]

To recap for Dwyn, who missed last night's session:

We entered the halls of wrath, where we encountered a very large room. At the far side of that room, on a 30-foot high platform, was a 12 foot tall iron golem. Hal and Illian used the dimension door cloak to teleport right next to the golem, at which point it began to move and beat the living shit out of Hal (it dealt 98 points of damage on one hit, and had Hal down to just 18 hit points, even after laying hands on himself). Thankfully, it was slowed by a lightning bolt from Kay, so it only had one attack per round. Illian finally eliminated it with a critical hit that also dealt ability damage (he chose to deal CHA damage, which brought it's CHA down to 0, which disabled it).

After stopping the golem and Hal healing back up to full strength, we investigated the platform behind the golem and found two teleportation circles, one red and one blue. There was considerable debate about whether the circles teleport back to the real world or just internally within Runeforge, and there was not a real consensus. Whatever we do, we want to do it as an entire group, so we stick together. So either we step onto one of the teleport circles (before or after resting), or we search the remaining halls (in the order ), forge whatever weapons we need to forge, then come back to the hall of wrath and use the teleportation circles.

So, let's vote on what our next step is.

Of course, if our next step involves resting or checking the other halls, there's always a chance the golem will be reactivated the next time we come back to the hall of wrath. So then the question becomes, if that's what we want to do, is there anything we can do to the golem to permanently disable it? I believe it weighs about 5,000 pounds, so moving it out of the hall may not be possible. Although, perhaps by summoning some strong creatures, and Thor shaping into a pack mule or something like that, perhaps we could drag it out of here?

[Zen]

[Mike]

Dothan is becoming increasingly anxious and emo about everything, but recognizes that we must push forward with this in order to save the world, even if it means great personal sacrifice.

She advocates caution and suggests we not attempt the teleportation circles until we either know with some certainty where they lead OR we believe we have exhausted our need to be in the Runeforge.

[Zen]

[ ]Cats and dogs sleeping together...
Kay agrees with Dothan.

[Phoebe]

I'm so sorry I missed it - was basically the worst night possible to fall on this week. Then after missing a session it's like a month then in the barren desert with nothing! Glad to see Hal did not die!

[Eliahad]

I think I missed a lot of the debate, I must have been lagging, too. Sorry, folks, but thanks for the recap!

[Tahlvin]

If these were portals that leave Runeforge, I would expect it to be a circle with the sihedron rune, and I would expect only one, rather than two. The fact that there are two circles, and they don't appear to have anything to do with the sihedron rune, makes me think they are local-only teleport circles. But I agree, we can't really take that chance. I'm worried it'll be a local teleport that leads to another bad guy that we need to defeat before we reach the real exit we're looking for.

And I still strongly think we want to clear the rest of the halls that we haven't checked yet, just to make sure we have all of the notes, etc., that we need to create the runeforged weapons to defeat Karzoug. So I'm all for checking out the rest of the halls (Krune/sloth/conjuration) then Zutha/gluttony/necromancy) before we do the magic item crafting.


Which does sort of lead to another question: What runeforged weapons are we going to create? I assume we're going to take some of our existing weapons and just add enhancements to them, rather than crafting completely new weapons? If that's the case, whose weapons are we enchanting? Vraxereris's journal indicated there was enough reserves to enchant about 6 weapons, so we may not be able to get everyone a weapon. We certainly want a weapon each for Hal, Dwyn, and Illian. Since Illian is focused on dual-wielding, do we want to enchant both of his blades, or only one (so we can enchant a weapon for someone else)? Do we want to enchant Thor's bow and/or Kay's rapier? What about weapons for Dothan, Anna, and/or Sam, who primarily seem to use spells rather than weapons? Can we runeforge one of Dothan's musical instruments, and from that, add the runeforge bonus to her inspire courage bonus she grants to the rest of us?

[Mike]

Personally, I say Dwyn, Hal, Thor, Kay, and then Illian x2.

It is rare than Sam, Anna or I deal damage at all with a weapon, much less any significant damage.

[Tahlvin]

If there's enough juice left at the end, do you want to enchant Dothan's crossbow?

(BTW, enchanting Thor's bow with sex toy-infused magic just makes me think I'm going to end up with a weapon that belongs in the movie Orgazmo!)

[Mike]

Well, if we can do 7, I wouldn't say no, but I also don't think it will make much difference for me.

[Zen]

[Eliahad]

My weapons have been less effective of late, and the iron statue was lucky, because I was going off of a joke in chat more than anything else. I didn't think any ability damage I did to this thing would do much so I went with that.

I would love to get them enchanted so they are more likely to overcome damage resistance. I'm feeling more like a glass peashooter than a glass cannon. That said, I have Thursday night shows for the next 2 sessions, so if other people want to be in line first, go for it!

[Tahlvin]

The runeforge enchantment isn't necessarily a short-term thing (i.e., next few sessions), it's a longer term, face-the-ultimate-bad-guy thing, which hopefully you/Illian will be around for!

[Zen]

And Iron Golems are tough AF. You'll notice I wasn't even using my rapier. I would have been hard pressed to even hit the danged thing even with song. My best bet was to go elemental and get Metal Mastery (+3), or, better yet, use bull rush or something like that and get +10 to it. But I'm giving up size then as well... (But I also gain AC... and DEX...)

And the enhancements from Runeforge are really designed to go against the Runelord himself, I think... Maybe high level minions...

[bralbovsky]

On reflection, I agree that these are likely local portals, having said that, I think we should save this for last.
1...this was a nasty gate guard, what's to follow may be worse. Wrath is the most aggressive and fighty-est sin.
2...We're already isolated from our supply chain and other resources. We'd be down numbers if we hadn't brought members back. I don't want to enter another loop where we don't know where we are or how to get out until we are ready to go.
3...What if it is the way out, and we haven't finished the weapons? What fresh hell of a process to return?

I have long said that Dothan is like the kicker on our football team. If Hal hit five times last night, that's 15 damage (and likely pushed his hits from four to five in the first place). Add that to Illian's damage, to Tahlvin's... Not inconsequential.
I don't believe the Runeforge just adds a +1. It adds some weird additional resistance or tweak based on the school of magic you imbue. If Dothan had a special instrument that would be the first thing I'd vote to enchant. Just now, I'm thinking 'Hell, we can go back to Magnimar and find some kickass Bard tool that we bring back here to enchant.' but that's probably silly. Maybe we make Dothan a steel guitar out of this golem, and spend whatever time it takes to enchant it...I'm spitballing

We need to know more about the exact process whereby we choose qualities and enchant through the runeforge. I think the divination ink and quill will be ready soon. We just have to frame the questions properly.

So let's say 6
1 Dothan, some resistence added to the songs?
2 Dwyn, Pick a weapon
3 Hal's adamantine longsword
4 and 5 Illian's Swords
6 Tahlvin's Bow
If we get a 7, Kay.
We've picked up some pretty badass staves in our travels. I expect one or more could come in handy for Anna and Sam

[Phoebe]

[Bluedevyl]

If the enchants are likely to be long-lived, Anna is most likely going to enchant the returning dagger she carries and has yet to use. More easy to conceal and could potentially be useful later on.

Having said that, if we only get 6, Anna REALLY doesn't need one.

I imagine we'll figure out the pool setup, enchant the weapons that get, you know, USED, and then if there is residual magic remaining Sam and then Anna can take a shot at it.

[Tahlvin]

Just so Dave and Phoebe don't need to dig through all the Roll20 chat log from last night, here's a summary of what happened:

To begin the session, the magical folks (Anna, Sam, Kay and Dothan) went and studied up on how to rune-forge weapons, while the physical folks (Hal, Dwyn, Illian and Thor) dissected an iron golem and scatter his remains to the four corners of Runeforge, so we shouldn't need to fight him the next time we go back into that hall. We then rested.

After resting, we proceeded into the hall of sloth, which is disgusting! It's basically a gigantic sewer, where the walkways are slippery and slimey (reduced movement), and there's deep canals of sewery-sludge, in one big, maze-like layout. Fly spells were cast on everyone (including Dwyn and Illian, when you guys hopefully show up next session) so we could move around without worrying about the sludge. We happened upon a chamber with some levers on one wall and pipes spewing sewage out of another wall. Upon throwing one of the levers, the sewage seemed to stop flowing. Throwing another lever caused a bunch of metallic screeching noise throughout the entire place (so don't plan on having the element of surprise), and that lever was quickly returned to its original position. And throwing the last lever resulted in a bunch of fresh water dropping down from above, from which arose a water elemental-type creature. And that is the cliff hanger on which the session ended.

[Phoebe]

Ohhh, it sounds amazing! I feel so bad about missing another one. This is the worst ever with two in a row. Desolation. It will be an eternity to wait another week and a half.