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04:35, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends.

Posted by The AltweaverFor group archive 0
The Altweaver
GM, 1323 posts
The Teller
of The Tale
Wed 6 Sep 2017
at 22:10
  • msg #1

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends


"Time is a predictable path, always forwards. History is a predicatble story, always repeating. The recurrence of legends is the illusion that time has been fought and stalled, by the return of these larger than life figures. However, Time continues onwards with its own dark purpose to its black conclusion. History is just its clever minion, making us look backwards instead of forwards, distracting us with false hope rather than allowing us to look with clear eyes to determine our own futures..."

 - Thrazidum, to the Thraki'i

The Altweaver
GM, 1403 posts
The Teller
of The Tale
Thu 8 Mar 2018
at 20:34
  • msg #2

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends


I've closed the other thread, but please look at the last post if you haven't already. Feel free to jhave another reaction post here :)

Nym
PLAYER, 1702 posts
Fri 9 Mar 2018
at 17:52
  • msg #3

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends

So...just to clarify...first there was a deer stampede, then a normal brown bear who just ran past us, then some kind of giant shadowy mutant bear thing which looked like it was going to attack...and then a blue dragon appeared from...er...somewhere, and impaled the mutant bear on its claws, lifting it into the air? Slightly worrying that we somehow failed to notice a dragon large enough to do that...
The Altweaver
GM, 1405 posts
The Teller
of The Tale
Fri 9 Mar 2018
at 19:58
  • msg #4

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends


The blue dragon appeared from the woods (moving overland not flying), it was barrelling through the trees. It was moving pretty quickly and directly behind the mutant bear, and also blasted the area at the side with lighting too just before it appeared. I think you can be forgiven for noticing something mythical that shouldn't exist until it upstaged said mutant bear, given all the mitigating factors. :p

Also, technically speaking they are both 'large' sized, just the Dragon is stronger and has the power of artistic license on its side.

Nym
PLAYER, 1703 posts
Sat 10 Mar 2018
at 10:23
  • msg #5

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends

Dragons as "mythical"? In DnD? Hmmmm...
Sooo, can my Nature check apply to the dragon too/instead? Or shall I roll another one? I'm fairly sure I know quite a bit more about DnD blue dragons than Nym does, but I might as well see what she knows before I have her start commenting on it/attempting to strike up a conversation ;).

Meri
PLAYER, 1650 posts
Artificer
Level 6
Sat 10 Mar 2018
at 12:43
  • msg #6

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends

OOC: Think it was mentioned before that dragons are mythical in this particular setting.  Apparently everyone was wrong about that though since we've got one staring us down right now.  Unless it's an illusion of course...
Anyways, since I seem to be rock bottom in the Initiative order, I'll wait to see what Nym is up to :)



[Private to The Altweaver: Immediate suspicion here is that we were supposed to fight the bear, but Meri somehow inadvertently 'summoned' this thing to us with that symbol of Tiamat.
Assuming the link between Tiamat and dragons might have occurred to Meri too, given that she recognised it back there.  Will check to see if holding that symbol can exert any control over the creature, dunno if Arcana or Religion would be best for that...  Holy symbol = Trying Religion: 13 (6 + 7) - Ick...
]
The Altweaver
GM, 1406 posts
The Teller
of The Tale
Sat 10 Mar 2018
at 18:35
  • msg #7

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends


Yeah, the Shadow mentioned the history of the world way back, and I've commented about dragons to you since then. In this setting, he said that the gods asked the dragons to back off for a bit to let the 'younger' races estabilish themselves, then when the dragons came back they were a little pissy that they seemed to have just been abandoned and userped, and basically wrecked stuff to conquer these mortal lands. However, they then started fighting amongst themselves, some other mortals from across the sea to the south came across and vanquished the dragons, and then basically took up residence in the land.

The dragonborn are said to be the descendants of the dragons, and that's why they had some troubles with dragonborn in history. To be fair this second part has been hinted at withtalks with Farren, and it might be a year or more since it was mentioned.

Anyway, as it was probably all a myth, and because no one has ever seen dragons that you know of nor are they ever talked about (despite them still being in the collective unconscious...) then yeah, no one sjhould know anythign definitive about them. You een commented on how you doubted, in Dungeons and Dragons, the dragons would all be gone and mythical. You were right. You can roll Nature separately for the Blue Dragon, or History, but don't expect Nym to know too much. I'll trust you not to metagame too much :) To be fair, you know enough now. Causes Lightning. Flies. Strong. Scary. :p

Nym
PLAYER, 1704 posts
Sun 11 Mar 2018
at 10:07
  • msg #8

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends

Okies, I'll roll Nature then...cool, 28 :).
The Altweaver
GM, 1410 posts
The Teller
of The Tale
Wed 14 Mar 2018
at 19:40
  • msg #9

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends

Sorry, between mum being down until Monday night, a (last minute cancelled) audit this week at work, lack of sleep, and a walk I've got to scout / lead at the weekend, I've not really had nor will have the time to kick off the battle. Look for that next week :) I mean it's a chapter end anyway, so I figured it's fine to have a mini-hiatus.

Obviously, absolutely nothing else to see here :p

With the Dragon hovering in the air paying attentionto its captured bear, you might just have a tiny moment of time to do stuff. Technically I'll go by your initiative order when you start the battle (ie when suddenly stuff happens), so you can react in discrete chunks of time and checking things out for the moment.



[Private to Meri: Aww, 13 is a little low. Anyway, so Meri won#t know anything for sure. But the symbol doens't seem that powerful, and the dragon hasn't homed in on Meri - yet. So it is perhaps less likely that it can exert any influence. However, it was mentioned that dragon-like creatures should be able to feel the symbol, so Meri can at the very least use that to torment the creature. Whether Meri wants to try and invest more time to sense a latent 'control dragon' power is up to you :)

In metagame terms, who knows what you were supposed to fight and or not... As I said though, a bear seems a little subtle for a chapter ender :D

Oh, and yes, if I didn't say before, the mutant bear was absolutely the scent of magic Meri could smell. Odd that the dragon went right for it above all else so aggressively, isn't it?
]


[Private to Nym: For the bear, your Nature roll would be enough to spot that in many ways the mutant bear looks like it perhaps could have been exactly like the other bear once. The mutation doens't look natural, and is perhaps relatively recent. Someone, maybe Geekaar, did mention that the bear observations only seemed to come up a few weeks ago. Oh, I made a mistake (given it's been ages since I looked at the stats). I forgot that bears (and minotaurs, etc) in 4th edition are medium sized creatures. Like, really big medium, of course :p And that's why it seemed logical for the dragon to pick the bear up mechanically. Yes, the dragon is still large :D


As for the dragon, Nym won't know anything from history, tales, etc. Howevemr for that god roll I can probably give you a lot of stuff just based on quick observation.

The dragon is fast - really fast, especially on it's wings. And really manoeuverable. Hence why it 'snuck' up on you! Basically, it's 8 squares normal and 10 squares flying, and you can suspect it has sneaky extra actions / reactions to be able to move more (without opportunity attacks). Which will just make it feel really quick and hard to pin down. It also seems as if it would be hard to pin down being so big. That means don't expect stuns and dazes to last more than that turn. You might be able to slow it down, but even that might not last (it has a large saving throw bonus).

The thing's tail doens't seem too scary, and it seems more intent on flying on its wings (so don't expect those to attack) but those wings do seem to generate quite a buffetting effect (so watch out for that if you get to close and aren't paying attention, say because you are attacking it). The claws look deadly though as noted, as does its maw. And you've seen evidence of burning trees and exploding grass that it seems to have the ability to lob lighting around. So it is probably immune to that, or at least very resistive to it. Like, you know, resist 10 or something...

Probably one of the few things anyway would know about even mythical dragons is they breath stuff, so it seems likely this dragon breaths lighting, cool and scary as that sounds!

Anyway, enough to be going on with? I haven't mentioned dragonfear, so either that's not a thing or Nym hasn't been affected by it yet. All good?
]
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:07, Wed 14 Mar 2018.
Nym
PLAYER, 1710 posts
Thu 15 Mar 2018
at 14:59
  • msg #10

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends

Given the situation I think Nym will momentarily freeze up anyway for now. Normally, of course, she'd happily greet a new creature if it showed up in front of her (if it didn't seem like it was about to try and attack her), but this one has done so by impaling and picking up another new creature. Violence right in front of her which would normally put her into "combat mode", in which case she would probably start with the creepy childish laughter and all that. But the dragon hasn't attacked us yet, so she's not quite been pushed fully into "killkillburnburndiediedie" mode just yet. So she's sort of teetering on a weird balance of the two and so will do nothing until something else happens to push her one way or the other.

[Private to GM: Hmm, super-fast, with lightning breath plus resistance to lightning and status effects? And a wing buffet and predictably deadly claws and teeth? Ouch. Hm, well, squishy caster will probably try to hide at the back, I expect, if she doesn't get too carried away once combat kicks off (assuming that it does, of course ;)).
On that note, actually, can I just announce now that I'm gonna use Slaad's Gambit the first time I get directly attacked (assuming that I do at some point)? Immediate Interrupt, targets the triggering enemy. I teleport away and zap them in retaliation - I'm pretty sure I've used this once before, at whatever the last thing was that we fought. The Teachers, maybe? Anyway, you can see it on my character sheet, the last power under the "Offensive" section. Just want to make sure I've got that declared now so you know I want it to go off, since it's an Interrupt so will mean the attack against me will fail unless I somehow manage to still be in range of it after teleporting away ;). Yay for out-of-turn actions in a forum-based game ;).
]
Meri
PLAYER, 1653 posts
Artificer
Level 6
Sat 17 Mar 2018
at 16:36
  • msg #11

Chapter 5: The Recurrence of Legends

If the sight of the dragon shocked Meri, she wasn't letting any signs of it show.  Timur on the other hand shuffled down onto her pack as if trying to hide behind her.

Her gaze moved from the dragon to the bear and back again, flickering briefly back towards Sarah as she spoke up, then back to the dragon again.
Around her, the ground still smouldered, charred by the fiery display she had called up earlier, the parts of the staff in contact with her hands still glowing a faint red with the heat.  Without lifting the staff from its defensive position in front of her, she spoke up in a rather neutral tone that still refused to give any hint of her inner emotions, if any existed.

"So do either of you two want something from us?"
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