The Heroes of Winterhavern learn more about Argent's history and the coming storm, and then are called once again to the city's defence.
Read the full recap here.
Much of the information relating to divine engine Klar-Ekku has obviously been tailored by the DM specifically to the Stones and Shadow, Trees and Light campaign. Moradin and his exarch Gond make obvious appearances as creator/inventor deities and Tempus is the obvious choice as the wrathful forgotten realms deity that broke the device after it had served its intended purpose. It's no coincidence that there are Moradin and Tempus worshippers in the party.
Notwithstanding that tailoring, I like the plot line a lot. Even if "vanilla" 4e gods were to be substituted in place of Moradin and Tempus, the idea of recovering pieces of an artifact that was used to imprison a primordial is inherently "high tier". It's the sort of adventure that paragon and epic tiers demand, and it's pretty exciting to be involved in one. I'm well aware that the plot is actually somewhat of a trope (Robert Jordan's 'seals on the Dark One's prison' immediately springs to mind), but I honestly don't care. There's a reason tropes become tropes.
The encounter with the wight and guardian Qwor was relatively uneventful except for the fact that I hadn't picked out that the two were not one. After we spoke to the wight (how often do you get to do that?) and it gave us permission to proceed through the necropolis to Qwor's mausoleum, I was momentarily very confused. Suffice to say that the DM gently ushered me on and we soon had an audience with the spectre of Argent's long dead guardian. The skill challenge involved was ultimately a bit transparent, but not so transparent that I could define exactly how it worked. If I had to guess, I suspect that the wight and Qwor's tomb were part of the same challenge, but I could easily be wrong.
We're still not quite grokking skill challenges. Some flow better than others, but we still invariably have an occasion where someone tries to do something silly. In this case, it was Dek trying to impress the wight by doing exercises to prove his abilities. I think the wight said it best. "Um, yes, that's very impressive. Now, moving along..."
The fight against the giants would have been fairly uneventful were it not for the Roc. It has a standard action power that allows it to fly 10 squares, grab and pick up a target along the way, and then drop it at the end of the move. Given that there was a 200' cliff just outside the walls, that power very quickly became a source of immense concern. The first attempt was thwarted by a poor attack roll against Pieter. The second by Pieter readying split the sky (push 2 and knock prone, thank Tempus it hit!). The third by Dek twatting it with an OA as it tried to fly off with the tempuran in its claws. By the time the blasted thing did manage to grab someone (Dek), it had been slowed by one of Soveliss' powers and the cliff wasn't a pressing threat anymore.
One thing that didn't make it into the recap (it was cut for space reasons) is that the party found Valthrun's pipe in one of Argent's taverns, still smelling of recently-smoked tobacco. The old sage is somewhat of a foil for Pieter, and his reappearance was probably to be expected. Still, it did nothing to improve the tempuran's mood. Valthrun is a bit like a shock jock. I technically distrust and dislike the NPC, but he certainly does make the game more interesting. We'll see where it goes from here.
Notwithstanding that tailoring, I like the plot line a lot. Even if "vanilla" 4e gods were to be substituted in place of Moradin and Tempus, the idea of recovering pieces of an artifact that was used to imprison a primordial is inherently "high tier". It's the sort of adventure that paragon and epic tiers demand, and it's pretty exciting to be involved in one. I'm well aware that the plot is actually somewhat of a trope (Robert Jordan's 'seals on the Dark One's prison' immediately springs to mind), but I honestly don't care. There's a reason tropes become tropes.
The encounter with the wight and guardian Qwor was relatively uneventful except for the fact that I hadn't picked out that the two were not one. After we spoke to the wight (how often do you get to do that?) and it gave us permission to proceed through the necropolis to Qwor's mausoleum, I was momentarily very confused. Suffice to say that the DM gently ushered me on and we soon had an audience with the spectre of Argent's long dead guardian. The skill challenge involved was ultimately a bit transparent, but not so transparent that I could define exactly how it worked. If I had to guess, I suspect that the wight and Qwor's tomb were part of the same challenge, but I could easily be wrong.
We're still not quite grokking skill challenges. Some flow better than others, but we still invariably have an occasion where someone tries to do something silly. In this case, it was Dek trying to impress the wight by doing exercises to prove his abilities. I think the wight said it best. "Um, yes, that's very impressive. Now, moving along..."
The fight against the giants would have been fairly uneventful were it not for the Roc. It has a standard action power that allows it to fly 10 squares, grab and pick up a target along the way, and then drop it at the end of the move. Given that there was a 200' cliff just outside the walls, that power very quickly became a source of immense concern. The first attempt was thwarted by a poor attack roll against Pieter. The second by Pieter readying split the sky (push 2 and knock prone, thank Tempus it hit!). The third by Dek twatting it with an OA as it tried to fly off with the tempuran in its claws. By the time the blasted thing did manage to grab someone (Dek), it had been slowed by one of Soveliss' powers and the cliff wasn't a pressing threat anymore.
One thing that didn't make it into the recap (it was cut for space reasons) is that the party found Valthrun's pipe in one of Argent's taverns, still smelling of recently-smoked tobacco. The old sage is somewhat of a foil for Pieter, and his reappearance was probably to be expected. Still, it did nothing to improve the tempuran's mood. Valthrun is a bit like a shock jock. I technically distrust and dislike the NPC, but he certainly does make the game more interesting. We'll see where it goes from here.
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