What Has Gone Before
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In Game |
Out of Character |
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The World The The world is changing. The universe has studied morality and power, and now reshapes itself for a new experiment. What that experiment will be is unknown. What is known is that those who hold the most power when this cycle ends will be the only ones to survive the change. Whoever finds the most Pools before the cataclysm arrives will be elevated to godhood in the new era, and will have a hand in shaping that cycle’s future. Enter a new group of men searching out the Pools to claim their immortality. Only recently met, they came to the Bloodstone lands seeking the Pool of Pain. They found it, and also found new allies in the quest for power. Across the cosmos, minor reality quakes are happening. It seems the Change may soon arrive. Seekers, those who quest for Pools, are in a frenzy to find their power. Inter-party struggle, warring factions, and extra-planar entities collide in a war for supremacy. Rumors of demons and devils working together, cogs of Mechanus stopping in their eternal tracks, and strange liaisons amongst the deities who refuse to step down for the next batch of ascended mortals abound. |
A previous epic campaign using 3.x rules involved the first three portions of the Bloodstone series. The party fought armies, Duergar, and even the Tarrasque to stop Orcus and find various Pools of Power, sources of extreme energy said to be a conduit into the underlying fabric of the universe itself. Bathing in these pools is always an ordeal, but those who succeed are changed forever. Reshaped by the pools, they gain new abilities tied to that Pool’s aspect, and move one step closer towards fulfilling their Epic Destiny. Each Pool has a trial ranging from personal revelation to
combat or skill. The most extensive trial so far was for the Pool of Time,
which sent the party back to a past cycle, reshaping their characters to fit
the times by converting them to Rules Cyclopedia D&D. They quested to end
a curse and find their way back; successfully cleansing the The simplest, but in some ways hardest, trials have been the Pool of Pain and the Pool of Love. Pain lived up to its name, with five seconds of bathing seeming like an eternity of the worst torture. Though unharmed physically, this Pool cost the last party’s samurai the services of his revered ancestor and advisor, as he hurtled her unwillingly into the pool in order to make her a stronger servant. She left shortly after. The Pool of Love was very revealing. When the halfling sorcerer Bumten found himself unable to explain to the dryad guardian why he was worthy of love, his desire for power drove him to kill the guardians instead, killing himself in the process. The campaign uses the older Great Wheel cosmology from prior editions, but that will change as the cycle draws to a close. Already portents of elemental transformation are seen. |
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The Characters The party met while seeking the Pool of Pain, then learned
of another possible nearby Pool and banded together to find it. In the town
of |
Character creation was 32 point buy (22 base, +5 per pool prior to the start). All WotC sources are allowed, and house rules will be minimized as much as possible. The pool made them immune to effects that dealt with pain (because they’ve felt much worse) and gave them +1 hit point per level from pain tolerance. Some saved their points, and will spend them when they get five more by bathing in another pool. Bloodstones work like Residuum, acting as universal ingredients for all types of rituals. |
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Adran: This elven priest of the Raven Queen has seen many things in his travels, and it changed his sight forever. Now blessed with brief glimpses of the future, he feels the encroaching apocalypse and intends to see his way to the top of the heap in the next cycle. He has travelled to the gates of his Queen’s castle on the outskirts of the Negative Material Plane to prove his fealty and bathe in the Pool of Faith. A loner, either by circumstance or choice, he then went alone to the Mines of Bloodstone where he found the Pool of Pain and three new companions for his journeys. |
Elf Cleric of the Raven Queen / Divine Oracle / Deadly (Divine) Trickster. His bath in the Pool of Faith increased his tie to his deity, giving him the daily ability to regain an encounter power as a minor action. He knows it can be found at the character’s deity’s home, and that bathing in it gives divine users the ability to regain an encounter power 1/day. Non-divine users will gain the effects of the multi-class Cleric feat without interfering with further multi-classing. |
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Naxis: This man’s eyes see the magic in the world around him, while his hands shape it to his will. His most heart-wrenching experience was also his doorway to power. The loss of love when his wife was forcibly embraced into vampirism, and the resulting vow to find a way to cure her became more than ample proof of his worthiness to bathe in the Pool of Love, opening his path as a Seeker and perhaps further glories in the next Era. |
Human Wizard / Spellstorm Mage / Archmage. The Pool of Love gave him a +3 bonus to Diplomacy and Insight. He can also sacrifice a bit of his vitality to heal others once per day (i.e. Lay on Hands). |
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Artesano: Part elf, part something never seen before, Artesano was born in an ancient and far reaching civilization that nobody has ever heard of. Apparently this “Eladrin” empire of “Mithrendain” lies within the “Feywild.” He draws on magic in ways never known, treating it more like a technology than the art of a sorcerer or science of a wizard. Alchemy taken to the extreme gives him his power. It’s possible that Artesano is a product of a reality storm, a ripple of change, and a vision of what is to come in the next cycle. Artesano’s last party perished in their quest for the Pool of Life, but he came through it more alive than ever. This Pool, found on the outskirts of the Positive Material Plane, increased his vitality greatly and gave him a bit of resistance to the harsher aspects of positive energy. |
Eladrin Artificer / Multi-class Wizard / |
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Arik: Of the Seekers, this half giant’s quest has changed him the most, at least outwardly. His trip through the Pool of Time flung him far into the future. Perhaps it was his strong faith in Erathis, god of civilization, that drew him there, or perhaps it was chance. Whatever, when he emerged he found himself in a land apparently created by super intelligent dwarven engineers. Firearms vied with magic as tools for the powerful, and the cities stretched higher into the sky than many of Oerth’s cities were wide. He wasn’t given long to study it though, as an explosion rocked him moments after he stepped through. He awoke in a lab, with his arms and legs replaced by mechanical and electronic steel. Given modern battle armor and an axe whose blade’s tip was a single molecule thick, he was pressed into the service of Ares, the strange merchant guild which had saved him. It took a while, but he gained contacts in the underworld and eventually dared surgery to remove the cortex bomb keeping him loyal. Freed to be his own man again, he sought out the pool, finding it while stealing a powerful imp trapped in an iron flask. When he and his crew killed the young dragon that hired and then turned on them, the blood formed itself into a pool at his feet and returned him to his own time. |
Half-giant Fighter / Pit Fighter / Demigod. For half-giant stats we used Minotaur from the Monster Manual, but replaced the charge ability with the Earthsoul Genasi’s Earthshock ability. Renamed to Stomp, it’s a close enough approximation to the 3.x half-giant’s stomp ability. Having travelled to and from the world of Shadowrun, much of Arik’s gear is futuristic in nature, but follows the same rules as the magic items they replicate. For instance, his Goggles of Night are 6th generation night vision goggles, his legs function as Battlestrider Greaves, and his armor is charcoal grey modern battle armor. |
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Chaugnar Faugn: A true disciple of Caiphon, Chaugnar studied under the tutelage of Mind Flayers on the borders of the Far Realms. His exposure to that otherworldly place left him different in both mind and body. His eyes were replaced with glowing purple orbs, tiny sentient sparks of his starry master. He also formed a symbiotic relationship with the Sicsipidus, a starfish-like creature that attaches itself to the base of a spine and feeds upon the energies of a distraught mind. His travels took him to the depths of a shadowy place he
can no longer remember, where he bathed in a pool he does not recall. But he
can now see the secrets of others with ease, and the mysteries of others’
pools are laid bare before him. Seeing a man in Calimshan bearing a dull red
glow and immunity to pain led the warlock on the path to the Pool of Pain, and from there to the |
Half-elf Warlock / Student of Caiphon / Radiant One. Some of this Far Realms Initiate’s gear is new, and follows the “gotta pay to play” philosophy of Caiphon. Finding the Pool of Shadows was an “unearthing hidden knowledge”
skill challenge the character went through before the game started. Finding
the pool gave him insight into how to find and hide secrets. +2 to
Perception, Insight, Bluff, and Stealth. In addition you can see the glows of
the pools on others. Each pool has its own distinct combination of color,
motion, and location in the body. With a little study (a couple of rounds
worth of minor actions) you can roll Arcana at DC 30 to determine the name of
the pool, if you beat the DC by 5 you also determine its effects on the
bather. The illumination of the pools’ energy inside someone illuminates a
five square area around them, but only for those who can see the auras.
However, bathing in it also wiped his memory of where it is, though he does
know finding it again is possible.
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