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<blockquote data-quote="pneumatik" data-source="post: 9146921" data-attributes="member: 21087"><p>The PCs, plus Torrent, and Crystin, and Tiljann, leave the (ashen remains) of Innenotdar and enter Dassen, heading towards the semi-independent city of Seaquen far to the south. They spend their first night in the town of Cornerwood, happy to spend the night in a bed and eat food prepared in a kitchen. The trade their abundance of looted gear for 8 riding horses and saddles.</p><p></p><p>They spend a few weeks crossing the Dassen forests and countryside and learn that the country is divided up into duchies controlled by various lords / dukes and duchesses, none of whom seem hold the same attitude towards Ragesia. The PCs wonder how exactly Dassen governs itself (oooohhh, foreshadowing).</p><p></p><p>Unnatural rain follows the party when they get to southern Dassen, drenching them for days until they reach Vidor. They camp outside town. Since all the players have seen The Neverending Story, the next day they trade their 8 riding horses with saddles for three rowboats to travel through the swamp in.</p><p></p><p>They collect rumors about the swamp. They learn about cannibal witches who live there and a red-haired sorceress who recently hired two bodyguards to escort her when she went through the swamp.</p><p></p><p>They lug their new rowboats through the rain for fifteen miles to the swamp, wishing they had horses the whole way, then get in and start paddling. That night they get attacked by three cannibal witches who live in the swamp. They kill one witch (and one crocodile) and capture the other two. </p><p></p><p>The two captured witches say they have a live captive back at their home and offer to lead the PCs to her in exchange for letting them go. Instead the PCs spend a few hours looking for the witches' home. Once found they go there with the captured witches, kill some skeletons, and find Katrina. At her request they let Katrina execute the two witches for their crimes of killing Katrina's bodyguards, and from the physical evidence probably killing a lot of other people, too. They take some blood tears and destroy others (I think). They also give Katrina the letter to her from Rantle. [ISPOILER]The PCs have not examined it or even tried to read it, I think, and so have no idea what message Rantle was trying to send. They were also completely fine with Katrina killing the two captured witches.[/ISPOILER]</p><p></p><p>They get through the swamp, explain to some Shahalesti guards that they're not Ragesian agents, sell their three rowboats (that they've been lugging overland since leaving the swamp) for coppers on the gold and walk into Seaquen.</p><p></p><p>Seaquen, it turns out, is a kind of a mess. It's been raining since forever. While the refugees have enough food to eat, there's not enough of anything to go around.</p><p></p><p>One their way to Lyceum the PCs are approached by a guard who has been charmed to look for them by a blonde woman named Jess. They continue on their way to Lyceum. Tiljann sees the Wayfarer ship in the harbor and announces a plan to go to tryouts tomorrow. </p><p></p><p>At Lyceum Katrina helps them get in to see Keirnan Stekart, who calls in headmaster Simeon to hear what the party has to say. He takes the heavily encrypted documents the PCs have and uses some divinations to learn certain things about them. The party drops off one of the Tidereaver's Tears they looted from the swamp witches. </p><p></p><p>The PCs get advice from Simeon and leave to visit a magical tattoo shop. They start to debate what tattoos to get. Torrent takes them to Siddoneth, where they learn that he's working with a lot of Ragesians, and a biomancer. Talky talky talky, and the PCs become suspicious of how dismissive Sidoneth is of the weird weather. </p><p></p><p>Now the PCs get into the part of the adventure I was least sure of: helping out with level-appropriate odd jobs in and around Seaquen. I think the players enjoyed it more than I was worried they would, and having some quieter time staying at one place for a while was enjoyable, but it still feels like too much of a lull in a campaign that had been going pretty hard for the first two adventures. </p><p></p><p>The PCs talk to Laurabec and buy into her idea of a multi-faith community center. They learn about the various factions and go to sleep in their tents at the end of a long day. That night they hear the commotion of the Lyceum dealing with Jezska the Erinyes, neatly resolving the issue of the guard who was charmed by a blond woman named Jess to watch out for the party.</p><p></p><p>The next morning Torrent and Crystin say goodbye to the party and go off to do their own thing. Torrent makes clear how much she appreciates what the party did for the Resistance. The party goes to Lyceum and gets permission to question Jezska. They make a deal with her: the Lyceum will only banish her, and she'll share info. The PCs learn she was summoned by some Inquisitor named Guthwulf, that there are other Ragesian spies in the area, and that teleporting into Seaquen doesn't work because of some magical gadget or ward. Since they're in the Lyceum they chat with Keirnan about the strange weather. He gives them a list of higher priority problems they can help Lyceum with.</p><p></p><p>The party ignores all those problems and goes to see their friend Tiljann audition for the circus. She gets a part in the play, as do Tarak and Romero. They go to the tattoo shop and start getting inked. </p><p></p><p>Some PCs talk to one of the eight factions Laurabec is trying to wrangle while others (Romero and Tarak) go spy on Sidoneth. Tarak overhears him talking with Brutus and Setales. He learns they were in league with the witches in the swamp, and that the PC's killing of them messed up their plans. </p><p></p><p>The PCs all go to the war council at the Lyceum. They learn information about the Tidereavers Tears, which NPC Verity had been researching. Lots of NPCs talk. Katrina promotes the PCs. Shalosa shows up and explains her dad's terms for alliance. Verity stays at Lyceum to continue researching.</p><p></p><p>After the war council the PCs are asked to do the Talk to the Swamp Goblins mission by Kiernan, because it's a good way to loop in Scarlet, the new PC for Verity's player. They find the goblins, find the reticent goblin chief, and broker an arrangement between the chief, his wife, and Keirnan that makes everyone happy.</p><p></p><p>The PCs talk to two more refugee groups. They agree to build the community center on a hill and near water. They meet with another refugee group, this one led by a druid. They talk about nature and convince this group to join the community center as well. Then they talk to the philosophical group of refugees and convince them that the party is Nice and Helpful, so they join the community center as well. </p><p></p><p>I must not have taken good notes because now Laurabec explains that 6 of 8 groups have agreed to join. The last two agree to join in as well so that they don't miss out. </p><p></p><p>Somewhere in there the PCs finish getting some magical tattoos (Bracers of Archery for Raziel and an Ioun Stone of Strength for Drojic, and yes the tattooed ioun stone circles his head). They also do the Swamp Dragon mission, successfully, by correctly identifying Lowduke as a victim of nominative determinism. </p><p></p><p>And then we get to <s>The Ember Island Players episode (S3E17) </s>the The Spectacular Trial of Toteth Topec performance. The PCs attend along with Katrina, who dismissively explains the heavy-handed symbolism. The PCs see Gorgio sneaking out literally with blood on his hands and follow to investigate. As expected, this leads them directly into a fight. They fight the two half-orc Ragesians on the mantle in Siddoneth's house, plus an invisible assassin. Gorgio <em>dimension doors</em> away, some enemies are captured while others are killed. </p><p></p><p>Back ashore the city guards have found and captured Gorgio. Simeon casts a spell to direct the PCs to whatever is causing the intensifying storm and hands the PCs some additional Tidereaver's Tears (made humanely). From here on adventure was relatively straightforward; nothing is as inevitable as PCs given a path to the main badguy.</p><p></p><p>The PCs get to the ruined prison, kill three Young Chuul, many jokes are made about how Young Chuul sounds like a rap name, Torrent turns a lot of skeletons (appropriately so, given that everyone's in waiste-deep water), they kill some sahaugin, and freedive down into a cave that's near the elemental plane of fire.</p><p></p><p>The PCs kill some Ragesians, kill an inquisitor (very satisfying), and free the prisoners. This last fight was actually rough. The inquisitor's fire spells in the fire-empowered environment makes for a very deadly opening <em>fireball. </em></p><p></p><p>Romero grabs this inquisitor's mask and handclaw. The PCs examine the teleport homing beacon and make plans to carry back up to the Lyceum (why not?). On the way out they get jumped by Siddoneth. They're still a little confused as to why he would try to kill them, other than him being generally in league with the Ragesians. The fight's tricky and annoying, but Siddoneth can't do enough damage to the PCs while they stay in the room. Eventually he exposes himself to ranged attacks and magic, and is done it. I think Drojec or Tarak might have wrestled an octopus, which sounds like a fun experience.</p><p></p><p>And that's the adventure. Torrent is confused over why Siddoneth sided with the Ragesians and needs to do some thinking about who she can really trust. [ISPOILER]The PCs completely trust Katrina. I worry I didn't play her as power-hungry enough, but if I made her any more aggressive her questionable qualities would have been too obvious. We're almost done with Tears of the Burning Sky. Hopefully the PCs general trust of Katrina will make her betrayal all the more shocking when it happens in the next adventure.[/ISPOILER] </p><p></p><p>There was a lot to like about this adventure. It introduced the actual Resistance against Ragesia, including NPCs who stick around for multiple following adventures. The threat motivation wasn't as clear to the players as in the two previous adventures, but the enemy's allowed to be inscrutable sometimes.</p><p></p><p>I have trouble running downtime sandboxes like the middle of this adventure was. I worry in particular about player motivation and pacing, but at least in this one it seemed to go well for the players. It also made the adventure longer than the previous two, which was hard for me because I'm always anxious to move the plot along.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pneumatik, post: 9146921, member: 21087"] The PCs, plus Torrent, and Crystin, and Tiljann, leave the (ashen remains) of Innenotdar and enter Dassen, heading towards the semi-independent city of Seaquen far to the south. They spend their first night in the town of Cornerwood, happy to spend the night in a bed and eat food prepared in a kitchen. The trade their abundance of looted gear for 8 riding horses and saddles. They spend a few weeks crossing the Dassen forests and countryside and learn that the country is divided up into duchies controlled by various lords / dukes and duchesses, none of whom seem hold the same attitude towards Ragesia. The PCs wonder how exactly Dassen governs itself (oooohhh, foreshadowing). Unnatural rain follows the party when they get to southern Dassen, drenching them for days until they reach Vidor. They camp outside town. Since all the players have seen The Neverending Story, the next day they trade their 8 riding horses with saddles for three rowboats to travel through the swamp in. They collect rumors about the swamp. They learn about cannibal witches who live there and a red-haired sorceress who recently hired two bodyguards to escort her when she went through the swamp. They lug their new rowboats through the rain for fifteen miles to the swamp, wishing they had horses the whole way, then get in and start paddling. That night they get attacked by three cannibal witches who live in the swamp. They kill one witch (and one crocodile) and capture the other two. The two captured witches say they have a live captive back at their home and offer to lead the PCs to her in exchange for letting them go. Instead the PCs spend a few hours looking for the witches' home. Once found they go there with the captured witches, kill some skeletons, and find Katrina. At her request they let Katrina execute the two witches for their crimes of killing Katrina's bodyguards, and from the physical evidence probably killing a lot of other people, too. They take some blood tears and destroy others (I think). They also give Katrina the letter to her from Rantle. [ISPOILER]The PCs have not examined it or even tried to read it, I think, and so have no idea what message Rantle was trying to send. They were also completely fine with Katrina killing the two captured witches.[/ISPOILER] They get through the swamp, explain to some Shahalesti guards that they're not Ragesian agents, sell their three rowboats (that they've been lugging overland since leaving the swamp) for coppers on the gold and walk into Seaquen. Seaquen, it turns out, is a kind of a mess. It's been raining since forever. While the refugees have enough food to eat, there's not enough of anything to go around. One their way to Lyceum the PCs are approached by a guard who has been charmed to look for them by a blonde woman named Jess. They continue on their way to Lyceum. Tiljann sees the Wayfarer ship in the harbor and announces a plan to go to tryouts tomorrow. At Lyceum Katrina helps them get in to see Keirnan Stekart, who calls in headmaster Simeon to hear what the party has to say. He takes the heavily encrypted documents the PCs have and uses some divinations to learn certain things about them. The party drops off one of the Tidereaver's Tears they looted from the swamp witches. The PCs get advice from Simeon and leave to visit a magical tattoo shop. They start to debate what tattoos to get. Torrent takes them to Siddoneth, where they learn that he's working with a lot of Ragesians, and a biomancer. Talky talky talky, and the PCs become suspicious of how dismissive Sidoneth is of the weird weather. Now the PCs get into the part of the adventure I was least sure of: helping out with level-appropriate odd jobs in and around Seaquen. I think the players enjoyed it more than I was worried they would, and having some quieter time staying at one place for a while was enjoyable, but it still feels like too much of a lull in a campaign that had been going pretty hard for the first two adventures. The PCs talk to Laurabec and buy into her idea of a multi-faith community center. They learn about the various factions and go to sleep in their tents at the end of a long day. That night they hear the commotion of the Lyceum dealing with Jezska the Erinyes, neatly resolving the issue of the guard who was charmed by a blond woman named Jess to watch out for the party. The next morning Torrent and Crystin say goodbye to the party and go off to do their own thing. Torrent makes clear how much she appreciates what the party did for the Resistance. The party goes to Lyceum and gets permission to question Jezska. They make a deal with her: the Lyceum will only banish her, and she'll share info. The PCs learn she was summoned by some Inquisitor named Guthwulf, that there are other Ragesian spies in the area, and that teleporting into Seaquen doesn't work because of some magical gadget or ward. Since they're in the Lyceum they chat with Keirnan about the strange weather. He gives them a list of higher priority problems they can help Lyceum with. The party ignores all those problems and goes to see their friend Tiljann audition for the circus. She gets a part in the play, as do Tarak and Romero. They go to the tattoo shop and start getting inked. Some PCs talk to one of the eight factions Laurabec is trying to wrangle while others (Romero and Tarak) go spy on Sidoneth. Tarak overhears him talking with Brutus and Setales. He learns they were in league with the witches in the swamp, and that the PC's killing of them messed up their plans. The PCs all go to the war council at the Lyceum. They learn information about the Tidereavers Tears, which NPC Verity had been researching. Lots of NPCs talk. Katrina promotes the PCs. Shalosa shows up and explains her dad's terms for alliance. Verity stays at Lyceum to continue researching. After the war council the PCs are asked to do the Talk to the Swamp Goblins mission by Kiernan, because it's a good way to loop in Scarlet, the new PC for Verity's player. They find the goblins, find the reticent goblin chief, and broker an arrangement between the chief, his wife, and Keirnan that makes everyone happy. The PCs talk to two more refugee groups. They agree to build the community center on a hill and near water. They meet with another refugee group, this one led by a druid. They talk about nature and convince this group to join the community center as well. Then they talk to the philosophical group of refugees and convince them that the party is Nice and Helpful, so they join the community center as well. I must not have taken good notes because now Laurabec explains that 6 of 8 groups have agreed to join. The last two agree to join in as well so that they don't miss out. Somewhere in there the PCs finish getting some magical tattoos (Bracers of Archery for Raziel and an Ioun Stone of Strength for Drojic, and yes the tattooed ioun stone circles his head). They also do the Swamp Dragon mission, successfully, by correctly identifying Lowduke as a victim of nominative determinism. And then we get to [S]The Ember Island Players episode (S3E17) [/S]the The Spectacular Trial of Toteth Topec performance. The PCs attend along with Katrina, who dismissively explains the heavy-handed symbolism. The PCs see Gorgio sneaking out literally with blood on his hands and follow to investigate. As expected, this leads them directly into a fight. They fight the two half-orc Ragesians on the mantle in Siddoneth's house, plus an invisible assassin. Gorgio [I]dimension doors[/I] away, some enemies are captured while others are killed. Back ashore the city guards have found and captured Gorgio. Simeon casts a spell to direct the PCs to whatever is causing the intensifying storm and hands the PCs some additional Tidereaver's Tears (made humanely). From here on adventure was relatively straightforward; nothing is as inevitable as PCs given a path to the main badguy. The PCs get to the ruined prison, kill three Young Chuul, many jokes are made about how Young Chuul sounds like a rap name, Torrent turns a lot of skeletons (appropriately so, given that everyone's in waiste-deep water), they kill some sahaugin, and freedive down into a cave that's near the elemental plane of fire. The PCs kill some Ragesians, kill an inquisitor (very satisfying), and free the prisoners. This last fight was actually rough. The inquisitor's fire spells in the fire-empowered environment makes for a very deadly opening [I]fireball. [/I] Romero grabs this inquisitor's mask and handclaw. The PCs examine the teleport homing beacon and make plans to carry back up to the Lyceum (why not?). On the way out they get jumped by Siddoneth. They're still a little confused as to why he would try to kill them, other than him being generally in league with the Ragesians. The fight's tricky and annoying, but Siddoneth can't do enough damage to the PCs while they stay in the room. Eventually he exposes himself to ranged attacks and magic, and is done it. I think Drojec or Tarak might have wrestled an octopus, which sounds like a fun experience. And that's the adventure. Torrent is confused over why Siddoneth sided with the Ragesians and needs to do some thinking about who she can really trust. [ISPOILER]The PCs completely trust Katrina. I worry I didn't play her as power-hungry enough, but if I made her any more aggressive her questionable qualities would have been too obvious. We're almost done with Tears of the Burning Sky. Hopefully the PCs general trust of Katrina will make her betrayal all the more shocking when it happens in the next adventure.[/ISPOILER] There was a lot to like about this adventure. It introduced the actual Resistance against Ragesia, including NPCs who stick around for multiple following adventures. The threat motivation wasn't as clear to the players as in the two previous adventures, but the enemy's allowed to be inscrutable sometimes. I have trouble running downtime sandboxes like the middle of this adventure was. I worry in particular about player motivation and pacing, but at least in this one it seemed to go well for the players. It also made the adventure longer than the previous two, which was hard for me because I'm always anxious to move the plot along. [/QUOTE]
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