This post has the following content warnings:
Speak softly, carry Ruyi Jingu Bang
+ Show First Post
Total: 407
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

"An extremely powerful sorcerer named Dandeer launched a coup on our government, and she's really fond of her mind control. Half our leadership turned out to be sleeper agents for her and... I had a shot at her, but I didn't want to kill her and subduing her without it ended up taking long enough for some of the other fights to resolve so I got jumped before I got her secured. I was a bit overconfident about it, honestly, so I fought without prep instead of bailing then and there, and, well. It was a four on one at the end there against some of our best fighters, and I'm not that good; I only managed to escape because she didn't know I could jump out of my body and only warded against it escaping. Now it's under who knows what protections from the strongest sorcerer on the planet who happens to specialize in sealing, plus whatever she managed to mind control other people into supplementing her work with."

Permalink

Keyron is cognizant of the ways that even the best intentioned people can distort their own memories, especially when it involves something they feel is a betrayal or involves people they hate, or makes them look better to themselves. It's not even deliberate, most of the time, and a coup is in fact prime territory for that kind of thing. But even accounting for that and just dealing with the concrete relayed facts, that's not a pretty picture - especially the mind control, that tends to be a pretty glaring red flag. Unfortunately it is also not really something that Lastwall can help with, at the moment; taking on a a 9th circle caster in the heart of their power is hard enough if they don't have a country under them and the target an entire universe away, especially since from the sound of it they also have a number of other highly skilled individuals under their thumb. Perhaps the entire force of Lastwall and the church of Iomedae, mustered to the task, would be enough - but then again perhaps not, and to even make the attempt would be to abandon burdens they cannot put down. A wish might be able to to fetch the body out anyway, if they supplied Felandriel with the diamond, but then again it also might not, and it would be an extremely expensive failure if it did not work.

"That doesn't seem immediately tractable, no. I'll let Charles Rochefort - my colleague, the Precentor Martial for Magic - know the details, and see what he can come up with with the help of those allies trustworthy not to leak the information. I'm not thinking of any easy solutions, but I didn't specialize in wizardry for a reason. Aside from that, I think I have a good idea of how you can best help out, both right now and in the medium to long term. Do you have preferences for what kind of job you'd want to do to take into account?"

Permalink

"I'd prefer something where I don't have to kill people, even people who deserve it. I know sometimes there aren't other good choices, but I've killed too many people today. And... I guess something not to reminiscent of Hell, even to dismantle it, please."

Permalink

"That won't be an issue. And you have my word that we won't we won't use the people you free up today to take actions that in expectation will end up killing more people than would have died had you not shone up."

Keyron thinks he has a decent grasp on what makes her tick by now, and that she would have agreed without that assurance but she would have felt awful about it, and part of the advantage of getting new advantages is that you can make that kind of compromise to help for the long term.

How does Karen feel about going with some of their people to deal with a Bandersnatch that's been causing problems in Nirmithas near the nation's border with Lastwall?

Permalink

"What is a Bandersnatch?

Permalink

"They're a particularly rare and dangerous monster, originally from the Fey world. Absolutely deadly, to the point that for this specific one we were going to have to either hire foreign adventurers to deal with or somehow free up half a battallion, which would mean weeks of it killing off the locals and potentially going to ground before we got to it. They're clever, but just a moderately intelligent animal, not a person."

Permalink

That's absolutely something she can help them with then.

Permalink

Great! They've got a 6th circle wizard who volunteered to host her; in this regard, Lastwall is extremely lucky for their culture of service, since their requirements were pretty specific which drained their potential recruitment pool. They needed an arcane caster who it wouldn't be a disaster to reassign temporarily, at least 5th circle so they could provide transportation and have the saves to keep Karen reasonably safe, ideally female in case dysphoria was a going concern, and willing to have a ridealong (even a friendly one) inside their skull. These desiderata, when combined, made a list about 4 people long, and Keyron is quite relieved that their first choice didn't have any issue agreeing to it. (The risk to their life was, on the other hand, not really a going concern; Lastwall has no shortage of people willing to go up against powerful monsters, especially not if there's supposed to be some supermage backing them up and they've been given a medium size fortune in new magical items.

"Hello, Karen! My name is Lucia, and you'll be tagging along with me today!"

The voice is incredibly cheerful, and from the bubbling enthusiasm of their Ki Kakara can be pretty confident they're honest about it. Standing next to them are the other 3 people in this temporary part; a 5th circle cleric, a mid level fighter, and a ranger of indeterminate but likely considerable skill.

Permalink

Kakara grins. It's a bit of a weak smile, but real.

She steps into Lucia's mind, and immediately the difference is stark. A pressure that she didn't even realize she was feeling suddenly vanishes, and just existing is much less effortful on her part.

Permalink

And they're off!

Permalink

Meanwhile...

Permalink

The Precentors Martial rarely all meet up at once. It's dangerous enough to have all of your command staff in one place for a normal government, much less one where class levels are disconnected enough from leadership that half your members don't even have double digit hit die. Even now, that technically isn't happening; the Precentor Martial for Cavalry is off dealing with an incursion from Belkzen, and withdrawing him to have this conversation was both deemed sufficiently risky to the campaign as to be not worth the risk and to give their enemies an undesirably large chance of noticing the meeting is in fact occurring, so her deputy is attending in her stead. The room in question is a well kept secret even within Lastwall, with a Neutral-Good password forbiddance cast by a 9th circle cleric of Sarenrae to maximize the damage taken by the forces of the Abyss and Hell should they somehow penetrate the other forbiddances and evade the numerous other defenses installed by a 9th circle wizard who worked with the Shining Crusade. Short of holding the meeting in Lastwall's permanent demiplane or heaven, this is about as close as it gets to actual security in Golarion, and even then they'd have to choose between the prohibitive costs of multiple plane shifts each meeting or the members meeting up somewhere less secure than this to plane shift together.

Permalink

"I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this changes everything and we need to reevaluate our entire focus now, not just as we finally start checking problems off the list for good."

"That will come with notable costs from problems we already currently have handled; we're already dealing with pretty much all of the worse crises, doing a worse job on them is not worth getting to lesser priorities slightly faster. We can make sure to prioritize the problems that is not true for first as we start redeploying. Presuming we can in fact clear it, what does the prospects for closing the worldwound look like?"

"Theoretically possible with a few wishes; Felandriel mentioned she had a few ideas. If we can get to that point, probably even Cheliax will be willing to cough up part of the price on the diamonds. Taldor too, if we frame it right."

"Experimental wishes is the leading cause of permanent death amongst 9th circle wizards, and even if she can be raised after that's still looking at a true resurrection. Once we have it to that point, do we really want to spend the full price on closing it when the wardstones will largely suffice at a sufficiently close radius? If we get it tight enough, we could make a proper ring of fortresses a mile or so out with no real weaknesses in the line, and with teleport-at-will the logistical strain won't even increase from the added distance from staging areas. Plus, not to be too gung ho about the permanent destruction of souls but life kinda sucks even for the relatively strong demons in the abyss and the constant stream of combat experience to good adventurers does a lot to help maintain a favorable balance of power, and that'll be more true once we no longer need Cheliax's assistance in holding the line."

"If the main problem is Wish wording, is this the time we should be looking to see if we can get Razmir on board with it? He has some source of knowledge from ancient Thassilon, including potentially relevant knowledge of how they made their Wishes, and now that we finally have a proper mythic hero on our side we won't have to lean on Felandriel Morgethai as much during negotiations. Plus it might be the kind of problem that's easier to solve with 2 wishes at once rather than having to do it in sequence."

"For a so-called lawful god, he's too difficult to deal with; for my money, it won't go anywhere. If we really need that kind of spellcasting support we'd be better off going to Nefreti Clepati instead."

"Speaking of Wishes, do we think her powering magic spells works for Limited Wish?"

Permalink

Permalink

There's a pause at that, as they digest what that would mean.

"In the sense that you could have a 7th level wizard cast it, or that you only need a Limited Wish diamond for the full spell? Either one would be unprecedented."

"So is making a 4th circle wizard's Fireball stronger than a Meteor Swarm. Comparatively speaking, this is a much smaller level jump."

Permalink

"Let's table that question; obviously, if she can, we throw whatever we need to behind her, and it makes a lot of those questions easier; are we willing to spend a wish on X would be an easy yes if it took a much smaller diamond, but it's not really actionable until we test it. Assume she can't, and only part of our wishlist comes through; if it comes down to it, under what circumstances would it be worth fronting a wish, presuming we have to pay the full price for them and there's no cheaper spell to do the trick?"

"We can set a lower bound with some basic math. We don't supply all our forces with teleport like Cheliax does, since we both have actual land routes via EG Mendev and because we frankly don't have the wizards they do, but that's still hundreds of gold a day in losses. More, if you listen to the Abadarans about opportunity cost, though that's harder to translate into money since we would mostly be redirecting them to other problem areas instead of economic benefits if they were freed up. If she could take all that over, we could pay for it inside half a year easily, and that's without the potential for converting all of our shipping or abyss, being able to drop an army detachment anywhere in Avistan inside an hour. Even without interfering personally, that would give us enough power projection to rival Cheliax, and that's before you consider she singlehandedly drove off a major demonic incursion without even her full strength available."

"So the question isn't whether it's worth it to do, it's if we can come up with that much money at once, full stop? Because all of our easy credit options have long since been tapped, for basically as long as Lastwall has existed, and we ran through most of the fair ones a century ago. All the credit lines we haven't opened yet aren't open for a reason."

"We could probably get the Abadarans to open us another one of this magnitude, if we swore to them that in expectation and in a large enough majority of worlds it would worth the price. But their transactions are only so secret on this scale, Cheliax would know we need a lot of liquid cash and there's only so many possibilities."

"She wasn't going to stay secret forever, not if we want to actually have her do remotely the Good she is capable of. And if she has a body, she'll have her saves back, plus the best magic items we can supply and around the clock mind blank. If mythic heroes were easy targets for even Hell, we wouldn't have a Felandriel Morgethai to cast the wish for us, and once we have her wished up once, we can make a clone and use of ressurection in most extremities."

"Speaking of clone, is there a reason we can't just borrow one of those that someone has already grown and polymorph any object it into her body?"

...

"I feel like that shouldn't work, but I can't say for certain why it wouldn't. It's enough cheaper that it's almost certainly worth a shot, though the reliance on the spell would be adding some vulnerabilities."

"Even if we will end up needing to Wish later, if it's enough for her to take over on Teleports it would make gathering the necessary monetary resources much easier with the added slack."

Permalink

Of all the magical beasts that can be found in Golarion, a Bandersnatch is one of the most deadly. Even an ordinary Bandersnatch, as much of an oxymoron as that is, is a dangerous killing machine, equally capable in melee combat and at range, and ferociously powerful. To make matters worse, they're far more stealthy than any 50 foot long, 12,000 pound abomination has any right to be. A juvenile bandersnatch, which most adventurers who recognize it associate the name with, is of course significantly less dangerous, but even at just a handful of years old they can still be a match for an experienced team of adventurers. Their fully grown relatives, though they can live for centuries, are far less common a sighting, and are the kind of target where killing just one is enough to supply those who accomplish the task significant fame among their peers. Of the various variants, almost nothing is known; there just aren't enough Bandersnatches encountered in any kind of reasonable timeframe to make those comparisons feasible.

Thus it was that when Lastwall dispatched their people, it was not, in fact, calculated to be able to escape a Frumious Bandersnatch on its own. How could they have accurately prepared them for a danger that they didn't know existed?

Permalink

"So, what exactly is it that we're looking for?"

Permalink

Oh, right.

Permalink

"Tracks, ideally," says the ranger. He doesn't bother to look at her, but that of course means a lot less when she doesn't even have a body and is communicating solely by Telepathy. "Any kind of marking, so we can confirm the sightings actually correspond to something that exists and then follow it back to a den or other location it regularly returns to. If we're unlucky, this instead results in us wandering around through its territory blindly for long enough that it ambushes us, instead."

Permalink

"Well, I'm not seeing any tracks, but I am sensing a fairly strong power level a little under three miles to our north-northeast. It's moving, but not very quickly at the moment."

Permalink

"Well, that sounds promising. In that case, let's try skipping straight to the end of the search; we'll move to cut it off somewhere advantageous for us to fight. Let me know if you sense it changing directions such that you notice, though we'll have to make sure not to completely rely on it."

Permalink

It turns out with live updates on location, tracking down a Bandersnatch is not especially difficult. It's easy to get visual confirmation of what she's sensing a good way off, and from there settle into a location at behind some foilage at the top of a moderate rise nearby its path. The traditional adventurer spell for dealing damage to far-off opponents is, of course, fireball, but setting off a majorly enhanced fireball in the territory of an allied nation and more specifically in a forest that also crosses into your territory is a bit ill advised. Likewise Chain Lightning, which also serves a similar purpose in higher level adventuring parties, is unpopular on the basis that demons are immune to Electricity and you might suddenly need to reinforce the worldwound. That's fine, though; they can wait, hidden and buffed, until it passes near enough to them to drop it from ambush.

Permalink

Little known fact about Bandersnatches; they have blindsense for anything within 120 feet of them. That's only enough to get past full cover half the time, but for a party of four the odds of all of them avoiding detection is only one in 16. They are as it happens spotted further out than they would appreciate, and the Bandersnatch is perfectly happy to launch a volley of its poisoned quills at them, one each, and bound forward shockingly quickly to close into melee range to thereby slaughter them.

Permalink

Normally, avoiding that kind of of attack would be beyond them, but they are buffed and behind full cover; two lodge their way several inches into the trees they are hiding behind, one misses entirely, and the last is blocked by the fighter. He's not exactly thrilled with it, especially if he needs to then somehow also block the giant monster charging them while sickened, but it's hardly enough to put him down.

Total: 407
Posts Per Page: