Move to Sunday? What's Funny to a Kobold
David
I'm pondering a move to Sundays for our games (I think I can adjust my
schedule to fit) in an effort to make the day more convenient for you
the player. If you guys want we can give it a run this week and see if
that works, if not we can just leave it Monday 6:30 like it is now.
I don't want to cramp anyone's social style just trying to find the
best day/time for all parties.
Please chime in!
Thomas Bates
HI David, Monday night is fine with me. It's better for me than Sundays. I could possibly make it another day of the week. Sorry I didn't make it last week. I plan on coming this week. Tom
From: "David" <obno...@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: chicago-are...@googlegroups.com
To: "Chicago Area RPG Nexus" <chicago-are...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Move to Sunday? What's Funny to a Kobold
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:02:53 -0800
David
-David
jack upham
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David Rogers
some info for you:
The Church of Gate
Gate is an elder god who claims to have existed from
the dawn of life on the planet he refers to as Liania
(an old elvish word meaning "prison") His vision of
the world is one of perfection and harmony, in line
with the height of the last age of man before the
cataclysm. Gate is unwilling to discuss the cataclysm
only stating that it came about due to a lack of
sufficient perfection. Gate has a plan to bring the
new age into being in slow and steady strides along
side the perfection of sentient life.
'Perfection' to gate is a very specific concept one of
cold logic and reason, emotion is not desirable in any
fashion, however gate can see the need for at least
some form of appreciation of life and beauty on a
purely aesthetic level. but typically only where the
propagation of life itself is concerned.
Priests of gate are expected to give gate complete
loyalty and very little else, gate requires nothing in
the nature of tithes or observed ritual. The title
bestowed upon the priest is "Henal" or eye. Priests
say that they can feel gate looking through their
eyes, and for a number of priests their prime duty to
gate is to wander and see, to give gate a view of the
outside world. Very rarely do priests actively
recruit new members into the faith, gate typically
reaches out to those he wants, or has use for.
Initiation into the priesthood is only done via direct
interaction with gate. Gate draws potential priests to
him through a doorway (typically a light filled
archway but can also take on the form of a dark arch
or glowing runes marked on a floor.) Once in gate's
presence the priest has the demand of loyalty placed
upon him, upon agreement (sincere agreement) Gate
takes the new priest into his body. the experience is
unique from priest to priest but typically follows a
pattern: first a bright light is seen followed by a
feeling a the body fading away, then the character
sees their body as a series of unconnected points, the
body of gate merges with theirs and for a moment they
see the world through the eyes of gate, as a vast
network of glowing lines of power, power that can be
drawn out and shaped into anything by a sheer act of
will. The knowledge of the world from the first
moment gate opened his eyes to see the empty lifeless
world until the moment the priest accepted the demands
of it's new god flood the mind of the priest. Then
the priest will have the contents of their mind opened
up, revealing all to gate, and some to the priest
itself. some priests loose a portion of their own
memory to forever hold the memory of gate. others
awaken with new knowledge of both the power of gate
and his minions and methods as well as the world
around them.
The Golems:
Gate takes beings that are incapable of perfection in
their base state and enhances them these enhancements
are generally only put in place as a final measure
when other routes have been tried and failed.
Creatures that are chaotic in nature are almost always
'fixed' in this manner. The process is one perfected
in the last age of men, but is exceedingly expensive
in terms of material as there are no living beings
capable of producing the materials needed to build the
golems and they must all be searched out from ruins of
the last age. Gate seeks out these ruins actively and
often has teams of loyal followers salvaging what can
be found. These creatures are animated with the magic
of the last age, complex in it's nature but reliable
and long lasting this is gate's favored form of magic,
though many of gates current priesthood were at one
time users of modern magics and gate does find their
power useful.
The Hands:
Small deft creatures that are infused with the energy
of Gate, these creatures resemble to a certain extent
fairies and other fae creatures, they are connected to
gate in a very real way, they are how gate chooses to
directly touch the world they build and awaken the
golems with gate's knowledge and power. but are in
themselves fairly mindless. given a task they set
about it with abandon.
The Eyes:
The priests of Gate are the eyes, they are by far the
most autonomous of all gate's minions, given reign
even to wander the lands freely. They are given power
above most of the minions of gate and indeed seem to
command them. More detail on the priesthood will
follow.
The Body:
Gate calls the planet of Elakore both Delia or Body
and Liania or Prison but there is a firm distinction
of which is which. the body is part of Liania but is
distincct from it and is most readily understood as
sacred groves connected by flows of energy and magical
power. Gate holds a good portion of the Beast Realms
to be his body and in particular a sacred area to the
south near the Ocean, this area could if anything be
considered the Heart of gate and is in fact one of the
theoretical poles of magic directly focused on magics
of the Evocation school. Wizard or Sorcerer Priests
of Gate find that they gain a bonus of +1 level when
casting Evocation magics (so a 3rd level Wizard would
cast an evocation spell as if he were 4th level)
The heart is closely guarded and only the highest
level priests are allowed to go near it.
The Vessels:
Gate himself holds the souls of many of his followers
from the distant past. He slowly gathers vessels for
them to inhabit. these vessels must fit exacting
specifications for each soul, and when an Henal is in
the presence of a perfect vessel that priest will feel
the mind of Gate in him commanding the priest to lead
that vessel safely to a doorway and to the waiting
arms of Gate. Once filled with an ancient soul the
Vessel takes up it's role as one of Gates high
priests. Most of the base Priesthood or followers
have very little interaction with any of the Vessels.
It is unknown what happens to the original host.
Enemies of the Church:
There are few true enemies of the church since it's
existence is for the most part a secret. So the
church breaks it's enemies down into two groups:
active and potential.
Active Enemies are:
the temple of Arnzt
Although Arnzt is a relatively minor god his followers
are actively aware of Gate and have been known to work
to interfere with the great plan, either through
malice or ignorance by stealing material from gate's
agents needed to drive forward the perfection or by
working against other plans to seek out information or
drive towards perfection. Gate is aware of the
followers of Arnzt and has a long term plan to deal
with them, primarily by sowing seeds of doubt about
the existance of this minor diety and rationalizing
his powers as those of the natural world and it's
magic. This sort of subtle long-range plan is typical
of Gate and his dealings with the world.
The De'mere
The De'mere have a prophesy that indicates that a
great evil from the elder times will arise and
threaten to destroy the world. They and their god
have set themselves on a path to prepare themselves to
thwart this power. As gate and his influence becomes
more known in the world the De'mere more and more find
a name for this evil of theirs and that name is Gate.
For now the actions of the De'mere have been subtle
and probing (uncharacteristically cautious of the wee
folk) but Gate believes that the time is soon
approaching that caution will be set aside.
Passive Enemies are:
the Materawl --
These feared mages are currently unaware of gate and
his plans and need to be kept so until enough
information can be gathered on them to set a counter
plan in motion. Several priests have attempted to
find the fabled city of the Materawl deep in the Great
Desert but have found nothing and many have not
returned at all. Gate has made it clear, however that
they are not to be underestimated and that unless
directly instructed otherwise all priests are to avoid
all contact with them.
The War Mages of Werim
The Human Empire of Werim is home to the powerful War
Mage school of magic this school of magic draws it's
power directly from the Heart of Gate the Pole of
Evocation. The power they draw is the power of Gate
and is stolen. Many plans are in place that directly
involve the destruction of the links these mages have
forged to the pole and all knowledge of their methods
but none are perfect enough yet to act upon. Gate
will not act before success is guaranteed .
Clerics of Gate:
In game terms clerics of Gate function as most clerics
do with a couple minor tweaks and exceptions:
Clerics of gate do not turn nor rebuke undead. in the
eyes of gate undead are merely flawed humans that need
repair, they should be deactivated and given over to
the hands.
Clerics of gate are given a task which acts like a
geas on them. This task can change from time to time
and as the cleric grows in power and faith the nature
of the tasks grow more specific. Typical 1st level
tasks are: observe, explore, find object and return to
hands. While a 5th level task might be: go to the
Mountain called Grean in the lands of the dragons,
there seek out a dragon named Eplianar and retrieve
from it by any means necessary the artifact known as
Rilias Gauntlet.
Gate holds sway in the following Domains: Travel,
Knowledge and Magic
Prayer to Gate (see prayer skill) is more likely to be
successful when one or more of these domains is
involved.
---------------------------------------
What you learned from your moments with gate:
Your actions confused gate, he has planned for you to
behave differently. rational thought was not
expected. The jungle was revealed to you spreading
out from the door to gate all the way to the south and
Gate's heart. The reach of gate had just recently
come this far north to the site of old age ruins where
new Golems could be built and perfection extended.
The less intelligent and fearful creatures of the
jungle fled the new intruders causing alarm in the
city. when the city put together a large force to
explore the jungle action was needed and gate sent a
small force to eliminate as much of the expedition as
possible, there being very little time for subtlety.
The remaining group (your party) was allowed into the
jungle and diverted to the den of the Kobolds in the
hopes of their demise. The party proved to be more of
a challenge than was originally anticipated for the
kobolds and the loss of the subjects of Gate's Curtain
Rift experiments were a sore loss. A more direct and
reasoned approach was tried to lure the group to a
place where they could be more swiftly dealt with.
Past action should have led the party to attack a hand
or golem, when this did not occur gate sent his eye to
speak to the party. the rest you know.
Your gate moment: I'll leave the experience to you to
flesh out as you see fit, If you write up a paragraph
on it I'll give you some bonus XP. I would at the
very least say that Gate would be intrigued with your
Dragon blood and might have took your thoughts through
that part of your life.
From a Player standpoint think of gate as a sort of
power-mad vulcan or artificial intelligence.
as always any questions comments etc. just fire em my
way.
-David
jack upham
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David
Hey Scott,
Don't sweat it, we're at a good spot to just let Sanji fade out for
now. if things change with your work situation let me know we can
talk about working him back in.
Thanks for the heads up,
-David