She Sells..Sanctuary (OOC)

Place for running on about shit that is beyond the scope of your character.

I Pledge the Following as your DM:

I will not have each of you create your characters and then immediately take everything away from then. This campaign does not start out with imprisonment, amnesia, stolen items and equipment, or kidnapping. These seem to be heavily repeated themes in modules, adventure paths, and homebrew games of late.

The premise of the campaign will however hinge on the characters' acceptance of an invitation to participate in the events to come.

---

For reference, much of the concept and theme of this campaign is influenced by the Eternal Champion cycle by Micheal Moorcock and he has several instances in his books where difference aspects of the Champion join together for a common purpose. IE: The Four Who Are One and the Sailors on the Seas of Fate. Essentially the PCs in this campaign are erstwhile aspects of the Eternal Champion or potentially so for different planes of the Multiverse. There are fifteen planes of Man in the Multiverse that we can draw from.

The use of the number Eight in this instance is also an homage to the very first D&D campaign ever noted run by Gary Gygax called The Citadel of Eight and later the Circle of Eight. Their goal was to maintain balance between Good and Evil, Law and Chaos. Sound familiar?

It is from this campaign we got Mordenkainen, Bigby, Robilar, Riggby, Yrag, Tenser, Serten, Otis and later Bucknard, Drawmij, Leomund, Nystul, Otto, and Rary.

That is much appreciated! Thank you Equinox.

@JamaisVu,

Welcome!

@annex, @AutomAtomic,

Welcome!

Seems we've already had our first casualty. Mnrtoler joined, took one look at the content, and quickly bowed out.

If anyone knows of players who may want to get in on this, please let me know. I have three empty chairs now.

Welcome everyone!!!

Equinox has been working hard behind the scenes putting this together for a while now with a couple of us helping out with technical bits and permissions checking. The changes and additions to the standard 5e D&D has undergone a couple rounds of testing in the character building stage so far.

I thing I noted right off was with adding the summoning and binding rules, altering attunement, and creating an alignment shift is that you have to balance out where you put your stat points or you will find your character at a disadvantage in this game. Stat dumping is not recommended.

@Basil,

Welcome!

Thx m8 looking forward it!

For those who have yet to discover, the subforum above Sanctuaria Intima contains private threads for each player as I add them into the campaign.

@grifter730,

Welcome!

Welcome, everyone! I can second Rage's comments above. There's been a fair amount of work that's gone into this behind the scenes and I'm really excited to see everything play out.

Beyond that, I have played in several Equinox games in the past and he's a phenomenal GM. This is destined to be a really fun experience!

@Miss_Sadie,

Welcome!

Give me a minute to set up your private threads.

Thank you! This game sounds super interesting :)

...and a belated hello to everyone!

Not unexpected, as he told me when he joined that it was likely that sometime soon he would need to bow out due to his growing workload, but grifter730 has left the game. I am taking his notes and finishing the character. Unless we can get a last player to fill that spot, I will play Killian as an NPC.

@kinajardine,

Welcome!

Glad you could join us in the aftermath of the big storm. I have private threads already set up for you.

Welcome, kinajardine!

Update:

While most players are finishing up their characters, I am working to behind the scenes updating NPC profiles, tweaking character status bars readying for combat encounters, putting together first encounter maps, and constructing the enemy.

I should be ready to go in a couple days. That should give almost everyone time to add last minute details to your characters and entourages. Initial encounters will involve an individual PC and their respective cohorts only.

Attention - I am hereby awarding the following:

An extra Inspiration point to AutomAtomic for the creation of an original piece of art depicting their character, Leh'veia.

An extra Inspiration point to RageRed for her character, Tajuri's, flawless defeat of her guardian monster in record time, with spell and a critical hit to follow it up.

I have already added these to your character sheets.

Nice! Well done both of you!

Due to their many ongoing RL problems, kinajardine has decided to bow out of the campaign.

This is not totally unexpected, as I already have contingencies in place.

FYI

I will be advancing our solos forward to the beginning tomorrow. Anyone wishing to add anything to their current narrative, please do so before I do that.

Hey everyone. So sorry about my absence. I was in a car accident out of state and it took me a while to get my phone replaced and to get back home. I am going to get back in the swing tonight hopefully. I'm fine, just some scrapes and bruises.

Damn!

I hope you're okay. That ordeal sounds awful!

Glad you're OK!

Oh, Wow! Glad you made it back and are alright!

I'll move your private thread forward last over the weekend in case you feel like adding to it.

I have merged every post up to present from all the private IC threads. I need to put together Natrix's journey post and then we will circle back to the end of the guardian fights for everyone to continue the opening scene.

I will be adding to and updating our Episode 0 thread over the next two days.

Warning ahead of time to those who have not gotten their character to the next stage. There will be spoilers.

To those who have reached the next stage of the story and will be soon starting Episode 1, the first scene will be in your private threads and then will merge in the second scene into the group IC thread.

I will be inserting one or two surprise scenes in the continuation of Episode 0. So, look out for those. These are new scenes that do not include the current PCs.

Awesome!

I can't wait.

Thanks for the work you're putting into this, Equinox! Excited to see what's next.

I appreciate that, Buddy.

I will be here most of the evening. Get you updated in a minute.

Opening scenes of Episode 1 for @RageRed, @C1NDER, @JamaisVu, @Basil, @Miss_Sadie are now active.

Unless @annex and @AutomAtomic make a sudden miraculous appearance and a flurry of posts to catch up, I will be briefly puppetting their characters at the beginning of scene two and possibly into the next scene as well. This will make sense once it happens.

Please pardon the mess while I collate and sort the scenes and merge them in the Episode's second scene.

Are the worlds we come from pre-determined or created in any way? Or are we free to do some on-the-fly worldbuilding for the areas we each come from?

The only features of the PCs' home worlds set are the few locales mentioned in their journeys to the shrine and those each player has brought in through their narratives. Feel free to add some world-building if you'd like.

Unless I am mistaken, the only PC that I know is using actual gameplay references is Kris. JamaisVu's character is a rebuild from a campaign she's played in for a few years now, that she's not very happy with.

That's really cool, I like that!

Everyone, I will be advancing us to the audience scene with Lord Orb tomorrow with my time permitting. Feel free to converse IC til then.

Post up. I hope didn't forget anything.

I will muster up the time tomorrow to move us along to introductions.

The next scenes will be determined by the PCs and where/what they want to do before the sparring. I don't intend to have another dining scene in this episode unless its warranted by need or action. PC scenes will either be set up in private threads or in side threads depending on who will be involved in each scene.

I believe that Kris and Lucian are going to find a spot to talk.

Yeah, they were. Should be interesting!

I am going to delay updating and setting up new IC threads until tomorrow to allow anyone else to chime in before I do.

Tajuri and Jael want to step outside the palace and see what else can be found nearby in the city.

Okay, so far here is what I see:

Lucian and Kris having a conversation somewhere in the palace.

Tajuri and Jael morning out on the town

Keltos and Natrix strolling to the docks.

Are we good to post in those threads?

Yes

Just a head's up. No posts from me today. I am in read-only mode due to feeling under the weather.

all good my friend, feel better soon!

Hope you feel better tomorrow m8

Thanks guys!

I feel better, but not 100% The good thing is its the weekend for me and I don't have to work through the headache and sinus drainage for the next two days.

BTW, it my BIO day! I am gifting everyone with an Inspiration point and adding them to your characters.

yipppee! Enjoy your weekend!

I feel dumb, but what is a BIO day?

Hope you keep feeling better though!

Happy BIO day! and yes, hope all that crap gets kicked while you rest up over the weekend. Good health to you!

@Miss_Sadie,
My BIO day is the day of the year I biologically entered this world. Its complicated.

Thread for Episode 2 is now open.

Quick question for Kris and Lucian's combat, didn't want to clutter up that thread so asking here. Kris and Blue vanish, but do they vanish before Lucian has any time to do anything or can he have time to act before they poof? Or will that depend on the initiative roll, and not the one round before the match starts?

Congrats to RageRed for her character, Tajuri's, flawless one-shot critical hit to quickly end the first match. I'll have to come up with a reward, as she's already at max Inspiration atm.

@Equinox Thanks! Just wasn't sure he'd have a chance to see her.

Congrats to JamaisVu for her character, Kris', flawless three hit with a critical to quickly end the second match.

Well done so far, everyone!

Congrats to C1NDER for his character, Radu's, massive retaliation attacks to end the third match in one round.

Congratulations to everyone! All active PCs are now 12th level with the conclusion of the Assessment Matches. Go ahead and level up and any training needed will be assumed in the next phase: Mentoring.

Everyone, please indicate in your Private OOC, what you wish your PC to be doing in this free time so that I may set up scenes for anything particular you want to be doing.

Apologies to everyone. The site being down until the evening yesterday has thrown my rhythm off. I will get new posts up tomorrow, as I've not enough time before work now.

Same here

Same! I had a fair chunk of time available to catch up yesterday that overlapped with the outage. Glad it got up again pretty quick, but definitely threw me off.

Hi, all.
Let me again apologize for disappearing. Some people enjoy depression; I'm not one of them. I'm in a much better place right now, and I'd love to rejoin you all if you'll have me.

Welcome back, annex!

@annex,

Welcome back! Natrix is awaiting you somewhere around here.

Welcome back indeed!

Welcome back! I'm glad you're feeling better.

There are people who enjoy depression? Humans get weirder every day for me. As a sufferer of depression as a tag along with bpd, I can't even comprehend how it could be enjoyable.

Bipolar Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder? I've got depression with a side order of Borderline... but I'm doing better. I hope you will, too. :)

Borderline, with a side of depression and anxiety. I've done some pretty good therapy with CBT, and it has helped me work on handling my problems a lot. People say 'coping strategies' like it is easy sometimes, but they are good ones. Even a year out of the program (that took a year of weekly sessions), I'm still learning to use it all. But it does help, and I'm getting better at it. I'm very glad you're doing better!

As a wage slave to the Evil Brown Empire my posting will be slowed down, as I am sure everyone is beginning to notice, until X-mas has arrived. I will do my best to keep things moving and try diligently to get our next Episode up by Turkeyfest.

Is the Evil Brown Empire also know as UPS? Because I feel like I need to call UPS that now even if it wasn't what you meant.

I don't mind the slower pace, actually works very well for me right now, and this time of year is super busy all around even if you don't celebrate Christmas assuming you like in specific countries.

As a Canadian who has already had one turkey fest last month, do you refer to Thanksgiving (USA) or Christmas (far more wide spread)? Turkey is delicious, mind you, and last a long time (yay sandwiches and soups). If there is a third turkey fest I would be obliged to know about it!

Yes. EBE = UPS.

And...btw, many at the Empire refer to their chief rivals as The F word.

Yes. I am referring to the US' T-Day. Turkey, done right, is very delicious.

May your sojourn into the vast wintry wasteland of America bring you much in the form of overtime pay, my friend!

Cool dream @C1NDER,
I am still working on mine in my head. I haven't forgotten.

Thank you! It was fun to write.

@annex,
Really liked the visuals in your dream. Adding Sanguinor in there was a nice touch too.

I finally got something up of my own.

I'll hopefully have something up soon. My dog had her surgery for tumor removal on Tuesday, so I've been busy this week. She's home, and needs two weeks for recovery, but I should be thinking and posting soon.

Ouch! Hope she makes a full and timely recovery

@RageRed,@annex,@Miss_Sadie lovely write-ups! I enjoyed reading your dream posts, thank you all for the detailed work you put into them :D

@Equinox Thanks! She's doing better so far, incision wise, so it's looking good. It's right on her hip/bum area though, so exercise is a big no - which is driving her mental.

@C1NDER I've really enjoyed everyone's so far! So much insight into the characters, it's great. I'm glad you liked mine, I was having trouble with it. The concepts were there, but writing it to make a sort of sense was harder than I'd thought.

I am going to give @Basil until tomorrow to respond in the IC dreams before I move on.

As this is my chosen birthday, gifts are arriving soon.

Happy chosen birthday!

Happy chosen birthday! Ì hope you get presents today and on Xmas!

Should have something later today/tonght

Happy chosen birthday!! Enjoy it :D!

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone. I apologize for my delays. Work and brain freeze from the cold are hampering my posting time. I will make every effort to get us moving over the next couple days.

Next IC post is now up. Please post reactions for your characters and then I will continue in my next post.

Made an assumption about his heart beat, as it sounded like it should be more normal. If I need to change it, or anything in the post, let me know!

Doing a bit of maintenance. I only now noticed I need to add Tamblyn to the breakfast table and update Kris' token image.

@RageRed, C1NDER, Equinox, Basil, annex, Miss Sadie,

Sorry guys and girls. Please don't hate me, but I need to take a break from roleplaying for a while.

No hate, JamaisVu - take care of yourself, recharge, and I hope to see you back if and when you're ready. Thanks for the games!

No hate here either! If you need a break then you need a break. :)

Hate? Where? :)
Just be well.

Yuppers all of the above! Take care :)

While I am composing the next post IC, everyone please double check to make sure I have all of the stats right for your character in the post STATUS table.

Keltos = Correct

Lucian might be off. I'm not sure if you want check or saving throw stats for those, but either set would have an error.

If saving throw, DEX should be +5

If checks, it should be STR +0, DEX +3, CON +2, INT +2, WIS +1 and CHA +5

His AC will be using the 18, as he cast mage armor (just to be clear on it)

I do have basic stats for the hound on my sheet if you want them. Useless is a standard familiar. I noticed they were listed, but you might not need their stats.

@Miss_Sadie,

Could you add Useless to your character sheet, please?

Natrix looks good to me.

@Equinox Added him, sorry I should have added him earlier

Radu and Kris look good, from what I can tell!

@C1NDER,

TY.

@Miss_Sadie
No harm. No foul. I am still finding things in this game I thought I had started and finished months ago and didn't.

Figured I’d take this here to keep main thread clear. My understanding is that the blinded condition does not affect saving throws. If what affected me was something that a dex save for half could have helped with then I should be able to evade. No dex save while blinded is a powerful precedent. I’m only assuming of course that whatever hit me has dex save under Normal unblinded conditions. If not then it doesn’t matter.

Sorry. No. Ruling made.

Can't roll dice here for some reason. I'm rolling in the Character Concept thread instead.

Just want to check that you caught my edit for what I did on the turn. Were the skullfaces not damaged at all by lightning?

They took 1/4 damage

Thanks, I was very confused.

A heads up everyone.

I may not be able to post to update again after tonight until Thursday. I am gong to be out of town and away from most of the files I keep for the game.

Happy trails to you!

Save travels, my friend!

Thanks guys.

Hello - Thanks for the invite.
Please what should i read first to understand what the game is about and character creation rules? Thank you so much.

@Starsong,

Allowed Content & House Rules

Ok thanks. Found it. Please which level are we and is it possible to get a summary of the story? Thanks.

I'm thinking of a druid, would if fit?

@Starsong,

Read under House Rules. Druids aren't allowed. Equinox uses a lot of his own variants, including races allowed.

I'll let him address the plot synopsis once he's back online.

Sure no problem. :) thanks, was not attached to it.

Welcome Starsong!! Glad to have you aboard :D

The poetry has arrived \o/

Hopefully I'm not dead before you start lol

Thanks, its okay we can ressurect you! :)

Hello, Starsong! Welcome!

Hello Mr. Annex! See you around. Thanks.

Welcome aboard!

@Starsong, If you haven't yet, please read through all the threads in the House Rules subforum. I do a lot of things different than 5e RAW. When I can get the time tonight or tomorrow I will set up your private threads so we can talk about your character more in depth.

The very short of our story, is that something existentially threatening is coming. Its threatening all of the fifteen planes of Man. The council of T'Lorn has found a way to call across the planes to the potential manifestations of the Champion Eternal in each of those 15 realms. Eight of them have gathered in this city to answer that call. Four arrived at the entrance to the gate somehow altered or corrupted, and were disintegrated by the demiplane's security measures. The last three have not been heard from as of yet. Your character is one of those lost three, arriving late to the gathering...

Yes, i had a look. Moonpeople or lesser medusa seems fun. :)

Please how many PC and NPC are part of the adventuring group? I see there's a lot of people in the WHO YOU ARE thread. Thanks.

Eight. Everyone in that thread is the current members of the group

Are they all PC or some are NPC?

@Starsong,

Currently:
Lucian, Keltos, Natrix, Radu, and Tajuri are active PCs
Kris and Leh'veia were both PCs and are now NPCs
Killian is an NPC I created from the start of a PC a player was making before dropping out of the game to round out number Eight of the Eight mentioned in the campaign title.

Can you see the Private subforum now at the top of the menu. I have started two threads there for you to begin with. These are private. No one else should be able to see them beside you and GMs for this campaign.

Thank you Equinox for offering me to join.

However, a sudden change at work just increased dramatically my work load... I got promoted.

So i think i should be prudent and not start more games for a moment.

Thank you again!

@Starsong,

congrats on the promotion!

Yeah and I get it. This campaign is powerful and complicated with the high level, custom chosen races, and my modification. Which is why I don't identify it as 5e D&D. I use the general mechanics and stock WotC material, but diverge from RAW, as its just a guideline.

Thanks! No worries, it look nice. Just not enough time to dig into it with my little knowledge of DnD 5th. Work is going to be hectic for a while. See you around!

In other news, it looks like all of my OtFBMs are not loading on the pages so that I can see them.

I'd asked a question in the private ooc thread, if you want I could just do my turn anyway and see what happens

Everyone,

I am still trying to find a solution to our map problem. I don't have the time to draw up the maps by hand. OtFBM's site doesn't seem to load when I try to go there a see if they are working on the problem of finding another imaging host for the battlemaps, as imgur no longer does so. If anyone has suggestions how we can resolve this problem, please share.

Imgur works for me for hosting images. What's your problem with it?

All of the map background images and character tokens are uploaded through imgur. They no longer work through OtFBMs. Regular images still work fine uploaded to imgur.

While on my long Sunday at the job I got a brainstorm. I've discovered a temporary solution for our mapping problem. By removing the background image from the map, the rest of the map now displays.

That's great! Not perfect, but the background itself is not nearly as important as the token layout and positioning

Oh no! Radu has disappeared from the map :| that doesn't bode well

At least Lucian will stabilize? Between the heart token and his periapt he should survive this?

He also couldn't get to Natrix and them last turn, so I'd hoped he was safe. He was not.

@Miss_Sadie, The problem with Lucian's wall of force is that the room doesn't end at the left side of the battlefield area. The fiend could simply walk around the top end of the wall and get to Lucian. The fiend can also blink.

Oh, it's fine that isn't what I meant :)

I'd hoped to keep an escape route yet stay safe from the invisible nature of the wall. I was wrong, and have learned from this.

We should be able to have the globe and sphere active at the same time.
No teleportation spells, Sadie?

None left, nope. I could convert some sorcery points to get the slot back if I have to, although I don't think he could teleport into the globe.

From my understanding, maybe it's wrong, but the globe blocks all incoming spell effects. It seems like the teleport would then fail, and unless I can make the dome larger than the globe (it has a 10ft radius, or I build it with panels), the wall won't form where it hits the globe.

If he can get into the globe, it's possible maybe to form the wall without a hole, assuming it's counted as coming from inside the globe?

They aren't spells I encounter or use often, so I could be entirely wrong on it.

Ah, crap. I forgot. :(

Apparently now, we can also no longer create tokens for our maps.

That is really frustrating :|

Hey @Equinox could you let me know your ruling on the wall of force interacting with the globe of invulnerability? If Natrix is throwing it back up and it would block the wall from forming, there's no point to the wall. That or he'd have to avoid the globe entirely and thus Natrix as well.

It should work but if it won't, I'll change my action to creating a hemispheric Wall of Force.

Thank you :) I should get my post up today then

It appears Lucien is no longer with us.

So...I havent had any meaningful interactions coming up on 2 months now. A long time to be KO'd, and things seems to have slowed further. Player interest and campaign still active?

I noted that Equinox has not logged in for 7 days, which might be a record for him lol It does leave me a little bit worried, particularly as that means he logged in after Miss_Sadie left the game, but he didn't say anything here.

Though I am listed as a co-GM here, I don't have any of the resources or information as to what Equinox was planning, what any of the plot lines are, or even what this creature we're fighting is capable of (or its HP).

Basil, thank you for sticking things out here even with Keltos down for the count right now.

Everyone, let's hold tight for maybe another week to see if Equinox returns with a plan, if you're willing.

Thx for the update!

Okay then.

Regarding Miss_Sadie's departure: Unfortunate, but its never been a secret that your assessors have assess to magic and abilities not RAW standard for 5e D&D and they have spells that are greater than 6th level. The entire current test has been planned and coordinated from the very beginning. Thusly, why it is circling back to the beginning of the scene with magics that were manifest from the word go. I wish Miis_Sadie would have a least stuck around to see what effect the spell had on Lucian before assuming that it would take him out and likely rage quitting for no reason.

Regarding Keltos: This is my fault the battle is taking so long to conclude and I apologize that its keeping @Basil in a state of Limbo. I will say that the burning of Keltos' body was not in my plans and complicates things a bit for his continuance atm.

Well guys I think I’m gonna call it quits on this one . I just don’t have it in me to wait another two months in hopes of posting. Thanks for letting me participate and happy gaming to you all.

@Equinox,

Where do we stand on continuing from this point? What's the plan?

@annex, @C1NDER, @RageRed,

I'm open to continuing if that's what you guys want to do. I will say it is getting increasingly difficult to envision how I am going to do large combat scenes without the use of OtFBMs. I've been dragging my heels hoping they will fix the problem, but it doesn't look like it is happening. I am also open to bringing in new players. There are three unaccounted for Champions who were given invitations and mysteriously have never shown up.

I'm very happy to continue.
There must be good alternatives to On The Fly.

I'm happy to continue as well.

I have used google slides for my maps to some success. If interested, I could show you how I set it up.

@C1NDER,

I am willing to give it a try, if you have the time and patience to teach and old dog a new trick?

Hey guys,

I'm dealing with a lot of issues right now. On top of everything else I discovered very late Friday night that there's now a bench warrant for my arrest for not showing up to a court date I never knew about until two days after. My lovely postal carrier dropped a registered letter in my mail box two weeks after it was mailed from the court's officer and never even bothered to have me sign for it.

That being said, I will do my best to move us forward by the end of next week. If I'm not in jail, I am supposed to be on a week's vacation from work beginning this next weekend.

That sucks. Hope you feel better soon, Equinox and get everything sorted out.

Sorry to hear that, friend. I hope it all gets figured out ok, take care of yourself.