# Knights of the Daystorm  (Help please)--My players stay out.



## Jeremy (May 29, 2003)

My game carries on and is worlds different from it's start, and yet still familiar.  Even the story hour carries on in a different format on a different board.  In any case, I'm in a rut and need some help from all you great story hour authors who are feeling generous and patient today.  

The party is now made up of:

Dragonkin Psychic Warrior 4 (Zerin)
Human Clairsentient 13 (Tylette)
Human Cleric 7/Divine Disciple 6 (Frederick)
Human Evoker 5/Elemental Savant (Electricity/Air) 8 (Mellan)
Human Sorcerer 5/Summoner 9 (Collin)
Dwarf Rogue 2/Monk 7/Drunken Master 4 (Bratic)

They have abilities and equipment and numbers that makes them able to take out challenges pretty similar to if they were a 17th level iconic party.

They are in a mortal created plane of limited size where they have lived their entire lives.  The plane is sealed, though one of it's still living (unliving) wizards wishes to leave it and will inadvertantly destroy the plane doing so (unbeknownst to him).

The story follows the original Final Fantasy game with four elemental fiends, in this case, one for each elemental anchor that holds the plane together.  The party has reached and cleansed Earth, Fire, and Water.

The final anchor, Air, is located in a flying castle populated largely by technological machinations ('technomancy' is the term they've heard in reference to the place).  In order to reach it they still need to go through a tower.

The bland desert of the game was long ago replaced with the Darklands of Helgedad and all their involved power from the Lone Wolf series of books.  Conveniently enough, the party has eliminated Haakon, putting Gnaag (insect-like humanoid praying mantis-looking undead psionic necromancer) and the Nadziranim (evokers specializing in small black cubes that detonate on command in greenish fireballs) into power in the Tower of the Damned in the center of the black steel city of Helgedad still suspended above it's lake of fire with it's eternal choking sulphur fumes.

That's the tower they need to reach the top of to be transported to the castle of technomancy.

At the end of last session they had successfully completed a gladiatorial challenge, entertaining the black dragon who had come into possession of the key they infer from divinations they will need to reach the castle.  I haven't found a way yet to tell them that the key must be activated from within the Tower of the Damned.

Lately the game has taken on a very dull here task, do task.  There used to be economic and political intrigue regarding the party's fostering of a rebuilt frontier town they saved as well as throwing the Darklords out of their home town where they had made a significant economic impact.  They have also repopulated the devestated elven population of the nation of Elfland to the south as the Marsh Cave instead held illithid that had around 3,000 of them in a stasis hive like the machines power plants in the Matrix using Quintessence to keep them frozen in time.

I've been fairly creative so far weaving additional elements into the story from outside Final Fantasy and Lone Wolf that make the game unique and interesting.  But I just have no ideas for what to do for Saturday's game short of....

'The creature's dragonkin guards escort you through a series of catacombs into the presence of the golem-like creature you have been seeking.

It is a creature of what you can only speculate is technomancy---and it looks broken.

As you approach it, paces jerkily back and forth with no purpose.'

*PC's do something clever*

'The creature seems to gain a moment of warped lucidity.'  "Please step this way and prepare for transport," it crackles in a harsh metallic monotone.  It motions to it's right to some phantom only it can see in it's fractured programming and transforms it's hand into a cube assembled of various bits of metal and lined with some kind of power.  It reaches forth, looking like it is trying to insert the cube into some phantom structure and as it tries to press it in to the non-existant space, it clatters to the floor noisily.  This unforseen event seems to puzzle it and it goes back to pacing, nearly squashing the now unseen--to it--cube.'

After which point they try to get to the castle, can't, do some divinations I guess.  Get riddles and hints that point to the tower.  Infiltrate a tower in the heart of the blackest city of the Darklands some how, transport to the castle, purify the Air anchor of it's guardian (a tiamat knock off) and celebrate.

This is too straight shot.  Too plain and simple.  I'd like to work in some interrupting world events of some sort.  Especially those that acknowledge all that the PC's have down to make 3/4's of the world safe so far.  Or the 4 towns who's survival they personally assured...  Or the academy one of them established.  Or some such.  I'd love to get them to have to stay in one of the Darklander cities like Aarnak for a while for some purpose and say have a crew of Vordak (psionic undead) and Drakkarim (fighter/barbarians--human) bust in looking for someone and it turn out that they aren't looking for the PC's like in PirateCat's story hour.  Or just get them into a smaller scale side note that has nothing to do with saving the world.

Anything to change the linear nature of the game right now.  Help please?


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## Angcuru (May 31, 2003)

What type of academy was established by what PC?

If it was a mage academy established by Mellan or Collin, you could throw in something along the lines of:  A routine training session in demon summoning has gone horribly wrong, and instead of closing the rift the the Abyss, the Administrators have mistakenly cast a series of spells to ensure that the rift remains open for at least a week, with a longer duration being highly likely.

stuff like this:  something goes wrong, PCs have to fix, DM ties a sub-plot to it, sub-plot serves as distraction from main plot. Tada.


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## Jeremy (May 31, 2003)

Nice.

Magical Academy specializing in sphere theory for alteration of magic (metamagic).  But as Collin founded it and Collin is a Summoner, that could work out nicely!  Thanks!


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