Nightfall Journal - CLOSED

[Zyraen]

RACE

Main Races
Based on the vote by players, these will be the main Races in the party.
- Human: On character creation, you may give up your Bonus Feat and Human Defense Bonuses to gain +2 to any 1 Stat. This may not be the same Stat as your original race bonus.
- Drow / Dark Elf: Drow may be customised as below (See Drow Customisation), but this is not recommended for new players.

Optional Races
These are options if you do not want to RP Human or Drow.
- Dragonborn
- Dwarf : Dwarves have Darkvision
- Half-Orc
- Halfling
- Tiefling

Drow Customisation
Instead of using the default Drow Race, you may only apply one of the following options. The name in brackets refers to the "reference" race. While this is not recommended for new players, but they may ask about this if they wish.

1) (Human) Specialist : You lose +2 in 1 Stat and gain an extra feat. Lolthtouched is replaced by either Heroic Effort or Bonus At-Will Power. You can take feats that require Heroic Effort, if you have Heroic Effort.

2) (Vryloka) Blood Drinker: You lose Lolthtouched, Trance, Fey Origin. You gain Lifeblood, Blood Dependency, Living Dead, Vampiric Heritage. You can drink blood instead of eating. You can take Vryloka feats. Note you still have Darkvision.

3) (Shadar-kai) Riftwalker: You lose Lolthtouched, Trance. You gain Shadowjaunt and Winterkin. You can take Shadar-kai feats. Note you still have Darkvision.

=================

Special Rules

- Low Light Vision : All Characters that don't have Darkvision have Low Light Vision

- Natural Darkness: Natural darkness only grants partial concealment (and not total concealment). Note that magical darkness etc still functions as per normal (ie total concealment)

- Racial Stat Bonus: For all Races except Humans (who only have ONE +2), you can add +2 to ANY TWO different Stats on Character Creation. This replaces your Racial Bonus to two particular stats.

- Racial Skill Bonus: For all Races except Humans (Who already have an extra Trained Skill), you can add +2 to any two different Skills on Character Creation. These bonuses replace your usual Race Bonus to certain Skills.

[Zyraen]

CHARACTER CREATION

Starting Level: 4
Ability Scores: 22 Point Buy
Alignment: Not Used

Disallowed Classes: Vampire, Elementalist (Fire)

Trained Skills: Regardless of Class, you can choose to be trained in any 4 Skills. Classes that start with more than 4 trained skills only start Level 1 with 4 trained skills.

Themes / Backgrounds: Both are not allowed. All characters use their highest Stat in place of Constitution for determining starting Hitpoints (for those using Character Builder, this means background will be either Auspicious Birth or Born under a Bad Sign). Remember that when your highest Stat increases (at certain levels), so do your Hitpoints.

Mundane Items : All mundane items & kits that increase Skills do not ever increase these Skills. They may be bought and used for RP purposes. Note the flexible Racial Skill bonuses are available. The only exception to this is Rope, that helps climbing.
Sunrods, Everburning Torches, and any light-emitting mundane items other than regular torches are not allowed.

Deities: If a character wishes to worship a specific deity, please run it by the GM. This should make sense for the setting. Note that it is not necessary that Divine characters must worship a specific deity, they may worship a domain or a pantheon.

Starting Equipment

All Character's start with a Level 3, Level 4, and Level 5 Item. All 3 items may be Uncommon.
In addition, characters may spend up to 680 Gp to buy equipment. This equipment may include magical items, but with no more than 5 consumables.
All balance Gp and provisions are lost. ie you start with 0 Gp and 0 provisions.

Various Allowances / Restrictions

Adventurer's Kit costs only 5 Gp. It does not have any provisions nor sunrods.

Dragonmark Feats are available.
Various Eberron Shards (Eberron Shards, Siberys Shards, Khyber Shards) are available.
If a Multiclass Feat specifies a particular Skill Training, or training in a Class Skill, you can use it to be trained in ANY (untrained) Skill

Power of the Sun and Morninglord Paragon Path feat are not allowed. Anything related to Pelor is not allowed.
White Lotus Master Riposte is not allowed.

Except for those gained in the game and Eberron Shards, non-consumable items that do not take up any slot (eg. Enshrouding Candle, Boon, etc) are not allowed. If you wish to take one, please check with me.

Only Common Consumables are available. A list of Consumables will soon be made available.

No Duplicate Items are allowed, ie items with the same Magical Property. If 2 items have the same property but are different Enhancement and different weapons/armor, they are still considered Duplicates.

Item Rarity

Magical items are always sold for 50% of their listed price.

Common Items can always be crafted with gold earned.

Uncommon Items have to be wishlisted and components to build these items will be provided to the party.
Generally speaking, characters will never gain magical items from enemies.

Rare Items are not allowed, unless you checked with the GM and it is explicitly allowed.
Any item that is approved by GM is available to all players, but counts as a "Rare" slot.
For each Tier of play, you may only have max of one "Rare" slot. ie 1 at Heroic, 2 at Paragon, 3 at Epic.

Custom Items & Feats

To make things more approachable for new players, Trailblazer Items and Feats are available.
Note that Trailblazer Roles are not available.
unboundgames.proboards.com/thread/248/roles-items-feats-trailblazer

Trailblazer Racial Feats, Multiclass Feats and Role-swapping Feats are not available. The Deathbringer Feat is not available.
Characters who take Trailblazer Feats may not take any 4E Feats, unless the 4E feat relates to their Racial Power or is a Multiclass Feat.
For the first Style feat a character takes, he gains +1 feat bonus to attack rolls per tier (similar to 4E Expertise feats).

Trailblazer Items may be mixed with 4E Items.
Unless otherwise stated, items that have base Levels 1-3 and 6-8 are Common. All the rest are treated as Uncommon.

Handy Link
unboundgames.proboards.com/thread/284/effective-character-creation


House Ruled Feat

Disciple of Shadow : now has no Cha requirement. Instead of Darkvision 2, it grants Darkvision 5 at heroic and at Level 11, it grants Darkvision.

[Zyraen]

GAMEPLAY RULES
These may affect your Character Creation choices, hence are included here.
New Players may choose to skip this section, the GM will guide you along and explain all this for your consideration.

- All Characters have Inherent Bonuses
- No Mounts are allowed in combat, unless explicitly stated
- Encumbrance and Ammunition are never tracked.

Extended Rests and Daily Powers

The gameplay will not distinguish Extended Rest from a regular Short Rest.
You regain One Daily power when you level up, which typically involves completing an Arc.
Items, Paragon Paths etc that allow to regain Daily powers do not have any effect.
You may also regain Daily powers and Action Points through meaningful RP, at the GM's discretion.

Encounter Healing Surges / Reserves

We will not use the regular 4E Healing Surges, but rather use Encounter Healing Surges, aka Reserves. At the end of every Rest, you regain all your Reserves. You may not "Rest" again until you have completed an Encounter.

All Characters have a base of 2 Reserves.
Characters who have only the Defender role in their main class have 3 Reserves instead of 2. If you are a hybrid, it means BOTH your classes must be Defender to get this bonus.

On top of that, each Character who has Constitution 14 or more has 1 extra Reserve over the norm.
Hence, no non-defender can have more than 3 Reserves, and no defender can have more than 4 Reserves.

Whenever a Character spends an Action Point (AP), he regains an expended Reserve.
He may spend an Action Point (AP) if healed while unconscious to regain an expended Reserve and heal up, but he does not get an extra Standard Action if he uses AP in this way.
A Character is still restricted to using AP only once per Encounter.

Hunger & Survival

Characters may get afflicted by hunger along the way.
Increasing bouts of hunger may affect your Reserves available and inflict penalties along the way.

Unless otherwise stated, 1 provision is good for 1 day.
No character can carry more than 20 provisions for self-consumption at one time - it is assumed they become inedible before they can be consumed.

Apart from buying them and stealing them etc, provisions can generally be gained by hunting down creatures.
Different creatures cater for different quantity of "edible" provisions.
A huge creature may not be entirely edible.

Items, Rituals etc that provide nourishment, provisions, etc are not available/have no effect.

[Zyraen]

Overall Background

Following events are recorded during the reign of Emperor Aurelian.
The terms "BC" refers to "Before Conquest" and "AD" refers to "After Darkness".
Years are given in cycles of the seasons, as per the BC period.
The information presented in the timeline is based on elven records and most of the information is not available to the player characters.

122 BC : King Aurelian ascends after the murder of king Karanis.
King Aurelian vows to exterminate the dark elves once and for all to avenge his father.

119 BC : With sufficient preparation, the Great Descent, as it came to be known, was successful. The military established their presence in the Underdark.

114 BC : The Conservation directive was approved. The bodies of all enemies and any of the elves that had prior agreed to, could be used in necromancy and redeployed for military use. The archmages commenced work on a suitable spell for preserving these forces as well.

102 BC : The operation Shadowsight was officially sanctioned. For the many who had yet to be acclimatised, the operation would allow them to operate on a fairly even basis against the dark elves.

99 BC : Internal fighting breaks out between the dark elf cities. Divide and Conquer appears successful.

85 BC : The fall of the first dark elf city Velsharran is recorded. The military were to preserve most of the city and occupy it.

68 BC : Half of the known Dark Elf cities have fallen.

( 65 BC : The dark elf city of Scherezade has fallen ) - Unrecorded

46 BC : The last known dark elf city of Kelshazad has fallen. The territories occupied in the Underdark continue to grow and thrive.

30 BC : The council is satisfied that dark elves have been rooted from the depths of the Underdark.

25 BC : The elves wage war upon the savage races of the world.

12 BC : The council shows the fruits of the elven labour and offers the various surface kingdoms a chance to be guided by the noble elves into a new era of peace of prosperity. The offer is spurned.

11 BC : The surface world breaks out into a war between the various human, dwarf etc kingdoms. The elves are not involved. The operation known as Ark commences.

8 BC : At the height of the surface world wars with each other, the elves destroy the palaces and royalty of the other surface kingdoms. War is declared against the elves.

4 BC : An uneasy peace is reached with the highly populated surface kingdoms.

0 BC / 0 AD : The surface world is plunged into darkness. With the sun moon and stars shrouded out, plants die and the populace cannot sustain itself. The winds and seas become cold as energy is sapped from the earth.

1 AD : The surface races turns on the elves suspecting them of committing the world to darkness. The elves remain aloof, non committal and purely defensive.

3 AD : The elves invade the other surface kingdoms.

4 AD : Snowfall starts to become more common than rainfall on the surface world.

5 AD : The capital city of the elves is relocated into the Underdark.

8 AD : The elves have achieved dominion over most of the known surface world. The dwarf kingdoms reject the offer of peaceful surrender.

15 AD : Two of the dwarf kingdoms have fallen.

21 AD : Most of the major dwarf kingdoms have fallen. King Aurelian declares himself Emperor Aurelian.

====================

67 BC, Deep in the Underdark

Elcorin Daeveris looked at the remnants of his company around him. From the full strength of forty dark elves that had left Scherezade, only a handful remained.

After they had engaged the elves, the company had been attacked from behind by what seemed an innumerable horde of undead. The company leader Anaress Shathroven had ordered an orderly retreat, and that was when the elves capitalized on the advantage and drove in, clearly unafraid of the undead.

What remained of the company managed to retreat into a large cave, but the undead just kept coming and the elves fired from behind with unerring arrows and deadly explosions of arcane power, not caring that they caught their creations as well. After creating a diversion, Anaress and her guard were surrounded and perished in a concerted series of explosions. Following her orders, Elcorin had taken charge and initiated a cave-in with those he had left. A few of the spellcasters had to be replaced on the spot as elven snipers pressed hard to interfere.

They had then retreated further into the subterranean caverns, but they soon realized that they were trapped. The many passageways led nowhere, and scrying revealed that the undead were still outside and not attempting to dig them out, nor were there enough drow to dig their way out and still have the energy to cope with the undead.

Four weeks had passed now, and their rations were exhausted. They would be soon as well, and unable to put up meaningful resistance if the undead or elves were to dig through to them. Already they had sacrificed two of their injured and divided up their flesh. The rest before him now were hale, hearty, and would soon go back to starving.

Elcorin explained his desperate plan, and what he fully believed to his final plan. He offered to put those who were willing into stasis, melding them into the stone, then he and those who thought they could follow, would use their powers to create a small opening, just enough for them to see out and teleport, and then proceed past the undead with stealth. And Elcorin swore an oath to those he left behind, an oath in the name of Lolth. He would get help, or he would die trying.

And help did not come.

[sylvannas]

GMs Note : consolidated all Char backgrounds

=========

Qilue has been rescued from one of the fallen houses of the Underdark when she was a child and taken in as a priestess of Selune by Elminster. She was tired of the constant bickering, wars between the houses and vying of power. She longed for peace and bringing healing to people and the land to show them that not all Drow are bad. She decided to dedicate her life to the healing arts and using the radiance of the moon to defeat evil. In the secret gardens where the priestesses worship Selune with their bodies and their lives, Qilue received information that Elves have waged a full war on her homeland, sick as she was of their constant bickering, she decided to try to reason with the Elves. Upon making her descent into the tunnels, she came across a raiding party chasing a small group of Drow and tried to intervene but the Elves seem more savage than usual and intent on killing her as well. As they ran and used the darkness to their advantage, they came to a small cave and hid, but the Elves refused to give up searching for them. As days passed, they ran out of food and options. The leader Elcorin suggested for them to be put in stasis and hopefully someone will find them and rescue them...


=========

Posted by Windz

“Run and hide! Make sure nobody sees or hears you! Go, go, GO!!!”

Those were the last words that Varjo’s parents said to him.

In the shadows, Varjo tried to stifle his cries, so as not to be heard. He crouched silently, watching, unable to stop the deluge of tears streaming down his face as he witnessed his parents being brutally slaughtered by a party of bloodthirsty, marauding elves.

Shaking in fear, grief and anger, he cursed the drow gods for abandoning them, he cursed the existence of those deplorable elves and he cursed the fact that he was a powerless and useless boy.

Overwhelmed with emotions, he took a crossbow lying on the ground, screamed and shot at the two remaining elves standing. Taken by surprise, fatigued and wounded greatly by Varjo's parents during the fight, the elves fell before they even had a chance to turn back and see who shot them.

That day, the innocence of boyhood in Varjo died along with the demise of his parents. In a short span of ten minutes, the life he knew, crumbled. He learnt the feeling of pain, hatred and grief, and most importantly, he realized the potential of lurking in the shadow, striking from the dark.

Protection and power could both be found in darkness. Walking in shadow would be his path from now on.

The elves would never see death coming that way.

==========

Character Background - Desmond
Written by Mike

He was 9 years old when Night fell and the skies darkened.

The son of a simple woodcutter and his wife, he had grown up in a house on the edge of a forest, at the fringe of a small village. His childhood summers had been spent playing among the trees with other children from the village; games of hide-and-seek, climbing amongst the branches, swimming in the rivers, sneaking up on rabbits and deer, pretending to be adventurers. Winters had meant playing in snowbanks and building ice forts.

Then darkness came.

The forests, once full of dappled light and joy, quickly grew dark. Wolves and other predators, active in the night and made hungry by the lack food, ventured out of the forest depths towards the fringes. More and more the demand for wood for fires and warmth increased, yet the forest was no longer a safe place.

Desmond quickly learnt to help his father when they set out to chop wood. He would stay alert and watchful while his dad and other villagers went to work felling trees. Over the next few years his eyes and senses became accustomed to the twilight, from hours peering into the forest depths. He made mistakes early on; failed to notice a flash of fur, the glint of eyes among the shadows; the soft sound of paws moving slowly into position. These were the times that not every villager returned home. Desmond soon learned to not make mistakes.

Then word came of the elven war with the surface kingdoms. They said the elves had caused the night; caused the rivers to freeze and the plants and forests to die. And now they came to take the dying surface land away from those who rightfully held it.

Desmond’s father, along with every other able bodied man in the village, left to journey to the kingdom where they might fight. They hoped to restore the day and regain the lives they had lost. Desmond, still too young to fight, was left to look after his mother. He watched his father walk off into the darkness. He never saw him again.

It was several months before the elves came to the village. Desmond was in the forest, collecting firewood. The edge of the forest had receded greatly in the last few years, so that it was now a good few miles away from their house. Even in wood, he felt the air change; heard the sounds before the screams. He turned and watched the glow of fires as they took the village. Before he could start to return, he heard them moving in the forest, approaching quickly. He did what any young child would do when the monsters in the dark come.

He hid.

The rest of the tale is fragments only.

Returning to the village. Seeing the burned body of his mother in the
fading light of embers and ashes that were once his home. Scavenging what he could among the debris of the village.

Spending the following years living on the surface; hiding; foraging;
tracking and stalking the party of elves that visited his village as they
moved across the land. Watching them always from a distance as he grew stronger. Learning.

Stealing and destroying their equipment and supplies.

Poisoning their food and water.

Setting fire to a tent while they slept.

Following them into the tunnels and caves when they left the surface.

Learning how they foraged and lived below ground. Learning how to orient himself.

Watching them take on dwarven patrols.

Killing an injured elf on the sidelines unnoticed, while a battle took place. His first kill.

Spending years at a time underground.

Adapting.

Growing bolder. Picking them off one by one; sometimes days, sometimes months apart.

Eventually what little shattered troops remained of the elven party
returned to the a newly conquered subterranean elven outpost, where Desmond could not enter undetected.

But Desmond knew there were other elven bands still wandering the tunnels and surface for him to haunt.

And he did.

[Zyraen]

1.1 Rude Awakening
29-Sep-15 (Tue)

The human foraging party had hit a snag when the purple worm suddenly emerged from the ground and bit on their warrior, but things managed to get worse. They had fled to a nearby cave in a hard-rock formation where the purple worm would hopefully have problems burrowing to them, only to find undead emerging from the ground near the entrance of the cave after they had entered, blocking them off from escape. While the undead did tie up the purple worm quite a bit, they also engaged some of the others. In the rush to get away, Desmond the rogue found himself separated from the rest - who had possibly met rather grisly endings - and with more undead slowly but surely closing in.

Delving deeper into the caves, he found it was a dead end, but within the stone walls were what looked like icy stones with humanoids inside, and some arcane runes nearby. Figuring he'd need some help to have a chance against the undead, he managed to free one of what looked like black-skinned white haired elves, nothing like anything he had ever seen before. Though both humans and dark elves were initially wary of each other, differences were set aside as more undead arrived, and they managed to free the other imprisoned dark elves to defeat the undead that had managed to follow him into this section of the cave.

There were initial tensions immediately after, arising from the one human being surrounded and outnumbered, but they soon realised they all shared a deep hatred of the elves. The freed drow identified themselves as from the city Scherezade within the Underdark, only to be shocked to hear from the rogue that he had never heard nor seen any drow in the Underdark, and that main cities to be found in the Underdark were those of elves. Two of the drow were further dismayed when their prayers to their respective deities seemed unanswered.

The group decided to leave the cave away from the undead blockade. Fortunately, with the numbers of undead somewhat reduced by the now-dead purple worm and those they had dispatched, they managed to spot areas with less undead and sneak pass them. The drow also noticed the remains of some long mouldered away drow bodies, albeit haunted by a spectre of their commander and many undead. After intense deliberation, they decided that returning to Scherezade was more important than trying to loot the fallen.

XP Gained - Party Level 4
Desmond (Mike) : 2 / X 4
Abiorach (Robin) : 2 / X 4
Gelhrae (Farhan) : 2 / X 4
Qilue (Merlvyn) : 2 / X 4

[Zyraen]

1.2 Home Ahoy
09-Oct-15 (Fri)

The party travelled in the Underdark towards the direction of Scherezade, and came to a subterranean crossroads which the drow knew was watched by the sentries of Scherezade. However, no one called out for them to identify themselves, and they ventured into the hidden outpost position to investigate. Within the dark grotto that would normally be more thoroughly obscured by webs, they found the area covered in thick dust over some blast and scorch marks, and there were no bodies present. Gelhrae learned from some careful examination that it had been almost a century since anyone was last here, while in meantime the human seemed relaxed and amused at what the drow were doing.

They proceeded towards Scherezade, passing through a rather enclosed cavern tunnel where there were some brown fungus growing a bit further away from their natural habitat, and which the drow did not see before. Desmond sensed something was not right, especially when they started releasing most of their spores as they passed through, and there was the faint aura of magic, although the spores were not harmful. Towards the end of the tunnel they were ambushed by three cilopses, giant centipedes that use a form of psychic venom. Varjo recalled he had heard of some drow training these subterranean menaces as guardians and also hunters. While resting, they heard shambling wet movements ahead in the darkness, sounding like shuffling undead.

They hurried ahead to emerge out of the cavern into a massive underground area (about 300' high or more), to behold the city of Scherezade perched on in the darkness, but many towers of old have disappeared or fallen into ruin, and near the centre where the temple to Lolth once stood, there was in its place a crystalline looking spire of white and emerald stone. More immediate concern though, was a subterranean lake that covered most of , out of which were emerging a horde of zombies in their general direction. Deciding to skirt the lake towards the cavern passage that would lead to the bridge or an alternate way from the city, they moved steathily to try and avoid detection, with Varjo far ahead of the rest. Just as well, for he was detected and shot at, but missed, and they noticed a longboat with a sheltered structure on it upon the lake, with elves firing out at them.

Despite the horde of shambling undead and the drows' inclination to press on, Desmond decided to stealthily plunge into the water and swim for the longboat the drow told him was there. As Varjo was about pulling clear of place, Desmond rose from the water behind the elf wizard at the front of the longboat, yanking him backwards down into the water to try and drown him. With that, Abiorach headed for the longboat as well, pulling the elves attention towards him instead of the rogue. Gelhrae reluctantly waded in, getting the attention of the elf fighter that was soon fallen by Varjo's shots from the dark, even as the shambling zombies closed in on their land position as well as returning back into the depths, closing in on where Desmond and the wizard were caught in a vicious underwater deathgrip, to see who would fall first or drown first. And the battle rages on...

XP Gained - Party Level 4
Desmond (Mike) : 4 / X 4 *Inspiration*
Abiorach (Robin) : 4 / X 4
Gelhrae (Farhan) : 4 / X 4
Varjo (Windson) : 3 / X 4
AFK - Qilue (Merlvyn) : 3 / X 4

Loot
Cilops Antennae & Jaws
Provisions (in days) : 1 (Cilops Stalker)

Reference Pic - View of Scherezade & Bridge