Below are the 13 most recent journal entries recorded in Entropy's LiveJournal:

Monday, July 4th, 2005
2:22 pm	The next session... The Temple of Strife was carved from three different pitch-black materials: obsidian, black granite, and black marble. It looked like the top had been sheared off, almost like a huge sword had swept through it hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years in the past. The group was able to find a place where a column had shattered a part of the wall, and climbed through a crack into one of the towers. This particular tower was dirty, smelled of rotting loam and fungus, and had mold growing on the walls. There were two exits to the room, but one was blocked off by several of the blocks that had fallen from above, and the other was blocked by a heavy iron portcullis. A quick examination of the portcullis revealed a mechanism to lift it by a pulley system, and the party quickly started down the unusually warm hallway between towers, setting up a quick-release system if they had to make a quick getaway. The second tower had been gutted by a fire, and still smelled of ash and had a miasma of dust and ash on everything. The dust made it easy to tell that humans and imps had traversed this room, but only very recently had an imp been through. Again, the party continued around the huge temple, through a hallway with dead branches underfoot. The third tower had, amazingly, a tree in the center of it, but the tree had deteriorated out to a hollow thing full of termites and the stink of rot. Dead vines crept up the sides of the tower. Almost out of rope, the party decided it would be a good idea to conserve as much of it as possible, and started jamming branches etc into the pulley mechanisms to make sure it would be easy to escape. The third hallway had noticably damp walls, with trickles of water coming from... nowhere seemingly. The party investigated a series of holes in the wall with a quarterstaff, finding nothing but that they were probably ducts of some sort, heading down. The room at the end of that hallway had a pool of brackish green water, with dribbles of slime down every wall. The party checked the pool with the same staff, and found and avoided a pit in the center before continuing through the rest of the towers. Rust and useless weapons and armor characterize the next hall and tower, and Kovar is disturbed by the ruined implements of war hanging on the walls. The last hallway and tower are completely empty, save a whistling wind that whips up and down the walls of the structure. A quick study of the room, which is bordered on the other end by the same fall of rocks that bordered the first tower, reveals a trapdoor hidden in the floor, which the party climbs into with trepidation. As of yet, nobody had seen anyone else, imp or human. A quick jaunt around a circular ramp leading down led the party to a heavy wooden door, behind which was a grisly room with an altar covered with frescos of Strife creating and destroying the world. A shrivelled and desicated body of a dead woman was found next to the altar, and the door on the other side of the room was never opened, as the party found a lever in the side of the altar, which caused it to move aside revealing a passageway. On the other side of the obviously unhewn passage, the party found a large cavernous room with a pit, several desicated bodies, Grishona unconcious on a slab, and a large stone door. The party, unready for much of anything at this point, bed down after recovering Grishona and tossing the dry corpses down the apparently bottomless pit, and hope that nobody attacks them all while sleeping. Miraculously, nobody did. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 21st, 2005
11:32 am	The story so far. The imp you captured, and treated as well as you could under the circumstances, ended up telling you everything he knew about the situation between Rashanishu and the three humans. His name? Grishona. Yeah, James needs to come up with a list of good names so that on the fly he doesn't come up with silly names pulled from music. Anyway. Grishona actually became friendly towards Etty, thanks to her magic. I figure Vadin and Ettyneen will progress at generally the same speed at being able to change people's opinions, but for completely different reasons. You all continued the trek north along the imp/worg tracks. Between Grishona and Tauron, the travel was pretty easily kept on the right trail. Although even they could not stop the rain when it came. Kovar's scowl was easy to read - I'm gonna have to clean and oil all this armor, too soon. Almost immediately after the rain started, the party crested a ridge to reveal... Tauron's valley of gorgeous forest and life. Except... it was all burned! A forest fire had swept through hundreds of square miles of Tauron's home, devastating everything including his heart, which now smolders with a passion that yearns to destroy the parties responsible for this treacherous deed. As the party followed the trail, they noticed a dried up stream that borders the destruction, effectively walling it from the trail. In the middle of the path, you found a woman lying face-down, frail and bedraggled. Tauron (and anyone else with effective wilderness lore/training) recognized her as a Nyad, and he rushed to carry her to the stream. As she felt the healing flow of the rain refilling her stream, her eyes opened and her beauty returned. She told a story of how three men and a squad of imps set fire to the northern edge of the forest, and how they were able to glean some kind of magical power off of the destruction of the trees and wildlife. Tauron's rage burned ever higher after that. The party spent the night in another forest glade, after tying Grishona to a tree and convincing him it was for his own good. During the night, it seemed as if Etty was approaching the camp, but Vadin and Shadowfist (correct me if I'm wrong) knew Etty was asleep in the middle of camp. After a confusing scuffle with the intruder, who even tried to become Leif while grappled with him, the party was able to replace Grishona tied to the tree with the doppelganger tied to the tree. After an intense several moments of tension while the party deliberated what to do with the petty thief, Kovar finally executed it by beheading it. Leif at this point was trying to come to terms with the difference between the redeemable Grishona and the unredeemable doppelganger. The next day was spent in travel to the Temple of Strife. At the end of the day, the party was traveling (as silently as each of them could) across a barren plain surrounding the temple, following in the footsteps of Grishona who had been sent ahead with the message. The plain was filled with just barely noticable bits of metal sticking through the ground, and upon closer inspection were revealed to be implements of war. Kovar's enthusiasm over the history contained beneath the soil was barely contained by his sense of duty towards Grishona, Cyrista, and the crown. Just as the non-sneaky members of the party stepped over the last hill before the temple, a crackling noise could be heard from the ground, and undead horrors started to crawl out and attack the party members! Everybody geared up for a battle with people who had already died once, pulling out all their blunt weapons. Dozens of skeletons and zombies, some not quite human even, descended upon our heroes, but didn't count on a priest being among their prey! Leif's control over so many of the undead swung the battle irrefutably. The only difficult part became trying to take down the uncorporeal shadow of movement that babbled incoherently enough to incite madness in those around it. But that became less of an issue when two weapons gained magical attributes, and Etty brought her wand to bear against it. After crushing the bones of all the undead, the group advanced upon the temple itself. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 28th, 2005
1:22 pm	Wow, almost game-time again... Let's see, so what happened almost two weeks ago in real-life-time? I shouldn't have put this off. So you guys were just about to ride into Rashanishu's camp with the box of fakes, when Tauron noticed well-worn worg-tracks leading to the north, parallel to the Coneria-Nettulia road. With the idea in mind that Rash has been communicating with Garland/Rubian/Tanzig through messengers, the party started following the trail as best they could. That night, they had just reached the southern tip of the forest and bedded down for rest, but not until after Vadin set up tripwires around the camp. On the second watch, three worgs with imp scout riders descended upon our sleeping heroes, surprizing all but the two on watch! Thankfully, Vadin's wires slowed the worgs enough that nobody was flatfooted for the encounter, but Vadin and Etty (correct me if I'm wrong, please) fell unconscious from the assault. Not that the attackers fared any better; Kovar's sword dramatically swept through a worg and his rider in one fell swoop! After the dust from the skirmish died down, the two dropped friends were healed to consciousness, and a single imp was stabilized (for questioning? hostage? don't quite remember). Tied up a few trees down were the horses, spooked but unharmed (hah, we all forgot about them, I guess). In one of the imp's satchels was found a scroll in a disturbing script unrecognizable at first. Between the efforts of Ettyneen's schooling, Vadin's haphazard knowledge, and Leif's priestly training, the scroll was found to be written in an ancient form of abyssal. Translated into broken common, it read, "Second in command taken, no word on box, ready to take city." After some deliberation, the party managed to forge a negation on the "ready to take city" clause. Still not sure what they plan on doing with that... Vadin and Kovar (I think, it has been a couple weeks) came up with a plan to stroll right up to Garland, hand him the note and box, and, uhh, see what happens? We'll clear that up on Sunday, mkay? So, in summary... Party went north, and camped in the woods. Imps and worgs attacked, and got slammed. One imp is in custody. A message has been intercepted and changed. Quick timeline: Day 1: Everyone brought an imp-head. Day 2: Investigation begins, Neshasharu captured and interrogated. Day 3: Fake pendants made, party circumnavigates orchards, proceeds north. Night 3: Party attacked by worgs/riders. Day 4: Absolutely gorgeous dawn, everyone rests a bit from fight at night, game begins midmorning. ( Map! ) Current Mood: almost done Current Music: KHIP in the bindery (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
3:57 pm	First real adventure Woot! We played last Sunday, and we all had fun, right!? Of course we did! Er, bouncy cheerleader GM aside, we'll try a synopsis. After a short solo adventure starring each of our intrepid heroes (AKA, youse guys), you all found yourself in the service of the crown, as it were. King Oren (who I don't think I described all that well in-game; I'll get to that) has apparently misplaced his girlfriend, Cyrista. Tyrell (Captain of the Guard) suspects three erstwhile city guardsmen (Rubian, Garland and Tanzig by name) in her abduction, but simply doesn't know where they are. He was reluctant to let the six of you know about his rogue guardsmen immediately, but was quite helpful in providing you with as much information about them as possible, including the fact that Garland's family arms is field sable, oak tree proper, garland vert ensigned. (ooh, heraldry!) So far... Known: imps sieging Coneria; Cyrista missing at same time as Rubian, Garland and Tanzig; RG&T liked books on the ancient god Strife. Not known: what imps are really here for; why Cyrista is gone, and where RG&T (if it was them) have taken her. Tyrell handed out six pendants that belong to Cyrista, claiming that they'll protect you and guide you to her. Under Oren's command, you all placed them around your necks and experienced that now familiar sense of well-being. Who got what? Tauron, the wildman from the north, received an oval of jade. Ettyneen, a local studying the ways of magic, now has a crystal-clear sapphire. Vadin, a good-natured scoundrel, wears a shard of quartz. Kovar, apprentice to a master blacksmith, sports a platinum hexagon. Shadowfist, a mysterious monk from the Xixuan monastery, graciously accepted a brilliant ruby. And a droplet of amber adorns Leif, a brooding priest of war. In an amazing display of investigative adventuring, the party found out... almost nothing. The cleaning crew in the barracks is almost too efficient, apparently. Found: a bookmark resting on the single mention of Strife in a Greek religious text; Rubian's hairbrush, still with wiry black strands in it; several empty spots on the bookshelves in Garland and Rubian's rooms. Next stop: imp camp to find more clues. No time to rest after our crew stepped off the bridge across the River Coner, and they spotted a small scouting party of imps in the orchards of trees. Ettyneen disguised herself as an imp (now that's a lot of foundation!) and struck up a conversation with the group. Alas, the leader of the group, Neshusharu, spotted Vadin "sneaking" behind a tree. After a heated, but short, battle amongst the trees (involving grabby branches, kung-fu fighting, and an RoUS) the party took the tiny druidess back to town for the impish inquisition. After a quick toss in a bag of heads, Neshusharu was willing to spill everything. Known: Neshusharu is the imp king Rashanishu's mate (and the only one, since she killed all the others); Rashanishu made a deal with three human men, which apparently involved acquiring the box of pendants the party now wears; Neshusharu doesn't know where the three men are, but Rashanishu and his messengers do. Not known: where RG&T are; how easy it is to talk to the king of the imps; why they're after the pendants. King Oren has a duplicate box with duplicate pendants constructed, and outfits the party with horses. Also, Neshusharu's Wand of Magic Missile and her Ring of Protection are returned to the party after identification and curse-checking. Leaving Neshusharu locked and bound in the palace dungeon, the adventurers set out again, and are nearing the far side of the orchards as we end this episode... Next time: physical descriptions of named NPCs, as well as anything else people wish to ask. Current Mood: creative Current Music: nada (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
12:32 pm	New stat rolls, sorry! Something has just come to my attention... regarding the stat rolls. Ok, maybe I was a little hasty. The rolling method I found (and thought would be nifty, and it is... for the players) is a little (like, a lot) higher powered than I thought... Let's try something slightly different, probably much to the chagrin of anyone who's already rolled 5 16s and an 18. You can spread +11 modifiers any way you like, with three odd scores, and three evens. Two examples: 17 (+3), 16 (+3), 15 (+2), 14 (+2), 12 (+1), 11 (+0) 18 (+4), 18 (+4), 17 (+3), 13 (+1), 10 (+0), 9 (-1) Usually I don't like normalizing DnD characters (like with point buy), but this really should help in the long run. I shall make the suggestion (if you haven't already heard it from me) to set your primary stat at 18 (+4). Also, in terms of religion and starting stuff... You can go ahead and use the default DnD pantheon (or the Greek pantheon!), but I don't really see the denizens of this world as being particularly religious. Even though everyone's starting at level-0, the default level-1 starting wealth should be just fine, and anything you can buy in the PHB or SRD should also be just fine. As for aardvarks, you may have to be a Druid or something to pull that one off... As for names, I don't really care. Try to be a little serious about them (no "my name's Morton, but you can call me... Lightbringer!") and make them relatively pronouncable (no Růnfriǒr for instance, unless you have a good nickname). Ya know, common sense like. This info was duplicated from an email sent to everyone involved... That's all for now! Current Mood: busy Current Music: bindery (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 15th, 2005
8:15 pm	Setting and stuff This campaign is going to start out centered around the city of Coneria, which is, of all places, the capital of the country of Coneria. If you're not a local, you've probably recently arrived as a visitor and have been pretty much forced to stay in the city walls because of a relatively sudden influx of imps (think goblins). The city guard have been having a tough time keeping the imps at bay, and the rather large lush green orchards surrounding the beautiful shining city have become overrun with the little impish beasts. A bunch of signs are tacked up around the city with promises of fortune, fame, prestige, and did we mention fortune? if volunteers are able to do exactly two tasks. Well, one really, depending on how you look at it. Bring the head of an imp to the inner courtyard of the palace. Your various demeanors compel you to test your mettle against this challenge, whether for the fame, fortune, or just the general patriotic duty to your homeland. See me for details. Our cast: Randy (Kovar Stark) - Strength/Metal Ultimate Fighter rabid_pickle (Shadowfist) - Dexterity/Fire Ultimate Monk manicgiraffe (Tauron) - Constitution/Earth House-rules Psi-shifter xinejaquette (Ettyneen) - Intelligence/Water Ultimate Wizard chonnies (no clue) - Wisdom/Wood (Ultimate?) (Cleric or Incarnate?) khinderer (Vadin) - Charisma/Air Ultimate Rogue Just lemme know if any of these are off a bit, or what your character's name is, or to confirm on the question marks, and this post will be updated. Current Mood: interested Current Music: hum of manicgiraffe's laptop (Comment on this)
Monday, March 14th, 2005
8:44 am	Elements and players So, has everyone figured out pretty much what they want to play? Here are the elements/stats you players have let me know is preferable to each of you: rabid_pickle - Fire/Dexterity - Monk-ninja manicgiraffe - Earth/Constitution - Psionic shapeshifter? xinejaquette - Water/Intelligence - Wizard? khinderer - Air/Charisma - Roguish con artist? I haven't heard anything at all from Randy (including emails), and chonnies hasn't given me character information yet. So unless you can talk others into scooting around, looks like the two of you may be working with Wood/Wisdom (great for Clerics/Priests/Druids) or Metal/Strength (yeah, great for any heavy-hitters). I'm probably going to play the 0-level scenario with rabid_pickle and manicgiraffe sometime this week. And hopefully with xinejaquette and khinderer this weekend. Current Mood: pensive Current Music: internet radio (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 11th, 2005
8:39 am	Rules have been bent! I love house rules. Sometimes to the point of not-so-goodness. But here are what I've come up with so far, and we can drop them or add more as the game progresses. d20 2d10 The d20 sure is a purdy die, but it has a linear probability line. I like a little more curve than that. 2d10 sounds like a good plan. Except it makes a couple things work way different. No more ones? Let's try this: roll of 2 is a critical failure, roll of 3 is an automatic failure. That's still only a 3% chance of automatic failure, instead of 5% with d20. Also, critical successes will be different for saving, skill, and attack rolls. For attacks, crit ranges work normally, except for one thing. On a roll one outside of the crit range (like an 18 on a 19/x2 weapon), if you confirm the pseudo-crit, add a single damage die. For saving and skill rolls, there is no automatic success. Instead, 10s explode, like in L5R or Feng Shui. You can only roll a number of exploded dice up to your relevant ability modifier. For example, a character with a Wisdom of 16 (+3) rolls double 10s on a Will save: even if they roll double 10s again (1/1000 chance), they may only roll a single extra exploded die, for a total of three. Ability Scores This isn't so weird; everyone uses different ways to make these up. For this game, roll 3d6, drop the lowest die, and add 6. Roll three sets of stats and choose your favorite. (note I didn't say "best" - a single 18 may be better or worse than 3 16s) Show me your stats at some point (you should all have my email addy by now) and I'll check them over. I don't want a player with six 18s or six 12s. Remember that for each character, a specific chosen ability is going to be very important in this campaign, and I'd like the players to collaborate on who gets what. Armor AC/DR Progression I don't like the way DnD handles armor. Basically, if a hit makes it past the armor, you get full damage. No! You're gonna get hurt in armor, but not the same way you would without it. So I grabbed this chart someone posted on the WotC Boards, and I like it. You get hit more often than with the regular system, but you're always gonna soak some damage. A swarm of pixies might have killed you before, but not now. Hopefully. I think that's all the weird ones. I also might be willing to scoot things around in the classes to suit character concept. For instance, manicgiraffe said he wants to try out a psychometabolism-oriented psionic, which is based on Strength, but that makes sense to use Constitution instead. Things like that. As always, if you have any questions, call or email me! Current Mood: creative Current Music: Doc12 running Evans Data (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 10th, 2005
3:45 pm	Ok, let's see how this works... I was thinking. About how to keep everyone up-to-date with things on the new game. And I thought, "Ooh, a bulletin board or something!" And then I thought that LJ would be a nifty way to do that. (quiet, archangelq. I'm not going to overengineer a Python database for a roleplaying game) And then I remembered that I actually have a second LJ account created for exactly this purpose! So what if the name isn't thematic anymore? So anyway. Go ahead and post character ideas to this post! Even those of you who don't have LJ accounts should be able to post. I would just suggest signing it somehow so I know who you are. I'll be posting game mechanics and (eventually) plot synopses on here as well, so you might as well friend this extra aspect of me. Although... hm... there may be some 'splainin' to do if BT sees it... Ah well. Current Mood: creative Current Music: Eagles - Journey of the Sorcerer (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 8th, 2003
11:39 pm	Up in the sky! Sometimes, our powers can be completely explained by science. I know mine certainly can; I merely harness the most obvious effects of entropic decay. Of course, DC's Superman is a solar battery, pooling our yellow sun's energy into himself. This still doesn't explain our two most obvious Superman parallels. Gregory Keller: Keller did something in 1982 that no demi other than Apollo has done: when he was asked his name after saving his first life, he gave his real one. With super strength, flight, and seeming invulnerability, Keller made a good approximation of Superman of DC fame. Of course, he dressed in a trenchcoat and not in tights, but the similarities were strong. Keller continued to fight crime for three more years, while constantly getting solicited by ad agencies trying to recruit him for their campaigns. In 1985, Keller had had enough, quit his job in construction, quit crime fighting, and disappeared. He reappeared six years later to help with the dragon debacle, only to vanish again. "Mr. Wonderful" AKA Nathan Berthold: Mr. Wonderful started out as a marketing campaign for Mattel in 1983, with a full line of action figures and a Saturday morning cartoon. Imagine the public's surprise when Mr. Wonderful himself stopped Reagan's second assassination attempt in 1984! It seems Mr. Wonderful has all the same powers as Gregory Keller, but none of the qualms about selling his fame. In 1989, Mattel decided to license Mr. Wonderful to the United States government to help drive sales of their army style action figures. Mr. Wonderful was actually a key player in the Desert Storm operation in Iraq, and was stationed in the middle east when the dragon debacle happened on the west coast of the United States. After receiving three medals from the armed services for Desert Storm, a cunning journalist cross-referenced a public database against those awards to unmask Mr. Wonderful as Nathan Berthold. Berthold is still operating as Mr. Wonderful today, in advertising and in military capacities. Umm, yeah. So we have a total sell out, and someone who really really didn't want to let his powers make him more than a normal person. Oh, both of these entries mention the dragon debacle. I bet you're really curious about that one. It was pretty terrible for a lot of people living on the left coast, lemme tell ya! I'll get around to it once I've introduced everyone involved. Otherwise, you'll be going, "Who's that?" left and right. Until next time then... Current Mood: intimidated Current Music: Allman Brothers Band - Blue Sky (Comment on this)
Monday, February 17th, 2003
9:15 pm	The Amazing Spider-Man! Oh, one thing to remember about my universe and yours: they were for all intents and purposes completely identical until Apollo showed up. This means that Marvel and DC do exist. Stan Lee exists. Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee in 1963 and trademarked by Marvel. And this brings me to my next demi description. "Spider-Man" AKA Justin Laughlin: Chicago in 1979 saw the appearance of Marvel's Spider-Man. Apparently unable to shoot webbing, Spidey still had the dexterity, strength and clinging prowess of his comic book counterpart. Immediately after his debut, Marvel set up a reward for any information leading to the unmasking of Spider-Man. Despite this, Spidey kept fighting crime in his blues and reds until a tabloid paper in 1981 revealed him as Justin Laughlin, a CPA from north Chicago. Marvel sued Laughlin over intellectual property rights to the Spider-Man character and won. Having made some enemies with his actions as Spider-Man, Laughlin went into hiding and hasn't been heard from since. Some accounts say he now works for Ipso Facto as Creeper, but nothing has been confirmed. This kind of thing is exactly why we find it so hard to actually do any good with our powers. Demi Weekly has a system of reward for revealing the identities of any demi, with the size of the reward proportional to the relative fame of the demi. In fact, it's the 2002 Demi Weekly "History of Demis" issue I'm pulling all these entries from. It's disgusting though, how commercialized some of it has gotten... Current Mood: irritated Current Music: Danny Elfman - Spider-Man Theme (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 12th, 2003
9:47 pm	The first modern Demi-god So scholars on the subject are of the opinion that people like us have always existed. Some good examples: Spain's El Cid, Mesopotamia's Gilgamesh, Japan's Miyamoto Musashi, among others. History's most famous large group of demis occured in the days of Greek and Roman mythology. Now, it's happening again. "Apollo" AKA Anker Poulos: In 1971, a Greek by the name of Anker Poulos started dominating the European body-building circuit. Despite completely creaming the competition, his drug tests never came up positive, and his strength kept growing. After adopting the moniker of "Apollo," Poulos felt that he had transcended the regular contests and began competing against teams of strongmen. During all these exploits, Poulos was never able to quite control his anger, and was constantly in and out of various European prisons for property damage and assault. In 1977, after defeating a twenty-man team in moving big, heavy rocks, Poulos went crazy and attacked them with the rocks. He had killed all of them and seven bystanders before local authorities were able to take him down with several dozen pistol rounds. What a fantastic start, huh? The muckrakers loved Apollo. Just like the current news system loves a good demi. Current Mood: indifferent Current Music: Jon and Vangelis - The Friends of Mr. Cairo (Comment on this)
6:14 pm	Introduction (directly quoted from bio) My name is Entropy, and I am considered what people on my plane of existence call Demis. That's short for demi-god, by the way. See, something strange happened on our Earth at some point, causing it to radically diverge from yours in history. Super heros are real. Super villians are real. Why? Who knows. This journal is a collection of historical notes from my universe. So here we go. I've actually started setting up the campaign setting! - angille Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: Queen - We Are the Champions (Comment on this)