Hello Morpheus, Its me Televon. Im all alone.

Group and personal narrative within the games setting is always a focus for me in tabletop RPGs, or nearly always. Sometimes you just let the moment take you where it will, just like in real life. What happens when in game cues lead your character down a strong personal narrative path but really start to erode the group narrative?

Case in point. Televon, if he were smart and playing it safe, would remove Wolf and Adessa from the party, as they have some how been corrupted and their souls are now rife with evil! Certainly he wouldn't kill them, He couldn't physically, nor could he philosophically justify their deaths. He could however, drug them and put them on a boat to Stygia. If Televon were a character in a story, he would try that. his other option would be to re-enter the dungeon and try to convince them they needed to return to the alignment changing room and switch back to good. This doesn't seem wise. Two evil characters, in a dungeon, not happy to cooperate, alone with a cleric. Seems like it could go south real quick with no where to run to!

So, if Televon drugged them, he would also take all their stuff. Why? They would just use it to pay the crew to turn the boat around! or fight their way off. Far too dangerous. Within the confines of the story, Televon is more than justified in doing this. In player view, I'd be a huge bastard if I did this! I'd be pissed as a player if someone did this to me! Of course I'd be trying my darndest to get back to the alignment switching room in the first place. Sure it would be contrived but much better than getting into brawls with other characters or robbing them or just walking off, never to be seen again.

Its a precarious balancing act between being focused on personal narrative and making sure that your personal narrative complements or adds to the group narrative. Do whatever makes the story more compelling, complete or thought provoking. I think it can be done and figuring out that balance is the best part of RPGs, no matter what system you are playing in.

Delving into the Drow filled Depths

It has been quite some time since our last update and so much has transpired. Saul turned on us and whats more is he was linked to some of the Chaos Doomsday Cults that have brought about a falling star! Ultimately it sealed his doom at the hands of unknown arcanists, which irks Cordelia to no end. You don't squelch on a deal, and you especially don't set up your partners to be murdered. Now that is just bad business and very rude to boot.

Our party now finds itself on a nearby island investigating the fallen star. We are to recover any star metal we find and rescue some mages from the Inverted Pyramid. Some after arriving at the island we encounter a troop of dwarves. they seem beleaguered and more than ready to leave the island. They tell us their tale of harrowing adventure and unrelenting terror! Their party was decimated and whats worse is many of their companions were dragged off and returned as some form of mindless undead! Plague Zombies we suspect. This doesn't bode well for us.

We set off for the Wizards Tower as there are periodic signals, Pyrotechnics we suspect, coming from it. Drow ambushers attack us soon after we set off! Curious, indeed. We dispatch them quickly and continue on our way. Finally, making it to the small hamlet in which the tower resides, we immediately search fro survivors in the outlaying buildings. We finds signs of pitched battle, people feebly attempting to fortify the buildings and being broken into. Whoever was in these building met a terrifying end. Making our way to the Tower, we discover the remnants of the wizarding enclave sent here to investigate the fallen star.

The mages are very happy to see us. Their supplies and resources are running very low. The sun is starting to go down and the head apprentice, the highest ranking mage left alive, is very nervous as they tend to be attacked at night. By what we ask, and she tries to describe the nightmarish alien creatures that soon launch an all out assault on the tower. Fifty of these dark blue creatures, similar to a black lion and with stubby tentacles instead of a mane, rush the Tower. We find out that the creatures can scale walls with ease! no level of the tower is safe and soon they are breaching multiple windows on multiple floors.

Its dark, we are being overrun and did I mention its raining? Oh yes its been raining for days. and the combined weight of the creatures, the wet soil and the precarious placement of the Tower directly on a ledge over looking the water is enough to send the Tower sliding down the hill! Its magical construction is all that keeps it from crumbling apart and us from being crushed to death! Some of us are thrown clear, some of us brace ourselves, and many of the magelings are mangled, crushed or otherwise killed.

Its when the Tower reaches the water that a curious thing is revealed. The creatures are dissolved in Sea water. Its acts as a powerful acid on them. Lucky for us. The remaining creatures are destroyed when the tower reaches the water. We confirm our suspicions about the sea water on a corpse and it holds true. Everyone takes a skin of Sea Water, just in case, before climbing back up to the trail to head East.

The east houses a few small dwellings on the tip of the island. We want to make sure there aren't more people in need of rescue. The impact crater is only an hour or so north of us but we decide to check out the towns first and on our way back to the boat that is to pick us up, we will search for Star Rock. We aren't too hopeful about this as a group of dwarves weren't able to find anything, so why should we hope to?

After dispatching an angry hydra we stumble upon a camp of men. They have half a dozen tents up with a large pavilion tent and lots of cages. We approach cautiously and it turns out to be a monster hunting expedition headed by none other than Klegg Zincher! Zincher was Saul's sworn enemy, at least that's what they wanted us to think. Seeing as how Saul was playing us for suckers, who knows what their real relationship was. Was Zincher in on it the whole time? Or was he just meant as a distraction? To get us killed before we had a chance to discover Saul's true intentions? It certainly seems that was Saul's intent, to get rid of us in round about ways. Remember the missing money courier? A clearly blazed trail to get us to attack a money lender. We didn't take the bait.

Now things are different. Zincher is our competitor with The Gold Goblin, but thats business. Here we seem to be more allies, at least in the short term. His men have been being killed by the different creatures and zombies on the island and needs all the protection he can get. This proves true on the night we make camp with them. Plague Zombies shamble out of the darkness and kill many guards before we can destroy them. Checking in on Zincher we find he is gone, and shouldn't be. We are able to track him though.

Zincher's tracks lead down a narrow ledge along the coast and what turns out to be a shoddily hidden secret door. Upon opening it we are beset upon by Drow! and worse some shadowy demon! Our party manhandles the Drow but the Shadow Demon proves far more tricky, it hides inside the walls making hit and run strikes against us. We ignore it for now.

Pressing further on, we run into an ambush by more Drow. A heavily armored Drow throws spells, likely a cleric. Another flanks us between with a large albino gecko, a druid? While two more shoot poisoned darts from afar, and yet another walks a top the water and clings to the walls with ease, a augmented fighter? or perhaps cleric? Strangest of all is they have an Orca in the waters below us, which our summoned crocodile finds out all to well!

We down the druid. They down our Inquisitor with poison. We down the dart hurlers. The Shadow demon returns, attempting to Magic Jar one of us. We shrug it off. The Cleric and Wall Walker close for combat. How will it play out? Which side will win? We can't be certain until next we meet!