WE ARE VICTORIOUS!!!

The Black Dragons Have Killed Lolth and ended the "War of the Demon Queen!" I don't think this fight could have been any better if it were deliberately scripted the way it turned out. Momma Lolth came in invisible in her humanoid Drow form after buffing herself the entire time she was upstairs and only a few team members could see her when she made her arrival. But it made me a little more confident that I had made the right move picking up Blind Fighting for LoMak even though it never did come into play because when ever he did manage to lay a blow on Lolth no reroll was needed.

First once Kira was up she threw her big mass heal and brought everyone up to full hit points, then Olek was the first to make an attack on her, it was a weak roll and only hit around a 30ish AC which we knew would miss but points out her position to the rest of the party. Then LoMak rolls in, Debuffed for the most part but using no power attack and still had his major enhancement bonus' and bane up in an attempt to get Lolth with his call to justice(Dimensional Anchor) I used the ability of the Black Dragon Greatsword to ignore natural armor bonus' and go for it, I roll a Big 19! Awesome right? Total Hit was an AC of 64.... Missed.... As a group we were stunned at that! Our Big hitter just went in with no power attack to ensure a hit got a really good roll and missed! Granted he didn't use his furious strike on which adds another +8 to hit but still Holy Crap! The Target AC was 67 and with his Furious strike that's well within reach of his Leap Attack but we had to get that Dimensional Anchor on her to stop her from using several of her abilities that would allow her to escape.

Now she lets her Divine Blast go, 17d12 damage OMG she tossed Bart the War Mage like a Salad and almost straight up killed him in one blast. Marek was quick to move to Bart and stabilize him as Kira hit Bart with another heal spell bringing him to full again. Yak Could not get into position for the most part to make himself useful so he spent much of the game using his Ioun Stone of Absorption to Absorb her quickened spells and abilities to great effect in the beginning. Hugo was hidden within one of the pillars of Lolths chamber so she performed an alter reality to change the pillar from stone to a pure force effect trapping Hugo within the pillar. Lolth was getting iritated that she had not succeeded in killing Bart so she charged herself up with a spell as the Team discovered she had used a play from our play book and made herself immune to dispel magic spells. But we did have some success with the last charge from an Artifact called the Magic Cipher and Olek was able to drain close to a dozen of her spells with it but not anywhere near half of them and not the important ones and dropped it chargeless on the ground and refocused his mind blade to attack her again.

LoMak continued in vain to lay his Call to Judgment Ability on the Demon Queen and Anchor her from dimensional travel as Olek continues in Vain to try and hit her. Marek Lets loose his Spirit of War Power and Kira quickly follows up with another buff of her own. Finally Lolth let her spell loose, and Automatically crit with her Divine blast on Bart Killing him outright for 34d12 damage! Hugo in Ghost form has no disintegrate spell handy to free himself from the tubed column that he is trapped within. Instead he goes to a spell he never figured he'd use in such a situation, and transforms himself into the ghostly visage of an eye tyrant(beholder.) He is then able to use the disintegrate stalk and make a hole to escape the pillar of force. Kira Moved in to raise Bart with a revivify.

Liking the effect it had on Bart Lolth begins charging it up again Olek moved into flanking position and got a small hit in, allowing LoMak to move in and finally get a 20 with a full power attack doing just over a hundred to her. Now she is anchored and we've actually managed to get a few shots in but had only begun to scratch the surface. As we do she lets her Blast go again this time targeting Yak with her Automatic Crit Divine Blast, luckily he's made of much tougher stuff than Bart and sucks up the damage but is reduced to 9 hit points. Bart attempted to hit her with one of his Orbs of Acid but failed to connect. Kira Moves in with a Heal spell and Yaks natural fast healing kicks in. Now with Lolth Anchored LoMak moves to using his Furious strike and is able to land more blows in on Lolth, they're not full power attacks like he normally likes to do but he has an honest chance of hitting from here on out with his first blow. Hugo Tried to help by exposing Lolths position with the eye tyrants natual anti-Magic cone. But that turned out to be more hindrance than help. Kira hits Yak with a Cure Critical wounds bringing him up to just below a hundred hit points.

Again Lolth Blasts Yak as her greater invisiblity comes to an end and is about to kill him as Marek saves his ass as he has done to LoMak so many times taking half the damage onto himself. Lolth Looks at Yak and Says "Leave, and I'll let you live." Yak having traveled with the black dragons as long as he has knows not to trust demons let alone the "Demon Queen" she won't let him live and he knows it, or at least she'll make him wish he was dead he looks at her and says "I don't think I'm the one who needs to worry about that." Olek and LoMak continue to nickel and dome Lolth getting a few more hits in with the added buffs allowing them to hit on rolls lower than 20. Several of LoMaks attack rolls slightly exceeded my original guesstimates as I had not figured in the Luck Bonus from Kira allow in the hit bonus' on allowing LoMak to reach +58 to hit on particular one roll. That may sound impressive, but where fighting a freaking god here! the hit chance on that is almost 50/50 with an AC 67 so if you think about it it's perfect.

Hugo dismissed the eye tyrant form and he and bart made several failed attempt to attack the Demon Queen as her Spell resistance was too astronomically high even with his assay resistance buffs or she turned out to be immune to the orbs they had actually managed to hit with. Marek finally gets to let loose his Alpha strike, it would have been an automatic x3 damage crit as she was doing to us but one of the spells she had up gave her immunity to critical hits so the alpha strike from the psion only did around 250pts of damage. Knowing that he will not survive another blast from the Demon Queen Yak decides to charge the bitch and put her on her ass before he goes out and over runs the crap out her putting her ass on the ground.

Olek and LoMak continue to nickel and dime Lolth getting a few more hits in (mind you they're nickle diming her with hits doing form 80 to 100pts of damage which at this scale of game play are nickle dime but they all add up) with the added buffs allowing them to hit on rolls lower than 20. Gabrielle retrieves the Sipehr and Merak uses a full Bend Reality to Recharge the Artifact. Lolth Blasts Yak as she had "warned the impudent fool" and Kills him our right.

Finally Gabrielle Lets the Magic Cipher Loose and with clutch timing strips Lolth's important buffs (most importantly the crystal body went down which prevents crits.) LoMak and Olek Continue to Nickle and Dime her but are able to get even more hits in now as Marek lets loose with what will be his last and final alpha strike regardless of the outcome as he does not have enough left to try for another. He rolls poorly and uses an ability allowing him an immediate reroll using that last of his power points and got himself an 18 and a hit! Lolth dosn't like that, so now she uses her immediate action with an alter fortune and forces him to reroll again knowing the odds are in her favor of forcing him to miss. He rolls a 19 even better! With his Daughter's blessing on his axe it's an automatically confirmed critical hit with the overcharged alpha strike! Total Damage was in the neighborhood of just over 600 points of damage, As Marek's Axe embeds itself in Lolth's skull and the Black Dragons must make a hasty exit as her plane begins to fall apart.

All in all it was a fantastic, scary (Could we actually pull thiss off?!?), and great end to a fun campaign.

More to come with the after effects of killing Lolth as we already have our next campaign in the making.... "Generations."

Vote Yak/LoMak '08!

Team DPS FTW BABY!!

Sad news at home

My Grandfather just lost his leg above the knee last week over the weekend to diabetes. He has a family history of very bad circulation in the legs and it finally caught up with him. The doctor wanted to take his leg higher up but due to several hip replacements opted for taking it just above the knee. We're not related by blood non-the-less I can't help but see a bit of my own future if I don't my own diabetes issues under control. My heard goes out to the guy and as far as I'm concerned he's family hopefully we can make his remaining days comfortable and enjoyable at least. With any luck there will be many more but as my sister said just before the surgery despite the fact that his mind and spirit are incredibly strong but his body is shot to hell.

Adventures of The Black Dragons Continued

From last Sunday's game. Things are actually going slightly better than I expected, and the fight definitely has an Epic feel to it. Today we took a direct assault too Lolth's High Priestess and Generals. We started off with Olek scouting the Entry Chamber to Lolth's Lair where a guest book sat on a pedestal, the place was about half the size of a Track Field and covered in webs and filled with thousands of spiders from gnat sized to that of a house cat with the exception of one spider that despite the immense sized spiders we've seen up to this point, this one dwarfed all the others but it was unclear if it was alive or not. There was a guest book near the entrance, at LoMak's suggestion Marek read the guest book using a short distance scry ability only for it to set off a symbol if death that endangered some party members so Olek Thinking quickly snatched the book and shoved it into his handy haversack which safely made the symbol of death a non-issue. Unfortunately as he did the giant spider in the center woke and began moving. Despite the soft movements of it's padded feet the sound of stone grinding stone was audible as it moved toward Olek and the floor moaned at the weight of the Behemoth sized spider. Although it could not see Olek The Spider was clearly intelligent and knew something or someone had disturbed the lair. Realizing all Hope of any surprise was gone LoMak turned to his companions and said "Gentlemen, it has been an Honor." With that he let out a bone rattling roar leapt at and engaged the spider.

We knew it was not Lolth, this spider while being larger and more powerful than any we had encountered in the Demon Web was clearly one of the Spell Warped, but as it turned out it was fiendish as well so LoMak being a Demon and Devil Hunter was able to Tear into it that much easier. It wasn't long after that that I had to go and missed out on a few things (I'll get what it was in another post.)

When I got back after LoMak and Yak where being NPC'd I was surprised to see the original house spider was still up and there where several new combatants the others where chasing several Yogoul demons with levels of Swordsage as well as some Demonic Spiders the Bebilith. I got the Reigns with LoMak and Yak again and discovered that the two very well optimized damage dealers had not stopped pounding on the House Spider while I was gone for 2 hours. I look at my buddies like you gotta be kidding me?! These two have been pounding on it not missing for 3 rounds and it's still up?! (Turns out That this titanic spell Warped Fiendish spider was a 60 hit die behemoth and it had close to 1 thousand hit points) Gameplay got slowed down since they had to NPC LoMak and Yak because they had to figure out where those insanely high numbers where coming from in order to run it correctly. As well as the Fact that our caster pulled out some of his big trump cards and dealing with that takes time as well. He Cast a time stop (which explains why we we're still in round 3) buffed himself and used his Staff of the Magi (the artifact) to Summon 4 Elder Earth Elementals reviewing their capabilities are so you can run them correctly takes time.

That round I proceed to drop the Big Spell Warped Spider while Olek continued chasing the two swordsage Yochlol demons. The Elder Earth elementals charged after the casters at the back of the room as they ran back and the Bebilith Demons moved to engage the Elder Elementals and protect their masters. After dropping the Big spider LoMak chased down one of the Yochlol as it said 'bye dad', to Marek. However the Yochlol misjudged the Raging Hellreaver's speed and leaping ability as LoMak charged completely leaping the dead body of the colossal spell warped spider bringing his greatsword down to bear on the Yochlol (he's got a +71 jump check and has a 70ft move while hasted plus the extreame leap skill trick that adds an extra 10ft movement on top of that.) One of the Elder Earth Elementals got hit with a Dismissal, another disappeared when as it charged after the drow casters due to a dispelling screen that the group could not see. Weather or not the there was any truth to that statement 'bye dad' we won't find out from him as LoMak destroyed the Demon knowing that the word of any of these creatures are rarely the real truth. The Yochlol did have a retributive amulet however and the blow he delivered was felt by him as much as it was the Yochlol, feeling the power behind his own blow was quite a sting. Olek did the same to the Other Yochlol dispatching the creature with his psionic blade only to feel the cut come back at him. LoMak truns his attention to the sorceress behind him and drops her as she was no match for the might of his blow. It was then he saw a flash and a puff of silvery feathers from the corner of his eye. As he turned he saw Gabrielle, the daughter of Merak and Larazhi was on the ground crushed into a ball not much larger than LoMak's huge fist.

LoMak is probably the only one amongst the group able to recognize Merak's body posture and is able to read Merak's anger through his stone cold discipline. As the armored psion moves to try and make a shield to cover Kira so she can save his daughter LoMak leaps 20 feet straight up to the Dais and Charging toward the caster. Not knowing the real caster had moved off to the side of the dais.

Olek Moved to engage the Beblith That was near the body of Gabrielle as he did that the Last of the Elder Earth Elementals brought it's slams to bear on the Marilith who like the other Marilith's the day before was weiling a brilliant energy long sword that did little to aid her against the Elder Earth Elemental, not that she needed it. Kira got to Gabrielle and successfully revivified her saving her. Yak Charged the Bebilith that Olek was engaged with and put it down fast as LoMak dropped the succubus with a disgustingly large amount of damage from a leap attack (whom he thought cast the implosion but he was wrong) he was engaged with at the top of the Dais, but was foiled getting to the Marilith as the last Bebilith engaged him trying to tear off his armor. The Drow caster engaged bart and Hugo in a spell battle. As powerful as she was she soon found that she was no match for Barts powerful offensive reputaur and Hugo's Batman like anticipation of her spells.

As LoMak engaged the Bebilith the Marilith made short work of the Elder Earth Elemental and ensnared Kira with her Snakelike tail sqeezing the life out of her. Yak moves in have not had the time to hit himself with a freedom of movement he attempts to get it onto Kira but fails. Then the Marilith decides to end toying around with Kira and relases her down the stairs of the Dais and unloads with 6 swords. Kira was ready for but even that was not enough as the marilith laid waste to her. Marek, Olek, and Yak Simultaneously pounced on the Marilith After that putting the bitch down with amazing speed. Lomak puts the last of the Bebilith down as Hugo and Bart finish their spell casting duel.

The Drow caster continues her assault with a greater chain dispel only to have it reflected right back at her with Hugo's Spell Turning Spell which he had cast moments before that battle. She used her ring of greater spell battle to reflect it back but there was just enough of Hugo's spell turning left to rebound it once last time successfully striping her of all of her spell buffs (and she had a lot!) Hugo and Bart continue pounding on her then as she casts a Miracle Bart attempts to steal it with his own ring of spell battle, she steals it back and successfully brings all of her buffs back up. After another round of getting pounded on she realizes she is in no position to continue this fight and casts time stop. and disappears as Marek is applying the potion of Resurrection to Kira.

We have defeated Lolth's High Priestess in Lolth's own chambers. Now she's cast time stop so she can retreat go up stairs and tell momma somebody broke into the house and beat her up.

Next Game, we face MOMMA!

Ahhh... SHIT we gonna die.

The VLC Player DirectX Wallpaper

WOW this is cool! My Favorite little tool for watching Video's got a major upgrade.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

It's got an Option called the DirectX wallpaper. What it does is make the Video your playing your desktop wallpaper! I think it's pretty awesome, I'd post a screen shot of it but it dosn't work. The only problem I've found is that when it hits the end of a video it bugs out. If I hit the forward button it'll play the next video or repeat the current one just fine though.- I'm not sure if it's a setting on my end or not but I have yet yo find a fix.

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Found that quote and had to share.

The latest version of my characters in the Team Heroes D&D Game

EDIT: Updated Content 11/04/08 with my last character builds
I've gotta Admit, this character competes with my old 2nd edition ranger Lupine log rolling the dragon or my champions character Warhead taking a nosedive for being fun and memorable. He really started out being a really one sided damage monkey but the final result was a worth while fun and memorable run. The only thing missing was the showdown with "Team Heroes" and "Team Evil" that we were supposed to have but wasn't meant to be, but the tension of it looming over our heads had a lot to do with the campaign being so memorable. I just loved the concept of RPing and playing against other group of pen and paper D&D players.


I thought I'd have some fun and post the Characters. This just made me realize that I never wrote up a Character Description for Yak. He's pretty wacky and needs one, especially considering last session we realized that Yak is Both Big Bird and Mr Snufulupigus. XD


Lo'Mak'
The Raging Hell Reaver



Physical Description:
Lo'Mak is big for a Goliath, he stands eight and a half feet tall and is close to six hundred pounds of pure muscle covered by skin that is a light grey with tiger like dark green stripes, has no hair, and bright green eyes. The only visible lithoderms he has are on his arms and neck. His clothes are a deep blue plaid kilt pleated and made of a wool material that feels silky to the touch and wrapped it over his left shoulder with a pleated tail hanging off the back and is held up by a black belt with a large buckle that is gold and platinum with red Sapphire's set to spell out "Lo'Mak," two small silver skulls, a large bag, a golden scepter of elven craftsmanship and markings set with over a dozen green emeralds and a large Diamond at it's base hang from his belt. What appear to be a pair of bladeless foot long silvery rune stitched mitheral and black pearl sword hilts of exquisite quality are tucked into his belt (they are actually two large brilliant energy long swords, think light sabers or thundarr's sun sword and yes they're from the Mariliths that killed him.) A flowing dark green tunic over his bright mitheral breast plate is laced with gold and silver has a prominent symbol of Kavaki on the chest. Around his neck dozens of gold and silver necklaces with various pendants and gems (including a holy symbol of Kavaki, the medallions of Knight protector of Furyondy/Veluna, Knight protector of Greyhawk, & the Hero of Greyhawk medallion all of which are made of gold and platinum and covered in gems,) bandoleers of scores of potions hangs across his chest. His bear skin head dress is a brown bearskin head of a bear that canopy's his neck and shoulders and wears dark brown moccasins laced with gold. His cloak is a brown bear skin fur of unusual softness hangs just past his waist with a pair of fox tails adorning each shoulder of the cloak and from the left shoulder hangs what appears to be a stuffed cat sized black dragon. Slung on his back is a worn brown pack and a large black quiver with golden embroidering that indicates an elven origin. His sword "The Black Dragon" is an impressive sight, a great-sword over 10 feet tall and made of adamantite with the pommel literally being made up of the skin and scales of a black dragon with the head and jaws cleverly built into the guard and a bright green emerald at it's base. He is also immune to fire and can Breaths a 40ft cone of fire like a dragon (every 1d4 rds.)
NOTE: His gold trimmed clothes and jewelry from the Rod of Splendor are temporary and become mundane if the rod or clothes are removed.
(Great Excuse to pimp him out)

Personality:
One of the Founding Members of the Black Dragons, Lomak is wild at heart but has a keen sense of righteousness but can be overconfident to a fault. The group decided it needed a name during the time that LoMak strangled his second black dragon that makes up the handle of his sword, the first he arrogantly hangs from the shoulder of his cloak for all dragons to see(One of the guys got me to do that so I could honestly say my 1st level character strangled a dragon, I got lucky and had two opportunities at low levels.)

His Goliath upbringing has left him quite naive in many ways he lacks any real comprehension behind the real motivations of greed and envy but can just as easily identify it when he sees it. He has become quite fond of Aria, a friend of Merak's Daughter Gabrielle created by the deck of many things. The two are ruled by the moment and their passions and are quite a match. Many might be offended by the fact that they have not been wed but to Lo'Mak marriage is a foreign custom that he does not feel comfort able with. In Goliath custom if two are meant to be together they will be. The idea of Children and parentage is also quite different to Lo'Mak and Gabrielle's sudden growth to adulthood was quite a culture shock to Lo'Mak normally there are no parents or siblings only elders and everyone pitches in to raise and guide the children in Goliath custom. But she completely bi passed childhood and was born with all the knowledge and wisdom of a young adult so did she really have any elders? She considers herself Lo'Mak's niece while Lo'Mak has trouble with the concept has come to think of her as part of the Black Dragon's Tribe so to speak but is he really an elder to her since he didn't help raise her? Being a Goliath the Tribe and Family are synonymous but never the less he guesses it's okay. It's no more unnatural than his own immortality he supposes.

One of the reasons I thought it important to post LoMak's misunderstandings of Human Culture and such was that as players we thought it would have been fun if LoMak had hooked up with Gabrielle the Daughter of Merak making Marek LoMAk's father. As a player I thought it would have been fun and as a character LoMak would not have seen an issue with it. Ultimately the DM put his foot down on that "No she's not going to make out with Uncle LoMak!" and I'm good with that. But going with this was the idea behind why we made LoMak IMMORTAL! Gabrielle's fiendish heritage gives her immortality so LoMak drank a potion of Immortality from Castle Greyhawk and then later Hugo used one of his wishes from Castle Greyhawk to grant LoMak the Timeless body ability. Effectively making him truly immortal the idea being he could then spend eternity with Gabrielle and watch over Merak who reincarnates being part of the order of the Jade Phoenix. Now he can spend eternity with Aria and still help Gabrielle and Laurazhi watch out for the Reincarnated Merak. He has also sworn duty to watch out for Laurazhi as their 'forced rehabilitation' of the Succubus (Used an artifact level cursed item to change her alignment to lawful good, Merak figured giving her a conscience would be a more fitting punishment than killing her.) Many Demon hunters would not care that her heart is no longer blackened and so LoMak must stay vigilant through the centuries seeing to her safety.

Although Lo'Mak is certainly no tactician and makes no bones about the fact that he does not think in terms of strategic movements of troops and armies thinking ahead like a game of chess and such, his element is in the moment. He is a master huntsman and in combat to him it's less about strategic maneuvers as it is about instinct and it's fair to say that LoMak's strategic prowess is similar to that of the great hunting cats and predatory animals. He can read the lay of the land to prepare for or spot trap in the wild that no strategic thinker would consider, often catching them off guard. His favored prey is not of nature though. It is hunting fiends. Ever since Marek's wife Larazhi bested them in combat and charmed LoMak making him kill his friend the Kavin Cleric of Hironius, LoMak has studied his prey extensively transforming himself into a Hellreaver, a warrior who specializes in slaying Demons and Devils. He has gotten so good at hunting their trails he can literally feel the presence of any fiend near him.

When LoMak enters a state of Rage however all those tactical instincts are well utilized when he releases the the beast within him. His reckless abandon has nearly cost him his life on several occasions but his unquestionable raw power that few creatures can match has no doubt saved his allies on many more occasions by attracting the fire of their enemies or putting them down in short order or both. However due to LoMak's personal combat experiences oddly he finds fighting strategically to be a flawed and foolish way to fight. When ever he enters the fray and he's not in a state of Rage he usually looses. This has now happened to him exactly twice. Once when the group was betrayed by Marek's wife the Succubus Larazhi and then again when LoMak was defeated by the Marilith with the light saber.

On Another note... LoMak has a very competitive spirit and is legendary for asking anybody and everybody from gladiators, kings, to clerics of Kord or Baccob if they want to Arm wrestle (of course clerics of Kord tend to love the big guy since he actually presents a challenge for them) weather it's the right time for it festivals and bar rooms or at the most inappropriate moments, dinner banquets and noble events ect. LoMak has gotten better about when it is appropriate or not but he just dosn't understand many of what he considers the wacky human customs. Many a time Marek and Bart could be over hears saying 'let the wookie win.' I do a pretty good wookie so it stuck.

Lo'Mak' and Aria have a their own keep called Freehold near Songhold where they can often be found with their tiger cubs Tiger and Tiggy. It is not as structured a place as Songhold nor is it anywhere near as gigantic a castle as Songhold, there are no regular patrols and no stationed guards. Indeed freehold is very much a wild frontier and attracts free spirits, wanderers, and sometimes those who have no where else to go. Many a raider would confuse it with a place that would be an easy mark only to discover the rangers and druids who have have hidden themselves well throughout the countryside of Freehold calling it home, and are quick to keep LoMak informed of potential dangers they can't handle themselves. I like to think Freehold has the flavor of the "Bear Country Jamboree" it's got that rugged frontier flavor and when you get down to it where LoMak and Yak are involved there's something surreal about it, even to those who call it home.


Lo'Mak's PDF Files (Using Google Docs now)
The Juicy stuff (Like his potienal 16d6+106 Damage Attack and +58 to hit) is on the Last Sheet.

Yak (the NPC)
Ummm... Are you aware you guys have an elephant with a bears claws and yak horns in your party?


LoMak's Noble Steed... Plfftt... Yeah, Sure.

Originally at 1st level looking at all the mounts we realized that LoMak was just damned too heavy for any standard mount, even a heavy war horse. So we found that you could add the warbeast template to anything which is basically where the warhorse stats come from. Add the warbeast to a horse and viola or in this Case add war beast to Bison and you've got the closest thing to a WarYak you can get and thus started the endless Mongo Impersonations. Well at the time we were 1st level and even at 1st level LoMak was already ridiculously strong with a 28 Strength when he raged even so he was absolutly no match for Yak. Yak was by far the most powerful thing in the party. Which is what got the legends of Yakdom started and the running joke about how Uber Yak is, there was a hint of truth too it.

So that's why we had Yak in the group, then later the group realized we had need a rear guard guarding the entrance to the places we adventure. Then Marek realized if we awaken Yak He'll be the perfect guard so we did it. He'll be totally inconspicuous and can stay hidden simply by staying quite. LoMak has the ability to actually speak with animals so when Yak was awakened he already considered LoMak a good friend. However Yak's calling was that of nature and not LoMak's moral high ground, it just wasn't his way. The other Joke about Yak was saying that Yak IS Team Neutral, after we were 10 to 12th level and found a Deck of Many Things and Yak pulled from the Deck and skyrocketed past everyone to 19th level by time he was done witht he Deck of Many things. So for a while there Yak actually would have pwned both Team Heroes and Team Evil maybe even at the same time. He hasn't really changed much since then though now that Team Heroes has caught up to his level he is among equals once more. Inside Joke: It was also about this time a running Joke got started that Yak was "The Keeper of the God Points," yeah okay actually that kinda fit well at the time. There was also a little known issue of Yak's willingness to sell out the elves if necessary to pacify the Hobgoblin threat in the Wild Coast. The Hobgoblin lack of self sufficiency meant they needed to raid burn pillage ect and in turn had no understanding of maintaining a harmonious balance with their enviornment. The opportunity to nurture a Hobgoblin balance with nature was something that Yak would see done at what ever cost was needed.

So anyway now years Later Yak is probably one of the most powerful druids on Oreth. He's not an ordinary druid he's a warshaper he can create claws and natural weapons in forms that normally don't have them he uses his "Ferocious Slayer" form when in combat usually takes the form of a Huge Elephant with Bear Claws and Yak Horns. A truly frightening sight to any one sane. He's using the shapechanger variant from the PHB2 and I'm loving it for it's simplicity. You get a set set of bonus' and can wing exactly what your changing into to suit your flavor, this fits very well with warshaper Yak can be any natural form or any combination of natural forms if I wanted for that matter. He Also often takes the form of a Giant Yak Horned Eagle when speed is needed in "Avian" Form Which although is not quite as fast as a Dragon does have perfect maneuverability. Having a Giant Bird and Elephant forms kinda makes Yak both Big Bird and Mr Snufalupogus. LoMak does not ride Yak anymore although LoMak is actually just as fast as Yak and can can actually do a forced march for far longer then Yak. Besides the last time LoMak fought from Yak's back to get a little extra reach to hit a spider on the ceiling, Yak entered a cave while running chasing a spider but the cave entrance was just barely big enough for him alone and LoMaks face made an imprint in the webbed wall over the entrance just before he hit the ground (not how it really happened but it catches the flavor better.)

Yak has now left his buddy LoMak and retired to the Barren's where the Local's worship him as the Demi-God that he is. :)

Most Importantly, Lets Put Cleaning up after Yak in perspective 8D



Yak's PDF File (Using Google Docs now)
Like LoMak the Juicy stuff with Yak's Gross numbers (like where his 40 Strength comes from) is on the Last Sheet.

UPDATE Adventures of The Black Dragons Continued

Well I missed out on last weeks game... I got wasted the night before and was basically still drunk the next morning so I was going no where. But luckily I had emailed the DM my character sheets a few weeks before. But the party must go on so to speak. The group had a few encounters with some a few powerful demons and spiders. We're definitely getting close to Lolth now as no Demon, Spider, or Drow is some unintelligent mook. Also thought I'd mention one of my favorite little bits about LoMak and the Demon web, LoMak as the ability to feel the presence of Demons and Devils and pin point thier exact location. But entering the Demon Web has prevented him from using that ability, it's like staring at the sun. You know it's there but you really can't see even if your looking right at it, most of all it hurts.

There were several traps for the party the usual lures and such but the best of them was the story about the Succubus' luring LoMak to attack and grapple her as her friends and their buddies dispelled his protection from evil because it makes him immune to their charm spell the Succubus used a Cube of force to entrap the two and prevent LoMak's escape. They pounded him with charm spells only to realize that while Hellreavers(a Demon Hunter Prestige Class) have powerful wills LoMak is exceptional in that capacity and easily shrugged off their charm attempts. The Succubus then attempted to drain his life force away only to find LoMak was literally immune to her life draining kiss and realized to her horror that she had just locked herself in a cage of force with an uncontrollable demon hunting beast that she has no hope of stopping. LoMak pulled his weapon and the two disappeared as the inside of the cube of force as as a mist of blood engulfed the area inside the cube and soon obscured all vision into the cube.

As for the Game today... I finally got LoMak Killed! Sort of, luckily he got hit with a Revivify spell which brings you back to life without penalty/level loss if you can get it cast fast enough, but it was the first time in his long history he was taken past the -10hp mark. He has hit -9 on more than one occasion. It was a typical long walk down halls in the demon web and we came to a large room with two Mariliths who orders us to surrender. Naturally we respond in kind and they let loose a pair of Blade Barriers down that hall and enfulfed the corridor we were in that totally chewed up Yak because he took up the whole corridor. Yak charged and engaged the Mariliths directly who pulled out their six long swords each was magically enhanced and each Marilith carried one sword that was brilliant energy as their primary weapon (which quickly got dubbed the light sabers) Yak got dropped pretty quick. LoMak move up to engage the Marilith but was stuck inside the blade barrier so he couldn't rage with hurting himself because he'd become large and hit the blade barrier. So he engages the Marilith 's and without raging he drops one in a round after an ally had softened her up and some really good rolling. Then the other Marilith opens up on LoMak and surprisingly she tears him up about as fast as both did Yak never missing dropping him in 1 round. Luckily there were still 2 PC's and 1 NPC left in the fight as half the party and half the Mariliths where down as well. Gabrielle (Marek's good demon blooded daughter) uses one of her abilities to create a flame whip and suppress the Marilith's resistance to fire as she opens up a can of whoop ass on the Marilith and smack her around with a crit on the fire whip! That was awesome but then the Marilith grapples Gabrielle and now she's near death. Markek and Olek both come in and droped everything they've got on the Marilith killing her. They got lucky though, there was a chance of hitting Gabrielle with those big hits because she was wrapped and being constricted in the Marilith snake like body. the one time I try and fight smart instead of raging and rushing I go and get killed, go figure. From now on as far as LoMak is concerned the best defense is a good offense. The DM Told us later that both Marilith's where advanced versions with specially picked gear to match their capabilities and specifically to make it a more interesting fight than the usual oh look it's a Marilith, the Demon Generals, how cute... Squish. I gotta admit it was much more fun this way but it makes the DM work a lot harder for it. Except that I screwed myself, I totally forgot that I had prepared myself for just such a fight and have a shirt of Damage Reduction vs Silver, it would have reduced the damage significantly and LoMak would have survived. So LoMak didn't die be cause he lost he lost because I was stupid, Oh well.

Oh the Bright side LoMak's Ranger weapon specialty is a dual wielder and seeing as how the two Light Sabers are technically "Large" swords (a Marilith is a large creature) LoMak is the only one in the party that can use them. So now if he's not wielding his trademark ten foot tall adamantine great sword the "black dragon" he's wielding two light sabers. Having a pair of light saber's as your back up weapon is pretty sweet eh?

We're pretty sure we've found Lolth's lair but are way too beat up and spent not to rest, we've really pushed ourselves to the limit getting to this point and if we go in now we're dead. So looking for a place to rest we found a cave with 7 colossal spell warped spiders, which we have now dubbed "House Spiders" since they're as big as a house. It was a potentially dangerous fight but fought smart with Yak hitting LoMak in the head regularly trying to steer the raging hellreaver in the right direction. The team has cleaned out the cave, killed the spiders after a short fight and are preparing and getting ready for the final assault tomorrow.