2024/03/27: Defending Zyth Part 4 Report

General Summary

Buzz, Knight, Kal'vus, Terana, Zaran   The party waited a few days for the caravan to be ready to leave. The engineers got the food truck up to snuff, Knight helped with junk-diving, and Kal'vus tracked down food supplies (and engaged in rampant vigilantism). Ed helped with the food acquisition in exchange for Terana feeding the hydra: After all, Ed had to know some good ways to get large amounts of food, he owns a hydra!   Zaran went to his therapy session with the psychic crab. Zaran's been through quite a bit. Apparently he's been used by the gods for some experimentation on physics and such, and that hasn't been great for him. If he puts up some barriers in certain places, it should at least help with falling into insanity loops. With The Crab's help, Zaran got reverted back to 2e-style wizard and psychic rules.   Kal'vus ran across a group of kids trying to train swordfighting with sticks, so he spent the day trying to teach them and keep them from hurting each other. A few of them had some real talent. Then they faced off with some teenaged bullies/gang members who jumped the kids on the way home. That didn't go well for the bullies, but just like the bullies in an '80s movie, they swore revenge while running away.   Terana worked on the truck and tried to find a connection to a local god. While traveling through the city, she came across a black-scaled demon who people were screaming and running from. A "svelte, sexy type" of demon. Terana asked what he was doing, and he responded with a blast of pure magical energy that smashed her into the ground and melted the tar around her. Terana proceeded to kick him to death by accident. The authorities who arrived shortly after were very bemused. (Terana got her story backed up by the bunch of elven kids who had been around the area.) One of the twelve or so elven guardians who showed up was a priestess, so Terana was able to get some timely advice on gods to talk to.   This elven territory of the city didn't have a little red dragon to watch over them, so they have to rely on elven adventurers for defense. Apparently there's a summoner who summoned this very powerful demon to attack the territory. He's a known enemy of the elves. Terana and the guardians (mostly Terana) tracked down the summoner and his followers and beat the snot out of them. The priestess gave Terana the prayer books for the religion after, and the wind goddess directly signed her approval. Apparently Terana comes highly recommended.   Knight thoroughly familiarized himself with the maps and documentation they'd found on the local area and their planned route. Buzz spent his time (unsupervised) massively armoring up the food truck. Ngel Sfet went to the wizard library to read books and chat about spells, and Azhar was out scouting.   On day two, Zaran tagged along with Kal'vus to deal with the bully problem. Knight decided that going with them was overkill, so he stuck around to fetch parts and do art (the hydra got multiple portraits, and Knight and Azhar went out at one point to find art supplies for the van). Buzz and Terana continued finishing the food truck and, for Buzz's part, sticking tank treads on it.   The kids Kal'vus had helped were training better this time when he and Zaran found them. After a bit, though, more kids showed up with a big muscly swordsman/martial artist type. Apparently he was the mentor of the bullies from the day before. Kal'vus beat him handily in a nonlethal duel, and the conflict between the two sides was dropped. The man's name is Blackstone Twoblades. He told Kal'vus about some higher-end fighting tournaments that are happening in the area.   Knight and Azhar got art supplies from a store and some artistic design support from some enthusiastic local youths. The resulting wienermobile might be a bit meme-heavy, but the art is excellent, especially the semi-holographic hydra that looks like it moves. (Whether the business is Hyper-Hydra Weenies or Whammy Weenies is up for debate.)   The next day the party headed for the caravan center. They found that the caravan vehicles were all getting hooked up inside one giant landship. It has a cockpit reminiscent of the helm of a ship, and there's also a lounge inside. A big guy (in all ways and dimensions) wearing semi-camo robes and carrying a giant maul introduced himself. He is Miles Gargos, the caravan master. The main caravan vehicle projects a force field over the entire convoy. The party would be spending most of their time on guard on the top deck of the vehicle.   Apparently the main expected threats would be harpies, who were both feral and organized. Some of them were known to have guns, and apparently they'd acquired a healer.   Miles introduced the party to the two elite UWG squads who were also guarding the convoy. The leader of one squad was a woman named Ku. She's an elven fighter/mage who fights with two weapons. She got in a bit of a staring contest with Terana, clearly recognizing Terana's bladesinger skills. The other squad leader was Vincent Bailey a slightly taller gentleman of few words. The squads were equipped with modern assault rifles and some sort of SWAT power armor.   The UWG squads shared some hand signs. Hand out flat, fingers pointing toward you means "get down". Yelling "retreat" means retreat back to the main deck of the caravan ship.   Another heavy-hitter showed up a bit later. Jvalos. He's very big, very mean-looking, but apparently very nice. About 30 feet tall, fiery, smoky-looking guy. A balrog with a big two-handed sword. A family man.   Other personalities of note:

A youngish guy with a dark brown bowl cut. Shyly standing off on his own. Equipped sort of like a wizard or priest. Has a rod/staff thing, a little too small to be a staff. He's a little on the chubby side. He's about 5'4". Name is Rudy. He's an enchanter. With a few drops of blood, he can put a semi-permanent enchantment on a nonmagical item. He's very nervous. He says he isn't actually a blood mage, it's an inborn mana ability. Apparently mana abilities tend to be very specialized, and his specialize in making things better.

A classic-looking fantasy elf woman with a gigantic silver bow. Long white-silver hair, a high-fantasy helmet. The bow looks like it's made from a silvery metal tree thing. She expressed surprise at the... variety of Terana's adventuring companions. She hasn't had many adventuring companions stick with her (probably because she's a racist). Her name is Sylvarra Temple. She notably didn't ask the names of anyone but Terana.

The next group isn't any more polite, because this group is made up of young local demons. Spiky, long, and/or colored hair. Very intimidating street weaponry that probably wouldn't work very well in combat. They're dressed in spiky leather and gang gear. NWO, "Nether World Order". The leader, Ryg, has a particularly obnoxiously ostentatious double-bladed two-handed sword. As ineffective as their gear might look, though, they do have numbers. There are twelve of them.

A five-person adventuring party named the Rovers. Large, tattooed barbarian guy named Dargo. He's about 7 feet tall. There's a short, heavily armored girl with an assault rifle, a broadsword, and a bunch of knives. Her name is Anne. She's not too friendly. There's Salla, who's an Amazon. Brownish-red hair in a mohawk. She just looks angry. She has a large, magical golden spear. The fourth member of the party is a rather square-looking warforged priest named Darbo. He's not very fast, but he is friendly. The last is a wizard named Zatak with a black robe and big black wizard hat. His face is all darkness except a pair of sunglasses. His robe has a grey symbolized eyeball on its chest.

Jvalos is wearing a whole array of mismatched equipment. A fancy kilt, a shoulderpad from a giant, a shield from a cyclops, a pair of flaming swords... To make it worse, under all the fire and smoke, he's kind of handsome.

Venil Fortes. A celestial noble. Think an angel without the wings, dressed like a heavily armed priest.

A medieval-style knight in full plate with a giant lance, riding on some sort of hovercycle. He's one of the two outriders. The other is a flying android, looking like a small version of something from any number of mecha anime. Nine feet tall. Looks like one of the mook bad guys who at least looks kind of cool.

The party noticed that Miles has a bracer of some sort that lets him electronically see through the flying android's eyes and stay in communication with the knight outrider.   With introductions and preparations completed, the landship set out, and while it didn't accelerate quickly, it could reach a good clip. (Overall, looks like giant, slightly flattened rectangle. Each of eight giant wheel bays has three giant wheels in it, arranged in a triangular fashion around an axis so it can rotate them as needed.)   After leaving the walls, there were about two miles of dead zone before the vehicle entered somewhat forested wilderness. The vehicle followed the remnants of a highway, only about half of which still remained. Not too long after, the vehicle stopped for Miles to get out and talk to some halflings and gnomes who lived in the area. The party noted that the halflings had automatic weapons, and when combined with the illusion talents of gnomes, that must be a horrifying ambush combination.   The halflings had given Miles some intel. Apparently there has been some earthquake activity to the south, likely because of some monster, so the caravan would be switching to a slightly more dangerous route to avoid it.   A few miles later the party reached the first big fight. The scouts reported some interdimensional instability up ahead, and then a whole bunch of alarms started going off and the caravan stopped. Apparently an interdimensional army was coming through up ahead. It was an army of minotaurs with red and gold armor, Roman-style shields and plenty of organization. It was time for the adventurers to earn their keep.

Rewards Granted

armored food truck

2 xp

Character(s) interacted with

Ed the Junkyard Owner, Ngel Sfet, Azhar, Miles Gargos, Jvalos, The Crab, various caravan adventurers, Blackstone Twoblades, elven guardians, martial arts kids

Created Content

Miles Gargos, Jvalos

Notes

NOTE FOR KAL'VUS: The Mountain of the Monks probably has clothing available that counts as armor. Kal'vus could use some.