Gaia Saga: Savior

[Sir Not Appearing on Forum]

Gaia Saga: Savior
Game Settings: 300 Stat Caps, using version 5.0 rule system, all races but Grand Elves allowed, Psionics disallowed as a job class.

Story: The continent of Dalros has just ended a terrible war between every kingdom contained within it's borders. This war, lasting over several generations, has caused much death and dispair among all of the races of Gaia. Alliances have crumbled, brothers have turned against one another, and no one can find it in their hearts to forgive and forget.

The War of Ten Nations revealed to the world what greed and the desire to control more then one deserves can do to mortal men. With the destruction of most major cities and the near complete decimation of most armies, every nation now faced an unsettling time of reconstruction without the hopes of being protected. Kings and Queens, not knowing what to do in the face of such terrible times, hid themselves deep within their own castles and keeps, frightened that their own people would turn against them since there was no longer any armies to protect them from rebellion. With no relief coming in from their rulers, the poor people and thousands of homeless began to succumb to famine and disease. Morale was low, and the people even began to start disbelieving in their own Gods who they felt had turned their backs on them.

In the midst of the chaos, a single beacon of light rose up from the darkness. The light was small but could be seen from one side of the continent to the next and ended up spreading like wildfire. Having hidden themselves for millenia, the Dwarves of the many mountain ranges of Dalros had decided to reintegrate themselves into normal everyday society. Leaving their subterranean countries, the squat engineers brought with them from the depths of the world marvelous new devices and technology in order to aid their ailing neighbors in their time of deperate need. Not sure why they had chosen this time to reveal themselves, the squabbling people of Dalros didnt even give it a second thought, and reached out to the Dwarves for salvation, spending what little money they had left and taking into their possession whatever new trinkets the Dwarves had to offer.

Poor towns that had been falling apart due to the war were suddenly given indoor plumbing, refrigeration, clockwork controlled motor carriages, powerful new steamwork tools to rebuild their homes more efficiently, and also single shot black powder weapons. Small villages and dying communities soon were able to rebuild their dweelings without the need of their rulings monarchs, and they were also able to defned themselves, many of them forming new militias with the help of the new weapons they were given. Things began to slowly but surely turn around thanks to the Dwarves, and hope seemed to return to the people of Dalros, who only years prior, had totally given up on life.

[Sir Not Appearing on Forum]

Story Continued

With the new economy booming, many people with more outdated professions either turned away from their practices to start anew in order to learn new skills and not be swallowed up, or they found that they quickly lost most of their possessions and were forced to beg in the streets to survive.

Those that had combat experience from the war either stayed in towns as militiamen, learning the ways of the gun, or they joined together and formed bacnds of roaming mercenaries or bandits. Traveling the countryside, these men and women often found employment in countries that were too poor to purchase technology from the Dwarves, taking whatever they could as payment and risking their lives in order to eat.

It was during these strange times when things were changing that something sinister began to stir over five thousand miles away to the west. A cyclone began to take shape over the frozen continent of Levasia, its borders containing more then anyone could dream of, and certainly having its fair share of nightmares within it as well.

[Brandon "Big B" Rice]

Very Kickass story sir.

[Sir Not Appearing on Forum]

Right, sorry.

Ahem...

Recap

(First game session Jason missed)
Last time on Gaia Saga...

Having been captured by the Duremation authorities for blowing up an entire city block and killing over 200 people, Crovax and Shade are sent to a special prison for magically adept individuals and are locked away tightly within a pocket dimension.

Having teleported themselves to Durem as well from Valagran in order to try and catch up to their lost friends, the other heroes manage to arrive at the gate of the city and come to find what happened to their missing comrades.

Using his nearly endless supply of charismatic power and resources, Vincent Steele pulls a few strings and gets Crovax and Shade out of the magical dungeon, only to find that Theresia is no longer with them. Adding her to the missing person's list, the group begin to explore the dark city and go to a few shops, only to misplace Taro, who seems to suddenly dissapear without a trace.

Crovax and Veritas meanwhile head over to the Thieves Guild located in the crappiest part of town, where Crovax is re-introduced to some old friends, and Veritas is left as the amateur wince he doesnt know anyone. They tell Crovax the current whereabouts of a certain individual that Crovax has a link with in the past, as well as the strange fact that Durem is slowly losing is magic casting populace.

While shopping, Keiji comes across a startling discovery; apparently his long lost brother Jingato is not only alive, but he is in Durem as well!! After a short scuffle in and enchanters shop, the two brothers reunite, although the reunion is not as kind hearted as Keiji had hoped it to be. Jingato tells his brother that he is currently working for the Black Prince, and that he wishes to speak to Keiji in the morning. Jingato tells Keiji that he will personally escort him to the palace, he then says farewell and leaves the confused younger brother in the shop.

During the night, the group comes to find that the Black Prince of Durem has been waiting for their arrival for several months now, and that he wishes to speak with the heroes on a one on one basis, starting with a very reluctant and paranoid Mara.

Waking the next morning to a squad of enforcers at her Inn room door, Mara goes with them to the palace and meets the Black Prince, Tallis, who although seemingly charming, is both vile and sinister. In a very passive manner, Tallis threatens the lives of Mara's friends and promises to kill both Theresia and Taro who he had recently captured and locked away on his personal dungeon. He tells her that he wants Taka's sword, the Soul Drinker, and that if she wants her friends to survive then she will get it for him.

Keiji, having been awakened earlier when the guards took Mara away, finally gets his visit from his brother, and the two begin their trek to the palace alone. Jingato has other plans though and leads Keiji off the main road and into an alley where a squad of enforcers are there to spring an ambush! In the ensuing fight, the other members of the party teleport to Keiji's aide, destroying the guards and finding out that the real Jingato has still yet to be found (the one they met was a fake, a vampiric ghoul wearing a fake visage). Angry and dissapointed, Keiji and company learn of Tallis's plans and dont really know what to do about them.

After being chased by a pack of man eating werewolves and being forced into a pocket dimension in order to speak with Tallis, the group learns that not only does he want the sword, but he also wants the Oculus as well. He gives everyone an ultimatum, and tells them to find and take care of Taka. Not really wanting to, but having not much choice in the matter, the group uses both Tallis and Crovax to locate Taka's aura and teleport to within a few miles distance of where he is.

[Sir Not Appearing on Forum]

(Second session Jason missed)

Last time on Gaia Saga...

Having teleported to where Taka's aura was read, the group find themselves back in Loth forest near the area where the time tower artifact was discovered. Following a trail of blood, they eventually come across Taka, now with tan skin and color to his features. His sword is gone and he is dying, a huge gunshot wound to his chest oozing with blood and gore. Wanting to know what happened, Taka points them in the direction he had come from and the group slowly follow him as he continuesn to bleed out.

After much walking, Crovax notices an odd shimmering globe covering a large area expanse. The dome is generated by magical aura and is impossible to see by the naked eye unless you can detect magical energies. The blood trail seems to travle through the dome, and so Crovax enters it in order to investigate. Inside the group finds a landscape covered in tick vines and three jutting tower monoliths. Further inspection by Veritas unleashes a new discovery; an ancient airship that is horribly damaged, covered in splintered mythril armor plates and completey rusted out. The airship is wedged between the middle tower and the left tower and seems to have been there for a very long time.

The tower it seems is the time tower artifact, moved to a new location somehow and broken inside. None of the inner workings are operational, and by the looks of things the device was engulfed by a powerful ehterical explosion. Bodies are laid out throughout the airship and the artifact itself, including a half powedred skeleton in the drivers compartment of the airship and what appears to be a dwarf inside the artifact.

The strangest and most bizarre encounters were yet to come.

[crovax]

so... its pretty cool how bill summed up one of the most confusing game sessions , a rather lengthy one at that, into three paragraphs. He really didn't even scratch the surface.

[Sir Not Appearing on Forum]

For those of you unable to play on Saturday night of last week...here it is for you.

RECAP

Quite an interesting game session, no doubt. We had a new addition to the weekend by including old time Gaia Saga veteran Mike Kessler, and he proved to be an interesting inclusion to the main story, although where his placement will be in the game is yet to be seen at this point.

For those of you who played Friday, we last left our heroes inside of a strange Grand Elven Tomb city located deep within the mountainous regions of Canaria; a rather secluded part of Dalros and up until this point in the game, a total enigma. The Tomb City was being ransacked and looked over by a gang of desert marauders who had all been curiously armed with remnants of both older CREED weapons as well as dwarven made firearms. After going through a series of strange tunnels and an even stranger method for the Grand Elves to keep out intruders, the heroes found themselves in a flooded city of pure magnificence.

We last left on Friday with the introduction of a Grand Elf female tomb guard who was at the time nameless, but has since been given the name "Faith". Faith as it turns out is as cluseless about the city as the heroes, and even though she does not suffer from the same memory loss as her watered-down Elven cousins, it has still been long enough to where she cannot remember certain key elements about her people, or even who a certain "God who never sleeps" is. The heroes follow Faith to the middle of the tomb city in order to find out more about this curious nameless God, and end up battling several sapphire colored golem beings on the way.

Ok, heres where Friday ended and Saturday took over:

Being granted entrance to the pyramid-like middle building of the city, the heroes meet the "Keeper", a very tall Grand Elf man who has the honor of guarding a monstrously sized silver tome known as the "Tome of Lunaar". After a bit of talking, the old elf gives up trying to stop the heroes and allows them to read from the book, where they come to find out that not only does the book speak vaguely of a large Bull-like God that shall bring the dawn of the Apocalypse, but also that it has the ability to teleport anyone using it through a beam of light to the surface of one of Gaia's moons!

The Keeper, at this point excited that someone can read the tome, tells the heroes where they can find the transporter, and guides them down to the lower level of the building, which is dafe gaurded by warding runes in the stairwell to protect from unseen forces. Ignoring the wards, the heroes wander to the cellar and discover a huge meteorite half buried in the bedrock of the floor. The top of the space rock contains a glowing blue crystal, and once the Tome of Lunaar is placed on top of it, the stone generates a beam of light that shoots upwards. As they are disintegrated by the beam, the energy released by the transportation shatters the meteorite and unleashes something onto Gaia. The heroes do not have time to see what it is exactly and are sent immediately to the surface of the first moon of Gaia, appropriately named Lunaar.

Lost Elven Race
The heroes find themselves on the larger of the two moons, which surprisingly is very breathable and holds just as much gravity as Gaia. It is here that they discover that not only did a fraction of Grand Elven civilization survive, but that it has lived so long on the moon that it has also evolved the first race into something else. These Elves, called Night Elves, are taller then normal elves and have silver sheens to their skin. It is realzed early on that the Night Elves are very arrogant and racist, one of the telltale signs for the reasons why the Grand Elves had been erdicated by the Gods so long ago. They also find that small shell-covered creatures called Minites live there as well. While annoying, they are very numerous and are sued as the Night Elves labor force. The heroes also come to find that there are three cities on Lunaar, each one given a generalized name and that each one has its own rulers.

The reason why the Night Elves never returned to Gaia was that their side of the transporter had been damaged and there was no way to fix the device since a spare was not present. The reason for this device being broken was never found out, but gives a decent reason as to why the Night Elves seem clueless as to the demise of their brother race that had died many thousands of years earlier.

The heroes travel around Lunar One and meet the Princess of the moons largest city. The Princess has been sent to meet her arranged suiter, but is naive and young even as elves go. She is easily persauded by Mikes character into leaving Lunar One and traveling with them to her home town, regardless of her fathers wishes.

It is during the journey to the city that the heroes come to find out just who Princess Luna's father truly is. His name is familiar and hard to swallow since the moon is off limits. Her fathers name is Cornelius Cog.

The party finds themselves in the large city, and find that the material the city is made from is black metal and has purple banners hanging from its outer walls. CREED soldiers, outfitted with black armor and carrying auto-rifles, patrol the streets in large numbers, and vehicles drive around everywhere like ants. Luckily for the heroes their main adversary is nowhere to be seen, and in order to get to the bottom of whatever is going on, they decide to stay in Luna's family palace overnight, which strangely appears to be more of a large fancy resort hotel then anything else. During the course of the night the group discovers that Luna's great aunt and uncle are there as well (Taisho Asachi and his mother Indigo), and since Mike was so kind to her she decides to introduce him to them over dinner. Mike, none the wiser about who they are, at first enjoys their company as they seem nice and polite to speak with. Taisho asks what Mike's career is and is pleased to find that he is skilled in ancient text and languages. He offers Mike a job, saying that finding archeaologists as of latre has been very difficult and that his men have discovered something interesting on the secluded portion of Lunaar. Mike considers the employment offer and then retreats for the night, seeing Indigo's father enter to speak with her as he does (Utgar Stormgrip).

While he heads back to his quarters to get a nights rest, Mike fails to notice that in his absence the rest of the heroes are being the targets of assassination. Mara is nearly killed by suffocation while she sleeps, Crovax is assasulted in the halls by a devastating marksman who nearly kills him several times, and Veritas finds himself in a serious bind when he is faced with a battle against the Alpha Male of all werewolves.

After some epic battles the heroes flee the city, Faith and Luna alongside them and ultimately leave the moon behind to return to Gaia's surface. (Failure on the teleportation roll would have meant instant death for everyone).

With new information to swallow, the heroes are now left to ponder what is going on in Lunaar and what plans CREED might have with Grand Elven technology.

((Whoo, long recap...hope it was helpful))

[Sir Not Appearing on Forum]

END OF GAME