A quick precursor before we begin.
Contained below is the epic tale of Moriarty the Necropolitan Necromancer, who began at level 1, ended at level 4, and achieved a form of internet sensation over facebook with the regular updates. Although the first four to five sessions were not recorded in detail (contained safely inside the heads of myself, the DM and my fellow players) These updates have been compiled here to last the ages.
If views ever reach 1,000 or higher, I will consider writing the epic tale into a book (as has been requested many times by two vocal readers). In the meantime, here is the tale of Moriarty, in its (almost) full grandeur, begun March 30/2014 and ending November 9/2014.
Enjoy.
March 30/2014
Is playing Moriarty in a D&D Game with Richard from LFG.
Let the well organized chaos begin.
April 6/2014
In tonight’s D&D game, I think I scared the party. A lot. At the very least, nobody trusts my character because nobody knows his motivations, I keep slipping private messages to the DM, and finally, he is the one making all the plans that are keeping people alive/making things work but he’s conspicuously absent in all of them.
A good depiction of Moriarty? Yes? No?
On the downside, the warlock may have burned my apartment down and destroyed my private shrine.
*Grumbles*
Meh, it works in my favour. Now I have an excuse to move into the temple. With all of the books. And the free lodging. And where one quarter of the party won’t be allowed to visit due to offending the local clergy.
April 19/2014
Holy crap.
So, today’s D&D game, Moriarty the Cloistered Cleric (Level 2), after freeing a bunch of dwarves, taking them to the prison for safe keeping and interviews, realized that the people who kept them as slaves making weapons had previously demonstrated he had men/spies in the city guard. With none of his companions in the area, and knowing the dwarves were about to be escorted home, he called in a favour from the commandant and joined the escort taking the dwaves home. After being led with the dwarves into a dead end street, and four barbarians bursting out of the shadows, he realized that he was outnumbered. In fact, he was outnumbered 8 to one. By Level 3 characters. Passing the dwarves what weapons he had to defend themselves, he charged into the fray. One level 2 Cleric. Four NPC Expert dwarves. AND SOMEHOW HE NOT ONLY SURVIVED, HE WON WITH ZERO DWARF CASUALTIES.
Currently organizing for their impending trial. Note, Moriarty is the city’s executioner. So he not only won, he’s getting paid for it.
Oh, by the way, no powergaming happening here. This character has ONE useful feat, and that’s Spell Focus Necromancy. Yeah. Because +1 DC for his Cause Fear spell is so useful. The sheer number of crits on the PC/NPC side, and the number of utter fumbles on the DM’s side was incredible.
July 27/2014
Updates on Moriarty D&D adventures. Part 1.
Where the hells do I begin. Okay, quick recap. Moriarty (undead cleric/necromancer) and the rest of the party (fighter, warlock and “I’m not a rogue!” the scout), last I posted had just been on the receiving end of a massive attack on the city guard/army barracks and managed to save the lives of the two highest ranking military guys in the city by use of a considerable arsenal of explosives and a warlock who can project fire at long distances?
So, the city guard is dead, the army has been crippled and there are a bunch of craters where their HQ used to be that is kind of partly/mostly our fault. Oh, and the big bad Tychus and his seriously huge street gang, the Green Serpents and his allies the Black Rats, now own pretty much everything that isn’t the Temple District, the Sultan’s Palace, the foreign embassies and a couple patches of resistance in the Slums district where other street gangs are holding out. Oh, and a small pub called the Winchester the party have temporarily claimed as base of operations while we sort out what the hell is going on.
Got that? Excellent.
So, what’s happened over the last two weeks. Well, Moriarty, in total pretending-to-keep-it-cool panic mode, did a stocktake of resources. We have allies in my church (Egyptian religion) however that’s kind of negated by the fact that they may have a wererat infestation happening from the flood of refugees, have to look after the flood of refugees and, in addition, don’t know that I’m Lawful Evil and undead, oh, and they’re beginning to despise my companions for excellent reason. Two, we have a handful of allies among the Red Spider and Hanged Man street gangs who have banded together to bunker down try and stay alive. A pair of street gangs in bunker down and hope for the best mode. Not very useful. The Warlock tells us there’s a warlock enclave dedicated to Mephistopholes somewhere in the city, however turns out they want the leader of the Red Spiders to join their cult and for his sister to die at the hands of Tychus. Well. That’s nice. Oh, and apparently there’s this other street gang who are a bit creepy and dabble a little in the undead. Okay, I’ll go check them out…
…So I get coerced/forced into devouring the flesh of one of their clergymen and now I’m the Messiah of a cult of Doresain, the demon god of ghouls who totally creeps me out, and I’m seriously not certain if “Messiah” is just another word for Martyr. What the hell universe?! What the hell?!
By the way, did I mention that the Warlock in the party sacrificed a random hobo on the obelisks of the temple of Ra in order to get the Mephistopholes enclaves attention? Yeah… this is why they don’t get church support and I’m skittering on what’s left of my previously glowing reputation.
Anyway, so this girl (promptly called Speaker since I can’t speak the language of demons and she can) who apparently is some form of psychotic ghost corronates me the Messiah, encourages me to stitch a piece of jewelry into my freaking chest that I’m pretty sure is a homing beacon and bomb as well as the magical protectiony magic it seems to be, and then puts me totally on the spot for a plan of action. So not knowing what to do I order the army of undead suddenly under my command to march into Black Rat territory and massacre/consume them. My orders are simple. March in a line, zombies in front ghouls behind. When the zombies look like they’re going to kill someone ghoul dives in to finish it off. That way it comes back as a ghoul and we don’t have to worry about limits on army size. Sounds like an effective plan right? Well, I’ll find out how that went later.
So struggling to come up with a better plan than just surprise and fear I head over to the Red Spider/Hanged Man consortium and ask for my books back. Which books? The ones that detail the complete network of underground storage centres and armouries Tychus has spread all over the city. I figure, hey, if I give these to the undead they can weaken Tychus’ grip on the sewers. Isn’t that a great plan? Well, apparently I forgot to take off that protectiony magic thing that is basically screaming “Check out my aura of pure evil!” and, of course, when I try to leave, a bunch of crossbowmen open fire on me. So I give Speaker permission to deal with them and she promptly massacres them in about twelve seconds AND kills the leader of the Hanged Man. So much for having the Red Spiders and Hanged Man consortium as back up allies. Anyway, so this is when I go meet the others at the pub to find out the terms the Warlocks have given for their allegiance, introduce them to my new psychopathic mass-murdering spectre-friend Speaker, and say in not so many words…
“We’re totally f*cked.”
That by the way was last weeks session. Next post will be for this week.
Martin Mage Doyle: Whoa whoa whoa. You undertook a ritual and consented to having something permantly attached to you? WHERE WAS YOUR BACKUP PLAN IN CASE YOU NEEDED TO BAIL?
Response: I was level 4, and surrounded by somewhere between four and a dozen, grave touched ghouls. And did I mention Dread Necromancer? If I tried to fight all my powers would have healed them. Not much in the way of options here.
Updates on Moriarty D&D adventures. Part 2.
So where were we? Oh yes, introducing speaker my new psychopathic, skin-changing girlfriend to the rest of the crew. And it’s at about this moment that Saphira – the sister of the leader of the Red Spiders, you know the girl that Mephistopholes cult wants us to get Tychus to kill so that her brother will join them – kicks in the door and starts screaming her head off at me. Apparently after I went to visit the White Hands (the undead/ghoul cult/street gang), this massive horde of zombies and ghouls went marching out into Black Rat territory and massacring everyone. Sounds good right? Well, apparently they massacred Everyone. Every man, woman, child, babe, and basically anyone who wasn’t dead already who was still alive in that area. Oh, and the Hanged Man is dead, and I was the last person reported to be with him. A few accusations of being an inhuman monster later and I calmly wait for her to run out of breath and then offer her my rebuttle, which went something like this.
Tychus = chaos, anarchy, slaughtering everyone he wants and torturing them all before he does so. Heck, he tortures his own men and I actually have joker like scars on my face now after that one time he captured and tortured me. Ergo, all the people in the Black Rats territory were basically getting tortured and killed already, or they would soon if they weren’t already.
Me = trying desperately to find anything to fight that and seriously running out of options. Seriously, Red Spiders were in a holding formation with no plan, no resources, and were losing ground, what were they hoping a miracle would happen? So a few innocents died on the way, they’re literally living inside a warzone. It happens. More importantly, I don’t have any better ideas, so if she’s got one, lay it on me because we seriously need a better idea.
Her response: Killing you.
My response: Okay that’s step one, what’s your step two?
Her: Then the world would be a better place.
Me: Okay that’s step two, what’s your step three? How are you stopping Tychus?
She eventually storms out of the pub.
Now note, we COULD have captured her, sold her off to Tychus or otherwise given the warlocks what they wanted in that moment, but frankly, I’d already found myself landed in a deep arse rabbit hole with no real conception of how far deep I’d gotten myself, I wasn’t about to sign myself over to a bunch of guys whom my only reference point to their personality is my fellow party member who, while useful, is a batsh*t crazy pyromaniac I happen to have the reigns of. Yeah, I want to know more about this Mephistopholes cult before I sign on with them too.
Anyway, so now we’re in the pub. The Scout goes off to do some recon (confirming that the Sultan and his guard are locked up tight and Tychus basically has total run of the city), the Warlock, Fighter and Speaker go off to find us some magical items from the house of someone Warlock previously identified as being rife with magic, and I sat on my arse waiting for a liaison from my temple to rock up with books on Ghouls, Doresain and this Mephistopholes fellow. Suffice to say, after the rest of the party gets back from what turns out to be a gnome illusionist’s house and I’ve had my little meet up with the priest liaison, we have a metric tonne of books in front of us. I get Speaker to send a message to the White Hands (ghoul cult) to send an emissary so that we can talk strategy, meanwhile I get a whole lot of reading done. Scout comes back, we get her report, and the emissary, a massively powerful clerical ghoul, rocks up, in the process killing a few unwanted guests who were lurking around outside. The following conversation happens:
Me: “So how’d the Black Rats thing go?”
It: “Good.”
Me: “I hear you killed a whole bunch of innocents too.”
It: “Yessssssssssss.”
Me: Okay then, here’s the plan, take this book, you’re going to organize a raid on as many of these locations as you can tomorrow during the day. As for tonight, you’re going to march on wherever the Green Serpents hold the slums and kill all the gang members there. Try to focus on priority targets AKA: the Green Serpents, rather than the general civilians who aren’t actively trying to destroy us. Oh, and one change to the marching line. Send all the children and babies you slaughtered (and zombified/ghoulified) in as the first wave.
…Yeah. Moriarty is Lawful f*cking Evil, he’s playing the fear and terror campaign, he still can’t tell if he’s so-called Messiah or Martyr, and boy is he f*cking winging it.
Next week, this hell-in-a-handbasket scenario is going to get laced with plastic explosives and splattered everywhere, just so we can see what happens! Placing all bets on Moriarty’s/the party’s chances of survival, placing all bets.
August 10/2014
Moriarty Game Update:
Not much happened this time round. Played some chess. Re-acquired my spells. Sat around, warlock woke up, we had a brief chat, got invited to dinner for that evening at the council of ghouls (guess what was on the menu). Dinner happens. Wererats attack, we kill the wererats, keep one alive to interrogate… Not much of note.
…Oh, except that little chat the Warlock and I had? It was to do the ritual that would turn him into the Undead. Necropolitan to be precise. So we had him crucified, spent all day doing the ritual and then animated his corpse just in time for tea. Go team undead.
Meanwhile the scout has completed the recy and will be filling us in on all the chaos the city is in next session.
September 14/2014
The ongoing “Am I dead yet” tale of Moriarty:
So, when last we gamed (temporary hiatus due to the incursion of Minecraft), Moriarty, the undead former priest of Osiris now disgruntled ghoul Messiah and not very happy about it, had just finished turning Richard, the homicidal-pyromaniac warlock, into an undead-homicidal-pyromaniac warlock and killed a couple of wererats. So when the game begins and while the Scout (“I’m not a rogue!”) of the party proceeded with gathering more and more information that may or may not ever reach Moriarty’s ears, Moriarty was trying to come up with new ways to save his immortal skin. He didn’t have much to go on. Basically he had total command of an army of zombies and ghouls controlled by massively powerful ghoul clerics and a ghostly bard sidekick that drains people souls while singing, all of which were aware of a prophecy of some ghoul messiah, and they’d decided it would be him. Completely aware of this, Moriarty is doubly aware that no one has been willing to fill him in on the ‘details’ of this Messiah business and is suspicious that it might be less ‘messiah’ more ‘martyr’, and he’s still refusing to think about the fact that maybe his magic spells are coming from someone Other than Osiris right now. Also he’s still on first level spells and is really hoping no one asks for him to ‘prove’ his grandeur. Needless to say, staying figuratively alive is not looking very hopeful.
After briefly attempting to send his ghostly bard sidekick away to do a recon, and failing because she utterly refuses to leave him alone, he asks her whether or not there is anyone else like her floating around that he can use to do recon. Apparently there’s an undead keeper of the crpyt under a necropolis, who just happens to be an undead high priest of Osiris, who he might be able to convince to help out. While on hisway to find out, the fighter approaches him, almost completely dead after being scorched by the warlock (apparently she tried to steal his money) and demands healing. Moriarty points out, once again, that he can’t heal her unless she worships his god (let’s ignore the fact that he’s still refusing to accept the idea that he doesn’t worship Osiris anymore technically) and then she makes the most unexpected demand of “Make me undead!” Apparently she had a lot of issues with being alive and being undead was the right life choice for her. So about thirty minutes later (during which he sneaks off a sending spell to the Scout pretending it to be part of the ritual in order to arrange a secret meeting), three quarters of the party are now undead and Moriarty descends into the crypt – alone because ghost bard isn’t physically allowed in that part of the sacred crypt – in order to try and find Even More help from the undead. Because that’s worked for him so well in the past.
So one diplomacy check and a hell of a lot of honest-to-gods honesty later, Moriarty basically enters into a confessional with the undead high priest keeper of the crypt, works out who, what and where his enemies are, arranges to play Senet (Egyptian snakes and ladders) with Osiris himself, and obtains six wraiths to serve as Osiris-bidden allies. While restricted only to duties of scout and not of combat, the idea of having his own messenger relay service that reports to someone OTHER than the ghoul god and who also isn’t an “I’m not a rogue!” scout who probably intends to betray him at some point is the most gdsdmned best news that Moriarty has heard this entire month. And even better? If sh*t hits the fan the first thing these wraiths are going to do is go and inform the church of Osiris where and how to utterly destroy this ghoul cult using insider information.
So in conclusion, he’s probably still totally screwed, but at least now he has the tools he needs to wreak some havoc on his way out regardless of how it falls down. And if the ghoul god intends for him to be martyr rather than messiah, then Moriarty has one, modern-world thing to say to him.
“Come at me bro!”
October 26/2014
Moriarty D&D Update Part 1:
Okay, so, D&D updates. So I’ve actually missed a couple of weeks of exposition so this will be a long one.
The party consists of Richard the now undead pyromaniac warlock, the now undead fighter affectionately known as “Combat Wombat”, the “I’m not a rogue” scout, and the always has been undead Moriarty, Dread Necromancer and involuntary messiah of ghouls. In a previous session our party had split into two groups, the first group consisting of Moriarty, the Wombat and the Warlock, who were hanging out with the White Hands, a massive huge army of ghouls, zombies, ghoulish priests and an ethereal mass-murderer known as Speaker. The second group? The Scout, who was hanging out anywhere that WASN’T inhabited by ghouls, zombies, ghoulish priests and an ethereal mass-murderers who are immune to anything that isn’t magic. Our mutual enemy? Tychus, the sadistic head of the Green Serpents who singlehandedly turned the entire city into a warzone.
After several sessions of Moriarty directing the forces of undeath against the Green Serpents in a bid to kill Tychus and end the war, we’d fallen into a bit of a holding pattern playing ‘the waiting game’ while I tried to work out the next best strategy. During this time, I’d secretly acquired a number of ghostly messengers who were sent out on patrol to observe and inform my church about all the goings on in the area, turned 50% of the party undead (I didn’t even ask them, they came to me), and arranged a meeting with the Scout to find out what was going on outside my sphere of influence. We met at the borders of White Hand territory, with Speaker who refused to leave Moriarty totally alone (for his ‘protection’ of course), whereas the Scout came with several members of the Red Spiders, a street gang formerly opposed to Tychus but generally too small and underpowered to resist in an effective manner. The meeting began with Moriarty and the Scout meeting between the two groups and the Scout giving a general report about the situation beyond the wall. Apparently the cult of Mephistopheles had summoned a mass of demons and was going on an orderly killing rampage in the south, whereas surging out of the temple district the Seudalans had declared total war behind what was rumoured to be some kind of archangel because in their mind the apocalypse had come. All was progressing well enough, and then during the meeting, the Warlock got bored. Without a word he went over to a nice tall building and started to go up the stairs. Concerned but not wanting to interrupt the meeting, Moriarty sent Speaker to follow. Then, the moment they were both out of earshot.
“I’ve found out Speaker’s identity, she was a pied piper about two hundred years ago leading children to their deaths, their should be records of her, get an exorcism prepared fast, and get me the hell out of here.”
The rest of the conversation included me divulging every bit of crucial information Moriarty could think of while Speaker was temporarily away and that the single most important thing right now was for us to get the hell out of here while destroying the White Hands in the process. We agreed that we needed to set up secret communications, using the Wombat (since I couldn’t get out and she couldn’t get to me and no one trusted the Warlock). The plan: Every few hours the Scout would drop off a note written in Elvish to the brothel the warlock burned down all those sessions ago, the Wombat would drop by while performing reconnaissance, and would privately relay the contents to me when possible. In addition, a Seudalan outfit would be provided to assist the Wombat in the final escape. Above all, no one, absolutely no one and especially not Speaker, the Warlock or the White Hands, could know that this communication existed. The Wombat was given this information, and we returned to the ‘normal’ conversation for when Speaker returned. This lead to a very comical moment when Speaker returned and the Scout said “So what are you planning to do? Fight or run?” And Moriarty replied in a cold, stern voice, “I will not rest until the fight is over.” While holding up two fingers to indicate “run”.
Moriarty D&D Update Part 2:
So that meeting concluded myself, Speaker and the Combat Wombat went back into our territory (unbeknownst to us at the time the Warlock had intended to just blow up a couple of Red Spiders with sniper shots for giggles, but then decided to try defecting, which wouldn’t work out quite the way he hoped). For the rest of that session the Scout and the Warlock had their own misadventures ending in their separation and the Warlock’s return to ‘the fold’, after which a new player joined the party, the mercenary Montoya who had a geas slapped on him to protect the Scout for thirty days. Anyway, while the others were having their misadventures, a report came in suggesting that the Green Serpents were going underground into the sewers. In response, I ordered the White Hands to move all the ‘civilians’ (translation: Those human drones who hadn’t yet been undeadified) into a massive apartment complex away from the sewer entrances, surrounded by one third of our undead force, and keep the rest of the army holding the perimeter. However, I wasn’t done yet. Speaker was an ethereal ghostly creature who had proven capable of murdering just about anyone without receiving a scratch. It was stupid to have her hanging around me 100% of the time, she should be out in the field murdering as many people as she could while trying to find Tychus – and then murder him too. She, naturally, refused. Because someone should stay with me for my protection. To which I offered the counter that would determine my fate. If one third of the army was with me, then one third of the ghoulish priests would be as well. This meant there would be FOUR priests guarding me at all times.
It was at that moment, when Speaker left to relay those orders, the Warlock came back, and I brought him in on the rest of my plan.
“When word comes in that Tychus is dead, I want you to go downstairs and set fire to the building, with everyone in it. Then, we escape.”
The Warlock giggled. A lot.
So a wonderful looking plan right? Something like 50% of the White Hands in one place, a secret order timed perfectly once our primary mission goal was secured to cause massive distraction, and in the moment of chaos we would run the f*ck out of town and leave the weakened White Hands to deal with the crusade that had been launched and hopefully get totally wiped out in the process. Yeah? Sounds good? Well, there was one snag. The Wombat.
So remember that part where I told the Wombat in no uncertain terms that I wanted her to under no circumstances allow knowledge of our communication with the Scout to be known by anyone? Specifically Speaker, the White Hands and the Warlock? Well, I sent her out on recon, and the Warlock went with her, and not only did she make a DIRECT BEELINE to the meeting place, but she told the Warlock to wait IN THE DOORWAY where he could still see inside while she rummaged around looking for something. Needless to say, the next fifteen minutes of gameplay involved the Warlock attempting to interrogate her for information about what she was looking for. Fortunately, there was no message, as the Scout hadn’t been back yet, and amazingly the Warlock bought the Wombat’s lie that she didn’t know and couldn’t remember and that she ‘only ever looted places that had been previously pillaged’. Warlock, though obviously suspicious, let it slide, for now. And they then went to visit – wait for it – the pub where the Red Spiders were known to hang out as part of the recon. Oh yeah, way to not raise suspicions.
Anyway, when they got there they found a whole lot of death and slime. Apparently a bunch of devils had attacked the Red Spider compound and killed a whole bunch of them. The Warlock decided to have a bit of a poke around while Wombat came back to report. She came up to the apartment, saw the massive horde of ghouls and zombies out front, the shambling masses of still human drones, came right up to me in the thick of it, and said “There wasn’t any note.” …while I was standing fifteen feet from two of those White Hand priests. Needless to say, the next thing we hear is one of those priests going, “What note?”
It’s at this point the entire party (OOC) explain to the player that we’re undead, and they’re priests. They can actually quite literally mind-control our bodies into doing whatever they want, and can and will do so if they have reason to suspect that we might not be playing ‘on the level’ with them. Not to mention the fact that they can actually blow us up almost at will. The Wombat very quickly retreats upstairs after giving her report, and Moriarty is left with the problem of explaining to these two very, very, very suspicious and dangerous priests what this ‘note’ is. Did I mention that their Sense Motive is significantly higher than my ability to Bluff? Yeah. Oh, and did I mention that from now on there are going to be FOUR of these guys around me at all times, who are now actively suspicious of my activities? Yeah…
So, I tell them, unashamedly, that we’re maintaining communication with the Scout beyond the wall because – let’s face it – it’s not like she wants to come in here, and when they start reprimanding me with “Doresain (ghoul god) will provide” I turn on them and snap “I need information to conduct this war!” And demand in particular that they reveal to me what this slime is, because she didn’t know, and I don’t know, and I’m not going to accept the answer of ‘it’s inconsequential’ until I know what the hell it is. They tell me “Learn your place” in a very threatening manner, to which I respond, “It’s the Wombat, she pisses me off.” I don’t even have to roll a bluff check to convince them of this. It’s at about this moment, that the Warlock – using his spider climb ability – has appeared attached to the wall looking in through the window. One of the priests then immediately mind controls him, drags him inside, and demands a report, and an explanation for the slime. The Warlock complies. The priest then releases him and sends him away, then gives me a pointed look, which I’m pretty sure was meant to be an intimidate check to say “this is a threat, we can mind-control him we can mind-control you”, to which I respond with. “Nice, remind me to do that myself sometime,” and just generally admire his work. This is where we ended.
So. I think the DM officially won that round.
November 1/2014
D&D update. Moriarty game, Part One:
So. tonight’s game was… fairly eventful. The mission goals began as they always had been. Stay alive. Escape the Ghoul Cult known as the White Hands. Cripple the White Hands so they could not pursue. Maybe take companions with me. Priorities present in that order. After the events of last game which ended with the heads of the White Hands being fairly suspicious of Moriarty, Moriarty decided to address this by having a meeting. During this meeting, he managed to not only more or less placate their fears and suspicion but find out some considerable information about the organisation he was secretly trying to escape. Apparently, in addition to the 8 high powered ghoul priests, dozen necromancers, 2,000 ghouls and 10,000 zombies at our disposal, we also had a rather large collection of weapons and equipment that could be made into alchemist’s fire, several siege engines under construction, a number of black knights being raised and a small army of shades, wraiths and other spectres gathering to the west. All in all, a sizeable force. However, after considerable discussion, Moriarty proposed a strategic retreat. It was not possible for the White Hands to fight on multiple fronts, and any war would accrue considerable losses. The council agreed and the plan was to depart in mass exodus the next morning to a fortress a day’s march away where they would consolidate their power in a position of strength. At the close of the council there was a strange request by Moriarty. One zombie, with a lot of flesh, and torture equipment.
Despite the discussed plan, however, Moriarty, did not intend to wait until morning. After a fair amount of torturing the zombie on the ground floor of the large complex in which the majority of the undead were housed he made his preparations. Collecting his companions under the guise of playing Chess with the Warlock, who were at that time processing the crates of supplies coming into the building, he explained to them the situation, then put forward his plan. They would escape, right now. First, Moriarty took all of Warlock’s alchemist’s fire, and stitched them inside the zombie. Then, he used his sending scroll to send a threatening and inflamatory message to Tychus in order to provoke him and get rid of his last remaining scroll – as I would soon have no need of it and didn’t want it floating around. Then, he prepared a spell of Hide from Undead. The warlock, who was ordered to set fire to the complex, offered to cast a spell of protection from fire on Moriarty and the Combat Wombat who shared the room with them, which Moriarty accepted.Then, after exchanging all of my clothes with the zombie, applying makeup to the zombie to make it look more like him, and giving it all his equipment, he ripped off the magical gemstone of Evil Spell Resistance and stitched it into the zombie’s chest. With the explosive decoy prepared the plan was simple. At the moment of the plan’s commencement, Moriarty would cast Hide from Undead on the group to increase their chances of escape. The Warlock would blow up his stash of alchemist’s fire on the roof. The zombie Moriarty would detonate itself on a structural pillar of the complex. While that was going on, the group would flee as fast as they could to the cathedral where the White Hands could not go, and would claim sanctuary before moving on. With any luck, the White Hands would believe the ruse that Moriarty had just blown himself up, and if they didn’t, by use of Moriarty’s high stealth, the fact that none of them knew precisely what he looked like without his full body concealing outfit plus make up, and the added benefit of a clever casting of Hide from Undead (with a backup casting of Hide pre-prepared waiting to be triggered), they should be able to reach relative safety of the cathedral. The Warlock, however, had a surprise for Moriarty. Many days before, Moriarty had lost his favoured masterwork khopesh, and while out on a reconnaissance, the Warlock had managed to recover it for him. In addition, he had wine and a slab of ham for them to share. With a grin on his face, they had a brief five minute celebration, and then put the plan into action. The Warlock slipped out the window, used his magic to scale the wall to the roof unnoticed, and initiated The Plan.
Unfortunately, The Plan was not the one Moriarty had come up with.
D&D update. Moriarty Game. Part Two:
So a couple of sessions ago you may remember that the Warlock had run off on his own for a bit and joined with the Scout to have a couple of misadventures. Well, turns out those misadventures consisted of the following: Hunting down a couple of imps. The Warlock turning the imps on the scout, attempting (and failing) to burn the scout alive, and defected to the cult of Mephistopheles. After defecting to the cult of evil and hellfire the Warlock received his new orders. He rejoined Moriarty’s fold, intending to infiltrate the White Hands and organise a devastating strike that would destroy the White Hands, and by extension, Moriarty.
So, once on the roof, the Warlock gave the order to begin and suddenly from all directions a massive explosion of burning fog erupted throughout the ground floor of the building complex we were in. Moriarty, at the epicentre, was hit hard, taking fiery burning damage, but still managing to retain some level of decorum. Heading straight for the window, he heard a number of heavy footfalls, and then the horrifying words of a rather horrifying persona. The words? The poem Ozymandius. The persona? A terrifying half-dragon Blackguard monstrosity. And that monstrosity, was standing right outside his window.
As the collossal half dragon reciting poems of destruction began clambering into the room, Moriarty gave the order to his explosive zombie. Crash tackle the dragon creature. As the explosion of zombie and dragon fist ruptured on one side of the room, Moriarty fled through the burning fog and out the door. As the fog seared his flesh, the sound of combat as devils tore apart zombies and ghouls was in the air, and Moriarty, putting one hand to the wall, traced his way through the thick fog to the stairs and fled up to the second floor. Having escaped the fog, and the fighting, Moriarty realised there weren’t many options. He couldn’t go up, there was no way out there. He couldn’t go down, there were devils fighting in the building. So he took the best option available to him. He found a window, and jumped.
As soon as he was outside, however, the Warlock initiated phase 2 of his plan. Seeing him burst out a window, he gave a large cry of “Archers!”. Hurtling through the air, Moriarty saw not only the Warlock staring at him from the roof, but also four winged devils, Erinyes, on the building across from him. A second later, all four had teleported by his side and ropes were flung all around him. Despite his struggles, the magically animate ropes wrapped around him, bound him up, and the winged devils grasped him and carried him up to the roof where the Warlock – and by now the Combat Wombat who it turned out was in on this plan too – were waiting for him.
In classic villainous style, Moriarty and the Warlock exchanged a few civil sounding words, involving the lines “Sorry, you’ll have to be brief, I’m a little tied up at the moment,” and while the Combat Wombat was trying to talk muttering the words “You two get a room.” Soon enough, Ozymandius the monstrous half dragon black guard emerged on the roof, and after a brief discussion, he brought out his halberd and, in one fell strike, separated Moriarty’s head from his body. As one final strike, Moriarty released what negative energy remained in his body, harming Ozymandius for a measely four points out of spite. And then Moriarty was decapitated.
Of course, being undead, this didn’t actually kill Moriarty. So now he’s a talking head, singing every single permutation of the song “Men of Harlech” as loudly and obnoxiously as he is able, while being carried off into the distance as the trophy of a rather pleased Warlock. Ironically enough, despite being nothing more than a severed head, this whole situation counts to Moriarty as a mission success. He’s still alive, he’s gotten away from the ghoul cult, the White Hands are crippled, and he hasn’t even lost a companion in the process. And as an added bonus, there’s a chance he may actually still get to play chess and read books now and then. In other words, Moriarty is now Bob from the Dresden Files.
Time to roll up the next character.
November 9/2014
The ongoing tale of Moriarty, the talking head:
In today’s game Moriarty sung Men of Harlech, every rendition he could think of, in common. Then in Infernal.
Later he egged the warlock to blow up a building along with the imp that was laying down gunpowder.
Then he started to make a game of pretending to be an inanimate skull and terrifying imps. Sadly that lasted all of a few seconds because imps can communicate telepathically. So instead he just started vocally timing how long it took for imps to relay messages.
Finally, he gave the warlock praise and criticism on his people burning techniques and egging him on to blow more things up in the vain hope it might kill a party member, or just break the dull monotony that he was certain would be the rest of his existence.
Next week we start a new campaign with new characters, but someday Moriarty will return.
Day 1: Still a talking head.
Contained below is the epic tale of Moriarty the Necropolitan Necromancer, who began at level 1, ended at level 4, and achieved a form of internet sensation over facebook with the regular updates. Although the first four to five sessions were not recorded in detail (contained safely inside the heads of myself, the DM and my fellow players) These updates have been compiled here to last the ages.
If views ever reach 1,000 or higher, I will consider writing the epic tale into a book (as has been requested many times by two vocal readers). In the meantime, here is the tale of Moriarty, in its (almost) full grandeur, begun March 30/2014 and ending November 9/2014.
Enjoy.
March 30/2014
Is playing Moriarty in a D&D Game with Richard from LFG.
Let the well organized chaos begin.
April 6/2014
In tonight’s D&D game, I think I scared the party. A lot. At the very least, nobody trusts my character because nobody knows his motivations, I keep slipping private messages to the DM, and finally, he is the one making all the plans that are keeping people alive/making things work but he’s conspicuously absent in all of them.
A good depiction of Moriarty? Yes? No?
On the downside, the warlock may have burned my apartment down and destroyed my private shrine.
*Grumbles*
Meh, it works in my favour. Now I have an excuse to move into the temple. With all of the books. And the free lodging. And where one quarter of the party won’t be allowed to visit due to offending the local clergy.
April 19/2014
Holy crap.
So, today’s D&D game, Moriarty the Cloistered Cleric (Level 2), after freeing a bunch of dwarves, taking them to the prison for safe keeping and interviews, realized that the people who kept them as slaves making weapons had previously demonstrated he had men/spies in the city guard. With none of his companions in the area, and knowing the dwarves were about to be escorted home, he called in a favour from the commandant and joined the escort taking the dwaves home. After being led with the dwarves into a dead end street, and four barbarians bursting out of the shadows, he realized that he was outnumbered. In fact, he was outnumbered 8 to one. By Level 3 characters. Passing the dwarves what weapons he had to defend themselves, he charged into the fray. One level 2 Cleric. Four NPC Expert dwarves. AND SOMEHOW HE NOT ONLY SURVIVED, HE WON WITH ZERO DWARF CASUALTIES.
Currently organizing for their impending trial. Note, Moriarty is the city’s executioner. So he not only won, he’s getting paid for it.
Oh, by the way, no powergaming happening here. This character has ONE useful feat, and that’s Spell Focus Necromancy. Yeah. Because +1 DC for his Cause Fear spell is so useful. The sheer number of crits on the PC/NPC side, and the number of utter fumbles on the DM’s side was incredible.
July 27/2014
Updates on Moriarty D&D adventures. Part 1.
Where the hells do I begin. Okay, quick recap. Moriarty (undead cleric/necromancer) and the rest of the party (fighter, warlock and “I’m not a rogue!” the scout), last I posted had just been on the receiving end of a massive attack on the city guard/army barracks and managed to save the lives of the two highest ranking military guys in the city by use of a considerable arsenal of explosives and a warlock who can project fire at long distances?
So, the city guard is dead, the army has been crippled and there are a bunch of craters where their HQ used to be that is kind of partly/mostly our fault. Oh, and the big bad Tychus and his seriously huge street gang, the Green Serpents and his allies the Black Rats, now own pretty much everything that isn’t the Temple District, the Sultan’s Palace, the foreign embassies and a couple patches of resistance in the Slums district where other street gangs are holding out. Oh, and a small pub called the Winchester the party have temporarily claimed as base of operations while we sort out what the hell is going on.
Got that? Excellent.
So, what’s happened over the last two weeks. Well, Moriarty, in total pretending-to-keep-it-cool panic mode, did a stocktake of resources. We have allies in my church (Egyptian religion) however that’s kind of negated by the fact that they may have a wererat infestation happening from the flood of refugees, have to look after the flood of refugees and, in addition, don’t know that I’m Lawful Evil and undead, oh, and they’re beginning to despise my companions for excellent reason. Two, we have a handful of allies among the Red Spider and Hanged Man street gangs who have banded together to bunker down try and stay alive. A pair of street gangs in bunker down and hope for the best mode. Not very useful. The Warlock tells us there’s a warlock enclave dedicated to Mephistopholes somewhere in the city, however turns out they want the leader of the Red Spiders to join their cult and for his sister to die at the hands of Tychus. Well. That’s nice. Oh, and apparently there’s this other street gang who are a bit creepy and dabble a little in the undead. Okay, I’ll go check them out…
…So I get coerced/forced into devouring the flesh of one of their clergymen and now I’m the Messiah of a cult of Doresain, the demon god of ghouls who totally creeps me out, and I’m seriously not certain if “Messiah” is just another word for Martyr. What the hell universe?! What the hell?!
By the way, did I mention that the Warlock in the party sacrificed a random hobo on the obelisks of the temple of Ra in order to get the Mephistopholes enclaves attention? Yeah… this is why they don’t get church support and I’m skittering on what’s left of my previously glowing reputation.
Anyway, so this girl (promptly called Speaker since I can’t speak the language of demons and she can) who apparently is some form of psychotic ghost corronates me the Messiah, encourages me to stitch a piece of jewelry into my freaking chest that I’m pretty sure is a homing beacon and bomb as well as the magical protectiony magic it seems to be, and then puts me totally on the spot for a plan of action. So not knowing what to do I order the army of undead suddenly under my command to march into Black Rat territory and massacre/consume them. My orders are simple. March in a line, zombies in front ghouls behind. When the zombies look like they’re going to kill someone ghoul dives in to finish it off. That way it comes back as a ghoul and we don’t have to worry about limits on army size. Sounds like an effective plan right? Well, I’ll find out how that went later.
So struggling to come up with a better plan than just surprise and fear I head over to the Red Spider/Hanged Man consortium and ask for my books back. Which books? The ones that detail the complete network of underground storage centres and armouries Tychus has spread all over the city. I figure, hey, if I give these to the undead they can weaken Tychus’ grip on the sewers. Isn’t that a great plan? Well, apparently I forgot to take off that protectiony magic thing that is basically screaming “Check out my aura of pure evil!” and, of course, when I try to leave, a bunch of crossbowmen open fire on me. So I give Speaker permission to deal with them and she promptly massacres them in about twelve seconds AND kills the leader of the Hanged Man. So much for having the Red Spiders and Hanged Man consortium as back up allies. Anyway, so this is when I go meet the others at the pub to find out the terms the Warlocks have given for their allegiance, introduce them to my new psychopathic mass-murdering spectre-friend Speaker, and say in not so many words…
“We’re totally f*cked.”
That by the way was last weeks session. Next post will be for this week.
Martin Mage Doyle: Whoa whoa whoa. You undertook a ritual and consented to having something permantly attached to you? WHERE WAS YOUR BACKUP PLAN IN CASE YOU NEEDED TO BAIL?
Response: I was level 4, and surrounded by somewhere between four and a dozen, grave touched ghouls. And did I mention Dread Necromancer? If I tried to fight all my powers would have healed them. Not much in the way of options here.
Updates on Moriarty D&D adventures. Part 2.
So where were we? Oh yes, introducing speaker my new psychopathic, skin-changing girlfriend to the rest of the crew. And it’s at about this moment that Saphira – the sister of the leader of the Red Spiders, you know the girl that Mephistopholes cult wants us to get Tychus to kill so that her brother will join them – kicks in the door and starts screaming her head off at me. Apparently after I went to visit the White Hands (the undead/ghoul cult/street gang), this massive horde of zombies and ghouls went marching out into Black Rat territory and massacring everyone. Sounds good right? Well, apparently they massacred Everyone. Every man, woman, child, babe, and basically anyone who wasn’t dead already who was still alive in that area. Oh, and the Hanged Man is dead, and I was the last person reported to be with him. A few accusations of being an inhuman monster later and I calmly wait for her to run out of breath and then offer her my rebuttle, which went something like this.
Tychus = chaos, anarchy, slaughtering everyone he wants and torturing them all before he does so. Heck, he tortures his own men and I actually have joker like scars on my face now after that one time he captured and tortured me. Ergo, all the people in the Black Rats territory were basically getting tortured and killed already, or they would soon if they weren’t already.
Me = trying desperately to find anything to fight that and seriously running out of options. Seriously, Red Spiders were in a holding formation with no plan, no resources, and were losing ground, what were they hoping a miracle would happen? So a few innocents died on the way, they’re literally living inside a warzone. It happens. More importantly, I don’t have any better ideas, so if she’s got one, lay it on me because we seriously need a better idea.
Her response: Killing you.
My response: Okay that’s step one, what’s your step two?
Her: Then the world would be a better place.
Me: Okay that’s step two, what’s your step three? How are you stopping Tychus?
She eventually storms out of the pub.
Now note, we COULD have captured her, sold her off to Tychus or otherwise given the warlocks what they wanted in that moment, but frankly, I’d already found myself landed in a deep arse rabbit hole with no real conception of how far deep I’d gotten myself, I wasn’t about to sign myself over to a bunch of guys whom my only reference point to their personality is my fellow party member who, while useful, is a batsh*t crazy pyromaniac I happen to have the reigns of. Yeah, I want to know more about this Mephistopholes cult before I sign on with them too.
Anyway, so now we’re in the pub. The Scout goes off to do some recon (confirming that the Sultan and his guard are locked up tight and Tychus basically has total run of the city), the Warlock, Fighter and Speaker go off to find us some magical items from the house of someone Warlock previously identified as being rife with magic, and I sat on my arse waiting for a liaison from my temple to rock up with books on Ghouls, Doresain and this Mephistopholes fellow. Suffice to say, after the rest of the party gets back from what turns out to be a gnome illusionist’s house and I’ve had my little meet up with the priest liaison, we have a metric tonne of books in front of us. I get Speaker to send a message to the White Hands (ghoul cult) to send an emissary so that we can talk strategy, meanwhile I get a whole lot of reading done. Scout comes back, we get her report, and the emissary, a massively powerful clerical ghoul, rocks up, in the process killing a few unwanted guests who were lurking around outside. The following conversation happens:
Me: “So how’d the Black Rats thing go?”
It: “Good.”
Me: “I hear you killed a whole bunch of innocents too.”
It: “Yessssssssssss.”
Me: Okay then, here’s the plan, take this book, you’re going to organize a raid on as many of these locations as you can tomorrow during the day. As for tonight, you’re going to march on wherever the Green Serpents hold the slums and kill all the gang members there. Try to focus on priority targets AKA: the Green Serpents, rather than the general civilians who aren’t actively trying to destroy us. Oh, and one change to the marching line. Send all the children and babies you slaughtered (and zombified/ghoulified) in as the first wave.
…Yeah. Moriarty is Lawful f*cking Evil, he’s playing the fear and terror campaign, he still can’t tell if he’s so-called Messiah or Martyr, and boy is he f*cking winging it.
Next week, this hell-in-a-handbasket scenario is going to get laced with plastic explosives and splattered everywhere, just so we can see what happens! Placing all bets on Moriarty’s/the party’s chances of survival, placing all bets.
August 10/2014
Moriarty Game Update:
Not much happened this time round. Played some chess. Re-acquired my spells. Sat around, warlock woke up, we had a brief chat, got invited to dinner for that evening at the council of ghouls (guess what was on the menu). Dinner happens. Wererats attack, we kill the wererats, keep one alive to interrogate… Not much of note.
…Oh, except that little chat the Warlock and I had? It was to do the ritual that would turn him into the Undead. Necropolitan to be precise. So we had him crucified, spent all day doing the ritual and then animated his corpse just in time for tea. Go team undead.
Meanwhile the scout has completed the recy and will be filling us in on all the chaos the city is in next session.
September 14/2014
The ongoing “Am I dead yet” tale of Moriarty:
So, when last we gamed (temporary hiatus due to the incursion of Minecraft), Moriarty, the undead former priest of Osiris now disgruntled ghoul Messiah and not very happy about it, had just finished turning Richard, the homicidal-pyromaniac warlock, into an undead-homicidal-pyromaniac warlock and killed a couple of wererats. So when the game begins and while the Scout (“I’m not a rogue!”) of the party proceeded with gathering more and more information that may or may not ever reach Moriarty’s ears, Moriarty was trying to come up with new ways to save his immortal skin. He didn’t have much to go on. Basically he had total command of an army of zombies and ghouls controlled by massively powerful ghoul clerics and a ghostly bard sidekick that drains people souls while singing, all of which were aware of a prophecy of some ghoul messiah, and they’d decided it would be him. Completely aware of this, Moriarty is doubly aware that no one has been willing to fill him in on the ‘details’ of this Messiah business and is suspicious that it might be less ‘messiah’ more ‘martyr’, and he’s still refusing to think about the fact that maybe his magic spells are coming from someone Other than Osiris right now. Also he’s still on first level spells and is really hoping no one asks for him to ‘prove’ his grandeur. Needless to say, staying figuratively alive is not looking very hopeful.
After briefly attempting to send his ghostly bard sidekick away to do a recon, and failing because she utterly refuses to leave him alone, he asks her whether or not there is anyone else like her floating around that he can use to do recon. Apparently there’s an undead keeper of the crpyt under a necropolis, who just happens to be an undead high priest of Osiris, who he might be able to convince to help out. While on hisway to find out, the fighter approaches him, almost completely dead after being scorched by the warlock (apparently she tried to steal his money) and demands healing. Moriarty points out, once again, that he can’t heal her unless she worships his god (let’s ignore the fact that he’s still refusing to accept the idea that he doesn’t worship Osiris anymore technically) and then she makes the most unexpected demand of “Make me undead!” Apparently she had a lot of issues with being alive and being undead was the right life choice for her. So about thirty minutes later (during which he sneaks off a sending spell to the Scout pretending it to be part of the ritual in order to arrange a secret meeting), three quarters of the party are now undead and Moriarty descends into the crypt – alone because ghost bard isn’t physically allowed in that part of the sacred crypt – in order to try and find Even More help from the undead. Because that’s worked for him so well in the past.
So one diplomacy check and a hell of a lot of honest-to-gods honesty later, Moriarty basically enters into a confessional with the undead high priest keeper of the crypt, works out who, what and where his enemies are, arranges to play Senet (Egyptian snakes and ladders) with Osiris himself, and obtains six wraiths to serve as Osiris-bidden allies. While restricted only to duties of scout and not of combat, the idea of having his own messenger relay service that reports to someone OTHER than the ghoul god and who also isn’t an “I’m not a rogue!” scout who probably intends to betray him at some point is the most gdsdmned best news that Moriarty has heard this entire month. And even better? If sh*t hits the fan the first thing these wraiths are going to do is go and inform the church of Osiris where and how to utterly destroy this ghoul cult using insider information.
So in conclusion, he’s probably still totally screwed, but at least now he has the tools he needs to wreak some havoc on his way out regardless of how it falls down. And if the ghoul god intends for him to be martyr rather than messiah, then Moriarty has one, modern-world thing to say to him.
“Come at me bro!”
October 26/2014
Moriarty D&D Update Part 1:
Okay, so, D&D updates. So I’ve actually missed a couple of weeks of exposition so this will be a long one.
The party consists of Richard the now undead pyromaniac warlock, the now undead fighter affectionately known as “Combat Wombat”, the “I’m not a rogue” scout, and the always has been undead Moriarty, Dread Necromancer and involuntary messiah of ghouls. In a previous session our party had split into two groups, the first group consisting of Moriarty, the Wombat and the Warlock, who were hanging out with the White Hands, a massive huge army of ghouls, zombies, ghoulish priests and an ethereal mass-murderer known as Speaker. The second group? The Scout, who was hanging out anywhere that WASN’T inhabited by ghouls, zombies, ghoulish priests and an ethereal mass-murderers who are immune to anything that isn’t magic. Our mutual enemy? Tychus, the sadistic head of the Green Serpents who singlehandedly turned the entire city into a warzone.
After several sessions of Moriarty directing the forces of undeath against the Green Serpents in a bid to kill Tychus and end the war, we’d fallen into a bit of a holding pattern playing ‘the waiting game’ while I tried to work out the next best strategy. During this time, I’d secretly acquired a number of ghostly messengers who were sent out on patrol to observe and inform my church about all the goings on in the area, turned 50% of the party undead (I didn’t even ask them, they came to me), and arranged a meeting with the Scout to find out what was going on outside my sphere of influence. We met at the borders of White Hand territory, with Speaker who refused to leave Moriarty totally alone (for his ‘protection’ of course), whereas the Scout came with several members of the Red Spiders, a street gang formerly opposed to Tychus but generally too small and underpowered to resist in an effective manner. The meeting began with Moriarty and the Scout meeting between the two groups and the Scout giving a general report about the situation beyond the wall. Apparently the cult of Mephistopheles had summoned a mass of demons and was going on an orderly killing rampage in the south, whereas surging out of the temple district the Seudalans had declared total war behind what was rumoured to be some kind of archangel because in their mind the apocalypse had come. All was progressing well enough, and then during the meeting, the Warlock got bored. Without a word he went over to a nice tall building and started to go up the stairs. Concerned but not wanting to interrupt the meeting, Moriarty sent Speaker to follow. Then, the moment they were both out of earshot.
“I’ve found out Speaker’s identity, she was a pied piper about two hundred years ago leading children to their deaths, their should be records of her, get an exorcism prepared fast, and get me the hell out of here.”
The rest of the conversation included me divulging every bit of crucial information Moriarty could think of while Speaker was temporarily away and that the single most important thing right now was for us to get the hell out of here while destroying the White Hands in the process. We agreed that we needed to set up secret communications, using the Wombat (since I couldn’t get out and she couldn’t get to me and no one trusted the Warlock). The plan: Every few hours the Scout would drop off a note written in Elvish to the brothel the warlock burned down all those sessions ago, the Wombat would drop by while performing reconnaissance, and would privately relay the contents to me when possible. In addition, a Seudalan outfit would be provided to assist the Wombat in the final escape. Above all, no one, absolutely no one and especially not Speaker, the Warlock or the White Hands, could know that this communication existed. The Wombat was given this information, and we returned to the ‘normal’ conversation for when Speaker returned. This lead to a very comical moment when Speaker returned and the Scout said “So what are you planning to do? Fight or run?” And Moriarty replied in a cold, stern voice, “I will not rest until the fight is over.” While holding up two fingers to indicate “run”.
Moriarty D&D Update Part 2:
So that meeting concluded myself, Speaker and the Combat Wombat went back into our territory (unbeknownst to us at the time the Warlock had intended to just blow up a couple of Red Spiders with sniper shots for giggles, but then decided to try defecting, which wouldn’t work out quite the way he hoped). For the rest of that session the Scout and the Warlock had their own misadventures ending in their separation and the Warlock’s return to ‘the fold’, after which a new player joined the party, the mercenary Montoya who had a geas slapped on him to protect the Scout for thirty days. Anyway, while the others were having their misadventures, a report came in suggesting that the Green Serpents were going underground into the sewers. In response, I ordered the White Hands to move all the ‘civilians’ (translation: Those human drones who hadn’t yet been undeadified) into a massive apartment complex away from the sewer entrances, surrounded by one third of our undead force, and keep the rest of the army holding the perimeter. However, I wasn’t done yet. Speaker was an ethereal ghostly creature who had proven capable of murdering just about anyone without receiving a scratch. It was stupid to have her hanging around me 100% of the time, she should be out in the field murdering as many people as she could while trying to find Tychus – and then murder him too. She, naturally, refused. Because someone should stay with me for my protection. To which I offered the counter that would determine my fate. If one third of the army was with me, then one third of the ghoulish priests would be as well. This meant there would be FOUR priests guarding me at all times.
It was at that moment, when Speaker left to relay those orders, the Warlock came back, and I brought him in on the rest of my plan.
“When word comes in that Tychus is dead, I want you to go downstairs and set fire to the building, with everyone in it. Then, we escape.”
The Warlock giggled. A lot.
So a wonderful looking plan right? Something like 50% of the White Hands in one place, a secret order timed perfectly once our primary mission goal was secured to cause massive distraction, and in the moment of chaos we would run the f*ck out of town and leave the weakened White Hands to deal with the crusade that had been launched and hopefully get totally wiped out in the process. Yeah? Sounds good? Well, there was one snag. The Wombat.
So remember that part where I told the Wombat in no uncertain terms that I wanted her to under no circumstances allow knowledge of our communication with the Scout to be known by anyone? Specifically Speaker, the White Hands and the Warlock? Well, I sent her out on recon, and the Warlock went with her, and not only did she make a DIRECT BEELINE to the meeting place, but she told the Warlock to wait IN THE DOORWAY where he could still see inside while she rummaged around looking for something. Needless to say, the next fifteen minutes of gameplay involved the Warlock attempting to interrogate her for information about what she was looking for. Fortunately, there was no message, as the Scout hadn’t been back yet, and amazingly the Warlock bought the Wombat’s lie that she didn’t know and couldn’t remember and that she ‘only ever looted places that had been previously pillaged’. Warlock, though obviously suspicious, let it slide, for now. And they then went to visit – wait for it – the pub where the Red Spiders were known to hang out as part of the recon. Oh yeah, way to not raise suspicions.
Anyway, when they got there they found a whole lot of death and slime. Apparently a bunch of devils had attacked the Red Spider compound and killed a whole bunch of them. The Warlock decided to have a bit of a poke around while Wombat came back to report. She came up to the apartment, saw the massive horde of ghouls and zombies out front, the shambling masses of still human drones, came right up to me in the thick of it, and said “There wasn’t any note.” …while I was standing fifteen feet from two of those White Hand priests. Needless to say, the next thing we hear is one of those priests going, “What note?”
It’s at this point the entire party (OOC) explain to the player that we’re undead, and they’re priests. They can actually quite literally mind-control our bodies into doing whatever they want, and can and will do so if they have reason to suspect that we might not be playing ‘on the level’ with them. Not to mention the fact that they can actually blow us up almost at will. The Wombat very quickly retreats upstairs after giving her report, and Moriarty is left with the problem of explaining to these two very, very, very suspicious and dangerous priests what this ‘note’ is. Did I mention that their Sense Motive is significantly higher than my ability to Bluff? Yeah. Oh, and did I mention that from now on there are going to be FOUR of these guys around me at all times, who are now actively suspicious of my activities? Yeah…
So, I tell them, unashamedly, that we’re maintaining communication with the Scout beyond the wall because – let’s face it – it’s not like she wants to come in here, and when they start reprimanding me with “Doresain (ghoul god) will provide” I turn on them and snap “I need information to conduct this war!” And demand in particular that they reveal to me what this slime is, because she didn’t know, and I don’t know, and I’m not going to accept the answer of ‘it’s inconsequential’ until I know what the hell it is. They tell me “Learn your place” in a very threatening manner, to which I respond, “It’s the Wombat, she pisses me off.” I don’t even have to roll a bluff check to convince them of this. It’s at about this moment, that the Warlock – using his spider climb ability – has appeared attached to the wall looking in through the window. One of the priests then immediately mind controls him, drags him inside, and demands a report, and an explanation for the slime. The Warlock complies. The priest then releases him and sends him away, then gives me a pointed look, which I’m pretty sure was meant to be an intimidate check to say “this is a threat, we can mind-control him we can mind-control you”, to which I respond with. “Nice, remind me to do that myself sometime,” and just generally admire his work. This is where we ended.
So. I think the DM officially won that round.
November 1/2014
D&D update. Moriarty game, Part One:
So. tonight’s game was… fairly eventful. The mission goals began as they always had been. Stay alive. Escape the Ghoul Cult known as the White Hands. Cripple the White Hands so they could not pursue. Maybe take companions with me. Priorities present in that order. After the events of last game which ended with the heads of the White Hands being fairly suspicious of Moriarty, Moriarty decided to address this by having a meeting. During this meeting, he managed to not only more or less placate their fears and suspicion but find out some considerable information about the organisation he was secretly trying to escape. Apparently, in addition to the 8 high powered ghoul priests, dozen necromancers, 2,000 ghouls and 10,000 zombies at our disposal, we also had a rather large collection of weapons and equipment that could be made into alchemist’s fire, several siege engines under construction, a number of black knights being raised and a small army of shades, wraiths and other spectres gathering to the west. All in all, a sizeable force. However, after considerable discussion, Moriarty proposed a strategic retreat. It was not possible for the White Hands to fight on multiple fronts, and any war would accrue considerable losses. The council agreed and the plan was to depart in mass exodus the next morning to a fortress a day’s march away where they would consolidate their power in a position of strength. At the close of the council there was a strange request by Moriarty. One zombie, with a lot of flesh, and torture equipment.
Despite the discussed plan, however, Moriarty, did not intend to wait until morning. After a fair amount of torturing the zombie on the ground floor of the large complex in which the majority of the undead were housed he made his preparations. Collecting his companions under the guise of playing Chess with the Warlock, who were at that time processing the crates of supplies coming into the building, he explained to them the situation, then put forward his plan. They would escape, right now. First, Moriarty took all of Warlock’s alchemist’s fire, and stitched them inside the zombie. Then, he used his sending scroll to send a threatening and inflamatory message to Tychus in order to provoke him and get rid of his last remaining scroll – as I would soon have no need of it and didn’t want it floating around. Then, he prepared a spell of Hide from Undead. The warlock, who was ordered to set fire to the complex, offered to cast a spell of protection from fire on Moriarty and the Combat Wombat who shared the room with them, which Moriarty accepted.Then, after exchanging all of my clothes with the zombie, applying makeup to the zombie to make it look more like him, and giving it all his equipment, he ripped off the magical gemstone of Evil Spell Resistance and stitched it into the zombie’s chest. With the explosive decoy prepared the plan was simple. At the moment of the plan’s commencement, Moriarty would cast Hide from Undead on the group to increase their chances of escape. The Warlock would blow up his stash of alchemist’s fire on the roof. The zombie Moriarty would detonate itself on a structural pillar of the complex. While that was going on, the group would flee as fast as they could to the cathedral where the White Hands could not go, and would claim sanctuary before moving on. With any luck, the White Hands would believe the ruse that Moriarty had just blown himself up, and if they didn’t, by use of Moriarty’s high stealth, the fact that none of them knew precisely what he looked like without his full body concealing outfit plus make up, and the added benefit of a clever casting of Hide from Undead (with a backup casting of Hide pre-prepared waiting to be triggered), they should be able to reach relative safety of the cathedral. The Warlock, however, had a surprise for Moriarty. Many days before, Moriarty had lost his favoured masterwork khopesh, and while out on a reconnaissance, the Warlock had managed to recover it for him. In addition, he had wine and a slab of ham for them to share. With a grin on his face, they had a brief five minute celebration, and then put the plan into action. The Warlock slipped out the window, used his magic to scale the wall to the roof unnoticed, and initiated The Plan.
Unfortunately, The Plan was not the one Moriarty had come up with.
D&D update. Moriarty Game. Part Two:
So a couple of sessions ago you may remember that the Warlock had run off on his own for a bit and joined with the Scout to have a couple of misadventures. Well, turns out those misadventures consisted of the following: Hunting down a couple of imps. The Warlock turning the imps on the scout, attempting (and failing) to burn the scout alive, and defected to the cult of Mephistopheles. After defecting to the cult of evil and hellfire the Warlock received his new orders. He rejoined Moriarty’s fold, intending to infiltrate the White Hands and organise a devastating strike that would destroy the White Hands, and by extension, Moriarty.
So, once on the roof, the Warlock gave the order to begin and suddenly from all directions a massive explosion of burning fog erupted throughout the ground floor of the building complex we were in. Moriarty, at the epicentre, was hit hard, taking fiery burning damage, but still managing to retain some level of decorum. Heading straight for the window, he heard a number of heavy footfalls, and then the horrifying words of a rather horrifying persona. The words? The poem Ozymandius. The persona? A terrifying half-dragon Blackguard monstrosity. And that monstrosity, was standing right outside his window.
As the collossal half dragon reciting poems of destruction began clambering into the room, Moriarty gave the order to his explosive zombie. Crash tackle the dragon creature. As the explosion of zombie and dragon fist ruptured on one side of the room, Moriarty fled through the burning fog and out the door. As the fog seared his flesh, the sound of combat as devils tore apart zombies and ghouls was in the air, and Moriarty, putting one hand to the wall, traced his way through the thick fog to the stairs and fled up to the second floor. Having escaped the fog, and the fighting, Moriarty realised there weren’t many options. He couldn’t go up, there was no way out there. He couldn’t go down, there were devils fighting in the building. So he took the best option available to him. He found a window, and jumped.
As soon as he was outside, however, the Warlock initiated phase 2 of his plan. Seeing him burst out a window, he gave a large cry of “Archers!”. Hurtling through the air, Moriarty saw not only the Warlock staring at him from the roof, but also four winged devils, Erinyes, on the building across from him. A second later, all four had teleported by his side and ropes were flung all around him. Despite his struggles, the magically animate ropes wrapped around him, bound him up, and the winged devils grasped him and carried him up to the roof where the Warlock – and by now the Combat Wombat who it turned out was in on this plan too – were waiting for him.
In classic villainous style, Moriarty and the Warlock exchanged a few civil sounding words, involving the lines “Sorry, you’ll have to be brief, I’m a little tied up at the moment,” and while the Combat Wombat was trying to talk muttering the words “You two get a room.” Soon enough, Ozymandius the monstrous half dragon black guard emerged on the roof, and after a brief discussion, he brought out his halberd and, in one fell strike, separated Moriarty’s head from his body. As one final strike, Moriarty released what negative energy remained in his body, harming Ozymandius for a measely four points out of spite. And then Moriarty was decapitated.
Of course, being undead, this didn’t actually kill Moriarty. So now he’s a talking head, singing every single permutation of the song “Men of Harlech” as loudly and obnoxiously as he is able, while being carried off into the distance as the trophy of a rather pleased Warlock. Ironically enough, despite being nothing more than a severed head, this whole situation counts to Moriarty as a mission success. He’s still alive, he’s gotten away from the ghoul cult, the White Hands are crippled, and he hasn’t even lost a companion in the process. And as an added bonus, there’s a chance he may actually still get to play chess and read books now and then. In other words, Moriarty is now Bob from the Dresden Files.
Time to roll up the next character.
November 9/2014
The ongoing tale of Moriarty, the talking head:
In today’s game Moriarty sung Men of Harlech, every rendition he could think of, in common. Then in Infernal.
Later he egged the warlock to blow up a building along with the imp that was laying down gunpowder.
Then he started to make a game of pretending to be an inanimate skull and terrifying imps. Sadly that lasted all of a few seconds because imps can communicate telepathically. So instead he just started vocally timing how long it took for imps to relay messages.
Finally, he gave the warlock praise and criticism on his people burning techniques and egging him on to blow more things up in the vain hope it might kill a party member, or just break the dull monotony that he was certain would be the rest of his existence.
Next week we start a new campaign with new characters, but someday Moriarty will return.
Day 1: Still a talking head.
