Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
Lex struggled to breathe again as he went skidding across the ground, the ache in his side momentarily driving all other thoughts from his mind.
That thing’s kick had hurt! It was like being hit with a boulder, and as he managed to finally draw breath again, Lex dimly realized that this thing was different from the other fish-monsters that he’d faced on the boat. This one might actually be a threat.
Even without casting any spells, Lex had several enchantments that were active on his person at all times, some of which were defensive in nature. The Night Mare had augmented those, and added a few of her own. In addition, she had also returned the magic items he’d originally sacrificed to her, which also had protective powers woven into them. The combined result meant that striking him with brute physical blows was exceptionally difficult to do, at least for ordinary foes. It would take an attack of considerable strength, skill, or luck – or some combination thereof – to successfully damage him.
That creature apparently met at least one of those requirements.
Sliding to a halt on his side, Lex groaned as he tried to get his hooves under him, certain that his attacker would be on him in moments. But no further attacks came, and as Lex looked back where he’d been struck, his eyes widened in alarm at the sight of it trying to pry open the warehouse doors. No! He had to stop it before-
“Maa-jik poh-nee!” came a hateful roar from behind him, causing Lex to turn his head around. The sight that greeted him was another fish-monster, this one more familiar; it looked just like the things that he’d slaughtered on the ship…almost. It was half-again larger than those creatures had been, and had six limbs where they’d had four. But where those creatures had walked on all fours like a pony, this one had reared up on its back two legs, making it appear gigantic. Worse, it was carrying a shield in one claw, and a large trident in another other two…which was already coming down towards Lex’s prone form.
Still not having recovered from the hit he’d taken, Lex reflexively tried to scramble out of the way, succeeding only in causing the points of the trident to pierce his torso instead of his neck. Crying out in pain, Lex dimly realized that he’d been kicked in this direction on purpose; that the other monster had been anticipating that its comrade would be waiting here with a follow-up attack!
This wasn’t some sort of unfortunate coincidence. It was a coordinated assault.
Even as he realized that, Lex saw something move overheard. Looking up, he saw…something, large. Its form was impossible to make out, being too blurry to reveal anything definitive, as though it were a painting that had been left out in the rain. But Lex had no further chance to analyze its nature as he heard it whispering something; it was only a second later, when it launched four small darts of light towards him, that he realized that it was a spellcaster, and likely the one who’d cast that fireball before.
The four magic missiles flew unerringly to impact against Lex’s chest, but rather than hammering into his body they each winked out harmlessly as they made contact, causing him to grin slightly despite the incredible pain he was in. Whatever that thing was, it had no idea that one of his defensive enchantments was a thin screen of force calibrated to stop that specific spell, another one that was very common on Everglow. His victory was short-lived, however, as the creature by the warehouse was now skating towards him again, apparently having given up on the doors. Worse, even trying to move told him that the trident was barbed, and that its extraction would compound the damage it had dealt to him.
The thing seemed to intuit Lex’s realization, because it bared its teeth in an approximation of a grin. “Poh-nee,” it growled, its voice guttural and harsh. “You do not deserve maa-jik!” Keeping a firm grip on its trident to hold him in place, shield still at the ready, its free claw reared back. “It belongs to the sahuagin!” With its declaration delivered, it slashed downwards, the tips of its claws aiming to tear Lex’s throat out.
But before the deadly strike could find purchase, Lex’s body dissolved into shadows, which swirled as the claw passed harmlessly through his now-immaterial body. “I’ll give you magic,” he hissed, green eyes glaring hatefully. “The same magic that killed the rest of your kind!” The sahuagin’s eyes widened in alarm as it realized that its prey was no longer caught, and Lex felt a moment of spiteful satisfaction before moving straight down, his lack of physical form letting him pass into the ground without resistance.
He hated having to retreat, especially after issuing a threat, but he knew there was no other viable tactic. Moving underground offered him cover that his enemies would be hard-pressed to overcome, and allowed him a chance to get some metaphorical breathing room and come up with a plan of attack. Although using his astral pony spell against those ghouls meant that he couldn’t call upon it now, and he hadn’t prepared his disintegration spell, he still had plenty of other offensive magic at his disposal.
Vowing to show those aberrant monstrosities the power that had slain a dragon, Lex began to glide through the ground, a plan already forming in his mind…
Lirtkra snarled as he struck his trident against the ground, accomplishing nothing save to dig a few small scratches in the stones. “He’s gone!” he seethed, looking around as though the poh-nee would suddenly emerge at any moment. When that didn’t happen, he cast a frustrated look at his companions. “Find him!”
Losing one’s prey didn’t have any specific connotations in sahuagin culture; the simple fact that you’d starve if you couldn’t bring something down was enough. But even so, Lirtkra hated it when something he’d sets his sights on escaped him. He’d often swam after such errant creatures long after it had ceased to be economical to do so, determined to make his kill. But that wasn’t an option now, and that knowledge was almost unbearable.
“I can track him,” rasped the Cripple.
“Then do it!” roared Lirtkra. “Right now!”
It paused for a moment before it began casting, and Lirtkra – who knew that it had done so just to show its defiance – gripped his trident so hard that for a moment he thought the metal would bend. He felt sure that it could have used its tracking maa-jik earlier if it had wanted to, saving them all from wasting time wandering aimlessly through this airy wasteland! But instead it had waited until the battle was already joined to do so. It was enough to make him grit his teeth. As soon as the poh-nee is dead, you’re next, he decided.
“I have him,” came the Cripple’s sibilant voice. “He’s moving...that way.” It pointed one blurry limb at another building, a smaller one across from the row of warehouses.
“Follow him!” bellowed Lirtkra, starting to head in the indicated direction. “And figure out a way to undo whatever maa-jik he used to escape!” He punctuated his demand with a glare at his aerial companion. This time the Cripple seemed to know better than to test his patience and flew in the indicated direction, Monitor following it dutifully. Lirtkra started after them, but not before he took a moment to lick the bloody points of his trident. The taste made his heart pound with excitement, and he rushed after the other two, his mouth watering with a literal thirst for violence.
Lex raised his eyes above the ground to examine his surroundings. It was impossible to accurately judge distance or direction below ground, so he’d had to guess which direction to head in and hope he was leading them away from the warehouse. For once, luck seemed to be with him; the sight that greeted him was a sign that read “Wavy’s Inn and Restaurant.” Despite the situation, Lex couldn’t help but feel mildly amused at finding what was essentially another bed ‘n’ breakfast, thinking back to when he’d stumbled into Tall Tale so recently.
Pushing the memories aside, Lex glanced around, before almost doing a double-take as he saw the three enemies he’d thought he’d left behind barreling towards him, just a few dozen feet away. How had they found him so fast?! No, he realized, not found. They had already known where he was before he’d come back above ground, which meant that they were tracking him somehow. Despite his mental defenses, and the counter-scrying spell he kept active on himself at all times, they had some sort of magic that he hadn’t protected himself against, and it was letting them zero in on his position, even when incorporeal and underground.
Cursing, Lex turned and rushed into the inn, passing through the front walls and into the main lobby. Not finding what he needed for the trap he was planning to use, he kept moving, emerging into the restaurant portion of the building. The place was in shambles, with overturned tables and chairs all over the place, but in the middle of the room was exactly what Lex was looking for.
Using his telekinesis to push the debris aside, Lex hurriedly made his preparations, moving the necessary item around and casting his spell, before replacing the camouflage for his trap. And not a moment too soon; the sound of splintering wood from behind him alerted Lex to his pursuers entering the building. Moving to the far side of the room, Lex turned and waited.
It took only a few seconds for the three creatures to enter, with the four-armed sahuagin bursting in first, followed by the pudgy fish-thing, with the blurred creature floating cautiously behind them. Instantly, it burst into flame, spontaneously immolating with no warning. Rather oddly, the creature didn’t scream that Lex could hear, even though it began to immediately thrash in pain. Its companions didn’t seem concerned by their comrade’s fate, both of them sparing the briefest glances before apparently deciding that they didn’t care, rushing forward to close the gap between themselves and Lex.
Exactly as he had anticipated.
As they bounded forward, the two creatures ran straight across the center of the room, and Lex’s green-and-purple eyes narrowed as they approached. The sahuagin was slightly ahead of its comrade, and was the first to cross the center of the room, where a large carpet was laid across the floor. As it began to cross it, its footing suddenly gave way, and it plunged into the magically-created hole that the carpet had been hiding. It gave a surprised yell as it plummeted, only for its voice to be cut off with a muted splash as it hit the bottom, which Lex knew was filled with acid. Now if only the other fish-creature would follow suit!
It was not to be. Although it was mere steps behind its fellow, the pudgy ichthyoid leapt just as it reached the edge of the pit. Turning a somersault in mid-air, it landed on its fins, losing none of its momentum as it bounded towards Lex, one limb already drawing back for another blow. Lex mentally smirked at the idea that it could hurt him without a spell or a weapon, but a moment later the thing's strike connected with his umbral body, causing him to release a grunt of pain at the impact. He’d felt that! It wasn’t solid, the way it had been when he’d been kicked, but there had been a definite sense of damage.
Cursing as he realized that – just like the dragon he’d fought previously – this thing had somehow gained enough innate magic that its bodily attacks could hurt him even in his shadowy form, even if only somewhat, Lex fell back, giving ground. The creature lashed out with another kick, but this time Lex was ready, moving to avoid it moments before sliding back through the rear wall of the inn. As he did so, he saw that the blurred creature was rolling on the floor, trying to quench the flames still engulfing it. There was likewise no sign that the sahuagin he’d dumped in the acid pit was emerging from it.
He briefly considered rushing back to the shelter and retrieving Severance, but discarded that notion. Even if they didn’t pursue him into the warehouse, getting Severance and returning would take too long; if his foes had healing magic, Lex didn’t want to give them time to use it. Instead, he started to circle the building, preparing for the next phase of his counterattack…
Lex and his new enemies exchange blows, with injuries being traded on both sides.
So far he seems to be holding his own, but will it last?
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For some reason I think of anyone else but Lex enraging his enemies, then playing shadow walk whack a mole with extremely solid objects.
7971101 And here I was sure you'd comment on the imagery of Lex using the old "carpet over a hole in the ground" trick.
Heh, looks they should have used detect traps or maybe the Crippled did and didn't bother to tell the others and got immolated for her troubles.
Death by cartoonishly hidden, acid pit...ouch, what a way to go though given what Lex said near the end about healing magic, Lirtkra will probably survive the acid pit and come back out, wounded but angrier than ever. Or is Lex merely assuming the worse that the sahuagin might survive the acid?
Well either way, Lex has to contend with the Monitor and subdue him before the Crippled recovers and retaliates in anger.
7971101 Damn it Booster, now you got me laughing at that mental image.
7973826 Lex is anticipating the worst, which is that his enemies might survive and/or have healing magic; whether he's right or not is unknown at this point.
7972005
Well, it's not entirely impossible that he'll reach a state of power which mere quantity can't match. That doesn't really work in real life, but in D&D that's clearly possible. For right now though, he'll be bound to ask for help, especially since he wants to be known to the world, which is a fairly dangerous thing to do.
Nawww... Though, since he doesn't want to kill Alicorns, wouldn't that mean that the ability isn't favorable for him, thus negating his inability to grant it to Emptiness? :3
Also, why would he need to buy off the specialization for the Campanion ability? It only disallows morale boni, right?
7976046
I suppose so, but that's largely an academic point; he has to work his way up to that level, and it's not really feasible to do that on your own. While he might eventually get to a level where he can do whatever he needs by himself, by that point he'll presumably (hopefully) have found companions that he can rely on.
The major issue with Equestria is that it's a low-level world, all things considered. It's not really capable of putting together high-level threats from a D&D perspective; that's what makes the issue of the elemental bleeds so useful, in that regard. It's essentially the introduction of threats that are beyond what have come before, making the need for new heroes all the greater.
Yes, but it's part-and-parcel of the narrative that the mechanics are meant to represent; he can't receive morale bonuses because of the nightmares he suffers due to Emptiness; that ties it in to being able to gain control over it so that it stops doing that. Again, the mechanics serve the character's presentation, not the other way around.
7976332
That's true. It's not impossible to play one-on-one, but that's mostly reserved to rogues. Nothing is worse than a one-on-one 15-minute adventuring day...
Yes, without the bleeds, it wouldn't be that much of an issue. Heck, even if Equestria WERE high-level, I can't see any of them being capable enough to actually assassinate anyone. MAYBE Chrissy, but even that's a big maybe. The elemental bleeds not only introduce high-level enemies, they also introduce enemies with a much more "pragmatic" mindset.
Hehe...
Ah, ok. The way I read it was that that was part of Emptiness template itself, so both Companion and the template itself both have that in their respective specializations. Oh yeah, about buying it off... Would that require him to buy them off point-for-two-points via Transference or could he just take two more instances of the Template ability to raise the limit to +6 ECL, where Emptiness would fit in?
I still don't think your way to look at character design and mine are that different. It's just "function follows form" versus "form follows function" really.
7976424
That only really becomes an issue if you primarily rely on a small number of abilities, which can only be used a limited number of times per day. Primary spellcasters don't rely on their spells so much as they rely on their high-level spells, with the lower-level ones being less likely (as a generality) to come into play in a given combat encounter. Of course, at a high-enough level, that stops mattering, since you can use planar ally, gate, and of course summoning spells - not to mention creating constructs and undead, plus charmed followers, etc. - to essentially get your own adventuring party (or small army, even).
The real question then becomes exactly how strong Equestria's native power-players are, when measured on a d20 scale. I've already written about that, and so has Thoth (Eclipse's co-author), so that's pretty well charted out, at least insofar as this fic goes.
The idea was that he'd have to buy the Template ability up to +6 (and pay off the Companion ability's specialization; that one matters since morale bonuses are one of the things that Sonata does best).
As an end-product, a character with a strong narrative presentation and a matching set of mechanics is a "chicken or the egg" issue. But it's how you reach such an end-product to begin with that's the question.
What's notable about what you said is that "form follows function" is a well-regard axiom about the nature of a thing versus its presentation, whereas "function follows form" reserves that bit of conventional wisdom, and so isn't something that's typically seen as being ideal. If we can write the latter off (and I think that we can), it's more an issue of what constitutes "form" and what constitutes "function." To that end, I'd say that the "form" is actually the narrative idea of the character, since that's how virtually all fiction is presented; outside of hardcore gaming circles, the idea of stats or rules aren't how new characters are created - rather, they think of an interesting idea (or set of ideas) and make a character around that.
Mechanics, in other words, are just representation. Unfortunately, d20 created a meta-game around building characters (since that's how more books are sold) that turned that from being a secondary aspect of character-building into the primary aspect. That's a far cry from how it used to be; I still remember when you rolled your six ability scores randomly, and had to determine things like your race and class (since they had ability score prerequisites) based on what you got!
7978163
True, and I believe you hit the mark on them: A bit below level 10 and not too combative.
Oh, sure, but think about it like this: If you want your character to be a champion of the gods back then, could you really have done that no matter the outcome of your rolls? If your character concept was a holy warrior that helps people with divinely granted powers, but you didn't have the Charisma to become a Paladin, that was that.
Even if freedom of choice became more of a thing over time, it never changed the fundamental fact that, if your character idea cannot be realized with the available resources, you could not build it. That's the way it is with every tabletop-RPG that isn't freeform.
Thus, making a character around an idea only became possible as soon as you obtained the ability to actually... Well, make a character.
...
Though I might be entirely misunderstanding what you are saying^^°
The way I'm reading it, Lex was never intended to be a unicorn or an arcane spellcaster or have a familiar, as those are represented by mechanical values, and thus Lex would be functionally the same if he were unable to case spells, weren't a unicorn and didn't have Emptiness, which seems weird to me. :/
7978387
Thanks. I think so too, though I suspect that there are a lot of fans who wouldn't agree. A lot of people feel that characters such as Celestia are "meant" to represent the top of the power-scale in any given RPG system, because their interpretation of such a character's presence in the narrative is that they're "supposed to be" all-powerful, and so the mechanics should represent that. Such a view conflates a character's role in the story for the character themselves, however, which is why those builds tend to have powers and abilities far and away different from what the character actually does in the source material (often leading to hilarious explanations that try to reconcile this). You typically see that with Gandalf, but you can find it for a lot of popular characters if you look around.
Reading this over made me go back and look at what I'd written previously, and I'm now of the opinion that I did a bad job explaining my thinking. Allow me to make another attempt:
The reason I brought up ye olde-school character generation was because that is, to my mind, the truest form of the "mechanics first, narrative second" mindset. In that case, the mechanics come first for everything, including generating a character's ability scores, race, and class. Making those came first, and then you came up with a history and backstory for the character that you'd made, along with their goals, beliefs, alignment, ideals, etc. (though even alignment could be constrained depending on what class you took). Even further character development was subject to this, since similar constraints existed on improvement (e.g. demihuman level limits, restrictions on dual-classing, etc.).
Eventually, the zeitgeist of what players wanted changed. They sat down at the table with ideas for characters that they wanted, which random ability generation and restrictions on class and race didn't make very feasible. So as part of the game's evolution (via new editions), the rules began to change to accommodate that. When Third Edition came into being, a method of purchasing ability scores was right in the Core Rulebooks, along with numerous prerequisites and requirements having been lifted. Rather than hoping you got lucky, it was now possible to make the character that you'd been thinking about before you sat down at the table. Narrative characterization could now come first, with the mechanics allowing you to represent that in the game rules.
...except, it didn't. Sort of.
See, although Third Edition's mantra was "options, not restrictions," there were still restrictions to be found. Exception-based design was still theme that the game engine was built around. Worse, the nature of character classes meant that a LOT of abilities were tied to certain classes at certain levels. That meant that if you had a character idea that required abilities from disparate classes, it made for a rather awkward build. Even if you could take enough levels in enough different classes to make what you wanted, doing so not only meant that you would often end up with several other abilities (from lower levels in those classes) that you didn't want to begin with, but doing so would often take quite a few levels to achieve.
But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that such characters quite often were made with such disparate classes that they had a hard time being effective when compared to single-classed - or very adroitly multiclassed - characters. It's hard to remember now, but the 3.0 Core Rulebooks didn't have any prestige classes designed to correct the serious limitations that came with multiclassing, such as the Mystic Theurge. So if you wanted a character that was a competent fighter and a competent spellcaster, you were out of luck. A fighter 10/wizard 10, was far, FAR less useful than either a fighter 20 or a wizard 20. (One of the very first 3rd-party pay-for-download PDFs was The Book of Eldritch Might, written by Monte Cook, who'd been one of the key designers of Third Edition, and it was already trying to patch this problem, with a special prestige class for cleric/wizard characters that blended their spell lists.) Gods help you if you wanted to create a character that didn't rely on magic items (especially an unarmed martial character); such a thing quickly fell by the wayside after the first few levels.
Gamers, of course, are a canny lot, and the limitations that they were working under quickly became clear, with numerous responses being developed. The initial ones tried to bridge the divide, making a narrative concept first and then figuring out how to not only make it work under the game rules, but optimize it sufficiently so that it wouldn't fall behind more "mainstream" character builds. This was abetted by a never-ending treadmill of supplements coming out, each with new exceptions to the limitations of what characters could do. Unfortunately, this soon turned into meta-character building, where such optimization became its own reward, instead of in service to an existing idea that the game rules didn't easily allow for. In fact, some gamers simply abandoned the narrative-first approach altogether, deciding to go for whatever power-combos that were most viable and then tacking a narrative element on top of that.
This approach also proved to be more conducive to an online environment. Actually developing a character's narrative meant getting a group together and running a campaign, which wasn't always easily done. By contrast, making up builds is something that anyone with access to the game can do, and forums and discussion boards meant that there were places to post them and talk about them without needing to get a campaign together (especially since online campaigns and "virtual tabletops" are still struggling to come into their own).
Eclipse, however, was one of a very small number of solutions that took things a step further, modifying the game's rules (rather radically) to remove the existing restrictions that were preventing certain character ideas from being effective - or at least as effective as others - in the first place. Doing so fulfilled the "options, not restrictions" promise of Third Edition, ironically enough, since now you could make virtually any character you thought up be represented in the game rules with an extremely high level of fidelity. Eclipse wasn't the first product to try this - there were other point-buy character-generation systems prior to its release, along with other games that re-tooled the game engine to better represent certain genres of characters (e.g. Mutants & Masterminds for superheroic characters) - but to my mind it's the most successful, largely (though not completely) due to its use of a standardized method for modifying powers and abilities in almost any method that the player can imagine (in conjunction with the GM's approval).
That's why I tend to frown when I see "mechanics first, narrative second" attitudes among people using Eclipse. While it's certainly a legitimate method to take (even if it does tend to forget that GMs who know what they're doing will limit what options are available anyway), it's a reversal of the entire ethos of character-design that the book was made to serve, as I understand it. Now that you can dream up any sort of character that you want, and represent them under the d20 rules, taking a mechanics-based approach just strikes me as backward. DPS, tanking, and similar "gamist" approaches just don't seem as compelling as a character with an interesting story that the rules are helping to bring to life.
You're not wrong that Lex, as a character, would have been extremely difficult - if not impossible - to make under older systems that put more restrictions on how characters developed. But at the same time, I find myself doubting that a build focusing solely on optimization and min-maxing would have come up with him either, since he has numerous flaws that such an approach would almost certainly have eschewed. Rather, he's the result of me coming up with who he is first and then making a build to represent that.
Lirtkra snarled as he strike his trident against the ground, -- Lirtkra snarled as he struck his trident against the ground,
8053548 Fixed. Thanks for catching that!
Typos! Know any good spells for getting rid of them?
I would say change strength to force. A stronger attack does not necessarily mean more force.
And a large trident in another two. The other two implies it only has three.
I suggest removing 'him'. Since you are telling it from Lex's viewpoint, you don't need to tell us that it is behind Lex. We can get that.
despite sounds better than through, I think.
Items?
Catching entering? I think you might be getting ahead of yourself.
Something tells me this should be 'leaped'.
thing's.
Lex seems to be taking a lot for granted. Assuming they can't hurt his incorporeal form, for one.
8149071
I cast "edit." It's super effective!
Hm, I'm undecided on this. You're not wrong, but the use of "strength" in this sentence is a winking reference to Pathfinder, in that you get to add your Strength bonus to melee attack rolls (and some ranged attacks). I kind of liked that being in there, and I'm not sure that making the alteration you're proposing changes very much.
You're right. Changed.
The problem here is that this sentence marks the beginning of a new paragraph, and the "him" helps to establish that it's still being presented from Lex's point of view. Since "behind" is subjective, rather than objective (e.g. something being "behind" depends on an individual's particular positioning), this needs to be tied to a notation as to who it's referring to.
After some thought, I agree with you here. Changed.
No, in this case he's looking for a singular item.
Whoops, that "catching" was left over from a revision. Deleted.
Actually, either way is acceptable, so I'll leave that as-is, since this is still from Lex's viewpoint and he's a traditionalist.
Fixed.
He's working with the information he has, which isn't very much at this point. He's in a bad tactical position, and doesn't have much information about his enemies, so he's playing catch-up while trying to turn things around.
8149124
That's a Pokemon reference?
8149127 I confess, it is.
8149140
You play Pokemon?
8150547 I played the original Pokemon Red, but that's it. However, I have friends who play a lot of Pokemon, and so I'm able to keep up with the cultural references.