We had a delightfully huge amount of material to workshop this week! At the top is a student’s outline built up into a larger story. We talked through his outline and I was able to leverage a few passages to talk about this week’s topic: streamlining language. We focused on how to increase the intensity of action scenes with short sentences. What read’s fast, moves fast, so: tight descriptions, well chosen verbs and multi-purpose metaphors are what makes a final draft final.
Meanwhile, in Deamon Chord’s fortress academy, our heroes fight on to escape the tiny laboratory in which they have been trapped. With the dragon bursting down the wall and puppet-armor pouring in from all sides, they made for the yellow portal, hoping to create a bottle neck in the relative safety of the dormitory wing, or at least a way to reach the statue-gate…
Deamon’s Meta-Mechanic ability ‘Distort’ came into play this session, allowing him to collapse the yellow portal’s ley lines, folding the intervene space away so that the dragon left behind in the hallway is now looming through the door.
Our heroes have only just begun to fight their way free of the laboratory and into the hallway where the portal leading to the only escape lies.
The laboratory itself is nearly deserted as a result, with puppet armor marching out towards the blue portal in hopes of cutting our heroes off…
Even after the last of our band escaped through the portal, Deamon’s forces pressed on. The folded space of Chord’s Distort effect transformed the door leading out of his office into the one leaving the laboratory. Alhoon, their celestial beetle ally, desperately tries to slow the dragon while the rest fight their way from the portal room.
The cleric tries to roll under the shield armor. Natural 1. He sails towards the dragonborn warlock, who rolls a dexterity save! Natural 1. They hit the huge ophidiman fighter and the ranger just as the later cast the spell jump. Neither of them make the save…
The force of the spell propelled the lot of them into the air. This was my favorite thing that happened this session (and for awhile in this campaign). This is what makes letting the dice and the players lead the narrative creates.
The ball of heroes flying through the air gave me an excuse to drop them into the yellow portal, rather than getting bogged down fighting the army pouring into the hallway behind them. And so our band is reunited, with their foes still hot on their heels…
The distorted school halls now have the dragon and puppet armor riddled laboratory feeding directly into the dormitories. Those who came tumbling out of the yellow portal were only just saved thanks to the Distort effect bringing Alhoon and his swarms of celestial beetles back to the front.
The whole scene is at last revealed as the barbarian (armored orc fig) saunters away, betraying the rest by taking advantage of earlier roleplaying. On his way out he spies one of the infamous displacer behemoths outside patrolling the grounds…
Once again half the group is unconscious or captured, but this time their teacher is dead, and their other allies held at bay.
As the treacherous barbarian follows, a huge puppet armor drags two of his erstwhile allies by their heads.
Though he saved his classmates by distracting Chord, the sorcerer paid dearly as the upperclassfolk knocked him unconscious and carried him away.
The traitor looks into the main office of the dean, where the statue-gate stands imprisoned. He fully expects it will be opened for him on request.
The battle rages on as our heroes try to fight their way to, and find a way through, the statue gate. With only two sessions left, can they escape the army at their backs, force the cage around the statue and escape?
In the isolated parts of the school, trapped within Deamon’s folded Distort displacement, the remaining forces try to find a way to reactivate the yellow portal.
Alhoon’s beetle masses take the brunt of the dragon’s breath-weapon, though the surrounding library fared far worse…
These warriors never slow down, not even to aid an ally, or secure a rear guard.
We had a delightfully huge amount of material to workshop this week! At the top is a student’s outline built up into a larger story. We talked through his outline and I was able to leverage a few passages to talk about this week’s topic: streamlining language. We focused on how to increase the intensity of action scenes with short sentences. What read’s fast, moves fast, so: tight descriptions, well chosen verbs and multi-purpose metaphors are what makes a final draft final.
