In the Beginning... Mission 14

"Rottgutt had wandered off -- together, Malkir and Dwarfendale went to meet Father Doreth. The High Priest of the Rakanus Clan, and perhaps the most powerful dwarf in the west, was in the temple with a High Vicar. Dwarfendale's tone with Doreth was no more respectable than Doreth's with Dwarfendale. Fistforger's ballsy use of the cold forge to rehammer one of his quarrels into place sent Doreth over the edge. As the quarrel glowed -- unseen by the High Priest, the doors to the tmple slammed shut, and locked. Dwarfendale didn't give Doreth time to cast his spells, whatever they were -- he fired the quarrel from his light crossbow -- and missed. The action startled Malkir and the High Vicar into action, and the two began to fight. Dwarfendale quickly retrieved the still-glowing arrow from the floor, where it had fallen after bouncing off/through a wall. Dwarfendale sparred with Doreth, trying to recock his bow, as dwarves ganged heavily on all the sealed doors. Fistforger slammed the quarrel into the chamber, and fired -- and Doreth reeled. The quarrel slammed into him in a spray of hot, black blood. Malkir downed the High Vicar with two arrows and rushed to help Dwarfendale; he held the struggling Doreth, as the fighter/cleric drove the quarrel further in with his smith's maul. The High Priest exploded in hot, black goop, and as the duo turned aside, the doors burst opn. The 'High Vicar' had been an ogre-mage, and at his death, his body was squeezed by the dwarven plate into dough..."

Luke rolled his 'to hit' for that quarrel, and missed, so I upped the blessing from +1/+1 to +2/+2. He missed a second time, and I upped it again to +4/+4 -- and still he missed. I reasoned that because the doppleganger had desecrated a temple of Galgiran, killed a high priest, and been undetected for so long by the dwarven community, then perhaps the God of the Forge would give a little help to Dwarfendale. And help he did; I think the final bonuses were +16/+16 before that damned crossbow actually hit.

It still hangs in the halls of Mount Lavanor, along with a concrete walkway with Galgiran's footprints in it. Literally.

Chris' knowledge of the creatures in the Monsterous Manual convinced him that only an ogre-mage was powerful enough a shape-shifter to do what Father Doreth had done. I let his guess stand, instead of contradicting him, for it gave me an idea. By tying the ogres and their ogre-mages together with the orcs, and the kobolds, I would have a unified structure of sorts in the Choranil Desert. This gave me the idea for the Ogre Nations, which would become one of the most powerful nations on Gaeleth.

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