Vanadorn D&D Campaign

Meet 157, Adv 13, 1/28/12

2012-02-12T19:55:00.000-05:00

Taking out the big guys.

It was a two meeting hunt and destroy mission but the group did take out the Frost Giant eventually. It required all their skills and a goodly bit of luck to make it happen, but they did prevail. Giants, Dragons, and the ilk are special to me when the characters face them mostly because it should be something memorable. It's not something that should be measured like a tally mark (ie orcs, kobolds, etc...) but something that they group remembers and notes as a poignant perioed in their progression as characters.

Write up follows:

We gathered together and healing was dispensed, bringing most of us back to full or a close as we could get it. From there we approached the walls of Njor citadel, Guyus feeling ahead for any sensations of evil – encountering none.

The outer walls were 30’ tall and the main gateway was closed with a dropped portcullis of heavy wooden bars, the double doors beyond still open. There was a huge courtyard of slicked icy snow pounded flat and featureless. No one walked around the expanse of ground but we assumed that through the many arrow slits in the citadel itself our approach to the walls was watched with care.

We stayed near the side of the gateway, staying out from under the overhang of the barbican above, very away of the fanciful carved nooks and hollows above were actually disguised murder holes. We wanted to get in but to do it swiftly before the frost giant could regroup or the Grylians could find us. Norris called upon his bardic skill and sung up a charm making the entire group invisible.

While we were talking about how to get in exactly Guyus felt the approach of two evil creatures walking above. We stayed quiet and the paladin informed the party that they were in the barbican above. We needed to make them move. He summoned his war steed and there was excited noise from the Grylians above. Something was dumped down the holes and it splattered on the animal as Guyus sent it racing away from the citadel. Some of the liquid also hit his leg greave and he heard it hiss.

We watched the war steed run for a bit until it seemed lamed from the liquid eating at its hind quarters. Then some arrows were shot at it and we heard the giant on top of the citadel 80’ up shout his frustration. Guyus made his steed fade away as it was staggering and just before the thrown boulder smashed into where it was once standing.

The Grylians and Njor talked for a bit and we deduced that they were wondering what happened to us (we were invisible). The portcullis was raised about 12’ and locked in place. And we waited. Njor and the Grylians on the roof disappeared from view and the two in the barbican remained there. Our plan was for Draugmor to climb the wall in one place and the rest of us would sneak in through the open portcullis. If possible, lock the gate open.

We crept in slow, the party all holding hand to shoulder while the elven thief scaled the wall. One by one we all made it past the open bars and around to the courtyard. The yard was very slick, the packed snow making footing treacherous. We stayed at a slow pace as we wound about. The call was made to probably follow the inner wall and make the long circuitous way to the citadel entrance itself.

Meanwhile, Draugmor made it to the parapet top without issue, looked right toward the barbican and saw the two Grylians there. However, near the stairs top here was another one. He froze. When an opportunity came he tried to make it to the stairs and down to the courtyard but came to close to the Grylian who whirled and slashed the air, nicking the thief’s ear and causing him to bleed. Draugmor took the steps at two at a time, leaving a trail of blood drops behind him. He leapt from the steps off the side and hurled a handful of blood away from him. Then he used his cloak pressed hard to the side of his skull and doubled back to the wall near the stairs.

The Grylian was hissing in its language loudly and excitedly and it attracted Njor back to the top of the citadel. He hurled a rock at the area the Grylian commented about and it churned up ice while a few arrows were shot about – nothing hitting anywhere near Draugmor who had gotten away from the area.

The giant jumped from the citadel top, the snow catching him and breaking his fall. He strode to the area while three more Grylians came from the citadel’s door and others were massing along the parapet walls. The group was inside the walls but frozen and invisible, not trusting out ability to not be seen. We needed to do something and do it fast.

And then Detheron decided for us. He pointed up to the sky and called another one of his ready lightning bolts from the clouds above. It arced down and blasted into Njor with the fury of Frey. The giant roared in fury, his voice shaking the snow. Thurin shouted out a hold person spell and froze three of the Grylians near the citadel entrance. The party snapped forward, bows firing as we took advantage of our invisibility and surprise on the unsuspected giants and Grylians.

It did not last long and the Grylians unheld began to take the stairs hard and race towards us. Njor, his beard smoking, grew wroth at Detheron and made to strike him. Another hold person went out and stopped another swath of the Grylians. A called lighting obliterated another Grylian and Njor was forced to back up. The frost giant called out a shout and erected a wall of ice between the group and him. Detheron was shot with an errant arrow and fell down in pain. He had his tiger, Jerrig, drag him to safety behind the wall while the rest of us tried to get to the giant and not get pegged anymore from the Grylians.

Unable to see for sure Detheron called another one of his dwindling supply of lightning bolts from above, slamming it down where he thought the giant was. He missed a direct shot but did manage to burst a large section of the wall. Njor shoved the teetering ice wall forward and it fell about the party. A large piece was hurled at the group and finally Draugmor and Guyus got within melee range. The thief tried a poisoned dagger at the giant’s back but missed horrible getting buffeted in the process. Guyus charged by leaping onto his summoned steed and plowing into the giant. Njor gave one more blow at the party and then ran for the citadel itself, once more in retreat (this time down to ¼ hit points!!!). We tried to slow him down but were unable to as he made it through the door and fled again.

Furious now we polished off the last of the held Grylians out here and stayed behind the wall for cover while more healing was dispensed. A new plan was hatched in which Detheron was going to make a huge fog cloud to block the courtyard and we would sneak upon the door of the citadel. Once inside we would take the fight to the giant and finish him once and for all. Not anticipating much left arranged against us, Mebali (still invisible) and Norris was told to return to the Dritka wood and return with the sled ASAP and get back here before sunset.

The fog cloud was summoned and Aleron and Smokey made their way first towards the citadel door, the bear’s strength to be used to smash the door open. A long corridor was there, leading to a foyer or some sort. Murder holes were on both sides of the corridor. Guyus let us know there was only “evil” on the right side.

Using his Illumination wand, Draugmor fired a sunflare through the murderholes on that side and blinded whoever was in there. And then we charged in. Coming out of the right hand side were three dazzled Grylians and Aleron plowed into them, sword and dagger working end over end. Njor appeared from the stairs and hurled a boulder at the group, slamming into the lead of the party. The three Grylians ganged up on the ranger, ripping through his chainmail and trying to tear his helmet off. He was bleeding freely from dozens of scratches and was becoming overwhelmed.

Detheron hurled a flaming sphere across the room and it blew up against Njor, the Frost giant screaming horribly as he was burned. Smokey waded in and then arrows and crossbow bolts were shot and the giant fell over with slow ponderance before dying on the stairs. Aleron was saved from the chaotic melee and the battle came to an end.

Once more healing was handed out from our diminishing stores and we checked out the area. The room on the right was an armory with bows, stone axes, and many of the obsidian javelin sized arrows as well as a barrel of arrow heads.

We also looked over some of the floor and discovered a barracks with sleeping area for 10 Grylians and a cloakroom. We were going to check out a fourth chamber before ending it for the night.

Meet 156, Adv 13, 1/21/12

2012-02-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

This was the party's first encounter with a giant - something which I think is just to the north of their ability to handle. It was a singular frost giant and he had a 4 count of archers with him to help him out. Plus the battle started with very few of us in melee range. As expected the conflict did not go well for the group - the giant able to dish out tremendous damage.

He did turn a retreat at half damage and stayed behind his walls while the group debated their next action.

Write up follows:

When it came time to leave, the party had some concerns and before you knew it, the decision was made to stay in Caroon with the Dritka for the next unforeseen number of days. During that time we had Mebali work on a sled for us to drag as well as a number of travois for us to drag behind us. The weather stayed cold with little new snow, but the wind was an almost constant.

A small expedition of us went back towards the original battle site, dismayed to find only bloody snow and no sign of the Grylians that we had fought there. We were very close to Njor citadel and decided to leave the area for now to avoid alerting them to our presence.

As for wood, we had made many trips to the Dritka Woods with the locals where we found not only more than enough wood for our needs, but a curious situation regarding the local animals. We thought about hunting and a few rabbits just came up to us – and stayed there as we killed them. This happened well over a dozen times until even a deer or two showed up. Very odd!

At that point Norris went venturing deeper into the wood where he had the sudden desire to drop to his knees and become food for a tiger. What the hell? He shook himself free of the effect and ran back to us where we all gathered what we could and headed back to Caroon.

It wasn’t until Detheron and Smokey had chanced into the woods later that the same thing happened – except with a Speak with Animal spell going, Detheron was able to hear all the deer and rabbit talk about “How it’s just my time to die, you know? I should just go to this bear here and let him kill me.” After the bear had gorged himself on the local we gathered up the bodies and headed back to the stone township.

Mebali worked on the sled while Draugmore and Norris made a decent fire pit and smoke house – smoking as much of the meat as he could on drying racks so we would have meat to last us for a while. Detheron did chance a trip into the wood where he was able to use his spells to find the tiger and befriend it.

We continued to avoid trading for sex with the more than willing Dritka.

It was after 3 days or so that we considered us ready and left Caroon, sled behind us being pulled by Smokey. It took about 5 hours to return to the spot and from there we marched onward to the woods and crept closer to the citadel.

Decisions were made and we left the sled and traveled as a group towards the citadel. There was a snow falling and Detheron called to Frey for a call lightning spell, tacking them on one after another in readiness for when we arrived there.

There were 4 Grylians manning the giant walls of the citadel and at about 150’ away, a 15’ tall frost giant strode out. He identified himself as Njor, and wanted to remind the group to back to the Dritka area. Ne noted who we were and our belongings and quickly surmised we were to ones who killed the Grylians. We were told that this was going to be passed on or had been passed on to other Grylians who took their anger out on Dritka in some nearby city.

Conversation broke down fast and the frost giant made the snow under Gwyn shake, lift him up, and like a wave, bring the dwarf towards him in a rippling mountain of snow. The Grylians on the wall fired their uncanny long bows at us and Aleron returned fire. Guyus mounted up on his horse and chased after the flying Gwyn. And then Detheron made the lightning bolts crash down from the sky, one after another. Grylians on the wall were charred and burned while the rest of the party ran forward.

Spells flared and the giant’s mighty axe was devastating as it hew both Guyus and Gwyn. The two fighters returned as best they could. Norris and Thurin both called upon some magic missile spells and stood over Detheron with all their doubles to protect the druid as he stroked the citadel with Frey borne bolts of lightning.

It was dicey for Gwyn and Guyus until Smokey the 12’ tall grizzly finally arrived at the battle line. The bear and the giant hit each other like titans the giant getting the lesser end of the exchange. Eventually the frost giant turned and ran back towards the citadel where the last Grylian on the wall released the portcullis and the rough bars crashed down.

Meet 155, Adv 13, 1/14/12

2012-01-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

Pocket Dimensions

In my younger days I had lots of them - small areas of the astral plane that were carved out with little worldlets - they can be terribly easy - or terribly dangerous. As I got older something happened and I stopped using them for some reason.

When I first made Fengarth's Tower I had a tiger's eye gate in there that went to a little pocket world that I had run a party of adventurers through many years ago. I figured it'd be nice to have a run through the Grylian landscape once again. But the group never encountered it - until recently.

So here we are - in the world of the Tigermen, Frey, Giants, Dritka, Gylfang, Sutur, Snorri's Pipe, threatening volcanos, wooly mammoths, and a chance to race across the Bifrost and make their way home.

Write up follows:

Guyus had his hands out to lift the huge tiger’s eye gem from the bureau but when he touched it he found himself elsewhere. He was knee deep in snow, a pale sun shining far overhead in a steel grey cloudy sky. About a quarter mile away on a low rise stood an oversized citadel, the walled keep adjoined by a massive 30’ wall that stretched to the west for miles until lost in the haze of distance. To his south was a mighty forest of hundred foot tall pines.

An eight count of running figures clan in scraped and raw skins and hides were running through the deep snow, breath steaming about them as they tried to outdistance the four count of pursuers that followed. Their predators were unlike anything he had seen before. Over 7’ in height, closer to 300 lbs, they were clad in crudely made leather jerkins that covered their alternating black and white fur striped bodies. Elongated limbs had them making a bounding motion as they leapt rather than plowed through the snow. And each of the 4 tiger-men had a 5 and a half foot long bow that seemed almost impossible to use to say nothing of drawing.

The running tigermen noticed Guyus and conferred swiftly amongst themselves, three of them breaking off and one of them continuing the charge towards the fleeing humanoids. One of three slowed, drew its long bow and let fly an oversized shaft at the paladin. It struck his shield with a resounding force, the obsidian head shattered and left a dimpled pattern in the surface. A second shaft did the same and then the other 2 that had thrown the AC to the wind leapt and tackled Guyus. They were strong, heavy, and attacked not unlike wild animals with scratching and clawing and tearing. One of them attempted to rip his helm free but failed.

With a bend of his will, Guyus summoned his paladinial war steed who immediately reared back and let fly with its rear hooves, barreling one of the tigermen off of him and allowing him to get to his feet and mount up.

More arrows flew, one of them hitting him (but not knocking him from his saddle) while the grounded one attempted to pull him free with rips and tears at his leg. Guyus kicked his steed in the flank and made some distance while more shafts littered the landscape. One of the pursued human went down with a truncheon to the head and net around his midsection and the tigerman with them continued his assault.

Guyus lined up his war steed and attempted to lance one of the tigermen who dove out of the way just in time and missed the sharp point and the flashing hooves. Two more arrows struck the paladin and he shook off the impact, laying hands on himself to remove the sting of the wounds.

He whirled around and charged the tigerman again, this time succeeding in his strike, the lancehead shattered on impact but the tigerman went down horrible wounded. More arrows flew but they were targeting his steed more and more so with a flex of his will, he released it from being here and the horse faded away. The tigerman amongst the humans knocked a second one down and was still in pursuit of the others.

And then Draugmor appeared, the king’s thief needing a moment to get his bearings on the situation. Only one of the tigermen actually saw him and he flashed his knife in his hand with a flick of his wrist to get at the ready. Guyus plied Eagletalon to the already wounded tigerman and with a yowling cry it fell over dead at last. More arrows flew, the paladin getting hurt in the process and forced to call upon Odin once more to bolster him with a healing.

Draugmor met the leaping tigerman with flashing blade and the two of them traded blows back and forth, the elf getting badly mauled in the process. A third human was clubbed and then the tigerman saw Guyus as a threat and drew his own bow to add to the assault.

Once more the war steed was summoned and Guyus leapt upon, lance at the ready where we speared the next tigerman in the process, his war horse trampling over the furred foe. At this point Mebali and the unconscious Norris appeared where the wheelwright laid the bard in the snow and drew his broad sword to help Draugmor in the combat. The number of arrows flying was dropping but again, they were aimed at Guyus’ steed, the tigermen wanting to take the war horse out of the picture.

The tigerman fighting Draugmor and Mebali slid left and battered at Norris, dropping the bard even closer to 0 hp before defending himself from the two fighters. Realizing the war steed was badly wounded now, Guyus ordered it away again and brought Eagletalon about to take upon the closest tigerman. The two of them traded back and forth until the tigerman was spilling blood in the snow and the paladin had a new series of wounds upon himself.

Detheron arrived at this time, the druid taking stock in the massive battle and the strange landscape. The tigerman mauled Mebali, his claws ripping into the wheelwright mercilessly. Draugmor lunged and his enchanted blade hit the tigerman – and then the luckblade flared and the blow instead flowed upward and struck the tigerman full in the throat – angled upward and killed it instantly. Huzzah!

Daring to call his steed a last time Guyus rode towards the last standing tigerman and dismounted to slam blade at the beastman while Mebali engaged from behind. Gwyn appeared next, stumbling over the unconscious Norris. Detheron called upon Frey for a healing and the strangest thing happened – the snow around him in a 10’ radius burst melted instantly, air warmed up, and his spell fired off with more surety than he was used to seeing.

With most of the party here now the last tigerman fell and healing was dispensed. We noticed that only Detheron’s spells acted this way upon the landscape. The humans that had been knocked out were strange, primitive, and had the faintest of elven traits about them. Very little of what they said was understandable – Dritka, Grylians, Great Mother, Afraid, Come. The rest was pantomime and grunts of some sort.

We got them to relax and understood we would follow them to the Great Mother. Norris felt that we were either in Niflheim or somewhere around it – the realm of Hel and of constant winter. Aleron hacked off two of the tigermen’s hands and Guyus took of the entire fallen one on the back of his horse and we set off, leaving nothing behind except bodies (taking even the bows and arrows).

We did note while walking that neither the tigermen nor the humans we were with had any metal upon them, neither did they have any sign of skills beyond what would be considered crude stone and leatherworking at best. It was 4-5 hours in the snow before we arrived at a stone town built around a longer heorot or longhouse. 9 buildings in total, one with symbology to Frey and the other 7 simple affairs. Skins were stretched across openings like doors. The humanoids with us called out and a number of similar humanoids emerged.

A brief description pantomime was done explaining who we were in their own language. Then there was some covering of the left eye when commenting on Aleron and showed the hacking of hands and the word Grylian mentioned a few times. Aleron withdrew the severed hands and the tribe shied away. So the ranger went off into the snow away from the town, buried them there and we returned.

Happy now we were escorted into the heorot where we were to meet the Great Mother. She was old, older than old, ancient even. All that was visible was her head and hands. Her hair was gossamer thin and white, her skin like translucent parchment. She was elvish and she listened to the tribe talk to her in their language and then struggled to speak to us. Her words were difficult, a mix of common and elvish.

She told that she was over 1500 years old and had always lived here. The tiger people were called Grylians and this place was an island on the Sea of Boiling Ice that was called Freysteig – or Frey’s Land. It was at one point long ago a retreat for Frey and his Jotunwife Berohr. The filled it with things that they loved and came here for a time to be happy. But with the approaching Ragnarok and other Asgardian duties they stopped coming and Freysteig was left on its own. Over time something referred to as Snorri’s Pipe went out and Freysteig drifted from under Asgard across the Sea of Boiling Ice, coming close to Niflheim.

People from all over can get here, usually through some sort of gemstone gate. How to leave? She does not know. There is a citadel (we saw it) called Njor Citadel. Njor is the grandson of Berohr and we surmise is a giant (Frost giant). The citadel should show us how to find the gate out.

We also learned that time moves differently here. Fengarth actually came here a number of times – but she said he came last over a thousand years ago – and we know that Fengarth had died/disappeared some 55 years prior. Lastly, the people here were called Dritka, a catchall terminology used to describe and humanoid that was not a tigerman or Grylian.

Why tiger? According to the Great Mother, Frey had love of many animals but the tiger was the one that Berohr and he liked so they made the Grylians in the image of one of their followers called Gylfang, Lord of Freysteig. The Dritka had lost most of their skills and technology over time: metalworking, husbandry, textiles, reading, writing, and even complex language.

We stayed and traded with the Dritka that night, and started a fire for them – something none of them had ever seen before. The sun did not set – it just went out. When it did the temperature dropped to -40 and the sky was unlike anything they had seen – a dozen starts in the sky and nothing else. Detheron was still able to call upon Frey but the effort of night casting made him weak and dizzy so we decided that we would do our best to avoid night travel.

We slept and awoke the next day refreshed and well rested. The Dritka filled our packs with foodstuff and we filled our skins with water. We bid our farewell and were going to head back towards Njor Citadel to learn how best to leave.

Meet 154, Adv 13, 1/7/12

2012-01-15T22:22:00.000-05:00

Remembering things.

The group had been in Fengarth's Tower so many times and had gone into the first 6 levels at least twice, sometimes more, that they had done things and left things in place - but had only imperfect memories of what they had seen. This was evidenced this meeting not only by the constant freaking out of the candles - but also the "things" they had left behind.

The severed hands were perfect. They had encountered them here, "trapped them" and left. And here it was they fell victim to their own traps.

I would like to eventually get to the point where Fengarth's Tower is "done" and explored - not because I don't like it - but because I am tired of drawing the continuous circular structure every time they enter and traverse the levels.

Write up follows:

The party decided that they would finish the lower levels with care, leaving no rooms untouched or unexplored for the time being. From here they checks out the last door on the 3rd level which opened into the tower’s dining hall. It was a beautiful room even given its age and disuse. A long curving dining table followed the wall of the tower, seating for 18. Wheeled carts were stationed near the door to allow servants the possibility of bringing supper in from the kitchen. An open cabinet housed plateware and pewterware for almost 16 and a utensil drawer had matching spoons and forks within.

The fireplace was grand and along the north wall, filled with old ash, the flue closed. What was concerning was the fact that it appeared that at least three of the closest place settings had been used in the recent past. Crumbs and grease stains were testament to it. We checked everything out but although the place was filled with wonderful kitchenware, there was nothing else of interest here. We talked about taking some of it with us when we left and marched back to the stairs and then upward to the 4th level.

Once more we were faced with two doors and after having Draugmor listen to both of them, we opted to go east (as we heard some of the popping and hissing noises of the tower’s ensorcelled candles). The door opened revealing a hallway that encircled the stairs, old blood stains and shattered statuary lining the floor. Along the outerwall of the corridor were 6 doors leading to small rooms on this level, a few of the doors nothing more than splinters and hinges.

We took our time examining each doorway and chamber, the first four offering nothing but a sad testament of the carnage something had wrought in here many years ago. The fifth doorway was different: smaller in height and width. The 6th doorway was perfectly made with no sign of damage upon it.

We approached the 5th door with care, eventually opening it to reveal a room with much less damage, the contents and furnishings in here better suited in size for a gnome or Halfling. And sure enough, there was a figure on the bed. Gnomish, naked, dried and desiccated as if all the moisture had been taken from it. As we observed the chamber though, a black energy seemed to sieve past the party, make its way to the stairs, and disappear down. There was talk on Gwyn (who was in the back) to go and follow it but the pragmatic dwarf came up with some excuses as to why that would be a poor idea and the energy plasma, whatever it was, escaped.

Detheron entered to check out the gnome on the bed while Draugmor and Guyus looked over the chamber with care as Aleron made sure the door would stay open, bracing it with his foot. The druid was able to tell the gnome had died some time ago, under a year, and on the back of the door we saw many scratch and gouge marks in the door. Looking at the gnome’s hands showed similar wear on his fingers. The room was otherwise bare of personal furnishings or adornments. Draugmor looked through the drawers for anything of interest.

It was here that Thurin’s weasel let the mage know that it heard some sort of grinding down the tower’s stairs. What was it? Gwyn, Norris, and Thurin went to check it out, while Mebali passed the information on to the rest of the group checking out the room. The noise was getting closer and it was working its way up the tower. What came around the curve was not a living creature, but instead a bipedal 10’ figure made entirely out of crushed glass. Thurin assumed it was a golem and Gwyn let spill a flask of oil on the steps to make it slip if it came closer.

Short of the oil, the golem stopped, fell forward, and broke into over two hundred pounds of broken glass. Then, it “pulled” itself back together and began to reform itself past the oil soaked area and on the landing itself. Gwyn used Norris’ shovel and scooped up a great swath of the golem and flung it backwards down the steps. This caused the golem to angle towards the dwarf and let fly about 5’ of glass shards at the dwarf, driving him back a few steps.

He was now fully upright and waded into the dwarf, broken glass fists swinging. The blows HURT as they impacted, sending scratches and cuts all over the dwarf. Detheron left the gnome room to run to the battle with Guyus following. And then the gnome room tried to slam closed, but Aleron forced it back opened and Draugmor slunk out, the portal slamming closed after.

Norris withdrew his violin and played a rapid song to inspire courage in the party while Gwyn went toe to toe with the golem. Blows were exchanged and Guyus ran around, Eagletalon leading the way. Mebali sided with Thurin, the two of them busting apart furnishings to make clubs. Glass shards were flying and Gwyn was over 40 points down by this time. At one point the golem push hard and the dwarf stumbled back, cornered in the room with the bard.

Meanwhile Draugmor and Aleron entered the last chamber. The furnishings here were in better condition but there was two drawers on the floor – one on its side and battered and the other face down like a box. There was also a dismembered hand here, scratched and cut and scarred up – just lying in the middle of the floor. Yeah. Right.

The ranger went to it, sword positioned right over the member, ready to plunge it in. Aleron looked carefully and then picked up the other drawer from the floor…releasing a 2nd hand which leapt from the group ala “thing” and grabbed him around the collar, pulling him forward.

Detheron had gotten close enough now to call on Frey where he summoned a huge gust of wind. A 60 mph storm raged from his hand and slammed into the golem – blowing scores of pounds of busted glass everywhere and destroying the integrity of the golem. He stayed at it, shoving the wind lower and lower across the construct until the glass had been disturbed enough and the remaining bulk of the creature collapsed and was blown apart.

When the 2nd hand made a twitch Aleron waited no time and stabbed down, pinning the member to the ground. It spasmed and thrust but unable to extricate itself it tried to cut itself free causing the ranger to stomp on three of the fingers. Meanwhile Druagmor was cutting the palm and tendons of the hand holding him, trying to break the grip. Aleron was able to retrap the hand with the nearby drawer and then went to help the thief.

Guyus was coming back, the threat of the golem gone now. Aleron was able to help Draugmor get free but they lost grip of the hand and it hit the hall. It ran away and back into the gnome room, shutting the door behind it. We took a look at the closed door and figured, “ok. Good riddance.”

Our hurts were healed up and we took stock of the situation before heading back to the stairs and up towards the 5th level.

At the top of the stairs Detheron began to feel ill, remembering the wraith tiger from 2 years ago here. He cautioned us about the southern of the two doors, denying his own involvement and instead said it was Coruth’tae who had triggered the cat. Sure enough, the carpeted room was as we remembered. In it were many posts and platforms and on the south wall was a large picture of Fengarth himself with a large Siberian black and white tiger. We looked around with care until Aleron touched the bin of “cat toys”. Suddenly red fields shot out closing off the exits from the chamber and the spectral cat appeared. We returned the toys to the bin and placated the wraith tiger until it faded away and the fields died down.

This led then to the last chamber on the 5th level – Fengarth’s private chamber. We felt uneasy at first entering but it faded after a few heartbeats. There was a wonderful king sized bed, table, chairs, reading stand, two dressers, a writing desk and a two door armoire/bureau. The party spread out, checking over everything with care. The bed was normal although large and comfortable, the reading stand held two books who’s subject was both mundare and 5 decades out of date, even the writing desk had been plundered of papers, ink, and quills (Detheron remembered Coruth’tae coming in here briefly at one point and he took those items then).

The bureau was another matter. Gwyn was distrustful of it and the dwarf took his time with grapple and rope to open it. Within were three shelves, the bottom held some silvery cloth, the middle three long wand boxes of ivory, and the topmost held a strange stone. It was over two feet oval and bulged to more than 11” in the center and appeared to be a gigantic tiger’s eye gem that according to Gwyn was most likely some 20+ lbs and close to priceless assuming it was real.

We took our time and Detheron was able to tell that all the items were magical. So it was time. The first thing removed were the clothes: wizard’s robes, shoes, and hat. Thurin donned them one after another, the seemingly too large material shrunk up perfectly to fit him. And then it darkened to glistening black with red highlights, chased in silvered stars. The hat and shoes too changed. However while wearing them the wizard felt wrapped in a reinforced cocoon of protective energies and was humbly thankful for the wondrous wares he had gotten.

The wand boxes were next and it was unfortunately that Norris failed to see the poisoned needle, the bard slumped over and was knocked out. Detheron called upon Frey to Neutralize the poison but the bard would be unconscious for some time. It then went to Draugmor to carefully show up how to open the boxes and we found three wands in total: Illumination, Polymorph Self, and Flame Extinguish.

Feeling emboldened by this we then went on, Guyus offering to take the tiger’s eye gem out of the bureau. He reached out, touched it…and disappeared. Holy crap! We looked all over, he was gone, no where to be found. What to do? The thought was he was transported somewhere and Detheron suggested we all go and join up.

Draugmor went next and he too disappeared. Then Mebali shouldered Norris and he too touched the stone and vanished. And then it ended with Detheron, Gwyn, Aleron and finally Thurin.

Meet 153, Adv 13, 12/17/11

2011-12-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

Fengarth's Tower. Even the name itself causes my group to shudder and drool. It is the defacto place that the group has had 4 partial adventures in so far to date. They have found items, run screaming, and returned time and again to this long abandoned mage's tower on the far end of the borderlands. They haven't plumbed even a fifth of the possibilities of the place and in reality have faced - TWO monsters there. Two. T'Nagrath the Forest Troll, and a tired mimic hiding in one of the bedrooms. There was a wraith/tiger but that was not a fight - only one of the party members getting the short end of the "being an ass stick".

So they went off, this time to get a copy of a spellbook they were assured was here on the 6th floor. Our party mage was suffering without and we were also hoping to bolster his skills. However it was upon arrival at the tower that the group became fearful of EVERYTHING. The wet floor, bone fragments, broken glass. There wasn't a single thing that didn't raise their hackles and make them second and triple guess their decisions.

I look forward to having them continue to mentally fuck themselves over during the tower crawl. :)

Write up follows:

On the last day in Cymbarton, Thurin organized a meeting with interested parties to swap and trade scrolls in order to further streamline his spell book. Trading got hot and heavy between him and 8 other mages but in the end, he did walk away with a series of spells he’d rather have and some names for future contacts. In addition, Draugmor also sought to trade out his own scroll of enchant and item – hoping to get something thief oriented if at all possible. At the 11th hour he did get a buyer willing to trade a set of enchanted elven chainmail for the scroll and the king’s thief took the deal.

Then it was the long trip back to Orihalcus where Thurin then spent the next serious length of time rewriting his spellbook from the spells in his memory as well as the new scrolls he acquired. Then he spent time making a copy of the maker’s potion book and sold it to One-eared Quint in Orihalcus, the journeyman apothecist thrilled to have such a tome at his availability.

Mebali and Guyus completed their training, Aleron completed the repairs on our paladin’s sword “Eagletalon”, and then it was time to discuss what our next move was. The month was drifting to an end, already the third week of Spiritmonth. The snows hadn’t come yet, but we did a few days of freezing rain and heavy frost in the early hours. We debated for a while and settled on going back to Fengarth’s tower and see about getting to the library room on the 6th floor and get a copy of Magrath’s spellbook if we could.

It was a cold 40 degrees on Spiritmonth the 23rd when we set out, arriving at the tower about 10:30. The tower stood as both Detheron and Gwyn remembered it with the single exception being the hole that had been blasted in the wall was now an obvious repaired section of stone. Mebali bound and hobbled the horses and we gave the structure a once over. There was a fetid stink there now that we did not recognize and it made the group cautious. Draugmor took point and checked out the place carefully before daring to enter.

The main room was wet and moldy, and there were hundreds of bone shards and splinters in the soiled carpets. He did look around, noting the long ago fires and obvious sacking of the place. Sure that the main floor was empty, he invited the rest of the group in and we followed with weapons out. The party had no desire to go to the lower level and wanted this excursion to take them to the 6th floor and out only. We approached the stairs.

Draugmor took point with Guyus right behind. The paladin was getting a slight headache from the constant “detecting of evil” he was doing, but his Odin blessed senses had to the point revealed nothing yet. On the landing for the 2nd floor there were two doors. Listening to them, the eastern door was heard some strange hissing and faint popping sounds while the south was nothing. We opted to go south.

The door had showed some battering in the past; the bottom hinge not actually attached the frame. Guyus lifted the door bodily off the floor and carried it on pivot into the chamber. Splinters and ruined furnishings were scattered in the corner but it was the sheen of crushed glass that dominated over 70% of the floor that gave the party pause. What was it, where did it come from? We thought about it and decided to leave it alone. There was another door in here and he checked it out before opening.

It revealed a circular hall that followed the central stairs of the tower, with 4 possible doors along the outer wall. Listening to each revealed nothing except the last door where we did catch the same hissing and popping sound we had heard earlier. We decided to open each door one at a time. The first one showed a smaller chamber with a pallet, a bureau, and a short table with a clay basin and pitcher. It was after the door was opened that the single taper on top of the bureau hissed and smoked and then lit – a taper of small flame burning with a fitting and hissing pop now and again. We gave the room a quick look, the bureau drawers were filled with old beddings and little else. What about the candle? Did it stay lit? Guyus offered to stay in the room and the door was shut.

Upon closing the candle stayed alight for a few seconds and then guttered out. And when it did the chamber was not only dark, but also the temperature dropped a fast 10 degrees to around 35. A rime of frost covered the paladin’s armor and then the chamber door was reopened. The candle relit and the room warmed back up. The group was happy to see Guyus was unharmed and we went to the next chamber.

This was like the last, except the candle on the bureau did not light and the bureau was the type with two doors and a single drawer. Our lantern was taken out and the lodestone with the continual light spell was set within. Draugmor and Guyus went to the bureau and together manhandled the stuck doors opened. And there was a blast of foul smelling spores coming out. The cloud hit the two party members and Draugmor was struck hard. The paladin pulled him out to the hall and he was cleaned quickly with water. Blood was coming from his nose, eyes, and ears and his breathing was shallow and labored. Detheron cast cure disease on him and the yellow mold spores were dispatched quickly.

After a few minutes he was feeling much better and Guyus gave the room a last once over – confident there was nothing of value in the bureau (the spore not affecting him). We then went to the third door. In this one was a skeleton on the bed, his head facing the wrong way – looking at the party. We gave it a wide berth and Draugmor looked at the bureau – finding nothing. The skeleton’s skull did turn slowly on its neck bone – it could be from vibrations in the room. Maybe. We decided not to stick around and left.

This left the last door – which opened to the game room. Cabinets with puzzles, games, boards, you name it were here, half a dozen table and a dozen small stools – over 8 of the candles were in here hissing and burning. We spent twenty minutes looking the chamber over – hoping to find what Detheron and Gwyn called Magrath’s charm – a shaft of black crystal about 5” long, wrapped with a silver wire on a chain of some sort – would need it to get to the library level. The charm was destroyed with Coruth’tae almost 7 months ago and we hoped that its destruction would cause the tower to either call it back – or have another one available.

Not finding one here we decided to go up to the next floor. Third landing – two doors. We opted for south once more and with a careful push, Draugmor revealed the chamber to be the tower kitchen. Two long counters with cabinets below were on the left and a big stove was on the right. There was a larder beyond in which were bags of potatoes, onions, and other greengrocer items. Where did it come from? We did not know. While we were looking about the stove made a slow groaning noise and then lit – the coal box burning to life and the temperature in the kitchen climbed ten degrees. Norris wanted the stove but we had no idea how we would go about getting or taking such an item.

The thief then went to the cabinets and after confirming they were not locked began opening them from right to left, cognizant of potential yellow mold again. As he was opening them, they did squeak, and we also heard a giggle. Hmm. Moving slower he went to open the next when a cleaver from the counter took flight and almost killed him before burying itself in the wall. What the hell? Guyus took all the cutlery we could find as well as the chairs and moved them into the larder. Then he held his shield up while Draugmor finished his searching.

He founds pots and bowls and assorted other bits of broken kitchenware meanwhile the “whatever” then hurled the stove’s firebox across the chamber, Guyus’ blocking most of the hot coals with his shield and only getting slightly burned. Then the paladin called to Odin and attempted to “turn” whatever poltergeist was here – and it seemed to work.

It was in the last cabinet that Draugmor found a black crystal with a silver wire wrapped around it – and we were satisfied that we had uncovered the Magrath talisman. It was now 12:15 and we were talking about going right for the 6th level or making sure all the chambers between here and there were cleared when we ended it for the night.

Meet 152, Adv 13, 12/10/11

2011-12-15T21:49:00.001-05:00

Buy, buy, buy. The party pretty much had to resupply everything for some 75% of the party - and we were talking big ticket items. Platemail, spellbooks, soup to nuts.

And I still feel dirty when we just run down the list and the group says "yes, give me 3" or "next." Certainly miss roleplaying out the shopping trips - but not with 7 players around the table.

Write up follows:

We spent the next three hours putting the long unused home back in order. Supplies were purchased for the larder, windows opened, dust cleaned out. The outhouse was in poor shape and we noticed our shovels once there were long gone. We went next door to ask to borrow a pair of them and the angry dwarf there told us to piss off which infuriated Detheron. So we tried the other neighbor, a rather slovenly 350 lb half-orcish woman named Grunhilda along with her one son, was completely helpful, appearing actually sweet on Detheron and Guyus. She lent us the shovels and offered to come back later to pick them up and bring some cookies.

After the place was cleaned and Norris had whipped up a stew in the enchanted cauldron, we shared storied with Grunhilda along with her shortbread cookies, learning that she had left her husband (a brutish figure we were told) and was working at the Copperworks as a refuse collector, sweeping up the dung from the sturdy mules and ponies that drove the bellows and other machinery. She was honest and funny and when she left we felt better about her as a neighbor.

When it was getting time to sleep though we noted that the mattresses were infested with lice and ticks. So Detheron called upon Frey to help him to repel vermin, then he walked the entirety of the house, forcing the hundreds, even thousands, of bugs and lice outside. And then in a fit of pettiness, he forced the swarm of lice at and then into the house of the angry dwarf that lived next door until the last of them had sieved their way through the slats and holes and disappeared into the house.

The next day Guyus and Mebali went with Gwyn to see Sir Walter and learn about possible training here in Orihalcus as well as places to have it done. The long unused Guildhalls were in use now and we were happy to be a part of the growing maturation of our first home. We paid the fees as necessary, getting a break on Mebali since Gwyn would be handling part of the Wheelwright’s training in the fighting arts. As for the rest of the party they had planned a major trip to Cymbarton and was hoping to leave the next day or so. An aviary was sent there as well as to Eider on behalf of Norris to Guildmaster Rigil Blackshadow explaining what had happened to him. Aleron had rented some time at the local forge and was able to do some work on Guyus’ sword, Eagletalon, fixing some of the damage that the sword had suffered through to date.

During dinner that night (stew again) Detheron and Thurin talked long about the mage’s actions during the rescue as it was explained to the leader by the paladin. They went back and forth for some time and Thurin eventually made noises that he understood Detheron’s points and would make some changes should those situations came up again. Mollified, the party leader accepted the mage’s words and the two of them returned to dinner.

On the next day, the 20^th, Aleron’s skill with the forge was lacking as he not only failed to make any further headway with Eagletalon, but actually reversed part of his efforts from the prior day due to his assistant’s inattentiveness. The party was putting together their plans for the trip the next day and made arrangements at the stablery to rent a wagon and have two of their steeds readied as well. Everyone slept, after eating more of Norris’s stew (the group getting a bit tired of stew by this time).

The next day was windy, terribly windy, steady wind speeds over 25 mph and gusts as high as 50. The group still mustered out, bidding farewell to Gwyn, Aleron, and Guyus. However, less than an hour outside of town with the wagon blowing all over the road and a mishap with a busted trace and one of the horses hurting it’s leg, Detheron turned the wagon around and headed back to Orihalcus, hoping to go the following day if the weather improved.

During the evening, the angry dwarf from next door came over to complain to Detheron that he might have given him the evil eye since the party had come back his house had been under the cruel effects of bedbugs, lice, and ticks. Detheron did his best to calm the dwarf down and offered to help clean up the lice (since it was his own fault) for a price. The dwarf and he settled on a jack of homemade beer and 4 crowns. The dwarf’s home was cleansed and the two of them settled up better with one another.

The next morn was much better and the party set off, eventually arriving in Cymbarton during the afternoon of the 27^th. According to Count Cedric Sedaris, we were still under watch since our problems before, but would be allowed to spend 3 days in town to take care of business and then would have to leave.

During the day there Draugmore had gone to Count Cedric and formally reported to the nobleman what was going on and what was to continue. Meanwhile Aleron Greystone had gone to his family holdings and met with his uncle Rorick and explained what had befallen him. He was given two horses to replace the steed he had lost as well as a family gift of 250 crowns. As for patents of mobility, he was instead given a signet ring of the Greystone family and told to take better care of himself in the future. And finally Norris had gone to the seer and the adventuring guild where he learned that the body he was now in belonged to a bard known as Santiri Radcliffe.

From here it was visiting one location after another buying armor, getting it sized, weaponry, equipment, spell components, scroll making and bookmaking supplies, and just about everything else the party needed to reoutfit itself before coming to the end of our time in the county capital and expecting to return to Orihalcus.

Meet 151, Adv 12, 12/3/11

2011-12-11T13:00:00.000-05:00

That's it, adventure 12 is over and in the can. This centered around our wrapping up the situation in Flatrock and the "how or can we ever raise Norris from the dead" issue. The player of our growing and maturing bard had been on a holding pattern for some time since he did not know IF he was playing his character again or IF we could possibly raise him from the dead. He actually had another character planned and partially rolled out when the logistics of it came together and we were able to get Norris brought back.

I have had a love/hate relationship with dead characters coming back to life over time and to this day don't know if I will ever sit comfortably with "yes they come back" or "no, they are dead - move on".

Point of note - travel time from the start of the night to the end of the night was 12 days travel in game. Sucks not having cars, planes, or teleportation spells.

Write up follows:

The party discussed options, settling on the fact that Norris was our prime responsibility. Leaving him as a bound up undead figure was not an option and we had learned from Ludwig before his passing that through a speak with dead, Norris had interest in coming back to the world of the living. What to do? We had mostly no money, as well as little gear (or clothes). Gwyn and Guyus went with Thurin to acquire some clothes and then went to speak to Sir Bork directly.

They exchanged some information back and forth but ultimately Gwyn did ask the nobleman if he could lend the group what funds were needed to raise Norris as we did have such resources but they were currently in Orihalcus. Sir Bork did offer to help but we did not know what the costs would be. As for who could help, there was a Deathspeaker, a Priest of Hel, named Ladrius that had recently come to town and was working currently in the cemetery. He directed us to talk to her and then find out what we would need and if he could help, he would do so.

We went to the cemetery, met with the Deathspeaker, explained our situation (she was not the nicest person) and escorted her back to the Sundered Chains Hotel on Dog Street where she could examine Norris’s undead body. We learned swiftly that in his current condition he was not able to be raised. Too many broken bones, too much of his internal organs were either destroyed or unusable. If we were able to raise him, he would die almost immediately. What were our options? We could magic jar his spirit from the current body into another one – but it would have to be a body that was pretty much an empty husk.

We went with her back to the cemetery where we had learned that Karis had come back to town two days ago and dropped off three bodies. One was missing a right arm, one was the victim of burns (most likely the will o the wisp) and the last had some cold damage. We assumed the last was a victim of wraiths. It was this one the Deathspeaker Ladrius said would be the proper receptacle for Norris. It was going to be a three person ritual, and would require a chalice the facilitate the transference – costing about 2500 crowns.

We went back to Sir Bork and Gwyn asked him for a loan. The nobleman really thought about it and agreed with the following deal. It would be a letter of credit to be drawn with Lord Vergadain in Dragonhole (where the ritual would take place) and would be due in 3 months at a repayment of 2,750 crowns. We agreed.

The next day we travelled first to Dilabria where Gwyn and Detheron stayed and then on the rest of the way to Dragon Hole. We presented the letter to Lord Vergadain Exchequer who verified the amount and seals and presented us with 250 platinum bars. We then went to the Order of Grey Maiden where Ladrius and her two sisters performed the ritual on Norris, bringing his soul from his shattered undead body into the new (human) form. As for his broken body, it was left with the Order who was going to harvest it for reagents for further potential necromantic rituals and experimentation.

From there we traveled back to Dilabria and on Earthmonth the 12th at 8 AM we began the long ride back through numerous towns towards Orihalcus, the place we wanted to use as our home. On the way we stopped at Cymbarton where Gwyn withdrew enough funds to cover the loan we took out from Sir Bork as well as gold to pay a courier and insure the delivery of the letter of credit back up to Flatrock. We continued our trek until eventually coming around the last bend of the western reaches of the Dusty Mountains and arrived at Orihalcus.

We left our tired steeds at the stablery and went to Sheriff Kalarig. He gave us a copy of the key to our home where we went in and opened the shutters, letting fresh air in. We would need to stock the larder and pantry, look into getting some help, and eventually go and see Sir Walter Slaine. But for now we were happy to lower our packs, kick off our shoes, and take stock of the numerous items we had still left here during our many forays out of town. As we sat, the last 12 days of hard travel fading from us, we decided that a short rest wouldn’t hurt first before doing anything else.

Meet 150, Adv 12, 11/12/11

2011-11-28T09:07:00.000-05:00

Unofficially, this was the last meeting of adventure 12 - but I won't put a line through it until the next day or two of bookkeeping is finished.

This was another meeting of overland travel and as I've been doing lately, I dropped the DM screen and was rolling dice in the open. I also had the party roll for wandering monsters - just for the hell of it. I played them as they came up, including their reactions - the dice spoke. And I came across creatures I would once again normally never use. Giant goat, giant eagles, a rogue mountain lion, trio of trolls, even had a 13 count of ogres show up. Capped it off with a 2 person adventuring party looking to get a bounty on Karis that was attracted to our camp fire.

It was a nice change, think the group liked it. I'm going to continue to do that on a going forward.

Write up follows:

We made camp about 6:30 that evening, after riding as far away from the orcs as we dared in the growing dark. Our friends were in very bad condition, barely hanging on and cold. The main exception was Norris – our bard had died during the fight with the Lycos Suns and somehow the orcs had animated his body. The bard was undead, snapping out at anyone foolish enough to put their hands near his face. It was only the fact that most of his bones were already broken that had prevented him from actually being more of a threat. Guyus was very unsure – but decided with the group to bind up the bard and gag him until Detheron was once more awake and could tell us what to do next. We lit a fire, set up camp, wrapped them as much as possible, and looked them over. They were under some sort of drugged effect and according to Guyus, wouldn’t be out of it until tomorrow at the earliest.

It was then here that Dust Devil wanted to talk about the resolution of his part of the deal. Since there was no chance we had 6,500 crowns to pay of the drake, we had to go with the other possibility of the deal: two items of his choosing without discussion and he would allow us to have a discussion on the third.

He selected Thurin’s spellbook and Guyus’s Platemail.

The party (ie: Thurin) did all they could to discuss with the dragon a possible alternative, even going so far as to explain how if the dragon took Thurin’s spellbook, he would be powerless. The dragon listened and stood by his ground that a deal was a deal and we had made our choices. Thurin honestly did give thought to using his scroll of disintegrate on the dragon, but realized it was foolish and would not result in anything.

Guyus was worth. He had no desire to give up his armor, but as a paladin he allowed himself to be swayed into honoring his deal. He waited for the mage to give up his spellbook first before removing the ensorcelled platemail. As for the third item, the dragon really wanted a horse to eat. The group agreed and Guyus made sure that Dust Devil was given the horse that Thurin had been riding to date in a fit of peckishness.

The party slept in foul humor after the dragon had flown away, Thurin very nervous because the only spells he had now were the ones he had memorized. He needed to get to town, get access to a spellbook, and spend many days rescribing a book with whatever spells he had in memory.

We awoke the next day on the 4th and just before 9 were off. We made great time riding back south, coming near the orcish stronghold of 4 Tusk about 10. We strongly suspected that our friends’ missing gear was here, but assaulting the fortress would be foolhardy so we kept on. It was a 5 PM that we were attacked by a sudden assault of a hungry mountain lion. A few of us were mauled by the ferocious feline but we finished it off before it could escape. We took the beast with us and tended our wounded before continuing on.

It was closer to sunset that we came upon a dozen giant goats. Each one was almost 8’ tall at the shoulder, shaggy and great and huge. They were feeding on the tough grasses growing within one of the valleys. We gave the half ton beasts a wide berth and pressed on until the sun had long set and it was almost 8 PM when we rested. We had been scavenging for firewood during the ride (Thanks again to Korg) and it was shortly after that that we had a fire going.

From there we skinned the mountain lion, scraped its hide, and set most of the salvageable meat to smoke on wooden racks near the fire. The party slept and slept well. It was around 4 in the morning while our two elves, Thurin and Draugmor were on watch that a four count of Giant Owls landed, lured close from the camp fire. The owls spoke elvish and spoke briefly. They asked for the guts and innards from the mountain lion to eat and snapped up the viscera quickly. Then they offered to fly a couple of us to the nearest town before the sun rises and although we thought about, Thurin and Draugmor thanked the owls and declined. The 4 owls then flew off.

We all woke up, it being the 5th today, and were off riding shortly after 8 AM. We had only ridden a short time before we were noticed by a 13 count of ogres. Luck was with us as we approached the Ogre’s openly in friendship and they returned it. We talked about the 4 Tusk orcs to the north of us (the ogres were heading there for trade) and that the humanoids had come from a mesa known as Odin’s Plateau. They wanted to trade, eyeing our new mountain lion skin. We gave it to them and they in turn gave us some squeezing from a sack that held wyvern’s tails. Very nice! They left us in peace and we rode off relieved.

It was around 3 PM that our companions woke up. Detheron, Gwyn, Aleron, and Mebali (Norris of course was still “awake” and undead). They had been badly abused and told us what they had learned of their capture. They were going to be sold off as slaves to the Ogrelords to the northwest and eventually get to a place known as Ravensperch Demesne. Aleron was still deaf from the rocket blast and had to be explained things very slowly.

We rode onward, now getting closer to Rakewood Forest. But during the ride we attracted the attention of three trolls. The party drew up battle lines, a number of branches lit and a fire going. A few fire arrows were prepared and the group gathered their strength. As the trolls grew closer we shot the swarthy beasts with fire arrows until the brands ran out. Then Korg, Guyus, and Finta raced out to charge the trolls head on.

Blows were struck and torches were passed around as well as burning brands. Perrin shot continuously as the trolls but their regenerative powers kept them from falling over easily. It was when the first one fell that Thurin hit him with the brand again and again, keeping him ablaze. Guyus was getting struck, the loss of his armor working against him during the fight. Perrin’s quiver was running low as he shot each troll two or three times each minute. Finally the battle was done and the trolls vanquished.

Binding our wounds we remounted up and kept going. It was about 6:30 PM when we rested again. It looked like we would be back at Flatrock tomorrow. While we were resting, our campfire attracted two travelers. They came forth to us, a ranger and a mage. They were out riding to capture the bandit known as “Karis of Melbourne” and assumed they could do it on their own. We spoke with them for a while, explained the Red Clouds and Karis and what they were possibly like and their strengths and weaknesses. The two adventurers opted instead to head back to Cymbarton and do more studying and fact finding. We camped with them, sharing our history and story with them.

Aleron’s deafness was healed and the mage gave Thurin a few copies of extra scrolls she had to help him out. We rested and the next day, the 6th rode on towards Flatrock – arriving just after 12. We went to see Sir Bork, checked in and reported, were sent on our way, and the nobleman then spoke to his three men (Korg, Perrin, and Finta) and got their opinion of the party and their trustworthiness. They spoke of the group well but each had reservations about Thurin (in some cases it was outright hostility) and Sir Bork thanked them for their effort and candor and sent them on their way.

Meet 149, Adv 12, 11/5/11

2011-11-14T23:16:00.000-05:00

Overland travel is sometimes handwaved with groups and DM's, and I have been no exception in the past. It's hard to get all "adventured" up and excited when the miles are passing behind you. However there are also times when the adventure isn't at the end of the road, but ON the road itself. That's what I had in mind for the party's trip out to intercept and rescue their freinds. It's not just the miles away from home, but also the things the party sees and experiences that makes for a true adventure.

This meeting not so much, but the following one had a rich result of wandering monster checks and interesting meetings and experiences that the group seemed to enjoy the trek.

Write up follows:

We rode through the rain for a few hours until both Finta and Guyus had the party come to a stop. They conferred for a bit and then had to admit to the party that the inclement weather had obscured the trail and for the last half hour, they had not been sure they were following the orc’s tracks any longer. We talked about our options and decided that we would press on, relying on what directions we’ve been riding in and hoping that we would catch up to some sign of our quarry in the near future.

It was just past 10:30 that we arrived at the rain line, a seemingly hard barrier between the druidic ensorcelled weather that had held for the last 2 days and the normal weather pattern beyond. We emerged on the other side of the veil, and took stock of our surroundings. It was on the next nearest rise that we alighted and using Perrin’s spyglass, took a good look around the countryside for any sign. It was to the north that we saw a faint smudge rising, sure sign of a fire in the near past. Meanwhile Korg was gathering what firewood we could now that it was dry.

We decided to ride towards the north where the smoke was seen arriving just before noon. Sure enough, it was the remains of a large encampment. Orcish. Gone now but according to Perrin, no more than 4 hours or so head start. We estimated around a hundred orcs, and there were carts/wagons, and drag marks. The party ate while Dust Devil kept us company. We discussed our options and decided that since the dragon was here, we should make a deal with him. There was talk and eventually it was settled on either 6500 crowns of treasure OR 3 items, with the dragon choosing the first two without discussion and the third being up for a possible deal. It wasn’t great, but we took the deal.

We relit the orcish fire and kept it burning bright while we stripped off our very wet gear and clothes and made some time to dry it out. It was by 2 PM that we broke camp and mounted up, riding off along the now obvious orc trail, our horses goaded to a cantor where able.

About 3:30 we came upon an orc with most of his right side stove in, his head mostly pulped. It had been stripped and left on the side of the road. We rode onward, approaching the high point of the hills we were in. It was just after 5:30 that we came upon an area where the orcish trail split. Half of it went north and half west. The northern trail continued with carts and wagons and now also had animal tracks as well. Which way? We assumed the northern trail with the wagons STILL had our friends and figured that would be best. But we only had an hour or so of daylight left. And what about the western orcs? Were they close?

Dust Devil went off the check, the drake returning with news that about a mile or so from here was a keep. Stout walls, four watch towers on neighboring hills, over 60 orcs guarding the visible areas. Neigh upon impregnable to say nothing of the many catapults and ballistas also in the area. Obviously the heart of the Four Tusk orcish clan and not to be approached. We decided to ride BACK the way we came for a half hour or so, putting more distance between us and the orcish fortress. And then we rode off even further in the hills until we were near no tracks. Camp was established.

Korg’s skill at foraging came in handy once more as the tough dwarf found a nest of prairie dogs and set about braining as many of the animals as he could. We had a good meal that night with Perrin making some connection with the drake by feeding him a choice number of the varmints. Watch was set and we had a tense and watchful night’s sleep.

We awoke on the 3^rd; weather was cold today, maybe going to hit 50 tops. We broke our fast and studied for a bit. Thurin volunteered to polymorph to a sparrow and scout ahead to see if he could find any of the orc’s trails. It was once he was gone that the group learned that Dust Devil seemed to understand and speak Common. He did not like slaving in general and broke the Charm enchantment that was on both Finta and Korg. He then explained that any sort of enslavement was wrong and that the scales were just rebalanced. The party was surprised and opted NOT to tell Thurin when he came back of Dust Devil’s ability to understand Common.

We mounted up after the wizard returned, letting us know that the trail was steady northward and we should not tarry. Our horses were given their headway and we rode onward, long strides and steady hands. For hours we pressed on until the hills were behind us and we were riding through the wildlands and tall grasses of the Forsaken Lands. A wary eye on the horizon and a cautious gaze looking everywhere for danger we rode. The hours passed and we kept the horses fresh where we could, changing them often and relying on Guyus’ knowledge of their abilities to eek our every ounce of their speed.

And our gamble paid off.

At just before 5 on the horizon we caught a glimpse of our targets, over 3 miles from us and heavily laden wagons. We broke into a gallop and began to cut the distance. But it was going to be close; we needed something to slow them down more. We sent Dust Devil ahead with instructions and the drake flew up to a thousand feet in height and winged in the orcs direction, banking over, diving, and strafing the ground before them with a roaring goat of fire. They shot crossbow bolts at the dragon as it banked once more and flew back towards us.

We then saw them arrange their wagons in a circle and with crossbow bristling prepared themselves to receive our charge. The group rode to within 200’ feet where we stopped and treated with them (both sides waving white flags to parley). Finta rode out to talk, the presence of the drake enough to keep the unsteady peace.

We explained that we wanted our friends and the orcs were not going to give them up. No reason to. Could we fight? Sure but with over 30 orcs and only 6 of us, especially with the prisoners unable to defend themselves and possibly be slain outright we did not want a direct confrontation. Finta and the Orcish subaltern went back and forth until it was decided that if we agreed to fight their champion one on one they would release one of ours.

One of the Giant Orcs stepped out, axe at the ready. Finta looked up at the 14’ orc and called out for his champion to step forth. Korg was going to do it but Guyus told the dwarf to wait, he would. The paladin strode forward and then did battle with the giant orc. He swung mightily and ducked the whistling blade of the axe. His blows were sure and strong and it was within an embarrassingly short time before the barely winded paladin laid low the giant orc.

The orcs paused, but did honor their deal. We chose Detheron to step free and he was guided to the edge of the wagons where Finta took the drugged, battered, and broken druid’s naked form with him back towards the rest of the group. What about the others? We wanted 4 more (Aleron, Norris, Gwyn, and Mebali) and the orcs agreed – but THIS time Guyus would have to fight 4 on one. And the paladin agreed.

The other giant orc stepped free along with the 3 well armed and armored orcish fighters. The battle was joined and Guyus was whirling and dodging as many of the blows as he could, relying on his armor to save him when he couldn’t step free. He hit and struck when he could, felling one orc and getting wounded in return. Then another orc fell and the giant orc was wounded. The paladin’s head rung from the many blows he was taking but he dropped the third orc at long last until it was just him and giant. Snarling the two combatants went toe to toe until with a mighty hew the giant was slain.

Shocked but not wanting to risk any more, the orcs gave up the rest of the requested members. We grabbed them, mounted up, and the orc team and ours rode away in mutual deference to each other. We rode south until the sun was under the horizon and the sky turned dark before daring to stop and rest.

Meet 148, Adv 12, 10/22/11

2011-11-07T22:00:00.000-05:00

Every group has an issue at some point with the "lesser" ethical members. Picking pockets, withholding treasure, turning invisible and running away. But in my group we have the dreaded "Charm Person". In some cases - the single most chaotic style spell available to the given low level mage as it makes a trusted friend and effective mind raped personage of anyone who deigns to disagree with the mage.

Most mages would never dare cast it on a pary member - but in our group we had our mage do it to two members. Henchmen, yes, but still party members.

And there is a figure with the party who can dispel it almost at will. This might not go well.

Write up follows:

Guyus, Thurin, and Draugmor grabbed what little the orcs had left behind, bandaged up their hurts as much as possible, and began the long trek back to Flatrock with the idea of drumming up some local aid to go out and hunt down the orcs that had taken their companions.

It took almost 5 hours to make it back, just before curfew. Once there they spoke to the stable master to ready all their horses plus three others. From there they went to the Dog and Fox where they ate a fast meal and talked about the crushing defeat they had suffered and the capture of their companions. Any issues with the Red Clouds and Karis were now forgotten, only getting to the Four Tusk clan and getting the rest of the Sundered Chains back mattered.

They stopped at the Hotel where they quickly changed into what little dry and clean clothes they had and then marched right off to Bork Keep. It was almost 10 at night where they roused Sir Bork and had some words with the noble as to what had happened and their current state and plight. Sir Bork did say that he would reach out for volunteers and would have whoever he could here in the morning to help the group ride out and go with them against the orcs.

From here it was back to the hotel where they went over plans and plans, eventually getting some sleep. Thurin worked on his spell listing and Draugmor went out to hunt down the local thieves for a chance to purchase poison for the upcoming fight.

The next morning, still raining the group went out and hit a few errands. Some trail rations and basic equipment, a visit to the taxidermist, and finally a plead with Zinthar to lift the weather stasis and stop the rain. The venerable druid refused, saying he had given word to Detheron only and would not change it unless he said otherwise.

From here we then went to Bork Keep and met up with three members of Chirkis Keep that had volunteered. Each man had a personal vendetta against the local orc tribes and were happy to join. Korg Blackstone, dwarven axeman and 3 time winner and current champion of the local Tough Dwarf competition; Perrin Dugood was the leader of the Oldguard at Chirkis Keep and a consummate bowman; and lastly was Finta Eightfingers, almost 70 years of age but still active and the most respected of the Oldguard. Introductions were made all about and we promised Sir Bork to return as soon as possible with our friends if able.

We hit the stables, grabbed our horses, and went off. We opted to stay on the road in the rain as much as possible until we had gotten as close to the western edge of Rakewood Forest as we guessed. We stopped for lunch and then took our string of horses northward. Our pace slowed as we struggled across the rocky sludge of the badlands, the rain soaking us through and to the skin.

It was just after 2 PM that a draconic figure flew overhead. Over 25’ wingspan, perhaps a bit longer than that in the body (of which one third was tail), dull crackled metallic brown in color. It looked down at us and then landed ahead, just off to the side of where we were riding, Sitting on its haunches and just looking at us. What do we do? The decision was made to at least attempt to make contact.

Thurin took the reins here, speaking to the drake in draconic. It called itself Dustdevil and heard about our plight and our missing friends. It didn’t want to join us one way or another, but was interested in flying along. An offer was made to help, but the deal was for either 5,000 crowns of treasure or first two choices of any items found. Thurin tried to work around it but the Dustdevil was not moved. No deal was reached on getting his aid but he would follow along. We also had a bit of problem as Thurin kept getting tripped up while stating our goals. Kill or no killing, getting friends back or treasure, does he command the group or not? It was a bit stressful.

We rode on, the rain kept up, and the low green line of Rakewood Forest was on our right side. About 4:30 we came up the orc tracks and followed them northwest into the badlands. Only low hills and scrub brush filled the land. Dustdevil stayed nearby as we rode but with no caves visible or any stands of trees around for shelter we were forced to set up a crude camp in the low rise of the local swells and dales of the hills around us.

Right after this we had a debacle. Thurin went off on his own without telling the group exactly what was going on, digging a hole in dire wolverine form with Pop to aid in an effort to make some shelter for himself. The dragon had taken flight elsewhere after a cryptic comment about wolves. Then Thurin was captured in some of his lies and Bork was under the impression that Pop was a real wolverine. He did “bury” it in the lair by kicking the dirt back into the hole. Meanwhile Finta was poking holes in Thruin’s comments and arguments – proving that the mage (who was saying he was a cleric of Baldur during all of this) was not trustworthy.

Guyus tried to smooth the whole mess out but then a pack of wolves did attack. The three veterans from Chirkis Keep accorded themselves very well, dispatching two of the wolves and frightening off the others. Skins were cut and the group had a difficult time between Thurin and the volunteers. Camp was established and we rested.

Dustdevil did return at length, bringing some deadwood he had found and then lit with a blast of his breath. The fire lasted only two hours of so, but it was welcome during the night.

It was then that Thurin cast a charm spell on Korg Blackstone and another one on Finta Eightfingers, ending their frustration and mistrust of the mage with a pair of failed will saves. It was after we had all woken from a cold and fitful sleep that Perrin and Guyus were surprised and concerned at the two other veterans 180 degree changed feelings on Thurin. Nothing was said but the two men were going to watch Thurin carefully as they tried to make sense of what happened.

We broke our fast, mounted up, and in the driving rain at 7 AM on the 2nd we rode off following the muddy line in the badlands that headed off in the direction the orcs had run.

Meet 147, Adv 12, 10/15/11

2011-10-25T22:26:00.000-04:00

This was the 2nd half of the epic fight. It did not go as expected when I originally envisioned it, but honestly I think it makes for a better game and adventure based upon the way it ended up going.

The paladin really came through in making this happen since his actions singularly changed the actions and reactions of the vrocks and the BBG who finally had come to be seen.

It was almost a TPK, but two characters did remain elusive throughout the fight and they will be pivotal in effacing a rescue for the rest of the group.

Write up to a very epic combat and fighting sequence follows - Enjoy - I know we all did!:

Aleron, deaf and his ears ringing, gathered up the fallen Norris and proceeded to bring his fallen companion back inside the gate. The horse with the broken leg was still screaming. Detheron laid his hands on Guyus and healed him, Draugmor came up to the druid (while still invisible) and announced his presence, Ludwig cast a healing on Gwyn, Thurin was taking stock of the many dead bodies upon the ground, and Mebali was heading towards the gate to help Aleron.

The battlefield was a mess. Draugmor then took Coscles (the Lycos Sun operative still affected by the held spell) arrows, bow, as well as his Lyreth medallion. Thurin took the other held operative’s Lyreth medallion. Aleron tried to let the group know that the orcs which had been patrolling the grounds some 15 minutes or so ago were nowhere to be seen. This caused the group to become concerned. Detheron called out for another Call Lightning spell, Thurin and Mebali came to the cemetery graveyard, looking past where Aleron was commenting that the nearest home had some movement within.

At that point there was a rending sound and the walls of the closest structure split open, revealing four, 14’ tall orcish giants, each armed with a 12’ great axe. There were then three flashes of rainbow light and three sets of 4 crossbow wielding orcs appeared on the next closest 3 buildings. And finally we heard a mighty cry of “GRUMMASH!!” as a horde of orcs came down the nearby street in and clashing of axes and shields, riling themselves up into a fury.

It was at this point that the air above our heads split open and a gap thirty feet long and 20 wide tore through the reality of space, out which floated a wildly dressed mohawked individual, body clad in flapping robes and murder in his eyes. He shouted down, “The cart and its belongings are mine – the rest of the foes are yours to take as you want!” The orcs sprung forward to attack, their cries deafening to the group.

Ludwig called to Freya, blessing the entire party. One of the groups of orcs went first, showering Mebali and Thurin with bolts. The wheelwright went down while Thurin was able to shift into sparrow form and tried to fly away. Coming from the rent in the air were a pair of vulture like humanoids, their bodies trailing black shreds of shadows. They swooped down from the sky at Djohrgahd’s call of, “Get the wagon!”, diving to the broken cart on the ground.

As the vrocks were diving, Guyus the paladin snatched the explosive rod from Gwyn, pressed the button, and burst the wagon into pieces. Gear and boxes went flying. Only about a third of the wagon was still in one piece. Djohrgahd gave forth a horrible scream of anguish as the paladin sneered skyward. Then four more of the orcs fired their crossbows from other parts of the battle. One of them hit the transformed Thurin – spinning the sparrow out of the sky with a bolt in him! Ludwig was also hit, the bolt staggering him, the Halfling tripped and dropped.

One of the closer giant orcs grabbed one of the charging orcs, picked him up, and hurled him over the gate and into Aleron! The orc, spun through the air yelling, “Grummash”, and slammed into the ranger. He tripped backwards and fell over Pisser. The next giant orc threw his armor class to the wind, charged forward, and snagged the wheelwright, picking him up and chucking him into Guyus. Mebali howled as he hit the paladin.

Detheron called to Frey and summoned an Ice Storm, the cyclone of driving sleet and hail slammed into the ground just outside the gate. It barreled into the giant orcs just outside the gate, blinding the area and all within, knocking them to the ground. Orcs charging forward tripped upon hitting the perimeter of the spell and fell over.

Digger charged forward and assaulted the closest orc that was thrown at Aleron, tearing into his chest and slaying it. Pisser struggled to his feet. Aleron also climbed up, glancing at the fallen orc. A few of the orcs did not run into the storm, instead back tracking and running behind the nearest building to try and arrive at the cemetery from another angle.

Four more of the orcs shot at Detheron, only one of them actually hitting him. The druid grimaced but did not fall. The two vrocks diving down activated mirror image, making 3 more of each of them appear. One of them gated in another vrock which also dove at the group. They shimmered the area, cursing the battlefield, overwhelming Ludwig’s Bless and empowering two more negatives on the party.

One of them levitated chunks of the fallen bones and gear, moving it towards the rent in the sky. Another snatched at Guyus, it’s claw slammed into him, and flew him about 30’ in height. The last vrock also levitated more of the fallen gear from the ground and sent it towards the sky.

Mebali struggled to his feet and made to run towards the tarp, flailing by Detheron and Ludwig. Gwyn drew his repeating crossbow, took aim at the giant orc, and held down the trigger. All 6 bolts slammed into the orc but to the dwarf’s chagrin, he did not fall, stagger, or died. Ludwig got to his feet, grabbing Mebali’s failing hand and tried to drag the wheelwright further under the tarp.

At this point Djohrgahd cast Suffocation on Detheron, the spell also affecting Mebali and Ludwig. The air was sucked out of their lungs and the three of them fell over gasp and wheezing. Guyus tried to slam the vrock holding him with Gwyn’s rod, striking the demon, but only popping one of the mirror images; leaving three of the vrocks still over him.

Aleron was being shot by the roof bound orcs, two more bolts streaking towards him, one of them hitting him again. Thurin finished his transformation, polymorphing into a grey ooze and sluicing the bolt out of his body. Four more orcs shot, two more at Detheron and two at Guyus. The druid was struck once and the paladin and his vrock carrier was missed entirely.

The two “held” members of the Lycos Suns from earlier were suddenly able to move as the hold ended. The closest giant orc with all the bolts in him roared, stormed towards Gwyn, and whipped his giant ax the dwarf, slamming him for 20 points of damage. The druid tried to keep crawling, gasping from the suffocation. He pulled out his potion of resuscitation and fumbled about the muddy ground.

Digger raced towards the giant orc, the giant wolverine biting and snarling at his ankles. The giant orc slumped to the side, Digger tearing his throat wide open. One of the held Lycos Suns members drew his sword and backstabbed Gwyn, the short sword slamming into his shoulder and cutting deep. Pisser then whirled on the other Lycos Suns man (Krag) and tried to savage him, failing. Aleron assaulted Krag, not doing much.

The orcs in the street, about a third of them attempted to fight through the driving ice storm, most of them making almost no advance. Another third had come around the back of the nearest building and were stopped at the icy fence, frowning. Another four count of crossbow bolts were shot, peppering around Aleron and Gwyn. Coscles, the back stabbing member of the Lycos Suns was struck by an errant shot and pitched to the side.

The vrocks continued to lift the broken gear towards the rent in the sky while one of them slammed into Gwyn. Luckily the dwarf was missed by every blow. However the 2nd vrock did hit Gwyn twice. Inside the ice storm, one of the giant orcs actually crawled to the edge of the driving sleet, his monstrous head poking free. Mebali continued to gasp for air, crawling across the floor.

Gwyn pulled his scimitar free and leaping into the air hacked and stabbed at the mirror images and actual demonic figures. The Lycos man, Coscles, was caught in the wild swings of Gwyn, struck. He did pop two mirror images from one vrock (leaving a single mirror) and popped the same two from another vrock. From there he raced towards the tarpped area, leaping over the gasping druid.

Mebali slumped down, hitting zero hit points. Djohrgahd then shot Guyus with multiple magic missiles as well as the gasping druid. The paladin was staggering, barely conscious but still holding his sword. He used his sword, twisting himself free, broke the demon’s grip and fell to the top of the wall. Aleron was still being shot by random crossbow wielding orcs, Krag also taking a shot.

Thurin changed himself back into a sparrow and then bee lined for the small window in the mausoleum. One of the giant orcs did crawl out of the ice storm. Aleron was fighting off Krag’s assaults, blocking them easily. As for the other third of the orcs they began climbing up the broken roc, using it as a ladder to scale the cemetery gate.

Detheron crawled to Gwyn, potion vial in his hand, gasping for breath. Digger assaulted the nearest vrock, biting and snarling at their ankles, popping one more mirror image vrock! Coscles struggled to his feet, sword in hand and began stalking towards Gwyn. Aleron slammed at Krag, sword and dagger working. More of the orcs continued crawling across the storm field. Meanwhile orcs nearest the fence started lifting other orcs up, piling them on top of each other – but they slipped and the mass of 5 of them fell down.

A group of orcs took long range shots at Guyus, most of them missing, a few dinged off his armor. The nearest vrock dropped a darkness spell over the paladin and then telekinetically shoved him sideways. He tried to make a jumping leap to save himself, but slumped over and stepped off the wall – dropping 25’ to the ground. He hit with a clang and passed out – hitting zero.

The vrocks them turned their attention on Digger, tearing the dire wolverine badly. The other vrock physically lifted the rest of the cart and began flying it up. The giant orc that had crawled backwards from the storm, climbed the nearest building up to where the first crossbow group was perched.

Gwyn tried to breath air into Detheron, but it failed. Ludwig slumped over and died. Detheron struggled to shapeshift, succeeded, but the suffocation spell continued and he slumped over dead – knocked out. However, he did immediately shift back to human and recovered a large portion of his hit points.

More orcs struggled over the roc, pouring into the cemetery. Draugmor, invisible, ran back towards the tarpped are and made some attempt to remain hidden. A single crossbow bolt did fly towards Aleron, hitting the ranger again. The orcs on top of the building with the giant orc were surprised that the giant orc screamed at them to keep shooting, so they did so – hitting nothing.

Another giant orc did crawl to the edge of the ice storm – inside the cemetery! Krag assaulted Pisser next, the war dog did not get hurt. More orcs swarmed over the roc, reaching the ground. Digger tried to hit the last vrock, failing. Coscles came after Gwyn, the two of them clanging away at each other. Pisser then assaulted Krag, biting and clawing at the warrior. The pile of orcs near the gate failed again, more orcs falling.

Crossbow bolts fell around Digger, nothing hitting the wolverine. The vrocks left levitated the last of the broken gear from the floor and headed towards the rent in the sky. Digger was struck by numerous vrock hits, the wolverine fell over and slumped unconscious.

The giant orc on the roof jumped to the wall, ran along the length. And leapt to the ground also inside the cemetery. Gwyn ignored Coscles’ assault and poured Detheron’s potions down the druid’s throat – waking him up! He hurled the empty vial at the thief, shattering it on his chest.

Djohrgahd made an attempt to dispel the ice storm – but actually failed! Pop, Thurin’s familiar, was an invisible owl, and snatched up his fallen spellbook and succeeded in grabbing it. The closest orc giant orc made a swing, popping one of Pop’s duplicates, but the familiar did escape. Crossbow bolts did fly around the flying Pop – none of them hit!

The giant orc inside the cemetery then stood up, giant axe leading the way, and swung mightily. Pisser was flattened and knocked out, then Krag was crumpled over, axe slamming him in the midsection and he fell over unmoving. More orcs came down the roc and started running into the battlefield.

Coscles, seeing he was overwhelmed by Gwyn, gave a grin and stabbed down at the Halfling, slitting his throat. Coup de grace on Ludwig and the clerical Halfling was permanently dead. Aleron turned his attention to the giant orc that took out Krag and Pisser, sword and dagger working over and over. The two of them traded a dozen blows back and forth, the ranger making a great show of himself until the giant orc hurled his great axe crossways and sent the ranger flying, his armor crumbled and down to the negative hit point, bleeding and dying.

More of the orcs were crawling through the ice storm, making little headway. Two of the vrocks were gone, only one was left. One of the last giant orcs picked up the very dead Norris and hurled him at Coscles! The bard’s body slams into the thief, breaking his neck, the two bodies bouncing off Gwyn. Detheron crawled to his feet, laid his hand on Gwyn and called a fast healing upon the dwarf.

Gwyn knew there was lots of orcs coming, but was feeling a bit alone as most of his companions were either gone or elsewhere. He loaded a bloodfire crossbow bolt into his weapon and shot it at the giant orc, just hitting him. He staggered from the effect of the poison, hurting badly.

Draugmor stayed invisible and hidden, while Djohrgahd finally dispelled Detheron’s ice storm spell. With the ice storm spell gone, more crossbow bolts flew about the battlefield. One of the giant orcs threw one of the regular orcs at the tarp, tearing more than half of it away, revealing Detheron and Gwyn.

Detheron’s Called lightning bolt was finally available, and he charged it, shooting it at the largest batch of orcs outside the fence, frying five of them. Gwyn reaches into Norris’ bag of holding, feels for the rocket, and leaves it there, changing his mind about taking it out and shooting it. Instead, he pushed his back against the mausoleum and readied his scimitar.

Djohrgahd watched Detheron and caused the entire ground to rumble and shake, dropping 15’ down as a localized earthquake shook him. And then the mausoleum fell over, burying the druid and dropping him to zero hit points and knocking him out. And then Djohrgahd left with a satisfied grunt along with the last vrock.

Orcs attacked around the mausoleum en mass, assaulting Gwyn. He dodged and blocked and dashed around. He swung wildly, hitting orcs left and right but getting hit as well. Thurin snuck out of the mausoleum and cast a Charm spell on one of the orcs, calling on him to, “Help, hit and kill the others!”

More orcs swarmed in, including one of the last giant ones. Gwyn was holding his own but being driven further and further back. Thurin ran back and hid again. Then the dwarf was tackled, with two, three, and then more orcs piling on top of him. He slumped down struggling to get to his feet but was unable to and then the dwarf was bashed repeatedly until he slumped over unconscious.

With the last of the visible party members down and Djohrgahd gone with his vrock contingent, Thurin from his hiding place and Draugmor invisible watched as the orcs grabbed each of the party members that were here, dead or alive, and trussed them up. Rudimentary bandaging was applied and then about 40 more orcs came from the depths of Kreladale to help out. Every sword, bow, bolt, scrap of cloth, fallen foe – everything was taken from the battlefield. Each fallen orc, Lycos Suns member, and party member was taken EXCEPT for Guyus – the paladin had fallen outside the city wall. And except for Iohannes, the werewolf had been shot by Detheron’s earlier lightning spell while fleeing across the local rooftops.

With nervous eyes the two elves watched over 70 orcs leave, with carts and travois and just litters of riches, running out of Northgate and loping across the scrublands to the northwest and beyond.

Meet 146, Adv 12, 10/1/11

2011-10-11T21:23:00.000-04:00

The party had given lots of thought to their fight with Vanir, Iohannes, and the rest of the Lycos Suns - arranging the place, time, and as many of the protective buffs as possible.

Due to their efforts they seriously trounced the bad guys so much so that they were able to maintain momentum even after the Lycos Suns were striking back. Having a 12th level wizard as the enemy would have normally slaughtered the party however he had been sacrifice wounded earlier by Havic and the party KNEW that the Lycos Suns did not have a cleric at their beck and call - so he would not be a major player.

However, the fight isn't done. And now the group is going to be on the other side of the coin. And it is going to hurt.

Write up follows:

We arrived at Bork Keep as clean and as ready as we were able to. It was only a few minutes before Sir Bork had us escorted in and gave us his thanks as well as the thanks for the entire town of Flat Rock. With over 40% of the townsfolk dead from the ravages of the plague there was some concern as to the going continuation of the locale but Sir Bork felt confident as far as the future was concerned.

There was nothing left in the coffers and precious little to be drummed up as far as reward could be considered, but Sir Bork was able to make a few concessions towards the group (who denied needing any reward). First, Market Square was going to be renamed Havic Square in honor of our dwarven barbarian who died during our attempts to cure the plague. Second, Three Dog Hotel, who had lost its proprietor, Blemarius, was going to be renamed Sundered Chains Hotel and be jointly handled by Blemarius’ widow as well as Sir Bork’s Castellan. And finally, he was willing to award 5 acres of homestead farmlands around Flatrock to each of the surviving members of the Sundered Chains and affiliated adventurers: Guyus, Detheron, Gwyn, Aleron, Thurin, Norris, Mebali, and Ludwig. To the group this was the most exciting result but were unsure if they could accept since no one had any skill with farming.

Sir Bork was more that hopeful that the party would just willingly settle here in Flat Rock as there was much work to do and the promise of lands would entice them to stay. If they did not want to, he would have the land offered to other prospective people (should anyone want to come back north and settle around here), paying the party the rental costs when that time would arrive. The group was very thankful and accepted this as an equitable solution. We also picked up Draugmore, a wild elven king’s thief with a charter from Count Cedric himself and impeccable references.

From there we wanted to leave town as fast as possible, making our way towards Kreladale and our encounter with the Lycos Suns. By noon we were gone and pressed on as fast as we could towards High Mesa. Once there, Detheron transformed into a falcon once again and scouted ahead to give the place a once over. He made 4 passes, doing his best to stay as far over the outpost as possible. He did note that the area with the mausoleums in the middle of Kreladale cemetery had some sort of tenting over them, some oilskinned tarp. There was the butt end of a wagon seen.

In addition, he could count at least 5 figures about, two of which were filling holes (graves) not under the tarp. As for Kreladale itself, the main roads had some orcish figures patrolling the outpost; maybe a dozen. He returned and told us of what he had found. We went over our plan a bit and then decided to press on.

As expected, at 2 PM, a sudden thunderstorm materialized over not only the badlands, but for miles and miles in all directions. The sky grew dark, clouds became dark, and with a crack of thunder, the rain began to fall. Visibility dropped to a thousand feet and the group quickly donned baladranas as soon as possible. After waiting a few minutes the party began firing off spells. Extended call lightning, polymorph self, protections from fire and lightnings, protection from normal missiles, longstrider, even greater magic fang for Digger. It ended with an Invisibility 10’ radius for the party and then we pressed on as fast as we could towards Kreladale.

We came upon the southwest gate where a few minutes observation let us know that the orcs were walking patrol and seemed pretty regular, about 80’ or so apart. At the end of West Road they looked towards the cemetery and made a thumbs up and nod before turning the corner. Ok, the orcs were patrolling for the Lycos Suns.

We broke the party into 3 groups of 4 and spaced ourselves out, invisibly of course, to follow in between the orc patrollers to the end of the block and then to the small road that would lead to the cemetery. Once there we stood silently off the path until all parties were back together. The cemetery had a single guard at the gate, signaling to the rest of the Lycos Suns beyond each time the orcs gave the all clear. The gate itself was closed with a wrap of chain. Was it locked? Someone was going to need to get closer to check.

Aleron volunteered and the ranger relayed back that it was held closed with chain and only a slip of wire bent around itself. But getting it open would alert the guard. What to do next? Our protection spells were slowly passing by as time marched on, the minutes ticking by until they expired. We needed to do something and do it swiftly.

Detheron pointed to the sky and channeled a bolt of lightning from above, calling it down so it struck the gate, frying the guard next to it as well as blowing Aleron back and away. Thurin rattled off a Hold person spell, causing two of the lycos sun to freeze in place. Ludwig sang off a Bless spell. Guyus called his warhorse and mounted up. And three of the party members armed with Lyreth medallions stormed the gate, knocking it open as the lightning scored chain was weakened from the blast.

The guard at the front was slain by the blast and a few of the lycos suns were able to fire arrows at us. One of the slavers used a mirror image spell on themselves and we heard Iohannes under the tarp confirm with Vanir to stay put as he was going to change. A large figure with a two-handed sword tried to stop Guyus but the mounted paladin was undeterred. King went into the cemetery and charged towards the lone archer taking cover along the northern mausoleum. A flaming sphere blossomed into space AT the party, only Detheron avoiding any damage due to his protections. More of the party charged into the cemetery.

Magic missiles flew and Guyus charged at one of the lone warriors, hacking his down as he charged up. Digger tore into the two-handed swordsman, the dire wolverine worrying at the figure. King ripped one of the Lycos Suns apart, beating the archer to death. Another lightning bolt slammed down at Detheron’s call. Our surprise attack on the Lycos Suns caught them ill prepared and the party was carrying the momentum.

Iohannes, in werewolf form, leapt out from under the tarp and assaulted Guyus, his claws ripping into his steed and causing the paladin to send his companion back to the astral plane. A Charm spell shattered against the party. More lightning flew. More magic missiles flew. A female warrior in platemail with a very deadly mace kept trying to smash Guyus to the ground. King charged under the tarp and ripped the female mage there near Vanir to shreds. Vanir cast disintegration on the ape and he burst apart in a spray of green dust.

Iohannes made a HUGE leap, 60’, avoiding Guyus and landing amongst the spellcasters outside the gate. Most everyone who did not have a silver weapon found their equipment weakening with each blow. Mebali and Norris tried to hold Iohannes in place but the werewolf was much too strong for the two of them. Norris was laid low, the half elven bard slain by Iohannes.

Most of the rest of the Lycos Suns were either down or dying. Vanir fired off an Ice Storm which pelted most of the party members still in the open. Another bolt of lightning arced down, tearing the melee site apart. Draugmore attempted to climb on the wagon and proceeded to ride the horse and wagon away. Vanir’s spell he had cast earlier finally went off, and a 225’ wingspan roc appeared, it reached down and grabbed the wagon and horse, attempting to fly away. The enemy mage teleported on top of the roc and made some attempt to flee. Another lightning bolt arced down. The roc was going to escape. Draugmore leapt down to safety.

Iohannes jumped back into the battlefield. Aleron seeing the roc and Vanir was to escape took out Norris’ dwarven rocket and launcher. Oil and a lit candle was tossed down the stone tube and one of the precious rockets followed. The blast the came next was so terrible that it deafened the ranger and streak of fire shot up to the flying Roc and blasted the mighty god-bird apart – 250 hp of damage. It crashed back to the ground, Vanir falling with it – the mage taking 190’ drop like a stone where he hit the ground in a single bone shattering smash.

Iohannes made to flee; Detheron scored another lightning bolt at the escaping werewolf. It howled horribly. He transformed into a falcon, kept pace, and dropped two more bolts from his called lightning down on the werewolf until it failed to move anymore and the battle ended.

Meet 145, Adv 12, 9/23/11

2011-10-07T13:23:00.000-04:00

The group had decided on which of the two adversaries they were going to go against, opting on Vanir and the Lycos Suns as the target of theri aggression. It was going to be the culmination of 2 plus years in game realization where they would finally take down the guy who was 2nd in command in their original incarceration.

I hesitate to mention this...but Vanir is the 2nd in command. Not the first. That would be Djohrgahd Wolverton. And when he realizes what the group is going to do, the shit will hit the fan.

Write up follows:

As Gwyn explained what happened both Mebali and Thurin looked on with growing concern and disbelief. What was going on? Were the guards coming back? Where is Havic? Mebali offered to go search out the missing barbaric dwarf while Gwyn would stay and watch over the party. Meanwhile Thurin “borrowed” Aleron’s patents of nobility and brought them to his room to forge a copy.

In short order Sheriff Ulric Van Renselyer showed and took over the investigation, questioning Gwyn of what occurred. His inexperience was very obvious in short order and Gwyn tried to paint the Red Clouds and Karis of Melbourne as the villain. Meanwhile party members were waking up slowly, most of them in poor poor condition. Norris wanted to go to Split Beard Tavern as he had to drop off the 11 cures of the plague for the local thieves guild and Lamelon as promised. Gwyn took the bard with him.

It was while at the Split Beard that Norris was asking about Lamelon (finding out he was a custodian at the Lost Wind Orphanage nearby) that Gwyn observed a figure in a grayish cloak paying too much attention to Norris and himself. It was when the man in question tried to duck out the back door that the dwarf dragged Norris outside and had him sit on the side of the building. He then ran to the narrow alley, dove down to a pile of garbage, and took out his crossbow with a “web” arrow at the ready.

As soon as the side door of the Split Beard tavern opened into the refuse littered street, Gwyn let fly, engulfing the grey cloaked figure in sticky strands. They two of them bandied words, Gwyn not letting on that he was the dwarf and stayed hidden, telling the engulfed man to spill his guts. Yes he was from the Lycos Suns and was here on order of Iohannes. There were 4 of them about town, watching inns and taverns for the party, with orders to report to Kreladale immediately as soon as we made any intention of leaving Flatrock.

He did speak of Iohannes inability to be hurt and Vanir’s overwhelming craziness. Gwyn informed him that they should leave the Sundered Chains alone and give the party a wide berth or the next time he would just kill them. Then he gathered up Norris and went off to the Lost Winds to give the antidotes to Lamelon and finishing up his payment to the local guild. From there the two friends headed back.

Meanwhile the rest of the party was waking up, Detheron dropping lesser restorations on the group along the way. Aleron had vomited all over Detheron’s room and was taking his job to clean it up seriously. Detheron went down to check on the “damage” downstairs, but the local sheriff and militia had already taken care of cleaning up any potential clues. Even the body was missing. Coming back upstairs we talked about what to happen next, Gwyn and Norris returning as well.

Detheron took Aleron’s cleaning bucket and settled down to scry on Mebali as he and Havic were both now still missing. It took some time (and hour) but we did get and image of Mebali lying somewhere dark, his head bleeding slightly. On pulling the image back to get a better view of where he was, it was very dark and then we saw a grave near the fence line of the cemetery, a marker of three sticks with a single crossbeam marking the site. Sonovacrap!

What about Havic? The scry showed nothing. With little time left, Detheron changed it over to Karis and saw him on horseback riding in the dark somewhere in the badlands, men riding with him and behind him. And then the scrying pool ended. We needed to find and rescue Mebali.

Some of the party went off to the cemetery where a rusting spell took care of the lock and we snuck in. It was Pisser who found Mebali’s scent and the party used Digger and Pop (polymorphed into a dire wolverine) to dig out the wheelwright and then help tear the coffin cover off. They dragged out the weak and beaten up Mebali (5 painful wounds!) and limped back to the 3 Dog Hotel where he told his tale.

He did not find Havic at first but did run afoul of the Lycos Suns. Their overtures of friendship where long gone and the group of them held him in place while Iohannes took him time beating the wheelwright up. They asked questions, hit him some, and mulled over the answers. He did learn that Havic was dead and according to Iohannes it was at the hands of Vanir. The wizard was badly hurt and resting at this point and the Lycos Suns were on their way out of here and off to Kreladale. They dumped Mebali into a box and shoved him into a shallow grave.

The party thought about it. Where to go? Lycos Suns and Kreladale or Glittercap and Karis? It was decided that Vanir was the threat and the Lycos Suns as well – and if Havic did indeed die and beat the hell out of Vanir, then we should strike now and soon to maximize the barbarian’s efforts. At shortly after 10 we fell asleep with the knowledge that we would have a big day on the morrow.

We awoke, broke our fast, prayed, and then composed a listing of what supplies we would need and would need to get in and about town. Detheron went to Zinthar’s where he gave the eccentric druid the last of our miracle dirt, getting a favor of a two day storm later on. Guyus went to the Tradegoods where he got a large pile of gear we would need, and Norris went off to the taxidermist for esoteric magical supplies we might need as well as components. It was just about 10:30 when we reconvened at the 3 Dog Hotel, split up what gear we had gotten, and were getting ourselves ready for the meeting with Sir Bork at 11 this day.

Meet 144, Adv 12, 9/17/11

2011-09-27T07:05:00.001-04:00

I like town adventures although it generally doesn't do much as far as xp is concerned. But with a large group I don't get much opportunity to role play "down time" or just a good party/tavern crawl.

But in this case we had one and as I had expected, the BBG had made a visit at a time when the party could not directly conflict with him.

Of course one of my players decided to do that anyway and critically screwed up the BBG big time! In doing so he also killed himself in the process but it did derail the current path the adventure was going on for the next 2 meetings.

That's what I like - when the party takes my plans and forces me to dump them. No kidding - really - it makes for a better game for everyone.

Write up follows:

As Guyus was mounting his paladinial steed the rest of the party was trying to plead with the knight that he was making a large mistake. Confronting another person here, in town, now? This could only end badly especially since we did not know WHAT Karis was doing here. Guyus began trotting after Karis’ fading form. Gwyn was contemplating a dose of stun poison to the horse, some of the party was following, but it was Detheron and a call to Frey to hold the animal that stopped Guyus’ ride.

While there was arguing in the street over what was happening, Norris ran down the alley behind the 3 Dog Hotel to try and follow the half-ogre when a figure confronted him from the darkness. Another man was there and would not let Norris pass, holding him at bay with his rapier. The two men bandied words, a tossed net, as well as a slash or two and the other figure tried to whistle out a sleep spell which failed. Great, a bard of some sort. He whistled out a message spell to someone named Maulin and Norris backed away. The two men walked back to where they had come, Norris unable to follow Karis through the alleys and the other bard successful in stopping the half-elf in his attempt.

As for the rest of the party, they had gotten Guyus calmed down and eventually the party was given to understand to follow Karis was not an option. Most of them went back to 3 Dog to rest while Detheron and Ludwig went to Grey Raven Hospice to heal those who needed their help. It was a bit after 11 when the party was all together again and we talked about what was to happen next.

Karis and co (Red Clouds) were here and seemed to have no interest in the Lycos Suns – instead looking for information on Kysoth. As in Kysoth’s Helm, the item Havic had gotten in Glittercap. We wanted them to go and to leave soon – but needed to lure them out of town. We decided to forge a copy of Frink’s map as well as the paperwork/page from Kysoth’s tome and get a local member of the thieves guild to sell it to the Red Clouds – thereby outfitting Karis and his people with what they wanted, getting them out of town, and doing it in a way where the Sundered Chains was not directly tied to it.

We needed to find the local guild and Norris went to the Split Beard Tavern, taking Aleron with him as muscle assuming something went wrong. The bard walked around, buying a drink or two, playing a song, and subtly reaching out to the patrons there. Two of them did speak with him, one was a loud youngish man named Anannis who was clumsily trying to signal being a thief but failing at it (Norris eventually left him behind), the other was a average nondescript man named Lamelon who was indeed a member of the local guild. Norris explained what he wanted and they settled on a deal of roughly almost a dozen doses of the antidote the alchemist was working on.

The two friends left and Norris made a drop of the documents when Thurin was done with them, meanwhile Aleron did take 5 crowns from Anannis offering to do the job the young man wanted (seemed to be a marriage certificate dated at least 5 days ago).

We awoke at 8 and took breakfast where we shared what we had learned and went over what our plans were today. Thurin and Mebali were going to go back to Morei where they would continue to help the alchemist. Supposedly an aviary was sent to Dilabria and we were hoping that a lifting on the quarantine would occur that would allow other alchemists up north to help the beleaguered Morei and Flatrock in making more distillates and cures.

The rest of us went to the Grey Raven Hospice where Father Timon Beerdrinker had tapped a number of “holy” casks of very potent ale. We joined him and what acolytes here in numerous toasts and then we started getting patients, passerbys, anyone who wanted to drink and party with us on successfully curing the plague. The hours flew by and the group of revelers had gotten to almost 60 by this point. Detheron had miscast a spell and one of the personages was floating upside down by a single foot. Most everyone was either comatose, blitzed, or incapable of much of anything. Only Havic and Gwyn were mostly vertical, their dwarven constitutions overriding most of the effects of the alcohol.

But it was when Havic noticed that Iohannes was here, and one or two other members of the Lycos Sun sharing a brew with everyone…as well as Vanir. Holy crap!!! The dwarven barbarian tried to have Norris cast a spell on him but the bard miscast his own spell and made 9 members of the party turn invisible! Taking advantage of the situation, Havic snuck behind Vanir, took out his enchanted boar spear “Jotunfang” and stabbed the mage from behind! He hit him a second time and hissed in the mage’s ear.

Vanir reached back, grabbed the dwarf, and a ring on his hand flared to rainbow light. The two of them disappeared! Havic was dropped to the floor in some strange room somewhere, Vanir right in front of him. The mage’s hands came up but the dwarf was a split moment faster. He whipped both of his enchanted Lightning Javelins and hurled them. A crackle filled the room and a blast of twin bolts tore through the mage, hit the wall, bounced back, and did so again and again until both the dwarf and the mage slumped over – Havic’s last sight before dying was Vanir staggering, his clothing on fire.

Being as the party was drunk, no one noticed what happened, either Vanir appearing or Havic disappearing. Iohannes and his people left and Gwyn watched them go. By this time it was about 4 and most everyone was unconscious except for Gwyn, Detheron and Guyus when representatives from Sir Bork had arrived. We were summoned to the nobleman in fact this was the 4th summons today (the others had fallen victim to the ale and party).

Staggering (except for Gwyn) we walked out of the Hospice and across town to Bork Keep. It was Marketday though and Detheron took us for a detour through the stalls – eventually filled with a desire to purchase an entire 200’ long spool of braided leather cord. He dumped most of his commons and carried his purchase with a drunken smile. We arrived at Bork Keep, gave up our weapons, and went in to see the nobleman who was apparently waiting 6 hours for us to arrive. He was not happy.

Plus when we did arrive it was only 3 of us and two of the group was practically blindingly drunk. Gwyn tried to talk to the nobleman, explaining that we did not get any of the summonses and that we were relieved from curing the plague and were caught up in the festivities. Sir Bork was understanding (sort of) and left it to Gwyn that we should all come back to see him tomorrow at 11 AM.

From here we went back to the 3 Dog Hotel, Sir Bork having lent us two guards to help get the party home. Upon arrival though the proprietor was sitting there unmoving and our hackles were rising. The door down the hall opened and suddenly web arrows filled the air. It immobilized most of the group except for Gwyn who was just under their sticky reach. Aleron had awoken long enough to find himself stretched out in the webs.

But the last figure down the hall was the red leather jerkin wearing figure of Maulin, the mage and second command of the Red Clouds. He disappeared in a spray of sparks and one of the member busted into a nearby room. Gwyn gave chase and heard splintering wood – eventually seeing the shuttered window in the back had burst open and the figure was down the alley and gone. However in the bed was a very charred and burned dwarven figure, Gwyn had no idea the significance

The webs were cut free and the guards went back to inform the militia what had happened. Gwyn brought everyone to a single room and was laying out broken glass in the hall as an alarm when he heard a zap behind him.

Blinking into the room with his unconscious companions was Maulin. He had a wand pointed at the dwarf and his hand was hovering over Detheron. They exchanged words, Maulin saying that Karis wanted only a second item now (what was the first) and then would leave. He took Detheron’s magical staff Heimdall’s Bulwark and the two foes exchanged a last set of quips before Maulin blinked away.

Meet 143, Adv 12, 9/10/11

2011-09-22T21:54:00.000-04:00

Sometimes characters die, other times campaigns end, other times characters are retired. I don't remember all of them and I'm sorry to those that I do and have forgotten, however when able to I do bring back past PC's for cameo appearances now and again.

This time I've turned a former PC, friend, and party leader into the enemy. The party knows he was a bad ass and what some of his strengths were, but they also know that it's been a year and a half in game time and the bad former friend has gone over to the dark side and joined with the other adventuring group that almost 2 years ago kicked the party's ass - and apparently took over as leader.

They don't seem as anxious to face their former companion as they once did and are even more unsure of the firepower he now has at his beck and call.

Write up follows:

At the border of Rakewood with the autumn sun slowly making its way towards the horizon, Aleron had his falcon fly off to the east to scout the area for any trouble that might be there, finding none. With care we walked across the badlands towards the dotted shape of the northwestern homesteads until the sun had set and just around 10 we arrived exhausted at Frink’s old home.

Where to put the 59 pilgrims we had as well as our own sizeable group? We cleared out the two homes as best as possible and situated all the children and some of the women there. Then we set up smaller camps around in groups of 5 and 10, hoping the sky would remain clear throughout the night. No fires. It was to be a cold meal at best and the group now about 70 in number slumped off to sleep.

Havic took first watch and he realized very swiftly that this was a BIG group of people, over a large area. And we were out in the open. The time passed and when it was through he awoke Mebali. Throughout the night, whoever was on watch had their eyes opened and ears alert. The badlands were quiet for the most part, only a strange noise closer to dawn from the north.

We awoke a bit after 7 and after prayers and breaking our fast we decided not to head back to Flatrock via Kreladale to avoid any entanglements with Vanir, orcs, or the Lycos Suns. So instead we would walk south for two hours and then use the far sight of High Mesa as a landmark and make our way towards the city.

We did have to pass by the Dunbury homestead where we were told to leave and go away by whatever hermitage lived there. Around 10:30 we shifted our path east southeast and after noon came through Northgate with our charges in tow. The Hetman of the pilgrims and his 3 adjuncts were taken into custody by the local militia, escorted to Black Court for failing to adhere to the quarantine the town was under. Meanwhile word of our return and supposed “cure” was being spread. The guards did say that Iohannes and the Lycos Suns had come in this morning with a new passel of dirt, bugs, and other possible points of contagion and were at the Alchemist’s tower with Morei now. And there were new adventurers in town also; their leader was a giant of some sort.

The group did not want to meet Iohannes or this other group at this time so they went to the 3 Dog Hotel where they eventually grouped in one of the rooms to discuss plans and possibilities. We wanted to find out what was going on at Morei’s so Norris opted to go. Meanwhile Thurin was going to copy a set of Thane Kysoth Beldenstone’s notes and Havic was out to get his hammer from Coogan Smithery.

Norris returned with some poor news. Morei was there as well as Iohannes and a handful of his men, but also a large figure, almost 8’ tall, half-ogrish, clad in heavy steel armor and a greenish cast his brown skin and mismatched sized eyes. Who was he? Someone from another adventuring group, Red Clouds, and he was angry at Iohannes and did not want to leave until the Lycos Sun’s representative would speak with him.

We talked about this figure until it was postulated that this might be our long removed and erstwhile leader/companion, Karis. The description matched, the attitude matched, and he did have some dealings with the Red Clouds – specifically the former leader a brutish fighter-type named Feldon. Was this Karis? The Red Clouds already had a problem with us from over a year ago – we needed to verify this.

Aleron volunteered to go to the Far Travel Hotel and seek out any information on the Red Clouds and what was going on. Were they with the Lycos Suns? We needed answers. The king’s man ventured off eventually getting to Sword Gate where he spoke with some of the guards there and counted 11 of the mercenary types hanging outside. He had some conversation with a member of the Red Clouds, a fairly astute figured named Maulin, and Aleron was verbally rebuffed, the ranger leaving with what graces he could and then went to the Far Travel to get information that way.

The innkeep was willing to talk and a few coins passed to pay for the information, learning that there were 7 or so main members and 5 or 6 hirelings/henchmen. The leader was indeed Karis and most of the Clouds did not stay in town, hiding outside the town near the stables. They had been here for a day or so and seemed to be paying day to day – wanting to leave whenever the Karis figure wanted their party to go. Aleron left and once outside – felt a bit odd and lightheaded – but kept going back to the party, telling them what he had learned.

We needed to know when Karis was going to leave the alchemists as we did NOT want to run into him at all, keeping our presence a secret. Thurin sent his familiar, Pop, to hide outside the alchemist’s tower and would let the mage know when the ogre left.

At this point Havic and Aleron went to the Black Court where they presented Corvalis Trueborn with the pages from Thane Kysoth Beldenstone and told of Glittercap. The dwarven magistrate grew wroth, wanting to know WHY the party did not bring the supposed disease origin to the lab yet? We had a wrap around explanation where we spoke of Karis and him being there was going to cause a problem. Corvalis dispatched a 4 count of the court officers to Morei’s lab with orders to tell Karis to leave the alchemist at this time as he was impeding the search and processing of a cure for the people of Flatrock.

We did learn that someone from the Red Clouds had come to the court earlier this morning for any information about a Kysoth, it was memorable because to Corvalis this was the 2nd time in the same day that anyone brought him anything about Kysoth. We thanked the magistrate and rejoined the party, happy to learn through Pop that Karis was indeed escorted away.

At 3:30 we went to the Alchemist’s Lab where we showed Morei our tick head, the egg, and assorted water and dirt. We did talk with Iohannes who was surprised at what we had brought. He told Morei that she should stop going over the items the Lycos Suns had brought and devote her attention to the Sundered Chains and their findings.

Morei was going to work on the distillate tonight, and Mebali and Thurin were going to stay and help her. She figured it would take about 6 hours to work up a successful test and then would know if it could be a cure. Iohannes volunteered to take the party out for dinner, the Lycos Suns and the Sundered Chains. He suggested the Dog and Fox and we agreed.

Dinner was at 6 and our combined group (missing the wheelwright and the wizard of course) numbered around 20. Unsure at first what to expect we were surprised to have a pleasant evening. Iohannes showed no sign of remembering Detheron or Gwyn, made no comment that the Lycos Suns had any negative dealing in the past with the Sundered Chains, and was forthcoming with history of the group.

He was looking to charter a teamstering organization but didn’t want to start from scratch, so purchased the defunct charter of the Lycos Suns and gave what past dues and fees were necessary. They then took small jobs as well as those sponsored by the Slaver’s Guild and used the former contacts the Lycos Suns had established as a spring board for the new organization. He did comment that about 3 months after they had been reestablished there was a box released to them that had been held.

It contained some contracts, a few letters, some credit marks, and 12 bronze headed amulets that looked like wolf heads. He then showed us one from his neck. He also volunteered that they were useful to get past some wards. We shared information with then and when we next noticed, it was after 8:30 and we had had a rather great meal with Iohannes and his people.

We wished them well and when they left, talked about what we had learned. Detheron was convinced that Iohannes and his people were telling the truth BUT they were also convinced that they were the same group and people from over a year ago. Was it a spell? Forgetfulness? Domination? We fretted over the possibilities for a while until the beer had run dry and there was nothing more to do except call it a night.

It was about 9:30 when we picked ourselves up and left the Dog and Fox, intending to head towards the Alchemist’s Tower and see if the items they had brought back did indeed form the basis of a cure for the plague. When they left the tavern though they couldn’t help but notice across the main thoroughfare on Cheapside Ave was a gargantuan figure riding the largest Clydesdale horse they could ever fathom finding. He was clad in a heavy set of black platemail, sported a heavy war lance complete with pennant, and was watching the group.

Guyus looked at the figure intently and was hit with a heavy sensation that it was evil, definitely and decidedly so. However, we did note that the figure was staring right back at Guyus with the same level of intensity that our paladin was showing! Karis? We sure thought so.

He turned his horse about and rode at a cantor down Cheapside Avenue away from the party. Guyus gave a whistle and his paladinial steed appeared at his will, the knight growling that that figure was evil and we should follow him now.

2nd Campaign, Meet 3, 9/5/11

2011-09-08T15:46:00.000-04:00

Labor Day Weekend and my daughter wanted to sit down and play some D&D. So we continued with Lina and Thimbles in the elusive search for the goblin general and to bring him to justice. We were in the crypt still and she wanted to stay and check out all the doors to make sure we didn't miss anything. Plus it would be fun. Her words, not mine.

I think I saw tears when Thimbles went down at -4 hit points. Scared the hell out of her. She was so proud when her next blow was a 15 and she rolled a 7 for damage - doing 9 points (+2 to her str checks due to a 17 str) of damage to the 5 hit point skeleton that had just killed her friend, companion, and father. High fives followed and she was beaming.

It was in the fight with the boss undead fighter guy that she asked, "Why did you roll the 8 sided dice 3 times for hit points instead of once?" I was showing her what went on on my side of the screen and rolled all the hit points before the first blows would fall of the baddies we would be fighting. I explained the undead warrior was more powerful than a regular skeleton (3 hit dice) and would have better hit points and better ability to hit us.

She thought about it briefly, noted that the undead warrior ended up with 15 hit points, and said, "Then lets make sure we hit him more often than he hits us! Let's roll for initiative!" she grinned with the bright yellow 6 sided dice in her hand.

I cannot tell you how proud I am and how great she is.

Write up follows:

Lina and Thimbles looked further down the corridor, noting more doors on both sides of the hall. They approached the next one and it was with a stout should and firm push that the elven warrior was able to shove the heavy stone door open.

The back of the room had four alcoves set at 1 foot above the ground and then 2’ successively above the former, in each cubby was the skeletal remains of some humanoid being with heavy skulls. Otherwise the 10’ square chamber was featureless. Lina wanted to check out the alcoves but the two friends were a bit nervous about doing so. She approached the lowest one and poked the body inside with her sword twice. Nothing happened.

After that she began sweeping out the bones, the clattering noise filling the room and echoing faintly down the corridor. Once it was empty we looked inside – nothing. She wanted Thimbles to check the next alcove but the Halfling archer wanted little to do with that. So Lina once again began sweeping bones out and onto the floor.

It was amidst the clattering of bones that Thimbles held up his hand and asked, “Hey, did you hear something?” He glanced into the hall and gave a squeak of alarm as 4 wandering crab spiders were clack-clack walking their way towards the noisy crypt the two companions were in.

Thimbles got a nasty scrape against his leg but his armor held as Lina pulled him back from the door and blocked it with her body, sword, and shield in order to keep the oversized arachnids out of the room and at bay. Her blade rose and fell while Thimbles shot at the closest spider. It was a few short strokes later that she split the crab spider almost in half and it slumped over with a guttering squeal. The ferocity of the blows and sputtering fire from Thimbles torch must have stolen the fight out of the other 3 spiders as they turned away and scuttled down the corridor, fleeing the fight.

We waited a few minutes but the spiders did not come back. Feeling safer, Lina went back to the alcoves and finished number 2 and 3 – coming up with nothing in either. The last alcove was 7’ off the ground. She braced herself on the bottom of the 1st one, using it like a ladder, and pulled herself up to prod the skeletal remains in the top cubby – when the figure within grabbed her sword blade and stopped her.

She jumped down, pulling her blade free, avoiding the walking skeleton that dropped to the floor and pulled a rusting short blade with him. Thimbles was first and ready and fired a sure shot – the arrow hitting the skeleton in the chest. And doing nothing what-so-ever. “Damn, Lina,” he groaned, pulling out his own shorter sword, “I think we have a problem.” As he was trying to get it ready though the undead pulled back its arm and thrust the Halfling full in the chest. Thimbles groaned and fell over, bleeding terribly as his breath grew weak and still. Then the undead turned to face the red faced and furious elven warrior.

As for Lina she ducked the skeleton’s directed blow, wound up her hips, arced her sword over her shoulder and uncoiled. The heavy sword swung around like a steel pendulum and smashed the skeleton to pieces in a single blow! She then dropped to her knees, used one of her healing potions on her friend to stabilize him and another from his pack to bring him back to life. As he coughed and choked and she helped him up she said, “No problem, Thimbles!” with a cheery voice. We checked over the wreckage, the skeleton had nothing on him of value, the sword was badly rusted and pitted, but in the alcove it had resided in Lina did uncover a large brass key.

We left the crypt and went back to the hall. There was a 4th crypt that we were able to open but outside of an old sarcophagus holding nothing but the remains of some long dead person there was nothing to keep our attention.

We had a problem with the next two doors; the ancient crypts long unopened did not budge from our efforts regardless of anything we tried. Giving up for now we went on to the last door. It was unlike any of the other crypt doors, situated at the end of the corridor. There was a carving on it of an angelic figure with its arms raised and a sword in his hand, fancy designs cut into the edge of the door frame. We tried to open it but the door refused to open.

Lina looked over the door carefully and between the angel’s carved hands was a deeper hole – shaped like a key hole. She took out the brass key and turned it. Long unused tumblers clattered in the lock and the great door opened.

The crypt was larger than any of the others. A heavy stone chair sat on the far side of the chamber, a skeletal figure sat in it, clad on moldering chainmail and its bony claw holding the hilt of a silver tinged sword. Offering crates and boxes were on either side of it. Neither companion wanted to enter. “Shoot at it,” Lina said.

“Why?” Thimbles asked. “If it is alive, my arrows don’t do much against skeletons.”

“If you shoot it and it moves, we’ll know it’s alive. Also it’s not like the other skeletons we fought – it’s wearing armor and has lots more flesh on it.”

Unsure at first, Thimbles drew back his bow and fired. Dead shot. The arrow hit the chainmail with a sharp report, and sure enough the skeletal warrior DID stand up and hiss at us, storming over with little red flames in its eyes and its silver sword shimmering in the air. It made a nasty humming noise and the two companions were momentarily stunned as it stalked closer and struck at Lina.

Thimbles backed up a step and shot, his arrow hitting the undead and making it hiss again. Lina struck, solidly slicing into the horror. But unlike before her blow did NOT drop the walking dead, only made it stagger back and come forward swinging.

The two friends sweated a few close hits with the undead until it connected twice on Lina, cutting her forearm open on one blow and mortally wounding her on her upper chest with a second. Thimbles risked getting brained to pour a healing potion down Lina’s throat, blocking a few of the undead warrior’s blows with his own sword until his friend was able to stand once again.

Then the two of them struck the undead figure again and again until it fell over and the fires in its eyes went dim and guttered out. As for the sword it was wielding, it glowed faintly on the floor, silvery light coming from its blade. Lina bent down to pick it up, reading the words “Silvercut” written across its mirrorlike surface. She smiled as she slipped it into her belt.

The two friends looked around the chamber for a few minutes, sat in the throne once or twice just to see, and decided that enough was enough. They were going after the ‘General’ in the goblin area next after eating some dinner. We still had Lina’s unused sleep spell and she also had a web scroll that we could use to help even the odds should we need. So we squared our shoulders, took out our trail rations, and sat down to a meal before heading off to bring the ‘General’ to justice.

Meet 142, Adv 12, 8/20/11

2011-09-07T20:46:00.000-04:00

The boss monster was a giant bloated queen tick about the size of a Hum-V and with a psionic kick to boot. Her movement sucked but since she had a free psionic blast each round to stun or knock out an opponent as well as the ability to summon the other ticks in the area if near. She was big, had only a single hit attack though that did considerable damage - but the kicker for everyone was the 5 point damage reduction which made most of the arrows and smaller weapons ineffective to hitting her.

As for the pilgrims and griffons to be found afterwards - all hail the mighty wandering monster tables. :)

Write up follows:

We finished our lunch at the Temple of Odin and once more prepared ourselves for the trip down into the bowels of Glittercap. It took 15 minutes and some shuffling with the ropes to get everyone at the base and once there we headed off to the northeast, walking through the foot deep water till we arrived at the stairs to 2nd level. Detheron had prepared a log of everburning spell on our few remaining torches and we passed them out amongst the group as we headed down.

The rain had let up by this time and the water was barely 2’ deep here now. We looked into the main chamber and saw it was how we left it. The decision was made to go and check out the shrine room once more, to see if Thurin’s charmed will o the wisp was still there. Cautiously we went to the southern door, opened it, and wandered the hall till we arrived at the shrine room.

Peeked in – and nothing. The wisp was gone. Ok. We filed in and went over what our options were and what to do next. Go down the 3rd level and find the Kysoth’s Shield? Seek out the wisp’s? Hunt down the source of the plague? We debated a few minutes over the pro’s and con’s of the options before us.

It was Guyus and his contact with Odin that lead us onward. He felt an evil presence..no two of them…just beyond the northern door. Their taint reminded him of undead. The group decided to take out the undead and do it swiftly and now. We lined up right outside the door, weapons at the ready, and then stormed the hall in an effort to take the undead down.

The hall beyond was circular on the right with about 2’ of water of the floor. A cadaverous dwarf with glowing red eyes was at one corner and in the gloom beyond was the 2nd. A few of us plunged forward but the difficulty of the deep water slowed us down and our first blows fell short, allowing the two wights to close with surprising speed and hit the group. Again, Guyus was protected from the undead’s chilling touch, but the others in the party were not, with Aleron taking the worst of the wights blows, his life force draining from him at a prodigious rate.

It was a few minutes of solid swordplay before the wights died. Healing was dispensed and Aleron was tended to by our healers. From here we had an option, move onward down the corridor or head back. We opted to head on.

The corridor turned eventually to the left and we saw how it rejoined with the main room we had come down, there was a slope of passage up that we could take or head to the left towards the current or moving water. We wanted to get dry so took the rising corridor. We walked two abreast, fighters with spears and shields in the front and back in case any giant ticks came.

And they did. Two of them.

The attacked with shrill screaming and launched themselves at the party but before their assault could amount to anything major, Thurin’s sleep spell but the two ticks down – and then a hack and stab ended them as a threat. Huzzah!

We moved on, taking care as we walked. A feeling was stealing over us, a feeling that maybe something was watching us, was keeping tabs on us. It was unnerving. The corridor turned to the left and we walked that way, and it was here that the smell hit us. It was roiling and fetid and unlike anything we had ever smelled before. And in the great opening before us were three more of the giant ticks and some huge monstrosity that HAD to be the source of the plague.

It was a tick, but large and bloated and covered in cancerous growths. Its back scraped against the ceiling in places and its legs were thick and layered and serrated in places. It had to weigh over half a ton and according to Gwyn – it was talking to him in his brain!!

From what he could tell it was a tick from over 1200 years ago, living on a dog, and then it grew ill and a fire came and the dog fell down the cistern and the tick bounced lower and lower away from the fires and it survived down here in the dark. And it wanted its eggs to grow. But the eggs often died and to date there were only 6 of the younger ticks around. And they needed blood – fresh blood to have a better chance of surviving.

The dwarf was relaying this to us as we were thinking of backing out of the room and making an escape. This was the contagion point –either the mother tick or any of her eggs. Could we fight her? Do we fight her? Can we? We noticed that as we talked about it – the tick queen was realizing our decisions in time with Gwyn’s hearing of it – so damn it – we were out of time.

We attacked.

Sleep spells were fired off, dropping two of the other ticks. Strength spells were cast. Bless spells were cast. Our fighters charged in while Norris was inspiring courage and competence to the party. But the tick queen was more than capable, she let off a psionic blast that awoke the sleeping ticks and stunned some of the party members. Guyus assaulted the queen with Aleron and Havic joining is right afterwards.

The tick’s carapace was thick and most of the bolts and arrows bounced off. And then there was the bite – everyone struck was affected by the plague as if they had suffered for 3 days! Plus the tick queen kept randomly stunning party members. It grew difficult when she summoned a swarm of normal ticks from the surrounding area – thousands of them and sent them at the group. Detheron held them at bay with a quick spell but the group still had to leap away from the burrowing insects.

One by one the party was losing strength and succumbing to the bites of the ticks. But as the last two giant ticks were taken down we were able to concentrate our blows on the tick queen as a group and before too much longer, her body was beaten and battered enough that she slumped over and died at long last.

We looked around and the chamber behind where the tick queen had been standing was the egg chamber – over 60 of the foul ovoids, each about 2’ long, in a stew of yellow and red slurry across the floor. Guyus went in, brought out one of the eggs for the party and then spend the next 15 minutes hacking into each and every over sized tick egg and splitting them open, killing the immature and often still dead tickling inside.

The party was fouled, filthy, and most like brimming with contagion. We had to leave and leave now. We took some of the tick queen’s blood as well as her head, walked back into the water and rubbed most of the filth off of us (as well as a cloudburst spell), and made our way out of Glittercap’s bowels. There was still Kysoth’s shield as well as the undead and the will o the wisps – but we had enough for now and decided that we would come back here at some other time after we took care of the plague in Flatrock. Getting this contagion source back was our first and paramount job now.

It wasn’t until 4:30 when we left Glittercap and started the long walk out of Rakewood. We would not make it to Flatrock tonight, but would easily reach Frink’s homestead by nightfall or shortly afterwards.

Imaging our surprise when we ran into pilgrims walking. 60 of them. They were pilgrims from Flatrock who were taking their chances out in the wilderness. They were heading what they thought was northwest towards the town of Northedge, and doing it this way to avoid the King’s men patrolling the roads turning back people from Flatrock for fear of the plague.

We spent some time explaining who we were (they knew of us and Ludwig as well), what we were doing, and that we had a cure with us in a fashion with the blood, eggs, and tick head. It took some convincing but the pilgrims agreed to head back with us to Flatrock.

But it was near the edge of Rakewood Forest that chance struck again – this time in the form of 6 griffons. The eagle-headed winged lions were terrifying to the throng with us and Detheron used his dwindling spell listing to talk to the chimeric beasts. They were tired and heading north for resting and molting and were tracking some signs of a large herd of man-beasts (the pilgrims) – hoping to pick off a few of the weak ones and then go.

As expected, negotiations broke down and the closest griffons tried to snag some of the pilgrims and fly away. We gave chase and missile weapons flew but it was Detheron suing the Avianstorm whistle that did the trick and THOUSANDS of every damned bird in the nearby area went nuts and filled the air with bleats and cries and songs and wings and whatnot – making visibility difficult and chasing off the griffons that were at the edge of the assault.

We did all snag a large amount of magical scroll writing feathers/quills from the fallen griffons and with lots of cure minor spells we fixed up enough of the pilgrims that we had only lost one.

It was 6 PM when we reached the edge of the Rakewood Forest and started the walk toward Frink’s Homestead to rest for the night.

Meet 141, Adv 12, 8/6/11

2011-08-19T20:31:00.000-04:00

Sometimes its little details that end up in the game that make for a memorable night. Long in the past the party were slaves and we had no shoes - so adventuring in the caves was difficult, very difficult, and around the table we called the first adventure "The quest for Shoes."

This night had us all soaked, sick, wet, and tired - and most of us did not have multiple pairs of underwear - so we had to dry out what we had. And we lost two sets - which had the trope around the table being Mako's voice from Conan saying, "Let me tell you of the days of high adventure, when we sought out the lost underwear, but that was another story."

It also happened, the party was pretty hurt, tired, and unable to function so we had to enact the rest for a full day option which was almost never done. An entire day of everyone just sitting around and healing!

Yeah - needs to happen more often.

Write up follows:

Our clothes were soaked; most of us had little else to wear. Plus the fetid water had gotten into everything. We would need to dry our clothes, to say nothing of actually cleaning them. While most of us were getting some sort of camp set up, Norris and Detheron opted to ride out of Glittercap while the sun was still up and gather what dry wood they could find from the surrounding forest.

They had only gone a short distance when they heard a horse nicker and saw a figure mounted not too far from them. Tall, broad, very muscled, his bearing was that of a king’s man and he identified himself as Aleron. He was a ranger that had been on the trail of Vanir for some time, the erstwhile wizard being responsible for the death of his mother and other atrocities that the young ranger had seen.

He had eventually been guided by the Adventurer’s guild in Cymbarton on the trail of Detheron and then through many other avenues until he had arrived in Flatrock. From there it was many inquiries (the least of which was to the crazed herbalist Zinther) that had him get to Frink’s home. From there he had tracked the group over the course of 15 hours westward to the Rakewood Forest and then to Glittercap.

The druid and bard were initially distrustful of the strange ranger. He did supply patents of nobility declaring him to be Aleron Greystone, direct lineage descendant of Baron Hadrick Greystone who had been second to Earl Maronnia during the crusade 50 years earlier. Plus he had a letter of marque from Dumethian Dracowulf and other items of reference. We warily accepted him as he was. Norris did ask him how he got past the satyr and Aleron said something about a deal to pass and purple underwear. Needless to say, that did not garner comfort to the two of them, figuring Aleron to either be strange, deluded, or a liar.

We gathered wood during his conversation and with his steed it was easy to come back to Glittercap with more than enough wood and kindling for tonight. Introductions were made and Norris stretched out what food we had into something better than just rations. Aleron filled us in on his background and we in turned filled him in on the plague, Frink, and what we’ve learned of Glittercap so far. Dinner ended just before 8 and after that we broke straws and decided who would be keeping watch and when.

Bit by bit the party went to sleep. Night moved on and we stayed inside the Odin Temple, occasionally going out to stoke the fire and turn the underwear hanging up in order to keep in drying. It was during Thurin’s watch as well that we noted a change in what was going on out there. A single glowing ball of pulsing plasma was wandering over the ground in a small tracing pattern. The elven wizard went out and approached the will o the wisp to converse with it.

This time though, even though he knew he had charmed it earlier, the will o the wisp seemed difficult to placate. In fact the longer that Thurin spoke to it, the more it became agitated. At the last moment, he cast invisibility on himself and the will o the wisp discharged a bolt of lightning where he was. Then it was some cat and mouse as the invisible wizard ran away from the wisp and back towards the temple, closing the door and waking Gwyn. The two of them watched the wisp wander about, firing bolts of electricity here and there – one of them burning Detheron’s underwear to a crisp. Then a second wisp arrived and the two of them went back to the hole towards the underground and disappeared again.

The two of them watched for a while until satisfied the wisp wasn’t going to return. However it was obvious that the fire was guttering out there and neither elf nor dwarf wanted to step out and add fuel. It was after about a half hour that Thurin went to get some rest, just falling asleep when Gwyn kicked him awake and shouted, “It’s stealing my underwear!” before running out into the dark with his repeating crossbow, a quiver of bolts, and Elfsplitter wrapped in his off hand.

Gwyn was chasing some ghostly figure outside his visible range, relying on the residual heat left by its passing, only obvious to his infravision. It ran along the edge of the Glittercap walls and then out of the camp itself. He stopped, not sure if he could get back in with the sun down. He fired a single bolt into the trees, not hitting anything. Cursing, he readied his crossbow and ran out of Glittercap and into the Rakewood Forest.

He plunged on for a short distance, confident he was gaining ground as the footsteps were growing more obvious before him. But then his feet crashed through some pine boughs and he fell – 30’ straight down into a spiked pit, his crossbow landing with a crunch just outside his reach, and a wooden spike slamming through his thigh, his gut, and his shoulder, pinning the dwarf to the ground.

He lived, but was in serious pain and unable to move.

Taking shallow breaths he tried to get some idea of what was around him when he heard from above a figure calling out, “Are you ok?” And giggling.

Damned satyr again.

It taunted Gwyn for a little bit, dropping rocks near him to piss him off. The dwarf twisted back around and saw the half goat-man was there with Gwyn’s underwear in his hand – and wearing a set of purple underwear stretched tight across his nether regions. “Huh,” Gwyn thought, “I guess that ranger guy Aleron was telling the truth.”

The satyr left after getting pissed off and ripping Gwyn’s underwear into quarters and chucking them down at him, telling Gwyn he would get a few others of the party, the dwarf losing blood slowly through the many holes in his body.

A short while passed and Gwyn heard some strange trilling noises. Something winged flew nearby and then down the pit hole, landing at his back. And then it stuck a needle into his shoulder and drank. Fuck shit damn it – stirge. And a big one too. After drinking its fill it pulled its bloated form off of the dwarf and flew up and away. Most likely to get other stirges. It was time to move.

Gritting through the pain Gwyn levered his upper body off the stake, shuddering as he did so. Unable to get off the spike completely, he took hold of Elfsplitter and hacked at the base of the spike in his shoulder. The jarring impact was sickening but the spike was cut and Gwyn gulped in agony as he caught his breath.

But three more stirges came, two of them getting a beak into the bleeding dwarf while the last one was caught with a wild grab, crushed, and hurled across the base of the pit its wing torn and unable to fly. The two unwounded ones took to the air and left again. Angry now, Gwyn lifted himself slightly off the last two spikes and cut them free. He was near death, teetering on unconsciousness, but no longer staked to the ground.

Meanwhile after a few minutes had gone by Thurin woke the rest of the group and informed them that Gwyn was gone, will o the wisps were out there, and something stole the dwarf’s underwear. We gathered up our belongings and Gwyn’s as well, strapping on armor and swords again even though we were all pretty damned tired (no one even getting close to enough sleep). Before walking out Aleron noted that there was a tick out there, a giant one, and it was partially on top of the building. Odin be damned!

We charged out and the fight with the tick was short lived as it was unable to get a good bite on anyone and jumped into the temple where it was surrounded and hacked to bits. Booyah!! From there we grabbed our underwear and followed the ranger out as he tracked the dwarf to the edge of Glittercap and beyond (Detheron making a command decision that we are leaving now and coming back some other time in the morning).

It wasn’t much beyond this that we came upon the pit trap and Gwyn far below. We rigged up some rope and Havic went down into the pit to help Gwyn out. He trussed him up into the rope and the party hoisted him up slowly out of the pit, careful not to jar his spike riddled body too much. Once out the satyr made his presence known and Norris fired off a countersong to keep his charming at bay.

Gwyn lifted his repeating crossbow and even in pain took aim in the woods where the satyr’s voice was and fired all 5 times – one of the bolts hitting the mark! The satyr was obvious and we charged in and hacked the forest fey to bits – battle done! We all noticed though that it was wearing the purple underwear that Aleron had mentioned and that had the party trusting the ranger a bit more.

Detheron, Ludwig, and Aleron all worked on the dwarf, taking out the spikes and doing what they could to stem the bleeding. We were practically out of healing and needed to rest. Thurin was badly wounded before from the will o the wisp and the elf and dwarf needed some time without movement. We decided to travel out of Rakewood since we could not get to Glittercap and try to make it to Frink’s homestead.

The ranger led the way in the dark dark gloom, an oil lamp lit to guide us and we lined our way out. Norris kept up a song in case any other fey touched creatures tried to encounter us. It was about an hour or so later that we did encounter something – right in front of us emerged ten 8’ tall green skinned trolls!

They looked at us, we looked at them, and then speaking to them in ogrish both Havic and Gwyn were surprised to find out they liked the bard’s music! We talked for a bit, they were not looking for a fight, and were willing to let us pass for a fee of 50 crowns for each of the trolls – total of 500 crowns. We didn’t even haggle – happily paying the fee and moving on, Norris Rickrolling the party through the encounter with his deft lute playing.

We slogged to the edge of Rakewood about 6:30 and once there Detheron turned into a horse so that we could carry Thurin and Gwyn who were very bad off. The trip to Frink’s took almost 3 hours and once there a few of us policed the bodies from within and buried them outside. The place was them stripped of linens and clothes and we stretched out resting the entire party the entire day.

It did us well. What healing we had was dispensed, spells were studied, books read, weapons tended to, arrows cleaned, armor repaired, even some gathering of apples and other light game went down. Our two worst off party members slept well and it was on the morning of the NEXT day, Watermonth the 27th that we prayed and reprepared ourselves and made the decision to go BACK to Glittercap.

We left at 8 AM and arrived at Rakewood at 11, eventually pushing through the woods between Aleron’s tracking and our own deciphering of Frink’s map, getting to Glittercap about 12:30. At 12:45 we set up camp at the Temple and were getting ready to eat lunch before going back into the underground and take out the source of the plague.

Meet 140, Adv 12, 7/30/11

2011-08-16T21:15:00.000-04:00

Will o the Wisp.

A monster I have used so very rarely, and probably not for at least 15 years. Normally just a creature I would skim over and look elsewhere for. I think it's mostly because of the depressive and alien feel to it, (same with the Leucrottia) that made it something I could not sink my teeth into.

Well for the underground area of Glittercap, I wanted to make it feel otherworldly. Not another dwarven mine, but something just to the right of normal, just outside the realm of expected. And for that I fashioned an area of giant plaguebearing ticks using hit and run tactics, dwarven wights with cunning intelligence, and brooding depressing globes of animated plasma.

I have to say, I should have used these things sooner - they've been a blast.

Write up follows:

We gave thought to following the two wights but decided not to risk running down the dark corridor in pursuit. After making sure there was nothing in here to concern ourselves with, we drew up back into marching order and pressed on, going down the easternmost door towards where the wights had run off to.

It was a moldy corridor, and within 10 paces our booted feet were slapping in the wet puddles that were collecting there. Norris checked it out briefly but we decided not to risk the bard walking point assuming the wights were nearby. So it was spear butts and cautious steps as we walked into the deepening greenish/reddish algae slimy feeling water, eventually it rising to 4 or 5 inches.

Corridor turned to the left and went seven or so paces before ending, a door on the right and left wall. The right door was closed mostly the left one firmly seated. Checked them both for traps and found none and according to Guyus, he felt a faint evil presence north and west – meaning the right. We readied weapons and pushed the heavy door open.

The water was here as well, what was once some forging room. Big anvil mounted to a stone plug, coal beds (empty), and a few workbenches. Nothing of worth in here any longer. The far end of the room the water was 9” deep. There was another door, this one on the west wall – also not entirely closed. And again, our paladin sensed the evil nearby.

We drew up ourselves and opened the door. Corridor was a long “U” here and the wights were separated down each of the legs, far out of melee range and hissing at a distance. They were watching us with their dead dwarven cunning eyes and waiting to see what we would do. The party suspected a trap and did not want to step out there – the water would slow our movement and they were split up – someone was going to get badly hurt.

We decided to shut the door and then 4 of us dragged the anvil and stone back, blocking the door from opening – and preventing the wights from getting us from behind. We talked about where to go next and wanted to check out the other door outside the forge room. Norris declared it safe and this time Guyus opened the door. It was stuck and required a solid shoulder which the knight supplied and the door rumbled open. He rocked in half a step, gathered his balance, and rocked back out.

At the exact moment that a 5’ diameter mass of green slime dropped from the ceiling right where he was just standing.

We backed up quickly while the slime used the water as a buoyancy device, allowing it to float after us. Gwyn used his firestaff and hurled a blast of flame at the slime, burning it and shrinking it in the process. Torches were passed out and spread and we threw them at the slime, further burning it each time while we tried to give ground. Even Mebali got in the fight but he was scarred by the slime and required some burning to get the diseased mass off his forearm.

The slime eventually was burned away and we carefully looked around, nothing else. Thirty foot square chamber, two other doors out, one would lead right back to wights. We checked the southern door and opened it, showing a long corridor running west. We hadn’t heard from the giant tick in a while and were expecting it to show up.

According to the rough map that Norris was making, there were some strange gaps along the area and we thought they might be secret doors, but the group found none. We followed the corridor as it wound eventually south and then east again – linking up with the barracks chamber at one point and another door would open up to the room with all the bodies we had first encountered the tick in. Figuring we had gone full circle, we looped back to the original tick chamber and drew ourselves up into a potential fight, heading north toward the kitchen area.

It was about here that Guyus informed us that he felt the evil presence again and surmised it to be the two wights once more – just outside the kitchen and to the right. We readied our weapons and were going to run into the hall enmass to do battle, with Guyus and his paladinial skills at the front.

We hit the wights like a hammer, Guyus severely wounding the first one and Gwyn following with a whirlwind attack that injured both of them. Meanwhile Havic took up position on the other corridor with King, expecting to see the giant tick any moment, spears at the ready to receive charge. The wights tried to attack Guyus but only succeeded in hurting themselves as they tried to touch him. The rest of the party hung back avoiding any issue if possible and watching the southern opening for any sign of the tick or other wights.

The combat was not going well for the wights who could not touch Guyus without getting burned, so one of them picked up the other, swung him around and threw him into the paladin before running away down the hall! Guyus couldn’t stop him and he was escaping until Gwyn gave chase and caught up to the fleeing undead. They clashed in the hall and Gwyn was struck, loosing life force from the chill touch.

Guyus finished off the first wight and helped Gwyn on ending the second one. And no ticks came.

We healed wounds and then regrouped, deciding to follow on, hoping to learn of the way down. The corridor continued for a short distance until we came to the other side of the forge room, a series of doors on one side of the chamber. We opened them up, seeing a strongpoint with a few dwarven skeletons there and nothing else.

With no where left to check, we followed the last of the passage until it came to a set of stairs with water cascading down the slick stones in a clockwise turn as it went down into the gloomy darkness. Norris opted to check it out, the half-elf walking some 40’ down until the passage ended at about 3’ deep of water and a closed door. IT was not locked and merely closed, and the water was seeping easily through the wide gaps in the door. He came back up to us and we talked about going down into the mess and entering the 2nd level, seeing if we could learn something before retiring for the night.

The door opened to a very large chamber, 30’ x 50’. An open archway was on the northwest corner of the room, the water slowly making current in that direction, meanwhile there was a tight door on the southeast corner of the room. Mebali put Ludwig on his shoulders as the party entered the deeper water and made their way to the closed door. We lit a lamp and handed out a few more torches while the group got ready to knock the door open.

It burst to the right and the water swarmed through the gap, lowering the depth in the chamber but also soaking the group and knocking Mebali and the Halfling cleric to the ground. We crawled through the opening and shoved the door closed behind us, the party soaked to the skin and feeling run down. We would not be doing much more of this.

There was a door to our right and the corridor, with about 2’ of water in it, went left and turned counterclockwise around some central mass of stone. We left the door and walked on, eventually coming to another door as well as the corridor continuing and turning to the right.

We talked about what we were doing and decided to open the door before moving onward. It was some sort of prayer room, four worn dwarven statues at each corner, two other doors in here. On the eastern wall in deep dwarven runes was written, “Honor to the All-Father.” We looked around for only a few moments and decided to shut the door and move on.

But we had only gone a few paces before the door opened and two of the closest statues were there, assaulting the group! The statues were strong, and our first trade of blows resulted in very little damage being done. Mebali was hit in the mid-section, the wheelwright crumpling down and hugging himself with broken ribs. Gwyn, Guyus, Havic, and even Norris pressed forward to hold the statues back, but their blows were so strong, they kept knocking the group back, clearing the space in front of the door with each swing of their arms.

Detheron called to Frey and Dispelled the magic in the area, using one of his precious greater mistletoes as a focus – temporarily dropping the magic on 3 of the statues! The group assaulted the now still statues, their weapons doing more damage with each fevered swing. The lone animated statue came closer as we dropped one, and then a second statue. Thurin turned invisible and went down the hall.

The dispelling ended and our assault faltered for a bit. A few of the party were hit hard, and the statues’ blows did also have a slowing affect on the group, dragging our movements down and making our ability to dodge difficult.

It was at this time that those of us on the rightmost area of the corridor began to grow despondent and weary, lying down and bemoaning our misery. What was this sorcery? Only Thurin seemed unaffected.

And then he saw it, coming around the corner was a glowing pulsing ball of light 2’ in diameter, crackling with electrical energy. What the hell was it?

We dropped all but the last statue, that one was getting weaker and crumbling away. And then the ball of light shot out a blast of energy and shocked King with a stroke of lightning. Damn it! Thurin yelled that it was a will-o-the wisp and most likely beyond most of our skills. We plied weapons against the last statue, the group getting battered in return.

But it was Thurin’s lucky casting of Charm Monster that STOPPED the will-o-the wisp. However as we learned quickly – it was Thurin’s friend – not ours – and a very dangerous friend indeed. The statue was taken down and we dragged the despairing members of the group away from the floating energy creature. Thurin spent a few minutes with yes and no questions, learning that the wisp was down here with 2 others, there were some undead down here, and something dangerous (most like source of the plague).

We did not want this wisp following us and we wanted to leave it here and get the hell out of the subterranean chambers now. So Thurin convinced the wisp to “wait right here in this room and he’ll be right back” you know, because the wisp and he are friends. Then he shut the door and we all ran as fast as we could back through the watery chamber, up the stairs, and eventually back to the surface.

We went to the Temple of Odin in Glittercap and decided that we would set up camp now.

Meet 139, Adv 12, 7/23/11

2011-07-28T15:03:00.000-04:00

One of the things that sometimes is jarring to people who just listen into the games we play are the occasional adult and blue jokes and ribaldry that flows across the table. From big gay dungeons to countless sword jokes there is often something that comes up and makes the players laugh.

The latest meme is a deal that our druid made with his animal companion, an albino carnivorous ape that has already killed one party member and tore the arm off another. It's mate had died and the beast was lonely so when it was asked to carry the frightened wolverine down 30' of rope it balked and wanted what any red blooded male wanted - an opportunity to get laid.

Our druid informed the ape that although he could turn into an animal, it would be a male animal so there would be no recourse there. He offered to then teach the ape various ...self pleasuring techniques. But the master stroke came when the ape who had seen our mage, Thurin, practice the various polymorphing spells, asked if HE could turn into a female gorilla for him, and the druid without pause said, "Yes" without pause. And without informing the mage of his decision.

Since then we've had many jokes about this and I suspect that at some point a polymorph spell will go awry and our dangerous gorilla will get the chance to have some sweet sweet loving.

Write up follows:

Getting down the rope was fairly easy for everyone in question except for Detheron’s companion, Digger, the dire wolverine. The 140 lb wolverine had no way of traversing the 30’ drop or the rope. Detheron cast a reduce spell on Digger and then spent some time talking with King on how to bring the other animal down (knowing the carnivorous ape would be able to climb without issue).

Then the conversation turned into some strange discussion where King was lonely since his mate, Kong, had died and he wanted a female gorilla companion. Would Detheron be willing to transform into a female gorilla? The druid said that he transforms yes, but not into a different sex. Then there was some pointing to Thurin, the transmuter mage making no secret of his ability to polymorph himself when need be. King wanted to know, if he risked bringing Digger down, would Detheron get Thurin to transform into a female ape for him?

Without hesitation, or even explaining it to anyone else in the group, Detheron heartily agreed.

Satisfied now, King picked up the reduced Digger and the two of them went down the rope to the floor of the cavern, the druid shaking his head and wondering how he was going to explain this deal…and even if he should explain this deal.

Once down here, Detheron cast Log of Everburning on a pair of torches and between Mebali and himself, we had enough light to see clearly. Norris volunteered to explore the 4 passage choices, Havic going with him. The two westernmost ones that went north and south only travelled about 40 feet before coming to an end. Each one ended at a blank wall but we did learn that some time in the long ago past, they were trapped (spear traps) and the traps had gone off.

As for the two easternmost ones, the entire complex was at a slight angle running north east, so the water running into the place from the hole above due to the rain ran in that direction and after 20 paces or so, we noted it began to pool up, about 2-3 inches of the foul water covered the ground. Looking down there, the corridor turned to the right but even at the limit of our torch range the passage continued and it continued to deepen.

This left the southern passage so we lined up into marching order, taking care of the 7’ ceiling, and walked on with care. At the end there was an archway on the left, most likely at one point a wooden door was there, and the passage did turn to the right. Norris volunteered to check it out. It was when he was looking to the passage that something burst from the dark archway and drove him to the ground.

He screamed as whatever it was shoved its head into his back and began to SUCK blood straight out of him. Giant tick. Huge. About the size of a small pony and weighing well over 60#. We tried to drive it off, but most of our weapons just bounced off its thick carapace, before it disengaged itself from Norris and screaming shrilly, jumped back into the dark of the archway.

As for Norris, he was shivering, sick, pale, and staggering – and to both Detheron and Ludwig, it was obvious he was infected with the plague. And infected as if it had incubated within him for almost 3 days unchecked!! We did not see the tick in the next room and we dragged him in there where Detheron spent some time binding his wound as well as asking Frey to remove the disease affecting him.

A quick look at the room, it was some sort of gathering and it was filled with bones, well over 60 skeletal remains of dwarves, dwarves that had died over 1200 years ago, died from the plague. We did notice blood smears in three places: roughly even with the portal we entered, near the south end of the room by another passage, and near the north end of the room, by a third passage. Also there were 2 other doors on the right hand side of the chamber.

While we were clutching weapons and trying to get a bead on the tick and any other issues around, we did hear a shrill warbling scream from the north, followed by some splashing. The tick had gone north.

After 10 minutes of guarding every portal and the tick not returning we took better stock of the place and our choice. The two closed doors on the right were stone, heavy, unlocked but stuck, and we heard nothing on the other side of them. The portal to the south opened to a short hall with a door on one side and another portal on the other. And finally the archway to the north did open to a short hall and then some larger room, most likely a kitchen.

There was treasure scattered about the room, but a fast Detect Magic revealed three items, a set of silver spectacles, a craftsman’s hammer, and an iron rod like a truncheon. We spent some time deciphering what they could be establishing that the spectacles would aid in reading, the hammer in some sort of blacksmithing, and the rod was some sort of magical truncheon with a button that when pressed caused the next hit to be VERY impactful.

And according to Gwyn, to his infravision the kitchen room was a good 15 degrees warmer than the room we were in. We decided that since the tick went this way, we should check it out. Carefully we approached the room: table, counter, old oven, stone cabinets, some chairs. And it was warmer. Was it the over? Not too sure. A fast Detect magic spell was fired off and something magical was glowing from within the cabinet. Nice.

And the cabinet opened a short 3’ tall lizard looking figure with vestigial wings came out holding a helm that was glowing with a detect magic spell on it and began gibbering in some sibilant infernal tongue. No one knew what he was saying and then 4 others came out. Havic beheld the helm and knew it to be Kysoth’s Helm. It took him a moment to rage and then the barbarian stormed forward, spear out and at the ready and he flung one of the little men away, barreling him into the table and chairs.

The creatures all burst into flames and then they charged around Havic, one of them racing towards Gwyn. They scratched and swung and bit, but didn’t do any real damage to the group. And then Detheron called to Frey and unleashed a Quench spell on the group of them, dousing their flames and killing them in the process. The battle was over before it began.

We looked over the cabinets, it was a nest of some sort for the demonic figures and we took a smattering of gold ingots and a few other stones before going back to the other chamber.

From here we opted to go to the south passage and check out the door on the right, noting that it was partially open. Norris carefully explored it and saw it was a blank wall beyond the door with a spear trap already fired off some time ago. The spear head was silvered steel so we took that with us and moved on.

The other choice to the south was a larger chamber with another door out of it, and was at one time used for pottery or ceramic. A large kiln was still here and there were shards on the floor but nothing else of value. There was also another passage out of here on the north wall which we verified met up with the other corridor we had originally came down.

The door on the south east end of the room was looked over, declared to be untrapped and unlocked. But it refused to open after being unused for 1200 years. Gwyn and Havic spent a few minutes bashing their shoulders against it until it opened. A short corridor ended at another door further down. However, Detheron’s warning spell against snares and pits was blaring at him and the druid made everyone stop as he pointed out (to his eyes) what was an obvious pit trap.

It was closed, stone lidded, and most likely according to Norris’ observation be triggered on 50 lbs or so of weight upon it. However, about halfway across, there was a locking point where the two sides of the lid meet up and with a bit of luck, a skilled engineer could force the pit locked with a spike and hammer. So our bard crawled across, rope at his waist, braced against the wall and keeping his weight back and well distributed and disarmed the pit. Well done Norris!

We travelled across the surface (no issue anymore) until we came to the door. Again it was closed and stuck and Gwyn and Havic did their dwarven run and bash at it, forcing it open. This revealed a smallish chamber with 5 very dry papery skinned wrapped dwarven bodies in here as well as two other doors on the other side of the chamber. What were they? Sir Guyus, our paladin, informed us that two of the bodies were decidedly evil – which we took to mean undead.

Guyus, Havic, Norris, and Gwyn were in there, getting ready to hack off the dwarven skulls when the stood up and attacked. A hit was blasted against Havic and the dwarf howled in agony as the undead not only hurt him, but also sucked live force and energy from him! Damn it – wights! Quickly the party tried to run back and make room, no one being eager to do battle with the debilitating undead. Sir Guyus felt safe as the undead would be hard pressed to touch him but Havic was struggling to keep his back with the end of his boar spear.

Norris kept moving backwards through the party, allowing the rest of the group to step forward. Detheron called to Frey and a flaming Sphere appeared, just missing Sir Guyus but easily hitting the wight. Thurin crept in and made his way to the corner of the chamber.

And then something big, black, and screaming shrilly barreled into the back of the party, just missing Norris and sinking its head into the dire wolverine, Digger. The damned giant tick was back. We fought both sides of the battle line now, two wights at the front, one of them already going down from a smiting of evil. The tick infected Digger with the plague and drew out a thick quaffing of blood. Digger let go a blast of his blinding musk, making Detheron, the tick, and Norris sick – while blinding King. The ape grew nervous and swung out wildly, hitting Detheron a few times before relaxing.

As for the tick we hit it a few times (including the use of contact poison!), Norris actually grabbing one of the legs, but it jumped away, leaving its prickly chitonous appendage back in the bard’s hands. The last wight went down and the battle ended. More healing and curing was done.

We bandaged wounds and passed out what cures we could, eventually just relaxing a bit longer. We ate lunch and then drew ourselves back into marching order. Of the two doors in here, we forced the northern one open first finding nothing but a small closet. So we instead opened the other door and there was a hall that went some distance and then turned north. We carefully went, keeping care of where we were going, listening all along.

At the turn, the passage went north, a side branch about half way down to the left and at the end of the passage was another left turn. We went to the first passage and looked, 10 paces to a closed and locked door. Norris broke out his lock picks and spent a few minutes on the door, eventually opening the lock. We opened up, and it was what would have been the thane’s private chamber. Bed, chest, drawers, mosaics on the wall. We did confirm that the mosaic on the wall showed the helm, shield, and bludgeon – the helm of which matched the one on Havic’s head.

From here we followed the original passage out and kept going, eventually getting to the last left turn and walking down with care. The passage had a door on the right hand side about half way down, and there was another door at the end – which Detheron and Norris surmised went back to the original room that we had faced the tick in. So it was this rightmost door that we forced opened and looking in and around.

This was at one point a barracks, sleeping chamber. It had been sealed up so although it was in ruin, there was still enough organic material in here to give us a sense of what was here before. Two other doors in here, one on the far eastern wall, the other on the closer western one. And the eastern door was partially ajar.

Norris went to check it out. Nothing special. Did we want to open it? No…no we didn’t. So he closed it. And when he walked away, it opened again on its own. Alright, not cool. So Norris leaned his weight against it while the rest of the group gave the room a fast once over.

It was towards the end of our search that Norris noted the door “bumped” him from behind. Bumped? Something pushed slightly from the other side. Quickly we drew up into battle formation and got ready. And then Norris swept the door opened and two wights, dead dwarves, came in. We struck a few quick blows but it was Ludwig who called to Freya, asking for the power to send these undead spawn away that turned the tide and the two wights fled back the way they came.

2nd Campaign, Meet 2, 7/17/11

2011-07-22T00:08:00.000-04:00

My daughter and I were alone this weekend and she wanted the opportunity to play D&D again, even though my wife was currently in Florida. So we took out the original two characters, the ones that had gone into the guard tower in the back of the basic red book, and continued where we left off.

In my desire to keep it simple and still true to the same sort of fun adventures I had done when I was first playing, I this time took her to the dungeon below the guard tower - which I used from the AD&D ruined monastery found in the DM's guide.

I did not prompt her on what to do or where to go or how to do it, trusting in her to make critical decisions. She decided to burn the webs overhead. She jumped into the pool of water to get the scroll tube. She recognized that her character was immune to ghoul paralysis. And she came to the conclusion that if the goblins had bags of flour and grain, then someone in the town above was working with them and is a traitor.

I could not have been any more proud. :)

Write up follows:

Lina Inverse, elven warrior-mage and Thimbles Mooserider, Halfling fighter, both went to the general store the next day and geared up on fresh arrows, oil, and other sundry required goods. By 9 AM they had stowed all their gear into their backpacks and headed off to the old keep on the edge of Brevoy in an effort to find and bring the “General”, a shadowy figure controlling the goblins and their latest kidnapping schemes against the townsfolk, to justice.

We had already been to the guard tower of the keep before and it was only a few minutes to verify that nothing new had been set up there since our foray into it yesterday. We worked our way to the back and once more went down the hole in the floor to the basement. To the north were a series of cells that we had already cleared and to the south was a locked door that went to a set of wide steps running down. Thimbles lit a fresh torch and we went down the steps with careful feet.

At the base of the steps was a largish room with a vaulted 20’ ceiling where cobwebs hung in heavy sheets. A dozen or so thick bags were in the south corner and there were three decently wide corridors that allowed exit from the room, one to the east, the south, and the west. Lina looked at the ceiling with a squinted eye, untrusting of the many webs hanging there. She held Thimbles back for a moment and then asked for his torch. Climbing back up two of the steps she reached up to the nearest thick canopy of dusty webbings and ignited them.

The fire crawled with surprising speed across the ceiling, sweeping up with a faint “whoosh” as it moved across the room. Clods of cooling ash filtered down, along with dozens of tiny charred spider bodies. However it was with some surprise that the two friends beheld a huge spider, just about the size of a cat, hit the ground just ahead of the racing flames. It turned towards the two of us and scampered forward eager to bite us.

Thimbles was just a split second faster as he tugged his short sword free and speared the arachnid with a single blow, killing it. Lina looked the spider over and said, “That’s the biggest spider I’ve ever seen! I want to get its fangs!” She then proceeded to spend a few minutes struggling to get the spider’s fangs free using the edge of her sword, rope, even her boot, but it was when Thimbles said that if she slipped she could wind up getting poisoned that she gave up trying. We did pick through some of the crud on the floor, finding a goblin skull that Lina turned over to dislodge a garnet from within. The Halfling shrugged, “I guess he was swallowing the gem when he got his head cut off?”

We then went towards the bags and the elven warrior prodded them; nothing came out to assault us. It was obvious after a short look that the bags were filled with both ground flour and grain, and there were many of them. Lina said that there was no place to grow the grain down here and it was obviously the goblins’…so someone from Brevoy must be working with the goblins and most likely the General. There was a traitor somewhere above.

Filing this information away for now and knowing that once we leave we’ll take care of this problem, we looked over our situation. Lina took one of the torches from the wall and helped her Halfling friend check out the exits from the chamber. Three other ways out, and looking down each of them, the east and south went as far as our torch light while the west ended at a stout oaken door. We decided to check out the door first.

Listening to it we both were able to faintly hear some sort of low moaning beyond. She lowered her torch to the ground, readied her sword, and pulled the door open. A stiff breeze blew in, making the torch dance wildly before guttering out, plunging us into darkness. Lina’s infravision kicked in and she beheld the rough walls of a cavern beyond with a swift flowing stream coming from one hole in the wall, ponding, and then flowing out another hole. There were some barrels of some sort in the middle of the room. Other than that, the room was uniformly cool.

They could not get the torches relit and Thimbles was nervous not being able to see. Lina remembered that she had oil and we had a plan, going back to the entrance room we set a few of the bags of grain and flour on fire and tossed them into the windy cavern, allowing us to see. While the light lasted Thimbles checked over the barrels and Lina looked at the water.

In the middle of the pond was a skeleton of some sort, lying flat, very rough and craggy looking. And in its hand was a scroll or map case. As the light was fading, Lina stripped off her packs and weapons, waded into the water, and dove down for the case. She grabbed it and came up cold and sputtering, the cotton gambeson under her platemail was soaked and freezing. The two friends left the chamber, shut the door, and returned to the entrance room.

Once there Thimbles ignited a few more sacks and made a small fire while Lina took off her armor and cotton under clothes, doing her best to wring them out while she dried herself off. Thimbles looked over the case and broke the seal, unfurling a single piece of paper. It was a map of some sort and after showing it to Lina the two of them recognized the entrance room as well as the stream and cavern chamber. It was a partial map of the dungeon they were in.

The noted that the path south led to something marked ghouls, which Lina informed Thimbles were dead people that attacked you and paralyzed you. She didn’t have to worry about that since she was an elf and could not be paralyzed. Thimbles retorted, “They can still attack and eat you. I won’t go towards any room where the people within can attack, paralyze, and eat Halflings!!” The map did indicate the eastern path had a few turn offs, something referred to as the crypts, and then eventually a goblin sign with two marks underneath it. Thimbles pointed to that and said, “That mark means someone important.”

They decided that that area was where the “general” was and should go there to take care of him. On the way they would pass the crypts and Lina suspected that if they were undisturbed, the two of them might find a little treasure in there. They went east, watching where they were going as they walked along. The passage turned to the left and there was a “T” to the right. The map indicated that to the right was the direction they wanted to go (even though looking further down, they did see two doors at the end of the corridor).

After 20 paces they came to a passage to the right, and 20 more paces to come to another one. Even though the corridor did continue on, it was this right option that led to the area marked as the crypts. Torch held high and sword at the ready, the two friends walked on. A stout door was here on the right, and then 4 more paces another on the left, and the same 4 paces beyond that on the right again. Lina pressed her back against the door, but even her considerable strength wasn’t enough to budge it.

They went to the next door, this one giving way. The crypt beyond was about 10’ square, with a stone sarcophagus on the far wall. Tentatively they approached the box, noting that it seemed undisturbed. Thimbles stepped back, his bow out and an arrow at the ready while Lina shoved the cover off.

SNAP!

A hairy black claw snapped out, just barely missing the elven warrior. A large back and red carapaced spider with two humongous crab claws scrambled out, trying to bite Lina’s arm. She snatched it away barely in time. Thimbles fired, hitting the spider and causing it to skitter sideways. She poked it with her sword and another crab spider came out from the casket.

The two of them were grabbing at Lina, pinching her armor, snapping at her wrists. Thimbles shot again and again, causing the spiders to stagger and weave dangerously as they took damage from his arrows. At one point Lina got a lucky blow and her sword sheared one of the spiders in half, turning the tide of the short desperate fight and in a hail of sword cuts and arrows, the last spider went down with a shudder.

We checked Lina out, finding no real wounds to worry about, and then looked in the sarcophagus, snagging double handful of silver and copper coins. Bagging them up, Thimbles picked up the wavering torch from the floor, took out a new one and lit it, and the two friends turned to go further explore the crypt area of the dungeon.

Addon, Adv 12, Glittercap History

2011-07-19T22:09:00.000-04:00

The tome found in the temple to Odin was in poor shape, most of it was unusable, but the last few pages were still legible and covered the final three entries of the dwarven settlement.

In my milieu, I have the world created by the various god with the races being created as well and each one doing their own specialized niche. Then the gods leave the prime material plane to those followers and the dragons take over, demanding horrific sacrifices from everyone. A coalition (eventually!!) of dwarves, elves, giants, and ogres eventually band together and using god born magics and divine power weaken enough of the great dragons to allow all races to rise up and become free.

As usual, elves take it upon themselves to take over from the dragons after a few centuries and when the dwarves try to curtail the elven ascendancy, they are declared anathema and the elves wage and almost 1100 year genocidal campaign to destroy the dwarven people; a time I refer to as the Kinslayer wars. Eventually peace is made but only because the great elven and dwarven kingdoms are shattered and with their slow birth rates and millenia of lost magics, there is no reason to continue warring. And in this void, the barbaric races of goblin, orc, halfling, and man begin to flourish.

This is a glimpse of the dwarven point of view from about 1200 years before the current time of my campaign:

Watermonth 11th, 225th year of the 26th Age.

Reinforcements from Hammerheld have not arrived as expected or promised. We are running dangerously low of our food stores.

Seven month, 4 days, and as of this penning 11 hours now, Prince Malifys Goldenborn and his army has made their attempts against us and they have been rebuffed constantly. The walls of Glittercap have held not the least in thanks to the weave blocking effect of the Asgardian crystals. No elven sorceries can hit the walls or come past, their dweomers die at the perimeter, their magics fail. And as the great Wyrms from ages ago taught us when we rose up against them, when spells and magic fail the tyrants are nothing more than mortal.

We are of the earth and to the earth we will return, but not until Prince Goldenborn pays for his desire of dwarven genocide.

Thane Kysoth Beldenstone, Glittercap.

Watermonth 18th, 225th year of the 26th Age.

Prince Malifys Goldenborn made a tactical error today. Calling upon the unseen magics of his race, he sought to awaken the entirety of the Eastern Woods against us, trusting in the might of oak and ash to batter our walls. Twice thirteen of his people drew blood and chanted and the sun did dim and the air tremble. They cut the throats of hundred of orc and human slaves to empower their spell, the earth drinking deep of blood and gore as the barely conscious primitives ended their mortal moments beneath elven blades.

The power filled the woods, the leaves burned bright as silver and as one the trees bent as giants and lifted their trunks and roots free of the earth to walk towards Glittercap. The Prince cackled like Loki, lightning forming a halo about him as he guided the arboreal army forward to bury our walls.

He had forgotten about Filcher’s Tower above, suspended in the heavens below the gabled arches of the Bifrost Bridge. As the trees marched overland and came our way, we sent forth a dozen of our terrible rockets to burst in the sky in the pattern agreed upon with Subthane Filcher Skystone before he and his clansmen lifted the tower heavensward at the start of the siege.

It roared and burned and howled as it broke free of the Rainbow Bridge and the Filcher’s Tower struck down like Mjolnir at the heart of the marching trees. The blossoming explosion charred the earth like black glass and destroyed the entirety of the treant threat and a material portion of Prince Malifys’ thralls. Our prayers go with the fallen 134 clansmates who go now with Reorx to sit with the All Father in Valhalla.

Thane Kysoth Beldenstone, Glittercap.

Watermonth 22nd, 225th year of the 26th Age.

The treachery of elves is beyond mortal ken. Spells, arms, spears, arrows, slings, stones, and strength did fail to breach Glittercap. The unholy desire of elvenkind to eradicate dwarves knows only irresolute horror and mystery to me and mine. But it is something they have not relented in and now I know that we here will also fall.

Poison. A horrible contagion concocted by the foulest of the elven spellmeisters was brewed and set at the borders of our wall, delivered by thousands of arrows each bearing a single drop of the diseased taint, plunged into the soft earth to fester into the stones, earth, and soil of our home. I can hear our dying on the walls, I can hear our dying in the keep, I can hear our dying under the ground. Their dirge fills the space between the rocks like mortar.

Prince Malifys does not want our treasure, our belongings, or even our servitude – he only wants our deaths. And our deaths he is getting. I can see beyond the walls that his troops are already leaving, moving on to other places and other strongholds to take out our people. He spares not a single glance back at us, ignoring the fever and pestilence that consumes our forms, the black diseases that take root in our flesh. We are nothing to him.

And if to him we are nothing than I shall return the favor. As the last of my people die I leave this journal in our most holy shrine to the All Father as testament of we who were here. I shall leave afterwards and drag myself to the spire of Tallkeep and let fly the final weapon. The burning fires will consume our bones, the plague within the soil, and reach out to engulf the elven horde. The light will be seen in Asgard and Heimdall himself with sound the clarion call on his silver trumpet to mark our revenge.

Thane Kysoth Beldenstone, Glittercap.

Meet 138, Adv 12, 7/9/11

2011-07-19T10:29:00.000-04:00

I like making maps and handouts for the group, and don't take advantage of that too often. So in this case I knew there was a scrap of a map and a found bit of history that the group could either hear about - or find.

I like dwarves. And halflings. Elves and gnomes are a bit distant to me, too otherworldly for me to truly enjoy. I prefer the earthier races when it comes to demi-humans in both play and history. Where the group is adventuring is the remains of a massive dwarven thanedom, in fact the last largest dwarven homeland before the elves and dwarves denuded themselves centuries ago, reducing their numbers, and allowing the the age of man, orc, and goblin to arise.

Write up follows:

Before just running westward towards Glittercap, we spent some time going over the map we had found from Frink’s place. One side of it showed clearly a section of forest known as Rakewood, with Glittercap noted within the arboreal interior somewhere. The opposite side had a series of words on the back but they didn’t seem to be complete and made little sense.

It was after we poured over the map for a while that we saw it was very creased and folded in some places; so with a bit of trial and error we followed the folds against the words on the back and learned that there was a written description on HOW to get through Rakewood as well as a number of markers we should be looking for.

Detheron transformed himself again into a falcon and took off, looking over the land to get a bird’s eye view and see if he could spot Glittercap. He returned shortly afterwards despondent, saying the forest was very thick and there was no sign from the air. So we trekked off, eyes peeled and ready for trouble.

About a quarter after three we arrived at the borders of Rakewood. The forest was very old and dense. No game trails were obvious within and there was no sign that anyone had been here before. Composed almost entirely of Oak and Ash trees, the underbrush was thick and was going to slow the party down. According to Frink’s notes on the back, we had to look for a notch. So the 8 of us fanned out and spent some time looking for anything out of the ordinary or notchlike.

It was discovered maybe 20 minutes later, a tree a few feet in from the border had been struck by an obvious axe blade, leaving a notch in the trunk. We drew up into marching order, with Guyus volunteering to take the lead. Detheron called to Frey and settled an Invisibility to Animals spell on the party. And then we entered.

Within 20 paces the light coming in was diffuse and green, and 20 more paces showed no sign of the outside of the forest back the way we had come. We kept careful pacing, the paladin trusting to his inborn sense of direction to keep us heading as westerly as possible as per our instructions. It was a short time later that we heard piping, a simple melody playing over and over again. Norris furrowed his brow and identified the instrument as pan pipes. Right after that he groaned, took out his own musical instrument and proceeded to play a countersong as we most likely had a Satyr (or more) nearby.

Indeed the satyr did taunt us, all the while staying hidden in the leafy underbrush. Norris kept up his countersong and we traded words with the fey who grew disappointed at us for not letting him have his fun. We marched onward as per Norris’ advice and after a few minutes Detheron had the party stop. He had asked Frey earlier when we entered Rakewood for a boon to allow him to detect snares and pits and sure enough, his enhanced sight did see some sort of swinging deadfall up ahead. He was able to point out where it was and the party stood back, triggering the trap. A thick tree trunk swung down from above and would have creamed anyone within the path. The satyr in the woods cursed and we heard it storm off. Norris didn’t take any chances and kept up the countersong.

After walking the prescribed number of steps we fanned out, looking for another notch, eventually finding one. We turned north here and walked for some distance until we arrived at a hollow tree as indicated on the map. One more turn to the west and we strode 87 steps as the map showed and then stopped. The next and last hints were "kneel, one eye, and golden line." It was only a few feet away that we saw a patch of dirt without any brush growing in it. It was the only thing that seemed out of place, for there were no apple trees, no city, and nothing but the same thick forest we had been in since we entered.

It was when someone was kneeling in that spot and shut one eye that the forest wavered before them and they saw a clearing with a ruined dwarven outpost beyond. The walls were falling down, octagonal shaped, and each corner sported a 20’ tower with a roof of crystals glistening in the sun on top. It was after kneeling for a minute or two that a golden beam of sunshine reflected from the nearest tower top and ended just at the person’s limit. When we reached up to touch it, the person was jerked forward a few feet and within the zone of Glittercap.

Those within could plainly see those outside and both sides could hear one another. One by one we all kneeled and entered except for the animals who were able to enter without issue at will. It was just a bit after 5 at this time. Thurin tried to detect magic, but his spell ended immediately. Detheron tried the same, and it too failed. However other spells did work, so it seemed that detection spells were blocked on some level.

The city was very old, both Havic and Gwyn assured us it had to be over 1000 years old. The walls were mostly down in most places, about 1/3 of them still standing. As for the buildings within, there were only two of them undamaged. On the eastern side was what seemed to be a storehouse of some kind, and to the south was a temple to Odin, however the roof was truncated somehow and there was a dwarven skeleton wrapped around the shortened steeple. The rest of the buildings were the remains of a keep, some walls to a hotel, a trading post of some sort, armory, and finally some mining structure. A cistern had overflowed many centuries ago, making a red and greenish tinged pond covering a good 1/5th of the outpost’s available floor. The deep sound of dripping could be heard and in our looking around we saw a hole about 8’ in diameter near the edge of the ponded area.

The western side of the city had about 30 apple trees there, the center ones thicker and older than the ones on the perimeter. Each tree had at least a hundred apples, and they were all the same faintly glowing red and goldish color that we had come to expect from Frink’s Applejack. Meaning we had come to the right place. Now we needed to find some source of the contagion as per the Alchemist Morei. However we knew the sun would be setting soon so we wanted to find a place to hole up and then spend tomorrow searching in earnest.

We went to the temple and through some magic and effort, got the door open. Stale air rushed out and we looked within. It was a small temple, home to maybe 100 seated personages. A set of stone steps circled the perimeter going up to the belfry above. There were bodies here, dwarven skeletons long dead, all in the temple, over 50 of them. Their equipment had long ago rotted away and there was nothing here that gave clue to how they died. We looked over the altar, nave, and inner sanctum, eventually finding a decaying tome where the last few pages were still legible.

We learned that the dwarves were over 1200 years past and were victims of the elven genocide against the dwarves during the kinslayer wars during that time. And according to our reading, the plague was fashioned by elven spellmasters to obliterate the dwarves which it did so in a single day. However, the leader, a Thane Kysoth Beldenstone, unleashed a final weapon which supposedly killed all the elves and what dwarves were still left, and should have destroyed the plague.

It seems that for 1200 years a small piece of the plague survived underground somehow and it what this plague that Frink had gotten, brought back with him, and eventually infected Flatrock with. We were sure now we would go under the ground tomorrow and find the origin of the contagion and bring it back to help make a cure. Ludwig cast a light charm on a single coin and it was dropped down the hole out in the street, showing it was 30’ down and some sort of cavern floor. Meanwhile Havic went up to the belfry and eventually the steeple to cast ceremony on the dwarven remains there and set it to rest. It was during his ceremony spell that he felt a touch, a connection with the long dead thane, who told him of his three Odin blessed items: Shield, Bludgeon, and Helm. Together they were stronger than any one separate. If Havic could prove himself the items would be his. He came down invigorated and convinced the party they had to go under the ground tomorrow not only for the plague point, but also to get the shield and or helm which might be down there.

We decided to look over the only other sealed building, the store house. Again it was opened and we saw it was divided into two sections, stone and timber. The timber section was bare and a small wave of bugs, beetles, and ticks swarmed out. Once clear we looked finding nothing of interest. Detheron cast Air Walk on Norris and the bard went to examine and explore the tops of each tower and what walls were still standing while the rest of us set up camp in the temple and looked over the keep or at least what places we could get to due to the standing water.

During the search, Norris uncovered two large boxes, one of which had 5’ long tubular metallic devices that tapered to a point at one end and the other side had a sort of papery feel to them. He suspected they might be the selfsame rockets that had been mentioned in the dwarven book the party had found so he brought them down to the group.

We ate, rested, assigned watch, and slept.

Waking up the next day we took care of what needs we had, broke our fast, prayed, studied, and readied our weapons and equipment. We then went and checked out the base of every tower, finding a few more dwarven skeletons but nothing else. And then around 25 after nine we approached the hole. It had rained so water was slowly running down one side of the opening. We set rope and grapple on the drier side and one by one, made our way 30’ down to the damp floor below.

The corridor was about 7’ tall, almost 8’ wide, and we were in an area sort of like an “H”, standing in the crossbeam section. The four corridors went off into the gloom, although we did note that the water did run towards the north eastern branch as the ground sloped in that direction.

3rd Campaign, Meet 1, 7/3/11

2011-07-16T22:33:00.001-04:00

For our 2nd meeting with my daughter, I was able to finally convince my wife to join us, effectively giving us a 3rd campaign. She grudgingly put on her game face but as with all things regarding this sort of matter, her attention span dies off about 8:30 PM (comes from having a job that requires her to wake up at 5:10 almost every damn day). We rolled up new characters and this time I was to take them into the Keep on the Borderlands - another perfect staple for B/X D&D.

We had a good time at the keep, learning of the environs, and getting what background and gear we needed. My wife told me that she enjoyed the richness of the descriptions of the place as well as the lands we were walking through to get to the Caves of Chaos.

We opted to go for an easy cave and it was luck that we grabbed the goblin on on the south end of the valley. We entered, turned right, and walked down to room one - where the entire party was dead by the end of the 1st extended encounter. Admittedly my daughter did say that telling the goblins to leave because she told them to was not a good plan and that if we were to do it again, (and we will) that we should be better prepared and less likely to be so pushy.

Write up follows:

At the eastern edge of Karakamekios lies the barony of Brevoy. Long has it sat on in that area the civilized people called the frontier. Degenerate goblin tribes have ran roughshod over the countryside for decades, raiding and looting at will. One by one, the walled fortresses were overrun until only a single keep remained. One keep, alone, on the borderlands of the wild.

A call has gone out, to all peoples of good heart and strong spirit to come to the keep and take up sword, bow, and spell and make safe the lands to the east.

On this day of Earthmonth 16th, 175 of the 30th age, the keep was home to three daring heroes who gathered together, answering the call to valor and bravery. Lina Enverse, Amazonian elven warrior mage from Greenholm, her doughty companion Seabreeze Sonata from the Myrinic Lake countries, and Smackey Dugood, acolyte cleric to Neptune – Lord of water and horses. They banded together as one and took up the mantle to clear out the lands of the goblin taint.

We were told by the Castellan that there was a series of caves to the east and north, situated in a bowl shaped valley of steep walls and terraced stones. According to the king’s men who had gone there before, the marking of goblins, orcs, and other foul creatures were plentiful there. The caves closest to the valley’s mouth were less dangerous than those further in. A freshwater stream known as the Goblinwater River ran from it so fresh water would not be an issue, but we should prepare before leaving.

We geared up on foodstuffs, weaponry, torches, ropes, and other manner of equipment until we were as ready as ever. It was the next day at 10 in the AM that we left the Borderland Keep and followed the trail east. Swamps and moors dogged the south of our trail while almost primeval forests ranges to the north. It was some hours later before we came upon the major valley as had been described, tracing our way by walking along the swift flowing banks of the Goblinwater River.

The walls of the ravine were high, almost 300 feet above us, and they sloped heavily after only three dozen feet. There were at least 8 caves that we could see, some of them closer to the ground, others higher up. It was a brief discussion on our part until we decided to enter the earliest caves and see what we were up against.

Seabreeze and Lina approached carefully, giving the entrance a once over with their superior vision. The inside was roughly hewn, but swiftly became cut and square, testament that someone or something made this lair their home. Smackey lit a torch from his pouch and withdrew his sling, while both elven women unsheathed swords and hefted their shields higher.

The cavern smelled of old bananas and moldy sweatsocks, a sure sign that goblins made this lair their home. It split into three directions from here and we decided to listen, hearing just faintly muttering chanting voices down to the right. We crept along carefully, senses alive and peaked.

Our caution was rewarded for after only 20 paces we beheld a larger chamber with 6 of the goblinfolk within. There were roasting some sort of possumlike creature on a skewer over a smoldering fire. Clad in filthy leather crudely stitched together and holding sharpened sticks with fire hardened points they chatted amiably amongst themselves.

We hadn’t been noticed yet and it was opted that Lina would attempt to convince the goblins to leave since we wanted to avoid bloodshed if possible. However her tone upon talking was not friendly and she almost ordered the goblins to “leave. Move one. You have to go now.”

The goblins spoke back in broken Hobgoblin that they would not leave and she should go. It was only a few more moments before we realized we had made a tactical error as the goblins lifted their weapons and stormed forward. One of them grabbed a sack of some sort and ran to the wall, knocking on it with it stick and shouting in its strange tongue. Another ran away, further down the corridor, most likely to rally more troops. But the last four attacked, three of them around Lina and one of them grabbing the skewer of possum creatures from the fire and hurling it like a javelin at Seabreeze, racing forward to then engage in hand to hand.

Lina was overmatched quickly, taking a few deep cuts and bumps that her chainmail did not deflect. But Seabreeze lifted her blade and crashed it down, dropping the first goblin with a wet thud. She slid forward, engaging a second. Meanwhile Smackey let his sling fly and a round stone thunked hard against one of the greenskin’s head’s.

The goblin hitting the wall hissed at some creature on the other side but it was rebuffed with a large hand shoving it back and then the secret door closed. One of the goblins around Lina hit the elven fighter again, causing her to stagger sideways and hold her wounded arm with clasping fingers. Seabreeze dropped another goblin, her sword cleaving the large nosed humanoid across his shoulder blade. Another sling stone hit, wounding another goblin.

The battle was turning at this point with the companions dropping the goblins one by one but Lina was hit hard and she fell to the ground, exactly at 0 hit points. Smackey and Seabreeze hit the last two goblins with all they had and even though they were wounded by spears, they brought the goblins low. The cleric checked over Lina and said that he could stabilize her, but we should get her out of the cave where she could rest for a few hours and regain consciousness.

We checked over the fallen four goblins, grabbed some silver and copper pieces from their pouches, and then lifted the shallowly breathing Lina from the floor and tried to make our way out.

We didn’t make it. The goblin that had run down the corridor had come back this time with 2 other friends. We decided not to abandon Lina and drew sword and war hammer again., standing side to side to block the corridor. The first goblin was chanting in it s gibbering tongue and slammed it’s spear so deep into Seabreeze’s side, that it punched through the gap in the back of her platemail and the Amazonian elven fighter collapsed with a groan, dead at -4 hit points.

It was all up to Smackey.

He lasted all of 10 seconds as the three goblins surrounded him and clubbed him to death, the cleric slumping over and dead at -5 hit points.

Lina awoke long enough to feel her naked body tossed into the stew pot and then she knew nothing else.

Meet 137, Adv 12, 6/25/11

2011-07-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

The party had done a great job in finding the breadcrumbs I had scattered about the town and were following them directly to a hermit's home to the north and west of Flatrock. I liked hermits ever since my team of Dragonbreath, ET, and Joe Schmoe kicked the scrawny hermit's ass back in B-2 when I was 12 and took his magic dagger from under the bed.

Actually, the pivotal point was the clue that would lead the party overland to an old dwarven establishment known as Glittercap when the contagion was birthed and when the eponymous hermit inadvertently found it and brought it back to Flatrock. From there it was another jaunt across the badlands towards Rakewood Forest and the dwarven stronghold.

They did fight a bullette and as far as combats go, it was short, brutal, and over quickly (it was 11 to 1). They had been warned a few times of a local legendary monster called "Razorclaw" which the party surmised to be the bullette. I don't remember saying that it was, there was never a description of the "Razorclaw" in any of the legends, and the bullette did not have a nameplate that said "Razorclaw" on him.

Are they in for a treat. :)

Write up follows:

Watermonth the 23rd, 175 of the 30th age. We were sitting in the Split Beard Tavern, enjoying lunch and talking about what was to come next when we heard the sound of commotion outside. A few patrons ran out and back in, calling that “a griffin rider has arrived! A griffin rider has arrived!” Interested we gathered up our things and went out to see what the fuss was.

Indeed a griffin was hovering about 30’ over Market Square, a rope ladder hung over its saddle horn and dangling down to the street where a single cloaked personage was clambering down. The rider stayed on griffin back and when his charge had gotten off, waved down good naturedly and guided his mount upward and back to the south, coiling the rope ladder behind him.

The crowd had stayed around the new comer and it was a few minutes until we learned that it was Norris Baldwin, our last and missing companion. We joined up with the bard and after getting him back to the Split Beard we learned about his trip to Darkwaters and his affairs there.

He and Hammerhand had split ways after a week or two of travels and once at Darkwaters Norris was quick to learn that he was presumed dead from all those months back. In fact, the other 3 members of the guild that had gone with him to steal from the Spellmaster were also dead. Deciding to use his anonymity to the best efforts, he pawned off some of the treasures he had amassed, grabbed what he had hidden around the town, and then went back to the Spellmaster in order to finish the job against the erstwhile mage as well as inflict a little revenge.

The two had surprised one another and Norris sang off a quick and potent Charm spell, which the Spellmaster fell victim to. But a contingent spell also fired off and Norris found himself similarly charmed by the Spellmaster! The two of them were now each other’s best friends and they spent a few days talking and resolving their differences. Norris, even ensorcelled, knew that the mutual charming would wear off at some point and wanted to be away when and as soon as he could. The Spellmaster helped Norris find his friends were indeed going to Flatrock and with his connections, had one of Duke Argos VII griffin riders take Norris northward to Flatrock to join his party. The journey was 4 days long.

We filled Norris in on what we had learned of the plague and our own efforts – as well as the presence of the Lycos Suns and Vanir not too far from here. We paid for our meal and then went off to the back brothel to talk once more to Madame Bie about the late Madame Lili. We did learn that Madame Lili did indeed like to drink and often would do so in some effort to clear her mind and recenter herself. She did not like ales or beer, but was partial to fruity beverages.

We left The Split Tail Brothel and went back to the Black Court where Magistrate Trueborn had his adjunct get us the location of the Hadrow Homestead (located about 1/3 mile east of Swordgate). We did learn that he was a farmer, but not involved in orchards instead mostly potatoes, beets, grains, and corn. We avoided Swordgate to keep any chance encounter with the Lycos Suns to a minimum and instead left through Highgate. Working overland we reconnected with the main road and followed directions to the homestead.

Like most of the local farmers, the 15 acres had seen better days and the people within were fairly insular, not wanting us there or to stay too long. The two were Baern and Gala Hadrow, Gala being Yuri’s daughter and Baern her husband. Yuri was well liked and a good man and farmer. We stayed and got Baern to talk with us outside the door while Gala stayed safely within. They were afraid of the contagion and were still grieving Yuri after all this time. They were in over their heads trying to keep the farm afloat and it showed as only about 1/3 of the acreage was planted and tended to.

They did learn that Yuri did get sick almost 7 months ago. A strong man he did not let it slow him down, continuing to work even though his cough never went away. In fact he had worked all the way up to the day he died. This lent the party some point of reference because even though Yuri was not the first death from the plague, he was the obviously the first infected. They asked him if he was a drinker and were told not really, but sometimes he and other locals would trade bottles of liquor or moonshine. It was here that Gala volunteered that her father had gone to town as usual on Marketday and came home, parked the trade wagon in the barn and was sick the next morning.

So sick that he never took the trade wagon out again. In fact, outside of the seed stock the two of them had been using during the spring, the wagon and all of Yuri’s belongings were still in the barn. The party really wanted to pour over the wagon and see if they could find any clues. Gala wouldn’t take them but Baern did.

The barn did indeed have two wagons, a heavier trade wagon in the back under a stained oilskin tarp and a smaller personal cart in the front. We checked over the wagon, finding clothes, farming equipment, barrel staves, plowshares, a few bags of seed stock and other sundry items. It was on the front seat that the group discovered a wooden crate with an opaque bottle labeled “Frink’s Applejack”. We asked if we could take it and Baern agreed, wishing us well.

Back at town through Highgate we went to the Alchemist and gave Morei the bottle. She checked it out, it was indeed alcohol, and was a form of heavy drink made from apples. While looking at it it seemed to glow slightly. A check for magic revealed only the most faintest faintest hint of it. She was going to look it over and keep us posted. Asked us to find out WHERE the applejack was made because it could be the dirt, trees, water, anything in that area.

From here we went to Yert’s Distillery and talked with him. He did know of Frink, a sort of hermit farmer and orchardier who liked to make whiskey. Hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him for over 6 months. Party was feeling very happy with this info. Yuri was the 1st infected in town. He had bought the Applejack. Madame Lili, Coogan Smith, and Kaza were all drinkers as well. The man Frink had been the maker and seller of such stuff and hadn’t been seen since before the outbreak. We should verify some of this and then hunt down Frink.

Checking Market square since it was Marketday, there were only a few of the outlying farmers here and n one of them had seen Frink for some time. At 4 PM we went to Split Beard Tavern and spoke with the Proprietor Cavant. He remembers Frink and would occasionally buy from him. Did some of it go to Madame Lili? Sure, but did not remember for sure. As for any extra bottles, they would have been on the bar and eventually drunk and sold.

At Black Court once more we paid the Magistrate for where Frink’s homestead was. It took a bit longer. He was about a mile and a half West of Kreladale and it seems that he had not made a 1st quarter or 2nd quarter tax payment. After this we went to the 3 Dog Hotel and spoke to the owner, Blemarius. As for Frink, he noted that there was about a dozen bottles purchased of the Applejack around that time, but it was fairly unpopular and was eventually discarded after a week or two. Which explained where Kaza the Drunk had come across them.

If the Applejack was the point of contagion and there was no more in town, why was the plague still going on? We did not know and the group wanted to do more investigating – vowing to go to Frink’s tomorrow and get some information.

Ludwig and Detheron went to the Grey Raven Hospice and tended the 5 terminal cases there this day. THEN, they went to what was referred to as “stage 7” sufferers of which there were 10 – and cured 3 of them there. Father Beerdrinker was overjoyed and every now healed townsfolk spoke highly of both Detheron and Ludwig and the Sundered Chains.

Meanwhile Norris had gone back to the Alchemist Morei’s with some spirits and some food and without using magic, seduced the flustered elven touched woman and spent the night with her. Oh yeah, Bard’s in action.

We awoke the next day, broke our fast, studies, prayed, and left about 8 AM. We left through Doggate and knew it was going to take some time slogging to get there, estimating 3 hours or so and we wanted to go nowhere near Kreladale. Around 11:30 we arrived at what was Frink’s homestead. It was quiet, and appeared that the place had fallen to disrepair. Some of the split rail fence had fallen down; the thatch on part of the roof was bowed in, and there was much churned up dirt near the front yard. Behind the home was a stand of 4 apple trees, their bounty hanging low and fallen across the ground.

We checked over the place – there were two obvious structures connected to one another. The eastern one was the distillery and it was dusty and not touched for months. There were bins filled with old remains of apples and other fruits and it was obvious that the labels about the place matched the one we had gotten from the Hadrow home.

One of the bins did have some withered brown apples that when looked at with some detection, also did glow with a faint, faint, faint aura. The same as the applejack. But not the same as the apples in the trees or anywhere else.

We fanned out, looking in both places, the western structure being the family home and we found Frink and three other very decayed bodies here. He had obviously died and so did the others here according to Detheron at least half a year ago or more. In our search we DID find an important clue, a map drawn by Frink himself showing Kreladale, his homestead, and west from here a place identified as “Glittercap” with the word Apples scrawled under it and circled.

We gathered up our belongings, took what we needed, at a fast lunch, and headed off westward towards the place marked on the map. It was while we were walking that we heard the rumble and the ground was shaking. And behind us in the badlands, churning along like a shark’s fin, something was pacing us. What was it? When we stopped, it stopped. When we walked, it followed. Damn – the legend of Razorclaw was real?

Norris told us we needed to get to stone and get there fast as it would follow our steps and it was a bit of a run to the nearest outcropping. So he whistled up a fast ditty and summoned a kobold. Who he then told to run towards Razorclaw at a tangent. The kobold did and the party waited a moment to see if the creature did chase the kobold before running ourselves.

We ran fast and watched behind us as the earth churned up around the kobold who screamed and then we saw it – a huge 8’ tall, 20’ long sharp clawed monster burst from the ground and devour the summoned kobold. Sonofacrap – a Bullette!

We ran on as the bullet gave chase and Norris tried to summon another decoy for us but summoned a Manes demon instead that immediately attacked Guyus (the paladin!). The two of them apologized to each other and then the battle was on. The Bullette was huge and it assaulted the group quickly, knocking a few of them to the ground and biting about with wild abandon. Ludwig almost lost an arm and we hacked and stabbed and tore at the creature until it slumped over and died.

From here we rested, healed up, and took some trophies from the dead Bullette before readying ourselves once more to head off towards Glittercap.

Meet 136, Adv 12, 6/18/11

2011-06-27T22:38:00.004-04:00

The party has been focused on resolving the matter of the plague, actually stumbling along a line of possibilities where alcohol or a specific type might be the point of origin. It cannot be the end all be all since not everyone drinks, but there is enough secondary evidence so far that the group has been playing a pretty good round of detectives in sussing out the elusive "patient zero".

In addition, they lucked out with the capture and questioning of a mid level personage in the Lycos Suns organization, who revealed some troubling aspects of Vanir's strange list of things he was looking for.

Write up follows:

We listened to Detheron’s layout of Kreladale and then spent about half an hour discussing possible ways to approach the town without 1) engaging the orcs and 2) alerting the men and Vanir in the cemetery of their presence. It was after a solid half hour that we decided it was too risky and we should think of another way to engage our foes. Plus we only had 2 of the Lyreth medallions and did not want to attempt a break in without more at our beck and call.

The decision was made to head back towards Flatrock where we would possibly waylay one of the Lycos Sun’s members and question them as well as hunt them over for a medallion. We thought about climbing to Chirkis Keep, the stronghold/watchtower on top of Flatrock mesa, and using that as a spotting platform for anyone walking to and from Kreladale.

It was about 5:30 when we arrived at the trail that led to the top of the Mesa. It was 200’ up and the trail had 3 switchbacks to make ascending easier. But then we thought that we did not know if any of the Lycos sun’s we spotted at the Krelian cemetery would even be coming back tonight. The decision was made to go to the gate and maybe do some investigating.

At the gate we spoke to the guards there and got some information that the Lycos Suns do go out every few days or so, often in pairs. The gate closes about 9 PM and reopens at day break. There was also some talk about a legendary beast called Razorclaw that preyed on lone people with no survivors. They suspect that the 2 Lycos Suns members might be returning tonight. A few coins were passed and to alert us should the members come through.

We went to the Split Beard Tavern and ate a fast dinner before returning back out to the road with promises that we’d be back before 9, just wanted to check out the mesa. As we travelled out, before the dusk had swollen, Detheron once more took on the falcon form and soared as high as he could, looking northwesterly towards Kreladale. Even with the fading light he spotted two figures coming this way, about 20 minutes out.

Thurin was going to take charge, attempting to charm the two men and learn what we could from them. They came closer, talking about their shift change, Vanir being in Kreladale, Iohannes in Flatrock, and other tidbits of information the group needed. Then two charms went off and Thurin emerged, giving a short intro to the two men, identified as Coscles and Narebin. They were generally friendly with Thurin and answered more of our questions, then wanted to lead Thurin back to the city at the gate closes at 9 and it was getting late.

The rest of the group was stuck – they couldn’t let Thurin be taken away. Detheron told King to take out one of the men while Havic went after the other. Havic knocked Coscles out and King, well, the carnivorous ape sort of went overboard and completely obliterated Narebin. We stripped the dead slaver of his belongings, especially his Lyreth medallion, and when Coscles came to, he was under the impression he was dead.

The party got a number of interesting bits of information from Coscles by pretending that they were judges and valkyries and giants and what not. Things like: Vanir was afraid of the plague and was in Kreladale. There were 4 men working there and every 2 days, two of them would swap out with 2 from Flatrock. They were harvesting complete unbroken arm and leg bones from the cemetery there, full sets of 4. They needed 80 of them. IT was for some potion involving lycanthropes, werewolves. Vanir had a potion that turned people in werewolves, and even one that empowered them – whatever that meant. And finally, Djohrgahd and Vanir were working towards some end result where they could empower a lycanthrope so much it would actually become and aspect of Fenris. Hence the name of the accursed book we had learned about so long ago: Necordius Fenrir Codex. The Tome of the Necromantic Key to an Avatar of Fenris

We knocked Coscles out again and somberly digested the information we had learned. Then Detheron had Pisser and Digger join King in devouring Narebin – in an effort to hide the evidence. After that the party high tailed it back to Flatrock before the 9 PM gate closing and paid off the gate guards with beer and ale at the Split Beard Tavern.

Both Detheron and Ludwig went to the Grey Raven Hospice and performed some cure diseases on the most terminal of cases, healing 9 of the plague victims. From there we all finished up our drinking and returned to the 3 Dog Hotel where we finally went to sleep very late.

On the next morning Thurin woke up with red eyes and the sniffles, not getting a good night’s rest – which meant no new spells for the day – only what he still had memorized. At breakfast he was healed of the first effects of the plague and we went over our possible places to go today. The Kennels were a definite place since we learned that the first victim, Kaza, used to be a dog handler so maybe some idea of where he went or what he did would be a place to search.

The Kennels were clean and some 200 dogs would be here at most. The kennel master, Mastran, was happy to talk and wanted Detheron to stud out Pisser for an hour – paying 15 nobles for the use of the druid’s war dog! Pisser was given over and we had some questions about Kaza posed and answered. He was a drunk and did not work here full time, eventually not given any work as he was in poor health and untrustworthy. He did love the animals though and the group then asked about plague effects on the dogs. The plague only seems to affect some animals and not others (yes to rats, horses and dogs, no to pigs and cats).

We left Mastran after an hour and then went up Slurry Road to Coogan Smithery. The current master was also named Coogan, a burly unshirted dwarf with an honest and open face. He spoke of his brother and then the next 6 who had died at and around the smithy’s family and apprentices. We learned the Coogan Smith was a heavy drinker and often bought any strange concoction that the local famers and distilleries would put together. We also learned that he died very fast, the plague eating him up in just 8 days. We thanked Coogan the younger and left, thinking about the 2nd person on the list – Madame Lili. Was she a drinker too?

We went to the Split Beard Tavern and spoke to the proprietor, asking him about homemade brews and interesting liquors that might have been bought. Who would do that? The Brewmaster, Hervi, was brought to us and we spent some time talking to him. Sure enough, he did on occasion buy or commission the purchase of locally made alcohol before the plague hit, many times also buying for the brothel as well. Did he remember anything in particular? Not really. We thanked the Brewmaster and rechecked our notes.

There was a person named Yuri Hadrow, a farmer, 3rd on the death roll for one who died from the plague. We wanted to find out where his steading is (or was) and were going to go to the Black Court to find out. We also wanted to go talk to Madame Bie again, go to the Dog and Fox Tavern, and end the day about 4 PM at the Split Beard Tavern to have a few other questions answered.

Meet 135, Adv 12, 6/11/11

2011-06-21T21:00:00.000-04:00

The party spent some time familiarizing themselves with Flatrock as well as some of the inhabitants there. It was a nice change from dungeons and combat and the party was giving some serious effort in finding a cure from the plague.

Not much to say except at the end the party got a "hard on" to hunt down Vanir and the Lycos Suns so trekked out of town to Kreladale.

Write up follows:

Watermonth 21st, about 3 PM, the party left the Grey Raven Hospice and followed Goodman’s Court until they arrived at the alchemist’s tower. It was a wide building, roughly circular, standing about 40’ in height. A series of tin chimneys stuck oddly out the top of the building, a number of oddly colored smokes sieved from the bent over stacks. The door was closed and it was obvious someone was inside.

We knocked on the door loudly and heard the sound of breaking glass within and someone crying out an expletive. A few moments passed and the door opened revealing a disheveled woman in her late 40’s. She had some elvish ancestry as evidenced by her ears but the rest of her was human proportions and then some. She was a large woman, thick of ass and chest, her brownish/red hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail and her left hand was dark purple from her fingertip until the stain faded to nothing at her elbow.

She identified herself as Morei, the current proprietor of the alchemist’s lab and tower. We entered and shared who we were as well as our intention to help the town and work on a cure. She was the last alchemist here, her master and two of the other journeymen had succumbed to the plague. There were 2 assistants still in town but they were taking a leave to care for ill family members. There were no more healing potions or potions of curing or just about anything that might help combat the effects of the plague.

What was looked for was a distillate, a point of contagion that Morei could work with and generate an actual cure. However all the people who have the plague now have what she referred to as a 2nd generation version. Any distillate made would make only a single person immune to the disease and only until they are infected again by another person. Other adventuring groups had also gone looking for the first patient or where the disease might have originated and brought back samples. But to date, nothing has worked.

We offered to leave Mebali there to help out Morei and then made our way to the west end of town and the Three Dog Hotel. We acquired 4 rooms, doubles, for the entire week and in order to possibly throw off anyone who might be looking at or for us (ie – Lycos Suns) had the proprietor shuffle a couple of keys around so our room did not appear to be taken. Then we went to the well and changed our water for the same water that the town uses, after learning that the properties of the enriched mineral water actually offer some resistance to the plague’s effects.

We noted a number of rats near the granaries, the large clay holding bins were only half filled and the millhouse nearby was not churning the rye and wheat to flour. From here we crossed town square once more and next to the Gibbets and stocks was the large outdoor donjon known as Sinner’s Towers. A onetime dwarven edifice, the main block tower stood 60’ tall, 20’ at the base tapering to about 15 at the top where a large 60’ diameter buttressed platform was affixed, a series of iron bars encircling the perimeter and curling upward and around, providing an open air prison to any within.

There were a 6 count of liveried guards wearing tabards and padded jerkins, sporting a variety of barbed spears. We had some words with a desire to interview/check out the prisoners above and faced the hostility of a single guard, Ornan, who had apparently lost a few family members during the intervening 6 months. Some of the party was curt, others gave the bereaved guardsman a few coins and comforting words.

We were escorted to the top where we saw the deplorable condition of the donjon. Of the 15 prisoners here, 8 were already dead from the plague and of the remaining 7, 5 had obvious plague effects. We garnered their respect and aid with some fresh food and water and a well timed bless spell from Ludwig. One of the prisoners, a loquacious fellow named Rience, filled us in on some of the findings and goings on as seen from up here. We discovered early on that there was no starting of the plague here as it had indeed started out in the town somewhere. A point of reference was a man who had killed his wife and been hung here and then shortly afterwards the first plague victims were found.

We also learned that a few of the prisoners had ties to local slavers, one of them being Candlekeep and the leader who was named Bendelene. We thanked them for their efforts and honestly, they appreciated all the food, water, and company we brought them, and then we left.

Once out in the street (6:45 PM), we decided we had enough time to go to Zinthar’s Herbs and offer the magical dirt we had that would speed up the growth of any seeds planted within. On the south end of town near Cheapside Ave, we found the ¾ acre land around the Herbalists shop to be a rather well tended herb garden. Irrigated, orderly, weeded, terraced in places – it was a very impressive sight. Detheron took the lead on this one, escorting us to the herbalists shop (after knocking on the gate for some reason) where we were met by the eccentric Master Zinthar himself.

Taken out of retirement from the passing of his son and his wife, his grandchildren severely lacking in the herbalists arts, Zinthar lived here with only two ravens (Joe and SKCWAAA) and about 15 wild looking tabby cats. He was pushing 80, cataracted eyes, liver spotted skin, hunched over, supporting his weight on a 3’ gnarled wooden cane/cudgel. He launched into a treatise on the difficulty he has, the troubles with the town, how he refuses to die until the plague is done, and the unsavory nature of dwarves.

It was about halfway through our conversation that Detheron gleaned that the crazed white haired man was actually a druid of name level and more than capable. We had Gwyn show him the properties of the fast growing dirt and he was amazed. Bargaining occurred as he wanted the entire pound and Gwyn did not want to give it up. He offered booze, bits of shiny metal, anything a dwarf would want. Then he turned to Detheron, thinking the druid was the owner of the unsavory dwarf, and tried to get him to force Gwyn to just give it to him.

He eventually gave up his prized possession, his cane/cudgel, and Detheron took it reverently. The rest of the dirt was given to Zinthar who was going to use it, analyze it, and also continue to grow more than enough of the abundant herbs needed to make and fill the physickers masks the townsfolk (and us!) had taken to wearing.

We left Zinthar’s happy and took a detour to the granaries where Detheron wanted to try and learn what he could from the rats there as well as displace them from the granaries. A single guard tried to stop him but was convinced to keep watch. From there Detheron used his speak with animals spells and had a difficult conversation with the rodents who were convinced of their superiority and that they would one day take over in a large dark wave. They referred to the people as slaves and that they should all bow to them.

It was shortly after the conversation started that while Detheron was holding the acquired cudgel that a tabby cat appeared, fully at the druid’s command and happy to be there. The rats declared Detheron a traitor and friends with the cat lover in the south end of town. Then the cat was unleashed on the rats and it slew two of them before leaving. The conversation ended with Detheron reminding the rats to avoid the granaries and instead live/eat elsewhere or he would bring the cats back again.

We retired at Three Dog Hotel and rested for the night (a few of the party worked on scribing scrolls with mixed results) awakening the next day feeling pretty good. Mebali informed the group that Morei had mentioned that there used to be a roll maintained by the priests of Odin before the plague really took over of who died and when, what circumstances. If we wanted to find patient zero, that was a good place to start. Currently the priests rolls were severely denuded and it was suggested we go to the High Magistrate, a thick skinned dwarf named Corvallis Trueborn, who held office at the Black Court on the north end of Market Square.

Once inside we had to wait only a short time before the dark bearded dwarf saw us. Within the first few moments he identified Thurin as an elf and refused to have dealings with him. The rest of us talked for a short while, learning that he had attained the position mainly due to the fact that his family had lived here before the dwarves had left long ago. He had a copy of the death roll drawn up for us, highlighting the area of time around when the plague started. We thanked Corvallis and left.

Outside we went through the list and noted as had been told, the first death was the drunk outside Dog Gate and the next instance of a death was from a Madame Lili, proprietor of the Split Tail Brothel attached to the Split Beard Tavern. Our next location in sight we went. It took a few coins pressed into the right palms and we were allowed entrance. The brothel catered to both human and dwarven clientele and it was only a few minutes before we were engaged in conversation with Madame Bie.

She had taken over after Madame Lili’s passing about 6 months ago. We talked to her about Madam Lili’s death and learned that she came down from the plague fast and hard, wasting away in just over a week. She was not a working girl any longer so did not seem to contract it from a patron. We asked her about her predilection to sad cases (thinking she might have spent time with the 1st case, the drunk by Dog Gate) but was told that she rarely had any dealings with anyone like that.

We talked about what to do next. Further investigation? Head to the Far Travel Hotel and confront the Lycos Suns and Iohannas? Instead we opted to go to Kreladale, the forgotten trading town about 3 miles or so to the north on the other side of the Flat Rock Mesa. We strongly suspected through our conversations around town that the Lycos Suns might be there and doing something and some of the party still felt the slaving organization was partially responsible for the plague at all.

We left the town through High Gate and took our time going around Flat Rock Mesa, breaking for lunch and then hiking across the badlands and scrub that made up this area of the country. Brambles, shale, rocks, thorns, and all manner of beetles and snakes made up the landscape and travel was slow and plodding. About half a mile from town we stopped and Detheron called on Frey’s will, transforming himself into falcon. We affixed one of the Lycos medallions to his right foot and claw and Gwyn sent the druid aloft with a tossing throw.

Detheron flew up to about 400 feet and riding thermals approached the town to get a decent look at it. He saw a number of orcs in the streets and at some gates, but on the northwestern section of town was the Krelian Cemetery and within there were half a dozen men digging up bones and graves. He strafed a bit lower and one of the workers was an 8’ wolfen humanoid – who looked up and saw the druid. Detheron poured on the speed and flew away from town.

Behind him a figure appeared in the sky, a 12’ wing spanned, brown feathered blood eagle. Shit, almost 3 times the druid’s size. Detheron pulled a wing over, angled himself south and began flying faster, dropping altitude and gaining speed, very quickly passing 80 mph and speeding up. The blood eagle tried to keep pace but the smaller falcon was much faster and left the larger avian behind. It was only after it turned lazily in the sky and went back towards town that Detheron hatched a daring plan.

Using his already considerable speed, he angled himself upward until momentum brought him to 1,000 feet. Then he stayed almost 800 feet over the eagle higher in the sky and began a steady dive that would hopefully bring him down on the larger bird. His speed grew to 60, 70, 90, past 100 mph. He brought his wings in closer, neck straining and entire body aerodynamic, goosing himself to over 120 mph just before he brought his talons around and slammed like a hammer against a wet sack of mud into the blood eagle’s back.

There was an explosion of feathers, blood, and gore as Detheron hit, twisted wildly in the air, and streaked around like a brownish whistling blur and returned to the party where he transformed back to human shape and redonned his clothes after filling us in on the rough layout of Kreladale and the fact that our presence was still unnoticed.

Meet 134, Adv 12, 5/21/11

2011-05-30T22:16:00.002-04:00

This marked the official start of the 12th adventure and with all new beginnings, we had a formalization of the leadership and direction fo the party. Detheron, our druid, has opted to take over once more (especially now that his personal problem are solved as well) and was very clear in the statement of which direction the group was to go and how we would get there. I hope it works out for them.

And this also brought them to Flatrock, a place mentioned a few times before on the nebulous frontier. A place under seige by a plague. A place where Vanir (from SOOOOOOOOOO long ago) and his men are and doing something nefarious.

And they are in for a good time. :)

Write up follows:

Norris and Hammerhand had left about 6 days earlier for Darkwaters and Kurtsville and the group’s members had completed their training and guild responsibilities when it was a bright morning and crisp fall day. Detheron had asked Gwyn, Guyus, Mebali, and the two new members Thurin and Havic to join him for conversation after breakfast in the common room of the Rampant Griffin Hotel.

It seems that the druid and dwarf had had numerous conversations over the last few days about the state of the party and our standing. It seems that no one was happy over our upsetting the Count and being removed from Cymbarton. There was much disgruntled feelings over Rahyk and what had gone on. But also there was a feeling over the last ¾ of a year that as a party we had lost our way. And that was to stop.

No longer would we act a pile of separate people with separate agendas. It was group first and best for the party before selfish needs would come to the forefront. No more are we going to be kicked out of town after town. No more would we piss off the populace and under no circumstances would there be any issues group wise that would put the party in jeopardy.

Havic seemed pleased over this but Thurin had a few questions that were answered and eventually accepted. Detheron had gotten a charter from Lord Artis Dearnhorse, the elder lord willing to sponsor our party. We talked about the name of our group and decided to go back to the original Sundered Chains as that name did have some local notoriety and approval in the two smaller towns of Orihalcus and Ponyboro. He had Norris sign the charter before he had left, the bard very happy to have done so and be a part of the party. As for the others around the table – he asked Thurin and Havic to hold off on signing for a few weeks so that we could suss out if we are a good fit for one another.

Once the document was signed it was brought to the Daernhorse Demesne where we talked about where to go next. The party had a bug in their bonnet to finish off Vanir as soon as possible – and that meant going to Flatrock, the current town under some plague. We did not want to risk going through Cymbarton and Brokenhills or Eider, so opted instead to go through Orihalcus and then take the unused and ill repaired ancient dwarven traderoad northward till we drew near Dragonhole. We would then avoid that city (Lord Vergadain would surely remember us) and then go to Northedge and refill our provisions before settling in towards Flatrock.

Lord Daernhorse was willing to help out part of our journey. He gifted us a 4 horse team and wagon so that we could taken them to Orihalcus and avoid the walk that far. From that point on, it was up to us. We thanked the lord for his generosity and wasted no time, leaving shortly after that.

Mebali teamstered our horses for us and he did a more than admirable job, getting us through the lowlands of the Dusty Mountains within record time and arriving at Orihalcus around 11 o’clock. The gate guards let us in and were surprised to hear the name Detheron, Gwyn, and the Sundered Chains as it had been rumored that we had died. We turned the horses and wagons in at the stablery while the Sheriff Kalarig was roused and told of our return.

We went to our home, unused for 9 months now, and were met by the brigand turned archer turned guardsman turned sheriff who let us in to our home with a copy of the key. Much back slapping and welcome homes were traded and a ready skin of the local mead soothed our dusty throats. Windows were opened and dust was scattered. Detheron used a couple of anti-vermin barriers to clean the straw mattresses in the long dormant rooms or lice and mites and we had much conversation with the Sheriff.

Kalarig reminded Detheron of Deidra and the druid was going to take a trip to the Children of the Wilted Leaf Orphanage meanwhile the rest of the party should get some sleep as it was a long day and most likely Sir Walter Slaine would want to meet with the group in the AM. Detheron went to the Orphanage where he was met by Brother Dougan and then roused Deidra. She was upset as he had said he would be back soon and it was now about 9 months later. But the ire was ended swiftly and the two lovers reconnected on a more primal level for the remainder of the night.

The next day Detheron was awoke by Gregor and Hani, Deidra’s children, excited to see him returned. They had a great breakfast and Detheron broke the news that he was going with the party to Flatrock to help out with the plague and hopefully take out Vanir while up there. Deidra let Detheron know that according to local rumor, Flatrock was under quarantine and no one was getting out. Suggested he stay safe and take no unnecessary chances and to come back soon.

We regrouped and then met up with Sir Walter. He was also dismayed at the length of time since our visit and that we need to come home more often. Let us know that Karis had come, turned in his bondsman ring, and told everyone that he had escaped death and the rest of the group did not. Joined a party known as the Red Clouds and then left for other places unknown. There was some rumor they had gone to Dragonhole and raided the armory there for a shield and some other gear. There was also talk according to Sir Walter that they were maybe near Huntington, but no one was sure anymore.

He promised to talk on our behalf at the Council of Lords but asked us for a favor. Offering us a 600 crown bounty if we could eventually find Karis of Melbourne and give him three stripes across the face for the dishonor the one time knight had shown him. One stripe for each insult. Do we kill him? No – not necessary – just mark him – a mark that he’ll carry for the rest of his days. Detheron accepted for the party and Sir Walter was pleased.

So pleased that he gifted us with 6 horses (admittedly fairly poor specimens, but viable) as well as bridles, braces, saddles, bags, and enough food to last us and our mounts for seven days. We took our old cart out of storage at the Teamster’s office and Mebali spent a few minutes getting it up to snuff as well as hooking up one of the nags to it. Guyus, Thurin, and Detheron would all ride while the rest of us would take the cart – and we would lead the last two horses, trading them out to keep all of them as fresh as possible.

We left with a song in our heart and smiles on our faces, tracking towards the road to Ironcamp and then onward through the Dusty Mountains and the old dwarven trade roads. We met up with Flarg briefly and entertained taking the barbaric bugbear with us, but wiser heads prevailed and we left him behind with a promise to get him if we were to take out any local kobolds.

We rode on. Travelling through the wildlands, rain and wind driving at us for 4 days straight. We ended up on the crossroads just east of Dragonhole where we avoided the city and rode around until we found the road northward to Northedge – a trading town situated within 20 miles of the Windy Peaks and the no man’s land that was once time dwarven lands – now orcish controlled. The gate guards took our name and were distrustful of us – but we reequipped on another 2 weeks of food and slept for the night – eventually heading off eastward towards Flatrock.

It was about 2 days later when we arrived. The grasslands had faded away, leaving only briar bushes, scraggly brown weeds, lichen, and stubbly course pale yellow grasses. Scrublands as far as we could see. A single mesa rose up, some 300’ with an almost 600’ plateau on top. A keep of some sort was on top of the mesa and at the base of the slope was a walled town.

A haze rose over the city, low and gritty. There were few fields outside the wall and what was there were stunted, unkempt, and untended. There was also a lack of sounds from behind the wall, much softer that what we would expect from a small city this size. A trio of outriders wearing thick masks rode towards us with their arms outstretched and calling for us to stop.

We spoke with the men, promising that we know of the quarantine and that we came here willingly and with the desire to help. They were surprised but happy at the fact and were anxious to take us to the Grey Raven Hospice and meet with Father Timon Beerdrinker. Beerdinker???

It seems that over the last 6 months, most of the town’s upper echelons had suffered greatly – and Father Timon was currently the highest member of the ecclesiastic order of Odin worshippers – originally he was around 11th in line. Even the town’s ruler, Lord Harold Bork, had suffered with the death of his eldest son.
At the east end of town we did find the cemetery and a charnel pit near a lime pit where bodies were coated and left to rot. Everywhere we went we saw people with herb filled masks walking about as if in a daze. At the Hospice we were given masks and introduced to Father Timon Beerdrinker. He was a heavyset man just about 5’10”, eyes were red and puffy and he looked like he had not gotten much rest in the recent days. He took us to the terminal patients so that our clerics could do what they could to help.

It was then that we learned that in the town of normally 2000 people, now down to about 1200 over the last 6 months, that there was in fact only ONE touched priest here, a Halfling priest of Freya named Ludwig of Principia. He was harried and happy to see us and we spent time learning what we could of the situation and what we could do to help.

There was a alchemist who was trying to work up a cure with the town’s herbalist, but the distillate of blood from the existing plague victims was not sufficient enough to come up with a cure – we would need to find the source of the plague. Thurin suggested it might be the mineral water that the town was known for, but that was quickly squashed. The mineral water actually retarded the acceleration of the plague, those who did not drink it got sick sooner and faster.

Why did they not just burn the bodies? The plague was still virulent even in the dead bodies and burning them outright only hastened its spread to those anywhere near the smoke. The best way was to lime the bodies for a few days to hasten the decay process and after three days, the bodies could be safely burned. We cured disease on two of the terminal cases in here but there were still at least 18 others – and that doesn’t count those who would grown to this level of sickness tomorrow. The tide was too great.

Ludwig had been here 43 days to date and had no chance to even search for where the original infection might have come from. There was one other organization here helping out according to Father Timon – a slaving organization named Lycos Suns, headed by a man named Iohannes. They had arrived about 4-5 weeks ago and even though they had lost their stock and two of their men, they were helping out with whatever needs the people of Flatrock could do to help. According to Ludwig, a few of them had thought about maybe finding some sign of infection at a nearby trading location about a mile or two from here on the other side of the Mesa called Kreladale.

We decided to spend some time and try to work with the local healers to see if we can help improve their abilities to keep the sick from getting sicker as well as check out some of the rumors that the plague might have started in Sinner’s Tower (an open aired 60’ donjon where some of the town’s criminal types are placed).

Meet 133, Adv 11, 5/14/11

2011-05-20T20:44:00.000-04:00

This was the wrap up/maintenance meeting - something that hadn't been done for about 5 months or so, so there was much bookkeeping for the party to do.

However something happened during the few points of role playing that went on. One of the players was very impatient (a trait that had been more and more prevelant as the years have gone on) and was saying, to the count, "Less talky, more healy." There were other comments made and normally in the interests of keeping the game flowing and the players happy, I don't attack those sort of 4th wall shattering instances, but here was the first time that the party was ever in the presence of the count - and they had done the big thingy successfully.

The count was going to pay them, heal them, and then further reward them. Instead I ended up taking the party down a peg and banishing them from the town. Yep - 3rd city they've been thrown out of. And if things continue this way, they won't have any safe harbors left to go to.

I don't normally like to do this, but the party had lost their rudder and this was a shock to them that enough was enough. In real life for about a week after the game, there were both group email conversations and private ones between the players and everyone is of the mindset that this was the last time they ever screwed up like this and it was not an option to happen again.

Write up follows:

The group picked themselves off the ground, trying to call out to one another, blinded and seeing only white. Rahyk backed himself up, tripping over spilled pews and other debris, ending up against what he thought was the back wall. Detheron tried to shift into animal form, but his sight was still not working even then. Norris walked out to the front door after much groping and called to Hammerhand who arrived at long last.

We waited some time until Corporal Weyrith and a half dozen of the Cymbarton guard showed up, lured to the group by their calls and took the time to escort the party out. There was no more any sign of Brother Beren and the Sun Sphere had been destroyed, only some scraps of wood and about 2/3rd of the cracked stone remained. The Corporal did say that there was another body on the ground and had its head removed. An older male, past 60. We suspected it was the mortal remains of Aaron Skelt and told the Corporal to leave it.

Eventually we were led blind out of town, about a mile or so to the encampment where we rested , ate, and fell asleep. Eventually there was almost a 2 day ride back to Cymbarton where news had reached before us to the county capital and we were brought to the Sedaris Demesne where we were met personally by the Count himself, a small group of his high advisors, and even Kazak Falconhand.

However, our presence at the count was quickly soured as our blindness still hadn’t been resolved on its own and we were hoping to get some magical healing. The count was very willing to help and was talking about getting a healer to help out the group and that he was willing to pay for it as well as give us the reward (which turned out to be 650 crowns per share) when Rahyk began mouthing off to the Count. “Less talky, more healy.” Thodrek the dwarf was joining in as well, the two of them alternating between insulting and pitiful in their haranguing of the nobleman.

Even though Count Cedric was always an even tempered man, beloved by the people, popular with all guilds, and one of the few uncorrupted and unifying forces of Northern Daro, it was getting awkward for him to continually ignore the crap being spewed in his direction. Eventually he blew up, wondering what the hell the party was doing. Yes they did the job, big thanks and what not. They did it 6 days before the other group that had been commissioned to do it, also thank you. He gladly paid the group their share of the reward, was going to have them looked after at his own personal Hospice with the costs of curing their blindness being picked up by him. Was going to name them County Protectorates and knight two members of the group as well as award them the titles and land currently unclaimed by the Sunderstone Clan of the environs around Fulgore Keep.

But not anymore.

He grew wroth at the group and they realized that they had seriously made a gigantic error in antagonizing the Count. He had Rahyk’s vision cleared and then had him taken from the city where he was banished from the Capital for the next year and a day – on the knowledge that if he came back into the city he would be stripped of his belongings, locked in the stock, given 10 lashes, and then remain there for the rest of his incarceration. Rahyk took the money, bad naturedly went with the guard escorts, and bought a horse at Northgate from the stablery there.

The same thing was told to Thodrek, the dwarf apologizing profusely, but the Castellan wanted nothing to do with the dwarf’s cries of injustice. Thodrek joined up with Rahyk and the two of them mounted up and rode north, hoping to get back to BrokenHills to do some potential looting.

As for the rest of the group – they too were healed and rewarded and then the Castellan SUGGESTED that they leave and Count Cedric also held them in some part responsible since at no time did they rebuke any of the other party members and possibly correct them of their crude outbursts. The party was devastated – run out of another town.

This was becoming a serious problem as they have been making a negative name for themselves: Dragonhole, Eider, Cymbarton. Something was going to have to change or they would find themselves outlaws before too long.

With heavy hearts we went to the adventurer’s guild where Dumethian Dracowulf was very surprised that the group had pissed off Count Cedric as the lord was never known for his outbursts and unhappiness. They party must have been terrible rude and ungracious and the group said nothing on that matter. We got a few things identified, sold off a few treasures, squared up with the hirelings who all gave glowing reviews of the party, made sure that Brother Beren’s share was given to the Tyrian Cathedral, got a blank charter for us to fill in in the future, made sure Cadassial’s share went to the thieves guild (earning Norris a good hand clapping and thanks for his efforts) and made our way to Westgate.

What now? It was decided that we would go to Ponyboro as it was only about a day and a half from Cymbarton and we could rest there, regroup, meet up with Lord Daernhorse, and train before deciding what was to happen next.

It was with a heavy heart that we arrived at the pastoral town, getting really nice rooms at the Rampant Griffin and giving ourselves a good night sleep on a bed for the first time for some of us since almost 28 days ago. The next day we visited with Lord Daernhorse, made our rounds to various guilds and shops, and started to make ourselves feel at home. It was two weeks plus of training, commissioning, grooming, fixing, repairing, buying, and overall convalescing before the party felt more than ready to go back out there and see what the world had to offer.

We did meet up with two adventurers that had been directed to us by Dumethian Dracowulf from the adventurer’s guild: Havic, a dwarven barbarian and holy man from the northern wilderness from a town known as Grimsfold, and Thurin, an grey elven sage and wizard whose family currently resides in Ponyboro. They were met with much enthusiasm as they both had separate but personal griefs with Vanir and were directed to the party from their own past dealings with the wizard/slaver.

At the end of the two plus weeks, Norris was volunteering to travel south with Hammerhand to Daro and Kurtsville to see what became of Hammerhand’s family down there as well as Norris resolving a few things he had left open in Daro. We did heard from Dollius from the Platinum Pestle in Eider, the alchemist sending us three poultices of Stone to Flesh in payment and thanks for all we had done for him. And as for Mebali, the brogue speaking wheelwright was happy to spend his time with the party and volunteered to not only be our teamster and cartwright should we want him, but to look after whatever our home would be and affairs should we want him to.

Meet 132, Adv 11, 4/30/11

2011-05-06T13:48:00.000-04:00

This wrapped up the 11th adventure, Shadows Run Deep (yes, I still name all my adventures - its a habit from the 80's) and brought to a closure the party's involvment and subsequent destruction of Broken Hills. This has had a profound impact on the layout of my world and will have larger long range effects that has changed the way I envisioned the political shifting of the county to continue.

At the end of the meeting I flat out asked the group what they liked, what they don't like, and what they hope to have fun with around the table and the results were surprising.

Dungeons - 5- 6 meetings is about tops. (Did have 1 guy who was quite happy with 10-15)
More Town Adventuring stuff.
Provide some rails for the party to follow.
Enjoying the hack-n-slash.
There were mixed results on fleshing out the world/characters/homework with it being liked but a few were less entused about it.
Some outdoor stuff - again, not too much.
Mixed feelings on either being forced to follow a deadline for an adventure and doing it at whatever pace they like.
Everyone liked the: we screw up or do well - it follows us wherever we go theme.

Current end of days write up follows:

During the walk to Fulgore Keep, Brother Beren began to wake up, and in doing so was screaming about his missing arm. His voice was going to call down what trolls might be in the area so it was time to put a stop to his yelling. A few knocks to the back of his skull and Brother Beren was zonked out. Norris awoke as well, the bard dragging his ass with weary steps and tired.

It was well after 9 that we arrived at Fulgore Keep, looking much like how we remembered it. It sat like a squat toad on one side of the Copper Bottom Ravine, a series of slapped together buildings and tents arranged in a semi-circle around it. We followed Detheron to the local tavern known as the Rusty Bucket. A legless man sat outside of it, begging for coin and claiming to be the victim of a troll attack. We passed him a few coins and entered.

It was smoky and drafty and filthy, but it was civilization to a point. Strange and disreputable people were all over the place. We saw elves and half orcs, slavers and wizards, sell swords and trappers, even a pair of wild elves with a 5 headed hydra all muzzled and drugged up. There was little room to sit so we had Hammerhand toss a few of the slavers about until we had two tables cleared. The proprietor, a burly scarred red-haired brute named Frankish, didn’t care much and we overpaid for our rooms and meals.

We then talked. We had some time to get back to Cymbarton and wanted to rest well, leaving in the morning to clear out of the Dusty Mountains as quick as possible and get back on the road to Ponyboro. Brother Beren had been studying the Sun Stone for a bit and coupled with what we had learned and found out plus Hammerhand’s revelations, the wielder of the Sun Sphere would most likely be consumed in the final conflagration. Brother Beren was willing to do that in order to right the wrong that had been done to Broken Hills.

He did not want his hand regrown and was at one with his faith in Tyr that this was the right thing and the right path to take. We drank somberly at the table and then got ourselves to rest. During Brother Beren’s time unconscious, he received a vision from Tyr in which that there was a member of the group that had a tie with one of Loki’s cohorts and he needed to be corrected/punished. The priest was indicating that he suspected who it might be, thinking it was Norris, but was surprised to find out that it was Detheron! Seemed the priest had made a deal some time ago with a demonic entity to all Zoltan to be raised and the deal was still open – a favor still out there to be taken.

What was Beren to do? Tyr gave him mistletoe and suggested/instructed that before they arrived at Broken Hills that the mistletoe be given to the druid so that it was on his person. Beren agreed and then had woken up.

It was at the table here that Beren gave it to Detheron and told him that his god said he should have it. Detheron thanked the priest with a quizzical look and pocketed the herb in his pouch. We rested that night and it was about 5 in the morning that Detheron received a knock on his door.

It was a wild haired, wrinkled and strange wild eyed mage – the same one that had teleported him, Guyus, and Rahyk about 7 days ago. He was looking for more work and the two of them got into a conversation where another teleport was offered. Prices dickered a bit until the mage went from asking for coins to bodies. “Two bodies!” he cried and the druid stopped, frowning. What for? The mage needed dead bodies for…stuff. For a moment Detheron shook his head and then started to lead the mage to some random stranger’s door.

The mage did say he needed the person’s name as well or the summoning/raising wouldn’t work as he wanted. This caused a wrinkle for Detheron who then haggled down to 1 body. Mage agreed. What to do? With a moment’s thought, Detheron pointed to Denath and Salisithin’s room – saying that one of the men inside was Denath and he would be an acceptable target.

The mage went to the door cast some spell outside of it, and greenish smoke entered underneath. The mage listened then and frowned. He asked Detheron if there was something strange about the two men as they seemed to be still alive. Detheron played dumb and shrugged. So the mage summoned a disembodied sword and sent the scintillating blade through the door jamb and into the room. Some sounds of scuffles followed and then Salisithin came out. The mage drew his dagger and some fight followed before the undead alchemist fell.

Detheron was very loath to piss the mage off so he provided him with Salisithin’s name as well. The mage then offered to “send Detheron and his friends, all of them, anywhere they want”. The druid asked to be sent to Cymbarton, the mage agreed and there was a blast of rainbow light and a sense of disjointing and the entire party, animals, and belongings were teleported to right outside the southwestern gate of the county capital.

Guards were surprised (14 or so odd people spring into appearance at 5:30 in the AM in a rainbow spray of lights). It was the presence of Hammerhand, the dwarven undead fighter floating slightly off the ground, a halo of dark energy around him, that sent the guards into a tizzy. They tried to take him down and the party moved away from him. Detheron said that we would meet up later and he should get out of here. A few bolts of holy water filled glass arrows hit the dwarf, causing him to hiss and moan. He then exploded into a few thousand locusts and flew away.

As for the rest of us, the guards asked many questions. We made believe we did not know where the dwarf came from and were quick to mention the Sun Sphere, Lord Kazak, Count Sedaris, and Broken Hills. We were passed up the chain of command until we were escorted to the Sedarian Demesne and the count’s castle.

We were allowed to clean up quickly and get dressed – Detheron saying nothing on how we got here and nothing about the missing Denath and Salisithin. The party made noise about going back to Fulgore Keep and learning what happened. We met with the count and Kazak, verified we had the Sun Sphere, were supplied with a staff of the correct size, and were going to set off the next day with an honor guard of 20 men and horses for all. Guyus made some deal with the Count that if we did this that we might get the land around Fulgore Keep lorded to us and the count conditionally agreed that he would contemplate 2 of the party’s members.

We rested well and the next day bid Galf and Throdi good luck and took everyone else with us, riding off to Broken Hills. We slept that night and the next day rode until around 10 AM to the outskirts of the city. The horses would go no further. The grasses were dead, animals in the streets were bloated and rotten, the sky was oppressive. Hammerhand had rejoined us. We drew together and Brother Beren cast and invisibility spell on the group that would make them unseen to undead.

Then we stood near the priest who held up the sun sphere mounted and it drew the light in towards itself, pulling Brother Beren towards the town, illuminating the area around the cleric in 10’ radius with holy light. It was uncomfortable for Hammerhand and Mebali to stand near, but the two undead came as well. We entered the proper portion of Broken Hills, weapons at the ready and eyes peeled.

The immediate area was awash with dead carcasses, slimy mud, and the stillness of death. A few figures shuffled about, moaning slowly as they did so. Hidden in the shadows were others, skulking and leaping about. They ignored the group, the invisibility to undead holding. Further northward the destruction was very apparent. A full quarter of Cornblood Keep had fallen, the outer towers collapsed. The cistern had been smashed, turning the quarry and a portion of the roadway into a hardened mass of mud and rock. Trees reached upward with skeletal hands, their leaves burned away. Falconhand Park was a ruin of stumps and shattered statuary. But the most damning, at the top of the highest rise on the north end of town, very near the cemetery, the Temple of Thor stood alone, blotted under a spinning vortex of dark energy that churned some 300’ over the top of the main spire. And it was there that Beren said we needed to go.

The first zombies wandered towards us, drawn to Hammerhand’s negative energy leeching from his body. They surrounded him, slowing the dwarf down, and choking the road slowing us down as well. We took our time, disturbed by seeing even the animals themselves were also wandering about as zombies. It was when they pressed to tight around Hammerhand that he was convinced to disappear – the dwarf forming into his insect cloud shape and the undead milled away.

When Hammerhand returned to us a few minutes later, he reported that it was very disturbing to do that and that he felt like he was not in control while in that form. We pushed on until the crowd was too tight again and once more Hammerhand was suggested to send the undead away. He yelled at one local ghoul to, “LEAVE!!!” and the ghoul exploded! But more dark energy came from Hammerhand and he seemed to stop and swallow a few time reflexively. Guyus informed us that Hammerhand was now radiating a tiny bit of evil. The dwarf informed the party that he did NOT like doing that and the group agreed he should avoid that.

It was at this time that we heard hoof beats and a mounted cowled and very dead guardsman rode up on a zombified horse. He ignored the party and spoke to Hammerhand, inviting him to come speak with the local lord and that he was very welcome here. Hammerhand said he would meet the lord and where should he go? Why – to the Temple of Thor of course. Of course.

The rider rode back to tell the lord (who we had assumed to be Aaron Skelt – the figure that was the specter when we were here before), leaving us to continue our trek through town, again only Hammerhand and Mebali were noticed.

When the group was way too thick around us Hammerhand lured the majority of the undead away, taking them overland behind Cornblood Keep and northward through town to meet up with the group again near the Thorian Temple. With the dwarf gone, the trip was much easier for the party. We saw many variations of zombies and ghouls, but as for shadows – none so far.

It was when we were getting very close to our goal, turning left by Two Cats Inn, that we encountered a major obstacle. A figure barred our way – middle aged, human, fat to the point of being obese, thin beard, holding a small rod in his left hand. And he could see us. Guyus tried to detect for Evil and was momentarily stunned from the emanations coming from the figure. Definitely evil, and most likely otherworld.

He asked where we were going and why would we want to fix Broken Hills. Beren retorted and the two of them got into a small spat of words – going back and forth over the weakness inherent in Tyr and his followers and Beren all but claiming the figure was either Orcus or a minion of. But it was when the figure turned to Detheron and reminded him that he had made a deal some time ago to help bring Zoltan back, that the group had a pause. Detheron agreed he remembered it and the figure said ok – it’s time to call in that marker – get me the Sun Sphere and staff.

We had an interparty moment here with Detheron looking to wheedle out of it when the figure finally grew cross and said that if you think Beren is on your side, he’s trying to kill you with that bit of poisoned mistletoe that his pathetic one-handed god bestowed on him to give to you. Beren tried to back pedal and Detheron was very abrupt on his dealings with the priest – eventually flat out asking him what the damn deal was. Beren admitted that Tyr had given him the mistletoe in a vision and that it was because Detheron had made a deal with a minion of Loki.

The Orcus-ine figure then told Detheron to either give him the Sun Sphere or reach in and take out the poisoned mistletoe but he had to do one of the two now. If the mistletoe did not kill him, then he was liar and was trying to cause strife with him and Beren – if it DID kill him, then Beren was a murdering lying stooge. Detheron decided to trust Beren and reached into his pouch to take out the silverleafed plant.

And promptly died.

The fat man laughed long and hard about it, wished the party well, and as a parting gift, disabled the invisibility to undead spell. Just god damned great.

Norris fired up a fast Delay Poison for Detheron who stood up woozily, knowing he had only a short number of hours before the poison killed him again. The rest of the group drew together and began to attack the zombies and ghouls that tried to attack us (none of the undead wanting to cross the perimeter of the Sun Sphere’s light). Brother Beren called on Tyr to empower everyone’s blows against the necromantic foes which did succeed, but it was like shoveling out a lake – as more zombies and ghouls came.

And then we saw it – the vortex of dark energy over the Thorian Temple was not a storm, but was thousands and thousands of shadows. And they were swarming in this direction. Covering the sky, blotting the sun, and dulling the Sun Sphere’s glow.

We fired up light spells and withdrew our continual light stone, used the light wand – anything to keep the Sun Sphere glowing brightly – the magical dwarven made artifact pulling in the enchanted light and pushing back the dark. We ran on, dropping what zombies and ghouls we could find. It was near Potterson’s Clayworks that evil struck again.

This time in the form of our fallen companion and monastic brother, Bron. He came leaping out a window and using his powers, critically struck Brother Beren in the throat – missing killing him by 1 point. Brother Beren could not let go of the Staff as it would end the Sun Sphere’s influence so he could not cast spells. The rest of the group tore into the undead monk who gave as good as he got, but in the end it was just one man (undead too!) and was eventually slain.

Hammerhand returned at this point and had over 300 zombies and ghouls with him, filling the street. We asked him to go to the Bathhouse and lure the undead there and he did so, once more clearing the street for us. More light spells were cast into the Sun Sphere and the group pushed on to the last bastion – the Thorian Temple.

We ran hard, the vault of shadows overhead, arriving at the shattered doors of the temple. The wooden frames were pitted and shattered and inside the pews were scattered all over. Standing near the altar was the spectral figure of Aaron Skelt. He was wroth with us, identifying himself as the lord of Broken Hills. There were some angry shouts and at some point it devolved to melee with Aaron briefly and then holy water was sent flying.

The culmination of all things ended when Brother Beren arrived at the darkest part of the temple and willed the Sun Sphere to full radiance. The stone made a shallow roaring noise, drawing Brother Beren’s strength with it – it radiated brighter and brighter – blowing holes in all the shadows above, shredding Aaron Skelt, knocking what Zombies might be around to dust and shattered bones. And still it grew brighter until it seared outward with a blast of rainbow bright white light and crash that dropped everyone to the ground and knocked them out.

They awoke at some point later, slowly, blind and seeing only white, and shouting for one another. They heard Hammerhand in the distance, the dwarf no longer undead and also quite blind. And the land around them was silent – no moans, shuffling feet, nothing. Just still, just silent.

2nd Campaign. Meet 1, 4/23/11

2011-04-29T00:09:00.004-04:00

The first game with my daughter took place 5 minutes after character creation and like all good Basic D&D campaigns, took place at the guard tower in the back of the rule book. Ran it as written except for the prisoners located in the basement. She did not clear it out but that's ok.

She was most proud of the green slime and EVERY where we went, she wanted to search for traps (after hearing the normal game for years she had picked up on that trope very quickly). She also had only 1 spell and after going through the list of 12 available, she wisely chose sleep without any input from me. I will admit she was very close to taking Charm Person but opted to go for the better choice instead.

All told we got the mission done, a pile of coin, and immediately got hired for the next one - leading us back to the gatehouse of the keep and to the next level down.

Write up follows:

The old keep on the edge of Brevoy had been rumored to be haunted over the last 2 decades, strange sounds echoing from within, odd lights now and again. Most of it had fallen to ruin but a few of the outer gate towers still stood. Lord Rasmus the Fifth had made noise over the years to have it razed but nothing had ever come of it.

There have been strange sightings in the streets at night, cowled and hooded figures skulking about, the stinking rotten banana reek of unwashed golbinflesh redolent in the air from their passing. And as of this morning, there were 12 counts of missing persons. The baker’s daughter, two pages, old man Jenkins the well house guard, two journeymen cobblers, a dairymaid, the bell maker’s wife, Squithic the elven puppeteer, and two beggars – all disappeared between 6^th hour and morning walk.

Lord Rasmus the Sixth (newly lorded and running the lands since his father’s passing two months ago) was beside himself and a call went out for daring personages who would risk investigating the old keep. And it was here that Lina Inverse, Elven warrior mage from Greenholm and her Halfling companion, Thimble Mooserider, stout and doughty fighter from Erylond took up the quest from Lord Rasmus. He promised them 100 crowns total if they were able to find the lost townsfolk and bring them safely back.

Mounting up on their steeds the two adventurers rode to the edge of Brevoy where they dismounted, made sure there was feed and water for their horses, and tied them up at the edge of the keep’s perimeter. Up close the keep looked just as bad as people had said. They took the time to explore the area around and the two of them did find numerous goblinoid tracks near the eastern guard tower. Lina dared to creep up to the door and peer through the crack, her elven sight allowing her to see the cooler interior of the keep’s short entrance hall.

Pressing her shoulder to the portal she shoved hard and the heavy door slid with a scrape to the right, lodging itself open against the dusty floor. A plume of grit and dirt billowed in briefly, showing a short hall maybe 15’ long. There was enough light filtering in for now to show the corridor all the way to the opposite door frame. Lina held Thimbles back and eyed the floor critically. “We should check for traps,” she said. The two companions carefully probed ahead, thimbles with the butt of his short bow, Lina with the edge of her boot. And sure enough, they felt a gap in the floor.

With a firm stomp, they opened the 5’ pit trap that went down about 10 feet, old bones and bits of scrap metal on the bottom. The Halfling uncoiled his rope and hook, set it on the edge of the pit, and climbed down, the elven fighter-mage followed. At the bottom they goosed the grapple off and flung it up to the other side, climbing out of the pit again.

At the door the two companions checked it out carefully, hearing nothing on the other side. It seemed stuck so Lina once again forced it opened. There was a hall running to the right and the left, both short, both ending at a closed door. On the left side there was also a turn to the right. We hissed some ideas back and forth, deciding to check out both doors first. Thimbles lit a torch from his pack and the two friends moved on.

The right most door opened up to what had once been a barracks but had now flooded. The floor had dropped away and the ceiling bulged downward, resulting in a pool of murky water in which a single bed floated serenely along with the rusting hulk of an iron statue showing a female warrior. A door was on the opposite of the chamber but the two companions opted to go and investigate the other door from the main hall first.

Lina shut the door behind us and we walked quietly down the hall. A look over the door showed no obvious traps and they once again heard nothing. There was some pushing and we looked in on another room, some sort of sleeping chamber. Two beds, couple of chairs, a table. A layer of fine dust was sitting on everything.

The two friends went in and looked around, carefully checking over the entire chamber but found nothing. Once satisfied of the situation, they ventured back in the hall and thought about their options. Option 1: continue north from this hall or Option 2: go back to the sunken chamber with the pool of water in it and skirt around to the other side. They opted for the 2^nd choice.

Once here the two friends gave the room a once over, avoiding stepping in the pool but having no problem with shining a torch down near the surface or probing the depth with the tip of their swords. Thimbles noticed the torch was guttering out so he withdrew a new one and lit it.

They found nothing so went across the chamber to the other side, gave a cautious listen and look at the door here and then dared to open it. A short hall ran to the left where at the corner there they had a door on the left, a door on the opposite wall, or a turn to the right. Strange sounds seemed to echo in the distance, setting the two of them on edge.

Lina led the way, inching down to the corner where she looked right. The corridor went a short distance and turned to the right again. Many footprints littered the ground here as well as some damp drag marks. We felt we were on the right track. However, the two companions did not want to risk leaving the two doors here untouched so they opened the one on the left first after verifying it was not locked or trapped.

The room beyond was dull and gritty in the torch light. Before entering they looked around with care and this time Lina’s concern was rewarded with a revelation. The ceiling had some foul muculant greenish slimy mass adhering to it, just on the inside of the door. Drips of ichor fell from it, hissing on the floor where they hit.

Neither one wanted to enter the room but they didn’t want to leave the slime just hanging there. Taking Thimbles torch, Lina held it to some of the small drips and was satisfied to see them hiss and pop, turning from fibrous green to desiccated brown. She stood up and held the torch to the mass of the slime and it began to burn, dropping from the ceiling in wet chunks where the smaller pieces were also burned.

Once satisfied we had done what we could, we checked out the room only to be dismayed on finding nothing of value within. The two friends went on to the 2^nd door and performed the same actions, only this time the chamber did not have a green slime on the ceiling.

They were growing hungry so they went into the room, shut the door, and ate what dinner they had packed with them: salted pork, noodles, fresh vegetables, and dried fruit. It was at the end of their meal that they heard voices in the hall getting closer. Lina felt it was reminiscent of hobgoblin but the dialect was all wrong. Most likely was goblin. She drew her stout sword and Thimbles backed up a few steps with his short bow out, an arrow nocked and ready. Just as the voices were outside the portal Lina tore the door opened and sliced down at the lead goblin.

It screamed as he was hit, the pale greenish creature twisted away as it fell. The goblins stunk of old socks and rotten bananas, their skin was covered in strange lumps and sores, and they wore what seemed to be scavenged bits of clothing and armor. Thimbles shot past the goblin at the 2^nd and although the Halfling did hit the creature, it was a glancing wound and did not fall down.

The two goblins remaining entered, both plying their crude spiked clubs against Lina, but the elven warrior’s platemail and shield were more than enough to turn aside the greenskin’s blows. A few more arrows were shot and then Lina got a lucky strike, dropping the 2^nd goblin and then the third in short order.

Our elven warrior-mage was lightly wounded, more likely just winded from the short fight, while Thimbles was out of the direct melee. They checked over the 3 enemies finding 12 gold crowns for their efforts which they split and pocketed. Then they dragged the goblins into the room, lit a 3^rd torch from Thimbles’ pack, and shut the door behind them. The idea was that if there were a patrolling trio, their presence would be missed sooner rather than later so it was best not to waste any more time.

The two companions continued on their way up the hall, following the drag marks on the floor. The corridor came to the end and turned left and left again. There were two doors here, one close and the other at the end of the hall. Some faint noise was heard from the nearest door and Lina confirmed it was goblin voices, only this time a lot of them.

Since we still had not found the prisoners yet, we decided to do the same as we had done last time with Lina ripping the door opened and Thimbles right behind with his bow. It was the sight of the barracks room with 6 bunk beds and home to 12 goblins within that gave the two friends pause. Most of the goblins were asleep but the closest 4 were staring at the two with shock and growing hatred. We had to act now – attack or flee.

Lina took matters into her own hands. Calling on her elven heritage she recited the arcane words of a sleep spell and put all the closest goblins still awake right to sleep! Then the two friends entered quickly and using their swords they one by one dispatched all the sleeping goblins until they were all slain. Huzzah!

It was a few minutes afterwards that they had gone through the bodies and found almost 50 more crowns which they split and pocketed. Feeling very bold from their endeavors, the two friends readied their weapons and went on to the next door in the hall.

Thimbles thought he heard something down the hall but it seemed to have been nothing since no one became visible. Outside the last door Lina’s keen hearing finally picked up some voices a few moaning in Common and a handful snarling in Hobgoblin. Alright – this should be it!

Our tactics had been working so far so it was a quick pull on the door and we attacked, Thimbles getting the first shot this time and pegging a Hobgoblin in the shoulder. The Hobgoblins were taller than the 5’ goblins, almost 6 and a half feet tall, still greenish cast to their skins but they all sported thick wiry orange hair on their heads, arms, and chins and to a one they each had almost baboonish like flattened blue noses. Holding their spears and sword up high, the 4 hobgoblins stepped forward to attack.

Lina took a nasty swipe on her arm and then a 2^nd one across her stomach. She returned the blows by hitting one of the hobgoblins so hard that he crumbled across his torn up thigh and went down with a silent wail. There were now only 3 and Thimbles pegged another one, wounding the tall monster and causing it to hiss in pain.

We had been given a healing potion each by Lord Rasmus before we had left and Lina was sweating very heavily as she tried to keep the hobgoblins from surrounding her, her sword whistling about like a scythe. When he had the chance, Thimbles stopped firing long enough to open his own healing potion and pour it down Lina’s throat, the magical elixir closing up all of Lina’s many scratches and breathing new life into her swings and blows. She thanked her Halfling companion and her every waving sword struck the wounded hobgoblin and ended his life.

Lina tried to convince the Hobgoblins to give up and their lives would be spared but the two remaining monsters wanted nothing to do with her words and commenced their attacks. But it was for naught for in a few short minutes the last two were slain and Lina was sheathing her sword once more. Thimbles had fired about half of his arrows but only a few of the feathered shafts were still salvageable.

The two friends shut the door and went to the 2 prisoners on the floor. They rummaged around the Hobgoblins and found a ring of keys, a fancy necklace, and a box of gold and silver coins that we pocketed for now. As for the keys, one of which opened the manacles. The prisoners said that they had been brought up for sport (pointing to a capped area of the floor where a ladder went down to a basement) with the other 10 townsfolk still down there. There were supposedly other goblins and hobgoblins down there and they were waiting for someone called “the General” who was going to come and take the prisoners somewhere else.

We talked about what was to happen next and Lina wanted to go down into the hole and rescue the other 10 down there. We helped up the two that we had saved and instructed them under no circumstances were they to open the door. She then took one spear and one sword from the fallen Hobgoblins and armed the two townsfolk.

We went to the stairs and Thimbles opted to go down first. Holding his torch with one hand and picked his way down the 20 feet to the basement where we reported to Lina there was a room here about 30’ square with two doors, one on the north leading to some 11 cells and the one on the south was dense heavy wood with bands of iron running across it.

She climbed down and the two friends made their way to the north door where another key on the ring opened it. There were cells here and moaning prisoners that we freed one at a time until we had way too many townsfolk milling about. Lina instructed them all to be very quiet and to climb up the ladder rungs to the floor above, making no noise to the goblins that might be nearby and could hear them.

We were lucky and the two friends knew it as they were the last out of the basement and commenced their way back up to the main floor. Once here we gave the last two swords to the strongest looking of the prisoners and then listened to the door back into the hall. And Thimbles this time heard goblin voices.

Lina wanted to make this quick as most of the prisoners were not going to be able to help in a fight. So we opened the door and hit the three goblins there with all we had. Arrows flew and swords sliced and even two of the prisoners helped out with wild spear thrusts and swings of their own weapons. Lina took another crack on her shin for her efforts and her shield was getting very dimpled but the three goblins went down at long last.

Thimbles lit a third torch from his pack and handed it to one of the prisoners, telling Lina to lead them out and he would take up the rear. The group now numbering 14 snaked their way out of the guard room, past the barracks, around the corners and through the sunken pool filled chamber.

It was past here that things did not go well as Lina was surprised by a pair of goblin scouts walking. She was hit but unwounded and the elven warrior-mage pushed and shoved and hit the two goblins, her mighty strength more than enough to drop a single goblin in one blow. The 2^nd one was surprised at this, took a look behind him, and ran with shouts echoing ahead of him.

Most likely getting help.

Lina urged the prisoners to go fast through to the exit, the townsfolk bottlenecking as they picked their way along the edge of the pit. She called for Thimbles to hurry as goblins were most likely coming, the Halfling at the end of the line of prisoners and unable to push his way past yet.

As she had feared the goblin had gone and gotten two of his friends who came back down the hall in a mad dash to hit the elven fighter. She set herself up near a corner so that she could only face one of the three at a time and made her stand to protect the fleeing townsfolk. She traded blows with the first and he fell, getting a slice across her shoulder from the 2^nd as she struggled to hold him off. When she had a chance she took her own potion of healing out and drank it down, smiling as the enchanted fluid restored her vitality again.

The 2 goblins were dismayed at this but even more so when Thimbles arrived and shot arrows past Lina, killing one of the two still standing here. It seemed like the last goblin was going to break and run but he didn’t and he was slain as well within the next few seconds under sword and arrows.

Not wanting to get caught they left the fallen foes here and Lina and Thimbles ran out to the waiting ex-prisoners and mounted up, urging them to move quickly back towards town. It was around 7 that night that the tired troupe arrived back at Brevoy. Lord Rasmus the Sixth was very pleased and awarded the two friends the 100 crowns as promised. He heard their tale and that of the captured people and then asked Lina and Thimbles if they would seek out this “General” and bring him in for justice; offering them 150 gold crowns if they succeeded.

The two friends agreed they would do so and expected to leave on the morrow after a good night’s rest and some shopping at the trading store for some more goods.

2nd Campaign! Background

2011-04-27T22:54:00.001-04:00

My daughter has been bugging me ever since my friend Mike C gifted her her 1st D&D set at age 6. Ambitious, yes, but he wanted to make sure the groundwork was laid early. I promised her that she could play when she was 8 (incidentally the same age that my cousin Jeff had come to my house one summer attempting to teach me how to play – but I did not take him up on it at that time) – and somehow she became 8!

It was a rainy weekend and she had already broken her teeth on Heroquest and various other similar games so after allowing her to convince me I told her that we would roll up characters. Over the years I had introduced probably 20 or so people to the game but honestly, no one as young or as important to me as my daughter. I wanted to think about this and do it right so I had to think about WHY and HOW we play and explain it in such a way that an 8 year old 3rd grader could understand and appreciate. I took some time to think about it

So below are the 7 policies regarding Dungeons and Dragons and what I talked about with my kid before we even cracked a book or picked up a pencil. They are worthwhile to repeat and it does not matter what age or experience your players are.

1) Winning at D&D means you show up. That’s the most important lesson – unlike Chutes and Ladders or Monopoly – there is no end game and the game ends when you stop playing. As long as you come and come with 3 things: 1) A willingness to listen, 2) Respect for others around the table, & 3) A good attitude; you will always win at D&D.

2) There is only one Rules person at the table. Being the DM is hard and you should always respect him or her. That means that if a rule is made or something is told to you regarding how an action plays out, there is no clamoring for a change or a reroll or can I instead do this. This goes back to the 1st point in which there is NO winning. Sometimes your character will die and sometimes you will get hurt – but there are also times when you will do the same to the foes arranged against you.

3) Teamwork – This is not a solo endeavor, there will be other people in your group. Some will be players, some will be characters the DM is controlling – but the long and short of it, it is a group effort and there are going to be times that your character can shine and times when someone else will be the main focus. Be respectful of both instances. Share the spoils always and always remember that no one should be left behind.

4) Good Sportsmanship – Sometimes the dice are going to be in your favor, and sometimes they won’t. What matters is how you compose yourself at the table. Cheering when the results are good and not complaining or calling out “not fair” when the results are poor. There is going to be the desire to cheat or fudge a dice roll – but a good player will refrain from doing that.

5) Social Gathering – This is a social event, just like a party or play date. It’s a chance to get together with friends and family and do things with them that everyone enjoys doing together. There will be shared laughter and joys and groans and stories. And when you see these people again even if it is not a game day, there will be that shared experience that binds you together.

6) Math and Reading skills – There is much to be learned in regards to statistics, addition, subtraction, estimation, probability, how to read a chart, as well as learning new words, definitions, sentence structure, manners of speaking, and further personal enrichment of this and other similar topics. (Words I had to define just during character creation: Alignment, Class, Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma, Paralyzation, Ventriloquism, Portal, Pole Arm, Platemail Armor, Tinder Box, Waterskin, Morale)

7) Historical Facts – Although it is a fantasy game, there are hundreds of things to learn about the past that you would most likely glean just from casual play even the first night. What’s the difference between bows and crossbows? What’s a Keep and why was it used instead of castles everywhere? What’s a dairymaid? What’s a cobbler? Why are some roads cobbled and others dirt? What IS a cobbled road? Why doesn’t everyone own a horse?

Another thing I did that I don’t normally do is I dropped the DM screen and rolled all dice in front of her. When able to, I allowed her to roll her own dice as well. Kids love dice, heck we all love dice, so seeing how it plays out and telling her what number she was looking for to achieve what goals she wanted was not only a kick but very appreciated.

As for systems, I went back to my 1980 red book Basic D&D set – the same one that I had used and learned when I was a kid. It meant jettisoning most everything I’ve tacked on over the years but it was a pleasurable experience to go back to the basics and play as it was originally inferred. Things I was happy to relearn – healing potions do 1d6+1, all 1st level characters need a 10 to hit AC:9, Initiative maxes at +2, short range on missile attacks get a +1, Halflings hide at 90% when outside and 2/6 when in a dungeon.

And lastly, I kept the actual game play time down to about 2 ½ hours. A short goal, defined solution, and a trip back to town all wrapped up in 1 fell swoop. We could have played longer but I did not want to burn her out and instead wanted to leave her hungry (if she was interested) for more and to come back when she wanted to.

Allow me to say, she very much wanted to (and still wants to!) come back and play again.

Meet 131, Adv 11, 4/16/11

2011-04-23T18:25:00.003-04:00

Escape from the dungeon.

Sometimes its a general walk out, other times its a run for your lives, and once in a while, its a pitched fight. And that's what the party fell to.

They left a level and a half of enemies at their back in their quest to the 7th level - and in their "passing", the enemy was given the heads up of the party, some of their strengths, and told what to look for and how to arrange it to be the most difficult to take the group down.

4 sites were originally figured: the first was foiled as the guards did not notice the group and were surprised and overrun (orcsish archers), the 2nd was even as the kobolds knew of the group and the group knew of the kobolds (the owlbear and giant frogs and green slime were enchancements), it was the 3rd site: 28 orcs with liuetenants, defensible positions, ballistas, crossbows, and a demonic cat that the party had an issue with.

I knew it was going to be difficult for the group and was hoping to lure a single person or two away - in this case I ended up bagging the party leader, the elven ranger. And through a series of bad negotiations and poor reaction checks, I ended up killing.

I don't like doing that to players but it did happen and the group chucked it into high gear and raced on for the exit.

Write up follows:

We queued up and returned to our long walk across the perimeter of the 5th level in our trek out of Double Dagger Dungeon. We refilled Agma’s lantern with our dwindling stock of oils and pressed on. At the end of the hall we came to a door that would lead up back to the main “choice” room and the party stopped, giving the portal a good listen. And we heard voices, kobold, on the other side.

Hmmm, they were originally on the 3rd level, and now they were here. Were they ready for us? Warned somehow? We don’t know what went on during the 2-3 hours that Stenthian Manbreaker the Minotaur and his troupe had marched about. It was very possible that the kobolds were set in place assuming we tried to leave.

Some of our fighters were brought near the front and we readied weapons and spells and then charged in on the assault. There were 9 or so kobolds in here armed with javelins and atlatls, 2 giant frogs, and in the halls beyond were 3 sets of 3 kobolds armed with spinning slings. And not too far away were other kobolds and the fecundic odor of an owlbear. One of the kobolds was fairly well armored and had his arms behind his back. Rahyk targeted that one and him and Guyus charged in.

A few stones were shot to no real effect and the battle was joined. Swords hit and kobolds fell. The leader absorbed most of Rahyk’s attack and then retaliated, his hands actually black and red demonic looking claws that seemed to hit a lot harder than expected. Norris charged in, flanking the leader. Frog’s tongue hit Rahyk who loped it off. Digger hit the nearest frog, Pisser charging to the right to tackle 3 of the kobolds. Arrows were shot and the room became crowded as we filled the empty spaces. Hammerhand and the other 3 pseudo-undead were told NOT to attack in the fight and to just wait.

Most stones were shot and Norris was knocked down. A few kobolds in the back did not toss stones, but instead fired green slime filled vials. One hit Beren’s shield, one hit the side wall, one hit King. The owlbear tore into the carnivorous ape and Kong was assaulted by javelin sporting kobolds. Detheron shoved Heimdall’s Bulwark into his ape’s side, bringing King back up and staving off the green slime assault briefly.

Beren was trying to shake off the shield and drag Norris back when he was knocked down, the bard barely missing getting slime on him. Some frantic tugging released his arm from the shield and he kicked it away. Pisser tore one of the kobolds to shreds and hit the next one. One of the frogs was dead, the other badly hurt. More javelins and stones flew. Guyus hit three of the kobolds at once, taking two of them down and driving the 3rd one back. Rahyk was having some difficulty with the leader who was soaking up damage heavily. Gwyn swapped to his hydraspear and joined the fight against the leader.

With a groan the leader went down but his demonic hands disengaged from his forearms and continued their assault, causing Soren, Gwyn, and Rahyk to jump about and try to end the fight. The kobolds were fading in groups of one and two and a few started to run away, Pisser giving chase to one of them. Detheron kept pumping charges into King who finally was getting the better of the owlbear who was ALSO suffering from the green slime.

One of the hands was “slain” and it exploded, hurting everyone around it which also killed the other hand, which also exploded and killed everyone around that. At this point the last of the kobolds was taken down the owlbear was killed and we backed away, dragging our hurt and wounded into the side room where the green slime was set ablaze and we stayed behind the closed door and took care of our many wounds. King was cleaned of the slime and we took stock.

Once satisfied we pocketed what coin we could find, reloaded on stones and bullets and javelins, and went off towards the stairs to the 4th level.

Carefully we walked around, noting a few changes. The main door was forced open and the hinges were beaten, preventing the door from closing again. Also as we walked around we could not find Gustuv where we had hidden him. The big half ogre and his great sword, Ragnarok, was missing. Lovely. We came to the end of the level and saw the other main door had been treated the same: forced open and hinges beaten.

It was as we were getting ready to get out of the 4th and go to the 3rd that we talked. We had bypassed the entire level 3 and most of the 2nd level before – leaving untold number of orcs and kobolds there. The same creatures that most likely know of us and our possible return. Soren volunteered to go up the stairs to the 3rd level and listen. He placed his ear against the door and the door opened and a bag was tossed over his head, cinched tight, and truncheons were hit on his skull – knocking him out.

The rest of us heard nothing. It was after 5 minutes that we took a look – no Soren. We gathered together and drew out a quick map of what we had seen of the level and carefully we opened the door. To our left we had the stairs going right up to the 2nd level and beyond this turn off we saw the main guard room, now empty of most furnishings except for a few dumped over stools and a smattering of cards and dice. Two long tables had been set up sideways, blocking the 2 exits from the room. Behind one was a ballista and behind the other was a crossbow wielding orc.

It was possible to avoid the orcs and sneak up the stairs – but no Soren was seen. Some parlaying commenced. The orcs seemed to know who we were and wanted us to leave. We had taken out Costeval the Fat and Stenthian, so they had our leader in return. We were told to go and never return. We wanted proof they had Soren so a few moments passed and his boot was flung into the room – with the elven ranger’s foot falling out of it. Someone did comment that it could have been anyone’s foot but was quickly sushed.

There was a mix of getting ready and getting out of here, with the party spreading out for a frontal assault. Detheron commented that the ballista was the biggest threat and was going to target both tables/corner of the room with a Flame Strike. More comments were tossed and the orcs wanted us to leave. We were stalling for time and Soren’s hand was flung out next. Fuck. Another joke went on with that we were helping Soren escape one piece at a time. It did not go over well.

Finally at the end of things, hoping we could still parlay, the unseen orcish speaker grew wroth and there was a sudden scream followed by a thunk – and Soren’s head was thrown towards us. Detheron stepped into the area, accepting that he might get hit, took aim at the corner of the room and called down a flame strike spell – which went off JUST before the lone crossbow bolt hit the druid in the chest.

Hitting him with a Magic Killer bolt. Which turned off all of the druid’s active spells – including his connecting to Frey…and his connection to his three animals. The three druid touched animals that now believed he was dead. The 3 animals that berserked in the hall and tore into the party. King beat Brother Beren from behind, the albino ape rending the cleric horribly and then tearing his left arm off at the elbow and beating his to death with it. Blam – Brother Beren down to -7 and missing his left arm.

Kong assaulted the group and Peter the spider jumped on Digger and tried to poison the wolverine. Detheron was struggling back against the wall, howling in pain and trying to keep the bolt from jiggling in his chest. The flame strike destroyed the ballista and the 2 orcs in the area, the sound of divine flames and fury ripping across the chamber. The party was too spread out and disorganized for this and a number of the group yelled for the undead dwarf Hammerhand, to help.

The dwarf took off his great axe and laid into Kong, knocking the ape off of Guyus and then cleaving its skull open. With a backhanded swing he dispatched the giant spider from Digger and scrambled forward. Meanwhile King caught sight of Detheron and stopped its attack, VERY puzzled as to what was going on. Detheron was hissing at the group NOT to attack his ape, and with a crazed pull, tore the magic killing arrow from his gut and tossed it away. His connection with King was reestablished immediately, but his spells were all still gone for now (although he could sense Frey was still with him).

Guyus opted to stand ground and act as rearguard, Gwyn, Jerold, and Malak standing with the paladin. Rahyk and Norris took point and proceeded to lead the party out towards the entrance. Hammerhand picked up the fallen cleric who had been given a quick stabilizing healing, and we ran on while the orcs were gathering their strength to attack.

At the top of the stairs Rahyk lead the way with Norris’ help, picking our way through corridors back towards where the Six Pints of Blood bandits had once roosted (along with the Maker). A few orcs saw us and fired bolts our way. The call to Guyus to “get his ass up here” and hold these new orcs at bay was yelled back and the party snaked their way towards the end of level 2. The room where the orcs were we heard a trundling and a cask of oil was rolled towards us – breaking open and spilling oil across a spreading expanse of the dungeon floor.

At the end of the hall there was a shimmering screen in front of the room and Rahyk did not want to pass through it. Norris said that it was the left over illusion from before and stepped through first to show it was harmless – but the bard was wrong and his body broke the death ward and the half-elf was dropped to 0 hit points and killed. Rahyk roared for “someone’s who’s been here to help us out of this damned place! To come up here and guide him!” and Agma came forward. Norris was too heavy to carry for her and she led Rahyk towards the stair to level 1.

We followed the fighter and the Halfling with jogging steps as they made the stairs, eventually Detheron helped Norris with a quick healing potion, and we made the top of the dungeon level. Rahyk was directed left and we stopped at a door. We knew we had to go left through the door and then it was a jump to the steps and out. A last ditch of low level orcs tried to bar our way but the party hit them like a hammer against anvil and we made our way to the surface and out of Double Dagger Dungeon.

We stopped briefly to check on Norris (stable) and Brother Beren (stump bound and breathing but unconscious). Our dwindling supply of potions was drunk and we talked about what to do. It was 7:40 at night, dark, raining, and we were in troll infested mountains at least 2-3 days from any civilization. The group was inspired to head to Fulgore Keep which we knew was only about 2 or so hours from here.

So we walked through the dark, relying on our damp map, the faint trails on the ground, and the flashes of lightning to guide us to the keep and keep us clear of the trolls that haunted the Dusty Mountains.

Meet 130, Adv 11, 4/9/11

2011-04-22T22:35:00.002-04:00

Interparty fights happen. Let's face it, it is a social game and people are going to clash. Hell, most of us a 50% genetically identical to our parent and we fight with them - why would a pile of strong will friends around a table for 6 hours talking not eventually get under someone's skin?

When I was younger I reveled in it - someone burns me as Julo the Fighter, my next character is chaotic evil and I knife Julo the 1st time I'm on watch. That ended quickly as the games broke down to one shot messes. So we scrapped the campaigns and I started to layout what was going to end up being my own game world for the next 26 years and it was with the idea that this was a social game and a team effort and we would not have that sort of screwing around at the table.

There are still times though when something just goes the left when it should have gone right and tempers fly and personalities clash both in character and out and then BLAM implosion. This had happened and I'd like to think that some growth was achieved as a group from it.

Write up follows:

While most of the party was in shock and grief over Aghmar’s demise, looking over the edge of the precipice down into the softly glowing scum covered water below, Soren and Rahyk were verbally at each other’s throats. Words were exchanged, barbed tossed, and snarling attacks on each other’s character were bandied about.

It was boiled down to a few issues: Soren continuously fails to show appreciation for anyone in the party’s efforts, Rahyk too often leaves on his own to do what he thinks best, no formal deal was remembered by too many of the group on who was getting any shares of the treasure, Soren lost his patience over leadership one too many times and gave up on the group, Rahyk has to accept that everyone does their job to the best of their ability, and lastly – no one was ever to again let another person in the party die if it was in their ability to save them.

Was the matter solved? Probably not – but it would do until we got out of the dungeon and back to civilization. For now an uneasy truce was established between Soren and Rahyk.

We lit lantern, giving it to Agma, and the group pressed on, looking for the way out. There were a few twists and turns and then the group smelled shit. Fresh shit. Ahead was a large faintly odiferous pile of it. Our druid gave it a once over and assured us it was herbivorous droppings, and if it was a typical amount, the figure that dropped it was close to 400 lbs in size. We saw nothing that would identify what it might be but we moved on carefully.

Eventually we came to a door and it was closed but there was a faint smear of feces on the handle. Norris gave the door a good once over and declared it safe (although filthy). Using an extra shirt we had picked up we cleaned off the door and opened it up. Room was big, 40 x 30, and there was an oversized 4x3x3 stone/wood/iron chest in the middle. Floor was covered in about an inch or two of dirt and there was an opening on the opposite side of the chamber. Humanoid large two toed prints seemed to run across the room towards the chest and then out towards the other side.

Everyone felt the chest was a trap but was unsure of what to do. Whoever was just here ran towards the chest and then out. We used a pair of shovels and cleared out a small section of the floor, showing normal stone beneath. Giving the soil a heavy glance, Soren drew out a small pinch of his ivy seeds and threw them onto the dirt – satisfied to see them quickly grow into 8’ lengths of pale green ivy. The soil was the same quality as the soil from the 4th floor. Detheron called on to Frey to detect any pits and uncovered a huge one almost 40’ deep taking up most of the room and centered under the chest. The soil had the tendency to dissolve leather and flesh so we one by one took off our shoes for what was to come.

We kept clearing away more of the soil, concentrating where the footprints were, eventually uncovering the lip of a closed pit. Ok, getting somewhere. Whoever it was in here before had run over the pit and did not trigger it. Soren volunteered to try and the ranger backed up a few steps and then charged over the pit, following in the same path the other person had gone. The floor felt like it was going to give way beneath the elf until he arrived at the area around the chest. At that point he heard a click and the floor felt solid as he ran the rest of the way across.

Ok, that worked. Do we want to open the chest? Most likely a trap but we’d save it for the end. We had Soren run back, following the same path – this time the floor felt solid until he arrived at the chest where he heard the click and then the floor felt bouncy. We checked our rope and learned that we were running out. Taking tow 30’ lengths, a quick mend spell spliced the two ends together and we tied a portion of it to Soren who ran BACK across (again: bouncy, click, solid). The other end was tied to a grapple and situated near the entrance.

After this we got the party across by staying in the same path until Norris was last. Our bard then went up to the chest and placed himself over it. After riding on top he cleared out the area around it and revealed a place for him to stand. He checked it out, no traps, and then using the keys from Taramis opened the lock. With a steadying breath he lifted the top and suddenly yelled out and the floor dropped away everywhere – pit opening was 20 x 30. IN fact only the CHEST remained in place- hovering in the air. Norris was holding on to the edge and pulled himself up, swinging one leg in. Inside written on the top were the words “Ha ha” written in elvish. He went to scratch it out but defacing any of the inner surface of the chest made the magic holding it 40’ off the floor shake and spark so he stopped.

The rope was tossed to the party who started to pull – and in fact pulled the chest across the air! Very nice. It took some doing but we got Norris and the chest on the right side of the pit and took stock of what we had found. Chest weighted 90 lbs and seemed to float and stay in position after it was moved somewhere. Sort of a cross between Tenser’s floating disk and a levitation spell. We could lift it up and it would stay there, or we could angle it down and it would sink. We also loaded it up with chests and people and it still felt like it was 90 lbs. Norris wanted to take it and so we dragged the chest along, eventually allowing Galf to place his chest inside of it and the porter instead just pushed the floating chest along.

Corridor eventually split and we took some time mapping it out, the right/straight option eventually led to a pair of corridors that turned in on themselves and went in circles while the left meandered around to two doors. The first door was closed and the second had a sensation of pressure behind it after Norris checked it out. We believed that one was trapped so went back to the first. We heard nothing and went to open it when water started blowing past our knees through the open portal. It took 3 of us to reclose/relatch the door shut and check to make sure the water in the hall was actually just water. Ok, that room had some maybe 2’ of water covering the floor.

Going back to the trapped door, Norris offered to remove the pressure plate trap and was about halfway done when he slipped and the door cracked open, a spear driving straight down and into his back, pinning him in place. A 2nd spear did not fire but could at any moment. Guyus stepped over Norris with his shield blocking him, Soren used a piece of the rust monster’s antenna we had picked up to rust the other unfired spear, and Detheron/Brother Beren helped free the bard from his position.

One free and bound up, we were dismayed to see the door did not lead anywhere. Now what? Water room or back to the two corridors that might turn back into each other? We opted to check out the corridors and hoped to find stairs there. Upon looking we found 3 bodies there, pale, unmoving, dead for what seemed like 2-3 days and totally naked – two humans and a dwarf. The other corridor looked to be the same, 3 more bodies, tow humans and an elf. Both corridors did reconnect at the end.

Do we mess with them or not? Norris decided to take a chance and tossed a coin at one of the humans. Nothing happened. We were talking about going down to check it out or just leaving when the body he had hit reached up and scratched where it was hit. Fuck. A detect evil was enacted by Guyus but he felt nothing! The body then groaned and said in a heavy accent, “What the hell? Where’s my pants?”

We had conversation with it and learned that it was a guy named Denathi and he was in a tavern in Tarkis and he thought it was 120 years ago. Was drinking and woke up here naked. He moved slowly and jerkily like a zombie but was not evil and had full control of his speech and memories and faculties. In fact he wanted pants. We gave him a set from our group and even Norris was able to shake it/his hand and had no ill effects. Brother Beren was torn and felt a resistance from his god on just turning the seemingly undead Denathi.

At one point Denathi went to wake up another of the fallen bodies, but when he touched it, there was a flash and the body turned to dust. Denathi seemed to straighten up and was no longer moving so jerkily, plus the pale deadish look faded and he seemed to be normal looking. We debated over it slightly and then settled on waking up the other 3 bodies, getting more of the same except from the dwarf who said he was an adventurer named Hammerhand who was part of a group that was going against some necromancer called the Mottled One about 90 years ago.

We figured that it was the same necromancer that was a part of Double Dagger Dungeon. We also learned a bit about the Blackblood resin – necromantic rites can be used to keep the blood flowing from a magical creature and the blood can be used to shortcut some potion makings, “monsterize” animals, or provide a protective unguent for undead. We opted to take the 4 undead with us out of the dungeon, outfitting them with some leftover equipment and clothes we had.

But with no where left to go we went back to the water door and decided to work it opened. Gwyn used his auger and drilled a hole about 4” from the floor. The water rushed out and we waited as it filled the hall. Eventually we did note that at the corner, it did not turn left but seeped under the wall! Hammerhand shoved hard and the wall slid up – secret door! Whoo hoo.

Once the water did stop we opened the door again and took a look. Very big room and 4 dead bodies here, 3 orcs and 1 minotaur. We went in to strip the bodies and once again, when our new undead friends touched them, they turned to dust and the 4 of them did not appear to be as zombie-like anymore. Hammerhand did touch a 2nd one and a sort of black glow surrounded him. We were getting less confident as time went on.

Equipped now with more armor and weaponry from the dead orcs and minotaur we lined up and went towards the secret door. The corridor wound in an “S” pattern for a bit until we came across…a large spider! It occurred to us that it might be the same spider that Detheron had spoken to a day or two ago so another speak with animal spell was enacted and our druid talked.

Sure enough it was the same and we asked the arachnid where the “fire room” was that we had originally encountered it in – and were told that we were almost there. The spider seemed concerned and wanted to travel with Detheron and the druid thought about it, and then decided that having an almost 3’ spider with us could only be a good thing.

We arrived at the fire room and worked our way across easily after we had snuffed out the torches. It was when Brother Beren was going across, riding in the magical floating chest, that he had the cover pulled closed and the chest just dropped out of the sky. Damn it. Norris was pissed and we tried to open the chest again to get it to float but it just would not, even though it was confirmed that the chest WAS still magical. We split up our belongings and carried the chest with us as we made our way across the floor.

From here it was a short walk past the guard room, through the smoky portal with the 3 color code on it, and to the stairs up to the 6th level.

We checked out what was Costeval the Fat’s chamber, seeing it empty, and continued on to the secret corridor, eventually ending up at the start of the 6th level. We took the stairs to the 5th level and started the long walk around the corridors where we had the fight with the orcs before. We listened, and there were some more of them back, guarding the corridor again.

We drew out into lines and then charged as quietly as we could down the dark long hall to crash into the orcs, armor class thrown to the wind. King and Kong were first, the 2 carnivorous apes tearing the orcs to shreds with roars and cries. Norris, Guyus, Rahyk, and Hammerhand all followed right behind with Soren shooting overhead into the packed orcs. The greenskins stepped back and a few tried to fire at the apes but they broke and ran instead. Axes were hurled and we pressed on. King pursued, Kong was slowed down thanks to Detheron’s calls.

We ran on, legs pumping hard in an effort to make it to the orcs but the last one turned the corner and King gave chase. We heard the twang of crossbows fired and then a heavy thud as the ape fell. Norris assaulted one of the orcs hard but it was Hammerhand who viciously took out the last of the orcs, dispatching each of them with a flurry or singular sharp edged blows from his war axe. And with each one he killed, he grew more fluid and the dark glow about his grew stronger.

And the party was very concerned.

He was still not evil, but there seemed to be a shift in his attitude as he was not so eager to “move on to the other side”. A few spells were tested (including a turning) and nothing seemed to work. Also, the spells that were aimed at him from Brother Beren he was able to capture and pass on on his own – Hold Personing Norris in the meanwhile.

We wanted to get out and took the 4 undead friends with us still, but now looked on them with some trepidation and thought about how to handle it and them once we were top side once more.

Meet 129, Adv 11, 4/2/11

2011-04-14T23:40:00.001-04:00

At some point someone in your group will go off on their own and have a solo adventure. When we were younger and played multiple times a week, that was ok to take a half hour or an hour out and solo run Dumbass the Fighter on his hunt for the bugbear, or Greedles the Thief as he went to steal the innkeeper blind. As I've gotten older and the game time has shrunk from 8 hour stints twice a week to 4.5 hour stints 3 saturdays out of every 4, solo time has been subtly squashed where able to.

But I have a player at my table who is not the best role player but damn it, he's shown up more often than most everyone else and whenever he does get into something, I like to promote it for him, because honestly I am happy when he WANTS to be a bigger part than second fighter on the left.

So Gwyn the dwarf had his own foray with a pathetic obese ettin trapped in a dungeon too small for himself and even though his reasons were selfish for taking the ettin with him, he did it in such a way that for a time his character was nobler than he normally gives himself the credit of being.

And now he had a rapid fire crossbow box - something I had sworn personally to keep out of his hands. Damn - that's going to bite me in the ass I just know it! ;)

Write up follows:

We looked down the long hall – the 9’ tall stone and steel golem holding the big box just standing in the corner alcove. No one wanted to risk walking up to it, and no one was keep on passing it either. We lit Soren’s lantern for an extra light source and debated the situation briefly. Eventually it was decided that Rahyk and Guyus would risk passing the golem, watching carefully to see that the construct did not start to move. At no point would ANYONE dare to touch it. We watched the two fighters get closer and closer – and then pass the golem without issue. Feeling a sigh of relief, the rest of the party followed suit until everyone had gotten by.

The hall turned left and then left again. We spied past and saw the hall was lined with torches and beyond the corridor seemed to be rounded and painted alternating black and white striped. There was also an opening to the left where we heard some heavy breathing coming from it. The breathing might be from what we assumed to be the ettin the two albino apes had described to Detheron earlier. No one was sure about the spinning looking corridor and we talked long about possible ways to assault the ettin. Unfortunately we spent so long in the hall talking about it and our voices did rise that we bothered the ettin who called out in both Ogrish and Giantish from both of its heads, the “Stop jabbering and just come on it.”

We carefully entered and Gwyn was shoved forward, our dwarf having the ability to understand and speak Ogrish. The room was at one point a guard chamber but had seen better days. A few counters and cabinets in poor shape were on the south wall, a door was in the far corner near a 14’ tall two headed pretty damned fat looking specimen of an ettin. It was not wearing anything, its grotesque gut overhanging its giantish…package. There was a soup cauldron in its arms and it was dunking chunks of strange meat into it, slurping the greasy mixture between its heads. It was sitting on a bed of crushed and strange animals – not hides, just flattened and rather oddly deformed animals.

The room was much too small for the ettin who would have to crouch should it stand up. It wanted to know what the party wanted and Gwyn said to pass. It said ok, give the word. We didn’t say we didn’t know it, but waited long enough until it said, well give me something to eat or something shiny. Soren quickly pulled out the hallucinogenic mushroom soiled meat we had been carrying since the 4th level and told Gwyn to give it to the ettin. It slurped it down and said that 3 of the party could go past.

We looked through what we had and most of the rest of the bear steaks and other “turning” meat products we had were passed forward and given to the ettin, identified as Taramis, who looked at the bounty and said the group could pass. It seemed friendly and was honest about its plight – came here some time ago from Stenthian, the dungeon is too small for it, nowhere to go and can’t fit through most of the doors. It seemed to want to chat but we walked on by, wishing the two headed monster well.

The next chamber seemed to be the one in question that we had suspected the Sun Sphere to be in. There were two other doors out of here and the ceiling had a 9 count oh hemispheric globes pressed tight against the stonework. Each was painted with a heavy layer of faux-gold paint. The floor of the room was 6 inches lower than normal and we gave the ceiling a once over. Detheron called upon Frey and tried to find magic, noting that 3 of the globes contents was glowing with magic.

We were tired though and there was nothing except a few spells still at our disposal. We looked over the two possible doors out of here; the one on the left was a long corridor that smelled of mildew, the one on the right was a set of stairs going down about 9 feet to some water filled corridor. The group talked and decided that we would stay here for the night. We took a length of rope and tied the two doors closed and then the rest of us shared what water and food we had before setting ourselves up and going to rest.

As time went on and the group kept watch, Gwyn who was on 2nd watch noted that the ettin, Taramis, was talking to some creature, orcish, that was rather loud and angry sounding. After the orc had gone, the dwarf opened the door and chatted with Taramis. The orc was upset over the death of Stenthian and wanted to know if Taramis had seen what happened. Gwyn and Taramis spent the next two hours talking to one another, playing cards, and just generally bonding – the ettin even though evil, was miserable in his situation and just wanted the opportunity to get out of here and go home.

Gwyn thought. He wanted the possibility of getting a rapid fire box for his crossbow but with the golem nearby, it wasn’t going to happen. So he tried to convince Taramis that they would have to take out the golem and one they had done so, then Gwyn could help the Ettin get to the portal. Taramis let Gwyn know that the portal would not work if it was red, only if it was blue/green. So Gwyn lied and said it was ready. There was some serious discussion until Taramis was swayed that he would have to knock the golem down and take its arms and legs off.

So the dwarf and the Ettin (who was crab walking hunched over down the corridor) headed back towards the golem, Gwyn sneaking past and then Taramis reached out, grabbed the golem by the head, and punched (only to yelp in pain at the hitting of rock). The golem animated, dropping its box of quarrels and grappled with the ettin. They struggled for a moment while Gwyn looked on with surprise and then Taramis gave out a might roar, hoisted the multiton golem OFF the ground and rolled backward, hurling the constructed creature over his flabby body and down the hall.

Gwyn charged to the crossbow room and made sure that the tiles were pressed and shot off the loaded bolts one by one, and then cut each and every string in there making sure there would be no chance of someone getting accidentally shot. Meanwhile the golem and the ettin continued their fight and it was loud and terrible to hear. Carefully Gwyn walked down to the corner, Taramis was badly hurt, nursing his left arm that was twisted the wrong way, many scratches and bruises covered his form. The golem’s head and right arm was missing, and its left leg was bent the wrong way, forcing the construct to have a shuffling gait. And still they battled on.

The dwarf reached down, grabbed the end of the quarrel box and started to run down the hall with it which caused the golem to deliver a vicious kick to Taramis’ midsection and stomp over the ettin to give chase. The box was heavy, the golem was wounded but running, and the gap between the dwarf and the pursuer was closing. Gwyn ran into the crossbow room, out the other entrance, and towards the corridor with all the pits. He threw the door open as the golem rounded the corner, shoved the box until it clattered 25’ down, and then jumped across the pit as the golem finally closed to touching distance.

It stepped over the edge and fell, crumbling on the bottom of the pit and trapped there with no way to get out. Gwyn carefully leapt back over the pit gave one look at the golem down in the hole, and went back to Taramis. The ettin was not dead, just very badly hurt. Gwyn sat with his new friend for a pit while Taramis wanted to know if Gwyn would go with him to the portal and see if it would work. There was some hemming and hawing but Gwyn agreed and the two of them crept towards the stairs. They looked out and the portal was indeed bluish/green. A lone orc was in front of it, reading some book.

Taramis wished Gwyn well and the dwarf watched his lumbering friend charge across the chamber, both heads screaming. Not wanting to see what happened next, Gwyn ran back up the stairs – the sounds of the orc shrieking filling his ears along with the dual roars of the ettin and then some other strange calls. A sense of unease washed over the dwarf as there were some crackling noises when the portal fired up but Gwyn decided NOT to further investigate and instead ran back to the party and take up his watch again.

We rested late the next day and Gwyn filled us in about Taramis and his departure and the “no more golem” issue. It was now time to look into getting what we came here for. Aghmar fired up a floating disk and Norris climbed on while the rest of the group retreated to Taramis’ room. Positioned under the north eastern hemi-sphere Norris turned it counterclockwise until it finally came free and we beheld – the Sun Sphere! (Hooray!!)

Using the flat of his dagger he scrapped the paint away from the other surfaces revealing a crystalline area below that we were able to look through. It took some time but we found lots of clothes and personal belongings as well as a black iron box, a sack, an oil lamp, and a few other items. The bag was a bag of holding filled with at least 4,000 copper, it lamp was magical but we didn’t do anything with it, the box held some potions.

Rahyk and Soren got into a discussion over the lamp and it ended up with neither one being satisfied. This was a foreshadowing on other issues to come.

During all this Gwyn and a few others had snuck back to the crossbow room and dismantled one of the rapid fire boxes from the weapon, taking it back to our chamber and attaching it to Gwyn’s crossbow. He then loaded it and we drew up into a marching order. No one wanted to go down either the mildew smelling corridor or the water filled passage. So instead we went back to the “spinning corridor” just north of Taramis’ room and looked in and on. We heard that there were bugs at the end of it but not sure what and where.

Norris scouted and came back telling us that there was a turning corridor and then some sort of chamber as well. Detheron called on Frey and discovered there were some 100,000 flesh eating beetles in that “room” beyond. There was a corridor beyond it but no one wanted to risk it. Instead they had Brother Beren erect an anti-vermin barrier near the entrance of the room and then the party ventured down slowly into the corridor.

The barrier held and the bugs within went somewhat nuts in their attempt to get to the party but to no avail. We kept going past and eventually the corridor ended at a single door. Norris checked it out, determined it was trapped, and we rigged up a rope to open it – and two spears shot out. Beyond the door was…nothing. Damn it!!

We went back to the bug room and with a series of carefully looking and checking around, determined that there was another way out of this chamber. But storming in was not going to work. Instead, Detheron called on Frey and pounding hail smashed into the chambers, filling the floor with slushy ice and the subfreezing temperatures helped kill off the bugs in here.

We walked across to the other corridor out, and it went down 9’ or so to a water filled corridor. There was thought that it went back to the other one from the globe room but wanted to make sure of it first. So about 5 of us went into the 3’ deep water and started walking when Rahyk got a funny feeling and asked for one of Detheron’s quarter staves. Sure enough after a few feet the floor of the corridor dropped away – pit hidden under the water. We backed up slowly and the party then went back to the globe room.

Gwyn had informed us of the uncomfortable sensation of the area around where the portal was and the other two passages out of here were a bust – which left only the corridor smelling like mildew.

We queued up and went down the corridor two by two, eventually getting closer to the end where we stopped in shock and dismay.

The room was cavernous, ceiling stretched some 30’ above our head and the floor was hidden far below we assumed under the surface of the scummy water some 35’ below us. Clumps of glowing fungus abounded giving the chamber a greenish aura. As we watched slimy shaped of dungeon squid disturbed the surface of the water. And suspended from the ceiling were a series of braided ropes that supported disks of wood between 5’ and 10’ in diameter, acting as steps and a path from one end of the room all the way to the other. A few plinths of solid rock stuck out of the water about half way across.

There was no desire to go this way but there was also no desire to go back. We had to try. A few ideas were bandied about and we were settling on possibly roping 4 of us together and making our way from platform to platform. Rahyk pulled out the “rope” wand we had grabbed some levels above and the fighter aimed it at the nearest platform’s rope and experimented with it. Learning that he could raise, lower, and adjust the rope as well as “pull” himself towards it.

We watched as he made his way from one end of the room to the other using only 2 or 3 of the magical charges. He did offer to share it with the party, but for some reason no one answered him. He offered again and again was ignored. Yeah, that was pissing him off.

Detheron called to Frey and gave himself the ability to climb like a spider, where he then made his way from one end of chamber to the other, standing next to a growling and simmering Rahyk. As for the rest of the party, pretty much on Soren had no problem leaping from platform to platform, making his way back and forth with ease. We roped ourselves together and then had the idea of Aghmar using his Floating Disk spell to carry even more of us.

It was only on the third platform that disaster struck and a couple of us slid off the end of the wooden disk. It was a frantic hold for a bit while Gwyn and Soren pulled up the terrified group. Then we slowly made our way to the plinth and rested. From here, Aghmar shoved his floating disk across the intervening space until it ended about at the exit where the fighter and druid were and we began shuttling everyone over one at a time. When the first batch was done we got the next batch over and then finally the third until on Norris, Aghmar and Soren were left.

If was here that things started going pear shaped. While getting our way over Aghmar slipped and ended up dangling down over the water. Then Norris slid off as well, the bard and mage tied together. Norris’ rope was tied to the platform and Soren was struggling to help lift them up when some of the dungeon squid tentacles started reaching up and grabbing at Aghmar. The mage was shouting and yelling and the tentacles gripped tight and began pulling – the dungeon squid’s face poking out of the slimy water and another squid next to this one.

Jerold began hurling darts down into the water, Soren tried to take aim and fire with his bow, Brother Beren called out to Tyr and shot a spiritual hammer down at the squid. Aghmar was kicking wildly and Norris shot a fear spell straight down, scaring off one of the squid but not the other one and Aghmar was now shrieking in terror.

Then Soren was shouting for Rahyk to use the wand and the word were exchanged and stupid this and rude and selfish that and back and forth and Rahyk was furious at the ranger and instead of using the wand, sent it tumbling over the edge of the room towards the water! Only a frantic grab by Malak saved the magic wand but the damage was done as the rope between Norris and Aghmar parted with a rip and the mage was dragged screaming down into the water where he disappeared under the slimy surface.

The party was stunned. Norris worked his way over to safety followed by a furious Soren who proceeded to lace into the angry Rahyk who was yelling back at the red faced elven leader. And that’s where that game ended.

Meet 128, Adv 11, 3/26/11

2011-03-31T16:35:00.000-04:00

When I started playing there were no use of miniatures in the game so for more years than I can count, the thought of getting them and using them just was not an option for me. It wasn't until I had gotten very sick at the age of 15 and was bed ridden for almost a week near my birthday that my mother had made some calls for me to various hobby shops and found one that sold miniatures as well as paints should I need them (she had gotten the idea from watching a session or two of our games with a new group of friends I had - one of which had brought over his case of painted miniatures).

In this multitude of unpainted leaden figures I had acquired a minotaur and it was this damned beast that had colored my impressions of the manbeast for many many years afterwards. It was thin, not quite emaciated, and had a battle axe held high in one hand, wearing some sort of ringmail armor and it was roaring. I had the "thin minotaur" in my head after that for a good decade or more until I had to come to the realization that the minotaur was most likely not only a bit smaller, but definitely a lot beefier and muscular. More bullish and bulllike.

I like minotaurs and don't get to use them too much which is a good thing. They don't speak common (why would talk the same language of that which you eat?) instead using a polygot of ogrish and orcish and some of their own tongue. They are brutal, deadly, hyperstrong, and I always play them as having a flat 100 hit points and the inability to die at 0 (instead "raging" until they hit -10).

And the party hit a group of 3 of them, one of which was a sorcerer who had a necromantic druid's head dangling from his left horn.

And to top it off, we had Pat Benetar's greatest hits playing in the background in homage to the mangled joke of Benetar/Minotaur.

Write up follows:

We checked out the top of both sets of stairs that went down to Stenthian Manbreaker, the minotaur and his minions, noting that both sets were seemingly the same – about 20’ of steps before the both turned back and out of sight. According to our two monkey minions, the steps went down to a big room, very long, and there was a wire across the floor after the last step that if you hit it, it would fire a sharp stick at you and make a big noise. Alright, crossbow warning trap. We also learned that the two rooms did connect in the back through a short hall. Also, the rooms were set up in such a way that they would echo the front to the back of the room and vice versa.

We did listen and could hear some voices, but they were too distorted to make out anything being said. What to do? We eventually decided on the need for more information. Using Soren’s wand, Detheron talked to King and asked the Carnivorous ape to go down into the Minotaur chamber, look around, and come back. The idea was that the Minotaurs would not know that King was not on their side anymore and should pay the ape no mind. King agreed and did so, returning only after a few minutes with some news.

The left side did indeed have Stenthian Manbreaker in it; the spell using Minotaur was in the back of the room talking to an armored orc in front of the portal. He had a severed head tied onto his left horn and dangling down which King let us know was the remains of someone who could talk to Frey. Hmmmm, druid’s head? Maybe reminiscent of the same thing that Costeval the Fat had going. There was another orc in there but he was a bit closer and seemed bored. As for the other Minotaurs, they were not there but King did hear them in the next chamber and there was still maybe 3 or 4 orcs unaccounted for.

It was time to put together a plan and we had to do it quick or risk being caught out here. Potions were handed about and spells were readied. Rahyk drank Norris’ potion of Stone Giant Strength, Guyus was hit with a strength spell, sanctuary and virtue was placed on Beren, a Bless spell was put into place and finally a silence spell was set on one of Soren’s arrows. We were ready.

Double timing down the stairs with Soren and Gwyn in the lead we made it to the base without being seen or heard and then Gwyn notched a Blessed bolt of Sutur into his crossbow, brought it up to the ready, a cyclone of super heated air flowed around behind him (silenced of course!) and then fired. Like the finger of god, the line of fire scoured across the chamber, destroying furniture and upsetting a huge pile of bones that was near the back end, before plowing into Stenthian and burning the Minotaur horribly. The flame line did not rebound though as expected, instead it passed into the portal and then disappeared on the other side!! Soren acted next, shooting his silenced arrow into Stenthian, followed by two more for good measure. Quiet now, the Minotaur and the druid’s head were unable to cast spells!

Digger and Pisser charged into the room assaulting the closest orc who seemed surprised at all of this, the suddenness of our assault enough to allow everyone else to get to the base of the stairs. The tripwire was tripped and the group started their assault on the chamber. A few orcs burst from the nearby corridor, firing at the party. Some of us took cover where able to and the first orc was already badly bleeding from the party’s attack. Detheron released both the albino apes to attack but had them avoid a headlong charge meanwhile Brother Beren dove behind the pile of skulls and bones as a makeshift cover.

Two orcs came from around the narrow corridor setting themselves up to take shots at the party. Our two shield bearers made it their business to form ranks and block the top of the stairs, weapons at the ready. Between Rahyk and Guyus and their enhanced strength, the 1st orc was hacked to bits. Stenthian grabbed one of the orcs closest to him and hurled the squealing figure into the portal. There was a flash; it turned from blue/green to red, and then a slightly burned 9’ tall strangely dressed purplish skinned ogre stormed out with a 4 count of stones flaring around his head. Stenthian ran towards the connecting corridor and disappeared from sight, taking the silence area with him.

The ogremage took a single look at the group and extended its hand firing a bolt of lightning at the party! It scoured into 5 of us raising sparks and filing the air with the stink of ozone. And then we heard a crash and coming out of the side corridor was another 1100 lbs or angry Minotaur. It lowered its horns and charged, mowing down the two apes and coming up short only after being hit by Rahyk and Guyus.

The fight was getting desperate and at this point Soren ordered Pisser to assault the ogremage. King, Kong, and Digger had all been pretty grievously wounded and started to charge forward and assault any enemy that was in sight or range. Our two fighters bent then superhuman strength against the closest Minotaur bearing the manbeast lower and lower with their blows. Gwyn made it his business to storm forward toward the ogremage, the dwarven fighter the least affected by the lightning attack. Agma and Soren kept up a steady hail of sling stones and arrows. From the top of the stairs we heard Jerold and Malak call out that someone was coming and most likely coming soon. Aghmar ran up the stairs to help, the mage coating the steps with a layer of magical grease.

The ogremage was having a frustrating time with Pisser digging at his ankles and then to his dismay, Rahyk threw his armor class to the wind and ran across the battlefield to slam his enchanted blade repeatedly at the ogremage’s side. King eventually joined the fight and Gwyn was there a moment later. Guyus was slamming out at one of the other orcs and now we were able to hear noises and chanting from the other room as the silence was either delayed or stopped or cancelled.

From the top of the stairs we heard the pounding feet of the 3rd Minotaur as he started coming down at the party but then slipped on the magical grease and tumbled to his ass, hitting the wall with a titanic “thwoom!”. And then Norris tossed his lit torch over the shieldbearers’ head and set the Minotaur and the grease he was lying in on fire.

The animals were biting and snarling and chewing and assaulting while our trio of Guyus, Rahyk, and Gwyn kept up the main battery of blows and battering, killing the last two orcs and eventually dropping the ogremage down. We raced into the next room where we beheld Stenthian (not as wounded as he was earlier), a closer bow wielding orc, and one further away with some fetishes on him. The battle was joined with sword and steel. Detheron and Soren began to move up slowly while Agma ran back up the stairs with Thodrek to help finish off the floundering Minotaur up there.

The further orc caused all the nearby torched to explode which burned a small part of the assaulting party, but it was the druid’s head dangling from Stenthian Manbreaker that caused a Flaming Sphere to appear and roll across the gathered party and animal companions, causing a further whittling of hit points. The Minotaur was dishing out what damage he could but was still surrounded by 5 or 6 of the group. The minotaur (affectionately referred to as “Pat” – as in Pat Minotaur) at the top of the stairs was badly faring and the other orc that had snuck up with him decided that the fight was going poorly and fled deeper into level seven instead.

Finally a deadly blow was struck against Stenthian – but the Minotaur refused to die!! The flaming Sphere hit the party again and magic missiles began to whistle about, hitting the group terribly. The spell casting orc was still working against us but it was the severed druid’s head that called up the latest terror for the group. We half expected a Flame Strike – but instead it was a choking, cloying, terrifying cloud of stinging, biting and burrowing insects.

Visibility immediately dropped to about 15’ as we tried to block and avoid the stinging terrors. The plague was so large that it filled up both room and went up the stairs as well. This many terrors caused all of our animal companions to run away in terror, followed also by Galf and Thodrek – the 6 of them running as far as they could to the only place they knew was safe – that was back across all the pits. Rahyk and Guyus hacked at the druid’s head and it was split in twain. We tried to find some safe haven from the bugs but it was almost impossible. Aghmar dropped a stinking cloud around the party still at the top of the stairs, the vapors more than enough to drive the bugs back for a short time. Detheron had a vermin barrier erected around himself and one by one, moved towards the other party members and gathered them up around him.

Eventually the apes, wolverine, war dog and our dwarven footman and porter calmed down and returned to the group while Detheron walked slowly about the chamber and we gathered up bits of obvious treasure before hiding behind the door near the pits. We were shot, exhausted, and very bad off. Little was left in our “tanks” so to speak and what little precious healing we had left was doled out as well as a handful of potions. But the feeling was that the battle went very well and we had a good plan.

It took over an hour and a half for the insect plague to dissipate and then we could gather around what we found and see what was available for us. Through a number of detection spells we found a decent sized box with a seal on it that was magical, the ioun stones that were around the ogremage, and a large cache of coins. The ioun stones were given out (one helped dexterity, charisma, protection, and one absorbed all spells up to 4th level for a time!). Norris opted to open the sealed box and when he did there was an inrushing of wind around him and the box seemed to glow from within – the light very bright and then dimming out to nothing. Odd, what was it? Inside was only ash.

It was right after that that he realized that ALL of his magic had been sucked away. Everything he owned was no longer magic – just normal and inert. Damn it!!!

We went over our options. At some point another conversation was had with King and Kong, the two carnivorous apes filling in a bit more information for us. The area beyond the Minotaurs was a tiled floor, have to step on the yellow tiles or crossbow bolts shoot you. Past there was either a spinning corridor that could set you on fire or some sleeping chamber with a tall ceiling where a two headed figure was known to stay. Past that guy was a room with golden globes on the ceiling – and according to what we had learned from the oracle before we had left on this mission, was where the Sun Sphere was.

Weary but determined to press on so close to our goal, we drew up into marching order, bounced some equipment around, and readied our weapons and equipment. We snuck out of the door beyond the pits and there were still insects around, but very few of them and they were not acting as a cohesive group anymore. We walked on past the two sets of stairs and stopped at the next room. Fairly large, there was a table on the far end with a small pile of gems and jewelry, the left side had 6 heavy crossbows with rapid fire boxes affixed to them, the right side had an opening near here and out, the floor was a random cascade of green, blue, red, and yellow tiles. We did note that most of the yellow tiles were NOT near the crossbows.

Gwyn REALLY wanted a rapid fire box and some thought was given on how to get it. For now though we wanted to check out the way out of the room. We tested a yellow tile with Gwyn’s 7’ pole and…nothing happened. When we tested a blue tile though we were surprised to see ALL the crossbows aim at the area around the tile we touched and SIX bolts fly out and hit the far wall. Ok, not so good. We did get a bit ballsy and tried out all the tiles, until after 6 steps on other tiles, the crossbows were dry firing.

For a moment we felt it was all peaches and cream for us when we heard some heavy stepping in the hall beyond and we got ourselves ready, surprised to see a crude 10’ tall stone and steel form of a humanoid stomp into the room with a large crate in its arms. It walked up to each crossbow, reloaded it, and after doing all 6 it turned and stomped out and back down the hall. It ignored the group entirely. A golem of some sort. We decided NOT to refire all the tiles again and instead one by one crossed to the exit (ignoring the gems that we now felt might be fake) and into the hall.

It was not too long, maybe 50’ total, and at the end turned to the left. However at that juncture there was a depression in the outside corner and standing there with its box in both arms, was the crude stone and steel golem like figure…just motionless. That’s where we ended it roughly 3:30/4:00 as far as our characters were concerned.

Meet 127, Adv 11, 3/19/11

2011-03-29T16:13:00.000-04:00

Some DM's have an adverserial relationship with their player - terms like Killer DM and the like being bandied about with reams of dead characters littering the floor like a Tomb of Evil convention. Other DM's have an almost fatherly relationship where the party never dies and gets stronger and more powerful and then at 20th level they check them off and roll up their character's children to do it all again.

I feel myself to be a middle of the road guy, with a faint leaning to the latter. I don't try to kill the party and often times make the adventures and encounters stimulating without overly doomsday-like.

However in this session I had the opportunity to kill of two characters and seriously burn one of them almost to death. One was an NPC but he died swiftly, greusomely, and with such sudden shock that at least two people at the table said, "Wow, you're a dick." I know they said it with wonderment and respect and that's the way I took it.

All DM's need to have a thick skin as well.

Write up follows:

Workmonth the 16th, 8:45 AM, 7th level of Double Dagger Dungeon. The party was in the guard room and was deep in discussion on where to go next and how to get there. Also, there was much talk about the merits of pulling the 7 levers or not. We opted not to pull them. But we also discussed the benefits of bringing the last pony keg of oil with us. It was after much talk that we decided to leave it – and so we did.

We left the oil keg in the guard room, checked to make sure the coast was clear, and then opted to move on. As for where to go next, the talk was first on going through the secret door to the other corridor but it was also voted on going BACK to the room that seemed to cant to the left with the torches on the wall. We ordered up, readied our weapons, and went off bravely.

The group was coming up to the chamber when Pisser, Soren’s adopted guard dog, began snarling and whimpering. A short speak with animals revealed that he smelt something coming – and it was 3 large spiders – the size of small ponies! For all their fearsome appearance, it was practically no effort before they were destroyed – except for the last which Detheron was able to speak with – thanks to the benefits of his still running Speak with animals spell.

The spider was hungry and meant no harm to the party. The druid spoke to it, getting it admit that it knew how to get past the torch room. We followed it there, it crawled onto the wall, went across, and let us know that the floor became slick with oil if anyone deviated from the rightmost wall. Rahyk was a bit put off that the spider was let to go, but understood. We spent a few minutes at the room, eventually getting the three torches extinguished. Then a short time was spent triggering the trap – which had oil piss from the ceiling coating the floor, the floor tilted further, and then spikes shot out from the left wall – and it would have been very bad for whoever was in here.

Knowing now how to get past, we decided to leave the room and try the secret door area – hoping that it would lead us to the END of level 7. Would the Sun Sphere be there? How about the Minotaurs? Did not know, but we would take a look to find out.

The other secret door opened to a short 20’ corridor that then opened to a long 12’ tall hallway. Cadassial checked carefully as we walked on, well over 30 paces until it opened to a wide corridor. About 20’ wide, 12’ tall, and as far as our light sources would reveal, the sides were clad in big plates of copper 8’ square – affording a gap 1 ½ foot at the bottom and 2 ½ feet at the top. Once again our hired thief was sent forward to check out the area as best as possible.

The plates were firmly affixed to the walls and when he got too close to them, the rivets and bits of metal he was wearing began to heat up. Backing away and they cooled off. It didn’t matter top, bottom, either side – effect was the same. Aghmar summoned forth some dancing lights and sent them ahead – revealing that the corridor was comprised of 7 sets of plates – making it almost 80’ in length. Plus, at the end of the corridor was a lever in the upright position and a corridor continuing on.

We discussed ways to get through and who might do it, eventually Agma the Halfling slinger opted for the job and stripped down to her underwear and nothing else. Then, the Halfling crab crawled under all the bottom edges of the plates until she arrived at the other side. There were some tense moments as she tried to bring the lever down until it slowly fell and with a pair of clacks went into the bottom position. We asked her to stay on it, in case it suddenly went up again, and Cadassial volunteered to cross the long distance to verify that there were no other nasty surprises for us.

It was when the thief was most of the way across that a trio of howling huge albino carnivorous apes burst from the dark corridor and charged into the room. Agma froze, terrified that she was going to be attacked – but they shot past her and threw themselves on Cadassial The thief got as far as drawing his sword and swinging it once when he was scratched and bit and torn and rended and bits of gobbling flesh was jammed into the apes’ mouths. He was knocked down and his arm was twisted wildly around, ripped free from his body and then clubbed into his shocked skull while the albino dungeon apes destroyed his, repeatedly jumping up and down on his broken body while they feasted on his flesh. We drew weapons and charged down the hall, crying for Agma to stay still.

The dungeon apes dropped bits of Cadassial and threw their AC to the wind to tackle the group. Guyus was hit like a bag of bricks, the paladin stopped cold while the nearest dungeon ape shredded the paladin’s arms and hands, biting and slavering all over his. Brother Beren was viciously assaulted, one of the apes getting his arm between his teeth and worrying it back and forth, down to the bone and causing the priest to swoon dangerously and his left arm a few moments shy of being torn from his body. But it was Rahyk who was bashed about the head by the 400 lb apes, his helm knocked aside and them the albino primate buried its teeth into his skull and drilled holes in, killing the fighter in a single critical hit blow.

What the hell was going on!!!??? Two members down, the priest on the verge of being maimed, and the apes practically undamaged during the entire struggle. We had to get them OFF Beren and Rahyk and do it now. Detheron called to Frey and used his divine power to bring two of the apes down from a murderous rage into a fugue-like state of unmoving quietude. As for the last one still feasting on Rahyk, we plied everything we could against it until it slumped over and long after it should have died, it stopped moving with a gurgling rasp.

Healing potions were poured into Rahyk who had drifted to -1, bringing the fighter back to the living but not much more beyond it. He eyed the two calm albino apes with a practiced eye and said, “When all this is done, I want those apes to follow me.” Nutty fricking fighter. We used our healing unguent on the fighter and cleric until it was all gone, and spent some time binding wounds and checking out the area. Cadassial was very dead and the party went through his belongings making note of what was his and what we could salvage. Rahyk needed some deep sleep to be effective and the group secured the area after seeing two ways down in the corridor beyond the lever.

Detheron used his druidic powers to befriend the two apes who he named King (the male) and Kong (the female). They gave the party some brief idea of the layout of the nearby area and that we were very close to the Minotaurs. Rayhk was placed in a healing sleep and Aghmar studies his spellbook for a few other quick spells. We ate lunch and then afterward looked at our options once Rahyk woke up strangely recuperated (and filled with healing spells!!).

The two stairs from here – the one on the left went to the 8th level, the one on the right spiraled down to a small room and then climbed up to a series of pits (4 of them) and then to either the minotaur room or a room with colorful tiles on the floor and crossbows. We also heard from King that there was a room that spun that you had to run through, a sleeping chamber, some room with glowing globes on the ceiling, and eventually a flooded hallway that they didn’t like to go down. The glowing globes matched what we had learned a while ago from the oracles as to the location of the Sun Sphere so we knew we were close.

But we wanted to go after the Minotaurs and do that first. So we went down the spiral stairs, climbed up the rungs to the top again, and looked out on a roughly 80’ long corridor ending at a door. ON the ceiling every 20 feet or so was a stout iron bar about 2’ in length that ended at a broad “T” on the bottom. The apes had told us that they were over some sort of pits and they crossed them by jumping, grabbing, and swinging. We did not trust ourselves to do that and wanted to make it more possible for us to do.

Many ideas were entertained but we settled on a solution; we would use our rope and a handy spider climb spell from Detheron to run along the ceiling and tie/loop a continuous length of it from here to each “T” and eventually the door. Agma was voted most likely and the Halfling slinger took the silk rope and started her run after being enchanted.

One by one she worked her way upside while striding across the ceiling, looping the rope with more than enough slack between the handles until she arrived at the 3rd “pit”. It opened and a four count of slimy greenish tentacles came out, flopped around, and went back in. Dungeon squid. She finished her run and tossed the rest of the rope out the other door past the 4th pit and came back (again, enticing the dungeon squid to flap about for a few moments). She informed us of what we could not see – the pits were each about 25’ deep and the dungeon squid seemed to be in about 8’ of water.

We tossed about ideas on how to take care of the dungeon squid without going into the pit when Guyus had a good idea. He took Jerold and Malak back with him all the way down the rungs, up the spiral steps, and across the hall of copper plates. Then they snuck into the hall by the grey mist archway and opened the secret door to the guard room where the party had left the pony keg of oil. The two shieldbearers stayed in the hall watching carefully while Guyus grinned, seeing the keg where he left it.

And three of the levers had been moved.

Something wasn’t right, something was off. He quickdrew his sword, Eagle Talon and attempted to detect evil when an invisible orc in front of him gave a rapid chop at the paladin. Guyus smote evil, calling to his god to aid in his fight and the orc was quickly wounded. Seeing the possibility of the battle going the wrong way, the orc swung its axe wildly in an upward arc until it missed Guyus – but smashed into one of the glowing light crystals on the ceiling. Which rained sparks and flame straight down.

On the leaking pony keg cask of oil.

The conflagration consumed the orc and SERIOUSLY wounded Guyus who was dragged back into the hall by the shieldbearers where they proceeded to extinguish the burned paladin. With nothing to show for it and some short sips of a potion of healing or two, the three of them went back to the party empty handed. Some more healing was given out and a few jokes at the paladin’s expense but we were back to square one – a dungeon squid with no seeming easy way to attack it.

Detheron once more came to the forefront with a solution. Using one of his more powerful powers he reached out with Frey’s strength, felt where the water was in the squid’s area – and lowered it until it was only a thin line on the pit’s floor. The squid immediately went crazy as it was asphyxiated, its tentacles reaching and groping, trying to lift its bulk up and out. We heard it wheeze and blubber and squeal until its movements slowed and then stopped. Detheron had us wait even longer until he was sure it was dead and then he raised the water level once more filling the pit entirely and then the water ran to the left and right filling the next few pits as well so that if someone did slip, they wouldn’t get too hurt.

From here it was very easy for the party to work their way across until we were all on the other side. Past the door was a short hall that went 3 directions. Left and right went to another set of stairs that swung down and back, while straight away went to some large chamber with multicolored tiles on the floor. According to King and Kong, the stairs went down to where the Minotaurs were and both room connected in the back. One of the rooms had a portal on the wall that Stenthian Manbreaker used to make strange animals come through.

We talked about possible plans on assaulting the 3 potential Minotaurs and up to 8 eight orcs before ending it here.