The World of Telvar

On our first night out of Garroten, the party got attacked by three stirges! On watch was the druid Quentin and the woodsman Darellon. One dove at Quentin, knocking him nearly unconscious and bleeding him badly. Darellon turned and sliced the thing off his arm, leaving it a splashing mess of blood.

One dove at the dwarf Grison, who was still getting up. He started taking major damage until the ranger Drew shot the thing off his arm. Darellon started making loud noises at this point, trying to get the stirges to strike at him, which had some success-- he deflected a number of blows. He has still, by the way, taken no damage whatsoever.

One more dove at the thief Anwyvn, who was dropped unconscious once again. Finally the last one was killed by a thrown hammer and crossbow bolt combination.

A funny little corollary came the next morning. Grison decided to poke at one of the dead stirges, when a giant centipede leaped out at him and would have killed him had he not squashed it. I love Lendore Isle.

After we spent half of the next day healing up, we marched off again. A day or two later we arrived near the edge of a horrid looking forest. It looked clearly unnatural, full of stinging insects, dying trees, and, we later discovered, LOTS of black locusts.

First we had a little _Speak with Animals_ episode. Quentin attempted to talk what must be the dumbest squirrel ever-- totally unable to answer even the simplest of questions. Eventually we deciphered that two two-legged people had traveled the road recently. The woodsman and ranger checked it out and discovered that in fact a half-dozen people had come through.

We camped out for the night and marched in to the closest entrance during the day. After about an hour, we began hearing locusts EVERYWHERE. Darellon blocked one that flew at him, and Anwvyn scored his first kill by shooting it with his crossbow.

We then decided it was getting hideously dangerous to continue with the possibility of getting swarmed by locusts. We turned and marched out. As we neared the edge of the forest, a brown snake blocked our path. A _Speak with Animals_ revealed that the snake wanted to "kill, kill." Quentin convinced it to go away, and we walked out unhindered.

The next morning we set off along the road toward Restenford, hoping to find some other entrance into the forest. Sure enough, about an hour in we discovered a trail leading off into the forest. We decided to track, but were unable to read anything on the hard rock of the trail. So we headed down the trail a bit in the hopes of finding softer terrain.

About 15 minutes in, we discovered a... skeleton! Lying on the ground. Darellon surprised it.

Darellon poked about with his falchion and revealed a small pouch of coins (3 electrum and 2 silver) on the skeleton. Darellon continued to sift, when finally Anwvyn got impatient and scooped up the coins-- only to have the presumed dead skeleton suddenly rise up and try to hit him with the battleaxe it had. It missed and Darellon smashed it to pieces.

In a gutsy and believing that the skeleton was finally dead (a turning attempt by the cleric Soldan had no affect) Darellon rummaged through the remains and uncovered a shiny dagger. No one is quite sure what metal it is-- it detected as non-magical, disappointingly. But we suspect it is still quite valuable for a dagger.

We retreated back out when Soldan revealed that his turning ability was at least partially suppressed.

But being gutsy folk, we tried again the next morning. We walked down for almost an hour before the giant spider webbed everyone except Quentin.

Quentin threw an _Entangle_ at the spider-- meaning that basically all of our characters were trapped (though Grison soon got free).

The spider was held fast while Grison and Darellon tried to break free. Grison was much more successful and had a longer weapon. Darellon chucked two daggers at it, damaging one dagger but missing both times.

Grison speared at it, damaging it severely, but nearly destroying his spear in the process (TWO critical fumbles). The spear was a piece of crap by the end of it, but the spider was able to escape the second _Entangle_ and ran away. Grison's 30 damage to it, plus the repeated entangles saved all of us there.

We decided that was plenty (it only takes about three disasters to discourage us). So we headed out for Restenford (cursing the name of the Lord Mayor of Garroten for the suicide quest).

There was one more tense moment when we spotted four gnolls on a hill high up. We walked on through the obvious ambush point. Suddenly an arrow whizzed by about 80 yards away. We assume (hope) that they were just marking territory for us. We marched on quickly and left them behind.

Of course, once again we slept about 15 minutes outside of Restenford having no idea it was there.

We trekked in on the next day, refilled some arrows and food supplies and ordered a new spear at Falco's-- the local weaponry/inn area. Unfortunately Grison is using Soldan's spear for now.

A few things of interest to general Telvarians: there is a very large Phaulkonian compound in town. In addition, there is a powerful druid in residence, who spoke at great length with Quentin. There is NO actual place that sells weapons, though there is an armory and fletcher.

Quentin came back with important information. The druid was interested in helping Quentin, and gave his opinion on several things. He stated that the Garroten mayor and the town itself is far more corrupt than Restenford. He genuinely respects the Baron of Restenford. Also in town was an interesting, but drunk, mage named Peltar.

We visited the Baron, who appears to be an ex-adventurer. He seemed genuinely hopeful that we could help Restenford and was quite courteous. He gave us several options:

1. Damage the gnoll groups that raid to the west. This seemed, he admitted, probably very difficult for us.
2. Damage the bandit raiders to the north.

He did have a few comments on the undead area. Apparently the last adventuring party reported that two or three BEHOLDERS are in there. Ha ha. What fun. Apparently the undead were smashed, and yet they've returned again, just a few years later. So who really knows what is going on in there?

We decided on the bandits, for several reasons. If we encounter a group we can destroy, great. Treasure, experience, and a small reward. If we can't destroy it, we can give the Baron helpful recon information and return with some guards. Either way, we hope this will prove to be a big boost to our current situation. Food is not yet low, but gold is almost gone-- our net party coffer is now something like 15 gp.

We still do have to sell that dagger when we find someone who can properly appraise it, although Darellon has determined that it is definitely not steel or silver or anything like that. So we still have some items of value left as a buffer.

We traveled through the orchards to the north up to Bald Hill. After we climbed to the top, we stopped to survey the area. The Zerbil mountains are visible from there. We've now stopped to discuss our options.
Log Supplement I: Damage Sustained
For fun, here are our damage calculations (Darwin award style):
Most damage sustained in a single hit-- Drew (17 points-- bastard sword hit).
Worst wound- Drew, single wound.

Total damage taken:

1. 1) Drew-- 17
2. 2) Quentin-- 11
3. 3) Grison-- 10
4. 4) Anwvyn-- 8
5. 5) Soldan-- 2
6. 6) Darellon-- 0

Congratulations, everyone, on the lack of casualties, and lets keep it this way!