The World of Telvar

The party had been lured into the trap by devious means. In an attempt to smooth over relations between the Keystone Kingdom and the nomadic Khargish kingdom, to maximize the impact of the return of the Khargish artifact the Bridle of Farin, BMT had been tapped for a series of “goodwill” missions. The first of these actually seemed like a goodwill mission: slaughter a pirate base. But the pirates were numerous and required a more involved attack plan than the other two missions, so we attempted those first. The second mission was to slay a group of Kharg that were particularly prominently infiltrated by wereboars. Wereboars, while not technically evil as such, are hyper-aggressive and very likely to stand in the way of the peace process. If the four wereboars on the council could be eliminated (and they were all from a particular Khargish village of approximately 60 Kharg, roughly half of which were wereboars), then the diplomatic mission might go much more smoothly.

We developed plans for dealing with 30 hostile wereboars, but none of them would work until the rainy season began, and we still had a month of good weather remaining. The third mission seemed a simple diversion for experience and profit; defeat a group of six surprisingly organized grotto beasts and save the poor beleaguered Kharg who lived nearby.

The mission was offered to us directly by Duke Haermond of Barnacus, and we traveled out for several days toward Seapoint to meet up with our Khargish guides. The two Kharg led us to the lair of the grotto beasts, which strongly resembled the lair of an ogre mage. Ever cautious, we prepared for cones of cold, but as we approached it became apparent that the lair was ruined. Nevertheless we knew the grotto beasts were trying to trick us with various strategems, including trapping the front of the cave to collapse. We partially disabled the trap and entered the compound to kill the monsters (who clearly knew we were there already).

Unfortunately we had not accounted for the sheer scale of the trap. The cave entrance was collapsed despite our precautions, sealing us inside and requiring us to spell-shift for stoneshapes to get out. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time, and fireballs suddenly rang through the passage, savaging the party. Trapped and hammered by unseen enemies from above the cave itself, in desperation the party dove into the big pit trap, hiding and waiting. After a time the attackers, sounding like a mix of orcs, humans, and grotto beasts (with a wand of fireballs) came into the cave complex to inspect their handiwork. They were quite confused to find that the party had vanished! Of course we were actually clinging to the ceiling of the pit trap via magical effects, but our attackers were mystified, and angry. It seemed as though the humanoids, possibly the Blue and the Gray, had set this up as a trap specifically for the party, and used the grotto beasts as the bait.

There was mass abandonment at this point, and then silence. The party crept back out of the pit and pursued with deadly vengeance in mind. Upon exiting the complex the party battled the three remaining grotto beasts (whose ambush was partially foiled by Morty, leading the party). One was killed outright by Balinor, and the other two fled. One was peppered by crossbow bolts and arrows but disappeared down the plain. The third was pursued by a gliding Morty, who spectacularly failed to land on the creature but defeated it nonetheless.

This is where we left the party.

An immediate loose end came to mind: could Morty still catch the third grotto beast? The party tried to get his attention, and Tarplin leapt down from the cliff face under featherfall, carrying the entire party down in a neat floating group. Morty levitated up and took off after the final fleeing grotto beast, the rest of the party following as best they could. After much effort Morty spotted the creature entering a copse of trees.

He swooped down and crept into the forest, playing a game of cat-and-mouse with the creature. He lucked out and spotted the creature creeping haplessly around a rock, and he came up behind it with Kazaam in his hand…
BOOM! The creature took about 35 damage and a triple wound! It reared out and bashed Morty almost equally brutally with its hind legs, leaving him bleeding badly as well. He dropped Kazaam and swung his other longsword at the creature… and it dropped to the ground, dying almost instantly. Morty frantically slapped bandages on himself, and the party joined him a few minutes later.

After a lot of discussion we decided to drag the bodies and dump them in the pit trap; there was a certain irony in it. In order to get the grotto beast corpse all way back to the compound Tarplin used his flute to animate it as a zombie, and it walked back with us. Using the zombie grotto beast and Morty as a pair of mules we hauled the other corpses in and dumped them in the spikes of the pit. Lastly Tarplin ordered the zombie grotto beast to hurl itself into the trap, and we closed the door, dusting our hands off.

We looked back at the trail of blood, and wondered. We shrugged and decided to camp inside the fortress. Apparently the surrounding environment noted our hiding place…

After one successful spellshift, with the party still quite badly injured, a group of five horned bunnies crept up on Balinor, alone on watch… and leaped to the attack! Amazingly THREE of them impaled him through his full plate armor (for 10 points of damage!). He growled, waking up everyone (although Tarplin rolled back to sleep) and smashed two bunnies to bits. Morty took another, Bodkin another, and Robynne set off in hot pursuit of the last one, which was dashing back down the corridor. It slipped just outside of the compound, when Robynne shot it down.

We went back to sleep.

Two hours later, we heard a noise from the direction of the pit trap… further into the compound! Considering that the front door was the only other entrance we knew, and it had been buried under piles and piles of rock that would take days to clear out, this seemed suspicious. As Tarplin had complained about being woken up, we left him behind (perhaps not our best idea) and crept down the stairs, Morty in the lead. He went on ahead, and Balinor, feeling a pang of guilt about Tarplin, sent Morhion back to guard him.

Morty crept forward and saw two vaguely scruffy humans, apparently citizens of the Keystone Kingdom, attempting to pry open the pit trap! As they were clearly up to no good, he snuck up behind one of them, and rammed his longsword through him, killing him instantly. The other shrank before his eyes… and turned into a rat and scampered away back toward the entrance! Morty followed in hot pursuit, and sliced the rat in half, which turned back into an ordinary villager. It seems in rat form they could scamper through the piles of rubble at the entrance.

But before the party could react to that, Morhion found himself in trouble back at Tarplin’s sleeping form. A ghoul leaped out from the entryway and pounced at Morhion. The cleric raised his holy symbol and shouted defiantly at the ghoul, to absolutely no effect, other than to wake the confused Tarplin. The ghoul crashed into Morhion, who managed to pop it with his hammer, but was then paralyzed. Two more ghouls emerged from behind and began attempting to feast on Morhion.

Tarplin awoke to a confused scene: three ghouls were on Morhion, and the rest of the party was not around, but he could hear sounds of people approaching from further inside the compound. The other two ghouls launched themselves over Tarplin, who was fortunately immune to the paralysis, but took injury from their blows. The rest of the party appeared and Leo turned back all three ghouls, who scampered away back out into the wilderness, leaving Morhion alive and only somewhat injured, although paralyzed for a while longer.

The two deceased Kingdomers were an interesting find. They were poorly equipped, scrubby, and one was wearing a gambling jacket with a picture of a pot of coins pouring out. We immediately recognized it from the Jackpot, a snazzy gambling club in downtown Barnacus. It seemed unlikely to have anything to do with their appearance, since Barnacus was several days away and it was impossible that anyone had communicated with them that quickly. So this pair must have known something was going down here in this cave in advance, and been nearby. As they seemed to be wererats, that indicated the Commandant. This would be surprising considering that Balinor and the Band are on fairly good terms with the Commandant (the wererat leader in Benct), in the sense that they have helped each other or at least not hindered each other in the past. But there were a lot of things going strangely here. We decided to pop the bodies of the wererats into the bag of holding for later speak with dead questioning.

Still, we decided that since we were even more injured, it was still critical to finish a single spellshift before we left the area. In order to make the casters sleep without interruption, we put them in the secret treasure room (with the door open for the moment) and positioned the fighters all on watch outside.

It was not to be.

Two hours later, swarms of giant ants began pouring into the cave. Workers, by the look of them, they walked right past the party and wandered into the lower levels. We waited in the hopes of trapping them inside, but they kept pouring past with no end in sight. Finally when an ant seemed to be returning from the lower levels with stone in hand, Morty decided to start the killing. He charged up and sliced at the ant, and the other ants reacted. Balinor charged up and Morhion sat behind, ready with his aid spell to close a wound, while Tarplin snored blissfully in the hidden treasure room.

The fight was ridiculous. Morty switched from his dagger to one of his many longswords and began ripping them apart with considerable panache, while Balinor simply clubbed one to death every time his swung his brutal paired hammers. Morty began taking hits, especially as warrior ants joined the swarm, and bodies began piling up everywhere. We shut the door to the treasure room and continued killing. Approximately forty ants had died when they began backing away (in an extremely organized fashion). Eventually the stench was so horrendous that it woke Tarplin up anyway, and he was understandably upset. You have to admit that we tried to let him sleep through it.

The ants withdrew, and we checked our status. Morty had sustained some additional damage, while Balinor had somehow gotten out unscathed. We were in dire straits as far as party condition, and it wasn’t clear that the ants were going to leave us alone, so we thought we might try to charge out and make a break for it. We scrambled up the passage toward the outside exit… and there we saw about twenty more giant ants feasting on a number of dead, bloody deer carcasses that were lying around the exit plateau.

We skidded to a stop. Suddenly we realized that someone (a grotto beast or a member of the Blue and the Gray, say…) may have placed the deer carcasses there in order to lure all of these creatures inside. This meant that an ambush could be waiting for us. Or possibly they hoped that the ants would finish us off. Either way, it meant they knew we were here.

We considered our options. When we realized that someone must know we were here, it became clear that we had to leave immediately and risk the ambush. We had Tarplin’s teleport token available in dire emergency, and Robynne fingered her dice of Anar…

But there was no ambush. We slipped past the ants peaceably and scrambled back to where our guides had camped a few days earlier. There was no sign of them, but an easy search turned up a note under a rock, “Figured you were dead. Went home.”

Bereft of allies (and horses) we decided to get a decent distance from the area, but in order to trick any potential tail, we headed west toward Seapoint rather than Barnacus. Skirting the edge of a forest full of wereboars, ogres, and other fun opponents, we managed to reach Seapoint without incident, covering our tracks the first night and then moving as quickly as we could.

We took quick refuge in the house of the Seapoint Lightning off the coast (and left notes in case we didn’t make it to Barnacus). We picked up horses in Seapoint for 60 gp and sped to Barnacus. XP for this and the previous game ranged from 1100-2600 (500 for the henchman Morhion).

We strode immediately to Duke Haermond’s castle and requested an audience, which immediately got. Outside of a cleric capable of casting speak with dead, we did not give this information to anyone other than Duke Haermond.
We questioned via speak with dead the corpses of the two wererats. They indicated that they were new members of the Blue and the Gray (kitchen-hands, reward: 5 gp each!), and they had overheard in the cafeteria from two members of the group (named Zeke and Lickness) about a planned ambush on the Band.

When questioned on what “the plan” was:

“I think that the real goal was to kill most of them [BMT] but they were pretty certain they could frame the one that was likely to escape. He was rumored to have killed many sentients before and had just done it again.”

The plan apparently was to take out Balinor and Morty, and frame “the one who was likely to escape”, with the history of killing sentients. (Tarplin blanched at this. Or could they possibly have meant Quentin…?) Clearly they had either anticipated that we would be sent in response, or they had an informant among the Kharg. Either of these seem likely possibilities, and it would seem that original assertions about the Blue and the Gray were essentially correct. Furthermore this explains why they were only trying to kill Balinor and Morty.

We asked for explicit directions to the cafeteria, and we got them:

“Travel North toward the Devil’s Face, farthest fork to the left of any size then follow to the ravine and the secret stair, then to the Farmin Mountains, where you go into the room, lock yourself in and they blindfold you and take you to the Bunker.”

If we disguised ourselves as this pair, there’s a possibility of infiltration… but that would be for later. Perhaps Donald or Chiaro could help with something like this.

The story of their joining the Blue and the Gray was an interesting if not all that useful side-note:

“We had to show up at port [unclear to our party which port it was] at the right time when a mostly scuttled pirate ship was coming in. We mixed in with the crew when they begged for jobs. We were taken to an office and told that we could either wash dishes or swim for it.

We went north of Rog and past the old lighthouse; skirted around the bugbears and then slipped back in the back and climbed down a 200 foot cliff and you can get around to port if you go at low tide.”

The bandits named two members of the Blue and the Gray- Felgor the Grey and Gelbach the Blue- names that have come up before. The Duke added the endings of their names to fill us in. Some interesting numbers: between 150-200 could come through this cafeteria, but usually only 40 or 50 do daily.

The guides were believed by Haermond to be reliable, so we didn’t seek them out for questioning. There are now some interesting investigations ongoing, but we really didn’t find direct evidence implicating anyone in Barnacus, which is possibly unfortunate. The grotto beast corpses might have something to say, but they are probably consumed by now. Although I suppose the Duke could have sent men to fetch them. It should be noted that the official version of the story is that we killed three of the six grotto beasts and the others fled, leaving out any mention of anything else.

In any case, Bodkin finished his training to fifth level, and rejoined the party shortly thereafter. We decided for the moment to forget about this threat and focus instead on our plan for dealing with the Kharg, the last of Duke Haermond’s missions of “goodwill.” Given that the Kharg could have been potentially complicit in the grotto beast/Blue and the Gray ambush we were feeling even less charitable than usual. The trick was that we had to eliminate the four top Kharg without linking back to the Duke. We came up with a plan that we thought could work, short of massive commune castings, in any case.

We realized we probably couldn’t take the entire village at the same time. We considered reinforcement options, and depending on tactics we could likely entice Albee the monk to join us, and possibly Anselm the Nevronian cleric, both former compatriots of Balinor. The additional firepower came at a cost; we couldn’t use as many underhanded tactics and keep the mission acceptable. At first we had contemplated an option where Tarplin bracketed the village in plant growth spells, wedged everyone in, and forced them attack us in a corner of the village, with Tarplin launching fireballs and other spells from overhead while we fought them in a defensive phalanx. Given the legendary Kharg wereboar hyper-aggressiveness, this seemed like it might actually work for a time, although we would have to make sure that no one escaped.

The only problem was actually killing sixty Kharg in a fight, even with a bit of backup. It was possible, but we wanted to at least reduce the threat against us beforehand. This involved taking out a patrol in the wilderness, preferably one including one of the target leaders. After the attack the party would vanish for a few months to allay suspicion that the sudden disappearance of the patrol was anything other than a Lendore Isle accident. Then, later on, we would strike at a second patrol as soon as it left the village, heal up, and tackle the vastly weakened remainder of the force.

A variant on this plan that gained popularity was an alternative to a frontal assault that involved sneaking up on the camp and paralyzing the leaders that we were targeting. As this would look like a different attack than the one that “disappeared” the patrols, we thought it might look less suspicious. This may yet be the plan we follow, but first we figured we might as well go ahead and do the first strike and work on the fine details of that plan later on, once we had a better idea of the camp’s defensive setup, and a feel for their power level.

Thus we set out to nail a patrol. The war parties were on horseback and difficult to ambush, but fortunately the slightly smaller hunting parties were on foot. We had time to wait, and so we selected an ambush spot that was highly to our liking. Our priority was less the tactical benefits of the location, and more the ability to hide the truth of the attack. To this end, we found a dying old tree that could be safely struck by call lightning spells without looking suspicious. This had the added benefit for Tarplin that he didn’t actually have to kill a tree. Druids.

We set up behind a log and left a snare at the base of the tree. We had bargained for a scroll of cure disease that was high enough level to cure lycanthropy, should the need arise (although our collateral magic items would be lost), so that was less of a worry. Lycanthropy was only a threat to someone scratched by the claws of one of the wereboars while in their hybrid form, and Balinor knew from that they would morph sometime prior to dying and heal some of the damage they had taken. So the only danger from lycanthropy would be at the end of the fight.
The party assembled behind the giant log, and prepared for the attack.

Well, as it turned out, the group we attacked included one, Higrid the Unfeeling, general of the Khargish nation. This probably should have factored more heavily into our threat assessment. In the event, the battle was joined…

***

The Khargish party was trotting through the woods hunting for big game. They came past a particularly rotted old dead tree, perhaps intending to set up camp. The day was drizzly and heavily overcast.

One of the men stepped into a bizarre sort of snare that had been placed at the base of the tree. Higrid snapped a command warning of attack, and the group immediately sprang into action. Despite his quick reaction and his well-trained instant air of authority, he was too late to prevent the devastation that followed.

A call lightning bolt slammed down onto the group, hitting everyone in the vicinity. Four of the Kharg were instantly slain. One was left staggering about. The other four were relatively uninjured. The party came crashing out of hiding, wearing mysterious dark robes. As the five Kharg moved to close, Robynne launched an arrow into the most injured one, dropping him to the ground.

The Kharg warleader reached for his necklace and gestured at the party. A fireball erupted around Balinor, Morty, Morhion, Leo, and Bodkin, nailing Morhion badly but leaving everyone else with relatively minor wounds. At that moment, Tarplin dropped his stinking cloud upon the remaining four Kharg, and they disappeared from sight.
Morhion ducked behind a tree and dropped a cure light on himself. The rest of the party encircled the cloud and waited for people to emerge. When they did not, after a moment, Tarplin dismissed the cloud.

The Kharg warleader reacted instantly, dropping another fireball on Balinor, Morty, and Bodkin, injuring them further. The bowman and Robynne exchanged volleys, but despite being outside of point-blank range, the Kharg bowman seemed to be inflicting a lot more damage…

Robynne, significantly injured by bowshots, ducked behind the log. Balinor and Morty charged up to face their foes. The battle seemed to grow much easier when Tarplin dropped a slow spell that caught all but the main Khargish warleader. Balinor and Morhion contemptuously pushed past the slowed Kharg to battle Higrid. They struck back, injuring Morty but missing Balinor, and Bodkin moved to close with one of the pair.

Bodkin stabbed mightily the bastard-sword wielding Kharg, but took a massive blow in exchange, leaving him quite injured. Morhion and Leo fired hold person spells at the group, and Morhion’s caught the archer and froze him in place. He began to transform into the hideous wereboar form (albeit very slowly!).

Robynne came up to Leo and Morhion for healing while Balinor and Morty engaged Higrid. Higrid turned his powerful personal defenses upon the enraged fighter and struck at Morty, who shrugged off the blow and stabbed back. Balinor swung at the Kharg a half-dozen times but to surprisingly little effect (AC -7 opponents!). Morty was being steadily beaten down, and when he fell Balinor would be facing off against the Kharg alone, as Bodkin tried desperately to deal with the two remaining fighters.

Tarplin hammered the Kharg with magic missiles, but he dropped Morty bleeding to the ground. Freed of interference, Higrid gestured with surprising vengefulness toward the recovering Morhion, Leo, and Robynne.
The results were hideous; the barely standing Robynne died instantly in the fireball (-11 exactly) and Morhion was once again badly injured, along with Leo, who ran forward to help Morty.

Balinor had pumped his own strength prior to the combat, and here he activated his defense item and the bracers of wrath in the hopes of inflicting great injury. Before he could attack, the Kharg suddenly leapt high in the air and landed on the branch of the dead tree (which surprisingly withstood his weight). He began drinking potions and started to heal…

The Kharg on the ground were moving very slowly, but were still threatening the besieged Bodkin. Leo managed to stabilize Morty but could do little else. Tarplin continued to hammer Higrid with spells, trying to reduce his spear to make him drop it, but was unlucky. Balinor was left with few options for attack, although he did take the opportunity to completely crush one of the two remaining slowed Kharg. The archer had just about finished his transformation, and suddenly he could move! They were immune to hold person in their wereboar form!

The situation was desperate. Morhion grabbed the dice of Anar from Robynne’s pouch, and rolled them, pointing vaguely at Higrid, and hoping for a miracle.

What he got might qualify.

He rolled a 2, meaning two effects appeared simultaneously. A gigantic rain of frozen arctic swordfish descended upon the hapless cleric from above, slaying him instantly. Additionally, a small, almost inconsequential spray of acid fired at Higrid.

The acid did very little damage (4 points!). The Kharg managed to avoid the worst of it. But he had been in the process of reactivating the fireball necklace, and the interaction proved brutal. The fireball exploded at ground zero, further injuring Balinor (and killing some of the Kharg on the ground) and burning Higrid. Worse, the branch collapsed beneath his feet, and he tumbled down… right next to Balinor.

With glee, the fighter bashed both hammers into Higrid, inflicting horrific damage (35 points!). Higrid struck back but, fairly miraculously, he missed the fighter. Balinor pummeled him into the ground, discovering in the process that if you drop a wereboar low enough, they die instantly and never get the chance to change form and gain the healing benefits… (very fortunate since we had inflicted about 150 points of damage to the guy at this point!).

Bodkin moved forward to strike the final slowed Kharg, who was about to kill Morty with a coup’d’grace strike. Leo could do nothing to prevent it, and Tarplin knew he would deal a fatal blow. The druid stood to block the falchion-wielder, and took a great hit from his sword. He could not stand long, but then Bodkin was there, and dropped the Kharg to the ground just before he could swing. Balinor moved forward, and together they took down the archer before he could inflict further damage.

The party had won.

Robynne and Morhion were dead but recoverable, and Morty had been stabilized by Leo, albeit in a fragile state. Tarplin was significantly but not badly injured (whatever minor fire damage he might have taken was completely absorbed by his protection). Leo was trashed, and Balinor was significantly injured but in reasonable shape.
Okay, so maybe we underestimated the strength of the wereboars. That’s what intimate diagnostics like this fight are for.

Belatedly it occurred to us that perhaps killing the Kharg warleader might not go unnoticed. Our precautions were fairly strong, and we can hope we did a good enough job. We camouflaged what little remnants of the fight were left after the drenching rains. The bodies were taken a full day away to our premade burial site, deposited under a full stoneshape worth of solid rock, and rest eternalled by Tarplin.

It seemed highly unlikely that anything short of a commune would determine what happened, and even that only with the right questions. We hoped it would be enough.

The treasure haul was excellent. Ironically the swordfish turned out to be worth 2200 gp to a fish merchant (who stored it in his ice toad refrigerator; Chiaro take note)! This partially paid for a completely successful raise dead spell for Morhion and Robynne! No one sustained any permanent damage in the event, fortunately. And we kept one swordfish for a celebratory dinner with Duke Haermond.

I wonder if Morhion has the lead on deaths for a henchman cleric. It’s fairly impressive, especially since he is only 3rd level!

XP for the combat will be handed out next time. (It seems highly unlikely that anyone would level as a result of the encounter, nasty as it was…)

The treasure haul:

Non-magical items: (things marked “distinctive” are obviously identifiable as Kharg, and therefore mildly suspicious to sell in Barnacus…)

solid garnet ring (1000 gp)
distinctive belt of office (3500 gp)
tribal armband (200 gp) x 3 (distinctive)
172 gp
750 gp of stuff
bastard sword +1/+0 (1000 gp)

Magic items:

*short composite bow + 1 of distance (all ranges doubled)
*falchion of cleaving + 2 (double damage on a 20)
*cloak of protection + 1 / +10% hide in shadows
*bracers of defense AC 4/10, 45 cw
*boots of mystery (leave no tracks, +10% move silently)
*ring of protection + 2
*necklace of missiles (1 5 HD fireball left)
*spear (type 3) but speed 6, grants leaping up to 7/week, protection from normal missiles 1 day/month, -2 to wisdom score, +5 the first time you attack with it every day and +3 thereafter, adjustable to different lengths (max. 3)
*ring of regeneration 1 pt/turn (big and ugly)

The bow was in possession of the archer, obviously, which explains Robynne’s difficulty in battling him at 35 foot distance. The falchion was wielded by one of the other fighters. All of the rest belonged to Higrid the Unfeeling. The main difficulty comes with the awesome spear. It has a huge number of abilities, some of which can be utilized and others not so much, and it is fairly obvious and probably semi-legendary. We can either trade it or try to disguise it and use it when not near the Kharg or people who might recognize it.

Our tentative treasure deployment was:

Robynne - Magic Bracers – generic 4/10 45 cn
Bodkin - Magic Boots – generic Boots of Mystery – no tracks and +10 % to move Silently
Magic Ring – distinctive (High) – Ring of Regeneration 1 HP/turn – very large
Robynne - Magic Ring – distinctive – Ring of Protection +2
Morty - Magic Necklace – generic – Necklace of Missile 1 5 HD Fireball left
Tax - Magic Spear – distinctive (High) – Type 3 (max), but Speed 6, grants leaping up to 7x/week, protection from Normal Missile 1d/month, -2 Wisdom, +5 on first attack each day then +3, Take The Initiative
Morty - Magic Cloak – generic tan (Cloak of Protection +1, +10% Hide in Shadows)
Robynne – gets Morty’s old one
And we end up with 30000 gp in trade bait (plus presumably the four bars of mithril the party still has). Certainly there are interesting things we could trade for…

Things to contemplate:

-Trade items
-Ways to further obscure our involvement in the affair
-Places to run to if the Khargish nation comes after us

Joel/Balinor/Morhion