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    <updated>2009-01-07T03:56:21Z</updated>
    <subtitle>Adventure Summaries and News for the World of Telvar</subtitle>
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<entry>
    <title>Felix Summary #7: The Continued Adventures of King Felix</title>
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    <published>2008-08-11T20:43:40Z</published>
    <updated>2009-01-07T03:56:21Z</updated>
    
    <summary>Download file Felix&apos;s party, having rescued the dwarven kingdom of Arala from a flying, strength and level draining, rogue, chimeric shadowy servant of the god of Rakshasas, is attempting to find and reclaim the legendary ancient dwarven tunnel system to provide a safe passage between Cromwell and Arala. The hope is that if the tun- nel is reopened, trade between those nations will pick up, and dwarven expatriates will return home, shoring up the desperately thin defences of the oldest...</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Joel Green</name>
        
    </author>
            <category term="Daring Dozen" />
            <category term="Felix" />
            <category term="Kraken" />
    
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        <![CDATA[<p><a href="http://blog.telvar.net/FelixJuly08.pdf">Download file</a></p>

<p>Felix's party, having rescued the dwarven kingdom of Arala from a flying, strength <br />
and level draining, rogue, chimeric shadowy servant of the god of Rakshasas, is <br />
attempting to find and reclaim the legendary ancient dwarven tunnel system to <br />
provide a safe passage between Cromwell and Arala. The hope is that if the tun- <br />
nel is reopened, trade between those nations will pick up, and dwarven expatriates <br />
will return home, shoring up the desperately thin defences of the oldest seat of <br />
dwarven power in the New World. </p>]]>
        <![CDATA[<p>The Party </p>

<p>Felix, Dwarven King: dwarven fighter 10, hp 100, land-dragon scale armor, shield, <br />
short sword +5 Peacemaker. <br />
Donald, Future Ruler of the World: human mage 9, hp 48, indian head-dress, flow- <br />
ing golden robe, hell-hound cloak, smoky quartz glasses, copper bracers and a gaudy <br />
broach. <br />
Hendel Hardaway, Preserver of Dwarven Wealth: dwarven thief 9, hp 52, dual <br />
dagger, double-shot light cross-bow, bracers. <br />
Gates Hardaway: dwarven cleric of Moradin 8, hp 52, banded mail, shield, shock <br />
hammer. <br />
Rathbane Hardaway, “Evenslate": dwarven fighter 7/cleric of Clanggedin 6, hp 54 <br />
plate-mail, bastard-sword Soul Mirror. <br />
Aral: human woodsman 2, hp 27, banded mail, heavy cross-bows and dwarven hand <br />
cannon, pointy slippers. </p>

<p>Background </p>

<p>The party, having rescued the dwarven kingdom of Arala from a flying, strength <br />
and level draining, rogue, chimeric shadowy servant of the god of Rakshasas, is <br />
attempting to find and reclaim the legendary ancient dwarven tunnel system to <br />
provide a safe passage between Cromwell and Arala. The hope is that if the tun- <br />
nel is reopened, trade between those nations will pick up, and dwarven expatriates <br />
will return home, shoring up the desperately thin defences of the oldest seat of <br />
dwarven power in the New World. </p>

<p>In a previous foray the party made its way, with little incident, through the <br />
abandoned city below the occupied levels of Arala. After finding both the large <br />
elevator shaft and the access shaft that presumably linked the abandoned city to <br />
the tunnel, the party carefully opened the access shaft and descended. Well before <br />
reaching the bottom of the access shaft the party encountered a complex where a <br />
Spirit Naga who was using enslaved gnolls to mine garnets. The party slew the <br />
naga and many of the workers and returned to Arala to train and drop off loot. </p>

<p>The Adventure <br />
     The city, or dancing in flames <br />
While the abandoned city beneath Arala is almost entirely deserted, there are <br />
some inhabitants. Indeed, as the party was traveling through the city they encoun- <br />
tered a Frost Giant. As the creature started to shamble forwards it became clear <br />
that there was something deeply wrong with the giant, and thinking “zombie", <br />
or even worse, Gates and Rathbane attempted to turn the monster while Aral <br />
proceeded to take careful aim with his hand-cannon. The clerics rapidly became <br />
aware that, despite all appearances, the giant was not undead, and Aral fired. The <br />
bolt struck true, and with effect, but ominously a yellow cloud spewed from the <br />
wound. <br />
Donald took several quick steps to the side and fired a Lightning Bolt, hitting <br />
the giant twice, after which Felix and the giant engaged in melee, with Rathbane <br />
rapidly reinforcing the front lines. The remaining fight was quick and one-sided, <br />
but both Felix and Rathbane were covered in strange yellow spores that attempted <br />
to burrow under their skin. Taking no chances, the two fighters removed their <br />
armor and cleansed themselves of the threat by enduring a Fireball from the party <br />
wizard. This therapy, while painful, proved effective. </p>

<p>Note: At the conclusion to the adventure, we queried the Arala sage. He informed us <br />
that there are odd mushroom men who use some form of fungus to animate dead bodies <br />
as guards. The giant we encountered was likely a rogue specimen of such, suggesting that <br />
we passed near a mushroom man colony. The spores present no major threat to the living, <br />
and would merely have unpleasant for perhaps a week. </p>

<p>While the casters slept in an abandoned house to regain spells and heal the <br />
self-inflicted wounds, the people on watch saw two bugbear-like creatures pass. </p>

<p>These “bugbears" were of the right form, but of the wrong color: dark. They <br />
were crudely equipped, one with a club, but pulling something not-unlike a child’s <br />
wagon. The watch choose not to engage, and the “bugbears" fled. </p>

<p>Note: After more interactions with these “bugbears", Donald remembered some leg- <br />
ends linking Drow elves to a race called the Quag which matched our impression of them. <br />
In retrospect I have no idea how the probably-Quag got into the city. Both the elevator <br />
shaft and the access shaft were well-sealed. </p>

<p>   The access shaft, or exercises in claustrophobia <br />
Upon arriving at the access shaft, the party opened it and started down the lad- <br />
der. Eight hours later, long after the party passed the Naga’s complex (§2), they <br />
arrived at a dismaying sight: the shaft was caved in. Hendel could tell that the <br />
cave in was not accidental but rather the result of a trap, and so the rubble likely <br />
wasn’t impossibly deep. Shuddering at the thought of spending days lifting rocks <br />
however, the party retraced their steps and returned to an access door leading to <br />
the main (elevator) shaft. Aral determined that the area had seen recent travel <br />
and Hendel found two traps on the door: one, barely worth the name, was a few <br />
blades attached to the handle. The second trap was a Glyph of some form. The <br />
party attached a rope to Hendel and climbed further up the access shaft before the <br />
thief attempted to disarm the door. The attempt was successful. <br />
After regrouping, the party opened the door and a Magic Mouth went off, <br />
speaking in a language clearly related to Dwarven. The party, unfortunately, could <br />
not understand the message, but there clearly were people down below that could. <br />
A Continual Light coin was dropped, revealing a circle of 8 stools filled by 8 of <br />
the “bugbear"s 100 feet below. Interestingly, there was an extendible ladder <br />
whose top was just outside of infravision range. The “bugbears", clearly pained <br />
by the light, fled although Gates managed to confuse and delay two of them by <br />
asking them in Dwarven to stay. Without a better way down, the party jumped, <br />
getting Featherfalled by Donald before landing. In addition to the aforementioned <br />
ladder and stools, the bottom of the main shaft was populated by a bizarre mix of <br />
well engineered, crafted and maintained carts and wagons, and primitive camps. <br />
    <br />
     The fight, or when Kraken attack <br />
The room the party found itself in had exits: three huge archways that looked like <br />
they all lead to the same place. As these were the exits the “bugbears" had made <br />
use of, the party pursued. The party found itself in a large (150’ square), well <br />
crafted room. The walls were indented with large cubby-holes that looked like <br />
the underlying component to dwarven market stalls. On the left and right walls <br />
were two balconies, without obvious accesses. The right quarter of the room was <br />
a pool of water with a nice, albeit destroyed in the center, railing. On the far side <br />
were two more huge archways facing those we had come through, and flanking <br />
a grate: the ticket counter or information booth for the ancient dwarven tunnel <br />
system? Perhaps of more immediate import, however, was the sound of fire-doors <br />
clanging shut in all the obvious exits. <br />
A deep voice, from the behind the left balcony (above land) told the party that <br />
they didn’t know what they were interrupting. If they did know, they would un- <br />
derstand, but they couldn’t be allowed to leave. Somewhat bizarrely, however, the <br />
voice didn’t want to kill the party. He had a friend who would take us away. It was <br />
at this point that Aral noticed the water starting to stir. The party opted to move <br />
around the edges of the room to the left, to eventually get beneath the balcony. <br />
Negotiations with the voice went nowhere, when a psychic voice started talking <br />
to the party about how they were all going to be its slaves. On top of these events, <br />
eight odd looking, spear wielding, slightly shiny and certainly wet gnolls came out <br />
of the darkness from the water-side of the room and took up positions flanking the <br />
party. Communication with the psychic voice went absolutely nowhere, and after <br />
and Continual Light stone toss that revealed a giant armored squid-like creature <br />
and a psychic strike on the party that everyone shook off, Rathbane used a token <br />
of bridge to create a path from the corner of the room where the party was to the <br />
balcony. The gnolls threw spears at Donald and Aral took a cross-bow shot at the <br />
gnolls and the squid covered the light with a tentacle. No one managed to injure <br />
their foe and the party crossed the bridge with the gnolls on their heels. <br />
At the top, the party found a large iron door, which was not an original is- <br />
sue fire-door. As Hendel studied the door for means to open it, Felix took up a <br />
guard position on the bridge and Gates and Rathbane started spells. They would <br />
both cast Prayer which Gates was to supplement with a Protection from Evil 10’ <br />
Radius and a Spiritual Weapon. While Felix, rapidly reinforced by Rathbane, <br />
handily held the bridge against the gnolls, Hendel found that the door had no ob- <br />
vious weaknesses and the party was struck again by psychic force. The veteran <br />
dwarves and Donald shook off the effect, but Aral was not so lucky, and collapsed <br />
in a despairing heap crying about how it all was hopless. The fight proceeded in <br />
a somewhat bizarre fashion, with Felix and Rathbane slaying the gnolls (who <br />
appeared to have fishlike skin, the source of the shininess) while Hendel threw <br />
another Continual Light stone which Donald used to target a Lightning Bolt. Af- <br />
ter that, Hendel started trying to slap Aral out of his hysteric despair, Felix and Rathbane prepared to stand against a shiny Frost Giant that followed the gnolls <br />
out of the darkness and Donald dropped a Fireball on the squid, while the squid <br />
opted to single out Felix for targeted psychic attacks, to no avail. The Fireball, <br />
however, was exceptionally productive as in the light it cast the party could make <br />
out two more Frost Giants. Those two Frost Giants appear to be extremely vul- <br />
nerable to fire as the entire upper half of their skin was melted off. <br />
Just as the Frost Giant reached the top of the bridge, it turned around and <br />
headed back down. Felix and Rathbane failed to stop its retreat and the party <br />
pursued back down the bridge. As the party reached the floor the psychic voice <br />
called out, saying “These ones are dangerous. They are your responsibility", and <br />
the party heard more splashing. The party heard some clattering from the iron <br />
door and then a yellow fog formed on the balcony. Rathbane drank a potion <br />
of Frost Giant Strength and the party, still uninjured physically, started back up <br />
the bridge with Rathbane in the lead. As Rathbane reached the top, a large, <br />
humanoid, two armed, bat winged creature stepped out of the cloud and breathed <br />
flame on the entire party. Rathbane held it at bay with Soul Mirror and Felix <br />
went for Mortal Coils, the set of shackles that strips the supernatural abilities <br />
from extra-planar creatures and destroys them on death rather than letting them <br />
flee to their home plane.<br />
Felix managed to get the shackles on while the demon tore into him with a <br />
claw/claw/bite routine. Hendel snuck behind the creature and thanks to the shack- <br />
les blocking the demon’s psionic senses, delivered a pair of devastating back- <br />
stabs. Rapidly, the demon abandoned his attacks and turned, trying to tear the <br />
door off its hinges, while the party continued to hammer it with blade and spell <br />
and Gates prepared to cure Felix . Realizing that escape was hopeless, the de- <br />
mon turned at bay and ripped into Felix, rapidly dropping him just before Gates <br />
dropped his first cure spell and started on his scroll. That, mercifully, was when <br />
the demon was dropped. Remembering that slain demons were engulfed in major <br />
explosions when the shackles destroyed them forever, the party, again, fled down <br />
the bridge. Segments later, the door opened and a bearded dwarf stepped out, <br />
brandishing a wand and claiming “Now I will destroy you all". <br />
The party split up, Felix and Rathbane diving off to one side of the bridge <br />
and the rest of the party the other. A heartbeat later, the dwarf launched a Fireball <br />
from the wand, injuring the larger section of the party, and killing Aral outright. <br />
The dwarf then went for a blue globe. Just as he raised it overhead, the demon <br />
exploded. The dwarf saved, but the globe did not, and released an anrgy Wa- <br />
ter Elemental. The elemental immediate took out its anger on the dwarf, hitting <br />
him twice and slaying him instantly. The elemental then slowly drifted down the bridge and into the pool of water, to the party’s relief. While the elemental was <br />
gone, the foes had not yet run out of reinforcements. From the door several more <br />
dwarves stepped out, armed with cross bows. A brief, largely ineffectual exchange <br />
of missile fire occured while Rathbane , largely untouched, started back up the <br />
bridge for the third time. Felix used a charge from the Shield of Healing, Don- <br />
ald let off his final Lightning Bolt and Hendel began to climb the wall under the <br />
balcony. <br />
The exploding demon, Hendel’s crossbow and Donald’s Lightning Bolt had <br />
slain three of the new dwarves. As Rathbane closed, the remaining three dwaves <br />
went for their melee weapons: two were armed with pole-arms and the third with <br />
paired short-swords. Rathbane held the short sword wielder at bay, but did not <br />
injure him too greatly. Hendel attacked from behind, slaying one of the polearm <br />
wielders outright while Gates killed the other with his Spiritual Hammer. The <br />
short sword wielding dwarf brutalized Hendel before Felix closed, and then sur- <br />
vived long to score hits on him before being taken down. The fight, at last, was <br />
over. </p>

<p>Note: The wand wielding dwarf was in fact beardless. He had grown his hair long <br />
and combed and braided it into a fake beard. </p>

<p>     The lair, or when mad scientists go bad <br />
The party, having been the recipient of several area attacks, was in poor shape. <br />
The decision was made to turn Hendel invisible with the Ring of Invisibility, give <br />
him the Wand of Trap/Secret Door detection and have him scout. In the first <br />
room, directly past the (now open) iron door, the party found a bizarre workshop. <br />
It seemed that the dwarves were working on some kind of poison gas traps, but <br />
that wasn’t entirely clear. In the room, levers were found, some clearly marked <br />
as controlling the fire doors. Further, there were three large black barrels The <br />
room had two new exits, to stair-cases, one down and one up. Heading down, <br />
Hendel found a large room with five more large black barrels and some combat <br />
dummies. The room opened into a large tunnel with a pair of tracks running <br />
down the center. To the left, the tunnel extending into the darkness, but to the <br />
right Hendel rapidly came to the other set of large archways and an entrance into <br />
the grate-room. Past those there was a very large construction in the tunnel, but <br />
infravision was inadequate to characterize it. Returning, Hendel went up the stairs <br />
and found a barracks with six bunks, the right count for the non-wand wielding <br />
dwarves. Three of the chests by the beds were trapped, but the keys found on <br />
the dwarves would bypass those traps and locks without difficulty. At the far end <br />
of the barracks was another door, this one guarded both by a magical and by a <br />
mechanical trap. <br />
Judging that the dwarves were fully defeated and the the “bugbears" were <br />
unlikely to return, the party advanced into the barracks and Rathbane Dispell <br />
Magiced the door. Hendel bypassed the mechanical trap with keys found on the <br />
savant and the party opened the door and found a demon worshipper’s dream <br />
room. Beyond skulls, candles and other paraphernalia the party found a chest and <br />
a desk drawer of interest, both magically and mechanically warded. This time <br />
Gates did the Dispell honors and Hendel again opened them without difficulty. <br />
Further, the party found a secret compartment with an small casket. </p>

<p>Note: Loot listed in §4. </p>

<p>On a table was a bizarre object. It seemed alchemical in nature, but Donald <br />
could not place its purpose. An interesting feature was the wheels, which turned, <br />
but were just too high for the object to run on. Another oddity was the contents <br />
of the three barrels in the work-room (the five barrels below were empty): Earth’s <br />
Blood. This rare alchemical component came, according to Donald’s knowledge <br />
only from the kingdom of Empyrea in the Far World, which had been in con- <br />
tact with the New World for a bare few decades, and was worth perhaps eight <br />
thousand gp/barrel. </p>

<p>     The “bugbears", or when the gods forgot the brains <br />
After spell-shifting, the party figured that there was likely a mirror to the section <br />
they were in that would end in the other balcony and so went to the tunnel and <br />
headed in that direction. With light, the party could identify the construct on <br />
the tracks as a massively scaled up version of the machine in the savant’s room. <br />
Here, Donald could tell that there was another barrel’s worth of Earth’s Blood in <br />
a tank in the machine, which was made both of an ancient, ancient base and new <br />
construction and appeared nearly complete. Past the machine the party indeed <br />
found a mirror image of the other complex, guarded by two “bugbears", with <br />
whom communication proved impossible although Rathbane managed to anger <br />
the pair by repeating their phrases back at them. <br />
After retreating, Gates loaded Tongues and the party returned. I will spare you <br />
the conversation, but let it be said that the “bugbears" did not impress with their <br />
wits. They did, however, have the secret of the wheel. It turns out that the dwarves <br />
had been paying the “bugbears" in food for scavenged ancient dwarven machinery <br />
parts. Further, the party learned that towards the Cromwell side, the tunnel ended <br />
in a rockslide while to the other side, the tunnel became dangerous, and populated by “slime creatures". The “bugbears" had torn a hubcap and a pipe from the large <br />
machine, which their leader had been using as club and shield. To recover those <br />
without a fight, and get the “bugbears" out of the way, the party bargained passage <br />
outside and a few pole-arms and shield. <br />
The party, with “bugbears" in tow then proceeded back up the access shaft to <br />
the Naga’s lair. The “bugbears" started with an olio of bizarre objects, including <br />
a dwarven fishbowl, but abandoned most of them on the way out. Upon entry to <br />
the Naga’s lair, the “bugbears" became agitated, but upon the casting of another <br />
Tongues spell, and being told of the Naga’s defeat, followed. At the exit, the <br />
leader of the “bugbears" turned to Gates and asked “Snow?". Upon Gate’s agree- <br />
ment, the “bugbears" ran their hands through their hair and along their arms and <br />
turned white. The clearly not-bugbears then left, disappearing from sight almost <br />
instantaneously. </p>

<p>     Arala, or when politics raises its ugly head <br />
The party proceeded back to Arala without incident, whereupon things went <br />
weird. To keep this story from becoming overlong, it appears that the party had <br />
indeed found the tunnel, ancient dwarven machinery and more, a technical man- <br />
ual from the High Kingdom (which fell some twenty odd thousand years ago). <br />
The machine and manual stirred up significant political issues, which resulted in <br />
the party being sequestered (Aral was raised by the Aralian priests) while debate <br />
raged. In sum: <br />
The clan of the Aralian king (and perhaps other dwarven clans whose tradition <br />
dates that far back) feel that the fall of the High Kingdom was due to over-reliance <br />
on machines rather than hard work. As such, the Aralian king likely intends to de- <br />
stroy the machine, the Earth’s Blood and the manual. <br />
A further interesting note is that what records remain suggest that the machines <br />
of the High Kingdom all required Earth’s Blood and that the fall of the High <br />
Kingdom roughly coincided with the supplies of Earth’s Blood running dry. If <br />
the party (as dwarven nobility) or Felix, as a dwarven king decide to attempt to <br />
intervene, this suggests an obvious line of argument: <br />
If the High Kingdom could not find an alternate fuel to keep the machines running, <br />
than even if such machines are redeveloped there is no way to produce or use <br />
enough to fundamentally alter dwarven society and make it weak. If, instead, <br />
the supplies of Earth’s Blood have regenerated, then likely divine intervention <br />
occurred, and it would be wise to query the Gods before destroying what might <br />
have been meant as a gift. The dwarves of the New World are in a perilous position as things stand, and the discovery of a preserved technical manual might <br />
be divinely inspired. </p>

<p>Note: On a more mundane note, the sage believes that the “slime people" the Quag <br />
mentioned might be the same fish-scaled creatures we encountered with the Squid. He <br />
noted that every few decades adventures claim encounters with underground squid that <br />
enslave people. People familiar The Stone Soules might recognize similarities with the <br />
experiences of The Dozen. </p>

<p>Loot </p>

<p>Note: I took the loot list with me to enable writing this section. Accordingly, this is the <br />
only player record of the loot. <br />
6, 940 gp worth of assorted coin, gems and jewelry. <br />
3 repeating dart cross-bows. These are designed to carry poisoned bolts, making <br />
them slower to load. <br />
2 +1/ + 1 quality short swords. <br />
Dagger +1 <br />
Longsword +0/+4 and double damage vs hooved beings. I believe it is unnamed. <br />
If so, may I suggest My Little Ponyslayer? <br />
Angry fire, air and earth elementals in globes (1 each). Tricky to transport, and no <br />
way to control said elementals. <br />
Wand of Fireballs, 11 charges, command word unknown. <br />
Soul Broach, originally could absorb up to 9 level drains or death attacks. 4 <br />
charges remaining. <br />
Potion of Climbing. <br />
Full Size spellbook (Death Servant magic). To be destroyed or handed over to <br />
people for anti-demon research. <br />
11 vials magic ink. <br />
5 10 cn. mithril bars. <br />
3 alchemical book preservation boxes, 1 with a <br />
∼ 20, 000 year old dwarven tech- <br />
nical manual. Status of the later a matter of political debate. <br />
11 dwarven alchemical barrels, 3 filled with Earth’s Blood. Also politically sen- <br />
sitive. </p>]]>
    </content>
</entry>
<entry>
    <title>Balinor/Morty/Tarplin Summary #5:  Making Friends</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.telvar.net/2008/05/balinormortytarplin_summary_5.html" />
    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.telvar.net/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=317" title="Balinor/Morty/Tarplin Summary #5:  Making Friends" />
    <id>tag:blog.telvar.net,2008://1.317</id>
    
    <published>2008-05-11T21:56:11Z</published>
    <updated>2008-07-14T15:47:14Z</updated>
    
    <summary>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.</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Joel Green</name>
        
    </author>
            <category term="Balinor" />
            <category term="Morty" />
            <category term="Post Mirror" />
            <category term="Tarplin" />
    
    <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://blog.telvar.net/">
        <![CDATA[<p>Party Roster:</p>

<p>Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel<br />
Morty, 7th/6th human fighter/thief (bard), 74 hp, played by Jay<br />
Bodkin, 5th level dwarven fighter, 49 hp, played by Katherine <br />
Robynne, 5th level woodsman, 38 hp, played by Rhonda<br />
Tarplin, 8th/5th elf druid/mage, 30 hp, played by Alan<br />
Morhion, 3rd level Northerner Nevronian cleric, 28 hp, henchman of Balinor<br />
 <br />
Leo, 4th level human Nevronian cleric, 25 hp, played by David (Jay this time)</p>

<p>(Events of 3/15/08 in Charlotte; Game world November-December 2192)</p>

<p>When we last left our party, they had just escaped a nasty trap set for them by grotto beasts in a complex outside of Barnacus and Seapoint, in the Farmin Mountains near the lands of the Blue and the Gray, the massive bandit group on Lendore.</p>]]>
        <![CDATA[<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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).</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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. </p>

<p>This is where we left the party.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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…<br />
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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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…</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>We went back to sleep.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>It was not to be.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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…</p>

<p>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.”</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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).</p>

<p>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.<br />
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.  </p>

<p>When questioned on what “the plan” was:</p>

<p>“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.”</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>We asked for explicit directions to the cafeteria, and we got them:</p>

<p>“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.”</p>

<p>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.</p>

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

<p>“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.</p>

<p>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.”</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.<br />
The party assembled behind the giant log, and prepared for the attack.</p>

<p>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…</p>

<p>***</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.<br />
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.</p>

<p>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…</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!).</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.  <br />
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.</p>

<p>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…</p>

<p>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!</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>What he got might qualify.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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!).</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The party had won.</p>

<p>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.<br />
Okay, so maybe we underestimated the strength of the wereboars.  That’s what intimate diagnostics like this fight are for.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

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

<p>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…)</p>

<p>The treasure haul:</p>

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

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

<p>Magic items:</p>

<p>*short composite bow + 1 of distance (all ranges doubled)<br />
*falchion of cleaving + 2 (double damage on a 20)<br />
*cloak of protection + 1 / +10% hide in shadows<br />
*bracers of defense AC 4/10, 45 cw<br />
*boots of mystery (leave no tracks, +10% move silently)<br />
*ring of protection + 2<br />
*necklace of missiles (1 5 HD fireball left)<br />
*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)<br />
*ring of regeneration 1 pt/turn (big and ugly)</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Our tentative treasure deployment was:</p>

<p>Robynne - Magic Bracers – generic 4/10 45 cn<br />
Bodkin - Magic Boots – generic Boots of Mystery – no tracks and +10 % to move Silently<br />
Magic Ring – distinctive (High) – Ring of Regeneration 1 HP/turn – very large<br />
Robynne - Magic Ring – distinctive – Ring of Protection +2<br />
Morty - Magic Necklace – generic – Necklace of Missile 1 5 HD Fireball left<br />
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<br />
Morty - Magic Cloak – generic tan (Cloak of Protection +1, +10% Hide in Shadows) <br />
Robynne – gets Morty’s old one<br />
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…</p>

<p>Things to contemplate:</p>

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

<p>Joel/Balinor/Morhion<br />
</p>]]>
    </content>
</entry>
<entry>
    <title>Superstar! Treasure Update [Following Summary #3]</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.telvar.net/2008/03/superstar_treasure_update_foll.html" />
    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.telvar.net/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=316" title="Superstar! Treasure Update [Following Summary #3]" />
    <id>tag:blog.telvar.net,2008://1.316</id>
    
    <published>2008-03-24T20:32:30Z</published>
    <updated>2008-03-24T20:34:08Z</updated>
    
    <summary>Down 4750 gp pre-tax (taken from cash and lost items) but recall that cash is taxed at 10% rate as per our agreement with the Rangers.</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Joel Green</name>
        
    </author>
            <category term="Chiaro" />
            <category term="Rangorn" />
            <category term="Star" />
    
    <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://blog.telvar.net/">
        <![CDATA[<p>A treasure update for Superstar! [done in late November 2007]</p>]]>
        <![CDATA[<p>Treasure:</p>

<p>*succeeded by Magic Lad<br />
-giving up automatically</p>

<p>--+1/+1 quality hammer x 2<br />
headband of radiance (2d12 damage 1/week)<br />
ring of protection from good<br />
-augury sticks damaged (200 gp salvage value)<br />
-*short sword +1/+3 vs. sylvan creatures<br />
*large shield +1<br />
tugutten full plate<br />
ring of bad taste<br />
-full plate<br />
-+1/+0 shortbow<br />
+1 ff short arrows x 4<br />
chocolate bars (30 gp each) x 3 (eaten in field)<br />
-fine banded mail (250 cw encumbrance) <br />
quality bastard sword +1/+1<br />
-longbow +1/+2 strength bow<br />
+4 long arrows x 3<br />
**ring of protection + 1 x 2<br />
+1 ff long arrows x 36<br />
+2 ff long arrows x 12<br />
*long arrow of giant slaying<br />
-hobgoblin master armor (9” movement rate platemail for hobgoblins)<br />
*fire giant bread x 4<br />
-bastard sword (regular)<br />
10 cw mithril bars x 10<br />
healing potion x 2<br />
*bandages x 2<br />
*dwarf-sized platemail +1<br />
-*battleaxe “Soulquench” (detects as neutral evil) – each time you kill a sentient good creature, it accumulates one day of granting 18/00 to wielder; if kill seventh level person or higher axe gains +2 for a week; contains limited wish granted by neutral evil deity<br />
-*longsword of the spellsword +1 (+2 if you have fighter and mage classes or subclasses and +1 on magical saves if you have fighter and mage or subclasses)<br />
*ring of wizardry (+1 third and fourth level spell)<br />
scarab scarab – stag beetle (worn around neck) that creates a suit of everyman armor for 8 hours, once/week<br />
scroll of deepstrike, shocking grasp, deadly aim<br />
*bastard sword+1<br />
-*studded armor of studliness (no AC benefit but can be warn with rings of protection, +2 comeliness, +2 max hitpoints, +2% bend bars)<br />
bag of holding 200/5000<br />
-*beer bong of life draining (if hold someone against the funnel for three rounds, then they are devoured and fed to the person at the other end, who temporarily gains powers)<br />
*mirror of improvement (disadvantage: weighs 1000 cw; stand in front of it, flex strut and pose for 30 minutes each day, con is +1)<br />
engineering gear (ropes/pulleys)<br />
222 pp, 3250 gp<br />
100 gp gems x 71<br />
1000 gp gems x 3</p>

<p>Traveling spellbooks x 3 (lots of handy third level spells)</p>

<p>Book 1:  Read Magic, Magic Missile, Sleep, Detect Magic, Shocking Grasp, Mending</p>

<p>Book 2: Web, Zane’s Deodorant, Invisibility, Strength, Levitate, Shield</p>

<p>Book 3: Haste, Dispel Magic, Invisibility 10’ Radius, Deadly Aim, Wizard Lock, Knock</p>

<p>Book 4 (destroyed): Lightning Bolt (straight back), Tongues, Monster Summoning I, Blink, Make Whole, Fools’ Gold</p>

<p>Cleric – Tarantino<br />
Wizard – Hitchcock<br />
Dwarf—Great Kubrick<br />
Woodsman – Steven<br />
Hobgoblin – Kurosawa<br />
Half-orcs -- DW, Bergman, Welles<br />
Druid-- Fellini</p>

<p>XP ranged in the 1300-3000 range for the henchpeople, to 12700 for Minerva</p>

<p>Minerva to 5th level – gains 4 hp to stand at 22<br />
Lewis to 3rd level – gains 3 hp to stand at 23 (trains first aid vet x1, single weapon combat bastard sword x 1)<br />
Madupe to 3rd fighter and 4th thief – gains 6 hp to stand at 25<br />
Magic Lad to 2nd cleric and 2nd illusionist – gains 7 hp to stand at 13</p>

<p>Play ratings: </p>

<p>Lewis- 2.0 (610 gp) (29 days)<br />
Magic Lad – cleric: 1.5 (325 gp), illusionist: 1.6 (300 gp) trained by Chiaro (who gets 100 XP) (12 days + 12 days = 24 days)<br />
Minerva – 2.0 (2290 gp) (57 days)<br />
Madupe – fighter: 1.5 (260 gp), thief: 1.8 (810 gp) (22 days + 39 days = 61 days)</p>

<p>Minerva free spell training: Monster Summoning I</p>

<p>ID cost post Magic Lad pre tax: 2350 gp (Magic Lad gains 280 XP)</p>

<p>Down 4750 gp pre-tax (taken from cash and lost items) but recall that cash is taxed at 10% rate as per our agreement with the Rangers</p>

<p>-Discuss reward over email<br />
-List: potions can be made (healing, extra-healing, neutralize poison, cure disease); physical potions (climbing, swimming, growth, diminution, water breathing, chameleon, animal control, speak with animals/plants, resistance)<br />
-weird familiars (sprites, maybe those for non-spellcasters)<br />
-animal speaking and control rings<br />
+1 weapons/ armor (nonmetallic armor)<br />
magic cloaks of protection (up to +2)<br />
woodland cloaks and boots (huge bonuses to hide/move silently, woodland only)<br />
(order 20 to 50kgp)</p>

<p>And our final party status:</p>

<p>Rangorn, 7th level half-elf woodsman, 65 hp, played by Joel<br />
Star, 6th level human cleric, 37 hp, played by Kyle<br />
Zippo, 3rd level dwarf fighter, 34 hp, henchman of Star<br />
Madupe Fadupe, 3rd/4th level gnome fighter/thief, 25 hp, played by Katherine<br />
Lewis, 3rd level human ranger, 23 hp, henchman of Star (played by Alex)<br />
Chiaroscuro, 7th level human illusionist, 22 hp, played by Aaron<br />
Minerva Moonstone, 5th level half-elf mage, 22 hp, played by Katherine<br />
Alisan, 2nd level half-elf cleric, 17 hp, henchman of Rangorn<br />
Magic Lad, 2nd/2nd level cleric/illusionist, 13 hp, henchman of Chiaro</p>

<p><br />
Joel/Rangorn/Alisan<br />
Kyle/Star/Zippo/Lewis<br />
</p>]]>
    </content>
</entry>
<entry>
    <title>A History of the Telvar Open Tournaments</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.telvar.net/2008/01/a_history_of_the_telvar_open_t.html" />
    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.telvar.net/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=315" title="A History of the Telvar Open Tournaments" />
    <id>tag:blog.telvar.net,2008://1.315</id>
    
    <published>2008-01-08T21:33:43Z</published>
    <updated>2008-01-08T21:38:57Z</updated>
    
    <summary>A list of the Telvar Open Tournaments, their dates, plots, and taglines.</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Kyle MacLea</name>
        
    </author>
            <category term="Telvar Open" />
    
    <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://blog.telvar.net/">
        <![CDATA[<p>A History of Open Tournaments, as described by the Dungeon Master, with taglines.</p>]]>
        <![CDATA[<p><strong>The First Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
Haunted Isle</strong>  1988  May 18, 2154  Escaping an island known by orc, goblin, and man as a cursed place  <br />
“The ship is sinking!”</p>

<p><strong>The Second Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
Kobolds of High Mountain</strong>  June 9, 1990  June 20, 2157  Stopping a kobold raid on the settlements below<br />
“Crush the Skull! Crush the Skull!”</p>

<p><strong>The Third Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
Chaos at Blackstone</strong>  July 11, 1992  April 27, 2166  The assassination of Lord Eldrin<br />
“When the invasion bell rang, none of us knew what to do...”</p>

<p><strong>The Fourth Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
Incident at Gerda</strong>  July 16, 1994  January 20, 2170  The theft of the Sphere of the Night<br />
“Which way did they go?”</p>

<p><strong>The Fifth Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
The Peaks of Light </strong> August 3, 1996  December 18, 2178  An attempt to destroy Ranore’s plans<br />
“Does anyone know what that sound was?”</p>

<p><strong>The Sixth Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
Race Rock  July 24, 1999 </strong> April 1, 2188  Some of the last children of the kraken awaken<br />
“Sure is a bad one for this time of year...”</p>

<p><strong>The Seventh Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
The Mountain of Thunder </strong> July 17, 2001  January 8, 2191  An evil artifact is destroyed<br />
“Boom”</p>

<p><strong>The Eighth Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
The Edge of Memory </strong> October 4, 2003  June 10, 2192  The Inviolate Realms are awakened<br />
“It’s a hint,” the Sphinx said.  “It just won’t make any sense until you already know the answer.”</p>

<p><strong>The Ninth Telvar Open Tournament:<br />
Faces from the Past  </strong>November 5, 2005  June 10, 2192  An Inviolate Realm marches forth<br />
“It had never previously been understood why the Northerner word for ‘unavoidable danger’ literally translated as ‘blue fire mountain’.”</p>

<p>--Edwin B. Anderson, Jr.</p>]]>
    </content>
</entry>
<entry>
    <title>Strangorn Summary #3: Superstar! and the Circle of Ayrless!</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.telvar.net/2007/11/strangorn_summary_3_superstar.html" />
    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.telvar.net/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=313" title="Strangorn Summary #3: Superstar! and the Circle of Ayrless!" />
    <id>tag:blog.telvar.net,2007://1.313</id>
    
    <published>2007-11-17T16:26:43Z</published>
    <updated>2008-01-08T20:50:39Z</updated>
    
    <summary>Thinking quickly, Chiaro struck lethally at the druid with his mind.  The invisible and silent druid blanched in horror.  No one could hear his cries, or see his sudden struggle, nor could he see his tormentor.  Psychic waves of energy crashed through his brain and savaged it.  His mind crumbled before the onslaught, and blood hemorrhaged.  His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed dead to the ground. Chiaro is a scary, scary individual.</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Joel Green</name>
        
    </author>
            <category term="Balinor" />
            <category term="Cassian" />
            <category term="Chiaro" />
            <category term="Rangorn" />
            <category term="Star" />
    
    <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://blog.telvar.net/">
        <![CDATA[<p>(Mini-party: Dwarfstar)</p>

<p>Party Roster:</p>

<p>Rangorn, 7th level half-elf woodsman, 65 hp, played by Joel<br />
Star, 6th level human cleric, 37 hp, played by Kyle<br />
Zippo, 3rd level dwarf fighter, 34 hp, henchman of Star<br />
Chiaroscuro, 7th level human illusionist, 22 hp, played by Aaron<br />
Lewis, 2nd level human ranger, 20 hp, henchman of Star (played by Alex)<br />
Madupe Fadupe, 2nd/3rd level gnome fighter/thief, 19 hp, played by Katherine<br />
Minerva Moonstone, 3rd level half-elf mage, 14 hp, played by Katherine<br />
Alisan, 1st level half-elf cleric, 8 hp, henchman of Rangorn<br />
Magic Lad, 1st level cleric/illusionist, 6 hp, henchman of Chiaro</p>

<p>It’s an adventure of fantastically varying proportions!  See the adventures of the little guys (Dwarfstar) and then full on power of the party (Superstar!).</p>

<p>[Events at Alex’s house in Ithaca; Real World Sept. 29, 2007; Telvar Dates Feb. – June 2192]</p>

<p>It was decided that since the lower level people were close to achieving levels in many cases, the best chance to get additional power before attempting a big mission would be to run the party without its leaders through a series of mini-encounters (a trick used by the BMT party a few games back). </p>

<p>The party had recently decided to christen itself “Superstar” rather than the previous informal moniker “Strangorn” which had morphed into “Strangiaro” and was fast approaching having to become something like “Strangiarva” or “Strangiarvupe.”  What all these names had in common is that they were significantly more than just Star.  In keeping with this, we chose a name that was “above and beyond” Star—Superstar!</p>]]>
        <![CDATA[<p>We decided we would have a name for the relatively low-power members of the party as well, when we needed them to get some experience apart from the Power Triumvirate (Rangorn, Chiaro, and Star).  So, they would be “Dwarfstar”—both because they were the “little” party-within-a-party, but also because their most powerful (or at least toughest) member was the crazy dwarf Zippo.  Plus, he has a parrot, and parrots rule!</p>

<p>To prepare for Dwarfstar’s solo adventure, some preparations were undertaken.  First off, scrolls were replenished from last time, and a few items were handed over to the active characters while Rangorn, Star, and Chiaro took a well-deserved break.</p>

<p>The first mission from the Rangers came quickly.  The party was approached by the famous Halbarad the Ranger, he of the cobalt blue armor.  “You guys are total wimps, but I like you even though you’re no good at anything.”  He’s a charmer.  The mission was simple: in the hills to the west, near High Mountain, a hill giant with a giant snake was spotted.  The mission was to take it out.</p>

<p>The Dwarfstar party set off triumphantly on their first adventure: Minerva the mage and her fox familiar (named after a bird, oddly); Madupe Fadupe the gnomish swashbuckler (shades of Juan Re, for Stone Soules veterans…); Zippo, the dwarven fighter with a trained parrot and a fondness for wood carvings; Lewis, bastard-sword wielding ranger extraordinaire; Alisan the cleric and her two dogs, the bloodhound Sanger and the war dog Drifter; and Magic Lad the cleric/illusionist Chiaro protégé and Chiaro’s man-sized battletoads (Gamabunta and Rana ½).  It was an odd assortment.</p>

<p>The party tracked down the giant quickly.  An ambush plan was put into effect, but the giant accidentally and unknowingly avoided it the first time (nearly tromping through the bush Minerva was hiding in).  Alisan, realizing that Minerva might be discovered, emitted juicy animal calls and the giant turned to locate the source.  We had to reset the whole thing farther down the path.</p>

<p>This time we completely surprised the giant.  Alisan popped up firing arrows while Zippo, Lewis, and Madupe closed with the giant.  Magic Lad and Minerva fired light spells at the giant, blinding it and leaving it wide open to attack.  The giant took a big swing and fumbled massively, injuring both itself and the snake, shattering the club, and falling to the ground!  A stinking cloud disabled the creature, and the giant was brought down in short order by the fighters and nasty backstabs from the thief, but the dangerous snake remained.  Unfortunately it managed to bite Madupe!  Swearing, the party watched as one of the battletoads engaged, and got bitten before the snake was brought down.  Then we dosed Madupe with antivenom, healed them, and hoped (since there was no ability to neutralize poison within this party or within days of it).  Magic Lad in particular was praying the toad survived, else Master Chiaro would likely be very, very displeased.</p>

<p>Fortunately everyone was intact a few minutes later.  The party chugged back to town with loot: 40 sparrows (deceased); a small box labeled in human “Runk Novelties Inc.”; paper wrappings containing a small metal box with a little crank that makes an annoying noise x 30; a silver box that emits an exotic bird sound (Realmish night sparrow, as it turned out), labeled in common “Hunters’ Delight, Teft”; and a box containing 40 whistles.  And 53 gp.</p>

<p>As this probably wasn’t quite enough, we decided to go for another mini-mission elsewhere in Petethal.  Eight gnolls were apparently robbing chicken coops in a farming village, and it was up to us to stop them.  Because of the gnolls’ mobility, we planned a lot of traps and immobilization spells to allow the party time to kill them before they could escape.</p>

<p>We decided to pick a chicken coop and ambush them from nearby.  Alisan set up a blind outside, and Madupe set up a trap that would trip the gnolls when they tried to run from us.  Minerva would hit them with spells, and the clerics and fighters would pick off escaping stragglers.</p>

<p>The fight went as expected; Minerva nailed nearly all of them with a web spell, and ones that might get away were hit by command spells and axes and bastard swords.  The end result was Eight Dead Gnolls On a Stick.  (Band name.)</p>

<p>We collected 16 ep for the eight gnoll heads.  And the farmers scraped together a small reward too.  (The Phaulkonians rejoiced in protecting some birds, although the thought that they would probably end up in someone’s soup pot went unremarked.  After all, this party is not known for its discerning theological bent.  As Zippo once said, “I thought I would leave all that ‘thinking’  stuff to you, Star.”)  All told, after selling off the gnollish gear, we reaped about 670 g.p.</p>

<p>Finally, to make sure we had enough experiences to train everyone who had a chance at it, Dwarfstar took one more mission.  We tracked two bugbears down and Alisan got to attempt target practice, taking potshots with her bow while the bugbears tried to recover from Minerva’s sleep spells.  It was over quickly.</p>

<p>Total cash gained from the Dwarfstar adventure after salvage tax was just over 1000 g.p.</p>

<p>XP for this section ranged from 600 for Alisan to 900 for Minerva.  This resulted in considerable training!  Minerva trained to 4th level mage, gaining 4 hp to stand at 18, while Alisan trained under Star to 2nd level cleric, gaining 9 hp to stand at 17 (one off max…).  I’m having good luck with cleric henchman hitpoints recently!</p>

<p>Star picked up 50 XP for training Alisan.  The party netted about a thousand gold pieces from the adventures and donated some of the bird-whistles and the Realmish night sparrow music box to the Phaulkonian Church as part of the training donation.  </p>

<p>And then it was time for the main event.</p>

<p>Superstar!</p>

<p>A few weeks after Dwarfstar had rejoined with its elders to form Superstar in Depwood, the Rangers informed the party of a mission of considerable importance.</p>

<p>At the edge of the mountains in Petethal was a circle of standing stones, called the Circle of Ayrless, which also held a large central stone.   It has long been believed by adventurers and others that these circles were of great importance and needed to be left undisturbed.  They are druidic in nature, and guarded by druids.  In fact, the Stone Soules, including Star and Rangorn, had once encountered one in the Southern Wilderness near the Pit.  [At the time, the Soules had heard about the legends of the stones but were unable to confirm the rumors about them.  However, in this mission Star and Rangorn’s party were able to learn the definitive nature of these circles of standing stones.]</p>

<p>Guarding the Circle of Ayrless and charged with its upkeep was Fellini, a particular half-elven whackjob extremist hermit druid who was nonetheless barely tolerated.  He was thought of as roughly 5th-6th level.  And a week earlier or so, he had vanished.</p>

<p>And bizarrely, the central stone of the circle was missing.  Gone.  With no sign of any obvious movement or damage to the outer circle.</p>

<p>This was generally deemed to be “not good” and “urgent” and we were duly sent off by the Rangers to investigate this “missing persons case.”  So we were sent to the nearest village, approximately four weeks inland in Petethal.  As soon as we arrived in the town, we were met by Marsha, the local druid (an all-powerful second level druid!).  She had just received a message by giant eagle courier and a small money purse, which was addressed to our party.  She handed it to us without having read it herself—the note was still sealed.</p>

<p>We were a bit surprised, but we accepted the note and read it over.  The contents were clearly top secret.  We were to burn the message after we read it, because it contained information that cannot be shared.  [As such, parts of this summary including this top secret information, which is assumed not to be contained in any log of Superstar, will not be confirmed by its members.]  The message contained the true nature of the Circle of Ayrless and similar standing stones.</p>

<p>As it turns out, the center stones within the circles are actually imprisoned demons.  The outer ring of stones are the extremely powerful druids that gave their lives to imprison the demon, and they are all locked in stone form as they guard the prison.  The rise of sentient life on Telvar is believed to have followed the containment of these demons; such was their power that they would almost instantly dominate all of Telvar.  And as regarded the current situation, the Circle of Ayrless imprisoned a particularly powerful demon, and the loss of the captive demon-stone was a loss of incalculable import.</p>

<p>This was all contained in a long message from the Druid of the High Court.  The regular divination magics that the High Court normally employs had detected the loss of the Ayrless stone, but they were unprepared for what would come from further investigation.  The Druid revealed that when Fellini had disappeared, divination spells had been cast to determine his location and movements and that of the central standing stone.  What they found was chilling.</p>

<p>The magics gave a sense of imminent catastrophe.  The Druid believed that someone had figured out how to free the monster in the circle.  It is known that each stone has a different method; this particular stone needs to be tossed into lava.  Now, since Petethal is not known for its volcanic activity, this might seem a major obstacle.  However, it is not as well known that Petethal does in fact have some active geothermal hot spots.  In the hills above Petethal was an area of geysers, hot springs, and intermittent lava flows.  </p>

<p>Divination magics had shown that the demon-stone was in motion in that exact direction!  However, the stone was moving very slowly, only a few miles per day.  It would be quite heavy (a few tons at least), and in fact it was not clear how it was being moved.  But there would be enough time for us to intercept the stone if we moved quickly.</p>

<p>Also of interest in light of our situation was other information that had come to our attention.  A substantial adventuring party (several levels above Superstar!) had passed recently into Petethal, claiming they were going to be fighting giants.  The party was significantly powerful, thought to be evil, and was determined to have been in the vicinity of the stones.  Fellini was furthermore determined to be still alive, although it was unclear whether Fellini was a prisoner or a collaborator.</p>

<p>It was emphasized again that the thing in the stone was beyond horrific.  We needed to do anything to stop it.  Dying was a perfectly acceptable option as long as we could stop the stone from moving closer to the place where it could be destroyed and the demon freed.  In fact, the Druids were not necessarily interested in killing those who would free the demon, only preventing the release.  If we couldn’t kill everyone around the stone, but we could delay the transport for about two more weeks, sufficient reinforcements should arrive to finish the job for us.</p>

<p>To make things even more interesting, the “money bag” was actually a powerful containment device that contained everything reasonably portable and helpful that the high druid could come up with on short notice.  It was apparent that the Druid had basically “shaken down” everyone at the Court for useful items.  This was an impressive array of very powerful items… clearly this was deadly serious.  </p>

<p>There was also more detail on the adventuring party.  It was reported to be a group from the Realm that was believed to have stolen a very large amount of material from a major sage’s library.  The sage in Wunka was a specialist in the supernatural.  Apparently the party, called “Final Cut”, had gotten into the sage’s library to begin with because Tarantino had wanted to learn the Bookworm feat and had hired the sage for that  purpose. Though the authorities were never able to make the charges stick, the Final Cut was escorted out of the country and chose to leave by the Drake border.  It was reported to be eight individuals of levels 6-9: three half-orcs, three humans, a hobgoblin, and a dwarf.</p>

<p>The human who seemed to be the leader of the party, called Tarantino, traveled around with a shield with a big leather cover on it at all times (this was ominous).   We speculated that the shield might be some kind of sensory device like the Shield of the Sentry that we had encountered earlier, making observation of the party without detection nearly impossible.  Or something evil and corrupting that would be problematic in civilized areas.  Or a combination of the two…</p>

<p>There was also a dwarf in platemail wielding a quarterstaff… quarterstaff?? Dwarves wielding quarterstaves are always ominous.  Was he a monk or something bizarre like that?  There was also a very orkie looking half-orc with a large shield and short sword and Tugutten field commander’s armor (practically a Felix clone pre-Dwarfification); a grossly disfigured hobgoblin in elaborate tribal armor; in addition, one of the other half-orcs also wore (normal) full plate.</p>

<p>An interesting side note: the area with the geysers had played a role in the campaign before.  Years earlier, an ogre mage disguised as a fire giant was raiding Petethal out of a lair amongst the geysers.  Ultimately the ogre mage met its fate attacking an adventuring party named the Wreckers, when it encountered a very angry and mostly uninjured Balinor and Cassian…</p>

<p>*********************</p>

<p>We convinced Marsha to lend us her scimitar +1 for Zippo to improve our effectiveness, which she did considering the gravity of the matter.  (Although she had not read the note, she knew that anything sent by giant eagle courier was of crucial importance.)  Also, she managed to acquire one additional dagger +1 for us to use from the village, so that we would have one more magical weapon should the need arise.  (Our party had never had much in the way of magical items, unlikely most of the other active parties, so other than those provided by the Druid, or carried by Star and Rangorn, there was not much to be had.)</p>

<p>Before leaving the village, we had heard about a local family that vanished about a month earlier, with no one in the village having been aware of it.  Leaving behind the toads and dogs (other than Alisan’s bloodhound Sanger) and acquiring riding horses for travel speed reasons, the party traveled from the small hamlet to the farmhouse of this family, thinking it might be connected to the Circle in some way.  We wondered if this had anything to do with the disappearance of the stone given that it happened close to the same time (just before, it seems) and wanted to see if we could get any impressions from the area, be they tracks or otherwise.  Rangorn tracked inside and found that someone had been walking around a while ago; however, this was probably the druid Marsha investigating the disappearance of her druidic friends.</p>

<p>Star picked up a vision from the doorstep:</p>

<p>An attractive looking dwarf was at the door in heavy armor, talking to the family. “Don’t worry, we’re interviewing each person separately.  Once we determine that you’re not the doppelganger, it’ll all be fine.”  The woman at the door looked terrified.</p>

<p>This was likely the quarterstaff-wielder.  We speculated that the dwarf had lured them for the purpose of sacrifice, possibly in some dark ritual that allowed them to remove the standing stone.</p>

<p>We next traveled to the Circle of Ayrless to see what we could determine there.  <br />
There were hostile animals present that were set with autokill orders, which Marsha fended off.  There was, notably, an 18 inch deep hole where the central stone should have been.  The stones were in some fashion anti-magical, as their mere presence failed to register in a detect magic.  Star concentrated upon the area and had a sudden image: he saw a teenage couple ripped to shreds by insects.  Marsha informed us that the couple had disappeared a few years ago, thought to have run away together to another village.  Apparently their eloping was cut short because old Fellini was a bit grouchy.  </p>

<p>After doing some tracking and trying to find the likely direction in which the stone might have moved, the ground was investigated, but nothing was found.  There Star searched for impressions that might tell us something about the events that took place at the Circle.  Alas, he only received another (unrelated) vision, this time of a pack of wolves: a ranger and two members of the local militia were being butchered here.</p>

<p>Clearly this was an unfriendly area.</p>

<p>After a day and a half of hard riding toward the geysers, we switched to one pack mule we pulled out of the robe of useful items, and Marsha turned back with the horse train back to town.  This allowed us to get to the volcanic area substantially ahead of our quarry, judging by their reported speed (about 3”, constant, day and night).</p>

<p>Star had a dream that night.  He saw branches starting to burn, and tried to stomp on them, but the fire got bigger.  He tried to clear stuff away and pile dirt around the fire, but that failed to stop it.  He tried a bucket of water, and it failed to put out the fire.  He tried to tip over a rainbarrel onto the fire.  That didn’t work.  He then took a pickaxe and drove it into the side of a dike, releasing a flood of water onto the fire, which was finally extinguished.</p>

<p>We thought about this, considering numerous interpretations.  Were we destined to fail until we tried something really excessive?  What did the pickaxe in the dike mean?</p>

<p>We sent Chiaro’s magical owl out ahead to scout the potential endpoint, the region of volcanic activity.  The area was covered in a white haze, with low visibility from the air due to the geysers intermittently spraying hot water all over the place and a constant fog boiling off of pools of steaming water.  Near the center of the area was a huge but shallow depression filled with boiling water.</p>

<p>We continued to investigate our adversaries with the owl, trying to gain whatever advantage we could before the group arrived, especially since the Druids didn’t seem to have complete faith that we could stop them by ourselves…  Swooping back down the hills, he spotted what could only be the Final Cut adventuring party walking slowly up the trails.  The rock was there, visible and moving slowly, surrounded by eight figures clustered near the front.</p>

<p>We thought about the dream and the setup.  Eventually we concluded that the pickaxe/dike analogy could suggest a few avenues to explore.  We considered a rockslide, but we had virtually no earth-moving equipment or magic.  The path that the party would have to take was fairly obvious, however, so it was easy to pick a place for an ambush of some kind, but how?</p>

<p>Another option that was put forth by Minerva was that the hot water pools were vulnerable to being channeled like a flood down the trail by which the evildoers would travel.  On the upslope of this path, the volcanic rocks were riddled with numerous caves of smaller and larger size. After we determined the exact path by which the party would emerge, we came up with a plan.  We could dig a hole in the cave and then reroute the hot water through a cave that would spray it suddenly out onto the party.  But again, this ran into the problem of our lack of digging equipment, and, plus…how to do this quickly enough that Final Cut could not avoid it?  Without destroying ourselves in the process?</p>

<p>Well, the key was the 10x10x10-foot pit from the robe of useful items.  With it we could suddenly create a connection between the bottom of the lake of boiling water and a tunnel, of which there appeared to be dozens of candidates.  Unfortunately we didn’t have much ability to triangulate safely (although the party spent hours scouting the situation).  But we wanted to be sure that a ten-foot hole would do the trick.  Surveying our other gear, we came up with a solution.  By using a potion of clairvoyance we could measure exact distances through the rock that we couldn’t see.  Using some fire-resistance magic to immerse in the shallow pool of boiling water, the potion solved this problem as part of a comprehensive survey of the usable caves.  Searching the area this way found three good candidate tunnels from which one cave was eventually selected.</p>

<p>While we were checking out the caves, Rangorn borrowed the magical owl to scout out the enemy party.  There were a number of interesting details…</p>

<p>For one thing, the rock was hovering over a foot off the ground with no visible support, but was being towed by the party using ropes.  The party, from front to back, consisted of:</p>

<p>1)	Tugutten full plate, large shield, short sword, pouches, backpack<br />
2)	Chainmail, shield with cover, hammers, quarterstaff, boxes and pouches<br />
3)	Dwarf in platemail, framepack, quarterstaff (matches Doppelganger guy)<br />
4)	Full plate, bastard sword, framepack, shortbow, arrows<br />
5)	Hobgoblin in elaborate hobgoblin armor, bastard sword, longbow, backpack<br />
6)	Studded leather armor, bastard sword, long composite bow, backpack<br />
7)	Banded mail, medium shield, type II spear, shortsword, framepack<br />
8)	No armor, longsword, shield, blob-like object hanging on his shoulder</p>

<p>Two other things of note: Fellini the druid did not seem to be present, and the party did not seem particularly tired, or zombielike, which was the other logical possibility.  Rangorn decided to keep watching in case any interesting conversations might have occurred, with the owl hopefully staying hidden.</p>

<p>Later on, this bore some fruit.  There was a conversation between one of the party members and apparently nothing out the ordinary was noted.  However, the phrase “keep moving” was in there somewhere.  The party paused at one point, although notably NOT to catch its breath.  Whatever this process was, it made the stone rather easy to carry.  It was also pretty obvious that the party required no sleep and no sustenance.  They kept moving all day and night at the same 3” movement rate, towing the stone through the air.</p>

<p>We decided to track behind the party in case there was an invisible figure in addition.  Indeed, there were tracks from nine figures, not eight.  So… presumably our missing druid, Fellini, was scouting as well, which meant he was collaborating and a valid target, or so it seemed.  The rock was not affecting the ground in any way.</p>

<p>The party arranged itself for the ambush.  Chiaro, Rangorn, and Star started the battle under the blanket of the very powerful dust of disappearance, which would allow them remain invisible even while attacking, as well as non-detection which would protect them further from certain divination magics.  The three were also able to fly by use of a potion.  Alisan, Zippo, Lewis, and Magic Lad were hiding behind a blind, and also invisible, further up the trail.  The hot water chute was set to be activated by a very brave Minerva with the protection of fire resistance against the boiling water (she would need to be in the water to drop the pit on the bottom of the lake).  We had also devised a rope system to keep her from being pulled down into the vortex when she unleashed it, but we had no way of knowing if it would work, or if we would be attempting to Raise Minerva in a few hours…</p>

<p>Sure enough, Final Cut came walking slowly up the path as it sloped up to the volcanic area, towing the stone.  Chiaro was watching under his own cloak of invisibility, with a see invisible spell running, and he spotted the druid leading the group by quite a distance.  At this point, it seemed that the druid might actually reach the blind before the signal was given, and have a chance to warn the group before they were in position for our ambush.  Thinking quickly, Chiaro struck lethally at the druid with his mind.  The invisible and silent druid blanched in horror.  No one could hear his cries, or see his sudden struggle, nor could he see his tormentor.  Psychic waves of energy crashed through his brain and savaged it.  His mind crumbled before the onslaught, and blood hemorrhaged.  His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed dead to the ground.  [Indeed, his mind had been so significantly damaged that even if he had not died, he would have permanently lost his druidic abilities.]</p>

<p>And through all this there was no visible or audible sign that anything had happened.</p>

<p>Chiaro is a scary, scary individual.</p>

<p>The signal was given.  Minerva pulled the magical pit out of her cloak and threw it down onto the bottom of the boiling lake.  Immediately a vortex yanked Minerva down, but her rope held.  (Instead, the poor mage was bashed repeatedly against the rocks, struggling to get her head above water so that she could breathe, and she began to slowly lose consciousness…)</p>

<p>Final Cut advanced haplessly forward for a moment, completely unaware that they were in imminent danger.</p>

<p>Then, a flood of boiling water came firing out of a cave directly to the side of the party.  The chute (through which sound was blocked by Star’s silence spell at the mouth of the cave), exploding with sudden waves of water upon the party.  The surprise was complete and party was instantly blown off its feet.  The dwarf, hobgoblin, and the two men in full plate managed to grab onto the rocks that bordered the pathway as it ran down into the valley below.  They were able to hold themselves against the burning onrush.</p>

<p>The others were not so lucky.  The man in banded mail, the unarmored one, the man in studded leather, and the chainmail-armored man were all washed down the path, tumbling into rocks.  The man in studded leather snapped his neck, dying instantly.  The others were burned and beaten.  The stone slab, the only thing left at the spot where the party had been moments before, crashed unceremoniously to the ground with a loud boom.</p>

<p>And then Superstar attacked.</p>

<p>The chain-lightning javelins were flung by Zippo and Madupe (under the effects of superheroism), and they crackled through the four enemies that remained by the path, instantly killing both of the men in full plate and further injuring the other two.   The invisible warriors advanced…Lewis (who had quaffed his own potion of heroism) and the superheroic Zippo ran forward to the two remaining opponents who were not aware of their presence.  Madupe disappeared.</p>

<p>Chiaro turned his mind upon the hobgoblin.  His brain exploded and he dropped dead.  Did we mention that Chiaro is a scary, scary individual?</p>

<p>The dwarf managed to deploy his staff.  It unfurled suddenly with strange black bars that extended from each end to form a double-headed battleaxe, and he turned to swing it at Zippo or Lewis.  We would never know exactly who his target would be, though, because Madupe’s short sword tore through his back, and at that, he died.</p>

<p>It seemed almost cruel.</p>

<p>Star and Rangorn soared invisibly toward the three living men who had been washed downstream.  The man in chainmail (who was the leader of the party, Tarantino) waved a wand frantically around… and suddenly a fifty foot tall tree sprang up, bringing him high into the air, where he stood looking highly confused and irritated.  Especially when it brought him within easy range of Star’s attack.</p>

<p>Star unleashed a powerful fireball from the necklace of missiles, and at that same moment Rangorn shot him.  Tarantino was at stable zero when he toppled off the tree and died upon the rocks below [at -38 hit points].</p>

<p>The duo turned their attention to the mage, who was suddenly wearing everyman (umber hulk) armor.  Star tried a psionic blast, which the two shrugged off, but the mage was weak and soon went down under a hail of arrows from Rangorn, his unseen attacker.  All hope lost, the last man standing, in banded mail, turned and started to run across the rocky path to the valley and plain below.</p>

<p>Star and Rangorn pursued silently and invisibly behind… and his life did not continue long.</p>

<p>Chiaro, meanwhile, had flown back to the lake, where he pulled the drowning Minerva out of the water, just in time.</p>

<p>It was over, the carnage was total, and the only damage we had sustained was self-inflicted by Minerva hundreds of yards from the fight itself.  Every member of the Final Cut was dead, brutally, and though the dwarf had lived long enough to see a single member of our party (the angry dwarf Zippo, with parrot), none of the rest of them had even seen a single one of their attackers, nor made even one attack against them.  It was quite possibly the most lopsided battle between potentially comparable opponents in Stone Soules or Defenders history.</p>

<p>Alas, the druid Fellini, whose body had littered the ground at the end of the battle, was absorbed mysteriously into the stone during the aftermath.  It appears that an elemental of some kind reached from the earth and pulled the body of Fellini away to safety, although Star was able to detect the sadness and disappointment of Fellini as his soul left the area.  [The Miraculous Escape feat in action.]  Despite this, Fellini had been driven completely insane by Chiaro’s mental strike, and even if he were to recover he will prove forever a broken man, bereft of his druidic abilities and aspirations.</p>

<p>Finally, after the battle, the party noted that the demon-containing stone slab was still coated in places in an oily substance that was rapidly being lost.  The party collected a small amount in a used potion vial for future identification.  Later, as it turned out, it would be found to be oil of weightlessness.</p>

<p>[The game ended very late and treasure identification, distribution, etc., was not completed.  We did find out that the party had a string of bad luck on saving throw rolls, though, despite having had to inflict relatively little damage by destructive magical means (i.e., fireball).  For instance, Tarantino’s chainmail of lightning immunity, despite needing a 2 to save versus fireball, was destroyed.  When we have received a list of treasure (and have agreed with the Druids with regard to recompense and distribution), we will post it here.  Oh, and yeah, the quarterstaff  was magical, and evil.  Turns out our friendly farmer family was sacrificed so that the dwarf could “feed” the staff to make it more powerful.]</p>

<p>Joel/Rangorn/Alisan<br />
Kyle/Star/Zippo/Lewis<br />
</p>]]>
    </content>
</entry>
<entry>
    <title>Telvar Open Desktop</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.telvar.net/2007/10/desktop_open.html" />
    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.telvar.net/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=311" title="Telvar Open Desktop" />
    <id>tag:blog.telvar.net,2007://1.311</id>
    
    <published>2007-10-02T02:37:49Z</published>
    <updated>2007-10-03T22:17:41Z</updated>
    
    <summary>A Telvar Open desktop background image, for your enjoyment!</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Jay Bates</name>
        
    </author>
            <category term="Telvar Open" />
    
    <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://blog.telvar.net/">
        <![CDATA[<p><a href="http://blog.telvar.net/Open%20Desktop.html" onclick="window.open('http://blog.telvar.net/Open%20Desktop.html','popup','width=1210,height=800,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false">View the desktop image</a>!</p>

<p>Hopefully this will be an alternative to those <em>boring </em>standard desktops.  Images are from the <a href="http://blog.telvar.net/1988/08/the_first_telvar_open_tourname.html">first</a> and <a href="http://blog.telvar.net/1994/07/the_fourth_telvar_open_tournam.html">fourth</a> <strong>Telvar Opens</strong>.</p>]]>
        
    </content>
</entry>
<entry>
    <title>Felix Summary #7: Forked Tongues</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.telvar.net/2007/09/felix_summary_7_forked_tongues.html" />
    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.telvar.net/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=309" title="Felix Summary #7: Forked Tongues" />
    <id>tag:blog.telvar.net,2007://1.309</id>
    
    <published>2007-09-23T23:00:13Z</published>
    <updated>2007-09-27T16:24:45Z</updated>
    
    <summary>Then Rathbane said, “Hi!” in Guardian Naga.  The creature’s eyes turned suddenly fearful and it immediately dashed down the wall (it was climbing like a spider), and fled.</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Joel Green</name>
        
    </author>
            <category term="Felix" />
    
    <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://blog.telvar.net/">
        <![CDATA[<p>Party Roster:</p>

<p>Felix, 10th level dwarven fighter, 100 hp, played by Alex<br />
Rathbane, 7th/6th level dwarven fighter/cleric (Clangeddin), 54 hp, played by Katherine<br />
Hendel, 9th level dwarven thief, 52 hp, played by Joel<br />
Gates, 8th level dwarven cleric (Moradin), 52 hp, played by Aaron<br />
Donald, 9th level coastlander mage, 48 hp, NPC<br />
Aral, 2nd level Northerner woodsman, 27 hp, henchman of Felix</p>

<p>[Events of September 7-8, 2007 in Ithaca, NY; Telvar date: December 2189]</p>

<p>A somewhat short but very cool game session, played in Alex’s parents’ house down the hill from Cornell…</p>

<p>When we last left the party, Felix and Friends were trying to decide on further missions.  Felix’s interest in restoring the glory of the dwarven kingdoms (or at least halting the decline) led him to seek out quests to benefit the kingdoms.  Knowing we wanted something small, Felix needed to decide whether to help the Shabrundians, who were stagnant and at a crossroads as an empire, or to help Eralla, which was believed to be doomed with a hundred years (a single generation).</p>

<p>Some numbers for perspective:</p>

<p>The White Mountain dwarves (the only actually prosperous dwarven kingdom) number roughly fifteen thousand.  The Eralla (I'll start spelling it Arala next time, as I apparently got it wrong, but didn't want to confuse readers...) dwarves number less then 250, although there another few hundred scattered about southern Cromwell who might well return in good times.  The Eralla dwarves are resigned about their fate, and despite their ludicrous mineral and adamantite wealth, cannot grow.  They are under constant assault from the gnolls, giants and derro dwarves that border them, as well as occasional hideous creatures from the Limgut’s kingdom, the Southern Wilderness, and the Pit.  Additionally, whenever they really try to trade their wealth, an evil adventuring party takes note and assaults the place.  Eralla is actually one of the oldest dwarven kingdoms, thought to be more than 15000 years old, but has been under siege for at least the last 5000 or so.</p>

<p>It really is a grim setup.  Felix decided to do what he could to help.  One smaller scale mission was to clear a mine shaft that had been abandoned to monsters a while ago, and open some more convenient wealth.  But this isn’t really Eralla’s fundamental problem, and Felix found a more satisfying alternative.</p>]]>
        <![CDATA[<p>There is a tunnel below Eralla that used to lead very conveniently out to Southern Cromwell, but it was sealed off long ago.  There was a “conveyer belt” or something like that, one of the once plentiful machines that ran the great dwarven empire.  Although it is almost certainly not running (they would be able to hear if it was), the tunnel would greatly improve their economic contact with Cromwell and maybe help ease the decline.  We would travel inside and clear out the complex.  It was known that they had originally been driven out by earth elementals and derro dwarves (the hated beardless dwarves), but it was unknown who the current occupants might be.</p>

<p>Gates picked up Knowledge, Geology, and Felix gained 2 feats (to be named later).  We picked up supplies and headed through the ruins of the older parts of Eralla.  The dwarves undid the horrendous traps and gave us the password to a massively locked door, and we were sealed in.  The dwarves would cast low-cost divination spells to determine if we were waiting at the door, checking once a week, and let us out if we were detected.  Otherwise, we were cut off.</p>

<p>(A side note: we re-purchased our missing Raise Dead scroll for 10,000 gp.  I was certainly under the impression we’d gotten one prior to going into the tunnel in Felix Adventure #1, but there were no records of it, so we shelled out the cash.  I fear we may have lost 10,000 gp, unfortunately.)</p>

<p>So with the party actually in the negatives, cashwise, we hoped to increase our disposable treasure.  A lot of the decline in riches had been due to extremely good causes: massive high-level training, and repairing the shackles that allowed us to permanently eliminate two creatures from this plane, so there are no regrets there…</p>

<p>*********************************************</p>

<p>The first thing that happened after passing through the door was that we came upon a slime trail.  We tracked the ichor through the ruins of the city to a 12 foot long giant slug!  Being bloodthirsty folks, we attacked it despite its apparent non-hostility.  Everyone charged, and the thing tried to flee, but Donald’s <em>fireball </em>and <em>magic missiles</em> killed it without anyone else even getting involved.</p>

<p>There was, sadly, no discernible treasure.</p>

<p>[There was much existential discussion of giant slug psychology with Alex’s father at this point.  He ultimately left the room even more confused.]</p>

<p>The second thing that happened after passing through the door was an encounter with an old favorite of Balinor’s, the deadly black pudding!  Donald made short work of this one with <em>fireballs </em>and <em>magic missiles</em>.  How much better it goes when you’re not trapped in a vault without your wizard…</p>

<p>Eventually we reached the top of a huge mine shaft that was sealed off by a massive metal plate.  Around the plate were a dozen large boltholes, each with a glyph on them.  It took several hours to undo one of them, and then suddenly there was a blue flash, but Felix resisted whatever the effect was.</p>

<p>Down the bolthole was a 40 foot deep shaft that led to a landing of some kind.  A spiral staircase wound down the hole.</p>

<p>We decided, for some reason, to check it for traps, and amazingly this paid off.  Hendel found a nasty fire/oil trap on one of the stairs, and deliberately set it off, thereby actually avoiding damage!  How rare is it that paranoid adventurers searching a random section of dungeon for traps actually find a trap?  There seemed to be some sort of law against it.</p>

<p>We reached the landing, and found ourselves faced with a messed-up door, in the sense that it would take a day of rock clearing to open it.  We decided to go with the more expedient trail and continued down the shaft on a ladder.</p>

<p>Halfway down to the next landing, a grey human-sized creature suddenly detached from incredible camouflage with the wall and backstabbed Hendel!  The thief would have tumbled to ground and sustained considerable damage, but after he, Felix, and Rathbane all failed to catch themselves on the rope connecting the party, Donald (on an 01!) was able to grab the rope and hang on to the ladder.  Hendel stabbed back at the creature’s shortsword arm, but missed.  Felix stabbed the creature for minor damage, and it looked like we might have a fight on our hands.</p>

<p>Then Rathbane said, “Hi!” in Guardian Naga.  The creature’s eyes turned suddenly fearful and it immediately dashed down the wall (it was climbing like a spider), and fled.</p>

<p>That was a strange reaction.</p>

<p>According to Donald the creature was a member of some kind of assassin race, spiteful thieves that go around killing things and taking their treasure and then running away.  There wasn’t any connection to nagas, though.</p>

<p>We mulled this over, then shrugged and continued to the next landing.  There was a door here with an alarm bell of some kind.  Hendel successfully dismantled it and we opened the door.</p>

<p>We were facing a surprised gnoll.  But immediate hostility didn’t break out, and it tried to talk to us.  We shrugged and tried our languages.  There was no effect until, again, Guardian Naga.  The gnoll looked suddenly respectful and fearful, and called out.  Two more gnolls appeared.  We tried to communicate with them in Guardian Naga.  It seemed that they couldn’t actually speak the language, but they recognized it (we imagine it would be like Voldemort’s parseltongue).</p>

<p>The obvious conclusion seemed to be that there was a naga around here somewhere.  Guardian nagas are generally good and typically wouldn’t have worshipful followers like the gnolls, so we figured it was probably a different type of naga.  The question then became what to do.  We seemed to be in its complex/lair.  The gnolls were beckoning us forward.  Should we kill them and invade the complex?  Should we let them lead us to the naga and try to fight it in the throne room?</p>

<p>We decided to follow them, casting prep spells along the way.  They led us through a big complex with a lot of doors, and after ten minutes or so stopped and gestured to a ramp passage leading downward.</p>

<p>We figured this way our moment and turned on the gnolls, dispatching them without a peep (partially because of a silence spell…).  Felix, Rathbane, and Donald each brought one down, Donald with a particularly brutal shocking grasp on his <em>longtooth</em> dagger.  We then headed down the corridor and soon found ourselves at a beach on an underground lake with a single boat and oars sitting there.  There was also some broken machinery that we found out later was some kind of automated gold panning device.</p>

<p>There was a cave off to one side of the beach area, and from there slowly emerged a bizarre fire giant.  It wore decrepit battle armor, had a strangely retarded look on its face, and was moving very slowly.  Comprehension of danger slowly dawned on its face, but the group was faster.</p>

<p>We charged forward, smashing the giant with weapons and nasty attacks under full cover of <em>silence</em>.  The creature managed only a single poorly aimed swing at Felix before it was brought down by the fighters and Gates’ spiritual weapon.  Hendel didn’t even have time for a backstab, and merely sputtered uselessly.</p>

<p>With that violently over, we turned to the boat and decided to take the offering and row across the lake.  We were worried about creatures capsizing the boat, so Hendel held on to the <em>token of swanboat</em> (we actually had two!) in case something untoward happened…</p>

<p>As we rowed around the corner, another beach came into view.  On it were eight large chests, some fine rugs, books… and a 25 foot long snake with a human head.  Bingo!</p>

<p>The snake/naga was obviously ready for us.  We began rowing frantically for the shore, but it launched a huge <em>fireball</em> at the party.  Trapped in the boat we were unable to dodge (no dex bonus) but only one person actually caught the full blast.  Unfortunately, that one person was Aral, who fell to -9 instantly!</p>

<p>Gates began a death’s door, and the fighters rowed faster.  Donald unleashed lightning bolt fury on the creature, bouncing it against the back wall and inflicting massive damage on the creature… and the naga made a beeline for the water.  Before we could attack it again, the creature disappeared beneath the waves.</p>

<p>This was a big problem.  There wasn’t much we could do to it down there.  We attached Felix to a rope, had him drink a <em>waterbreathing</em> potion, and shoved him over, attempting to follow him.  The creature was much faster and obviously unhampered by the water, but Donald partially trapped it with a <em>wall of ice</em> spell.  Despite this, Felix couldn’t reach the creature.</p>

<p>It backed up, and cast a spell.  The boat instantly dispelled out from under us!  This would have been complete disaster, if it weren’t for the <em>token of swanboat</em>.  It sprang instantly beneath us, under Hendel’s mental control, and the party was saved from watery confusion.  But the naga continued to back up and cast spells, although there was no obvious effect.</p>

<p>About this time we realized the swanboat could move quite quickly!  Soon Hendel was towing Felix through the water in the hopes of smashing him head first into the naga, but it was still dodging our best efforts.  Felix was being dragged and really didn’t have much to say about what was going on, when (perhaps mercifully) the naga <em>magic missiled</em> the rope, leaving Felix to flounder.  Cursing, Hendel steered the boat back around to pick up Felix.  Gates had saved the unfortunate Aral (who escaped without permanent damage, fortunately) and healed him enough to have him stand up.</p>

<p>The naga decided to make a break for it while we were picking up Felix.  It burst out of the water, almost fully healed!</p>

<p>Aral blasted it with a nasty shot from his dwarven crossbow!   Hendel nicked it with his light crossbow.  Donald launched <em>improved magic missiles</em> at the creature.  Hendel nicked it again.  It collapsed!</p>

<p>We picked up Felix, and Hendel fishtailed the swanboat onto the shore.  Cool boat!</p>

<p>Reaching the shore, we quickly confirmed that the naga was dead.  Donald harvested naga organs for, ironically, water breathing potions.  We were notably injured and low on healing thanks to the nasty fireball, and decided that we couldn’t continue doing mass looting of the complex.  Hendel really wanted to make sure we got anything important from the fire giant’s section.  Although the naga’s slaves were now free, they were ex-slaves and so probably didn’t have choice loot, but maybe the leaders had something worth taking.</p>

<p>Hendel, Felix, and Donald took the boat partway back to the bend in the lake, and Hendel peered around the other side from the water.  The coast was clear and we landed and searched.  The giant had nothing of note on him, and the cave was searched for a few minutes to no avail (and it was a complete mess).  After a few minutes, though, we heard the sounds of approaching footsteps.  The party jumped back on the boat and fled back to the island.  Deciding to keep tabs on what was happening, Hendel swam out of the boat and watched from the bend.</p>

<p>By the time he started observing, there were over twenty gnolls fighting on the beach!  (And also about twenty dead gnolls strewn about the beach.)   Donald grinned at Hendel.  We swung the boat back and Donald lobbed a nice <em>fireball</em> right into the middle of the crowd.  Four gnolls survived and began running off.  Hendel shot one down, and Donald caught the last three with a <em>sleep</em> spell.</p>

<p>We looked over their gear and loot.  Their weapons and armor were of poor quality, but a few of the gnolls had some sort of ore/gem things.  We decided specifically to loot those.</p>

<p>Hendel: “We loot the ones with the rocks.”</p>

<p>There were eight chests on the naga island, and Hendel detected traps on four of them.  I’m not sure why I thought this was reassuring, but Hendel started on one of the “untrapped” chests.  He promptly set off a light glyph and a booming thundercrack sounded, blinding him for several minutes and momentarily freaking out the party.</p>

<p>So probably all eight were trapped.  He worked slowly, sometimes disarming, sometimes setting off the traps, but they were all ultimately harmless.  Inside we found:</p>

<p>*= magical<br />
**= high magical</p>

<p>7200 fire giant gp<br />
4000 Realmish gp<br />
2 full size spellbooks<br />
4000 cw uncut gems -- 40000 gp<br />
*small ukelele<br />
*3 flasks (potions?)<br />
18 flasks (thin yellowy substance)<br />
**pair of red and black striped felt bedroom slippers<br />
quiver with 21 *long arrows<br />
**headband from naga<br />
3 nonmagical books (3 destroyed by lightning bolt)<br />
*bastard sword</p>

<p>The books turned out to be demon-worshipping texts.  Always nice to have confirmation after the fact that the naga “really deserved what it got.”</p>

<p>After eight hours of healing, we decided to check out the rest of the complex.  It was empty of enemies, and so we just got the express description:</p>

<p>There was a corridor shaped like a C that had collapsed, despite the fact that no digging had been done.  It was determined that this was likely due to a lava intrusion<br />
Trying to track the gnolls, we found visible cart tracks leading down the mine shafts.  It seemed that everyone fled down one path.  Aral determined that there were “more than dozens,” and they’d probably been carrying lots of loot.</p>

<p>Interestingly there were also 30 dead gnolls in complex, four of which had had throats slit from behind by short sword.  They were probably overseers, although Hendel speculated that they were killed by that assassin creature for some reason.</p>

<p>In terms of the bigger picture, one party theory suggested that there were two tribes here: one mining, one composed primarily of overseers.  Although there did actually seem to be some mixing between the two.  In any case, a civil war broke out among them when the naga was killed, and the miners definitely won.</p>

<p>We also noted a blocked door with big rocks moved out of the way and that had been recently used.</p>

<p>Finally we questioned our three sleeping gnoll prisoners.   Bizarrely, the gnolls had no memory of last five years or even the part after the naga died.  This was strange.  There seemed to be considerable mental deficiency among the slaves, given the retarded fire giant as well.  When interrogated, the gnolls were able to identify the ones that were from rival tribes.  They also repeatedly accused us of using "aging magic" on them, which was fairly entertaining.</p>

<p>Searching through the loot, we first determined that the spellbook was of little value to Donald.  The only spells it contained that he didn’t have were grease and rebind (an obscure, specialized, but very useful 2nd level spell that fixes damaged spellbooks).</p>

<p>It turned out that the uncut gems were actually worth quite a lot.  And in any case we had a lot of coin weights of loot, so we decided to use the “save the game” option and return to the door.  The dwarves were strangely unimpressed.  “That’s it for a week?” they asked accusingly.  Strangely impatient given no one had been in these halls for five thousand years!  We assured them that we just wanted IDs and were going right back in.</p>

<p>The dwarves asked us why we were carrying vast amounts of “gold juice.”  We looked confused.  Apparently the 18 vials of yellowish liquid were highly illegal drugs with a street value in the hundreds of thousands of gold pieces!!  Apparently they aren’t made with real gold, but merely nicknamed that because of their color.</p>

<p>This was an interesting revelation.  Hendel had heard of these drugs; apparently they cause wisdom loss and make people very susceptible to charm spells over the long term, among other things.  They are of course highly addictive, and they would be a huge problem except that they take incredibly huge amounts of land and time to produce.  Apparently the amount of gold juice we had recovered would take a year to produce on a field the size of Koralgesh’s entire agricultural area!</p>

<p>That sort of made sense.  The naga was using the drugs to keep a complacent empire of semi-retarded slaves mining the uncut gems (we had recovered approximately 40000 gp worth).  But the math didn’t work out.  The drugs were considerably more expensive than the treasure produced.  Was there more treasure?  Was the naga getting this stuff cheaply somehow?  What fields were producing this much gold juice?  Was it from the gnoll empire on the Fields of Hwa, where our tribal gnolls had come from?</p>

<p>We headed back up to Eralla where the dwarven sages took a look at our gear:</p>

<p>-21 +1 <em>ff long arrows</em></p>

<p>-<em>headband of +1 wisdom</em></p>

<p>-<em>slippers of kicking</em> (adds stun damage equal to real damage) -- monk item</p>

<p>-<em>ukekele of unrest</em> -- plays comical music with great ease, pleasant to listen to; one week later everyone who heard it begins to distrust and dislike each other-- effect lasts for a number of weeks based on wisdom, carries false aura of humor magic, unrest only functions once/year (choose)</p>

<p>18 vials of gold juice -- gold mixed with water, illicit drugs with street value of over 100,000 gp, reduces wisdom, makes you susceptible to charm spells and such, a year worth of plantation fields larger than fields in Koralgesh required to produce this</p>

<p>-one potion unknown; other two are <em>heroism</em> and <em>speed</em></p>

<p>-magic <em>bastard sword+4/double damage (of slaying) vs. plants</em></p>

<p>ID cost: 1500 gp</p>

<p>The slippers of kicking are pretty special, but mainly useful for those who use kick attacks regularly, like monks, and therefore not particularly useful to the party in the long term (although Aral has been equipped with them for now).</p>

<p>The headband would be totally awesome except it only takes 17 wisdom to 18, which actually does nothing for cleric bonus spells or spell failure chances.  So it’s essentially a +1 on mental saves item for anyone with a wisdom of 14 or higher.  It does add to a percentage wisdom, but I think only about 10%?  In any case, it’s equally useful on four of the six characters, if I recall correctly.  I think the two who wouldn’t benefit were Hendel and Felix?  I’m not complaining, it’s just too bad we don’t have anyone who could make really optimal use of this item.  This may lead to trading it down the road, or looking for other wisdom upgrades.</p>

<p>The <em>plantslayer</em> bastard sword, while pretty hokey, does actually work on fungal creatures like shambling mounds and of course, treants, so it isn’t useless!</p>

<p>The ukulele is pretty disturbing.  The long term disruption of a group of unsuspecting people suggests that a) we keep this very very far away from Phargus the evil bard, and b) that we consider how best to use it.  It can actually be used by a non-musician to pleasant effect.  The unrest effect only works once per year, so it would have to be considered part of a long term plan.  It works kind of well in combination with the gold juice.  As an added bonus the ukulele is actually highly magical, but shielded by special magical effects that make it appear to be of low magic.</p>

<p>Although we initially considered destroying the drugs, we think we can find better uses for them.  If they can be given to an infiltrating group, they could be used to disrupt an evil society (for example, the frost giants…).  The ukulele may well help with this.  In any case, we came out considerably ahead financially.  We didn’t deal with salvage tax for now, but simply left the less useful items behind as collateral for continuing the mission.  This would include the unidentified potion, the drugs, the long arrows, and the ukulele, plus the cash and gems.</p>

<p>One logistical thing to consider: Aral certainly leveled (that one shot at the naga was probably enough to net him the needed 350 XP) and would probably like to train.  That could take a few weeks, and there aren’t conveniently located dwarven woodsmen, so we may either want to delay training, delay the expedition, or leave Aral behind for a bit.</p>

<p>Felix’s thoughts on this whole situation will appear in a followup summary.</p>

<p>Joel/Hendel<br />
</p>]]>
    </content>
</entry>
<entry>
    <title>BLADES 2194</title>
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.telvar.net/2007/09/blades_2194.html" />
    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://blog.telvar.net/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=308" title="BLADES 2194" />
    <id>tag:blog.telvar.net,2007://1.308</id>
    
    <published>2007-09-19T19:40:44Z</published>
    <updated>2007-09-19T20:53:29Z</updated>
    
    <summary>Read all about the travels and travails of the BLADES in Bard&apos;s Year 2194 I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) Session 63 from 7-Mar-2194; Session 64 from 11-May-2194; Session 65 from 10-Jun-2194; Session 66 from 1-Jul-2194; Session 67 from 16-Jul-2194; Session 68 from 8-Oct-2194 Talarian Blackguard (Half Elven) Fighter 7 - 68 HP, played by Dean Ne. Raybur Sidebottom (Dwarven) Fighter 6/Cleric 6 - 64(54) HP, played by Dean...</summary>
    <author>
        <name>Jay Bates</name>
        
    </author>
    
    <content type="html" xml:lang="en" xml:base="http://blog.telvar.net/">
        <![CDATA[<p>Read all about the travels and travails of the BLADES in Bard's Year 2194</p>

<p>I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)</p>

<p>Session 63 from 7-Mar-2194; Session 64 from 11-May-2194; Session 65 from 10-Jun-2194;<br />
Session 66 from 1-Jul-2194; Session 67 from 16-Jul-2194; Session 68 from 8-Oct-2194</p>

<p>Talarian Blackguard (Half Elven) Fighter 7 - 68 HP, played by Dean Ne.<br />
Raybur Sidebottom (Dwarven) Fighter 6/Cleric 6 - 64(54) HP, played by Dean Ne.<br />
Phyllis Sidebottom (Dwarven) Fighter 7 - 64(54) HP, played by Katherine An.<br />
Effrede George (Half Elven) Magic User 6/Thief 6 - 34 HP, played by Katherine An.<br />
Conrhia Applewhite (Half Elven) Woodsman 7 - 68 HP, played by Rhonda Jo.<br />
Serlisse Reintar (Half Elven)