An Open in Two Parts, only one part of which is described below.
11/12/11 in China Grove, N.C. Hosted by the Jones Family / D.M. E.B. Anderson, Jr.
Party:
Expeditionary Force:
Grogan Icevein, Expedition Leader, Fighter 11 (Played by Kathryn Snead)
Luether Blackrock, High Priest of Clangeddin, Fighter 8/Cleric 9 (Played by Ashley Merritt)
Morett Ironface, Lieutenant, Fighter 9 (Played by Sean Guarino)
Yeuslin Goldfire, Sargeant, Fighter 6 (Played by Andrew Anderson?)
Slorgin Ironface, Sargeant, Fighter 6
4 Dwarves, Marines, Fighters 4 (Melee Squad)
6 Dwarves, Marines, Fighters 4 (Bowyer Squad) (Played by Sarah Lane?)
Vessel Crew:
Hoine Ironface, First Captain, Captain 8 (Played by David Chappell)
Baryun Icevein, Second Captain, Captain 7 (Played by Keith Nelson?)
Florin Hilltop, First Mate, Captain 6 (Played by David Jones
Uther Hilltop, Second Mate, Captain 5 (Played by Ryan Jones?)
6 Dwarves, Crew, Captains 3
Our story begins very long ago, when the high priestess of Moradin, Ygrill, had a vision of one of the nine flawless jewels of Moradin resting in a domed city - a ruin of the Ancient's. The King of the Wall Kingdom, Gamil the Fourth, put together a recovery party of his greatest warriors, and sent them out on a quest of the greatest importance to recover the gem and bring it back to the Kingdom.
Note on Accuracy: Kathryn said, "I do not remember who played what role in most of the greater party - please fill in the blanks and sort out the question marks. Also, please check the story for errors - I have no notes, and my memory is notoriously bad. Thanks!" Corrections/additions are welcome!
Note on the Summary: No attempt has yet been made to summarize the defense of Bloop Bloop, except Kathryn noted that Sarah had a lot of fun playing a whale, and she got a real kick out of being a sentient coral.
Notes of thanks: Alan and Rhonda (and family) were excellent hosts, and Edwin, Chris, and Chrissy did a great job running the game.
Addendum from D.T. Chappell: "I have what I think is a correction based on my playing one of "team evil" who went to the lagoon. Kathryn said:
> Ultimately, the Dragon Turtle died of its wounds up on the beach,and the
> adventurers employed alchemy to gather important components for potions.
> Some unknown individuals had apparently tracked the Dragon Turtle back to
> the lagoon to ensure its demise, and consulted with the adventurers before
> taking off with a significant portion of the Dragon Turtle's treasure. The
> humanoids were dead as well, the result of years of manipulating such a
> great beast using the powerful Trident, and eventually losing that control
> due to the Dragon Turtle's ever-growing stature.
If the "unknown individuals" she mentions are the evil undersea humanoids from "team evil," then we did *not* consult with anyone (except each other) before taking part of the DT's treasure. We just went over and grabbed it on the way out. I am dubious whether the dwarves or Blades would even know that the aquatic humanoids had taken any of the treasure.
For the record (all OOC), the two evil aquatic humanoids took some high quality (likely magic) spears, bandolier-type belt-harnesses (I guess they may have been from sahuagin), and some gold-type treasure." --DTC
]]>Alex's very belated memories of certain events involving genies and undead:
The valiant, infinitely resourceful and in all ways superior party lead by
the magnificent dwarven King Felix headed through the sealed portal in
hopes of clearing the passage to a pool of Earth's Blood. The region beyond
was known to harbor Earth elementals. After a brief non-violent encounter with an
appalingly uncivilized Crystal Genie, the party prepared and put the brute
out of his misery with due diligence (surprise, brutal backstabs and elegant
violence served to drop the oaf in segments). The remaining crystal (not
earth) elementals were summarily desposed of and the pool of earth's blood
was secured.
That was when things took a turn for the worse. The outcast dwarves knew of
a subterannean river below, as it was their water source. They believed
that it might connect back to Eralla, but an expedition long ago never returned.
With Flight, Felix and Wrathbane descended to scout, and found a small
set of buildings, a dock and a river. Inside one of the buildings, unfortunately,
was the remains of the expedition and the wraithified beardless dwarf who
had put a premature end to their travels. The dauntless pair proved victorious,
but not before rightful heir to the throne of Lendore was greviously injured,
and his lifeforce drained. Fortunately, his boundless endurance proved stronger
than the vile assaults, and he recovered fully. The party then descended, boarded
a small vessel with an Earth's blood motor and, accompanied with an Engineer from
the outcast dwarves, I believe a sister or cousin of their current leader, and
also their envoy.
After some minor troubles and travails, the party nearly surprised some Erallan
laundresses. Politics shall ensue.
***
Alex's original stub summary:
Alex: Felix opens the door.
Edwin: roll a surprise die, I got a 5
Alex: 1
Edwin: That's bad, very very bad. You get swarmed by 5 wraiths, with 3 segments of surprise. You are on a scouting mission with only Wrathbane as backup.....
Alex: Eeeeps.
(4 level drains later, we kill 2, turn the rest and get Gates down to destroy them)
(A 19, 16, 15 and 8 on the saves later, Felix is lvl 10 again. The 8 made it exactly, w/double Chant. The new saves are a BITCH.)
Other than that, it went smoothly enough. Kagu-Arala and Arala are now known to have an underground river-link. It needs some maintenance, but is otherwise fine. The pool of Earth's Blood is there, and we have a functional on-board motor.
Loot was boring. Besides the motor, a dagger +1 and a wand of acid arrow w/12 charges.
Hendel landed a nasty double backstab against the Quartz-Genie.
Aral trained to 3, is 3.3k away from 4th.
Wrathbane trained to 7th cleric.
Everyone (except Aral) is about 40k total away from their next level (Wrathbane can forget about Cleric 8). Hendel a little less, but he tends to get less, Donald closer to 50k.
Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel
Morty, 7th/6th human fighter/thief (bard), 74 hp, played by Jay
Bodkin, 5th level dwarven fighter, 49 hp, played by Katherine
Robynne, 5th level woodsman, 38 hp, played by Rhonda
Tarplin, 8th/5th elf druid/mage, 30 hp, played by Alan
Morhion, 3rd level Northerner Nevronian cleric, 28 hp, henchman of Balinor
Leo, 4th level human Nevronian cleric, 25 hp, played by David (Jay this time)
[Events of 25 July 2009, in Charlotte; Telvar dates December 2192 – June 2193]
As I think we had a pretty good review in the last summary, I’ll just jump right in here.
The party began by debating whether to continue hammering on the Khargish councilmembers that were likely to vote against peace. We had eliminated the top voter, the warleader of the Khargish nation (no mean feat, to our dismay at the time), and we wanted to nab at least one of the other three members that remained from this wereboar-infested Khargish village. As it turned out, not all of the votes were guaranteed to go against us, and there was actually a hierarchy.
First it had occurred to us that although our precautions would pretty much stop any divinatory magicks short of commune, the Kharg might well be incensed/worried enough to cast such a high level spell in order to determine what had happened to their warleader! A few well-chosen questions would clearly implicate the Duke, if not us directly. As such, we considered options about moving off the isle permanently.
]]> It was at this point Duke Haermond revealed his crucial ace in the hole: the high priest of the Kharg was IN ON THE CONSPIRACY. He was manipulating commune answers to implicate a bandit group, one that the good-two-shoes Hand of Fate, a Nevronian adventuring party in the Duke’s employ, would eagerly seek out and defeat in vengeance. In the camp of said bandits, they would find, miraculously, the extremely distinctive and powerful spear of the Khargish warleader, and any other items that happened to flow out of our hands. This would be accomplished via an agent with a tokenized bag of extra “loot” he would plant in their camp.As the Duke had not yet tipped off the Hand of Fate, we still had the option of one more raid, either to eliminate one more group, or to try to finish off the entire village. It was at this point that remorse hit many in the party about wiping out the village of innocents along with the wereboars, and we decided that a single hit on another hunting party containing a voting member would be the best we could do, with the least collateral damage.
With this agreed, we completed some pending trades and explored options from last time. As thanks, the Duke made available to us several items for trade that we might not otherwise have gotten. In the end, we did the following series of trades:
After tax we had gotten 10,000 gp in Duke credit (primarily for giving up the crazy but distinctive spear to the cause). We bought straight out a 3 HD fireball missile (900 gp, usable by anyone), a Wand of Lightning Bolts (2500 gp, 9 charges, 6d6 damage, 1/round max), a Wand of Paralyzation (1500 gp, 4 charges, 1/round max), 6 bandages of wound closure (250 gp each), and a potion of healing (1000 gp) to replace recent losses.
Additionally we traded Robynne’s AC 4/10 bracers and the +2 but very distinictive ring we had acquired for the Duke’s AC 3/3 bracers (100 cw). This is temporary sort of downgrade for Robynne, but in the long run a ring+1 or ring+2 will make this a vast improvement for her. Bracers of that level are quite rare.
Additionally, the (also very distinctive) ring of regeneration turned out to be a bit cooler than I had thought last time, as it DOES regenerate lost limbs and such (easier to do for wizardly magic, apparently), but it takes a few years. So the item went from what I thought might be a ~ 10,000 gp item to a 40,000 gp item. As such keeping it for party heals seemed like an inefficient use, so we traded it for a bag of holding 200/2500, and a robe of pockets for Tarplin, plus 10,000 gp additional credit from the Duke. Partially we felt Tarplin was owed some loot, which I must say we paid back in the course of this adventure, and partially we didn’t really want the ring that badly. Furthermore, Tarplin’s flute has all sorts of powers Balinor hadn’t realized, and he actually took the flute proficiency (240 gp) a bit later on in order to gain access to it. This includes a 1 hp/round heal! As long as we play it. So I think this turned out quite well. Furthermore this wasn’t the only treasure we ended up with, as you’ll see…
So we set out into the woods to scout the village, on January 7th, 2193. Tarplin accomplished this quite nicely from the air in his bird form, noting the comings and goings of the villagers and the councilmembers in particular. The members remaining were an old guy (likely vote against us), a middle-aged guy (who knows), and a younger guy (least likely to vote against). We noted that they had changed their patrols, shrinking them to 5-7 guys, all in camo gear, although probably more wereboars as a fraction of the group. This assessment turned out to be correct.
Worse, the councilmembers didn’t go out on every patrol, or even most of them. We waited nearly 2 weeks, in fact, before finally the YOUNGEST and least important member went out on a patrol, and at that point Tarplin realized he was a DRUID. Oops. This made him and us very reluctant to attack, and in the end we decided to wait for one of the other two. Furthermore there were only five guys in that particular group, so it hardly seemed worthwhile.
Luckily, the middle guy came out a mere two days later.
Bodkin and company had come up with a very clever plan this time, to lure them to the spot of our choosing. Morty would start up in the trees and glide down, making a backstab easier. The weather turned out to be truly horrendous this time, which would limit sight ranges, obscure noise, and make call lightning seem completely natural.
But most amusingly Bodkin would use his new boots of mystery to leave false tracks of fat juicy (“stocky”) deer for them to follow. With Robynne advising, Bodkin laid a brilliantly deceptive trail, and the Kharg completely failed to notice our expertly constructed blinds (there were some nice rolls here), and they walked hopelessly unaware into our ambush. Which did NOT go like last time, at all.
On the 17th of February, we attacked. The group of seven was caught pinned between Balinor, Bodkin, and Morty, who were under the effects of a bless spell in addition. The two on the ground had a supporting cleric, and Robynne was launching arrows from the blind (admittedly at something of a penalty). But Tarplin began the combat with a splash, blasting a call lightning down into their midst, hitting all but the front and back Kharg. 47 points of lightning damage forked into them, dropping 2 and badly injuring 3. Leo dropped a hold person on the remaining people, and held the two injured guys in place. Morhion’s hold had no effect on any of the remaining targets, but it looked pretty good for us.
Balinor charged the back guy, while Bodkin charged the front. Robynne shot one, Morty nailed his with a massive backstab, Bodkin solidly wounded the front guy, and Balinor brought down the back guy. One of the Kharg managed to get a shot off and nicked Morty for 7 damage. Robynne then turned and shot Bodkin’s target, while Bodkin moved to start autokilling the others. However, he discovered that one of the targets was turning into a wereboar. He brought it down quickly with spear hits before it could transform.
Morty went around autokilling with Khargkiller, his longsword +3 vs. wereboars, +5 vs. wereboar GATs (God Awful Things). As it turned out, the middle guy who was held in the initial spell volley was a GAT! The leader was actually only a mere wereboar himself.
Gleefully we elminated the rest. Morty was very embarrassed that he had taken damage. We rest eternalled the corpses and moved to our designated stoneshape tomb spot after cleaning the camp of all signs of combat (not hard in the teeming rain).
Tarplin began to stoneshape a pocket in the wall when suddenly he heard some kind of a sigh (or wheeze) emanate from it! He stopped, blanched, and quickly resealed the wall. He glanced around, but nothing seemed to have happened.
Apparently we had found the stoneshape spot for this part of the island. We decided not to mess with whatever hideous trapped evil was in there (research on cutely sighing monsters was debated, but ultimately rejected). Yeah, there might be more adventures there. Instead we wandered around for a bit looking for another cave. We found one.
Tarplin glanced at the wall and decided that this one, too, had already been used for stoneshape. Sighing himself, he decided that another layer couldn’t make it any worse, and he just ignored it and went ahead creating a new pocket.
We headed back home. The take was:
Spear + 1, type II
Large shield + 1
Potion of healing
Potion of heroism
Broadsword “Allergic”
This last was quite a saga. It was a WOODEN practice sword shaped like a broadsword, with the name “allergic” carved on it. Augman identified it:
+2 broadsword, +3 vs. metal-armored or metallic opponents
He noted that the item itself was magic resistant and appeared to have other powers that he couldn’t pick out.
This seemed fairly cool. Tarplin wondered if he could wish it to be another type of weapon so that he could wield it, so he picked it up at home and thought, “Be a scimitar.”
Suddenly he gained 4 points of natural AC, and his mage class completely dropped off, including the hitpoints from it.
Oops.
After it didn’t come back a few minutes later (although the AC bonus disappeared after a minute), we got worried and went to Augman. After casting some diagnostics (at a pricey 600 gp), he determined that Tarplin’s class would probably come back if he waited a week, or with a restoration spell. As a restoration scroll would be 7th level, we decided to wait a week.
Sure enough, after making repeated saving throws, once per day, his levels slowly and painfully returned, starting with 0th level. Two weeks of bedrest later, Tarplin was back to shape.
In the meantime we had Augman do research on the item for 1400 gp. We gambled that it would be cooler than the 13000 gp the Duke offered for it, and found out a full powers list. We probably took a slight loss on this deal, but it was interesting:
The weapon was designed specifically for fighter/druids, and it came here recently in the hands of a Far World elvish adventurer. It is +2/+3 vs. metallic armored or metallic opponents, usable only by elves and half-elves, fighter-types and druids. It blunts out normal allergies in the hands of a fighter, it gives a 4 point AC bonus in the hands of a druid, and it eliminates any extra classes the wielder might have. You cannot wear metal armor while using it.
So we basically needed to find a fighter/druid who wanted this thing. We decided that druidic courts would be necessary and planned to ship it out to Petethal in Tarplin’s hands in the near future.
In the meantime, we got experience points! This includes the story award for the (future) successful vote, although not the diplomatic summit itself.
Morhion – 944
Robynne – 6120
Morty – 6350
Tarplin – 2750 mage / 4422 druid
Leo – 6654
Bodkin – 6762
Balinor – 7372
This got Robynne level 6! (And Morty level 7 thief, but he isn’t training until he hits level 8, as it is incredibly inconvenient to travel to the Bardic College.)
Robynne trained in Barnacus to level 6, gaining 7 hp to stand at 45 (2900 gp). In addition, Balinor trained flute proficiency (240 gp) and Robynne trained blind fighting (150 gp), and has one non-weapon proficiency remaining open for now.
Bodkin, Morhion, Leo, and Morty set off to do some caravanning. On a nice wheel-of-death roll, the group fought some bugbears, netting 710 gp, and 210 XP for Bodkin, Leo, and Morty (Morhion got 105 XP).
They spent 75 gp on a great party and bar crawl afterward.
We went on a second shopping spree, feeling flush. We purchased 13 +2 sling bullets (these are nearly indestructible, Morty assured Balinor, which is key for later), for 4500 gp.
We gave up 2500 gp in credit and the +1 medium shield on Leo, to upgrade Leo to a +1 large shield, to pay for taxes on the items, retaining the broadsword to send ot the druidic court.
We spent 3900 gp for a modified version of sleep for Tarplin, who had blown his comprehension years ago. He obtained sleepytime from Peltar, which is like sleep but 2 segments rather than 1 to cast, with a 40’ area of effect rather than 30’ feet, although without any additional targets. Balinor traveled with Tarplin to Restenford to pick this up, where he discovered the Defenders’ house in the usual level of disarray, and slept in the muck while exchanging stories with Morgan, Kain, and Alduin.
Finally, we acquired the best item ever. We traded the spear + 1 for – wait for it – the Dreadful Indestructible Bowl of Slug Control, Yes, this bowl is indestructible, and when you fill it with beer, you can control up to 20 HD of slugs. More importantly, it makes the user look terrifying! When Tarplin tested it out, the area rumbled, his face looked like a skull for a moment, and a phantasmal slug came out of the top of and began making mad gestures of command!
Finally on April 26, 2193, we were ready to take on a pirate town. Or nation.
Yes, we decided to do the third of the “goodwill” missions to the Kharg that the Duke had mentioned. This one had no time limit; it didn’t have to be completed by the summer solstice and the diplomatic summit. It was just something the Duke had been hankering to do for a long, long time.
Yes, we were to eliminate a giant town full of pirates. Between 600 and 2000 of them. But we had to completely rip down the pirate structures, at least enough to ensure that no one left alive would be mad enough to make strikes against the populace of the Keystone Kingdom. The plan would have to be very elaborate, and careful, although our involvement in the end need not be hidden. But this was a monumental task, and we knew we would need all the information we could get to employ the many stratagems we had come up with.
We headed out to the town and set up our usual elaborate blinds, and prepared to dig in for a few months to do some heavy scouting. Our potential allies could include Albee (7th level monk formerly of the Defenders and Killer Bees) and Anselm (6th level Nevronian cleric, former member of the Killer Bees and ally of Balinor), as well as a few dozen Kharg, some of whom were low level warriors. We could involve other parties if necessary (the Seapoint Lightning and the Lower Band came to mind, as well as Alduin, Morgan, and Kain) but it would depend on what we thought we needed to accomplish the mission.
So we set out to do reconnaissance. The town was unwalled and we quickly had a reasonable sketch of where all the key players would be. We decided to look for alternate entrances to the town, and to observe peoples’ behavior, to see what sorts of opportunity we might find for assassination. Morty began to sneak invisibly on a daily basis into town, hoping to discover a secret passage in the giant, old, and well-constructed seawall that followed the coastline. The rest of the party checked for caves and other entrances. Tarplin scouted to see what sorts of animals were spies for other people in the area. Area slugs reported to Tarplin that weird moles in the ground were spies for someone, but they didn’t know who. Five to fifty black glossy seabirds appeared to be spying for the Queen of Grottoes priestess.
And then Tarplin decided to cast summon woodland beings in an effort to assess the situation. This turned out to be a doozy…
Two black-skinned nasty-looking small beings with red caps and twirly mustaches showed up. They were rude and insulting and demanded to know why they had been summoned and how this would be worth their time. After what turned out to be 1130 gp in bribes (500 gp initially, plus 500 gp 2 weeks later, plus a 30 gp tip that they squabbled over), the “bloodthorn sprites” told us a HUGE amount of information about the area.
First they noted that because of the money the vines that had been creeping closer to our camp over the last three days would stop doing so. Furthermore we could always pay some of our debt in the blood of a still-living sentient being. They assured us they didn’t eat them, and they were used for agriculture. I’m not sure why they thought this was a good thing to tell us. In any case we promised to pass on dead bodies to them.
The information:
There are glossy black birds that report to the Queen of Grottoes cleric. The slugs in the area tell us that there are also moles that dig up and report back to someone. Tarplin calls Bloodthorn Sprites to “help” him. Were-rats have rats. The Auger Birds are the Cleric’s. Psycho Dwarves have moles. Crazy Cricket is a golem that belongs to a thief.
There are pipes ALL over the place that are 18” wide. There is a large area of foundations throughout the place. There are two tanks bigger than simple rooms. They are warehouse size and no way in except through the pipes. One of them is the were-rat home. The other tends to flood periodically. The pipes don’t go far – they head to the cave of the crazy dwarves (Burrower worshippers, Balinor suspects) and down to the fountain-like things near the water. One is near the inn. One is near the ballista mount near the sea wall.
There are dwarves one quarter of the way to the giants. The dwarves are meaner than the sprites are and definitely dwarves. They hack down all the bushes and they torture and eat occasional pirates. You have to get past the water wheel, which they don’t stop if a sprite gets caught in it. Don’t go North-East, because you’ll reach a bad forest -- the Trenhurst. The forest actually talks to the sprites and says not to go there. It always murmurs to go away. Their cousin said man-eating trees are their friends and one popped his head off when he tried to get it to kill them.
(“See? They are totally harmless… aggressive plants love us! Watch this, guys!”)
The Queen of Grottoes cleric has the spirits of former priestesses under her control.
The big bad seagull (the Roc) doesn’t work for anyone.
There are steps down to various levels for different tides. The port used to be able handle huge ships. The Fountain mechanism was used for a ballista mount, which is now manned by three to five marines. There are cleats for tying up ships. There is a second ballista near the shipyard on the “mayor’s” house. This construction is extremely old.
Everyone has three to six or even up to ten bodyguards. These seem to be in addition to all of the standard guards. The Priestess is never alone with another cleric. The tavern is where they seem to be the most comfortable being without the guards.
The giant lizards seem to eat the dead bodies that are thrown out by the powerful. (Well, there goes the plan to lure them out with false calls of danger. It appears that REGULAR danger is so common that they have learned not to go out of town when called.)
An interesting episode happened about ten days in:
People start to come out to the sea wall. Three boats sail into town. The commotion seems to be that people are excited when they are first sighted. The ship is long and stylized with the dragon head and tail. The ship is just loaded with stuff. Hull plating, three high-end military ballista, the crew is in fabulous gear. They are towing two medium sized merchant ships. The merchant ships are unloaded and the other ship rises a foot. There are sixty guys on the ship. A few hours after the ship arrive, the tower starts signalling a bunch of things aimed inland.
About four hours after they arrive and one ship is detached and outfitted to start plundering. A crew is rapidly formed and the ship yard supplies heavy crossbows and a ballista to the ship. A couple of nice pieces of gear and a lot of money has been transferred between the dragon ship and the other merchant ship. Three hippogriffs land, which means the Blue and the Gray obtain supplies here. The Blue and the Gray seem to own a couple of the stores in town. This place is poorly run and this place is a chaotic evil place. Some Kharg show up and buy weapons and gear for about 15-20 warriors. There are about 20 bandits that arrive and buy stuff. Very little is left by the end of the second day. On the third day, a couple of guys buy the remnants and sail off in the third ship with a new crew.
The fourth morning has the warship moving a little further out to allow the dragon ship (110’ long and 25’ wide) to sail out of port. It vanishes half a mile out of port. By the fifth morning, the battered warship turns and sails out somewhat awkwardly around the seawall and scatters a fistful of silver pieces over the sea wall to those who were helping to keep the ship from crashing. There are 30 additional bandits that come staggering into town to set up “life” in the shanty town. Two of these get thrown out in a heap after that.
This gave us a lot of ideas. First of all we realized that there were dead bodies all the time popping up and being tossed out of town, so alarms about things coming to the edge of town were really pretty much ignored in a boy-who-cried-wolf sort of way. This could potentially work to our advantage. Moreover these pipes were very interesting. The wererats could potentially be eliminated without anyone knowing if we could sneak into these tanks (passive reduce has a 50 minute duration, so it’d be tight).
“Nobody will notice if the wererats are gone.” –Bodkin
“Yeah, because they’re in a frickin’ tank.” –Balinor
As it was almost time to pack up by this point, we decided to do one last mission for fun and profit. We decided to eliminate the hill giants that may have been the masters of the lizards. We marched up to the area in the dark and waited for some giants to come out hunting. We attacked a pair of them.
Tarplin slowed both, while the party swarmed at them. Balinor and Morty were both hit and held at bay, but Balinor swapped to a longer weapon, and between Bodkin, Robynne, Balinor, Morty, and an aggressive Leo and Tarplin, we brought them down in short order and without much damage to us.
We tracked them back to their cave and went inside under low light, in the hopes of surprising them. Morty immediately spotted a pit trap, which he guided the party around, leading us and our silence cone forward safely. Then a falling log trap barely missed him, and this made a significant clatter. We decided to go under more light, figuring our surprise was blown, when the point was proven as a giant and a bear suddenly bounded around the corner.
The bear came forward at Balinor, who held off attacking to allow Tarplin a chance to charm it. He failed, and the giant was tossing boulders, so Balinor and Morty and Bodkin attacked, beating the bear down. Morty couldn’t attack directly, but pulled out his new sling bullets, and fired a shot. He fumbled, spectacularly. The bullet bounced off of Balinor’s head (inflicting 7 points a wound), and Morty flung his sling across the hall, nearly destroying the “indestructible” sling bullet.
We were unimpressed. Unfortunately Balinor and Morty were beginning to take some damage (Bodkin was unharmed). We brought the bear down partially with subdual damage, while Tarplin dropped a faerie fire spell on both targets. At this moment a second giant rounded the corner, as the lead fighters closed with the front giant. Robynne was blocked from shooting and for this part was keeping watch to see we weren’t being attacked from behind. The clerics began using their healing spells to prop up Balinor.
We brought down the next giant relatively easily, although the giant held Balinor at bay once, causing him to swap to his bastard sword + 2 for reach purposes. This didn’t help at all against the final giant, who was in metal armor and wielded a giantish two-handed sword. He flung a cobra into the party, but Robynne and Bodkin brought it down before it could attack anyone.
Balinor was still tanking, but this giant could hold him at bay rather easily (hitting on a 10) and was getting a bit lucky. Morty was unable to attack because of the corridor hold-at-bay (although he did miss once allowing us a bit of a strike before reclosing his defenses), which meant it was up to Bodkin, Robynne, Tarplin’s magic missiles, and Leo’s spiritual hammer to do the trick. They bashed the creature over and over, and finally Balinor had to retreat for healing from Tarplin…. And the creature finally went down!
We looted the place and tried to deal with the subdued bear. Tarplin tried to speak with it, but on a very bad charisma check (20, oops my fault) he enraged the bear and we had to beat it back down again by shooting it. We left it stabilized and hoped it would find its way to the outside.
Somewhat embarrassing, perhaps, but that was all. We expended no resources, and came out with a good haul:
5380 gp worth of items (2400 gp, gold belt, 3 gems, silver pieces, 2h sword of quality, nonmagical loot and scraps)—post tax 4035 gp, and probably a hair under 1000 XP each (not awarded yet).
So in the end:
n: 10000 gp credit, 4745 gp (and had 10000 gp credit from last time with the spear)
Out: 24313 gp in total costs
So -9568 gp this time
Assets remaining to be cashed: selling broadsword at druidic court
Upgrades made:
Leo -- medium shield + 1 to large shield + 1
Robynne -- AC 4/10 and +2 ring to AC 3/3 bracers
Tarplin -- Ring of Regeneration to Bag of Holding (200/2500) and Robe of Pockets; Sleepytime spell; Dreadful Indestructible Bowl of Slug Control; Wand of Paraylzation; Wand of Lightning Bolts
Morty -- gains 13 +2 sling bullets
Party gains 1 Potion of Healing, 6 Bandages of Wound Closure
XP:
Morhion - 1049
Robynne - 6120
Morty - 6560
Tarplin - 2750/4422 mage/druid
Leo - 6864
Bodkin - 6972
Balinor - 7372
+ unawarded giant XP from last fight with 5 giants, 1 bear (probably ~ 500-1000)
Catch you next time!
Joel/Balinor/Morhion
With help from Jay/Morty/Leo
Cassian, 9th level half-elf cleric of Phaulkon, played by Katherine
Sirse, Cassian's owl friend/familiar/favorite bird
Mel, Fighter level 6
Lilly, Cleric//Fighter level 1/4
Willis, Wizard level 4
Zephyr, Fighter level 3, played by Andy and Kyle
Buck, 6th level human fighter, Warder of Phaulkon, played by Andy and Kyle
Mordrick, 9th/12th level dwarf fighter/thief, NPC (played by Kyle this time)
[Events of June 12-14th, 2009, Charlotte, N.C.]
This adventure picks up after the Phaulkonian party, with assistance from the Dwarves, successfully attacked and defeated a Fire Giant Citadel on September 10, 2195, by use of the Amulet of the Fates. [Summarized in “The Only Good Fire Giant…” and “…Is A Dead Fire Giant.”] One of Mordrick’s least-favorite enemies, the evil dwarf, Prince Obmi, also had a cloning lab at the Citadel, which was destroyed. [Aside: Reynore had, much earlier, driven Obmi out of a Fire Giant citadel in 2159.]
Obmi, known as Kracklethump by the Fire Giants (because that was the noise people made when he came up behind them and snapped their spines), was not best pleased. As a result,
there were consequences to this attack upon the Fire Giant Citadel [“Ambush at Hoch-Och”].
Another Phaulkonian hero, Buck, had pursued other activities following the Fane of the Winds quest [“Alegra's Final Summary: The Fane of the Winds”]. These are summarized in an appropriately-titled summary, “Adventures of Buck: Tales of Disaster. “ In the final adventure, he was captured by the Ghoul King, a lich, in a city sewer system, and spent five years in servitude to the Ghoul King, killing good adventurers. When freed, the Ambush at Hoch-Och had already occurred, and Buck moved at top speed to join his comrades there, to help them as they planned their revenge…
But, really, we should say ATTACKS.
To explain:
The Phaulkonian Church in Hoch-Och was blown up on Lanthalassa-Té, the Church’s high holy days, killing many innocent worshippers.
Then, three months later, Fire Giants came down out of the mountains and burned down a quarter of the town before they were chased off. This resulted in ~100,000 gp in damage and more deaths.
Ouch.
Before that had happened, though, Cassian and Mordrick had already decided to start looking for Obmi, whose cloning lab at the Citadel had been destroyed. Obmi had been defeated twice before as well. [So we began by logging in ~1.5 years of surveillance, sage research, as well as previously-logged training.]
Since Buck had been captured by the Ghoul King (lich) and was out of sync, he couldn't catch up until early 2197. The entire party arrived in Hoch Och just shortly after the 2nd giant attack on the city. A few days later, Buck bounded into town, or what was left of it.
Buck, to show his devotion and his great sadness at having missed the attack, then got a huge full-body falcon tattoo and became, well, something of a fanatic.
[As an aside, the former Fire Giant citadel—current name unknown—appears to be adequately protected. Warwick has retired there, Cassian has hired a charismatic preacher to convert the Northerners that have moved in to the area (and those that lived around it anyway) and Warwick is trying his hardest to turn it into a Phaulkonian city-state. Mel was going to retire there, but Cassian put him back into the party for this adventure, because the party lacked melee strength, even with Buck.]
As part of the surveillance for Obmi’s activity, Mordrick, the Lordly High Chiseler of the Dwarven Kingdom, ended up assigning his low-level thieves (from his thieves’ guild) to surveillance duty.
He and Cassian had discussed and decided upon a few people to look out for, people with whom Obmi would need to do business in order to make a new cloning lab, something we knew he would undoubtedly be doing again. (Obmi is obsessed with immortality.)
Among these targets were precision glassblowers. So, he assigned ~20 thieves to watch precision glassblowers, purveyors of high quality sand, etc. The party also decided to have an "obvious" surveillance of people involved in the "disguise item" trade so that Obmi would think that was our "real" surveillance plan if he discovered it. The goal was to even be somewhat "ham-handed" so that it WOULD be discovered.
Our research of people capable of helping with the construction of cloning lab gear concluded that there were 4 possible precision glassblowers in the area. 2 glassblowers in the near Realm (Wunka), 2 in nearby Cromwell, and none in Shabrund that would work with Obmi without also giving info to Mordrick. We found it likely that Obmi might try to kidnap a glassblower to take elsewhere.... or purchase equipment from them.
In addition to this surveillance, we also did research on historical locations of cloning labs or places associated with research into immortality, in the Near Realm, Shabrund, and Cromwell. It was thought that Obmi might decide to visit and/or co-opt such a location. In the process we determined that the set found at the Citadel was pretty definitely a set that had disappeared, workers and all, during the Realmish civil war. Most of the other sets were pretty certainly destroyed, or seemed unlikely for candidates various reasons. 3 sets of note were found:
1. One set belonged to the Seer of Saib (Saib is a squalid city Alegra passed through on her way to Hochland)
2. An immortal Archmage on a mountaintop along the coast, closer to White Mountain dwarves, may or may not have a cloning lab, or other ability to have become immortal.
3. The Horn of Iggwilv was thought to have a cloning lab. However, the Horn of Iggwilv seemed dangerous even for Obmi… [Joel: “Obmi should, uh, go into the room with the three orangutans or the blue crystals. I'm sure it would work out.”] …which left the other two.
We tried researching both other options extensively. We had a gut feeling it was #2 based on our research. #1 we had almost no info on.... he's a paranoid political figure with a great deal of power in the middle of a hugely populated slum, which seemed the wrong place for Obmi.
Eventually, we started getting letters about a glassblower from one of our spies, which confirmed our initial guess.
We ALSO got a purchase order from a hat of disguise vendor that was interesting... Obmi had pretty obviously bought a hat of disguise with the form "Vaprack" (ogre-troll hybrid) and given the name Kruzzhole Steamhand, which seemed like a nod to Mordrick Ironhand (we presumed that he had noted our surveillance), but we took note anyway. Interesting that the place we were interested in had a lot of Ogres, worshippers of Vaprack...
Getting back to the precision glassblower, our spy noticed that his assigned charge, a glassblower, did not come back from a family vacation as he was supposed to. Another spy had been tailing him on the vacation and sent in reports. Apparently, he was sitting by the river when an old fisherman came up and looked to be asking directions. When he got near he tapped the glassblower on the shoulder and immediately the glassblower began following him and they wandered off. At some point, the old fisherman turned into a "fat dwarf" but the glassblower was unperturbed.
They headed in the direction of the White Mountain dwarves at first. At some point, Obmi and the glassblower turned towards the mountain that we had earlier associated with an Archmage. So, then we knew his destination with a fair degree of certainty.
The Mountain: Thalask, 12000 ft.
Thalask: Brutal sub-zero cold, 50 mph winds, terrible weather, called "cradle of the gods" by locals. The weather got worse after the archmage's arrival, it's been terrible for centuries. Tornadoes, snow, wind, even stray hurricanes find their way there. [Must be either 8th/9th level spell effects, druidic magic gone astray, or ceremonial/rite type effects.]
A married pair of great giants lived there ~200 years ago. So, a Realmish reserve party arrived to clear them. They were successful. The village at the base of Thalask, Tharakill, hosted a party for the victorious adventurers.
The archmage from the party decided to stay. He thought the party's festive event for the townspeople and adventuring party was wasteful. He had been obsessed with longevity and seemed to think the mountain was the key to living forever or at least a very long time. After the party, he departed up the mountain. He took no gear or supplies and has not been seen for 200 years, since that very day. We confirmed this with the old blacksmith dwarf in town, named Heltus, who had arrived as a boy and was there for all of the past 200 years.
Obmi and the glassblower arrived in Tharakill and left towards the mountain. Our spy, Grandin Firefeet, 2nd level thief, stayed in Tharakill. We departed to meet him there.
The mountain area was called the Sleeper's Teeth.
The Archmage was known to be neither evil nor good, and the druid of the area was concerned about the unnatural weather but otherwise thought he was fine.
Before we had left for Tharakill, Buck had bought the best magical bastard sword he could find. It was only +0/+2 versus magical creatures and it shed light. [Sucky roll, but he took what he could get.]
Before leaving, Cassian also cast a Divination on Thalask:
"The mountain is a weak spot between the prime, fire, earth, and astral planes. By the wishes of the powers of chaotic neutral, no more information will be revealed without cause."
Lastly, the party borrowed Frostwolf Coats from Alegra and we also borrowed Lupent's hat of disguise.
Other relevant equipment: Cassian had her (crazy powerful) ring of (unlimited) invisibility. Mordrick had a ring of chameleon (not as good, but pretty nice!)
We arrived in Tharakill and questioned Heltus, the blacksmith dwarf. We found out there was a barbarian, Koth, who takes people up on the mountain or to find Zrodar the Zero, a great giant who wanders the area.
We then talked to Koth and there was much amusing dialogue between Koth and Buck. We found out some things about the archmage, such as:
The archmage killed one of the great giants himself, with.... a meteor swarm.
He wore jet black with silver hawks inlaid on his clothing.
Supposedly, the archmage destroyed a village 7 miles south, but we thought this was a myth.
Also, there were rumors of a fire demon on the mountain, but Koth had never seen it.
Apparently, given the archmage’s interest in longevity there was some indication he could have cloning facilities, but since no one had seen him in 200 years it was unclear.
We assumed that Obmi had come to bargain with the Archmage using some piece of knowledge he had about immortality (since money presumably was not important to the mage).
Koth was nice but arrogant, and had a weird changeable accent and features that weren't any obvious race of humans. He would only say he came from "far away." He also wore a beanie. He would take us up on the mountain for a fee, but wanted to charge us for a training course and it would be extra (1000 gp) if we wanted him to enter the mage's lair with us. Buck (Andy) decided to challenge him to a drinking contest to see if he could reduce/eliminate the fee. He lost the contest, but just barely. Then, they arm-wrestled, and after a quick loss, they repeated it, and Buck ended up winning. The only way Koth would reduce his fee, though, was for Buck to beat him in real wrestling, which Buck had no skill in.... but he agreed anyway! In a long and dramatic wrestling battle in the middle of the bar room floor, Buck eventually managed to win! There was a moment when they were simultaneously knocked out on the floor, but Buck awoke first and managed to take proper advantage, eventually knocking out Koth! [Took us about 1.5 hours to resolve the bar scene, I think.]
He was then paraded through town, dumped in the livestock pen, and then washed with drinks. He returned to the bar, and they drank together awhile. It was clear though that the townsfolk loved Koth, and over time "Buck beat Koth" morphed into "Koth let Buck win".... such was his love within the town. And, of course, such was Koth’s persistent re-telling of the story from that angle.
Anyway, he agreed to take us up without fee or training course. We left two days later after Buck recovered.
Cassian did do an astrology reading around this time on an "auspicious date" but got pretty weak results.
"The sign of the scythe (Death) eclipses the crown (Obmi) and the cornucopia (Wealth) moves away from the crown. Your lucky number is 4, color is black, date is this month."
Didn't get a good date, but definitely some verification we were on to Obmi.
We ascended the mountain and it took us one day to do it. The mountain was littered with caves above and below the snow line, about 70 major ones. We arrived at the top late in the day.
There was a 25 foot diameter spire on top with a huge black skull for a door but no other markings, windows, or doors. We searched for secret doors but found none on the tower.
We mulled it over quite awhile, then finally decided on "True Seeing."
Oh, before that, an augury...
"In a wise man's town, the tallest building always has a lightning rod." (This will become obvious after the fact, like all good auguries.)
Hmmph. So, yes, True Seeing.
And we then spotted the trap on the door (magical) and the secret door NOT on the tower, several feet away, also trapped.
We decided to go that direction instead, disabled the trap, and headed in. There was a ladder leading down, we headed down single file, the only way we could. It was a warm and comfortable 70 degrees inside.
Downstairs, a beautiful room ~60’ x 60’, carpeted and nice.
There were beautiful paintings on the walls of other planes. Buck touched one, but nothing happened.
It was at that moment that a beautiful woman standing in the room turned towards us…
…And asked Buck not to do that... the painting was from a rare painter. [Probably worth 100000+ GP.]
Cassian noticed with her True Seeing that the beautiful woman standing in the room was not actually a woman at all, but appeared to be made of snow. [Snow golem?] Cassian also spotted a secret door to one side.
The woman asked us why we were there.
We responded that we were looking for someone, a dwarf. She said, he's obviously not here. We assured her that we were not here to kill the archmage. She then said that she doubted our honesty. We asked her if she could let him know we were there. She assured us then that Azirax probably already knew we were there.
A moment later, she invited us to sit and have wine [an extremely valuable vintage]. We partook.
The secret door opened and another snow golem appeared, this one in male form. [Note, only Cassian could see the door open, the rest only saw him appear.] He resembled the Archmage from our previous description, and we presumed that the mage did not know we were aware he was only made of snow.
We found out the woman's name was Floramel during the discussion.
We basically asserted that we were looking for an evil dwarf who had come to the mountain looking to work with Azirax and that he should not be given any aid. We only wanted to confront the dwarf elsewhere.
The Azirax golem told us that he must be a "great enemy of yours" for us to have gone to this much trouble. He then told us that Obmi did come here some time ago.
He fought with some of Azirax's guardians and when Azirax spoke with Obmi, Obmi made some offers to the archmage that he didn't really believe. He ended up basically telling Obmi to get lost and he did. He clearly did not have a high opinion of Obmi or his tactics.
We chatted awhile longer, but then Azirax got impatient and just asked us to leave. "You've drunk some of my 'rather nice' wine and gotten mud on my rugs which will cause me some effort to fix. I suggest you leave NOW."
We actually parleyed a moment longer, and then left.
We took shelter somewhat lower on the mountain in a cave and did a Divination on the part of the mountain below the cave complex at the top.
[The 25' diameter spire with the Skull Door was really just an elaborate trap... which Obmi apparently fell into. Inside was a snow golem holding a huge explosive. A fake trapdoor which led nowhere... No entrance to the complex proper. Glad we didn't do that!]
Divination:
"Chaotic neutral forces of Zgodar allow you to see what is happening here. Forces of LE and CE hide under the [non-detection] mantle of Zgodar. Their treasure is meaningful, their power significant." Zgodar = godling
[Actually just noticed the great giant in the area is Zrodar, and the godling is Zgodar. Wondering if I missed an obvious connection or if I just wrote down something wrong. Hmph.]
The next day, on August 7th, 2197, we decided we needed to do a Commune to determine if Obmi had stayed on the mountain, or had run, and various subsidiary questions given either answer. These were our results:
1. Is Obmi on or in this mountain? YES.
2. Is he generally recognizable as himself? NO.
3. Is Obmi the largest contributor to the force of LE? YES.
4. Does he have allies of significance with him? YES.
5. Is the CE force likely to aid Obmi? YES.
6. Is the entrance to Obmi’s location on the eastern half of the mountain? NO.
7. Northern half? NO.
8. Above the snow line? NO.
9. Should we immediately move to locate Obmi and engage him? NO.
10. Are we prepared for a combat encounter with Obmi and his companions? UNANSWERABLE.
[We may have asked too many questions here, because I thought there was also a question that narrowed the location to a partial wedge within the quartile of the mountain we had identified.]
On August 8th, Cassian talked to Buzzards, Ravens (Lorek), and Hawks. The hawks agreed to take a message to the local druid. The ravens identified 3 caves with bipedal creatures in them. Over the next two days, we had Lorek take us to these 3 caves one by one, and we surveilled them.
August 9th:
Cave #1. 2 white people, probably frost giants.
Cave #2. Ogres with a small “fortress” built into the mountain, smoke coming out of the chimney at night. Ogre totems.
At this fortress, we talked to Owls, including Osler. One of the owls had been talked to by a weird one-eyed Ogre inside, who seemed “wrong.” There was some confusion in conversation in which it appeared he may have been charmed/dominated and intended to take information to the Ogres. In the end, we captured him and… wait for it… tied up the owl and took him with us.
[Random quotation: “Don’t come any closer, or the owl gets hurt.”]
August 10th:
Cave #3. A large cave with trapped ogre totems and a perimeter around the cave. There were 2 ogres per picket, with 8 at the entrance, 6-7 orc flunkies making spears. Through owl questioning, we determined there was an escape route which we examined. Mordrick and Cassian could easily pass their lines, so a number of spells were used to examine the cave. It did not appear an ogre mage was involved. Locate object determined there were no Thieves Tools within the cave, although an old set was found in the garbage pile out front.
Returned to the “fortress” and Mordrick scouted it at night. A really well-equipped ogre (large sword, shield, chain mail/plates) came out and collected fire wood. When he returned inside it was clear there was a barring mechanism on the door. Also, there were arrow-slit like windows on the wooden-walled fortress. Mordrick observed that it had recently been shored up pretty significantly, but in a very subtle way. The fire-wood replenishment happened every two hours and it seemed vastly more than would be necessary for warmth. We suspected a forge.
August 11th:
Cassian scanned the building with Locate Object to look for Thieves’ Tools… but the spell failed. The presence of spell-blocking power made us highly suspicious.
Koth disguised our camp well, we continued to reconnoiter.
Astrology calculations were completed on the 12th.
“The crown and the hearth are central and the traveler is in motion. Your most fortuitous date is August 16th. Your lucky number is 3. Color is red [red-black…fire-giant red].”
August 14th. Ogres come into the clearing, an arrow is fired from the house/fortress. Ogre is spoken to/from building – threatening. 2nd arrow fired. The ogres from outside leave. Mordrick sneaks up and examines the arrow and it is clearly hand-made and huge, much larger
than a human long arrow. Later, Cassian confirms it is fletched with owl feathers.
Cassian decides to scan the area with detect magic/evil/find traps and also locate object through the chimney. She finds thieves tools within the building and finds a glyph on the door. LE and CE are both present. There is also a mechanical trap within the chimney.
Mordrick sneaks into the fortress at night (using Cassian’s invisibility ring AND his own ring of chameleon for extra backup) during the firewood exchange. He observes: One really big ogre with no armor (hill giant sized). One with a weird black eye patch with a white eye drawn on it. He appears “wrong” somehow and the others are clearly afraid of him. The other two are nearly impossible to tell apart, only one has a shield and the other does not. There are four bunks, this appears to be everyone.
When firewood is brought in, it is taken to the only other door in the back wall. The door opens and an ogre-troll hybrid [e.g., he looks like Vaprack] appears, looking scary. Firewood is brought in and then the door is closed. This is exactly the reported disguise that Kruzzhole Steamhand had ordered… during the spy operation we had intentionally tried to bungle—whoops!—so this is certainly Obmi. Presumably the glassblower is inside as well.
1500 g.p. divination: “The forces of Kador [LE dwarven god of revenge/mischief, Obmi] masquerade as the forces of Vaprack. The forces of Vaprack [greater ogres] aspire to great triumph over the forces of Vaprack. Forces in the area are very dangerous but not completely impossible. Treasure is meaningful and of significance. The forces of Chelsean [glassblower] are insignificant in the area. The chance of unnerving a diety are small but not zero.”
We quickly created a plan:
Mordrick would slip into the building during a firewood exchange and hide himself while invisible and chameleoned. He would carefully undo the latch on one of the windows, allowing it to be pushed open slightly. He would then set up near the door to Obmi’s lair after the firewood exchange. Willis would be outside along with Cassian and the rest of the party, ready to attack. Willis would Knock through the gap in the window on the door to Obmi’s lair. Mordrick would then quietly slip through into the lair and push the door shut. Then, Cassian would launch a Fireball through the gap in the window from her Belt. The party would then force their way inside (the door would be unbarred because one Ogre would still be outside at this point, which Koth would attempt to rapidly destroy as Buck and the rest of the party advanced to take the other three. Mordrick would be left to deal with Obmi until the party could break past the ogres… his goal would be to get a killing or near-killing blow with a backstab.
This was the plan until the early morning of our “auspicious day.”
At about 1:30am on the morning of the 16th, 3 ogres (eye patch, no armor, and one of the other two) departed, along with a 4’ tall metal dwarven golem, marching into the woods. Shortly thereafter, the remaining ogre came out to get firewood as usual. We rapidly decided to alter plans….
[This summary of activities is necessarily Mordrick-centric, since I didn’t note what everyone else was doing in every segment. Unfortunately, I don’t remember more details here.]
Mordrick sneaked into the fortress and found it empty. He unlatched the window as planned, but came out to tell the party the others were definitely gone. Under cover of Silence from Cassian, the party quickly ambushed and murdered the ogre outside [76 points of damage in 1 segment from invisible Buck, Koth, Lilly, Mel, and Zephyr.] Mordrick had moved into position outside of Obmi’s door and did not participate in the attack.
The ogre was dragged into the building under Silence and Koth spent a little time camouflaging and watching for the returning ogres. Willis Knocked the door to Obmi, but it did not move. Mordrick thought it was unlocked, but just closed. Buck listened at the door for Mordrick’s initial attack as Mordrick quietly slipped into Obmi’s room.
Inside was a large room with weird wobbly tiles on the floor (better to deter thieves—of less than 12th level!). There was a glassblowing setup on one side, and a forge manned by 2 metal dwarves nearby. There was a small platform with a bookshelf across the room, and there was Obmi working at a desk, sitting on a stool, writing in a book [copying a Runic IV cloning library] with 1 metal dwarf nearby. Mordrick successfully sneaked across the tiles, to the platform. He was now directly behind Obmi and only 3 steps separated them. He moved up the steps…. Failed to notice the trap on the second one and tripped it, giving Obmi a second’s notice to get off the stool. Obmi was still surprised, however, and there was enough time for Mordrick to get in his backstab [he took the backstab and the wounding feat, so he’s pretty good at this as a 12th level thief with +3 magical shortsword of speed and +2 dagger!].
Slash/stab.
62 points of damage, a 4-times wound and a single wound. The disposable illusionary armor Obmi was wearing collapsed, as well as a Stoneskin.
Though now visible, Mordrick was still Chameleoned, making him harder to hit. Mordrick still could attack every 1 1/3 segments with both weapons, so he was able to get in another attack before Obmi was fully on his feet. Rolled nearly minimal damage… 21 points. 1 1/3 segments later, Mordrick fumbled and (barely) hit, for 10 points of damage, just enough (due to Cassian’s Prayer) to collapse his SECOND Stoneskin. At the same time, Obmi whapped Mordrick with his Battleaxe for about 20 points of damage and a wound.
By now, Buck (with Heroism) had heard the initial attack and charged into the room followed by Cassian, Mel, Zephyr, Willis, and Lilly.
Just a partial segment later, before the fighters could close, Cassian blasted Obmi with a fierce Lightning Strike (the new “elemental strike” version of Flame Strike) for 38 points of damage. Willis followed this up with a 10 point magic missile, enough to drop Obmi’s THIRD Stoneskin.
Though Obmi had opted to draw his Battleaxe, he did not use it again… instead he hit a mechanical switch in his helmet.
The metal dwarf on the platform also clocked Mordrick for 9 points, no wound.
Meanwhile, Mel and Buck managed to do damage to Obmi as well—Mel with a fierce spear-thrust, and Buck for 11 points and a single-wound. “Take that, defiler!”
More strikes fell for another 76 points of damage, a double and a quadruple wound. At the end of that segment, Obmi’s gear collapsed just as he vanished. Uh oh.
Mordrick, Buck, Mel, and Lilly, then destroyed the 3 golems.
Zephyr captured the glassblower and unshackled him from the forge. He then tied up the glassblower.
The battle appeared to be over…. But where was Obmi?
Cassian cast True Seeing… and appeared to have an answer.
Obmi’s form was apparently Gaseous, but had remained in the same place where his gear was. The Defenders and the Stone Soules once each saw this as well… it appeared he may have died in gaseous form.
We collected his form in a barrel and waited. As we consolidated our power, healed Mordrick, checked for traps, etc., and as predicted about 30 minutes later, Obmi’s dead form collapsed in the barrel.
Cassian, Mordrick, and Buck, relished their revenge.
And then Mordrick quickly beheaded the evil Obmi.
The party briefly interrogated the glassblower, determined that he was probably kidnapped, but didn't want to risk fully trusting him yet. They kept him tied him up and left him in the relative safety of the forge room (along with the other, bound prisoner, the owl).
After dealing with the glassblower, the party decided to ambush the ogres upon their return. This was a good move! We decided to target the Eye Patch Ogre first, on the testimony of the owl, and the fact that the other Ogres appeared to fear him.
About 1.5 hours later, the party was camouflaged (thanks, Koth!) outside and ready for the attack as the 3 ogres returned to the clearing marching their golem. They headed just as we expected them to, right towards the door.
And Cassian blasted them with a Called Lightning (44 points) at the same time as her henchman Willis incinerated them with a Fireball from the Belt (25 points). The smallest ogre was killed instantly but the Big Ogre (no armor) appeared to have evaded the Fireball entirely.
Mordrick then emerged behind the ogres for a quick backstab on the Eye Patch Ogre. 58 points, a double wound and a quadruple wound. He died instantly.
Mordrick gets his by the iron dwarf at the same time as the Phaulkonian heroes arrive to do battle with the Big Ogre. Lilly hits with throwing dagger. Buck hits the Big Ogre with his magical bastard sword for 20 points and a double wound… while simultaneously getting clocked by the Big Ogre with a magical bastard sword for 16 points and 6 points of cold damage. Buck: “I’m going to enjoy using that bastard sword myself!” Mel also got in some vicious strikes upon the Big Ogre!
Zephyr hits for 14 points while Koth hits for 14 with his broad sword and 12 with his axe. The Big Ogre collapses at the end of the segment.
A few moments later, the iron dwarf is destroyed.
The battle is over and the loot is all ours.
Commune: Is Obmi really dead? YES.
Ah, satisfaction.
Treasure and who got what:
Obmi (his 5th set of equipment in the campaign world)
Leather armor of reduced weight (100 cn) CASH
Quality Hammer +1/+1 CASH
Thieves Tools +3% CASH
35 x 100 gp gems CASH (Cassian)
39 gp CASH
Hammer +1/+4 vs fighters TAX
Battle Axe +1 TAX
Ring of Prot +2 Mordrick
Ring of Acid Resistance TAX
Cloak of Cold Immunity, 5 1hr charges TAX
Hat of disguise Vaprack form Mordrick
2 use of Oil of Impact +7 Mordrick
1 potion of Extra Healing Cassian
1 potion of Healing Buck
3 magic bandages Buck, Cassian, Mordrick
3/8 potion of Invisibility Buck
1 use of Dust of Disappearance Mordrick
Gear
Partial cloning library (20K) CASH
Alchemist recipes (15K) CASH
Tome of Iron Man Creation (7.5K) SOLD TO ELI (8K)
Precision Glassblowing Equipment (4.5K) SOLD TO GLASSBLOWER (5K)
Alchemical Equip (mobile) (2K) CASH
3 chests of 4000 dwarvish gp CASH (Chests to Cassian)
quality bastard sword +1 CASH
165 misc gp equipment CASH
250 gp reward (Azaki (Eye Patch)’s head; Big Ogre—“Lord Ergs”—has a 2000 gp reward we missed out on… Burly Hair and Half Jack were also ~200 gp each, also didn’t claim—doh!)
Ogres (all on Lord Ergs except the Eye Patch)
Bracers AC4/AT10 60 cn TAX
Ring +2/+4 on saves Cassian
Bastard Sword +2/+6 cold damage “Twice bitten, once shy” Buck
Eye Patch (enigmatic—required expensive ID at Academy) More later
Ring of Dexterity Cassian—traded for Greater Circlet of Radiance (5d12 damage 1/wk)
Eye Patch: “An Eye for Opportunity” “Eye Patch of Ambitious Visions”
Become pre-cognitive by burning XP in return for VERY accurate visions of the future. See paths forward that lead to ambitious goals, but also has a slightly malevolent bent. (“You could gain advancement by arranging the death of that official.”) In addition, it could allow the wearer to see, for example, exactly which way to dodge a blow, exactly how to hit his opponent to take advantage of their greatest weakness, exactly when to duck a lightning bolt, etc. It also appears to really set you on a path to be not just any bad guy, but a bad guy of truly terrible importance. Buck kind of wanted this, but Cassian thought that any of the party could be corrupted by the inherent “wrongness” of the eye patch. She was convinced that there was something more wrong with the patch than could be appreciated even after the significant research effort. It had some “seriously bad mojo.” Buck could only agree with this logic, and we eventually gave it to the Academy in return for a 5000 gp reward.
Total cash was ~67500 gp. Koth took a full share of gold, no magic items, rest of gold used to reimburse Mordrick and Cassian and a little to Buck and then divided.
Tying up loose ends: the glassblower was brought back to civilization, his story was verified, and he was released. The influence over the owl appears to have been broken when the eye-patch ogre was killed, and we released it, as well.
XP
Koth 6808 (2500 story award for defeating ogres and learning more about the mountain)
Zephyr 1134
Mel 1189
Lilly 1519
Willis 1602
Buck 10789
Mordrick 6243 F/ 12298 T
Cassian 18489
Mordrick gained 13th level thief. Gaining 2 HP to stand at 89. (Minimum, plus failed 90% chance to re-roll!), Mordrick was done training in June 2198. He is off to his own adventures unless he and the Phaulkonians have common goals again.
Cassian gained 10th level cleric, gaining 3 HP to stand at 58 (67 with her amulet). Cassian was done training on October 15, 2198. The Phaulkonians are ready for new adventures.
Success!
Side Comments:
What’s next?…. Retrieving the Iron Rod of Parn from Bob the Anarchist Cleric?? (or actually, his successor! Kyle is keen, but Cassian is cautious. We will wait and see!)
BTW, I believe, but am not sure, that the Ring was a Ring of 16 Dex. Now, I can't really remember though. There were restrictions that didn't make it too useful for any of us.
Oil of impact does 7 points of "impact" damage in addition to weapon damage when you strike with any compatible weapon.
Apparently, the eye patch made you "wrong" because you were able to see the future, which is something that I think just looks "wrong" to the Universe. As far as we can tell, it didn't provide any useful information unless you actively decided to use it. Since we ambushed them and went for him right away because of his "wrongness"--he never got to activate the item. If he had, we're pretty sure bad things would have happened.
The ogres appear to have just been mercenaries working with Obmi because he was giving them something they wanted.... this appeared to be the use of his iron dwarves for perhaps conquering the neighboring Ogres... although with the Eye Patch, greater goals can also be considered likely!
I definitely thought about the Ring of Acid Resistance for Rangorn. If there was any way it could have worked.... As it is, Rangorn is years in the past. Which is a good thing! It's 2198! And the party is free to find other adventures. First party to 2200??
--Kyle (Mordrick, et al. this time around)
The Front Line and Other Warriors:
Halacar 7th level halfling fighter, 80 hp (Joel)
Brother to the late Hhune, the diminuitive halfling's ability to survive impacts is unsurpassed (including, at one point, a vampire's blood drain). At two feet, eight inches tall, his ability to kill his opponent is less impressive. In his first attack with his short bow, Halacar broke his arrow, tripped, and fell into Brigling, taking them both off the cliff. Halacar undergoes frustrating dry spells in melee combat as well, where he wields a nasty falchion. Halacar's demeanor is eternally cheerful and completely unfazeable even by the sardonic Standish. His inner heart though, has a hidden chill to it. Halacar is loyal to his friends, but he has absolutely no scruples when it comes to dealing with his enemies. Halacar somehow has still failed to acquire a magical falchion, and sports a 1-1 record in the Arena. Don't ask him.
Standish 7th level half-orc fighter, 74 hp (Katherine)
Standish is a brute of a man, crude with words, and insufferably and outlandishly eloquent in the naming of his dogs. He is also the party's most devastating fighter, able to tear through lines of enemies in moments. Standing more than twice the size of his primary fighting partner, Standish wields a devastating magical bastard sword with a particular hatred for reptiles, as well as a giantslaying weapon used to great effect against a cloud giant. He is always accompanied by two dogs, his durable war dog Cromwell, and an revolving door of guard dogs (including Winston,
Weatherby, Hampton, Hinton, Percy, and the like). Standish is one of only three surviving original party members.
Duran is the sole surviving representative of the party's two short range weapon specialists, wielding throwing daggers. The daggers are surprisingly useful, but very short range. Duran has an annoying "faux-French accent."
Zero 4th level human fighter, 15 hp (Kyle)
Zero is the party's most bizarre fighter, wielding the short sword while blinded by his helmet, using only his keen "sonar" skills to fight effectively. He often makes vague comments about specialized training methods and blocking out all distractions in fighting situations. Something about "not being fooled by your eyes" usually makes its way into any conversation with Zero about tactics. He is perhaps best known for his Ring of Blinking, which cannot be stopped once set off and brings him both into the fray and out of the fray, willy-nilly. Surprisingly, it has been useful to him time and again. Currently, Zero has sold his Ring and is living in his parents' garage, hoping that a little downtime will miraculously increase his hitpoints. He'll be waiting a long time.
Squibb 3rd level half-orc fighter, 28 hp (Alan)
Karnash 3rd level half-orc fighter, 19 hp (Mark)
Crack 3rd level half-orc woodsman, 25 hp (Alan)
James 3rd level human paladin, 31 hp (Zack)
James is a powerful paladin wielding a scimitar.
Flechette 3rd level halfling fighter, 28 hp (Aaron)
Flechette is a durable and dangerous halfling bow specialist who uses the short composite bow.
Schreck Robinson 3rd level half-orc fighter, ?? hp (David Bjorlin)
Schreck is a katana specialist.
Isacar, 4th level dwarven fighter, 41 hp (Alex)
Isacar is an impressive all offense or all defense dart specialist.
Campbell, 4th level half-orc fighter, 43 hp (Rhonda)
Campbell is a devastating and charismatic half-orc longbow specialist (the tallest ranged weapon user in the party).
Healing Support:
Browork 6th level dwarf cleric, 41 hp (Joel)
Browork is a durable dwarven battle-cleric. He wields the hammer with competence, and can hurl a decent array of clerical spells. His ability to provide a backup fighter has proved valuable to the party, as well as his spell support. Browork is typically gruff for a dwarf, and bears no mercy for goblins and
the like, but is at heart a friend to be trusted. An original party member.
Katrina 4th level half-elf cleric, 20 hp (Jeff)
Katrina may be slightly more frail than Browork, but she is the more effective spellcaster, and has saved the party several times on the expeditions in which she has taken part.
Rex 1st level human fighter/3rd level cleric, 24 hp (Kyle)
Rex is a specialist in the horseman's mace who was moved to join the warrior priesthood and advance the cause of Good. He fights with great strength and enthusiasm and girds himself in powerful Field Plate armor to improve his survivability. Though Rex has purchased Zero's Ring of Blinking, he also borrows the party's Horseman's Mace +4 whenever he adventures with the party. When spell-casting, Rex tends to focus on offensive spells and leave most of the Cures to others. Rex is eager to adventure more and advance himself.
Harry 3rd level half-elf cleric, 18 hp (Chris)
Harry (short for a longer elven name) is your friendly neighborhood cleric.
Klash 1st/3rd level human fighter/cleric, 18 hp (?) (Mark)
Arcane Support:
Megan 4th level mage, 15 hp (Alex)
The main recipient of the party's wizard spells, and its senior wizard.
Jim 3rd level mage, 12 hp (Sean)
Jim had a long hiatus from the party but eventually returned to use his magic missile skills once again.
Rhisa, 1st level fighter // 3rd level mage, 22 hp (Dean)
Rhisa is a mage with Magic Missiles and normal missiles - in this case, bow specialization!
Filo, 2nd level half-elven cleric // 3rd level mage, 17 hp (Aaron)
The multitalented Filo survived his twin brother Milo. May he continue on to great things!
Tiberius K. Ollivander I, 3rd level half-elven cleric // 3rd level mage, 14 hp (Alan)
The similarly multitalented but slightly insane furniture worshipping Tiberius has survived his first adventure and looks forward to great things!
Scout/Rogue:
Brigling 7th level halfling thief, 39 hp (Katherine)
Brigling is the party's stealthy component and ranged attack force, and all around scout and trap removal service, and knife in the back service, all rolled into one. He has survival chances well beyond most party members and puts this to good use, providing the Larry Consortium with several options when confronted with a problem. An original party member, and the highest level one as well.
Flit 4th level elf thief, 17 hp, (Matt)
The Retired of Unknown Status:
Ronilab, woodsman (Sean)
"Sean's Monk"
"Jack's Characters"
The Deceased, in order of Perishing:
Hhune, fighter (Joel)
Frag, woodsman (Alan)
Kelric, fighter (Alex)
El Guapo, fighter (Jeff)
Alain, fighter (Alex)
Lissar, mage (Alex)
Thudd, fighter (Alan)
Jefe, woodsman (Jeff)
Nass, 4th level illusionist, 8 hp (Alex)
Skrag, 3rd level half-orc cleric, 22 hp (Kyle)
Neb, 3rd level thief, 18 hp (Alex)
Sevrid, 3rd level illusionist, 10 hp (Alex)
Milo, 1st level half-elven cleric/3rd level mage, 14 hp (Aaron)
And in The Arena, the Larry Consortium's Gladiator Comrades
Crusher the Goblin, NPC, with a current win-loss record (where loss=death) of 14-0! Crusher recently acquired a belt of throwing daggers.
Slasher the Kobold, NPC, with a record of 1-1, having defeated a giant rat but, ahem, being defeated by a dog! He is currently "retired."
Smusher the Bugbear, NPC, with an astounding record of zero wins, and er, one loss. We like to think he's on the "injured reserve list."
Halacar, 6th level halfling fighter, 65 hp, played by Joel
Standish, 6th level human fighter, 63 hp, played by Katherine
Browork, 6th level dwarven cleric, 41 hp, played by Joel
Brigling, 7th level halfling thief, 39 hp, played by Katherine
Campbell, 3rd level half-orc fighter, 30 hp, played by Rhonda
Tiberius K. Ollivander, 2nd level half- elven cleric/2nd level magic user, 10 hp, played by Alan
[Events of May 9, 2009, in Charlotte.]
The Wizard Mountain Party (Cornell/Charlotte edition) had not been played since New Years 2002-3, so needless to say, we were a bit rusty… as were our weapons…
A brief recap of the history of the Wizard Mountain campaign:
50 years ago, the town of Wizard Mountain was a smaller city surrounding a mountain fortress. Ruling the fortress was a powerful wizard who banned all but the most talented and powerful from being within his realm, which he blockaded with high walls. The wizard would occasionally burst into town and kill citizens simply to thin out the herd.
Eventually he angered forces outside of town. Adventuring parties attempted to penetrate into the mountain and defeat the wizard, but none returned. Finally, decades ago a party known as the Coral Star attempted to fight their way into the mountain to take it over from the wizard. On the last trip they seemingly succeeded, as the attacks stopped, although the party did not return.
In the chaos of one of these attacks, a dragon named Zog escaped from the markets, where dragons were frequently bought and sold, and took up shelter in the mountains, where it frequently preys on adventurers seeking fortune from the mountain.
Tribes of hobgoblins, goblins, and gnolls swarmed over areas of the mountains, establishing kingdoms within. The gnolls were known for wielding powerful firearms that could devastate even platemail armored adventurers.
Years later, the town of Wizard Mountain has become a giant city of a million souls, and a bustling market and trade in goods and wares. The adventuring party, The Larry Consortium (do not ask about Larry), is assembled from a ragtag group of wealth-seekers who choose to brave the mountains to gain profit, and perhaps to discover something of the fate of the Coral Star…
]]> The party set off once again, this time with new members Tiberius K. Ollivander (2nd/2nd half-elven cleric of the god of desks / magic-user and hammer-wielding battleclericmage) and Campbell (3rd half-orc fighter longbow specialist, only the second bow specialist in party history and the first one to be taller than the Halflings). [Also Alan and Rhonda’s first time playing in THIS instance of Wizard Mountain… welcome to death and destruction!]It should be noted that this party is all-infravision, so we didn’t use lights except when needed to examine things. Standish reminded everyone that he had a giant-slaying backup magic longsword (yes, Halacar is still using a normal falchion…) and that we should fight some giants. Also, that we were supposed to retrieve another giant’s lost etched sword, so we should be on the lookout for that.
After examining options (we hadn’t played in 6 years, so give us a break here), we decided to fill in a few corridors from our map. We debated some options but eventually settled on checking out a trio of unmapped passages off of an entrance mostly marked by a stream flowing out of it. The stream flowed out into the swamp around the entryway, and inside there was room to walk around it or through it (it wasn’t very deep).
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Because no sooner had we exited town then we encountered the dragon. Again.
The dragon came swooping down on us and we punted the extremely fat cow we always drag with us, hoping the dragon would take the bait. At least initially it did not, and it circled the party.
Unfortunately at this moment, the fleeing Browork and Tiberius began to sink into quicksand. Rather than fighting it they decided to burrow in deeper and hide. It looked like Tiberius was a goner, but suddenly the dragon changed its mind and went for the easy prey. SWOOSH! The cow was gone.
The party decided not to return and repurchase a cow, assuming that the dragon was probably full for a bit.
We passed through the swamp and entered the stream-filled cave. Taking the first left into an unmapped corridor no more than a few feet from the entrance, we almost immediately ran into something. Several beanbag shaped things surged out of the water and came at the party!
Tiberius immediately dropped a sleep spell, nailing three of the things, as it turned out (and later preserving some nice skins…) The giant frogs swarmed at the front and sides of the party. Halacar and Standish engaged the front line, tearing through frogs (particularly Standish). Tiberius moved to engage but Browork took the lead and attacked in a probably fairly irrelevant attempt to protect Tiberius. Campbell mowed down frogs left and right. It was all going great. Virtually no damage was taken.
Then Halacar’s falchion blew into a million pieces. [Thank you, 01 critical fumble!]
So for the rest of the adventure Halacar would be using his silver (and more easily breakable) falchion.
The frogs were dispatched in short order, and Brigling recalled that such skins could be very valuable, and skinned 4 of them (plus some scraps for dinner).
The end of the corridor was fairly uninteresting, and we walked back out to the main path to assess the second unmapped corridor.
We came upon a large boulder door.
Brigling determined that the door was trapped, but with a simple noisemaker that he felt he could disarm. We decided to do so and not precast silence or other spells, although Browork and Tiberius were holding prayer and bless respectively. The trap appeared disabled, and the other four party members (mainly the buff Standish) pulled the door aside on the first (?) try.
A strange fog rolled out of the room, encompassing the corridor in fairly impressive darkness. The guard dog growled and backed up, anticipating something strange.
But nothing came out.
We decided to charge in. Browork and Tiberius cast their spells and the party marched in.
And great nastiness descended upon the party.
An invisible fifteen feet tall giant backstabbed Browork from behind. The results should have been truly horrendous for the dwarf, but thanks to a) his field plate armor, and b) the prayer, he took only substantial damage [19 points and a triple wound] and was relatively healthy as the party turned to face its attacker.
Weirdly, the giant was only 20% visible even after the backstab and was already fading away.
Standish grinned and drew out his sword of nastiness vs. giants. Browork and Tiberius began casting cure light spells. The giant faded away, but not before Standish and Halacar reached him. The Halfling poked him a bit, but Standish’s attack was brutal, shearing open a significant portion of the giant and opening a wound [35 points, I believe!]. Brigling missed on his first backstab but tried to follow the giant’s movements. Campbell shot the thing, but it still didn’t appear very injured, and it vanished. The giant slipped away before we could catch it, but we decided to chase after it immediately, Browork stopping to cure himself a final time. The party was in pretty good shape overall.
But the fog appeared to roll all the way out into the swamp, blocking even the sun from shining! This is where I wished that Browork had dispel magic in memory. His other third level spell would prove useful in any case…
The giant had left a blood trail and the dogs could certainly track it, and Campbell had tracking skill as well, so Standish and Campbell led the group to chase after the giant. Moments later a rock came sailing from nowhere and crashed straight into the unfortunate Tiberius, dropping him almost dead instantly. Browork immediately stopped to drop a death’s door while the others continued on after the
giant.
Another rock sailed at Browork but missed, probably thanks to the shield that he had borrowed from Standish.
The main party continued tracking, and couldn’t seem to find the giant.
Browork dropped a cure light and brought Tiberius up to consciousness [2 hp] and they mutually decided that Tiberius should continue to play dead. Browork dragged the “body” to the cave entrance (and left the guard dog Percy guarding him) and moved out to rejoin the party when he heard the sound of battle rejoined…
…which it had been. The giant had appeared out of nowhere (mostly uninjured again, probably due to a potion of healing or something) once more to go straight for Standish. A massive backstab on Standish could have discouraged the angry fighter, but it did not, and he struck back. Unfortunately he missed repeatedly, as did the unlucky backstabbing Brigling, who in fact NEVER hit during the combat [at this point Katherine became rather outraged with her dice, for good reason]. Halacar kept jabbing at the giant from the side, poking relentlessly. Standish continued to fight but was slowly falling. Campbell pumped arrows into the giant as fast as she could.
The giant (who was still 80% invisible this whole time) slammed Standish twice more, and had clearly decided to stand and fight, or at least was completely obsessed with eliminating Standish, and the fighter dropped. At this point, Browork and shortly after Tiberius arrived, and Browork dropped a cure light on Standish. The fighter continued to play dead in the reeds.
Quote from Standish via Edwin: “You’re not gonna kill me! My dog is!”
The giant finally turned his focus on someone else… Halacar. He managed to hit the poor Halfling three times in a row, but the little armored tank [Halacar wears full plate +2 with 42 hp] just wouldn’t die [in fact he was barely down to half]. But the giant had forgotten about Standish.
The fighter didn’t get up, but simply jabbed his sword at the giant’s foot, inflicting horrendous wounds and sending the giant screaming in pain.
Browork then dropped a lucky light spell, blinding the giant! It turned to stagger away. And then things really sucked for it. Halacar, Standish, Browork, and Campbell all hit the giant for a combined 60 points of damage. The thing dropped like a wet brick.
The treasure recovery was simple but heavy, thanks to Brigling’s assessment. Browork identified the giant as a cloud giant, which made sense. The giant’s sword was in fact silver-chased, but far too huge to belong to the other giant, and it didn’t glow either. But it turned out to be worth 1000 gp, so no complaints. The giant had 1000 pp on him, as well as his armor, which turned out to be white dragon armor!
We cut off the head and stuffed it in our very large bag of holding and headed back to town, although we did check out the lair and re-shut the boulder door before doing so. When we got back to town we found out that the cloud giant was one of two bandits that were raiding ships, and there was a 2500 gp reward for each! Score! And good that we didn’t run into the other one! (Or did we… who knows who threw those boulders?)
After blowing money on armor resizing we managed to make the white dragon armor Standish-sized, which is cool, as it is AC 1/ AT 4, magical, and makes the user immune to cold (in all forms, damage or ambient), as well as being +2 for ALL saving throws (300 cw, 9” movement rate).
Standish’s banded+1 was transferred to Tiberius. Halacar bought a new falchion, and Campbell replaced her lost arrows.
Then we went back to check out the giant’s lair the very next day. On the way out we were attacked by a giant spider, which went after Browork. It missed him, Browork fumbled drawing a free attack (miss) and then everyone else killed it. Yay.
The giant’s cave appeared to be untouched on our return. The door was still shut. We entered and found a large dome cave, that must have until recently been cooled somehow (perhaps by the mysterious fog?). To the left we found a refrigerator room with 9 huge fish hanging from the ceiling, stabbed with swords from above. It was clear they would go bad soon if we didn’t haul them somewhere.
To the right was a woodland scene tapestry (50’ in diamater), and a bear rug.
Straight ahead was another boulder door. Behind it was the treasure room… an assembly of goods weighing excess of 100,000 cw, mostly not worth very much except collectively.
Behind the tapestry Brigling spotted another trap door, but this time the trap was set to go off from the OTHER side (suggesting that this was the emergency backdoor escape hatch).
We decided to head back to town with as much loot as we could carry (7 out of the 9 fish and 100 cw of uncarved ivory plus the rug). We found a tribal lizardman had ALREADY skewered the cow and he ran off.
Oh well.
We returned to town uneventfully and convinced a merchant company to pay us to retrieve their stuff and provide mules and drovers (or expenses covered in any case). In the end we returned without a fight and actually got not only the 5000 gp reward but a few extra hundred gp profit from our expense account, as we skimped a little on some of the drovers (hiring fighters with drover skill instead in addition to actual drovers) and lost none of the pack mules.
In the end it was a good haul. The tapestry and the rug were both heavily damaged by moisture but were worth a few hundred gp each. The seven fish fetched a combined 2900 gp (including the exotic greenbelly worth 900), and the ivory was worth 500 gp.
In the end, we were up to the tune of 10000 gp. But we had not yet trained, and XP was delivered:
Tiberius -- 2752 cleric/2945 mage
Campbell -- 6961
Browork -- 7153
Halacar -- 7511
Brigling -- 6833
Standish – 8528
Tiberius trained to 3rd mage and 3rd cleric, gaining 4 hp to stand at 14, and mirror image.
Campbell trained to 4th fighter, gaining 13 hp to stand at 43!
Standish trained to 7th fighter, gaining 11 hp to stand at 74!
And Halacar was 180 XP short of 7th level. Doh!
[Browork is 15000 XP short of 7th level, not sure where Brigling stands.]
Rather than adventure out to the mountain, Halacar decided to enter the arena as a gladiator. He was offered the option of fighting to the death, or fighting under at least the pretense of a rescue (but being heavily penalized in XP and payment upon success). He threw caution to the winds…
Halacar faced Zorbal the bandit! Standish bet against him, as is traditional. Halacar stepped out in studded leather with an OH SO CHEAP falchion, while the bandit appeared with a broadsword and studded leather armor.
The combatants went at it! The crowd roared as Halacar attempted to sing taunts at Zorbal, who just grimaced and attacked. But Zorbal was VERY high level, as it turned out. Oops.
Halacar could not seem to hit Zorbal in the early going, and his extreme toughness was the only thing keeping the fight even. Finally Halacar got going and began to injure Zorbal, but it was looking bad. Then Halacar went on a streak (and the crowd clearly seemed in favor of Zorbal, who was fighting for his life to get another week before being challenged to the death again). In the end Halacar came within one or two swings of dropping the bandit, but his luck ran out, and Zorbal dropped him to the ground!
It looked to be the end for Halacar as Zorbal turned to the crowd for a thumbs up or down. Halacar’s natural charisma was insufficient (Zorbal’s was even higher!) but then Campbell managed to whip the crowd into a frenzy and saved the poor bleeding Halfling!
Zorbal left a gold coin on each of Halacar’s eyes as he stomped off triumphantly. Halacar was paid 20 gp and gained 30 XP. He donated the (22 gp) money in shame to the party coffers.
Then he sought out a “slightly easier” duel, versus a great ogre. This time Standish bet for him. This fight was more straightforward. Halacar emerged from the stands with four huge sausages tied to his back. He tried to undo them, but ran out of time when the ogre charged at him (it was faster than the poor Halfling anyway…). The ogre came at Halacar and missed, who then dove in and stabbed the ogre twice, wounding the beast. But the ogre struck back and nailed Halacar, wounding him as well, and holding him at bay for several minutes…
But eventually the ogre missed again, and the bleeding but still relatively strong Halacar moved in and struck brutally at the ogre twice more. This time the beast missed and Halacar finished the job! Triumph! Halacar tore off a bit of cloth from the ogre and used it as a headband, smiling triumphantly and subtly applying his healingx2 to the wound…
He gained 204 XP and 100 gp (again donated to Larry) from the fight, and trained to 7th level, gaining a (max) 15 hp to stand at 80!
And last but most importantly, Crusher the Goblin stepped out for his duel. He had fought one other battle in our absence, and was now allowed a short sword and chainmail. He faced off against a bandit with studded leather. He slashed and immediately injured the bandit, who missed. Then Crusher leapt at him and dropped him to stable consciousness!
Crusher turned to the crowd for a thumbs-up or down, and the bandit made an amazing charisma roll and was spared… but Crusher failed his wisdom check.
The goblin leapt bloodthirstily and finished off the poor bandit messily.
He was then given a pair of throwing daggers on a belt for his next bout. Crusher is now 14-0!
Standish bid correctly in ALL THREE fights. Way to go! I think. Halacar may never forgive himself for this (and is clearly indebted to Campbell, when finds out…)
In the end, after all expenses (training, armor repair, equipment, spells) the party ended up down 552 gp in cash for the adventure, but up the white dragon armor and several levels and spells, so it was deemed a great success. In addition this is only after the party donated 1684 gp to the Larry Consortium, who used 2000 gp to pay back Standish and Brigling half of their debts. Halacar and Standish split the other 552 gp loss. So in the end we ended up slightly in the black as a party cashwise, and certainly in better shape…
The final party roster:
Halacar, F7, 80 hp
Standish, F7, 74 hp
Campbell, F4, 43 hp
Browork, C6, 41 hp
Brigling, T7, 39 hp
Tiberius, M3/C3, 14 hp
May it not be another 6 years!
Joel/Halacar/Browork
Felix, 10th level dwarven fighter, 100 hp, played by Alex
Rathbane, 7th/6th level dwarven fighter/cleric (Clangeddin), 54 hp, played by Katherine
Hendel, 9th level dwarven thief, 52 hp, played by Joel
Gates, 8th level dwarven cleric (Moradin), 52 hp, played by Aaron
Donald, 9th level coastlander mage, 48 hp, NPC
Aral, 2nd level Northerner woodsman, 27 hp, henchman of Felix
[Events of 31 Dec 08 – 01 Jan 09 in Manhattan; Telvar date: January 2190]
(Joel’s and Aaron’s first game in over a year, since Superstar! Written mostly on the train from New York to Rochester…)
The very first thing we did was update characters (eyesight, weight, height) and gained XP from the last two sessions, which was something on the order of 6000-8000 for the main characters and something small for the frequently dead Aral). Aral has enough to advance to 3rd level but because of game-world time constraints that soon arose, he remained at 2nd level for the adventure.
We gave up My Little Ponyslayer (hooved beings – slaying longsword), 2 +1/+1 quality shortswords, dagger +1, and two repeating crossbows. Rathbane is carrying the dangerous three elemental globes, and Felix has the Soul Brooch (that absorbs level draining attacks). With that bit of logistics resolved…
When we last left our intrepid group of ruins explorers, searching for treasures long forgotten and generally thought best left undisturbed (by the non-voting inhabitants of the region) the Party of Felix decided to go into the earthsblood industry.
Recall that the dwarves of the minisicule but unbelievably wealthy fortress kingdom of Arala had hired Felix and company to explore the caverns below to discover what creatures had moved into the ancient dwarven tunnels. In the process we discovered a wealth of partially intact machinery run by an oil-like substance known as earthsblood.
The trouble began immediately when the appearance of this old technology brought up the millennia-old rivalry among the dwaves about technology versus hand-tools (magic vs. technology had been an even older schism that led to the creation of the evil beardless dwarves). Almost all the current Arala dwarves (and for that matter, nearly all dwarves period) condemn technology, believing that it led to laziness and contributed to the downfall of the dwarven empires.
About 2000 years ago, a splinter group of about 200 dwarves from the then much larger but still small Arala kingdom (then about 3000 dwarves, currently 300) found some of the machines in Arala that had been lost and decided to revive the technology and went looking for a source of earthsblood. These dwarves, known as the Kagu, left the kingdom (and in fact were exiled) and disappeared into the depths of a constantly smoking but non-erupting volcano known as
[not sure; Little Tempestuous?] in the Yatil Mountains just south of the Cromwellian border (about a weeks’ journey).
In light of arguments that Felix’s group made in favor of the use of technology, the king used a legal trick. He made a formal request from the sage for the identified materials from the ruins, which would take 90 days to process, thereby giving the party a window in which to explore for more information on technology and earthsblood in general. Despite lukewarm at best support from Arala (the sage was mildly interested), Felix decided that the potential political turmoil this would cause would ultimately fall by the wayside when the machines were back in use.
The party decided to follow the path of the Kagu into the volcano in the glacier and see if there were any remnants of either the dwarves or their machines. The ice had shifted over time, so we knew that the exact entrance would likely no longer exist, but we felt we could explore the area and find a way in.
Given our time constraints we didn’t bother to prepare much additional firepower for the trip (our scroll library was in good shape) and we set off as soon as we could after the king’s request was filed. We left Arala on January 16th, 2190. Happy New Year. Dwarven New Year is very glum.
We flew to the Crevasse in style, using Donald’s elegant /spell flying feat spell (which makes any large flat surface weighing less than 900 pounds fly). We were shielded from the weather with /spell endure cold and hellhound cloaks. Aral was forced to give up the /spell boots of kicking for more applicable crampons like the rest of the party had.
Amazingly we had no encounters on the five-day journey there. We came up on the Crevasse in the freezing fog and began to search for tunnels in the glacier that would originally have been made by a large remorhaz (polar worm). Actual remorhazes are very dangerous to battle because of their tendency to incinerate party members and their magic items.
Almost immediately we spotted three tunnels above the Crevasse floor, with worn staircases built into the ice wall. We decided that the ones that looked the newest were likely frost giant outposts or something similar and thus less likely to lead to ancient dwarven ruins. We knew that the frost giant kingdom was somewhere very deep within the glacier, but they likely had no more than a few outposts in this area.
We sent Hendel up under cover of /spell silence to explore the most damaged/weathered passage. He snuck inside and almost immediately discovered a large number of creatures that had clearly been killed by a remorhaz. He called the rest of the party up and Aral determined that there were no recent tracks. The creatures were a mix of gnolls and frost giants. However, something had clearly been here more than a year ago; the bodies had been looted and partially dug out of the ice.
We continued down the cave and quickly found ourselves confronted by a deliberately collapsed ice wall at the back. Hendel determined that the wall was about twenty feet thick, and the party decided to use /spell wall of fire spells to melt the ice dramatically. The party failed to account for the massive amounts of steam this would bellow into the chamber and Crevasse, and so initially the party was incapacitated from the heat. The second time we decided to use /spell endure heat, which solved the problem. The third /spell wall of fire was sufficient to get us through.
Ready for a fight, the party was immediately set upon by a pair of ice spiders. One of them took a swipe at Gates, but they were dispatched in short order without damaging anyone. In the spiders’ lair was a room full of dead creatures, some humanoids but mostly large rodent-like creatures. The party retrieved 30 frost giant gp.
There were three tunnels leading out of the spiders’ lair. The leftmost branch had had no recent tracks in it and quickly led to a room with a single dead gnoll and a broken door.
The rightmost branch we never actually took. Mysteries abound.
The center branch eventually hit a T. Going left we had to burn through several webs, and eventually reached a large room...
…with a baby remorhaz! Fortunately it was just waking up as we arrived; I say fortunate because as it turned out the stomach took a while to charge up to full heat. The party decided to take full advantage of this. Also on our side was the fact that we were already flush with /spell endure heat spells.
Rathbane drank the /spell potion of stone giant strength and charged forward. Felix advanced and Hendel took a few shots. Gates dropped a spiritual hammer (missing) and Aral nailed it with his mega-crossbow. The thing came fully awake as Donald nailed it with /spell improved magic missile and Hendel and Felix reached the creature, instigating a quite unimpressive combat with four fumbles (including one by the remorhaz) in three segments, inducing two free attacks! Fortunately the creature just wasn’t very strong ( a mere hundred points of damage) and it went down under a hail of blows from Felix and Rathbane in short order.
Hendel’s love of carving open stomach cavities proved beneficial as the party recovered a 100 gp garnet from the worm’s stomach, although Donald blew the alchemy check to recover some components. We also found 230 frost giant gp from the various bodies in the room, some of which appeared to have been killed by something much larger than a baby remorhaz. The 230 gp, for example, came off of the top third of a frost giant. Yuck.
We took the other part of the T and came to a five-way intersection. The two leftmost passages appeared to have been trod by booted giant feet, so we took the first rightmost passage. Eventually it led to an icy cave where the only exit was fifteen off the ground.
This seemed like a simple enough task, and Hendel confidently climbed the fifteen feet and was promptly swallowed whole by a white mouth, and spewed out (thank you /spell ring of bad taste). He tumbled through the air and landed on the ground below (taking 8 points of falling damage!).
Hmmm.
This time Felix and Hendel charged up the cliff face ready to attack, when they discovered a large ice toad awaiting them! It was yelling in some weird tongue at the party. We tried various languages, and once again the ever-useful Guardian Naga came in handy…
“Get out of my house.”
Straightforward enough. But Hendel’s ego was bruised. We tried the diplomatic approach. “You owe us some information for that whole trying-to-eat-me thing.”
Surprisingly it worked. The ice toad, despite being antagonistic, told us a bit about the passages. There were apparently several other toads around, and in addition an “air giant.” We suspect that referred to the leftmost passages at the five-way intersection… could it have been a cloud giant?
We also asked if there was a passage to the volcano – it pointed us to the remaining untaken passage from the five-way intersection.
Chiaro shouted from a void: “Find out more about the ice toad!” Hendel suggested to Felix that he try a Detect Evil/Good from Peacemaker. The results were interesting. Felix detected evil, and then was instantly blinded by a flash of movement. The ice toad appeared to blink forward, appear in front of Felix, shove him off the cliff, and then blink back, all instantly. Felix took falling damage.
“GET OUT!”
We decided to leave.
We took the passage and found a downward shaft about 100 feet deep with warm air rising out of it. We dropped a /spell continual light coin to the bottom where it vanished into something. We climbed down as a party and reached an awful stench. It appeared we were descending into a cistern. Was the ice toad messing with us?!
Apparently not. We managed to swing over away from the piles of feces and were promptly attacked by a carrion crawler. Hendel, who was the initial target, sprang out of the way and let it go after Felix, who took one small hit and resisted the paralysis. The creature was killed instantly.
Poking at the pile of feces revealed nothing interesting, including the light coin, which we speculated would be a bizarre surprise for anyone searching the pile.
There were two exits from the bottom, one of which had many tracks, and the other of which had none. We took the tracked direction first.
We soon entered a huge cavern with a finely built citadel in it. It appeared to be of dwarven manufacture, if dwarves were ten feet tall. Hendel was invisible thanks to Felix’s ring, and he snuck forward and spotted, across a huge river of lava, a single fire salamander standing guard. There was no apparent connection between this side and the other. In the citadel were in fact a pair of giant dwarves! Donald had no idea what they were.
We backed off and decided to hold off dealing with these people and headed down the unused passage. The corridor quickly led to a mushroom forest. At this point we weren’t sure which path to take. Which was more likely to yield information about the dwarves? Strangely we decided to walk into the mushroom forest.
As we walked through the mushroom forest we began to notice that various creatures were scampering around the edges of our vision. We decided to camp, and switched to infravision. It immediately became clear that they were giant crickets.
We camped and waited. Eventually a party of giant walking mushrooms came up to us. A single red mushroom came forward and showered Felix with spores. One-by-one they showered each of the party in turn. Gates and Aral deliberately resisted (and only Gates succeeded); the rest of the party let the spores take them, and knew no more. Gates pretended to be taken and went along with the party as the mushrooms marched us deeper and deeper into the forest. Eventually they came to a cave with large numbers of mushrooms that began to dance. The party danced with them and Gates played along until he was starting to get exhausted, whereupon he stopped dancing. He was immediately grabbed by some giant mushroom people and showered with spores that knocked him out.
Gates awoke back at the campsite. He dusted himself off and charged back to follow the party, but found the corridor blocked by two fungus-zombified humanoids and he set off a shrieker mushroom alarm. Thinking of the numerous ten-foot tall mushroom guards down below, he decided to return to camp and await the party. The party appeared about four hours later, unconscious and being carried by mushrooms. About four hours later the party awoke refreshed, and remembered only hazily what had happened.
There had been some communication; the mushrooms discovered what they wanted to know from us (we were not a threat) and told us a very small amount about what we wanted to know, essentially boiled to “we can’t help you” and “find roots in the earth and be happy”. Nevertheless we sensed that the mushroom people were not peaceniks, but in fact quite willing to snuff out the party if they sensed a threat. In any case, they were correct; we were not going that way.
At this point with few other options we debated using detection spells to determine the nature of the giant dwarves, but ultimately we just decided to go with the least deceptive method and simply walk up to them. Felix approached and hailed them in dwarven. He saw a single creature at the top of the citadel who responded to us in a language we didn’t understand. After emphatically gesturing and checking common languages (but avoiding evil humanoid languages), Gates came forward and after hiding behind Felix, cast a /spell tongues spell.
The creatures identified themselves as “Azer.” One of them was playing with a ball of lava in his hands, and Hendel astutely concluded that they were rather fire resistant. We indicated that we wanted information about the area and possibly about other creatures like us that may have passed through. They asked what was in it for them, and Gates offered what he thought was a lowball 300 gp bribe. To his surprise they instantly accepted it and told us that a group of dwarves had passed this way down the lava river (!) in a stone boat that they had built with the Azer’s permission. The fire salamder, whose name was Khalid, was referred to only as “a jerk” but it was mentioned that the had many siblings or relatives that he could pull forward in the event of an attack. The Azer were unconcerned with what was beyond their large cave. The Azer were initially defensive and we had to assure them that we had no hostile intent on their territory, and refused to tell us if they had contact with others of their race.
During the entire conversation the Azer had been arrogant and rather demanding of visual surrender, but otherwise cooperative. We asked about rubies for /spell firewalk components (thinking it was the easiest way to follow the dwarves) and the Azer said they could obtain some given a week or so, but eventually they offered to build us a stone boat for another 300 gp, which would take two days, which just seemed like a more feasible plan.
We agreed, and were about to leave, when suddenly an ogre came running out from the fortress, yelling, “I’m enslaved! Help me!” The giant on the wall smirked, and hurled a rock which dropped the ogre to the ground, apparently still alive. The party shrugged and wandered back.
A couple of days later we came back to find the boat finished on the shore of the lava river. We spent a very long time figuring out a routine by which /spell endure fire spells could be chain cast on the party and also combined with /spell resist fire in such a way that the party would not be destroyed if a single burst fire effect removed all of our /spell endure fire. Eventually Gates and Rathbane took turns spellshifting as the boat moved at a hilariously slow rate down the lava river.
Just as we set out, the fire salamander Khalid, being a malevolent sort, threw flaming rocks at us, bashing them off Felix.
Jerk.
We set off down the river, and after about 10 hours, things suddenly got interesting. The lava began to burble, and eventually we saw that an eddy had formed in the middle of the river, which would suck in the boat! We considered options but ultimately the best thing was for Donald to plant a /spell wall of force that would divert our boat around the eddy.
A bit later on we entered a large cavern full of geysers shooting rocks in the air. At this point we tried to steer away with a /spell stoneshaped oar created by Rathbane, but Gates rather ineptly steered rather close to the geyser of lava. This resulted in unfortunate things happening to our protection spells as everyone other than Gates was nailed by flaming rocks!
The official term was designated “lava loogies.”
Gates—“Wow, you guys sure got the worst of that, huh?”
We rapidly replaced the protections with more /spell endure heats and continued on.
Next we were jumped by a fire elemental! The creature nailed Hendel and Felix athough all this did was cost them their fire protection, causing them to slow-cook and requiring even more spells from the poor clerics. The fire elemental was quickly destroyed.
Fortunately we made it past the remaining geysers without incident, and eventually came to a large shore, containing a larger stone boat that had clearly been there for some time. The party got off and a xorn (weird earth elemental creature) phased through the rock wall and approached us!
It told us that some other people had paid it not to tell us about them, although it was originally confused because we “looked too similar.” It seemed we were on the right track. The xorn also mentioned the presence of a portal to the Elemental Plane of Earth. We paid it to go away for 20 gp worth of gems, which brought our bribe expenditures to EXACTLY the amount of treasure we had found on the adventure. Yay for efficiency.
We found a single corridor off the shore, but it dead-ended after a short while. A search for secret doors and traps failed to find anything at the end of the corridor, and so we turned around and went back home.
Just kidding.
We found a secret passage at the close end of the corridor, and Hendel opened it to reveal a small chamber with a second similarly hidden door at the far end. The door itself slid up into the ceiling like a garage door, although there was some /spell stoneshape required to free it.
We pulled a bellpull that was hanging from the ceiling and the back door closed behind us, while the far door opened to reveal a vast chamber. Inside was a 120’ empty square room that we passed through. When we walked into the center of it, a large section of the far wall opened (8x30’ door!) and a hemispherical metal droid thing came whirring out at us.
First it rotated a turret toward Felix and plugged him with four crossbow bolts, although only one actually hit him. Next it sprayed the party with an enormous cloud of steam! This would have done horrible things to the party but the /spell endure heats mostly soaked it, other than in the case of Felix, who took half-damage based on the /spell resist fire.
Hendel decided not to wait and charged onto the top of the giant roomba. At this point it tried to spin fast to shake him off, and he clung to it for dear life rather than attacking it. Donald fired a /spell magic missile at it for unclear effect. It nonetheless easily threw Hendel across the room and he slammed into the far wall, where he slid down with a broken limb.
At the point the party heard dwarven voices!
Hendel yelled, “Turn it off!”
A dozen dwarves came out of a side passage and ran forward. “Did you hurt it?” they questioned as the creature suddenly stopped moving. “It hurt ME!” Hendel shot back.
They pretty much ignored the party initially and hovered over the machine, examining it. Eventually a female dwarf came out and introduced herself as Gisteld, leader of the Plumline Clan. It appeared that we had somehow found our quarry, and they were still alive and kicking.
After some initially awkward introductions, the Plumline clerics came forward and healed us of our remaining damage. They were quite welcoming considering the situation and we ended up staying in one of their guesthouses, getting a full tour of their fortress and situation.
We had to assure them that we were coming in peace because of their initial dismay at the sight of us. They had been assured that they would be left alone by Arala (two thousand years ago). When we told them that there was some renewed interest in machines, they became much more friendly.
This truly was the remnant of the Kagu, and Gisteld was the daughter of the last leader. They were down to about a hundred dwarves and the machine that attacked us (called a borzog) had only been activated once before in their history, when an evil mage and gnoll servants had attacked the colony looking for earthsblood, or perhaps for the elemental plane portal. It used about 5% of their total supply of earthsblood to activate the creature.
The dwarves seemed quite content with their situation in general; the location provided everything they needed – earthsblood, pure water from the glacier, and heat from the volcano for forging.
They had small and dwindling supplies of earthsblood because their main supply of about 90 barrels was denied them by a swarm of earth elemental creatures – strange rock spider/crystal spider type creatures. The dwarves had sealed the passage to the creatures with nasty glyphs.
They were building a second borzog, and other machines like fire catapults, auto-crossbow traps, and a central engine that was actually modified from a subway train-style machine. The central engine had actually been the cause of Gisteld’s father’s demise, in an explosion, and they had put up a blast curtain for protection. They had slowly deciphered the advanced texts that they possessed (Felix had acquired one in the previous mission but the sage had been unable to decipher it in any useful way). Felix had volume 30, while the dwarves had volumes 1 and 7. Their gear was Arala quality, ie. Strewn with mithril and adamantite almost carelessly.
At this point, many questions remain? What should the party do about this situation? Can the party clear out the crystal spiders and free the 90 barrels worth of earthsblood, plus the 1 barrel/decade drip which would provide a tiny but sustainable supply? How will the Aralan dwarves react to this new knowledge?
Find out when Alex returns from Sweden!
Questions for dwarves:
-What machines can you build? How long could the subway run on the 90 barrels?
-How did the earth elementals attack, when how many, how powerful are they? Are they sentient? can ESP work on them? Can they move through stone?
Questions for sages or Communes:
-Is the conflux of elemental vortexes required for earthsblood generation? Where else would we find this?
Joel/Hendel
Aaron/Gates
Hmmph. Some of the Thieves summary appears to be missing.
Basically, the Thieves talked to the Bag Staff, trying to convince them that they were the Park Staff, but the Bag Staff was not deceived. Then, they attempted to steal stuff from the Bag Staff (stuff that fallen down closer to the lake, not at the top of the cliff) and then make a quick escape. While doing so, they were observed by the Bag Staff, and the Bag Staff threw various things at us from atop the cliff. Including various animals from a deck of magical cards.
Meanwhile, various things were loaded in the credenza, and the Thieves escaped with a few things, having suddenly been attacked by the Barrel of Monkeys dumped open by the Bag Staff.
The credenza then turned into a fly and pursued us. Stoofer, Andy's thief, threw a Token of Dessert Bakery at the fly, killing it instantly and dumping its valuables, including spellbooks on the ground amidst the remains of the credenza.
The Thieves made a bee-line for the wall out, experimented with a wrong token (Boulder) before the right one (Passwall) and escaped. Then, they made their way to a Guild Safehouse where they laid low for a few months with the stuff they had stolen. Eventually, Yuri left and became a superhero. The others continued their life of crime.
Kyle=
Yuri [Katherine] got:
Spell book
Puzzle box
The Pickle Spear. It’s a great item for a thief to have, or a fighter/thief. Basically, you can get up close behind someone, and make like your going to stab them with the pickle, and then, it turns into a spear. For just an instant. A fairly viscious magic spear.
The Jester’s Bag which is essentially a Robe of Useful Items on crack. Instead of a Robe of Useful Items in which you can kind of tell what’s in all the pockets if you wear it for a few days, it’s full of completely useful items that you can only draw out once and they’re gone, but you have no idea what you’re going to pull out.
The Super Ball (artifact). It creates in its user an urge.... To become a superhero! Yuri eventually.... Starts to fly. Yuri eventually becomes immune... to non-magical weapons. And Yuri eventually gains a 19 strength. And a double movement rate. Yuri
does become strong as a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Neutral Thief [Andy] got:
Bag of tokens... 20 Tokens for a good-size Realmish town!
The Joke’s On You, also called The Floppy Sword – blue floppy sword that becomes rigid (+4?) when swung and makes a laughing sound at the same time. Basically it’s a totally stupid weapon. It’s not so great when normally swung. It fumbles a lot of time, but it never hurts you. It might get dropped and accidentally flip and do a lot of damage to someone near you. It will split and form jagged edges and injure people in the area. But then it will be back to its normal floppy self the next time you swing it. All the while laughing histerically. It basically has its own laugh track that increases in amplitude each time you swing and miss. It’s bright blue with a little bit of white trim.
Spell book Puzzle box
Other Thief [Kyle] got:
Soapstone Skunk Spell book Puzzle box Phantasm’s gear A great story
To walk away with his life?
Missed on the beach:
Killing Time, thumbscrews
Box of household tokens (furniture, ball of flame, towels, etc.)
Nurse shark named Bertha (E-vil, ends up in the pond below the tower) Robe of beans (beans for eating, stinking clouds you are immune too) Helm of will
Lost Chord harmonica
Destroyed:
Bag of juju beads (intent of the Spider conspiracy, destroying the minor gods) Minor gods destroyed: god of well-tended campfires, and some others
--Kyle
And Behind the Scenes: Arachnids?
A shadowy, concealed figure provided the necessary materials for the Plan to take place to the thief Phantasm immediately before the events of “Pocketing the Difference.”
Including strange, little tokens made out a weird, yellowish metal.
That other adventuring parties have encountered only in the hands (claws? chelicerae?) of the secretive Phase Spiders...
All this while a fateful battle has played out between the BLADES adventuring group and a duo of Spider conspirators, elsewhere in the Realm, in Botsweil, on the very same day.
Sounds very suspicious....
But then, we already know that the Spiders Win in the End.
Summary assembled by Kyle MacLea
Individual Summaries Written by Keith Nelson, Kathryn Snead,
Postlude: Wilhelm the Practical Joker
Wilhelm (Mage 20th) has made a lot of enemies due to his “jokes.” These include:
• Making it appear that the regional capital of Hortun was on fire when it wasn’t
• Making it rain copper pieces in the poor districts of a town while it rained dead
fish in the wealthy district
• Making the clothese of everyone in Hortun transparent for the middle half hour of
the traditional lunch hour
• Selling the dock district of the regional capital to a stupid water elemental prince
in exchange for a wish—then watching it “play” with the boats for 10 minutes before a contingent trigger spell dragged the prince back to the elemental plane of water
• Giving away talking chickens to everyone in town that begged to be eaten and exploded harmlessly 24 hours later if not cooked
• Etc., etc., etc.
Though a powerful Realmish citizen, Wilhelm had made a lot of enemies. (!)
Felix'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 seat of
dwarven power in the New World.
Felix, Dwarven King: dwarven fighter 10, hp 100, land-dragon scale armor, shield,
short sword +5 Peacemaker.
Donald, Future Ruler of the World: human mage 9, hp 48, indian head-dress, flow-
ing golden robe, hell-hound cloak, smoky quartz glasses, copper bracers and a gaudy
broach.
Hendel Hardaway, Preserver of Dwarven Wealth: dwarven thief 9, hp 52, dual
dagger, double-shot light cross-bow, bracers.
Gates Hardaway: dwarven cleric of Moradin 8, hp 52, banded mail, shield, shock
hammer.
Rathbane Hardaway, “Evenslate": dwarven fighter 7/cleric of Clanggedin 6, hp 54
plate-mail, bastard-sword Soul Mirror.
Aral: human woodsman 2, hp 27, banded mail, heavy cross-bows and dwarven hand
cannon, pointy slippers.
Background
The 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 seat of
dwarven power in the New World.
In a previous foray the party made its way, with little incident, through the
abandoned city below the occupied levels of Arala. After finding both the large
elevator shaft and the access shaft that presumably linked the abandoned city to
the tunnel, the party carefully opened the access shaft and descended. Well before
reaching the bottom of the access shaft the party encountered a complex where a
Spirit Naga who was using enslaved gnolls to mine garnets. The party slew the
naga and many of the workers and returned to Arala to train and drop off loot.
The Adventure
The city, or dancing in flames
While the abandoned city beneath Arala is almost entirely deserted, there are
some inhabitants. Indeed, as the party was traveling through the city they encoun-
tered a Frost Giant. As the creature started to shamble forwards it became clear
that there was something deeply wrong with the giant, and thinking “zombie",
or even worse, Gates and Rathbane attempted to turn the monster while Aral
proceeded to take careful aim with his hand-cannon. The clerics rapidly became
aware that, despite all appearances, the giant was not undead, and Aral fired. The
bolt struck true, and with effect, but ominously a yellow cloud spewed from the
wound.
Donald took several quick steps to the side and fired a Lightning Bolt, hitting
the giant twice, after which Felix and the giant engaged in melee, with Rathbane
rapidly reinforcing the front lines. The remaining fight was quick and one-sided,
but both Felix and Rathbane were covered in strange yellow spores that attempted
to burrow under their skin. Taking no chances, the two fighters removed their
armor and cleansed themselves of the threat by enduring a Fireball from the party
wizard. This therapy, while painful, proved effective.
Note: At the conclusion to the adventure, we queried the Arala sage. He informed us
that there are odd mushroom men who use some form of fungus to animate dead bodies
as guards. The giant we encountered was likely a rogue specimen of such, suggesting that
we passed near a mushroom man colony. The spores present no major threat to the living,
and would merely have unpleasant for perhaps a week.
While the casters slept in an abandoned house to regain spells and heal the
self-inflicted wounds, the people on watch saw two bugbear-like creatures pass.
These “bugbears" were of the right form, but of the wrong color: dark. They
were crudely equipped, one with a club, but pulling something not-unlike a child’s
wagon. The watch choose not to engage, and the “bugbears" fled.
Note: After more interactions with these “bugbears", Donald remembered some leg-
ends linking Drow elves to a race called the Quag which matched our impression of them.
In retrospect I have no idea how the probably-Quag got into the city. Both the elevator
shaft and the access shaft were well-sealed.
The access shaft, or exercises in claustrophobia
Upon arriving at the access shaft, the party opened it and started down the lad-
der. Eight hours later, long after the party passed the Naga’s complex (§2), they
arrived at a dismaying sight: the shaft was caved in. Hendel could tell that the
cave in was not accidental but rather the result of a trap, and so the rubble likely
wasn’t impossibly deep. Shuddering at the thought of spending days lifting rocks
however, the party retraced their steps and returned to an access door leading to
the main (elevator) shaft. Aral determined that the area had seen recent travel
and Hendel found two traps on the door: one, barely worth the name, was a few
blades attached to the handle. The second trap was a Glyph of some form. The
party attached a rope to Hendel and climbed further up the access shaft before the
thief attempted to disarm the door. The attempt was successful.
After regrouping, the party opened the door and a Magic Mouth went off,
speaking in a language clearly related to Dwarven. The party, unfortunately, could
not understand the message, but there clearly were people down below that could.
A Continual Light coin was dropped, revealing a circle of 8 stools filled by 8 of
the “bugbear"s 100 feet below. Interestingly, there was an extendible ladder
whose top was just outside of infravision range. The “bugbears", clearly pained
by the light, fled although Gates managed to confuse and delay two of them by
asking them in Dwarven to stay. Without a better way down, the party jumped,
getting Featherfalled by Donald before landing. In addition to the aforementioned
ladder and stools, the bottom of the main shaft was populated by a bizarre mix of
well engineered, crafted and maintained carts and wagons, and primitive camps.
The fight, or when Kraken attack
The room the party found itself in had exits: three huge archways that looked like
they all lead to the same place. As these were the exits the “bugbears" had made
use of, the party pursued. The party found itself in a large (150’ square), well
crafted room. The walls were indented with large cubby-holes that looked like
the underlying component to dwarven market stalls. On the left and right walls
were two balconies, without obvious accesses. The right quarter of the room was
a pool of water with a nice, albeit destroyed in the center, railing. On the far side
were two more huge archways facing those we had come through, and flanking
a grate: the ticket counter or information booth for the ancient dwarven tunnel
system? Perhaps of more immediate import, however, was the sound of fire-doors
clanging shut in all the obvious exits.
A deep voice, from the behind the left balcony (above land) told the party that
they didn’t know what they were interrupting. If they did know, they would un-
derstand, but they couldn’t be allowed to leave. Somewhat bizarrely, however, the
voice didn’t want to kill the party. He had a friend who would take us away. It was
at this point that Aral noticed the water starting to stir. The party opted to move
around the edges of the room to the left, to eventually get beneath the balcony.
Negotiations with the voice went nowhere, when a psychic voice started talking
to the party about how they were all going to be its slaves. On top of these events,
eight odd looking, spear wielding, slightly shiny and certainly wet gnolls came out
of the darkness from the water-side of the room and took up positions flanking the
party. Communication with the psychic voice went absolutely nowhere, and after
and Continual Light stone toss that revealed a giant armored squid-like creature
and a psychic strike on the party that everyone shook off, Rathbane used a token
of bridge to create a path from the corner of the room where the party was to the
balcony. The gnolls threw spears at Donald and Aral took a cross-bow shot at the
gnolls and the squid covered the light with a tentacle. No one managed to injure
their foe and the party crossed the bridge with the gnolls on their heels.
At the top, the party found a large iron door, which was not an original is-
sue fire-door. As Hendel studied the door for means to open it, Felix took up a
guard position on the bridge and Gates and Rathbane started spells. They would
both cast Prayer which Gates was to supplement with a Protection from Evil 10’
Radius and a Spiritual Weapon. While Felix, rapidly reinforced by Rathbane,
handily held the bridge against the gnolls, Hendel found that the door had no ob-
vious weaknesses and the party was struck again by psychic force. The veteran
dwarves and Donald shook off the effect, but Aral was not so lucky, and collapsed
in a despairing heap crying about how it all was hopless. The fight proceeded in
a somewhat bizarre fashion, with Felix and Rathbane slaying the gnolls (who
appeared to have fishlike skin, the source of the shininess) while Hendel threw
another Continual Light stone which Donald used to target a Lightning Bolt. Af-
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
out of the darkness and Donald dropped a Fireball on the squid, while the squid
opted to single out Felix for targeted psychic attacks, to no avail. The Fireball,
however, was exceptionally productive as in the light it cast the party could make
out two more Frost Giants. Those two Frost Giants appear to be extremely vul-
nerable to fire as the entire upper half of their skin was melted off.
Just as the Frost Giant reached the top of the bridge, it turned around and
headed back down. Felix and Rathbane failed to stop its retreat and the party
pursued back down the bridge. As the party reached the floor the psychic voice
called out, saying “These ones are dangerous. They are your responsibility", and
the party heard more splashing. The party heard some clattering from the iron
door and then a yellow fog formed on the balcony. Rathbane drank a potion
of Frost Giant Strength and the party, still uninjured physically, started back up
the bridge with Rathbane in the lead. As Rathbane reached the top, a large,
humanoid, two armed, bat winged creature stepped out of the cloud and breathed
flame on the entire party. Rathbane held it at bay with Soul Mirror and Felix
went for Mortal Coils, the set of shackles that strips the supernatural abilities
from extra-planar creatures and destroys them on death rather than letting them
flee to their home plane.
Felix managed to get the shackles on while the demon tore into him with a
claw/claw/bite routine. Hendel snuck behind the creature and thanks to the shack-
les blocking the demon’s psionic senses, delivered a pair of devastating back-
stabs. Rapidly, the demon abandoned his attacks and turned, trying to tear the
door off its hinges, while the party continued to hammer it with blade and spell
and Gates prepared to cure Felix . Realizing that escape was hopeless, the de-
mon turned at bay and ripped into Felix, rapidly dropping him just before Gates
dropped his first cure spell and started on his scroll. That, mercifully, was when
the demon was dropped. Remembering that slain demons were engulfed in major
explosions when the shackles destroyed them forever, the party, again, fled down
the bridge. Segments later, the door opened and a bearded dwarf stepped out,
brandishing a wand and claiming “Now I will destroy you all".
The party split up, Felix and Rathbane diving off to one side of the bridge
and the rest of the party the other. A heartbeat later, the dwarf launched a Fireball
from the wand, injuring the larger section of the party, and killing Aral outright.
The dwarf then went for a blue globe. Just as he raised it overhead, the demon
exploded. The dwarf saved, but the globe did not, and released an anrgy Wa-
ter Elemental. The elemental immediate took out its anger on the dwarf, hitting
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
gone, the foes had not yet run out of reinforcements. From the door several more
dwarves stepped out, armed with cross bows. A brief, largely ineffectual exchange
of missile fire occured while Rathbane , largely untouched, started back up the
bridge for the third time. Felix used a charge from the Shield of Healing, Don-
ald let off his final Lightning Bolt and Hendel began to climb the wall under the
balcony.
The exploding demon, Hendel’s crossbow and Donald’s Lightning Bolt had
slain three of the new dwarves. As Rathbane closed, the remaining three dwaves
went for their melee weapons: two were armed with pole-arms and the third with
paired short-swords. Rathbane held the short sword wielder at bay, but did not
injure him too greatly. Hendel attacked from behind, slaying one of the polearm
wielders outright while Gates killed the other with his Spiritual Hammer. The
short sword wielding dwarf brutalized Hendel before Felix closed, and then sur-
vived long to score hits on him before being taken down. The fight, at last, was
over.
Note: The wand wielding dwarf was in fact beardless. He had grown his hair long
and combed and braided it into a fake beard.
The lair, or when mad scientists go bad
The party, having been the recipient of several area attacks, was in poor shape.
The decision was made to turn Hendel invisible with the Ring of Invisibility, give
him the Wand of Trap/Secret Door detection and have him scout. In the first
room, directly past the (now open) iron door, the party found a bizarre workshop.
It seemed that the dwarves were working on some kind of poison gas traps, but
that wasn’t entirely clear. In the room, levers were found, some clearly marked
as controlling the fire doors. Further, there were three large black barrels The
room had two new exits, to stair-cases, one down and one up. Heading down,
Hendel found a large room with five more large black barrels and some combat
dummies. The room opened into a large tunnel with a pair of tracks running
down the center. To the left, the tunnel extending into the darkness, but to the
right Hendel rapidly came to the other set of large archways and an entrance into
the grate-room. Past those there was a very large construction in the tunnel, but
infravision was inadequate to characterize it. Returning, Hendel went up the stairs
and found a barracks with six bunks, the right count for the non-wand wielding
dwarves. Three of the chests by the beds were trapped, but the keys found on
the dwarves would bypass those traps and locks without difficulty. At the far end
of the barracks was another door, this one guarded both by a magical and by a
mechanical trap.
Judging that the dwarves were fully defeated and the the “bugbears" were
unlikely to return, the party advanced into the barracks and Rathbane Dispell
Magiced the door. Hendel bypassed the mechanical trap with keys found on the
savant and the party opened the door and found a demon worshipper’s dream
room. Beyond skulls, candles and other paraphernalia the party found a chest and
a desk drawer of interest, both magically and mechanically warded. This time
Gates did the Dispell honors and Hendel again opened them without difficulty.
Further, the party found a secret compartment with an small casket.
Note: Loot listed in §4.
On a table was a bizarre object. It seemed alchemical in nature, but Donald
could not place its purpose. An interesting feature was the wheels, which turned,
but were just too high for the object to run on. Another oddity was the contents
of the three barrels in the work-room (the five barrels below were empty): Earth’s
Blood. This rare alchemical component came, according to Donald’s knowledge
only from the kingdom of Empyrea in the Far World, which had been in con-
tact with the New World for a bare few decades, and was worth perhaps eight
thousand gp/barrel.
The “bugbears", or when the gods forgot the brains
After spell-shifting, the party figured that there was likely a mirror to the section
they were in that would end in the other balcony and so went to the tunnel and
headed in that direction. With light, the party could identify the construct on
the tracks as a massively scaled up version of the machine in the savant’s room.
Here, Donald could tell that there was another barrel’s worth of Earth’s Blood in
a tank in the machine, which was made both of an ancient, ancient base and new
construction and appeared nearly complete. Past the machine the party indeed
found a mirror image of the other complex, guarded by two “bugbears", with
whom communication proved impossible although Rathbane managed to anger
the pair by repeating their phrases back at them.
After retreating, Gates loaded Tongues and the party returned. I will spare you
the conversation, but let it be said that the “bugbears" did not impress with their
wits. They did, however, have the secret of the wheel. It turns out that the dwarves
had been paying the “bugbears" in food for scavenged ancient dwarven machinery
parts. Further, the party learned that towards the Cromwell side, the tunnel ended
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
machine, which their leader had been using as club and shield. To recover those
without a fight, and get the “bugbears" out of the way, the party bargained passage
outside and a few pole-arms and shield.
The party, with “bugbears" in tow then proceeded back up the access shaft to
the Naga’s lair. The “bugbears" started with an olio of bizarre objects, including
a dwarven fishbowl, but abandoned most of them on the way out. Upon entry to
the Naga’s lair, the “bugbears" became agitated, but upon the casting of another
Tongues spell, and being told of the Naga’s defeat, followed. At the exit, the
leader of the “bugbears" turned to Gates and asked “Snow?". Upon Gate’s agree-
ment, the “bugbears" ran their hands through their hair and along their arms and
turned white. The clearly not-bugbears then left, disappearing from sight almost
instantaneously.
Arala, or when politics raises its ugly head
The party proceeded back to Arala without incident, whereupon things went
weird. To keep this story from becoming overlong, it appears that the party had
indeed found the tunnel, ancient dwarven machinery and more, a technical man-
ual from the High Kingdom (which fell some twenty odd thousand years ago).
The machine and manual stirred up significant political issues, which resulted in
the party being sequestered (Aral was raised by the Aralian priests) while debate
raged. In sum:
The clan of the Aralian king (and perhaps other dwarven clans whose tradition
dates that far back) feel that the fall of the High Kingdom was due to over-reliance
on machines rather than hard work. As such, the Aralian king likely intends to de-
stroy the machine, the Earth’s Blood and the manual.
A further interesting note is that what records remain suggest that the machines
of the High Kingdom all required Earth’s Blood and that the fall of the High
Kingdom roughly coincided with the supplies of Earth’s Blood running dry. If
the party (as dwarven nobility) or Felix, as a dwarven king decide to attempt to
intervene, this suggests an obvious line of argument:
If the High Kingdom could not find an alternate fuel to keep the machines running,
than even if such machines are redeveloped there is no way to produce or use
enough to fundamentally alter dwarven society and make it weak. If, instead,
the supplies of Earth’s Blood have regenerated, then likely divine intervention
occurred, and it would be wise to query the Gods before destroying what might
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
be divinely inspired.
Note: On a more mundane note, the sage believes that the “slime people" the Quag
mentioned might be the same fish-scaled creatures we encountered with the Squid. He
noted that every few decades adventures claim encounters with underground squid that
enslave people. People familiar The Stone Soules might recognize similarities with the
experiences of The Dozen.
Loot
Note: I took the loot list with me to enable writing this section. Accordingly, this is the
only player record of the loot.
6, 940 gp worth of assorted coin, gems and jewelry.
3 repeating dart cross-bows. These are designed to carry poisoned bolts, making
them slower to load.
2 +1/ + 1 quality short swords.
Dagger +1
Longsword +0/+4 and double damage vs hooved beings. I believe it is unnamed.
If so, may I suggest My Little Ponyslayer?
Angry fire, air and earth elementals in globes (1 each). Tricky to transport, and no
way to control said elementals.
Wand of Fireballs, 11 charges, command word unknown.
Soul Broach, originally could absorb up to 9 level drains or death attacks. 4
charges remaining.
Potion of Climbing.
Full Size spellbook (Death Servant magic). To be destroyed or handed over to
people for anti-demon research.
11 vials magic ink.
5 10 cn. mithril bars.
3 alchemical book preservation boxes, 1 with a
∼ 20, 000 year old dwarven tech-
nical manual. Status of the later a matter of political debate.
11 dwarven alchemical barrels, 3 filled with Earth’s Blood. Also politically sen-
sitive.
Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel
Morty, 7th/6th human fighter/thief (bard), 74 hp, played by Jay
Bodkin, 5th level dwarven fighter, 49 hp, played by Katherine
Robynne, 5th level woodsman, 38 hp, played by Rhonda
Tarplin, 8th/5th elf druid/mage, 30 hp, played by Alan
Morhion, 3rd level Northerner Nevronian cleric, 28 hp, henchman of Balinor
Leo, 4th level human Nevronian cleric, 25 hp, played by David (Jay this time)
(Events of 3/15/08 in Charlotte; Game world November-December 2192)
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.
]]> The party had been lured into the trap by devious means. In an attempt to smooth over relations between the Keystone Kingdom and the nomadic Khargish kingdom, to maximize the impact of the return of the Khargish artifact the Bridle of Farin, BMT had been tapped for a series of “goodwill” missions. The first of these actually seemed like a goodwill mission: slaughter a pirate base. But the pirates were numerous and required a more involved attack plan than the other two missions, so we attempted those first. The second mission was to slay a group of Kharg that were particularly prominently infiltrated by wereboars. Wereboars, while not technically evil as such, are hyper-aggressive and very likely to stand in the way of the peace process. If the four wereboars on the council could be eliminated (and they were all from a particular Khargish village of approximately 60 Kharg, roughly half of which were wereboars), then the diplomatic mission might go much more smoothly.We developed plans for dealing with 30 hostile wereboars, but none of them would work until the rainy season began, and we still had a month of good weather remaining. The third mission seemed a simple diversion for experience and profit; defeat a group of six surprisingly organized grotto beasts and save the poor beleaguered Kharg who lived nearby.
The mission was offered to us directly by Duke Haermond of Barnacus, and we traveled out for several days toward Seapoint to meet up with our Khargish guides. The two Kharg led us to the lair of the grotto beasts, which strongly resembled the lair of an ogre mage. Ever cautious, we prepared for cones of cold, but as we approached it became apparent that the lair was ruined. Nevertheless we knew the grotto beasts were trying to trick us with various strategems, including trapping the front of the cave to collapse. We partially disabled the trap and entered the compound to kill the monsters (who clearly knew we were there already).
Unfortunately we had not accounted for the sheer scale of the trap. The cave entrance was collapsed despite our precautions, sealing us inside and requiring us to spell-shift for stoneshapes to get out. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time, and fireballs suddenly rang through the passage, savaging the party. Trapped and hammered by unseen enemies from above the cave itself, in desperation the party dove into the big pit trap, hiding and waiting. After a time the attackers, sounding like a mix of orcs, humans, and grotto beasts (with a wand of fireballs) came into the cave complex to inspect their handiwork. They were quite confused to find that the party had vanished! Of course we were actually clinging to the ceiling of the pit trap via magical effects, but our attackers were mystified, and angry. It seemed as though the humanoids, possibly the Blue and the Gray, had set this up as a trap specifically for the party, and used the grotto beasts as the bait.
There was mass abandonment at this point, and then silence. The party crept back out of the pit and pursued with deadly vengeance in mind. Upon exiting the complex the party battled the three remaining grotto beasts (whose ambush was partially foiled by Morty, leading the party). One was killed outright by Balinor, and the other two fled. One was peppered by crossbow bolts and arrows but disappeared down the plain. The third was pursued by a gliding Morty, who spectacularly failed to land on the creature but defeated it nonetheless.
This is where we left the party.
An immediate loose end came to mind: could Morty still catch the third grotto beast? The party tried to get his attention, and Tarplin leapt down from the cliff face under featherfall, carrying the entire party down in a neat floating group. Morty levitated up and took off after the final fleeing grotto beast, the rest of the party following as best they could. After much effort Morty spotted the creature entering a copse of trees.
He swooped down and crept into the forest, playing a game of cat-and-mouse with the creature. He lucked out and spotted the creature creeping haplessly around a rock, and he came up behind it with Kazaam in his hand…
BOOM! The creature took about 35 damage and a triple wound! It reared out and bashed Morty almost equally brutally with its hind legs, leaving him bleeding badly as well. He dropped Kazaam and swung his other longsword at the creature… and it dropped to the ground, dying almost instantly. Morty frantically slapped bandages on himself, and the party joined him a few minutes later.
After a lot of discussion we decided to drag the bodies and dump them in the pit trap; there was a certain irony in it. In order to get the grotto beast corpse all way back to the compound Tarplin used his flute to animate it as a zombie, and it walked back with us. Using the zombie grotto beast and Morty as a pair of mules we hauled the other corpses in and dumped them in the spikes of the pit. Lastly Tarplin ordered the zombie grotto beast to hurl itself into the trap, and we closed the door, dusting our hands off.
We looked back at the trail of blood, and wondered. We shrugged and decided to camp inside the fortress. Apparently the surrounding environment noted our hiding place…
After one successful spellshift, with the party still quite badly injured, a group of five horned bunnies crept up on Balinor, alone on watch… and leaped to the attack! Amazingly THREE of them impaled him through his full plate armor (for 10 points of damage!). He growled, waking up everyone (although Tarplin rolled back to sleep) and smashed two bunnies to bits. Morty took another, Bodkin another, and Robynne set off in hot pursuit of the last one, which was dashing back down the corridor. It slipped just outside of the compound, when Robynne shot it down.
We went back to sleep.
Two hours later, we heard a noise from the direction of the pit trap… further into the compound! Considering that the front door was the only other entrance we knew, and it had been buried under piles and piles of rock that would take days to clear out, this seemed suspicious. As Tarplin had complained about being woken up, we left him behind (perhaps not our best idea) and crept down the stairs, Morty in the lead. He went on ahead, and Balinor, feeling a pang of guilt about Tarplin, sent Morhion back to guard him.
Morty crept forward and saw two vaguely scruffy humans, apparently citizens of the Keystone Kingdom, attempting to pry open the pit trap! As they were clearly up to no good, he snuck up behind one of them, and rammed his longsword through him, killing him instantly. The other shrank before his eyes… and turned into a rat and scampered away back toward the entrance! Morty followed in hot pursuit, and sliced the rat in half, which turned back into an ordinary villager. It seems in rat form they could scamper through the piles of rubble at the entrance.
But before the party could react to that, Morhion found himself in trouble back at Tarplin’s sleeping form. A ghoul leaped out from the entryway and pounced at Morhion. The cleric raised his holy symbol and shouted defiantly at the ghoul, to absolutely no effect, other than to wake the confused Tarplin. The ghoul crashed into Morhion, who managed to pop it with his hammer, but was then paralyzed. Two more ghouls emerged from behind and began attempting to feast on Morhion.
Tarplin awoke to a confused scene: three ghouls were on Morhion, and the rest of the party was not around, but he could hear sounds of people approaching from further inside the compound. The other two ghouls launched themselves over Tarplin, who was fortunately immune to the paralysis, but took injury from their blows. The rest of the party appeared and Leo turned back all three ghouls, who scampered away back out into the wilderness, leaving Morhion alive and only somewhat injured, although paralyzed for a while longer.
The two deceased Kingdomers were an interesting find. They were poorly equipped, scrubby, and one was wearing a gambling jacket with a picture of a pot of coins pouring out. We immediately recognized it from the Jackpot, a snazzy gambling club in downtown Barnacus. It seemed unlikely to have anything to do with their appearance, since Barnacus was several days away and it was impossible that anyone had communicated with them that quickly. So this pair must have known something was going down here in this cave in advance, and been nearby. As they seemed to be wererats, that indicated the Commandant. This would be surprising considering that Balinor and the Band are on fairly good terms with the Commandant (the wererat leader in Benct), in the sense that they have helped each other or at least not hindered each other in the past. But there were a lot of things going strangely here. We decided to pop the bodies of the wererats into the bag of holding for later speak with dead questioning.
Still, we decided that since we were even more injured, it was still critical to finish a single spellshift before we left the area. In order to make the casters sleep without interruption, we put them in the secret treasure room (with the door open for the moment) and positioned the fighters all on watch outside.
It was not to be.
Two hours later, swarms of giant ants began pouring into the cave. Workers, by the look of them, they walked right past the party and wandered into the lower levels. We waited in the hopes of trapping them inside, but they kept pouring past with no end in sight. Finally when an ant seemed to be returning from the lower levels with stone in hand, Morty decided to start the killing. He charged up and sliced at the ant, and the other ants reacted. Balinor charged up and Morhion sat behind, ready with his aid spell to close a wound, while Tarplin snored blissfully in the hidden treasure room.
The fight was ridiculous. Morty switched from his dagger to one of his many longswords and began ripping them apart with considerable panache, while Balinor simply clubbed one to death every time his swung his brutal paired hammers. Morty began taking hits, especially as warrior ants joined the swarm, and bodies began piling up everywhere. We shut the door to the treasure room and continued killing. Approximately forty ants had died when they began backing away (in an extremely organized fashion). Eventually the stench was so horrendous that it woke Tarplin up anyway, and he was understandably upset. You have to admit that we tried to let him sleep through it.
The ants withdrew, and we checked our status. Morty had sustained some additional damage, while Balinor had somehow gotten out unscathed. We were in dire straits as far as party condition, and it wasn’t clear that the ants were going to leave us alone, so we thought we might try to charge out and make a break for it. We scrambled up the passage toward the outside exit… and there we saw about twenty more giant ants feasting on a number of dead, bloody deer carcasses that were lying around the exit plateau.
We skidded to a stop. Suddenly we realized that someone (a grotto beast or a member of the Blue and the Gray, say…) may have placed the deer carcasses there in order to lure all of these creatures inside. This meant that an ambush could be waiting for us. Or possibly they hoped that the ants would finish us off. Either way, it meant they knew we were here.
We considered our options. When we realized that someone must know we were here, it became clear that we had to leave immediately and risk the ambush. We had Tarplin’s teleport token available in dire emergency, and Robynne fingered her dice of Anar…
But there was no ambush. We slipped past the ants peaceably and scrambled back to where our guides had camped a few days earlier. There was no sign of them, but an easy search turned up a note under a rock, “Figured you were dead. Went home.”
Bereft of allies (and horses) we decided to get a decent distance from the area, but in order to trick any potential tail, we headed west toward Seapoint rather than Barnacus. Skirting the edge of a forest full of wereboars, ogres, and other fun opponents, we managed to reach Seapoint without incident, covering our tracks the first night and then moving as quickly as we could.
We took quick refuge in the house of the Seapoint Lightning off the coast (and left notes in case we didn’t make it to Barnacus). We picked up horses in Seapoint for 60 gp and sped to Barnacus. XP for this and the previous game ranged from 1100-2600 (500 for the henchman Morhion).
We strode immediately to Duke Haermond’s castle and requested an audience, which immediately got. Outside of a cleric capable of casting speak with dead, we did not give this information to anyone other than Duke Haermond.
We questioned via speak with dead the corpses of the two wererats. They indicated that they were new members of the Blue and the Gray (kitchen-hands, reward: 5 gp each!), and they had overheard in the cafeteria from two members of the group (named Zeke and Lickness) about a planned ambush on the Band.
When questioned on what “the plan” was:
“I think that the real goal was to kill most of them [BMT] but they were pretty certain they could frame the one that was likely to escape. He was rumored to have killed many sentients before and had just done it again.”
The plan apparently was to take out Balinor and Morty, and frame “the one who was likely to escape”, with the history of killing sentients. (Tarplin blanched at this. Or could they possibly have meant Quentin…?) Clearly they had either anticipated that we would be sent in response, or they had an informant among the Kharg. Either of these seem likely possibilities, and it would seem that original assertions about the Blue and the Gray were essentially correct. Furthermore this explains why they were only trying to kill Balinor and Morty.
We asked for explicit directions to the cafeteria, and we got them:
“Travel North toward the Devil’s Face, farthest fork to the left of any size then follow to the ravine and the secret stair, then to the Farmin Mountains, where you go into the room, lock yourself in and they blindfold you and take you to the Bunker.”
If we disguised ourselves as this pair, there’s a possibility of infiltration… but that would be for later. Perhaps Donald or Chiaro could help with something like this.
The story of their joining the Blue and the Gray was an interesting if not all that useful side-note:
“We had to show up at port [unclear to our party which port it was] at the right time when a mostly scuttled pirate ship was coming in. We mixed in with the crew when they begged for jobs. We were taken to an office and told that we could either wash dishes or swim for it.
We went north of Rog and past the old lighthouse; skirted around the bugbears and then slipped back in the back and climbed down a 200 foot cliff and you can get around to port if you go at low tide.”
The bandits named two members of the Blue and the Gray- Felgor the Grey and Gelbach the Blue- names that have come up before. The Duke added the endings of their names to fill us in. Some interesting numbers: between 150-200 could come through this cafeteria, but usually only 40 or 50 do daily.
The guides were believed by Haermond to be reliable, so we didn’t seek them out for questioning. There are now some interesting investigations ongoing, but we really didn’t find direct evidence implicating anyone in Barnacus, which is possibly unfortunate. The grotto beast corpses might have something to say, but they are probably consumed by now. Although I suppose the Duke could have sent men to fetch them. It should be noted that the official version of the story is that we killed three of the six grotto beasts and the others fled, leaving out any mention of anything else.
In any case, Bodkin finished his training to fifth level, and rejoined the party shortly thereafter. We decided for the moment to forget about this threat and focus instead on our plan for dealing with the Kharg, the last of Duke Haermond’s missions of “goodwill.” Given that the Kharg could have been potentially complicit in the grotto beast/Blue and the Gray ambush we were feeling even less charitable than usual. The trick was that we had to eliminate the four top Kharg without linking back to the Duke. We came up with a plan that we thought could work, short of massive commune castings, in any case.
We realized we probably couldn’t take the entire village at the same time. We considered reinforcement options, and depending on tactics we could likely entice Albee the monk to join us, and possibly Anselm the Nevronian cleric, both former compatriots of Balinor. The additional firepower came at a cost; we couldn’t use as many underhanded tactics and keep the mission acceptable. At first we had contemplated an option where Tarplin bracketed the village in plant growth spells, wedged everyone in, and forced them attack us in a corner of the village, with Tarplin launching fireballs and other spells from overhead while we fought them in a defensive phalanx. Given the legendary Kharg wereboar hyper-aggressiveness, this seemed like it might actually work for a time, although we would have to make sure that no one escaped.
The only problem was actually killing sixty Kharg in a fight, even with a bit of backup. It was possible, but we wanted to at least reduce the threat against us beforehand. This involved taking out a patrol in the wilderness, preferably one including one of the target leaders. After the attack the party would vanish for a few months to allay suspicion that the sudden disappearance of the patrol was anything other than a Lendore Isle accident. Then, later on, we would strike at a second patrol as soon as it left the village, heal up, and tackle the vastly weakened remainder of the force.
A variant on this plan that gained popularity was an alternative to a frontal assault that involved sneaking up on the camp and paralyzing the leaders that we were targeting. As this would look like a different attack than the one that “disappeared” the patrols, we thought it might look less suspicious. This may yet be the plan we follow, but first we figured we might as well go ahead and do the first strike and work on the fine details of that plan later on, once we had a better idea of the camp’s defensive setup, and a feel for their power level.
Thus we set out to nail a patrol. The war parties were on horseback and difficult to ambush, but fortunately the slightly smaller hunting parties were on foot. We had time to wait, and so we selected an ambush spot that was highly to our liking. Our priority was less the tactical benefits of the location, and more the ability to hide the truth of the attack. To this end, we found a dying old tree that could be safely struck by call lightning spells without looking suspicious. This had the added benefit for Tarplin that he didn’t actually have to kill a tree. Druids.
We set up behind a log and left a snare at the base of the tree. We had bargained for a scroll of cure disease that was high enough level to cure lycanthropy, should the need arise (although our collateral magic items would be lost), so that was less of a worry. Lycanthropy was only a threat to someone scratched by the claws of one of the wereboars while in their hybrid form, and Balinor knew from that they would morph sometime prior to dying and heal some of the damage they had taken. So the only danger from lycanthropy would be at the end of the fight.
The party assembled behind the giant log, and prepared for the attack.
Well, as it turned out, the group we attacked included one, Higrid the Unfeeling, general of the Khargish nation. This probably should have factored more heavily into our threat assessment. In the event, the battle was joined…
***
The Khargish party was trotting through the woods hunting for big game. They came past a particularly rotted old dead tree, perhaps intending to set up camp. The day was drizzly and heavily overcast.
One of the men stepped into a bizarre sort of snare that had been placed at the base of the tree. Higrid snapped a command warning of attack, and the group immediately sprang into action. Despite his quick reaction and his well-trained instant air of authority, he was too late to prevent the devastation that followed.
A call lightning bolt slammed down onto the group, hitting everyone in the vicinity. Four of the Kharg were instantly slain. One was left staggering about. The other four were relatively uninjured. The party came crashing out of hiding, wearing mysterious dark robes. As the five Kharg moved to close, Robynne launched an arrow into the most injured one, dropping him to the ground.
The Kharg warleader reached for his necklace and gestured at the party. A fireball erupted around Balinor, Morty, Morhion, Leo, and Bodkin, nailing Morhion badly but leaving everyone else with relatively minor wounds. At that moment, Tarplin dropped his stinking cloud upon the remaining four Kharg, and they disappeared from sight.
Morhion ducked behind a tree and dropped a cure light on himself. The rest of the party encircled the cloud and waited for people to emerge. When they did not, after a moment, Tarplin dismissed the cloud.
The Kharg warleader reacted instantly, dropping another fireball on Balinor, Morty, and Bodkin, injuring them further. The bowman and Robynne exchanged volleys, but despite being outside of point-blank range, the Kharg bowman seemed to be inflicting a lot more damage…
Robynne, significantly injured by bowshots, ducked behind the log. Balinor and Morty charged up to face their foes. The battle seemed to grow much easier when Tarplin dropped a slow spell that caught all but the main Khargish warleader. Balinor and Morhion contemptuously pushed past the slowed Kharg to battle Higrid. They struck back, injuring Morty but missing Balinor, and Bodkin moved to close with one of the pair.
Bodkin stabbed mightily the bastard-sword wielding Kharg, but took a massive blow in exchange, leaving him quite injured. Morhion and Leo fired hold person spells at the group, and Morhion’s caught the archer and froze him in place. He began to transform into the hideous wereboar form (albeit very slowly!).
Robynne came up to Leo and Morhion for healing while Balinor and Morty engaged Higrid. Higrid turned his powerful personal defenses upon the enraged fighter and struck at Morty, who shrugged off the blow and stabbed back. Balinor swung at the Kharg a half-dozen times but to surprisingly little effect (AC -7 opponents!). Morty was being steadily beaten down, and when he fell Balinor would be facing off against the Kharg alone, as Bodkin tried desperately to deal with the two remaining fighters.
Tarplin hammered the Kharg with magic missiles, but he dropped Morty bleeding to the ground. Freed of interference, Higrid gestured with surprising vengefulness toward the recovering Morhion, Leo, and Robynne.
The results were hideous; the barely standing Robynne died instantly in the fireball (-11 exactly) and Morhion was once again badly injured, along with Leo, who ran forward to help Morty.
Balinor had pumped his own strength prior to the combat, and here he activated his defense item and the bracers of wrath in the hopes of inflicting great injury. Before he could attack, the Kharg suddenly leapt high in the air and landed on the branch of the dead tree (which surprisingly withstood his weight). He began drinking potions and started to heal…
The Kharg on the ground were moving very slowly, but were still threatening the besieged Bodkin. Leo managed to stabilize Morty but could do little else. Tarplin continued to hammer Higrid with spells, trying to reduce his spear to make him drop it, but was unlucky. Balinor was left with few options for attack, although he did take the opportunity to completely crush one of the two remaining slowed Kharg. The archer had just about finished his transformation, and suddenly he could move! They were immune to hold person in their wereboar form!
The situation was desperate. Morhion grabbed the dice of Anar from Robynne’s pouch, and rolled them, pointing vaguely at Higrid, and hoping for a miracle.
What he got might qualify.
He rolled a 2, meaning two effects appeared simultaneously. A gigantic rain of frozen arctic swordfish descended upon the hapless cleric from above, slaying him instantly. Additionally, a small, almost inconsequential spray of acid fired at Higrid.
The acid did very little damage (4 points!). The Kharg managed to avoid the worst of it. But he had been in the process of reactivating the fireball necklace, and the interaction proved brutal. The fireball exploded at ground zero, further injuring Balinor (and killing some of the Kharg on the ground) and burning Higrid. Worse, the branch collapsed beneath his feet, and he tumbled down… right next to Balinor.
With glee, the fighter bashed both hammers into Higrid, inflicting horrific damage (35 points!). Higrid struck back but, fairly miraculously, he missed the fighter. Balinor pummeled him into the ground, discovering in the process that if you drop a wereboar low enough, they die instantly and never get the chance to change form and gain the healing benefits… (very fortunate since we had inflicted about 150 points of damage to the guy at this point!).
Bodkin moved forward to strike the final slowed Kharg, who was about to kill Morty with a coup’d’grace strike. Leo could do nothing to prevent it, and Tarplin knew he would deal a fatal blow. The druid stood to block the falchion-wielder, and took a great hit from his sword. He could not stand long, but then Bodkin was there, and dropped the Kharg to the ground just before he could swing. Balinor moved forward, and together they took down the archer before he could inflict further damage.
The party had won.
Robynne and Morhion were dead but recoverable, and Morty had been stabilized by Leo, albeit in a fragile state. Tarplin was significantly but not badly injured (whatever minor fire damage he might have taken was completely absorbed by his protection). Leo was trashed, and Balinor was significantly injured but in reasonable shape.
Okay, so maybe we underestimated the strength of the wereboars. That’s what intimate diagnostics like this fight are for.
Belatedly it occurred to us that perhaps killing the Kharg warleader might not go unnoticed. Our precautions were fairly strong, and we can hope we did a good enough job. We camouflaged what little remnants of the fight were left after the drenching rains. The bodies were taken a full day away to our premade burial site, deposited under a full stoneshape worth of solid rock, and rest eternalled by Tarplin.
It seemed highly unlikely that anything short of a commune would determine what happened, and even that only with the right questions. We hoped it would be enough.
The treasure haul was excellent. Ironically the swordfish turned out to be worth 2200 gp to a fish merchant (who stored it in his ice toad refrigerator; Chiaro take note)! This partially paid for a completely successful raise dead spell for Morhion and Robynne! No one sustained any permanent damage in the event, fortunately. And we kept one swordfish for a celebratory dinner with Duke Haermond.
I wonder if Morhion has the lead on deaths for a henchman cleric. It’s fairly impressive, especially since he is only 3rd level!
XP for the combat will be handed out next time. (It seems highly unlikely that anyone would level as a result of the encounter, nasty as it was…)
The treasure haul:
Non-magical items: (things marked “distinctive” are obviously identifiable as Kharg, and therefore mildly suspicious to sell in Barnacus…)
solid garnet ring (1000 gp)
distinctive belt of office (3500 gp)
tribal armband (200 gp) x 3 (distinctive)
172 gp
750 gp of stuff
bastard sword +1/+0 (1000 gp)
Magic items:
*short composite bow + 1 of distance (all ranges doubled)
*falchion of cleaving + 2 (double damage on a 20)
*cloak of protection + 1 / +10% hide in shadows
*bracers of defense AC 4/10, 45 cw
*boots of mystery (leave no tracks, +10% move silently)
*ring of protection + 2
*necklace of missiles (1 5 HD fireball left)
*spear (type 3) but speed 6, grants leaping up to 7/week, protection from normal missiles 1 day/month, -2 to wisdom score, +5 the first time you attack with it every day and +3 thereafter, adjustable to different lengths (max. 3)
*ring of regeneration 1 pt/turn (big and ugly)
The bow was in possession of the archer, obviously, which explains Robynne’s difficulty in battling him at 35 foot distance. The falchion was wielded by one of the other fighters. All of the rest belonged to Higrid the Unfeeling. The main difficulty comes with the awesome spear. It has a huge number of abilities, some of which can be utilized and others not so much, and it is fairly obvious and probably semi-legendary. We can either trade it or try to disguise it and use it when not near the Kharg or people who might recognize it.
Our tentative treasure deployment was:
Robynne - Magic Bracers – generic 4/10 45 cn
Bodkin - Magic Boots – generic Boots of Mystery – no tracks and +10 % to move Silently
Magic Ring – distinctive (High) – Ring of Regeneration 1 HP/turn – very large
Robynne - Magic Ring – distinctive – Ring of Protection +2
Morty - Magic Necklace – generic – Necklace of Missile 1 5 HD Fireball left
Tax - Magic Spear – distinctive (High) – Type 3 (max), but Speed 6, grants leaping up to 7x/week, protection from Normal Missile 1d/month, -2 Wisdom, +5 on first attack each day then +3, Take The Initiative
Morty - Magic Cloak – generic tan (Cloak of Protection +1, +10% Hide in Shadows)
Robynne – gets Morty’s old one
And we end up with 30000 gp in trade bait (plus presumably the four bars of mithril the party still has). Certainly there are interesting things we could trade for…
Things to contemplate:
-Trade items
-Ways to further obscure our involvement in the affair
-Places to run to if the Khargish nation comes after us
Joel/Balinor/Morhion
*succeeded by Magic Lad
-giving up automatically
--+1/+1 quality hammer x 2
headband of radiance (2d12 damage 1/week)
ring of protection from good
-augury sticks damaged (200 gp salvage value)
-*short sword +1/+3 vs. sylvan creatures
*large shield +1
tugutten full plate
ring of bad taste
-full plate
-+1/+0 shortbow
+1 ff short arrows x 4
chocolate bars (30 gp each) x 3 (eaten in field)
-fine banded mail (250 cw encumbrance)
quality bastard sword +1/+1
-longbow +1/+2 strength bow
+4 long arrows x 3
**ring of protection + 1 x 2
+1 ff long arrows x 36
+2 ff long arrows x 12
*long arrow of giant slaying
-hobgoblin master armor (9” movement rate platemail for hobgoblins)
*fire giant bread x 4
-bastard sword (regular)
10 cw mithril bars x 10
healing potion x 2
*bandages x 2
*dwarf-sized platemail +1
-*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
-*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)
*ring of wizardry (+1 third and fourth level spell)
scarab scarab – stag beetle (worn around neck) that creates a suit of everyman armor for 8 hours, once/week
scroll of deepstrike, shocking grasp, deadly aim
*bastard sword+1
-*studded armor of studliness (no AC benefit but can be warn with rings of protection, +2 comeliness, +2 max hitpoints, +2% bend bars)
bag of holding 200/5000
-*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)
*mirror of improvement (disadvantage: weighs 1000 cw; stand in front of it, flex strut and pose for 30 minutes each day, con is +1)
engineering gear (ropes/pulleys)
222 pp, 3250 gp
100 gp gems x 71
1000 gp gems x 3
Traveling spellbooks x 3 (lots of handy third level spells)
Book 1: Read Magic, Magic Missile, Sleep, Detect Magic, Shocking Grasp, Mending
Book 2: Web, Zane’s Deodorant, Invisibility, Strength, Levitate, Shield
Book 3: Haste, Dispel Magic, Invisibility 10’ Radius, Deadly Aim, Wizard Lock, Knock
Book 4 (destroyed): Lightning Bolt (straight back), Tongues, Monster Summoning I, Blink, Make Whole, Fools’ Gold
Cleric – Tarantino
Wizard – Hitchcock
Dwarf—Great Kubrick
Woodsman – Steven
Hobgoblin – Kurosawa
Half-orcs -- DW, Bergman, Welles
Druid-- Fellini
XP ranged in the 1300-3000 range for the henchpeople, to 12700 for Minerva
Minerva to 5th level – gains 4 hp to stand at 22
Lewis to 3rd level – gains 3 hp to stand at 23 (trains first aid vet x1, single weapon combat bastard sword x 1)
Madupe to 3rd fighter and 4th thief – gains 6 hp to stand at 25
Magic Lad to 2nd cleric and 2nd illusionist – gains 7 hp to stand at 13
Play ratings:
Lewis- 2.0 (610 gp) (29 days)
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)
Minerva – 2.0 (2290 gp) (57 days)
Madupe – fighter: 1.5 (260 gp), thief: 1.8 (810 gp) (22 days + 39 days = 61 days)
Minerva free spell training: Monster Summoning I
ID cost post Magic Lad pre tax: 2350 gp (Magic Lad gains 280 XP)
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
-Discuss reward over email
-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)
-weird familiars (sprites, maybe those for non-spellcasters)
-animal speaking and control rings
+1 weapons/ armor (nonmetallic armor)
magic cloaks of protection (up to +2)
woodland cloaks and boots (huge bonuses to hide/move silently, woodland only)
(order 20 to 50kgp)
And our final party status:
Rangorn, 7th level half-elf woodsman, 65 hp, played by Joel
Star, 6th level human cleric, 37 hp, played by Kyle
Zippo, 3rd level dwarf fighter, 34 hp, henchman of Star
Madupe Fadupe, 3rd/4th level gnome fighter/thief, 25 hp, played by Katherine
Lewis, 3rd level human ranger, 23 hp, henchman of Star (played by Alex)
Chiaroscuro, 7th level human illusionist, 22 hp, played by Aaron
Minerva Moonstone, 5th level half-elf mage, 22 hp, played by Katherine
Alisan, 2nd level half-elf cleric, 17 hp, henchman of Rangorn
Magic Lad, 2nd/2nd level cleric/illusionist, 13 hp, henchman of Chiaro
Joel/Rangorn/Alisan
Kyle/Star/Zippo/Lewis
The Second Telvar Open Tournament:
Kobolds of High Mountain June 9, 1990 June 20, 2157 Stopping a kobold raid on the settlements below
“Crush the Skull! Crush the Skull!”
The Third Telvar Open Tournament:
Chaos at Blackstone July 11, 1992 April 27, 2166 The assassination of Lord Eldrin
“When the invasion bell rang, none of us knew what to do...”
The Fourth Telvar Open Tournament:
Incident at Gerda July 16, 1994 January 20, 2170 The theft of the Sphere of the Night
“Which way did they go?”
The Fifth Telvar Open Tournament:
The Peaks of Light August 3, 1996 December 18, 2178 An attempt to destroy Ranore’s plans
“Does anyone know what that sound was?”
The Sixth Telvar Open Tournament:
Race Rock July 24, 1999 April 1, 2188 Some of the last children of the kraken awaken
“Sure is a bad one for this time of year...”
The Seventh Telvar Open Tournament:
The Mountain of Thunder July 17, 2001 January 8, 2191 An evil artifact is destroyed
“Boom”
The Eighth Telvar Open Tournament:
The Edge of Memory October 4, 2003 June 10, 2192 The Inviolate Realms are awakened
“It’s a hint,” the Sphinx said. “It just won’t make any sense until you already know the answer.”
The Ninth Telvar Open Tournament:
Faces from the Past November 5, 2005 June 10, 2192 An Inviolate Realm marches forth
“It had never previously been understood why the Northerner word for ‘unavoidable danger’ literally translated as ‘blue fire mountain’.”
--Edwin B. Anderson, Jr.
]]>Party Roster:
Rangorn, 7th level half-elf woodsman, 65 hp, played by Joel
Star, 6th level human cleric, 37 hp, played by Kyle
Zippo, 3rd level dwarf fighter, 34 hp, henchman of Star
Chiaroscuro, 7th level human illusionist, 22 hp, played by Aaron
Lewis, 2nd level human ranger, 20 hp, henchman of Star (played by Alex)
Madupe Fadupe, 2nd/3rd level gnome fighter/thief, 19 hp, played by Katherine
Minerva Moonstone, 3rd level half-elf mage, 14 hp, played by Katherine
Alisan, 1st level half-elf cleric, 8 hp, henchman of Rangorn
Magic Lad, 1st level cleric/illusionist, 6 hp, henchman of Chiaro
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!).
[Events at Alex’s house in Ithaca; Real World Sept. 29, 2007; Telvar Dates Feb. – June 2192]
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).
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!
]]> 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!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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
Total cash gained from the Dwarfstar adventure after salvage tax was just over 1000 g.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!
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.
And then it was time for the main event.
Superstar!
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.
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.]
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.
And bizarrely, the central stone of the circle was missing. Gone. With no sign of any obvious movement or damage to the outer circle.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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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.)
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.
Star picked up a vision from the doorstep:
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.
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.
We next traveled to the Circle of Ayrless to see what we could determine there.
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.
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.
Clearly this was an unfriendly area.
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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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…
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:
1) Tugutten full plate, large shield, short sword, pouches, backpack
2) Chainmail, shield with cover, hammers, quarterstaff, boxes and pouches
3) Dwarf in platemail, framepack, quarterstaff (matches Doppelganger guy)
4) Full plate, bastard sword, framepack, shortbow, arrows
5) Hobgoblin in elaborate hobgoblin armor, bastard sword, longbow, backpack
6) Studded leather armor, bastard sword, long composite bow, backpack
7) Banded mail, medium shield, type II spear, shortsword, framepack
8) No armor, longsword, shield, blob-like object hanging on his shoulder
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.]
And through all this there was no visible or audible sign that anything had happened.
Chiaro is a scary, scary individual.
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…)
Final Cut advanced haplessly forward for a moment, completely unaware that they were in imminent danger.
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.
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.
And then Superstar attacked.
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.
Chiaro turned his mind upon the hobgoblin. His brain exploded and he dropped dead. Did we mention that Chiaro is a scary, scary individual?
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.
It seemed almost cruel.
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.
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].
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.
Star and Rangorn pursued silently and invisibly behind… and his life did not continue long.
Chiaro, meanwhile, had flown back to the lake, where he pulled the drowning Minerva out of the water, just in time.
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.
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.
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.
[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.]
Joel/Rangorn/Alisan
Kyle/Star/Zippo/Lewis
Hopefully this will be an alternative to those boring standard desktops. Images are from the first and fourth Telvar Opens.
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