Author: Joel

Beginning with the party located at the Ziggurat, we setup camp for a
little while and cast some _Speak with Deads_ to try and find an entrance
to the Ziggurat. We found that there was a star shaped pendant
(pentagram) on the witchdoctor that supposedly opened the blocks. So we
spent a good deal of time finding all the real magic items on the loser
(he had some aura altering spell cast on virtually all of his posessions
so they appeared to be type 5 magic) so many dispels later we had his
holy symbol and the “key”. Around this time, Alegra felt that we were
being scryed upon and almost immediately after that feeling the blocks to
the Zig opened. We took that as the cue to pack up and leave. We
figured that if the witchdoctor was going to fight us, we would rather do
it in the forest instead of his Zig.
So, later that night some distance away, the witchdoctor attacked by
drinking potions of firebreathing, spell immuning himself, and throwing a
silence over the area. It looked dangerous for a second (after Ceydric
had taken 60 points of fire damage) but our consistent damage won out.
He had lots of cash for a bugbear (probably just looted the Zig).
Anyway, we made it back to Middle and the downtime began.

Continue reading “Summary XLI: Beyond the Ziggurat: Witchdoctor on the Offensive”

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, they had just taken the
Ziggurat. Ceydric was battling one of the bugbear commanders on one of
the upper levels and the party was picking off the other fleeing
commander and nameless retreating bugbears while trying to catch up to
Ceydric.
Combat with the bugbear commander ended rather quickly and Ceydric then
moved to get the other commander. He, however, tried to retreat into the
Ziggurat when his comrades collapsed the entranceway, killing him and
almost squishing Ceydric. This unfortunately prevented the party from
gaining immediate access to the Zig so we then seized our advantage and
moved to take the slave pens before the bugbears could react too quickly.
Many more scrub bugbears die…

Continue reading “Summary XL: More Fighting at the Ziggurat and the Slave Pens”

It’s late. This will be brief, to say the least.
50 Bugbear War party:
a couple escape, rest die painfully.
1 man-at-arms (Mo) dies. Men-at-arms plus Gauss (standard bearer) and Mo’s
body go to elven lands (these creatures will just kill them).
Head back towards Ziggurat. Feeling of being watched (scrying). Try not to
give any landmarks and stop the scrying. Every once in awhile it happens
again. We decide to attack rather than have them ambush us.
We ford the river north of the Z and head for it. We detect a sizeable
force (say 75) bugbears behind us. We make straight for the Z. There are
fortifications. Bugbears and ogres die. Ceydric (flying, prot. from
missiles) opens the gate, gets hit by ballista, fights deformed Cloud Giant.
Cloud Giant hammers Ceydric, but no wound. Eli and Deirdre unload scroll
magic missiles at it, doing about 90 some-odd points of damage, a couple of
bow shots, it flees into the air and out of range too soon –darn it!

Continue reading “Summary XXXIX: The Bugbear War Party and the Ziggurat of the Witches”

Updated 14 Nov 2178 / 11 Nov 1996
(*) denotes an unusual item
All items are held in Tower stores unless otherwise stated.
Necessary other storage space is immediately needed, as can be seen
from the list.

Continue reading “Summary XXXVIII: Miscellaneous Party Equipment of the Stone Soules”

Hey all!
Here’s what happened (in brief):
1. Raven turned down his potential druid henchman who was a total weirdo
(and probably fanatical).
2. Alegra picked up a henchman bowyer-fletcher named Frank and a
Phaulkonian Ranger henchman named Sean, who happens to have both an 18/33
strength and an 18 intelligence. He’s really cool. Frank specializes in
crossbows. Frank will soon be Phaulkonian. 🙂

Continue reading “Summary XXXVII: Returning to Middle and Research Results”

Castle walls:
We completed the mapping of the Castle area by searching the walls for
trapdoors. We found two things of interest:
– some sort of spectre, haunt, or ghost that was rather easily destroyed
but reformed fairly quickly. It did NOT detect as evil. I suppose that a
rest eternal might put the spirit to rest before it reforms. Abjure and
Exorcism might also work.
– the entrance to the Castle Gatehouse complex. Many automata there. One
recent steel door. Castle defenses strong here.

Continue reading “Summary XXXVI: Castle Exploration and the Revelation of the Death of Tan-El”

For those perceptive, Xavier has become less intolerant of Sahrak after
the 2H sword incident in which Sahrak used color spray to good effect.
After the recent Banshee beatle incident, Xavier became much more
accepting of Sahrak and his role in the party.
Also for those perceptive, mid way through the gatehouse illusion (which
I will describe shortly) Xavier started weeping heavily.
After his death and resurrection (by raise dead), Xavier became
slightly more serious, melancholic, and resolute.
Finally, after Carse, he mentions that he believes that the party doesn’t
have to worry about the owner trying to track down the 2H sword. When
asked how he knows this- he shows a rather sorrowful look and says that
he doesn’t want to talk about it. He obviously feels pretty bad about the
issue.
The sum total of all the events that happened pretty much in 2178 is that
Xavier has this look in his eyes of fierce determination but also great
sorrow (the kind one would get after seeing thousands die in front of
him and also being responsible of the death of innocents even though he
was ignorant at the time.)
Jack/Xavier

Hello!
Game-results-in-brief (this means that the major attack force of Auguries
will be summarized into the important ones):
I. The Falchion Sword of unknown mind-affecting but no bonuses to hit, etc.
and not intelligent, recovered from the body of Gen. Quarath along with the
magical plate of protection from Magic Missiles.
It appears to provide a charisma and confidence boost that makes anyone who
carries it look cooler. It has been evidenced that everyone experiences
“withdrawal” symptoms if the sword has to be taken off, even to go to bed.

Continue reading “Summary XXXIII: The Tale of Years and Other Things of Interest in the Castle”

1. Castle enclosed courtyard: killed a couple of mobile tentacle-using
trees (that looked dead): by lightning bolts and having Henry fly over them,
dousing them with standard oil and then lighting them on fire with arrows.
2. Explored other rooms within the castle tower:
More alchemy rooms, and a room with a research library on
Lightning-related magics, in Runic I. Within this room was a _Wizard
Locked_ cabinet which contained a RUNE for DANGER and a large locked book,
and a key. The book, which radiated Type 5 magic of ABJURATION/NECROMANCY,
was labelled “The Tale of Years.” Before this, we had been told that in
opening the cabinet “No benefit could result.” The _Augury_ for opening the
book and reading it was more ambiguous (and yet not): Would it be
beneficial for the party to unlock, open the book, and look inside? “Yes,
but vast disaster is the more likely result.” “The Tale of Years” is an
often-used title for chronologies, but what this book does is up for grabs.
Here are some theories:
A. It’s a lich-maker. If you read it, you become a lich or
have a better chance of becoming a lich.
B. It’s ABJURATION side is linked in some way to the methods
used to contain the LE force.
C. In general, it could be a mini-codex of sorts.
D. There are many other possibilities, but it appears that it
SHOULD have some kind of link to the Lightning fetish of Tan-El and
this research library, but it is not clear that it does, since
NECROMANCY at the least has little to do with Lightning.

Continue reading “Summary XXXII: Some Things We Always Meant to Get Around to but Never Did”