Author: Joel

Party Roster:
Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel
Morty, 7th/6th human fighter/thief (bard), 74 hp, played by Jay
Robynne, 5th level woodsman, 38 hp, played by Rhonda
Bodkin, 4th level dwarven fighter, 36 hp, played by Katherine
Tarplin, 8th/5th half-elf druid/mage, 30 hp, played by Alan
Leo, 3rd level human Nevronian cleric, 19 hp, played by David
Morhion, 2nd level Northerner Nevronian cleric, 18 hp, henchman of Balinor
(Events of 12/4/04 in Charlotte; Game world May-July 2192)
The party had just grabbed all the treasure from an ancient crypt of Thim, god of herdsman and herd animals (frequently worshipped by Kharg tribesmen), and decided to bring the loot back to civilization before exploring further. Recall that we had just found the legendary artifact, the Bridle of Farin, and several highly magical bits of gear on a skeletal horse and rider, collapsed inside the crypt likely some eight hundred years before.
Many questions remained unanswered. What did this have to do with the King of the World incidents? How did the Kharg get into this crypt normally? Was the loot massively cursed? How would the denizens of the area react to us running away with the treasure?
First we needed to deal with the immediate problem of our “guide”, Boss. Could we trust him? What should we do?
It was a calculated risk, but we really didn’t have a lot of options. Boss admitted that we would soon find out who he was, and that although he had committed some crimes in his life, he had been wrongly found guilty of murder. He claimed that the other crimes were minor, and that he has been working to prevent war in Rog. Hopefully the help he has given plus presumed innocence of the serious crime would prevent any awkward moments with Deputy Balinor trying to arrest him or something.
We were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and look into the murder charge. In addition, we paid him for three more days of time in the mines, and with an additional 250 gp, he revealed that fifty unaffiliated bandits (with little to no magical support) were waiting to ambush us when we exited the Argo Forest side from the caves. This was quite helpful, and in addition, Boss would discourage the various shifty occupants of the cage from wandering into the crypt, at the risk of their souls.

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Party Roster:
Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel
Morty, 7th/6th human fighter/thief (bard), 74 hp, played by Jay
Robynne, 5th level woodsman, 38 hp, played by Rhonda (Darleen this time)
Bodkin, 4th level dwarven fighter, 36 hp, played by Katherine
Tarplin, 8th/5th half-elf druid/mage, 30 hp, played by Alan
Leo, 3rd level human Nevronian cleric, 19 hp, played by David
Morhion, 2nd level Northerner Nevronian cleric, 18 hp, henchman of Balinor
(Events of 9/5/04 in Charlotte; Game world April-May 2192)
When we last left our not particularly beleaguered but intrigued party, the Band (named as such because of Tarplin’s flute skill, Morty’s lyre, Bodkin’s singing and Balinor’s penchant for blunt percussion instruments) had been investigating the King of the World phenomenon.
For the last 250 years, and at an accelerated pace for the last 200 or so, various beings have been coming out of the Rog area claiming to be King of the World, or members of the Army of Valor, or other similar grand delusions. They seemed violent and malevolent, killing anyone who seemed in their way. Some of these creatures were generally non-violent types, while others were naturally vicious. They ranged in height from kobolds to hill giants, and included some rather rare creatures like crab people and a lammasu servant of Kor, god of the Sun.
We had spent a decent amount of money on this already, and it got much worse, but interestingly, just about nothing we did was a waste of it, as it turned out.
Recalling the correlations we had learned earlier (reservoir level is lowest during the late spring/early summer months; the less rainfall the more and bigger creatures were affected, over a longer period of time), we set out to eliminate the most obvious source of the problem, the reservoir. Via a half-dozen Waterbreathing spells and Detect Magic spells, we were able to search the entire bottom of the reservoir over about a day and a half. We found two magical things at the bottom: one, a large stick driven into the ground, we knew about; Constable Stovens had told us that the stick was a druidic gift to warn if the water was compromised. The second was half a dozen holy symbols: four Nevronian, one Auroran, and one Felcon (the god of travelers). There were no corpses, just holy symbols. Suspecting this fell into one of those areas we shouldn’t be trying to fix, we simply handed the holy symbols over to the Constable and let him deal with it. In short, we found nothing weird down there at all. It seemed the reservoir was to some extent, at least, a red herring.

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A refresher for those who were there and supplement to Jay’s notes for those who were not. It’s incomplete, but alas, the original Grand Summary was eaten by my laptop months ago.
Party Roster:
Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel
Amortician (Morty), human bard (7th fighter/5th thief), 74 hp, played by Jay Bates
Tarplin, 8th level druid/5th level mage, 30 hp, played by Alan Jones
Bodkin Goldsummit, 4th level dwarven fighter, 36 hp, played by Katherine
Tarplin, 8th level druid/5th level half-elf mage, 30 hp, played Alan
Robynne, 5th level woodsman, played by Rhonda
Leo, 3rd level Nevronian cleric, played by David Bjorlin
Morhion Gendahar, 2nd level Northerner Nevronian cleric, 18 hp, henchman of Balinor (although played by Rodger Henson!)
When we last left the party, they had completed a series of missions on Lendore Isle, and then split the party into two groups. Randy Novotny, Nevronian cleric, led one of them. The other was a triumvirate of Balinor Buckhannah of the Restenford Defenders, Amortician the bard, and Tarplin the druid (for whom magery was simply a hobby) known as the Band. The motivation for this was to allow each group to tackle changes appropriate to its level and streamline the groups.
After trading for some interesting magical longswords named Leveler and Kazaam, Morty woke up one morning to find a note attached by a loop of string on his finger that said something like, “There is always a better deal. –Xothan Enterprises.” When Morty pulled the note off, a magical tattoo of a band of string appeared on his finger. Dispel Magic failed to remove it. There seemed little to be done for the moment, but it makes us nervous…
After investigating adventuring possibilities for the Band, the party gained some reconnaissance on the bugbear tribe. The bugbears were fortified in a cave with witchdoctors with animal friends guarding the entrances, making any stealth operation quite tricky. This still intrigued the party but we decided to put off storming them in favor of attempting to solve an ancient and infrequently deadly mystery. The Defenders could remember a small group of ogres attacking Restenford in 2180, their leader declaring himself to be King of the World. The group was slaughtered easily, but died fanatically, convinced of their right to rule and slay all who opposed them. Later in the same year, a bugbear and a worg named Sput tried to kill farmers outside of town, claiming that THEY were kings of the world. Sput ended up skinned as a helmet on Quentin’s head, but nonetheless, it was disturbing. Furthermore other towns nearby had undergone similar attacks; Barnacus, Garroten, and Trun. It became apparent looking at the map that the center of this problem seemed to be in the vicinity of Rog, the corrupt mining town that is little more than a front for bandit groups such as the Blue and Gray in the north. Clearly any investigation done in Rog would be dicey at best. Still, it seemed that research was in order, and so we checked records in the towns that were attacked. We found some very interesting trends.

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