Category: Defenders

Defenders ADVENTURE LOG #20: Return of the Halflings

We set up a false campsite and hid in the bushes nearby, hoping to draw their attention and capture them. Unfortunately, though we noticed no observation during the night, we found tracks of a halfling in the morning. Irritated, we tried again the next night, this time with Perry’s snares littering the area.

Adventure #4: Hecht & co. and the Restinford Defenders vs. the Evil Halflings of Hafney Hill
(from the chronicles of the Restinford Defenders)
Character Roster:
Felix, 4th level fighter, 42 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 4th level ranger, 34 hp, played by committee
Balinor, 3rd level fighter, 33 hp, played by Joel
Cassian, 3rd level cleric of Phaulkon, 25 hp, played by Katherine
Morgan, 4th level fighter, 22 hp, played by Alan
Quentin, 4th level druid, 16 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 5th level thief, 16 hp, played by Sean
AND RETURNING ONCE AGAIN:
Hecht, cleric of the halfling god Brandebaris, played by Mark
Auburn, 1st level cleric of the halfling god Sheila /1st level fighter, 11 hp, played by Kyle
Kerr, 1st level druid, 7 hp, played by Mark
The party checked around the lair of the burrow worms for a few days just to make sure there were no more worms left. We entered the lair with Felix in the lead, and discovered a room of dead husks. There was also a gem and 2 vials of Nevronian holy water.
We dragged four husks back to Restenford, paid one in salvage tax(?!), and commissioned the always friendly armorer to turn them into great helms (?!). Felix, Balinor, and Drew are decked out in the bug head helmets (pincers still intact) when FAR away from civilization, such as it is on Lendore.
Perry trained to 5th level, and gained 3 hp to stand at 16 hp.
A letter and a mage arrived in Restenford while Perry trained, named Donald Collins. Colin, the elven mage/thief whose disastrous adventure had nearly destroyed his hearing, had found someone for us.

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Defenders Log Entry #19: Creepies and Crawlies and Kittens (oh my!)

The ogre could have been quite dangerous… except that it chose to swing at Morgan.

Felix, 4th level fighter, 42 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 3rd level ranger, 25 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 4th level fighter, 22 hp, played by Alan
Quentin, 4th level druid, 16 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 4th level thief, 13 hp, played by Sean
Balinor, 1st level fighter, 10 hp, played by Joel
Cassian, 1st level cleric, 9 hp, played by Katherine
When we last left the jubilant party, they had just found loads of money and treasure and completed Abbey Isle! We then trained and picked up proficiencies, which took about two months.
Balinor and Cassian both gained 3rd level, and Drew got 4th! Perry is about 500 XP from 5th level, and Quentin is about 1500 XP from 5th level. The others are NOWHERE near.
Balinor and Perry picked up Sprinting, and Morgan learned longbow. Then the hp rolls came– they were totally absurd.
Cassian had 9 hp at 1st level, and rolled an 8 and a 6 on 2d8, +2 from con, to total 25 hp at 3rd level! Drew rolled an 8 on a d8 as well, (+1 from con), and rose from 25 to 34 hp. Balinor rolled a 10 on a d10 (+4 from con) and rose from 19 to 33 hp!
So the current party state is:
Felix, 4th level fighter, 42 hp
Drew, 4th level ranger, 34 hp
Balinor, 3rd level fighter, 33 hp
Cassian, 3rd level cleric, 25 hp
Morgan, 4th level fighter, 22 hp
Quentin, 4th level druid, 16 hp
Perry, 4th level thief, 13 hp

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Defenders Log Entry #18: Don’t They Have Anything Better to do?

The party ran about in confusion. Grimly, Balinor moved to block the monster and swung, damaging it with Maiden Basher. He yelled for everyone to get out as quickly as possible, intending to sacrifice his life, and took a vicious hit. The party was fleeing behind him, but Cassian refused to abandon him, instead curing him of damage as fast as it came at him.

Felix, 4th level fighter, 44 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 3rd level ranger, 25 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 4th level fighter, 22 hp, played by Alan
Balinor, 2nd level fighter, 19 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 4th level druid, 16 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 4th level thief, 13 hp, played by Sean
Cassian, 1st level cleric, 9 hp, played by Katherine
Our party was moving at about a slug’s pace due to the total paranoia atmosphere created by the friendly traps. We had to take out the minotaur golem, and the plan was to lure it under the crushing trap and have Perry release it.
Although it took Felix awhile to get the golem to follow him, the plan worked perfectly– except that we didn’t know the golem was immune to the traps, and the crushing stone failed to collapse on it. So it was back to old-fashioned combat; except of course, that only Balinor could harm it.
Thankfully Felix, Drew, and Morgan were able to distract the minotaur enough for Balinor to pummel it for over 50 points of damage, when it finally shattered. In addition, the fighters were bolstered by constant Cure Light Wounds spells from Quentin and Cassian.

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Defenders Log Entry #17: Underground Terror

Next, we entered an open space and proceeded along a wall. Suddenly, the entrance to the room slammed shut and poison gas sprayed into the room. Everyone except Cassian and Quentin immediately collapsed.

Felix, 4th level fighter, 44 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 3rd level ranger, 25 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 4th level fighter, 22 hp, played by Alan
Balinor, 2nd level fighter, 19 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 4th level druid, 16 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 4th level thief, 13 hp, played by Sean
Cassian, 1st level cleric, 9 hp, played by Katherine
Virtually all movement during this session was done at about .2″.
The mist did not detect as evil, so, excuses gone, we headed down the corridor. After a brief amount of checking, we were abruptly attacked by five skeletons and five zombies!
After an impressive first swing doing 22 points of damage to a skeleton, who promptly fell apart, Balinor found himself frustrated and held at bay. Felix and Morgan blew apart the rest, with a little help from Perry. We pulled the bodies outside– they were robed and had odd masks on. Turning by the cleric Cassian did in fact work– the one remaining one fled, only to be chopped apart by Felix. Visibility here, by the way, is a whopping 3 feet with the Continual Light items. Furthermore, we showed that the aura emitted by the entire mist effectively prevented Detect Magic from working.
Drawing upon folklore, Cassian suggested that the skeletons might be of a special variety, since they were wearing death masks of the islands north of Lendore. The fiery red eye sockets still glowed in death, and detected as magical. That is, until Balinor smashed them into little bits with his magical hammer. His regular hammer Bessie got two kills, and he switched to Rip to give it a fair chance.

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Defenders Log Entry #16: Aftermath/ Treasure Division

Question: What lies in store for the party? (Nice and vague)
Result: Doors to nowhere and abominations to Phaulkon will plague the party. The color transparent and the number 16 is important.

Felix, 2nd level fighter, 22 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 2nd level ranger, 19 hp, played by committee
Quentin, 2nd level druid, 10 hp, played by Jeremy
Morgan, 2nd level fighter, 9 hp, played by Alan
Perry, 1st level thief, 6 hp, played by Sean
When we last left our DECEASED party, they had just been raised, minus Tyveris. He was an honored member of the party, which has affectionately referred to him as “The Voice of Nevron” for his uncanny success with Command spells.
Summary of treasure:
We gained these magic items:
1. Bag of Holding
2. Compass
3. Hand Axe+1
4. Ioun Stone of Sustenance
5. Knowledge Fork
6. Healing Potion
7. Speed Potion
and quite a bit of money. The party’s cash flow, in and out, was truly immense, for us anyway.

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Defenders Log Entry #15: In Over Our Heads

To take stock, our options were:
1. Fight the lurker in the water.
2. Fight a hundred barbarians.
3. Fight a sea hag who caused instant death.
4. Commit suicide.
5. Keep running.

Felix, 2nd level fighter, 24 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 2nd level ranger, 19 hp, played by committee (mainly Alan this time)
Tyveris, 2nd level cleric, 12 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 2nd level druid, 10 hp, played by Jeremy
Morgan, 2nd level fighter, 9 hp, played by Alan
Perry, 1st level thief, 6 hp, played by Sean
The word for tonight was: absurd.
The party was dead on so many occasions, it’s sickening to think about it. Keep in mind while reading this: our party consists of five 2nd level characters (no mage), and one 1st level thief. Just to put things in perspective before your eyes pop out reading this.

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Defenders Log Entry #14: Out of the Frying Pan and into the Water

Without warning Morgan flew through the portal.
Felix raced into the room and tugged on the rope. Morgan was hanging about ten feet in the air over the water, which had risen considerably since Tyveris had viewed it the previous night. Morgan tried desperately to climb back up. Suddenly the letter opener appeared and began rapidly cutting the rope.
With a cry, Felix sprang forward and released the rope ladder, then grabbed at the letter opener.
Too late. The rope frayed and broke, Morgan tumbling into the water with a yell. All of us raced into the room as the rope ladder fell too slowly for Morgan to grab hold. He kicked frantically to reach the shore. Felix braced himself against the chest and hurled rations downward. With a final call of “Get some driftwood! We’ll get you through!” the portal began to fade and Morgan and the beach vanished from sight.

Felix, 2nd level fighter, 24 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 2nd level ranger, 19 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 2nd level fighter, 12 hp, played by Alan
Tyveris, 2nd level cleric of Nevron, 12 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 2nd level druid, 10 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 1st level thief, 6 hp, played by Sean
When we last left our not-particularly beleaguered party, it had just finished an initial interrogation of Captain Nbod’s first mate, Zune.
We cast the _Detect Lie_ spell as planned. Hoo boy– the spell has probably never gotten better mileage than this.
I’ll just start listing his corrected (true statements) lies. Invert these to regain his original lying statements:
1. Cares about the ghost (not in a loving way)
2. Sees why he should tell us about the ghost
3. Thinks it is not obvious how to make the ghost visible, but still failed to volunteer information to us.
4. Doesn’t particularly care about giving his friends away.
5. He was the only one ever in the room.
6. He has not cast a spell through the gate.
7. He can’t tell how far it is through the gate– for casting spells, at least.
8. Good idea to hang him.
9. His friends have zero ability to track us down.
10. It would be wise for him to say more about them if he wants to live.
11. The dagger has to do with his religion (duh)
12. He cares greatly what we think about him.
13. His friends are not a problem.
14. The dagger is important to his religious status.
15. Adventurers are quite important in his reliigous hierarachy.
16. Other members of his group would love to have the dagger.
17. He knows very few clerics of any power.
18. That is unfortunate for him.

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Defenders Log Entry #13: The Next Level of Paranoia

It was patently obvious that the dagger was an artifact. The first mate couldn’t even begin to list its powers. It clearly is evil and something has to be done– but it is indestructible. The safest thing for it would be to turn it over to the Archbishop in Barnacus.

Felix, 2nd level fighter, 24 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 2nd level ranger, 19 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 2nd level fighter, 12 hp, played by Alan
Tyveris, 2nd level cleric of Nevron, 12 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 2nd level druid, 10 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 1st level thief, 6 hp, played by Sean
Watch as the party attempts to keel over from high stress!
When we last left our immobile party, it was in the room at the inn with Father Filner from the Nevronian Church. We had just found a supposedly non-magical but clearly intelligent dagger. We put it back.
Our next and last idea was to discreetly drill a hole in the ceiling and look through it for several nights.
Several interesting things were noted:
At fairly random times during the night every couple of days, the chest, tub, and wardrobe would all glow green. This, we concluded was the appearance of them activating.
A couple of nights into our observations, our “ghost” entered the room from the wardrobe immediately following a green glow from it. He moved around the room for a few moments, then sprinted back to the wardrobe, and we believe that it had begun to close and he reopened it, then clambered in and left.
That was neat.

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Defenders Log Entry #12: Things to Do in Benct When You’re Dead, Part II

The next day Quentin went down to the docks to speak with rats. It turns out they are quite intelligent, greedy, and all serve someone known as “the Commandant.”

Felix, 2nd level fighter, 24 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 2nd level ranger, 19 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 2nd level fighter, 12 hp, played by Alan
Tyveris, 2nd level cleric of Nevron, 12 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 2nd level druid, 10 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 1st level thief, 6 hp, played by Sean
A REALLY COOL GAME SESSION!
I’ll hit the general highlights:
The party continued its exploration of possibilities. Finding no response forthcoming from the room for several days. Eventually we decided to get a little more adventurous and tried to prop open the chest. It stayed that way for two nights, until the second night when something happened.
Four armed men, yelling about how they would kill those adventurers, entered the bar. They threatened us with 250 gp damages. Tyveris stood up and said something to the effect that they should be worried about the ghost as a permanent problem rather than blaming us. They tried to drag him away– but then he pointed out that he was a deputy of Restenford.
The man punched him with a brass knuckle, hard enough to stun him. Then he left. Tyveris felt a vague sense of satisfaction through the dizziness, though.
It turns out that the ghost had appeared on the docks and chased three men unloading something into the water. By some accounts he threw them in, others he just pushed. It was definitely the same ghost in appearance.

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Defenders Log Entry #11: The Impossible Happens– Nobody Dies!

Tyveris bravely climbed up, when suddenly the staff we had left in the room was prodding the ladder over. Felix leaped to the ladder and attempted to steady it. Tyveris tried to turn the being, but it was clearly beyond his power. It laughed and said something like, “Your pathetic power does not affect me!”

Felix, 2nd level fighter, 24 hp, played by Alex
Drew, 2nd level ranger, 19 hp, played by committee
Morgan, 2nd level fighter, 12 hp, played by Alan
Tyveris, 2nd level cleric of Nevron, 12 hp, played by Joel
Quentin, 2nd level druid, 10 hp, played by Jeremy
Perry, 1st level thief, 6 hp, played by Sean
The party has decided to give the room our best shot. We tried a number of the suggested plans. There were no secret doors, but in fact there IS a secret panel in the chest, which opens with a normal lockpicking skill. In the secret panel, oddly enough, is a 35′ rope ladder, attached at one end to the top of the chest! There are many theories about why that would possibly be in the chest, ranging from an escape out the window of the room to a rope ladder leading down through a dimensional portal in the bottom of the chest. We still have no idea which is correct.
The first night we left rocks in various places on the room to see if anything changed during the night. The results were dramatic: the stones were found in an X shape in the center of the room the next morning. Furthermore, when Sean’s new halfling thief, Perry, put his head on the stones to detect noise, a bolt of lightning shot out of the floor (like a ward). Fortunately, Tyveris quickly threw a Cure Light Wounds in time to bring him back to full health, and prevent instant death.

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