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July 31, 2009

Balinor/Morty/Tarplin Summary #6: Beating up on Helpless Civilians

Party Roster:

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.

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May 11, 2008

Balinor/Morty/Tarplin Summary #5: Making Friends

Party Roster:

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.

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October 20, 2006

Balinor/Morty/Tarplin (BMT) Adventure #4: Really Ugly Faces From the Past

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 elf druid/mage, 30 hp, played by Alan
Leo, 3rd level human Nevronian cleric, 19 hp, played by David (Jay this time)
Morhion, 2nd level Northerner Nevronian cleric, 18 hp, henchman of Balinor

[Events of 9/9/06 in Charlotte; Game world July-November 2192]

As mentioned in the BMT primer, the party had two main goals:

-Acquire treasure, XP.
-Pass very little game world time to allow Felix/Donald to catch up.

Things were a smashing success… but not without consequences.

(The adventure is somewhat episodic, so I’ve divided it into sections—perhaps I should have done this before!)

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September 05, 2006

A BMT Primer: The Artifact Magnet Party

The first Balinor-Morty-Tarplin game since 2004 is occurring this weekend, and Kyle suggested I send out a quick refresher for those who may not recall the party’s recent adventures.

If you want a quick synopsis, read on…

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December 04, 2004

Balinor/Morty/Tarplin (BMT) Adventure #3: The Black Rider

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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September 15, 2004

Balinor/Morty/Tarplin Adventure #2: The Money Pit

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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August 21, 2004

Balinor/Morty/Tarplin Summary #1: The King of the World: Regicide

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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February 09, 2004

Balinor and Morty Summary #1: Vengeance!

Party Roster:

Balinor Buckhannah, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel Green
Amortician (Morty), human bard (7th fighter/5th thief), 74 hp, played by Jay Bates
Rupert, 4th level ranger, 46 hp, played by David Bjorlin
Chelios, 4th level woodsman, 40 hp, played by Katherine Anderson
Randy, 6th level cleric of Nevron, 38 (32) hp, played by David
Elliot, 4th level thief/4th level fighter, 33 hp, played by Katherine
Tarplin, 8th level druid/5th level mage, 30 hp, played by Alan Jones
Bodkin Goldsummit, 3rd level dwarven fighter, 27 hp, played by Katherine
Morhion Gendahar, 2nd level Northerner cleric of Nevron, 18 hp, henchman of Balinor
Brenda Mor, 4th level thief/3rd level mage, 15 hp, played by Jay

The theme was vengeance. The various events recounted herein took place on Lendore Isle from May 2191-November 2191, and in the real world on January 31st and February 1st, 2004.

When we last left this particular section of Telvar, the Seapoint Lightning, the Killer Bees, Morty’s Party (the Band), and a trio of Korians had defeated a thousand-year-old vampiress and her lantern of shadows, clearing a small island a few days south of the western coastal town of Seapoint. Morty’s party had been missing for almost exactly 30 years in an insidious mirror trap, and Morty’s bardic thesis had gone well out of date, forcing him to resume research. His future book, a Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lendore, will now also contain large “Then and Now” sections so that Morty’s old research could still be put into print.

Morty needed to re-tour the Isle, and Balinor’s party was without a mission, and thus a merger seemed inevitable. After dispatching a small band of bugbears and a few fungus beetles, Albee and Anselm (a Nevronian monk and cleric in the Killer Bees) returned to the Church in Barnacus, leaving us low on healing magic. Thus the party sought out a cleric or druid to fill in the gap. What we got…

While hanging around in Barnacus waiting for some training to complete, we encountered Tarplin, a druid had decided to take up the life of a flutist, traveling from town to town and providing entertainment in taverns. Morty and Balinor spoke with him, and decided that he could fill the gap created by Anselm’s absence. Morty had heard things about him, but he resolved to look into the matter and determine the truth of the rumors.

Continue reading "Balinor and Morty Summary #1: Vengeance!" »

November 18, 2002

The Seapoint Lighting and the Balinor Chronicles: You Only Strike Once

The Seapoint Lighting and the Balinor Chronicles: You Only Strike Once

Introducing the Seapoint Lightning of 2191:

Rebo, 6th level halfling thief, played by Joel

Captain Pittsford, 6th level human captain, played by Kyle

Spike, 5th level dwarven cleric of Clangeddin, played by Joel

Francine, 5th level human woodsman, played by Jay

Frankfort, 5th level human cleric of Chelsea, played by Jay

Astoria, 4th level human mage, played by Kyle

And the Killer B’s:

Balinor, 9th level Northerner fighter, 86 hp, played by Joel

Albee, 7th level human monk of Nevron, 42 hp, NPC

Anselm, 6th level human cleric of Nevron, 30 hp, NPC

Bodkin, 1st level dwarven fighter, 12 hp, played by Katherine

Morhion, 1st level Northerner cleric of Nevron, 10 hp, henchman

In 2161, the bard Amortician, also known as Morty, disappeared, along with his entire party, while adventuring in western Lendore Isle…

In 2173, a party called the Seapoint Lightning formed, from an initial adventure with the Restenford Defenders. Their motto: the Lightning Never Strike Twice. Most of them never had the chance to. The survivors (none of them original party members) became deputies of Seapoint, a city of 500 people on the west coast of Lendore Isle. For years they battled the Westpoint pirates. In March of 2178, the party annihilated a small base in a cave complex, and discovered a magical door that could not be opened.

Over many years, the party gained experience and battled the pirates, culminating in a year long series of raids on their base in caves on the coast. In March 2190, the party attacked the Old Bay, but the pirates were waiting, and four of the six members of the Lightning were killed, the rest in retreat. After recovering, the party launched a more prepared assault, and the fight was on. After sallying back and forth, the party finally broke the backbone of the resistance with the death of one of the major captains, and finally cleared the base in February 2191. The party then rested, until the morning of May 1st, when Captain Lofton knocked on their door…

Captain Lofton was the head of City Watch. He’d encountered a puzzle that seemed bizarre enough to require the services of the local adventuring party.

It seemed that the Loment family (Willet and Tara, children Neil and Farna) had vanished overnight. The door on their house remained locked from the inside, and no one had seen them leave. That morning a merchant had come for work he had commissioned from the tailor, Willet, and he had found no one there, and had banged on the door, and eventually alerted the Watch.

The party followed the Captain up to the house and began an investigation. The house was searched from top to bottom, revealing a few hidden valuables, but no secret exits. The chimney was too small to have escaped from. Furthermore, if the family had fled voluntarily, it was odd that they hadn’t taken their coats, since it was raining heavily in an unusually extended rainy season.

It seemed impossible that the family had gotten out by any conventional means. All windows and doors were locked from the inside, and there were no other reasonable exits. Furthermore, Francine picked up tracks heading from Willet’s bed to the center of the room, where they vanished.

We were confused by this, until Captain Lofton figured it out. We looked up from the spot were the tracks ended, spying a lantern hanging from the ceiling.

Apparently our man Loment had gotten out of bed, moved to the lamp to light it, and simply disappeared. And the rest of his family hadn’t even gotten out of bed.

This was indeed strange. We asked neighbors if they’d heard anything suspicious that evening, and they noted that the merchant had come by fairly late in the evening, and argued with the tailor and left. That was the last time the tailor and his family had been seen. The cobbler’s son also claimed that Tara Loment was a witch (in full scathing yokel detail).

The only other tailor in town that could conceivably be competition for Loment was named Sarah. At this point, the party split up—Rebo and Frankfort went to find the merchant, Spike and Astoria went to see Sarah, and Captain Pittsford and Francine went to see Lorianne, the local druidess, as the Loments were druidic.

Lorianne said that they had been followers for 16 years, regularly visiting her grove, but they hadn’t struck her as unusual in behavior. She agreed to query the animals in the area regarding the previous evening.

Frankfort found the merchant’s guards at an inn in town. They were clearly drunk, and surly, but yielded almost no helpful information. Rebo was left to follow them while Frankfort rejoined the party.

Spike and Astoria went to the other tailor, Sarah. There, much to everyone’s surprise, they found the merchant. He was quite rude and arrogant, believing that his report of the crime was sufficient and that he was losing money by the very delay. Astoria pointed out that Sarah was still mending his cloak, so we wouldn’t even be taking up his time. To this he responded something on the order of, “I could be using this time to contemplate new business propositions.” When Astoria pointed out that he was the last person to have seen the Loments alive, and should cooperate and answer our questions to help establish the true criminal, he scoffed, but grudgingly agreed to talk to us.

We learned that he had planned to leave yesterday, but needed the tailor to mend his cloak. He took it to Loment and became incensed when he hadn’t finished it by nightfall. This wasn’t particularly surprising given his general tendency to become angry at anything, Spike observed to himself. The merchant was told it would be ready by morning, so he arrived at the shop and failed to get an answer. After the door was broken down, and the place was searched, he took his cloak back and brought it to Sarah so that he could leave as soon as possible.

The party reconvened and began to search the neighborhood.

Continue reading "The Seapoint Lighting and the Balinor Chronicles: You Only Strike Once" »

November 16, 2002

Seapoint Lightning Teaser Summary

... Morty the bard and his party mysteriously vanish from knowledge in
2161...

... The Seapoint Lightning form an adventuring party and battle pirates
out of Seapoint...

... and die... over and over and over...

... in 2191 old friends gather with new adventurers to solve a mystery of
disappearances in downtown Seapoint...

... more to come...

Joel/????

October 01, 2002

Morty Summary

Party Roster:

Amortician, 7th level fighter/5th level thief (bard-in-training), played by Jay
Rupert Howitzer, human ranger, played by David B.
Randy Novotny, human Nevronian cleric, played by David
Elliott, dwarven fighter/thief (4th/4th), played by Katherine
Chelios, human woodsman, played by Katherine
Brenda Mor, half-elven thief/mage, played by Jay

Adventures with Morty circa 2161...

The party was attacked in the woods and nearly wiped out in a gallant battle that ended with Morty clubbing the attacker to death...

Jay can fill in details.