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We're over 100 posts! Does that mean we've made it?
We're back on schedule and we've got a new player at the table. Unfortunately, this week's session saw a few more deaths in the party as The World's Largest Adventuring Party went up against a terrible new foe...
DAYS 51-53 THE HOWLING
Goblin soldiers stood at attention as their hobgoblin sergeants shouted orders to salute the returning adventurers. After ten long, difficult and dangerous years of working his way up through the cutthroat hierarchy of the goblin priesthood, Argliss, The Goblin Emperor, was finally the undisputed ruler of Region B. He’d taken a gaggle of violent, lazy and basically retarded goblins and turned them into a fiercely loyal and disciplined army. Sure, they were still unnecessarily violent and basically retarded, but now they had focus. What’s more, they could read! The goblins had always been terrified of the power of the written word before the coming of The Stonespeaker and Argliss’ proudest moment came when he taught a young goblin warrior to paint the words, “BREE YARK!” onto the wall of a bugbear’s living chamber with a brush dipped in the blood of the very same bugbear. And now, for all his hard work, Norendithas Stonespeaker the Quickthinking, Smiter of Foes, had blessed Argliss with champions who defeated his greatest enemy and secured his place as ruler of the region.
The feast went on for several hours with goblins and adventurers consuming vast quantities of wine and wolf meat. A troupe of poorly trained goblin actors performed a play depicting the rise of the Stonespeaker and his defeat of the Stone Spirits and young goblins came forward to demonstrate their ability to vandalize the feast chamber with various curses (the play resulted in only a slightly higher number of injuries than the graffiti contest.) The highlight of the celebration, perhaps, came when Argliss announced the party had earned The Blessing of the Stonespeaker and presented each of them with a patch painted with the empire's new emblem, a grey fist. Strange and violent as it all was, it was the closest the adventurers had felt to freedom for as long as they’d been trapped in the dungeon. The next day, Argliss offered the party a new job.
Anemone Actiniaria, the elf diplomat, had worked out a preliminary deal with Argliss for relations with the prisoners of Four Waters and managed to convince the goblin to adopt their merit-based economic system. With this in mind, the goblin emperor offered to pay the party 1400 GEs (gold equivalencies) to wipe out a pack of dire wolves that had taken up residence in several of the goblins’ old guard posts. The party agreed and left the goblins for the wolf-haunted tunnels. As they were leaving, they encountered a group of messengers from Four Waters.
Thorin, Runath and Marcus, the party’s allies who lived in the shrine of the golden angel, had been found in a peculiar state of insanity. The group quickly raced to the shrine where they found their friends being looked after by a group of fellow prisoners. The three seemed unable to respond and merely wandered about the room or sat dumbly striking their heads with their fists. There was no apparent cause for the malady and the party could, at this point, do nothing to aid their friends. For now, they could only focus on tracking down and destroying the offending dire wolves. Traxxus, who had partied a little too hard with the goblins, decided to take some time off to recover from his hangover but the group was quickly joined by a new ally.
Rudeth Ravenlark was minding his own business and only passing through Lord Antagonis’ domain when he was stopped by a goon squad of Antagonis’ soldiers who accused him of being a delinquent. The charismatic wanderer attempted to talk his way out of the situation but ended up being tossed into the dungeon for the crime of having two birds mentioned in one surname.
The group had just entered the eastern reaches of the region when they began to here a horrible howling echoing from the halls. The wolves must be near, but the sound seemed to come from every direction and they could do little but move forward in hopes of finding the beasts. In time, they came to a large chamber filled with detritus and protected by a deep pit beneath a collapsing floor. Avoiding the trigger for the pit, the party made their way into the chamber to examine the piles of junk. Three large, fanged monstrosities suddenly loomed up out of the corners of the room and charged the party from the shadows, howling and dripping yellow foam from their jaws. The creatures’ lithe, wiry frames, long sharp quills and death’s head grins gave them away. These beasts weren’t dire wolves. They were howlers, predators from the Lower Planes with the power to drive men mad with their mournful wails.
The howlers were fast and their powerful jaws and spear-like quills made short work of Drax and Dorian. The fighter managed to lop off the paw of one of the beasts before he was torn from his feet and flung onto the spine-covered back of one of the creatures. Laze, Rudeth and Gofer retreated toward the pit hoping to lure the creatures into the narrow hallway but Dorin, seeing his brother’s lifeless body dangling from the spines of a howler refused to move. The sorcerer attempted to confuse the creatures’ senses with a spell to distort his movements, but it wasn’t enough to save him from being dashed to the floor by the gnashing teeth of one of the beasts. The creature picked up the sorcerer in its jaws and pulled him to a far corner of the room while its companions waited for the adventurers to attempt a rescue.
Laze, Gofer and Rudeth moved cautiously into the room. The cleric would need to get close to Dorin’s unconscious form if he was to have any chance of saving the dwarf’s life. Two of the howler’s lunged from the corners of the room as Gofer called on Irori’s power to grant Laze the stature of a giant. With his increased range, the half-elf managed to cut one of the charging beasts down and the cleric helped dispatch the other howler with blows from his mace as Rudeth called on some strange supernatural gift to curse his foes. The third howler remained in the corner of the room, Dorin’s head still held firmly in his teeth. Unlike many of their race, these howlers had long ago learned to work their lapping tongues around the harsh syllables of the language of demons and the beast used this gift to converse with the adventurers now. In exchange for its life, the beast would drop Dorin at the center of the room near the chamber’s only exit. Mindful for any betrayals, the remaining adventurers watched carefully as the creature moved across the room and dropped the dwarf before charging out of the room. It was then that the party noticed the howling had never ceased during their battle. There were more of the creatures out there somewhere, and they might return at any moment. The adventurers hurried back to the shrine.
The holy powers of the shrine slowly restored the adventurers to health, but the cries of the howlers were closer now. It became obvious as to what had driven Runath, Thorin and Marcus to madness. With wax and stuffing lodged firmly in their ears, the party closed the door to the shrine and waited as they recovered. They would attempt to go to the goblins or Four Waters for assistance the next day. Joining them would be a young halfling sorcerer and a dwarf fighter sent to watch over the afflicted dwarves and elf.
Miau, the halfing, was sentenced to the dungeon after escaping forced enrollment into a college for warmages and setting fire to a siege engine Antagonis’ soldiers were using to throw boulders at a young boy and his father who were attempting to aid in the girl’s escape. Dan-Zig the dwarf was locked up for simply being too metal.
The party left the relative safety of the shrine and crept cautiously down the hall toward the borders of The Goblin Empire when Dan-Zig and Laze spotted a trio of howlers preparing an ambush. Rudeth and Dorin spotted another howler approaching from behind. The creatures had apparently tracked the party back to the shrine and prepared their attack while they used their howls to weaken the adventurers wills. There was no escape. The adventurers would have to fight their way out.
Dorin blasted away at the howler in the rear with a cone of flame while Rudeth robbed it of strength with a necromantic curse and Laze and Dan-Zig slashed with their blades while Miau fired a ray of scorching flame into the face of one of the beasts. The halls of the tunnel provided some aid as they were too narrow for more than one howler to attack at once, and Gofer used the opportunity to provide healing to his companions from the center of the party. Still, the fighting wasn’t easy and, as one creature fell, another crowded into the tunnel to take its place. In all, five howlers assaulted the party from all sides though the last of the creatures took no immediate hostile actions. It wanted to negotiate.
“You bring goblins. We not attack,” growled the beast. Laze, who understood the howler’s terrible groans, replied saying they would sacrifice no goblins to the creatures. “Leave this area and we won’t have to kill you all,” said the half-elf. “No leave. Home now,” retorted the howler. “Have it your way,” grinned the rogue as he tumbled through the creature’s legs and prepared to strike as Gofer charged in to flank the fiend. The howler was dead moments later as the rogue and cleric beat on it from either side and Dorin unleashed another blast of flame. The howling in the tunnels had stopped and the adventurers returned to the nearby shrine to recover from their wounds. It was there they learned of the true intent behind the howlers’ ambush.
Marcus, Runath, Thorin and their caretakers lay in bloody heaps scattered throughout the chamber. The howlers that attacked the adventurers were only a diversion while more of the creatures attacked the incapacitated and less battle-ready people in the shrine. The cursed dwarf cleric and possessed elven fighter were on the edge of death, but the caretakers from Four Waters and the dwarf paladin had been brutally slain. Runath, to his credit, managed to pull himself together enough to charge the beasts as they entered. Without his sacrifice, the howlers may have had time enough to murder everyone in the room.
The prisoners of the dungeon had lost another hero and the accursed howlers had escaped back into the deep reaches of the region, their passing concealed by the uncaring, unblemished stone of the tunnel floors.
Whew, I see that I joined this party at just the right time. A little bit earlier and I would've been wolf chow. Just a little bit later though and I would've been... well, um wolf chow.
Don't worry everyone, I got plenty of fire left to shoot from these fingertips!
... now where can I get a drink?
*searches*
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What you need, you reject from a carousel at a theme park for slow children, is to quit writing this drivel and throw yourself into the ocean. I know a guy with a castle near the sea who could use another drowning pony to cheer him up.
Muahahaha! I do so enjoy being evil.
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The charismatic wanderer attempted to talk his way out of the situation but ended up being tossed into the dungeon for the crime of having two birds mentioned in one surname.
This made me laugh. ;)
I love reading about this story, but I have to say, with the high turnover of PC's in this group, I am having a hard time keeping track of who is in the group, and what race and class everyone is. Would it be possible to post just a quick list of Name/Race/Class/maybe level too at the beginning of each new session's post?
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Wait. You laughed at one of my jokes? You see that Antagonis, you big jerk, I do have talent!
You raise a good point though. We have lost quite a few party members haven't we?
Here's the cast at present:
Dorin - Dwarf Red Dragon Sorcerer
Dan-Zig - Dwarf Fighter
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Laze - Half-Elf Rogue/Barbarian
Rudeth Ravenlark - Elf Bard/Witch
Mio - Halfling Black (maybe Green) Dragon Sorcerer
Gofer Boneyard - Human Cleric of Irori
I'll post an updated list with each journal entry.
Just out of curiosity, what levels have the party achieved to date? I'm assuming that when they die and come back they don't come back one level lower than they were. If this was the case some of the character might be at a negative level by now, due to multiple deaths...
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Just out of curiosity, what levels have the party achieved to date? I'm assuming that when they die and come back they don't come back one level lower than they were. If this was the case some of the character might be at a negative level by now, due to multiple deaths...
Due to the length of the adventure and the possibility of a high turnover rate, I went into this not assigning any huge penalties for dying. It sucks enough to lose a character without having to earn all that XP again. A player loses out on any XP they might have gained during the encounter that did them in and any XP the party gains while a new PC is generated, but that's it. For players who fall behind, I'll offer to run solo sessions where they can perform some minor quest (I've run two so far and intend to add them into the journal.)
The party is mostly made up of level 4 characters, but at least two of the PCs just made level 5. I may have mentioned it somewhere here, but I'm using the slow progression XP table since the party could conceivably reach level 20 about 2/3 of the way through the adventure if I didn't.
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Okay readers, this is going to be the last update for little while. As you may have heard, a colossal black pudding is threatening to eat Louisiana. Once again, my expert chronicling skills have been called upon and I must pack my saddlebags for adventure. Please enjoy the latest record of our heroes' progress through The World's Largest Dungeon. Provided I'm not swallowed up by acidic sludge, I should return in a few weeks.
Our Cast:
Dorin - Dwarf Sorcerer
Dan-Zig - Dwarf Fighter
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Laze - Half-Elf Rogue/Barbarian
Rudeth Ravenlark - Elf Bard/Witch
Mio - Halfling Sorcerer
Gofer Boneyard - Human Cleric of Irori
DAYS 54-60 BRIGHTEYES
In the days that followed the death of Runath, the adventurers retired to the relative safety of the shrine while they recovered from their battle and sent word to Four Waters. Both goblins and prisoners from the commune came to investigate the slaughter and a new deal was negotiated between the goblins and the adventurers regarding the remaining howlers. Excited by the promise of wealth and the desire for revenge against the infernal beasts, the party resumed their hunt.
The adventurers returned to the eastern tunnels hoping the howlers had returned to their previous lair, but the creatures were nowhere to be found. With no other leads, the team headed north toward a previously unexplored passage. The north tunnel led the party to a lowered portcullis, another tunnel and a small room filled with rotting books. A blue, reptilian thing about the size of a dog rooted about in the piles of rotting paper and broken shelves. Laze, from the doorway of the room, shouted at the creature to get its attention and the beast turned quickly and let out a shrill squeal as its jaws opened revealing a triangular mouth lined with small black claw-like teeth. The creature, an ethereal marauder, was startled at Laze’s sudden shout and, unable to enter the ethereal plane due to the magic of the dungeon, ran for the door in an attempt to escape. The half-elf, taking the marauder’s charge for an attack, swung and disemboweled the creature before it could cross the threshold. Without the slightest feeling of remorse, the party stepped around the pitiful creature’s body and investigated the moldy books.
The room appeared to be a small study or perhaps a guard post. Age and abuse had ruined the books, but Rudeth and Laze suggested they be taken and magically mended later in case they held any useful information. Thorin (who really had nothing better to do than clean the shrine,) would eventually repair the books but, for now, the party pressed on once more to the north. The secrets of the portcullis would have to remain a mystery since the party had no way of lifting the heavy gate so the northern tunnel was really their only choice.
The northward tunnel led the party to a series of small rooms where they discovered four blink dogs who wished only to be left alone, a statue of a hobgoblin holding enchanted weapons and a small cushion atop a trapped pedestal. Whatever had once rested on the cushion was long gone, but the trap remained along with a series of mysterious glyphs, which only appeared with the aid of magical detection. Rudeth studied the runes for a moment but could only determine they seemed to be part of an ancient riddle, possibly pertaining to whatever had been placed on the cushion. More readily useful to the party, were the enchanted short sword and battleaxe of the hobgoblin statue.
The hobgoblin the statue was meant to represent must have been a very important warrior to his people from the look of it. Though its construction was nowhere near the quality of dwarven (or even human) workmanship, somebody had taken great care to craft a fitting tribute to this warrior. With Traxxus still unaccounted for, Laze asked his companions to stay behind while he checked the statue for traps. Ignoring his request, the rest of the party entered the room behind him, causing the half-elf to throw a tantrum and leave the room while they set off any traps he hadn’t found. Thinking it best to let Laze do his job, the party conceded to his wishes and waited at the door to the chamber. The statue, it turned out, was not trapped. However, the weapons were firmly attached and could not be merely lifted from the statue’s hands. Both Laze and Dan-Zig attempted to free the weapons in their own way, the half-elf carefully using a hammer and piton to chip out the sword while the dwarf tore at the axe, and eventually both came free.
The blink dogs the party encountered only growled their disapproval when the party opened the door to their chamber. The hounds had long tired of run-ins with dire wolves and goblins and bugbears and were in no mood for company. Like the ethereal marauder, they’re powers of teleportation had been denied to them by the magic of the dungeon and this made them nervous and defensive. They stood, fur bristling, when Laze stepped into the room and took a seat next to the door, but relaxed when Gofer convinced the half-elf to exit and leave the dogs to their peace. There were still other tunnels to explore and howlers to kill elsewhere.
The party came upon a large iron door marked by the sculpted head of a griffon, a keyhole inside the beast’s beak. To the left of the door was a short, narrow tunnel leading into a small room cluttered with debris and loose rubble. Muttering and cursing could be heard within the small chamber. Traxxus, finally reunited with the party, investigated the small chamber while Dorin sent Laze to check the door.
The chamber Traxxus entered looked much like any other chamber in this region of the dungeon except that this chamber had a hole carved into one of the walls and mining equipment lay scattered about the room. The halfling could hear somebody within the small tunnel and called a hello. “I know that voice!” came a reply. “But I don’t remember inviting anybody out here.” The halfling Bartleby, Argliss’ associate within the dungeon, poked his head out through the rubble. “What are you doing here? Did Argliss send you?” asked Bartleby. Traxxus explained the situation and inquired of Bartleby’s excavation. “What’s it to you? I live here, and it’s my business and mine alone,” Bartleby retorted. By this time, Dan-Zig had entered the room and begun to survey the halfling’s work. “He’s hiding something,” said the dwarf matter-of-factly. Just then a thunderous boom shook the dungeon.
Laze examined the iron door and, finding no traps, attempted to open its intricate lock. As he placed his tools to the keyhole within the griffon’s mouth, a glowing sigil appeared around the keyhole and a sudden deafening blast like the beating of a thousand tympanis exploded from the door. The rest of the party looked on as Laze shook off the pain of the blast and, with blood streaming from his ears, attempted to unlock the door a second time. Once again the peal of thunder erupted from the door, but the half-elf managed to escape from the blast and Dorin shouted for him to leave the door alone. “I wouldn’t mess with that door if I was you,” said Bartleby as he walked out into the hallway.
“Do you have the key?” asked Dorin. “No, but I probably wouldn’t tell you if I did,” replied Bartleby. “We should just tie him up and search him,” said Dan-Zig. “Oh, I see how it is,” said the halfling as he stepped away from the looming dwarf. “You all wanna gang up on the little guy, huh? Fine, feel free to look around all you want. I’ve got stuff I can be doin’ someplace else anyway.” And with that, the halfling was gone. Dan-Zig began to follow but Dorin called him back saying the party had no reason to rob the halfling. Aside from his mining tools, it appeared Bartleby had left nothing of value behind and there was no getting through the iron door so the party soon gave up and returned the way they’d come.
***
“Quickly! Quickly!” shouted the goblin warrior as the party approached. “We got one! We got one!” The adventurers had seen a gathering of goblins at the entrance to what looked like a large chamber from down the hall. Inside the chamber (a former goblin barracks room,) the goblins had come across a howler tangled in what appeared to be a large spiked chain. Months ago, bugbears filled the barracks with traps hoping to kill some goblins unaware the creatures had abandoned the room. Fortunately for the goblins, a lone howler thought the space would make a good lair. Now the beast was wrapped tight as spears and darts fired from all angles of the room tearing into the creature’s flesh. The goblins only made things worse for the beast as they laughed and threw javelins from a safe distance. Learning of another nearby barracks room, the party hurried to see if any other howlers had stumbled into a bugbear trap.
The barracks was a mess and it appeared to have been set on fire at least once. A howler rested in the corner of the room amid a pile of shattered bunks and rotting blankets. If there were any bugbear traps here, the thing had avoided them. Dan-Zig, always eager for battle, charged the thing and buried his axe in the creature’s shoulder. The dwarf traded blows with the howler as Traxxus lined up a shot at the thing’s haunches and Dorin and Mio cast spells from the rear. Gofer moved in to heal the dwarf as Laze stood back and took bets on whether the fighter would fall fighting the beast. In the end, with a little help from the spellcasters, the dwarf prevailed.
The wailing of the howlers had finally subsided. If any more of the creatures lurked within the halls of the dungeon, they’d apparently moved on to less dangerous hunting grounds. With that in mind, the party turned their attention to a section of the dungeon they hadn’t explored for some time. The adventurers had come across a room full of dire wolves weeks ago. They killed the beasts but then left the area and hadn’t returned. With the wolves dead, the party reasoned the room might make a suitable lair for any remaining howlers so they headed there next.
No howlers resided in the now empty chamber, but the party did find several rooms they hadn’t yet explored. One of the chambers, a large room filled with freezing water and limestone contained a shining diamond embedded into a thick shelf of frost and rock. Suspecting a trap, Traxxus and Laze carefully made their way around the water toward the diamond while the rest of the party waited outside the room.
The bitter cold of the room quickly fatigued the rogues as they balanced precariously along the edge of the water. At last, Laze could take it no longer and jumped into the four feet of freezing water in order to make his way quickly to the glittering gemstone. The half-elf immediately regretted his decision as a numbing chill coursed through his body nearly paralyzing him. Traxxus managed to reach the gem and found it was indeed trapped. Though his fingers were numb from the cold, the halfling managed to circumvent the trap and free the gem. For his trouble Traxxus found the diamond granted him resistance to the deadly cold and constantly glowed with a bright yellow light. After waiting for Laze to recover from his exhaustion, the party moved on.
Heading west, the party uncovered more treasure. An enchanted greataxe, a pair of scrolls and a masterfully crafted bastard sword all waited to be claimed from the dungeons trapped chambers, but the greatest treasure yet was still to come.
The party stood at the open door to a room decorated by a large statue of an angelic woman wielding a spear. A large hole had been torn into one of the walls and the cogs and gears of an ancient trap spilled from it onto the floor. As Laze approached the statue to get a better look at a plaque at its base, he was suddenly gripped by intense fear as two small glowing spheres formed from the eyes of the statue. The globes of light floated to a position in front of the door as the half-elf fled the room. Dan-Zig quickly caught hold of the fleeing rogue as Dorin and Gofer entered to face the strange spheres.
The balls of light appeared to be lantern archons but they didn’t respond to Gofer’s attempts at communication. They merely flashed brightly as the cleric and the sorcerer entered the room. Traxxus, Mio and Rudeth stood outside the room as Dan-Zig was forced to wrestle Laze to the floor. A moment later, a large golden dog seemed to materialize from the base of the statue and the globes were firing rays of light at Dorin. The dog also ran around the cleric in an attempt to reach the dwarf and it seemed the creatures paid no attention to Gofer at all. “I think I understand what is happening!” shouted the cleric. “Let’s get out of here, Dorin. I’ve got an idea.”
The pair exited the room, slamming the door behind them. Laze was now recovering from his fear, but the dwarf fighter had already managed to bind him with a length of rope. When the party took too long to untie him, the half-elf decided he’d had enough. As soon as he was free of the bindings, Laze quietly crept away from the party telling Traxxus he was quitting the group. Meanwhile, Gofer was reentering the chamber of the angel statue alone.
The spheres of light were gone and there was no sign of the golden hound so the priest of Irori approached the gleaming statue. The spear in the angel’s hand seemed to call to him and Gofer quickly offered a prayer and asked permission from the ancient celestials to free the weapon from the statue’s grasp before reaching out to take it. Suddenly, Gofer heard a whisper from behind the statue.
“You’re doing it wrong. The plaque! Read the plaque!” came a voice like tinkling crystal. Gofer looked down at the plaque and read aloud, “I shall defend this prison against all manner of evil. I shall die to protect this world from the horrors of the abyss. I shall never waiver. I shall never stop in my quest to liberate the world from the taint of chaos. I shall never concede defeat.”
“Congratulations,” said the voice. “The spear is yours. Don’t screw this up.” And with that, a lantern archon flew up into view from behind the statue as Gofer took hold of the spear. “I thought for sure it would be another hundred years before anybody worthy of the spear would be along to claim it,” said the archon. “Hi. My name is Brighteyes. I’m the custodian around here.”
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I'm actually in Louisiana to document the situation, Moonbeam, and it isn't so much a storm as it is a massive geyser of oil spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico like Nadya Suleman's *CENSORED* ejecting babies like a cannon full of circus clowns...
...chirp chirp chirp...
Uh...moving on.
I was told by Laze's player the character was getting tired of the group running headlong into traps and, with Traxxus in the party, his role was slightly redundant.
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*BAMF!*
Yeehaw! I am so glad to be back from Louisiana. I thought I was going there to record the deeds of heroes fighting the colossal black ooze but it turned out to be a trap (no doubt set by Lord Antagonis in an attempt to take over this very thread!) I was locked in a room filled with telephones that never stopped ringing and angry people shouting abyssal curses for 31 days. It was complete and total anarchy and the Pointer Sisters were there and so was Thomas Morstead from the New Orleans Saints (true story, honest injun.) It wasn't pretty but I eventually managed to escape my cell and rescue a cute girl from the graphics department who was being held prisoner down the hall. We went out for calzones to celebrate and I got a victory kiss and earned enough XP to level up. I didn't manage to loot any of the office supplies except for some cool magnetic tape, but the kiss was totally worth the hell I went through to get out of there. Yay adventure!
New session this Sunday!
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I was going to use this week's intro to celebrate my 501st post on these messageboards (yay!), but I have tragic news. It finally happened. Sort of. Among the myriad acronyms and abbreviations that make up the gamer lexicon there is probably no combination of letters more dreaded than TPK. Our heroes have had some pretty close scrapes with the Total Party Kill in the past but, during the last session and with half their number missing from the gaming table, they finally came up against something they were not prepared for (I should probably explain that this part of the story actually recounts the final events from the previous session and the entirety of the latest session.) It is with great sadness that I bring you the tale of...
DAYS 61-64 THE RISE AND FALL OF BONEYARD
Our Heroes:
Dan-Zig - Dwarf Fighter
Dorin - Dwarf Draconic Sorcerer
Gofer - Human Cleric of Irori
Mio - Halfling Draconic Sorcerer
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Rudeth - Half Elf Bard/Witch
Pojies - Goblin Barbarian/Monk (Yes. I know how ridiculous that sounds but it'll make more sense when you get to his introduction.)
ofer was a combat medic for the temple to Irori before coming to the dungeon. He earned the nickname “Boneyard” after pulling an extended shift defending the temple from a swarm of skeletons that left the place a shambles. Unfortunately, the undead belonged to Lord Antagonis.
Antagonis had ordered the skeletons from a bulk necromancy provider and, when he couldn’t return them before the end of their 30-day free trial period, he held the temple responsible. Many of the priests and monks were killed, but Gofer was taken captive and tossed into the dungeon, swearing revenge as he went. Now, he stood within the tomb of an ancient celestial warrior clutching the angel’s mighty spear.
“Remember your oath,” chimed the lantern archon, Brighteyes. “That spear won’t tolerate any mistakes.” The cleric handled the spear gently as he slipped it over his shoulder and returned to his companions. The adventurers waited outside the tomb with a new ally.
Pojies grew up within the goblin empire, spending much of his youth running wild in the maze. The other goblins were content to leave the feral orphan to the dangers of the labyrinth, but Argliss saw potential in Pojies and ordered him captured and trained by the hobgoblins to serve as a special operative. It fell on Barada, a wise and skilled hobgoblin monk to discipline the goblin and curb his bestial nature. Now, Pojies was among the strange adventurers with orders to aid and observe them for the emperor.
Dan-Zig and Dorin were uncomfortable with the idea of having a goblin along and things only got worse when the party discovered a room full of frightened blink dogs.
Gofer entered the chamber hoping to calm the dogs but some mysterious force within the room had driven the beasts mad with fear and they attacked on sight. Brighteyes, observing the party from on high, tried to shout that the dogs were only attacking out of fear but it was too late. Pojies and Dan-Zig were already in the room. Gofer ordered them to stop their attacks, but the goblin was already grappling one of the dogs and binding it with a length of rope. When the diminutive monk made a comment about dragging the dog off and forcing it to become his mount, Brighteyes flared with rage.
The archon’s halo took on a menacing glow and the remaining blink dogs backed away into a corner of the room. Dan-Zig quickly cut through the goblin’s line freeing the dog but angering Pojies who leapt on the dwarf and wrestled him to the ground.
“Leave now,” ordered Brighteyes. Then, directly to Gofer the archon added, “I don’t like your chances.”
The party left the area with Pojies dragging the struggling Dan-Zig by a length of silk rope. The goblin had learned his master’s Python style well and the cursing dwarf was bound tight. Pojies refused to cut Dan-Zig loose until he apologized for cutting the rope and the dwarf eventually relented. Meanwhile, the rest of the party was already exploring the other nearby rooms.
Traxxus, Dorin, Mio and Gofer entered a small room with a deep hole at its center. A rope and bucket hung into murky water at the bottom of the hole and, when the rope was disturbed, a loud alarm sounded through the halls. Pojies recognized the alarm and informed the party they had nothing to worry about. Goblins had set the alarm to alert them when insects were crawling into the bucket. A group of them would probably arrive shortly to investigate for snacks and new pets. Rudeth alone had entered another room and became trapped when the door slammed shut behind him.
An obelisk of rotating symbols rested at the center of the room and the bard was able to guess the symbols were a puzzle to be solved before he would be allowed to leave the room. His knowledge of magic served him well and he managed to decipher and twist the symbols into the correct arrangement before the trap could become any worse. Rudeth stepped out of the trapped chamber and came face to face with the investigating goblins who had a message for Pojies. The goblin was being summoned back to the empire for an urgent meeting with the hobgoblin commander, Hammerfist. Rudeth and Traxxus, who had business back at Four Waters, also departed, promising to return later.
Dan-Zig, Dorin, Gofer and Mio, decided they would continue their explorations without their allies and quickly found a chamber containing detailed maps of the region. With this new knowledge, they returned to the commune to rest and prepare for the coming adventure. While his companions went to purchase supplies, Gofer sought the archon, Ariel, for advice about the spear he had recovered.
Ariel was surprised to see the spear. He was even more surprised that to hear about Brighteyes. “This weapon’s name is Gwinol’yn,” said the archon. “It is named after the angel who fell wielding it and it is a powerful tool against the forces of chaos. Brighteyes went into the tomb to protect it and wait for it’s new owner. After the earthquake ripped through the dungeon, we all feared both he and the spear were lost. It is good to know he has returned.”
The lantern archon spent some time telling Gofer about the history of the spear and the angel it was named for. More important, however, was the oath taken by the wielder. “You can never let this spear fall into the wrong hands, Gofer,” said Ariel solemnly. “It carries the spirit of Gwinol’yn herself and will not abide an evil hand.” Gofer gripped the spear tightly and swore again Gwinol’yn’s oath. Then, remembering his fallen brothers, he swore he would escape the dungeon and end the reign of Lord Antagonis the Generic.
The quartet found their way back to the goblin empire and stopped to inquire about further work and gaining a portcullis key so that they might access the eastern region of the dungeon. Hammerfist met them and informed them of an area beyond the portcullis referred to as “The Killing Grounds.” Goblin pilgrims had reported the large arena-like chamber was haunted. Many goblins had died there and nobody knew what was killing them. The survivors of the chamber never saw what lurked in the room and did their best to scramble over the broken floor as quickly as possible lest they awaken the beast that called the chamber home. Argliss was offering an immense reward to anybody capable of destroying whatever evil made The Killing Grounds its lair and Hammerfist was given permission to grant the party access to the region so long as they swore to not disturb or enter the shrine of The Stoneshaper. The party agreed and headed beyond the portcullis.
The adventurers found another room full of blink dogs, a howler and a group of renegade Stone Spirit Goblins before arriving at the entrance to the Killing Grounds and settled into the remains of an old observation room to recover before tackling whatever lay within.
The Killing Grounds were aptly named. The chamber was wide and round and the vaulted ceiling rose into a viscera-hung dome over the tacky, blood-spattered floor. Large cracks, jagged rubble and shallow pits made moving through the room difficult and the entire chamber reeked of death. Worse yet was the oppressive feeling of pure, unfiltered evil that permeated the room. Five large, gore-stained stone doors stood closed within the room and an open tunnel yawned at the far end of the chamber. From outside, the adventurers prepared themselves for the worst.
Dorin, Gofer and Dan-Zig entered the room heading for the nearest of the five doors while Mio stood watch at the doorway. Dorin and Gofer had done everything they could to ready the party for battle and Dan-Zig now stood eight feet tall and hefted a huge, enchanted greatclub he’d found the previous day. The giant dwarf swung his mighty club at the door and, knocking some of the gore from its surface, found a large celestial rune carved onto it. Unable to read Celestial, Dorin and Gofer stood by as Dan-Zig continued to beat down the door, which fell quickly. The chamber within was cold but empty and the trio moved onto the second door. A muffled screaming could be heard from the other side and Dan-Zig quickly destroyed this door as well…much to his companions’ regret.
The room itself looked empty but something within was screaming a terrible scream that paralyzed Dorin and Gofer with fear. Dan-Zig squeezed his now-massive frame through the doorway to discover four wailing vargouilles. The creatures’ wings had been pinned to the walls with iron spikes and they shrieked relentlessly in pain and rage. The dwarf swung his club at the first foul thing to end its miserable existence and, over the sound of the cacophony, was unable to hear the frantic cries of Mio.
Six gaunt, yellow-eyed and flesh-decayed humanoids crawled up from the cracks and pits of the Killing Grounds floor. In gore-caked chain shirts, four of the creatures shambled toward the helpless Dorin and Gofer while the remaining pair made for Mio in the hallway. The first of the creatures, delighting in his prey’s misfortune, swung a wicked blade into Gofer severing three of the priest’s fingers from his right hand. Dorin suffered a cleft lip from the sword of another of the creatures and could only watch in horror as a third monster lopped off one of Gofer’s ears. Mio, seeking to distance herself from the beasts, stepped back and unleashed a scorching ray of fire into one of the creatures. Unfortunately, the beast’s unholy resistance to magic saved it from her attack and the halfling was forced to fall back and protect herself with a shield of arcane energy as she continued to scream for Dan-Zig’s help.
The dwarf had just dispatched another of the screaming vargouilles when he finally heard Mio’s shouts for help. Shoving through the door to the chamber, Dan-Zig stepped in close to one of the unholy creatures and swung his club with all his might, cleaving into a second as he did. The enraged beasts turned on the dwarf just as Gofer managed to shake off his fear and unleash a burst of holy healing energy. Much to her dismay, the halfling, Mio, was too far away to receive the benefit of Gofer’s divine power and was overcome by one of the monsters, which sank its teeth deep into her throat. Meanwhile, Dorin fell victim to a crippling blow that shattered his spine only moments before his own paralysis wore off. The dwarf sorcerer felt the rage of his dragon ancestor stir within his blood and unleashed a ring of flame that caught Dan-Zig and Gofer in its radius.
Dan-Zig fell shortly after with blood in his eyes, a broken jaw and a horrible, gaping gash across his cheeks. Dorin, brother to Drax and Thorin, was left to face the remaining monsters alone and, unable to breach their spell-shielded defenses, was quickly torn to pieces.
Wow, perhaps in the future the party should be staying away from places that having 'Killing' in their name.
Hm, wonder what we're going to do with a completely fresh slate of heroes.
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The Killing Grounds is sort of the "Boss Encounter" for the region so it's meant to be tough, and Dan-Zig and Dorin were actually pretty close to limping away from the fight in victory. Unfortunate rolling is what ultimately lost the battle for them.
The vargouille screams combined with the curse on the room caused Gofer and Dorin to become paralyzed, leaving them open to insta-crits from the undead warriors. I decided to forgo coup de grace saving throws in order to give the party a better chance of surviving, but it didn't matter once Dorin recovered and let loose with a fireburst spell that killed Gofer and seriously injured Dan-Zig after they both failed their Reflex saves. Mio and Dan-Zig both failed Fortitude saves and became paralyzed after they were bit by the monsters so they didn't survive long after that, and Dorin failed to penetrate the creatures' spell resistance with most of his spells so he couldn't hurt them.
I'll explain what they were fighting in the next journal entry.
so when does my story start
you promised me headlines
and that corderoy pillow does not count
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Hey now, Rags. I had to pull a lot of strings to get you that date with Minister Rekers so you lay off. Anyway, here's your debut.
DAYS 65-69 RETURN TO THE KILLING GROUNDS
Our Heroes:
Rudeth - 1/2 Elf Bard/Witch
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pojies - Goblin Monk/Barbarian
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Jin - 1/2 Elf (I think) Monk
Jayder - 1/2 Elf (I'm sure) Abjurer
The 1/2 Orc - 1/2 Orc (most certainly) Barbarian
Rudeth Ravenlark quickly choked down the pulpy, fungal brew from Macready’s pub in the Four Waters commune. Calling the half-orc’s moonshine swill would have been a compliment, but it was a blessed miracle he and Spishak had managed to put together the still in the first place so the bard wasn’t complaining. It had been two days since he and Traxxus had seen Dorin, Dan-Zig, Mio and Gofer and, as soon as the halfling finished his business with Molly, they’d be shoving off to rejoin their companions. The previous night, they’d met a trio of prospective new members for the group and told the three they were welcome to join the party…if they could wake up on time the next morning.
Jayder, unlike his companions, had the luxury of an alarm clock in the form of a rat familiar that bit him when it was time to meet with Rudeth and Traxxus. The wizard’s previous familiar (and reason for being incarcerated,) a cat named Cavendish, was executed for treason. Naturally, Jayder was accused of being the cat’s accomplice and sent to the dungeon to pay for his crimes.
Traxxus, Rudeth and Jayder, unwilling to wait any longer for their new companions, left for the goblin empire to search for the rest of the party.
Pojies the goblin had recently returned from a mission in the maze when he encountered Rudeth and Traxxus. The halfling rogue, Bartleby, and he had captured a pair of rat-men for questioning by Argliss. One of the rats turned out to be the half-orc fighter, Hurk, who had disappeared after he was overcome by a lycanthropic curse. The other, however, turned out to be a human plagued by an altogether different malady.
The rat-man (who the goblin dubbed Rags due to his tattered and draping robes) could remember little from his past. Years ago, he woke with a throbbing headache and the edges of a holy symbol of Sarenrae cutting into his tightly gripped hand. Scorned by the people of his homeland, he fled into the dungeon to seek a cure for the curse that had transformed him. There, he encountered the goblin chief, Guk, who mistook Rags for a wererat. Guk attempted to force Rags to infect his warriors with lycanthropy in order to make them more powerful but, when the rat’s bites had no effect on the goblins, the cruel chief planned to have Rags killed. He escaped into the maze and managed to hide from the goblins for the next few years until he was rescued from assassin vines by Bartleby. The halfling informed Rags the goblins were under new management and convinced him to return to their empire. When the two later encountered Pojies about to fight the wererat, Hurk, both rat-men were subdued and dragged off to the goblin emperor. Argliss, recognizing the creature before him and realizing he was no wererat, set Rags free to seek his cure. Though Rags didn’t like the idea of traveling with Pojies, he joined with the other adventurers to locate their missing companions.
A goblin warrior named G’lrp took the party as far as the entrance to the eastern region of the dungeon and opened the portcullis to let them through. Being a veteran of many battles, G’lrp knew better than to accompany the party and sealed the gate behind them, promising to camp for an hour to let them out if they wished to flee the area. Luckily, the goblin kept his word.
The party cautiously approached The Killing Grounds. Fresh gore, broken doors and the screams of the trapped vargouilles greeted them as they drew near. Jayder stood paralyzed with fear and Pojies, emboldened by the prayers of Rags, charged into the room and was nearly immediately surrounded by the six undead warriors who had been restored by the chamber’s foul curse. The creature’s hacked and tore into the goblin with their swords as the rat-like cleric channeled positive energy into the room wounding the monsters. Rudeth and Traxxus moved into the room to aid the goblin against the creatures but were immediately struck with fright and fled the chamber. At the closed portcullis, they shouted for G’lrp who arrived moments later with their tardy new companions.
Jin, unlike many of the dungeon’s recent arrivals, was not sent to the dungeon by Lord Antagonis. Being something of an idiot, the wandering monk simply walked in after a pair of guards at the entrance relieved him of most of his belongings and told him there was a carnival inside. Jin met Traxxus and Rudeth a few days later and decided to follow them since they seemed like nice enough people.
The half-orc accompanying Jin was a barbarian too blasted out of his mind on Macready’s mushroom brew to remember his own name or how he arrived at the dungeon. He vaguely recalled punching a couple of leprechauns before blacking out and waking up in the dungeon with vomit covering his armor and a totally awesome unicorn tattoo covering his left arm.
Presently, the two were following G’lrp down the hallway toward the closed portcullis. “You sure you want to go in there?” asked the goblin. The half-orc shrugged his shoulders and grunted, “Why not?”
The group thoroughly searched the chamber uncovering a series of small burrows beneath the broken floor. Within the burrows they discovered what they could only guess were the remains of their allies. A bloody slurry of bone, flesh and bile was all that remained of the adventurers. Their gear was missing, and the living turned to the gruesome task of sifting through the horrible pools of soupy gore. Rags and Pojies did most of the work seeing as how the cursed rat had grown accustomed to digging through disgusting filth for meals and the goblin was, well, a goblin. It wasn’t until they’d actually left the chamber that they found the bulk of their companions’ gear.
Three skeletons hung spiked to a wall in a chamber east of The Killing Grounds. The dead men were ancient and wore chain shirts and swords similar to those worn by the undead warriors. Newly destroyed armor, weapons and equipment (all that remained of the adventurers’ gear) were piled at the skeletons’ feet. Oddly, Gwynol’yn and Dorin’s mithral shirt were not in the pile. Worse yet, the portcullis key carried by the adventurers was missing as well. If they had been secreted away by the monsters of the dungeon or stolen by passing goblins, the party could not tell. With the key missing and G’lrp gone, the adventurers had no way to return to the goblin empire. They would need to go to the shrine of Norendithas to ask the goblins there for help. Before they could leave, however, Jin tugged on the leg of one of the skeletons causing it to crash to the floor. A silver ring bearing the symbol of Sarenrae rolled from its finger and Rags immediately took the item for a sign and claimed it from the monk.
Pojies led the way since he had been to the shrine in the past and its guardians likely wouldn’t attack him on sight. Unfortunately, the goblin hadn’t been to the shrine for more than a year so he got lost and took the party in the wrong direction.
Through a large, multi-doored and trapped chamber called The Crossroads, Pojies selected the wrong door and led the party down a narrow passageway into the middle of battle between three blink dogs and a pair of dire wolves.
The goblin, hoping to capture a new wolf for the goblin empire ran in and immediately began to grapple with one of the large animals. Jayder, Rags, Rudeth and the half-orc followed and attacked the wolves with magic and steel while Jin stood at the back of the room watching for a few moments before leaving to find something more interesting to do. Traxxus probably would have entered the room as well, but he’d never returned from his flight from The Killing Grounds.
The party made short work of the dire wolves, but found they were too late to save one of the wounded blink dogs. The remaining dogs growled and barked at the party in an unfriendly manner and then recovered their fallen pack mate before leaving. Rudeth and Jayder left to find the missing Jin and Rags, Pojies and the half-orc continued through the chamber to explore a separate tunnel.
Jin had found a winding tunnel while the rest of the party was dealing with the dire wolves and decided he would follow it before waiting for his companions. Rudeth and Jayder found the monk at the entrance to a rubble-strewn chamber. The room’s door lay in pieces on the ground and the trio heard a low growl from within. Rudeth threw a flask of burning oil into the room and Jin attempted to close the few remaining slivers of the door attached to the hinges but it made no difference. A massive wolf charged the door and dragged Jin the ground.
The monk unleashed a devastating kidney punch to the wolf from the floor of the dungeon before being falling unconscious and Jayder, who was too near the creature’s teeth, was bitten as well. Moments later, Rudeth was attempting to drag both of them through the narrow passage while the wolf slowly squeezed toward him. Fortunately, the tunnel slowed the wolf’s movement long enough for it to collapse from massive internal bleeding caused by Jin’s lucky punch. A second wolf suddenly appeared from behind the first but only dragged the wounded creature out of the tunnel and never returned. Unwilling to tempt fate any further, the three returned to their companions.
Rags, Pojies and the half-orc stood in a massive ruined chamber. Debris from a destroyed statue littered the floor and a charred corpse leaned against one of the walls. Beneath the rubble, they discovered a small coffin-shaped box containing a large shield and handful of silver coins. Joined moments later by their missing allies, the party rested to recover from their wounds. As he slept, Rags received a troubling dream.
An image of The Killing Grounds appeared to Rags’ sleeping mind. The room was dark and silent. Slowly, the misty forms of six men wielding longswords rose from the bloody ground. They seemed to be made from smoke or fog and their eyes sparkled with the fires of hate. The rat woke.
The party spent the next day cleaning the statue chamber and tending to their gear. Pojies attempted to teach his captured dire wolf to obey his commands. The wolf seemed hesitant but, at least, it was no longer trying to eat its bindings. Rags, praying to his goddess for a small miracle, caused the broken statue to reform into the shape of a powerful angelic creature and then consecrated the area in the name of Sarenrae. With the statue once again whole, the room filled with positive energy and the party slept once more within the chamber’s walls.
Rags’ dream returned. This time, however, the misty warriors seemed more solid. They raised their swords and seemed to chant in voiceless unison as droplets of blood rolled from the walls of the chamber and seemed to flow into them. Rags woke with a chill and realized the undead creatures were reforming beneath the floor of the evil chamber. Some unholy force had doomed these men to return time and again and only a divine force could release them from their curse. The rat-man warned his companions they may have to face the creatures again, and they headed once more in search of the goblin shrine.
Pfft... lucky shot?!? Try L33T Neeja Skillz! For years I have wandered... first I trained with the Monks of Mt. Dew in the East. Then I traveled West and learned from Sir Loin. Then I went to the south and learned even more skills from Master Card. Lucky shot. Hmph!
Now if you'll excuse me, those guards PROMISED me that there was a carnival somewhere in here and I'm going to find it!!
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The wizard’s previous familiar (and reason for being incarcerated,) a cat named Cavendish, was executed for treason. Naturally, Jayder was accused of being the cat’s accomplice and sent to the dungeon to pay for his crimes.
I always love the character introductions. :)
It was pretty gross when the group discovered the remains of their former comrades... ouch...
It seems to me that the party is splitting up very often. Why is that?
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The wizard’s previous familiar (and reason for being incarcerated,) a cat named Cavendish, was executed for treason. Naturally, Jayder was accused of being the cat’s accomplice and sent to the dungeon to pay for his crimes.I always love the character introductions. :)
It was pretty gross when the group discovered the remains of their former comrades... ouch...
It seems to me that the party is splitting up very often. Why is that?
Because they hate their GM?
Lord knows, it's why my players do it.
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Isn't it obvious? They can't help themselves. It is their only choice given their divisive nature.
I've been in this game a long time and I can tell you most adventuring parties are held together by only the most tenuous of bonds: strength in numbers. More than half the time you've got at least two people trying to kill each other, one guy trying to kill everybody, a couple guys who are just along for the loot and one den mother desperately trying to hold the family together out of some deep-seated need for control and stability. It's rare to find a party of adventurers who actually enjoy each others' company enough to work as a cohesive unit with a purpose; One for all and all for one and all that bosh.
Splitting up also satisfies their innate lust for power and wealth. One or two of them run off to prove themselves against the dangers inherent to their lifestyle and, provided they survive, return with the strength of their experience and possibly some new weapon or skill they can use to dominate or murder their companions. Meanwhile, the one or two truly good-hearted fools among the party are too cowed by their fear of dissolution to excise this cancer from their party. And that, my subjects, is why people like me get to rule vast kingdoms and people like adventurers get to fail and die unknown and unremembered deaths by the dozens in dark, monster-filled dungeons. Speaking of which, I love the new graffitti on The Killing Grounds' wall.
As far the criminal backgrounds of these interlopers go, each and every one of them was given a fair trial in accordance with whatever law I decided to establish in response to their malfeasance.
It's good to be the king.
Also, that cat got he deserved.
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Elected? Bwahahahahahahah*cough, cough*hahahaha Elected he says! *wipes away tears of laughter* That's rich.
The democratic system is a huge scam, dear boy. It's a smoke screen that fools common people into believing they have some sort of control over their government when, in actuality, their leaders are chosen by a clandestine organization from among a small but powerful elite who curry favor through the use of skillful political maneuvering, the proper application of wealth and the occasional deal with Asmodeus.
Suffice it to say I came to power as the result of a bloodless coup whereby "bloodless" I mean I was completely unharmed.
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I'd be careful about entertaining Lord Antagonis too much, Moonbeam. He might order you to become his new jester, and his jesters don't tend to last very long. If I remember correctly, the last one had a rather unfortunate accident involving a hyena, a steel cage and a zebra meat diaper.
Anyway, I've got another chapter ready and a new tool for any DMs out there who need to a quick way to come up with weird languages for their campaigns. This site features a language converter for about 20 fantasy languages. The Thieves Cant converter is kind of disappointing, but some of the other ones are pretty keen. I used the Celestial one for this week's journal.
DAYS 70-72 THE SHRINE OF NORENDITHAS
Our Heroes:
Rudeth - Elf Bard/Witch
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pojies - Goblin Monk/Barbarian
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Jin - 1/2 Elf Monk
Jayder - 1/2 Elf Abjurer
The 1/2 Orc - 1/2 Orc Barbarian
Traxxus cursed himself for fleeing the battle within The Killing Grounds. It wasn’t often the halfling let the perils of adventuring shake him, but the undead horrors of the blood-covered chamber were so unholy and unnatural he couldn’t control himself. He couldn’t go back to the goblin empire so he’d have to catch up with his companions and it’d been hours since he last saw them.
The halfling once again reached The Killing Grounds and, finding no sign of his allies or the monsters they’d fought, searched the room for some sort of trail. Beneath a loose stone in one of the small chambers adjoining chamber, Traxxus uncovered a suit of blackened splint mail of considerable age but obvious durability. The halfling packed the armor and continued his search, discovering a deadly magical trap upon one of the two remaining doors in the chamber that blasted him with explosive sonic force. The nimble rogue’s curiosity was piqued and he decided to unlock the chamber to see what the trap might conceal. As the thick stone door lifted into the ceiling, a gasping hiss was heard from within the room and a horrible stench issued from the open portal. Something like a yellow, hairless ape lunged from the shadows of the room. Its skin was stretched tight over its bones and its hands ended in grasping claws. The thing’s feral eyes roved wildly in its skull as it sought to sink fang-like teeth from a lipless mouth into the small rogue. Traxxus had just enough time to dart for the southern door of the chamber and slam it behind him as the thing charged into the room. Frantically, Traxxus dug through his bag for a hammer and piton as he braced his back against the door while the creature beat savagely from the other side. Piton in place, the halfling fled down the darkened hallway for fear the beast may break through at any moment. At the far end of the passage, the halfling discovered a door, which he quickly unlocked and entered.
A frightened goblin sat in one corner of the room, his hands trembling as they tightly held a small sharpened stick. At the sound of Traxxus’ voice, the goblin screamed in terror and wildly swung the stick at the open air. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you,” said the halfling. “My name is Traxxus. I’m trying to find my friends and get the hell out of here.”
It took a little convincing but the goblin, Klibb by name, finally calmed down and agreed to accompany Traxxus through the dungeon. It turned out Klibb was a member of the Stone Spirit Tribe of goblins who had served under Guk. He was separated from his companions after they were killed off by the undead horrors in The Killing Grounds. He’d managed to lock himself into this small chamber several days ago and was desperate to escape the area. It seemed he was unaware of Guk’s death. The halfling told Klibb he’d protect him long enough to get him a safe place, and the two headed east. Traxxus would get his first chance to protect the goblin only an hour later.
The door behind Traxxus and Klibb slammed shut as they stepped into a tower-like chamber and shrieks suddenly filled the air. A quartet of vargouilles descended on the pair and Klibb was immediately paralyzed with fright. The halfling swung his chain at the closest of the fiends and struck it from the air as another of the creatures swooped down on the goblin and latched onto his face. Unfortunately, another of the creatures flew in close to Traxxus and paralyzed him with its frightening wail and horrible countenance. A moment later, the halfling found the thing forcing its foul tongue down his throat. The remaining vargouilles seemed content to hover about the cursed goblin and halfling taunting them with their screams. Furious and more than a little disgusted, Traxxus came to his senses and whipped the creatures from the air with his chain. With the fiends dead, the halfling searched the room, desperate for some kind of cure to the vargouilles’ kiss. Scaling the walls, Traxxus managed to discover several treasures hidden upon ledges throughout the lofty reaches of the chamber. Unfortunately, none of the items seemed capable of freeing him from the curse, which would soon cause his head to tear free of his neck. Already beginning to feel the first stages of the transformation, the halfling grabbed Klibb and quickened his search for his allies.
Traxxus and Klibb raced through the halls of the dungeon toward a sliver of light shining through an open doorway hoping it may lead them to the halfling’s allies. Instead, they found a pair of Stoneshaper Goblins kneeling in supplication and chanting prayers before an image of a fierce goblin warrior. “Excuse me,” interrupted the halfling. “We need some help.” Surprised, the goblins quickly leaped to their feet and placed their hands on their sword hilts.
“Who are you?!” demanded one of the goblins. “What are you doing here!?”
“My name is Traxxus,” replied the halfling. “I’m one of the adventurers working for Argliss. This goblin here is my slave.”
“Slave!?” shouted the goblin as he drew his sword. “The Stoneshaper says goblins are not slaves, halfling!” Just then, Klibb, who had been cowering behind Traxxus for fear the goblins would recognize him, blurted, “Not slave! Halfling is stupid. He not know goblin words well. He is bodyguard to Klibb. Praise The Stoneshaper!” Klibb’s words seemed to appease the goblin warriors who lowered their weapons as a third goblin entered the room from another door.
The third goblin, a wiry fellow in what appeared to be some sort goblin version of a knight’s finery, explained he was the keeper of the shrine of Norendithas the Stoneshaper and invited Klibb into the shrine to worship. Traxxus was allowed to follow and found that the room beyond the antechamber was aglow with holy light. Celestial runes, sigils and iconography covered the walls and beads, candles and small offerings surrounded a masterfully crafted statue of a goblin warrior wearing a pair of oversized gauntlets. It was obvious to Traxxus the goblins had redecorated what must have been some kind of celestial prayer chamber or meditation room, but he didn’t comment on this fact. The light in the chamber reminded Traxxus of the light in the angel shrine where Thorin resided and he could feel the nausea of his curse diminish in its glow. He and Klibb would have to wait here for his companions if they were to survive.
***
Jin had wandered off in search of the elusive carnival of which he’d been told. The monk eventually found the antechamber to the shrine of Norendithas, but was quickly chased out by its guards who hadn’t received word of the monk’s relationship to the empire. Jin turned his attention to the northern reaches of the dungeon and soon came to an unlocked door leading into a small room with a door in each of its four walls.
A slim crack ran across the ceiling of the room and the floor was covered in dust. Jin tried the southern door and, after finding it to be locked, moved onto the west door. The half-elf was suddenly struck by a numbing chill that ran up his spine and paralyzed him where he stood. The last thing the monk heard was the sound of metal grinding on stone as a serrated axe blade swung out of the ceiling and split him in twain, its grating whine like the sound of a carousel horse squeaking by.
***
Rags, Jayder, Rudeth, Pojies and the half-orc once again entered The Crossroads. Pojies’ directions had taken them just about everywhere but the shrine and they now had only two doors to choose from to find the goblins’ holy site. The dire wolf Pojies captured, tired of being shoved and dragged through the narrow passages, refused to go any further and whined as it sat down in the large chamber. The goblin tied the wolf to one of the columns in the room and led most of the party through one of the remaining doors while Jayder decided to stay behind to wait for Jin.
The passage the goblin chose led to a thick, iron-bound door and the party could hear chanting from within. They’d finally reached the shrine. After dispensing with the pleasantries, Pojies pulled the shrine-keeper aside and attempted to convince him Jayder was a threat to the statue and the goblin pilgrims but Rags overheard their whispered conversation and corrected the goblin barbarian. Pojies had been bitter with Jayder since the wizard and Jin had said some mean things about him while searching for the shrine. Feeling emasculated and insecure, the goblin had decided to forget all about the lessons of self-discipline and loyalty he’d been taught by his master and opted instead to give into his baser instincts. His plan foiled by the rat-man cleric, Pojies slipped off to enlist the aid of the goblin pilgrims to help him murder Jayder.
Jayder stood within The Crossroads waiting for either the rest of the party or Jin to arrive when a hobgoblin walked through the door his companions had entered. The warrior had been sent by the shrine-keeper to keep an eye on him, but said nothing to the wizard as he stood silently near the shrine’s entrance. Suddenly, Pojies’ captured wolf pulled hard at its bindings and snapped the silk cord with a powerful jerk. Both Jayder and the hobgoblin readied themselves for the worst, but the wolf merely bolted for an open door and escaped into the dungeon. Moments later, Pojies entered the room on his way to speak with the pilgrims. The wizard attempted to explain what happened, but the goblin wouldn’t hear it and hurried off to secure Jayder’s demise.
A large hobgoblin spoke with Pojies at the door to the pilgrims’ chamber. “It was your wolf, pal, you deal with it,” grunted the hobgoblin. “I got ten goblins and three litters of supplies I gotta get back to the empire or Hammerfist'll have my head. No way I’m risking their lives fighting some wizard.” This isn’t what the goblin barbarian wanted to hear and he made his displeasure known by insulting the hobgoblin. “Look buddy. I got work to do so I’m just gonna pretend I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about and get back to it. You have a nice day.” Defeated again, Pojies stormed off to confront the wizard who he promptly tied up and dragged off to the shrine. The goblin knew he couldn’t just kill the wizard himself or the rest of the party might turn on him. Better to let some other monster do him in or let him rot away in a goblin jail. He waited for his companions to leave the room and then entered and asked the Shrine-keeper to watch the wizard for awhile before following his allies into the antechamber.
“Where’s Jayder?” asked Rags. “He said he was going to wait for Jin and Traxxus,” replied Pojies. “Let’s go.” Just then, the door to the antechamber opened. “How long do you need me to watch this wizard you tied up because I’ve got things to do,” asked the shrine-keeper.
***
Traxxus awoke in the shrine-keeper’s modest chamber. He and Klibb had waited two days for his companions to arrive and now, it turned out, he’d slept through their brief visit to the shrine. Luckily, the goblins were able to point out which way the party had gone and the halfling quickly ran to catch up with them despite the danger of his spreading curse.
The dungeon’s stonework took on a new pattern as Traxxus and Klibb tracked the party into an unfamiliar region. Oddly, their torch light gave off a strange blue glow as they entered the area and everything around them seemed to take on the same blue radiance. It wasn’t long until they met with the halfling’s companions in what appeared to be an ancient shrine to Sarenrae. Pojies and Rudeth had only just returned from a scouting mission that saw them battling an over-sized cockatrice and a lone gargoyle. Rudeth was still feeling stiff from his run-in with the foul fowl. The goblin had used the bard as a meat shield until the chicken-lizard finally got fed up and chased him down. After sending Traxxus back to wait in the light of the goblin shrine, the group rested and Rags was able to cure both the halfling and Klibb the next day. Together again at last and remembering the disturbing dreams of the rat cleric, the party decided to accompany the goblin pilgrims on their return trip to the empire.
The group was on their way to meet up with the pilgrims when the silver signet ring on Rags’ finger slipped off and rolled toward a door in the west. The cleric picked up the ring and asked Traxxus to unlock the door. On the other side, a passage extended to the north and south. Choosing to go north, the party discovered another locked door, which the halfling unlocked. The door opened into a small room, empty but for a small gold bowl upon a pedestal at the south wall. Though everyone else was only able to make out a ring of strange runes along the exterior of the bowl, Rags was able to clearly read the incantation for a powerful prayer to Sarenrae written upside-down for some reason. The interior of the bowl was marked by four equidistant sigils of unclear intent. Still, the cleric quickly grabbed the bowl and ran off to The Killing Grounds with his companions and the pilgrims behind him.
Once again, Pojies was the first into the chamber of horrors. The goblin charged in and waited as the groaning dead warriors crawled up from the floor, fully rejuvenated by the curse of the chamber. From the rear of the party came a shout of, “For the Stoneshaper!” and the pilgrims’ hobgoblin guards raced into the room to battle the unholy creatures. As the fiends surrounded and attacked Pojies and the hobgoblins, Rags slipped into the center of the chamber and began to recite the words of the prayer.
“Hiyyhel tanhicw, iy'l pelelc a hucw vuht hucelhz ficyeln
Hiyyhel tanhicw, iy belelhl hixel zelanl licvel iy'l pelelc relnel
Relnel vusell yrel loc, relnel vusell yrel loc
act I laz iy'l ahh niwry!”
The priest waited. Nothing happened. Traxxus, the half-orc and the hobgoblins fought madly and Pojies suddenly fell still, paralyzed by the bite of one of the undead monsters. Suddenly Rudeth shouted to Rags, “The floor, Rags! Put the bowl on the floor!” Sure enough, the fighting had cleared away a ring-shaped indentation in the floor of the room. Flipping the bowl over, fitting it into the indentation and ducking beneath the blades of two of the rotting warriors, Rags once again chanted the prayer.
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The democratic system is a huge scam, dear boy. It's a smoke screen that fools common people into believing they have some sort of control over their government when, in actuality, their leaders are chosen by a clandestine organization from among a small but powerful elite who curry favor through the use of skillful political maneuvering, the proper application of wealth and the occasional deal with Asmodeus.
What?!?
That's... horrible!!!I'll go warn the rest of the population, and soon, there will be a revolution against this evil regime!!!
Unless, of course, you have your guards arrest me and throw me into the dungeon.
...
But I'd prefer if you didn't do that.
"" OH NOS heavens forbid lil moonbeam get stuck down here with us ""
get a spine
you woulda been siding wit da gobbys inna heartbeat
AND I lays odds dat you woulda been one'a da ones what done gone off to explore or gots scaredy'd off by dem self's
damn dirty gobbs, but dis Argliss maybe ain't so bad
at least he knew I wasn't a wereling rat. and he is trying to set up a proper socital thing dere for da gobby's like almost a real town kinda thing , an on toppa dat he speaks real good also and isn't greedy ( 1+1+1= 3???)
hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm
he needs furder watchin
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With this session, our heroes have completed one more region of the dungeon and moved into new territory. I'll post an epilogue to Region B a little later, but right now I'm a little concerned for The Half-Orc, our party's resident barbarian and amnesiac lush. It's been about 14 days and he still doesn't remember his name. That must have been some pretty strong stuff he was drinking (I'm sure Famous' moonshine isn't helping matters either.)
DAYS 73-79 TOMB AND SHADOW
Our Heroes:
Rudeth - Elf Bard/Witch
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pallas - Dwarf Fighter
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Shi - Human Cleric of Pharasma
Jayder - 1/2 Elf Abjurer
The 1/2 Orc - 1/2 Orc Barbarian
Klibb - NPC Goblin Rogue
The curse over The Killing Grounds was finally broken. The golden bowl radiated a soft holy light throughout the chamber and its runes had changed. Now, instead of a hallowing prayer, the celestial runes spelled out a curse on any being brazen enough to remove the bowl from its place. Meanwhile, the goblin pilgrims collected the remains and equipment of Pojies while the party met their newest conscript.
The undertaker, Shi, had entered The Killing Grounds during the party’s battle with the ghoul paladins and lent some aid to their cause. As a devotee of Pharasma, he knew many prayers and wards against the undead and had plenty of reasons to destroy them, one among them being his reason for being imprisoned…sort of.
Shi was out collecting corpses for burial when he was stopped by a contingent of Antagonis’ soldiers. Mistaking the gaunt Shi for a necromancer, the soldiers demanded to inspect his cart and then accused Shi of peddling defective zombies. Of course when Shi explained who he was and what the bodies were for, the soldiers accused him of impersonating a necromancer and tossed him in the dungeon for fraud.
With introductions made, the party returned to the goblin empire to report their victory and collect their pay.
The adventurers rested a couple days at Four Waters and Rags took the opportunity to seek out Thorin in the angel shrine north of the goblin empire. The dwarf was happy to meet a fellow cleric of Sarenrae and even more excited when the rat-man prayed to their goddess to remove his vargouille curse. With the curse removed, Thorin was free to return to a life of adventure, danger and retribution against the horrors of the dungeon for the deaths of his brothers…but he didn’t. Instead, he introduced the party to a horribly disfigured dwarf fighter who wasn’t getting on well with the other members of the commune.
Pallas was thrown into the dungeon for nothing more than being an ugly jerk. Within the dungeon, he tried to work as a scavvy guard but his overbearing personality didn’t win him any friends among the work crews. Eventually, he was assigned to duty near the goblin empire where he met Thorin. He’d been living in the shrine about two weeks when Thorin introduced him to the adventurers. “I think he’ll be a tremendous asset to the team,” said the dwarf cleric, his fingers crossed under his beard. “Those horrible scars and that lumpy misshapen head are only proof of how durable he is, and he’s a great advisor. Yup, ol’ Pallas here’ll never hesitate to tell you what you’re doing wrong. ”
With another new member in tow, the party headed back to the goblin empire for more work.
Relations between Four Waters and the Goblin Empire had been pretty good but both factions were quickly realizing space was a commodity. Lord Antagonis continued to fill the dungeon with prisoners and, with no immediate threats, the goblins were beginning to breed like, well, goblins. Neither group wanted to share living space so Anemone Actiniara, the elf diplomat, proposed a solution.
A tomb-filled section of the dungeon near the goblin empire had gone unoccupied since the goblins established their home. The goblins claimed the region was haunted and, being superstitious, they’d left it alone. Knowing any adventurer worth his rope wouldn’t hesitate to crack open a tomb, Anemone worked out a deal with the party to clear out the haunted area so the goblins would have room to expand.
The party proceeded into the tombs and discovered each was sealed with a ward, which could only be opened by an honorable hand. Rags stepped up to the first ward and ran his finger along its design. The tomb door shuddered and cracked open revealing nothing but dusty stone sarcophagi and bones. Slightly relieved to find nothing of danger within, the party moved onto the next tomb.
Tomb after tomb was cracked and, aside from the occasional trap, earth tremor or whispered, disembodied voice from the shadows, the party had little to fear. That is, until an eerie, foul-smelling wind blew through one open portal. Suddenly, most of the party was filled with fear. Rags, Pallas, Jayder, Rudeth and the half-orc fled through the narrow passageways as four ghouls broke free from the ancient mausoleum. Traxxas and Shi were left to fend off the beasts and the halfling was already struggling under the burden of the terrified goblin, Klibb, who clung to his back and refused to let go. Eventually, the pair managed to destroy most of the creatures as their companions regained their composure and returned to the fight. The ghouls were quickly dispatched after that and the party was able to finish their clearing of the tombs with little trouble until a quartet of wights burst from another tomb. Shi was flanked by two of the monsters, which tore into him with their life-draining claws. The cleric felt faint, but managed to hold on until his companions could finish off the beasts. It also turned out, Shi wasn’t the only person under the effect of some necromantic energy. The dwarf Pallas, was feeling ill as well. It would later be discovered the magical suit of splint mail Traxxas had given him was filled with unholy magic. Removing the suit of armor was all it took to cure the dwarf, but Shi, unfortunately, did not recover from the touch of the wights. Shi survived the encounter with the wights, but the undertaker would bear the scar of unlife’s touch for the rest of his life. Knowing the goblins would have new holes in which to spawn did little to ease his pain.
The party collected their fee and moved to the north of Four Waters.
News from the region north of the commune was grim, but hopeful. The area had been avoided by the scavenger teams because of reports of shadows, which moved of their own accord and strange howling noises. Scavvies had gone missing as well and, it was rumored, the wererat monk, Mina, was hiding somewhere in the tunnels. Ariel, the lantern archon, however, provided some promising news. The archon told of a celestial garrison, which stood watch within the northern region. If the party could find the angels of the garrison, they may be able to secure powerful allies in the dungeon. Though Traxxas and Pallas argued in favor of continuing into the gnoll-infested region east of the goblins, the rest of the party felt it was best to ensure the safety of the commune by clearing the north of monsters and reaching the angels.
The adventurers moved north, climbing down and through an easily spotted pit trap, into a large foggy chamber. The walls of the room were inscribed with eulogies to fallen warriors and farewell messages from warriors going off to die. Rudeth copied anything that sounded like a will into his journal, hoping to capitalize on it later and Pallas was chastising the elf for his apparent greed when the group suddenly heard a strange clicking sound. Spiders and scorpions the size of ponies came scuttling out of the fog toward them and battle was joined.
Rudeth did his best to avoid the creeping monsters by ducking behind his companions, leaving Shi and Rags to deal with the incoming vermin while Pallas, Traxxas, Klibb, Jayder and the half-orc fought the creatures approaching from the north. Though numerous, the vermin proved no match for the adventurers and Pallas once again complained that the party had chosen the wrong region to explore, claiming his talents were being wasted on squashing bugs. The dwarf proclaimed he would search one more room before deciding whether or not to leave the group to hunt gnolls and then stormed off with Jayder in tow.
Traxxas and Rudeth opened the door to another chamber and, upon spotting a pair of large spiders within, the halfling closed the door. Rudeth, wanting to explore the room, reopened the door and lit one of the spiders on fire on with a fan of flames. A third spider immediately descended from above the doorway and attacked the elf while the remaining spider quickly approached from the far corner of the room. Traxxas, Klibb and Rudeth were soon caught up in a battle with the spiders who escaped into the hallway as Rags amusedly watched from a nearby doorway. The spiders were quickly defeated and, for his trouble, Rudeth was rewarded with a small pile of coins and a silver statue of an angel he recovered from the spiders’ former home. Meanwhile, Pallas and Jayder were engaged with a new threat.
The fighter and wizard opened a door into small shrine filled with fountains. Water still flowed into the basins of the fountains but all the statuary in the room had been smashed. A trio of large black hounds rested in the room, but immediately snarled and lunged forward when they saw the pair at the door, howling eerily as they came. Pallas planted himself in the doorway hacking away at the beasts with his warpike while Jayder fired bolts of mystic energy at the creatures. The dogs were tough but eventually succumbed to the attacks of the adventurers, their bodies evaporating into wisps of smoke-like fog as they fell. “I’m going to get the others,” said Jayder. “They should be here in case there are more.”
“Tell them I died,” replied Pallas. “I’ll wait here.” The dwarf, however, had no intention of waiting for his companions and, once Jayder was gone, went into the next room. The room was filled with a magical darkness the dwarf’s eyes could not penetrate, but he could hear a strange mechanical clicking sound from somewhere within. Not wanting to risk being attacked in the dark, Pallas changed his mind about running off alone and decided to wait for the party to arrive.
Rags’ prayers granted Traxxas and Pallas the ability to see through the arcane darkness and the pair cautiously entered the room. The chamber was filled with gears and a skeleton was trapped within a set of the cogs in the corner of the room. Suddenly, a howling was heard from within the chamber that filled the party with fear. Three more of the black hounds attacked from the shadows as one by one, the adventurers began to flee from the baleful howls of the beasts. Traxxas was forced flee after being dragged to the floor and nearly killed by the hounds and, when three more of the creatures came rushing and baying out of a door at the other end of the room, Pallas dropped his warpike in terror and fled for his life as well. The creatures did not follow.
The party returned to the darkened chamber after regaining their composure, but found the room empty except for their dropped equipment and the skeleton trapped in the gears. The room beyond the gear-filled chamber was lit by a magical light, but filled with destroyed furniture and paintings. Another door revealed the escape path of the hounds. “I guess I’ll stick around a little longer,” sneered Pallas. “We should camp out in the shrine for a few days and the rat can fix all these tables and chairs and stuff with his magic so we can take it back to the commune. He should fix those statues in the shrine too.” The dwarf was really starting to get on Shi’s nerves but, if he was bothering anybody else, they didn’t say anything.
Over the next few days, the party managed to kill another three of the strange black hounds, which were trapped in a mysteriously silent room and Rudeth managed to identify the creatures as shadow mastiffs, a predatory species from the shadow realm. Rags also managed to restore the furniture and the small shrine and Shi was amazed to discover it was built in honor of the dead god, Aroden. Also of note were the bodies of a slain aasimar warrior and an angel who had apparently died in battle with demonic forces. The party recovered the spear and broken trumpet of the angel and returned to the commune dragging their new furniture behind them.
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Before our next session, I thought I would post an epilogue for Region B along with a couple other campaign notes. First off, our heroes gained a new perk during the course of their adventure in Region B. At the end of Region A, the group was awarded with a village where they could get rid of extra stuff and purchase new supplies. Region B got the village an ally, but it also got the party a new trait.
The Blessing of The Stoneshaper was granted to the party by Argliss, giving anyone who serves with the party a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with Stoneshaper goblins and a +2 circumstance bonus to Intimidate Stone Spirit goblins. This trait is conferred to any active member of the adventuring party even if they are a replacement character (i.e. guilt by association.)
Next, I thought it was about time for an updated roster for the World's Largest Adventuring Party. The following is a list of every member of the party to date and what's become of them:
Traxxas = active member
The ½ Orc = active member
Rags = active member
Pallas = active member
Jayder = active member
Shi = active member
Klibb = active member
Laze = left party
Marcus = cursed, left party
Mina = left party, became wererat
Hurk = left party, became wererat
Walker = left party, in Hell
Saelin = left party, killed by wererat Mina
Ranoth = killed by lightning bolt
Poker = killed by darkmantles
Lockwalt = killed by darkmantles
Foxy Loxy = killed by darkmantles
Air'elon = killed by lightning bolt
Runath = left party, killed by howlers
Chu = killed by lightning bolt
Ayla = killed by dire wolf
Thorin = kissed by vargouille, left party
Dorin = killed by ghoul paladins
Drax = killed by howlers
Dammi-tall = killed by bugbear
Dorian = killed by howlers
Marius = killed by bugbear
Annali = killed by phantasmal killer trap
Gofer = killed by ghoul paladins
Dan-Zig = killed by ghoul paladins
Mio = killed by ghoul paladins
Jin = killed by pendulum blade trap
Pojies = killed by ghoul paladins
With that out of the way, it's time for the epilogue. New session to follow this weekend.
REGION B Epilogue:
In the wake of the adventurers’ victories and losses in Region B, the prisoners of Lord Antagonis gained valuable, albeit questionable, allies in Argliss and the goblin empire. The goblins now had possession of roughly 85% of the region with the commune’s prisoners left to clear out and occupy the remaining sections. A handful of bugbear holdouts and ancient celestial traps would make settling difficult, but the prisoners would quickly rout the creatures and learn to avoid the traps.
The old bugbear huntmaster Aughkin was never seen again, but the white-furred shaman was later discovered living in a small chamber decorated with the skulls of wolves, goblins and other bugbears. He would not communicate with the prisoners, but he didn’t seem to pose a threat so they left him to live out his remaining years in peace. It is largely believed Aughkin met his god, The Hunter, within the jaws of the enigmatic and mysterious Mighty G’rrrd, whom no prisoner ever laid eyes on though tales persist of a ghostly howl that sometimes echoes through the halls of the region.
The name of Pojies, the first emissary of the goblin empire to travel with the adventuring party, would later become a mild insult among the goblins of The Stoneshaper Empire. While no goblin could contest the barbarian’s prowess in battle, word of his actions among his companions reached the ears of Argliss and the goblin king was disheartened by the stories he heard. Pojies, who had been a shining example of what a goblin could become if properly educated and disciplined, had nonetheless turned his back on his king and reverted back to the savage and underhanded ways of the Stone Spirit goblins. The goblin’s name became synonymous with backsliding, betrayal and disloyalty and the hobgoblin, Barada, who had trained Pojies, was so disappointed with his student he resigned from his duties and disappeared into the east.
The spear, Gwinol’yn, which disappeared after the death of Gofer Boneyard, could not be found in the area surrounding The Killing Grounds where it was lost. However, the party did eventually discover the halfling, Bartleby, recovered Dorin’s mithral armor and Dan-Zig’s enchanted greatclub sometime shortly after the adventurers’ deaths. Whether the halfling recovered the spear as well is not known, but he hasn’t been seen since he sold the armor and club to the hobgoblins.
At this point, the party has tested the waters of the regions north of the commune and east of the goblin empire. To the north await threatening shadow beasts and the hope of celestial aid. To the east, a gnoll horde, grown disturbingly quiet in light of their violent past with the goblins of Argliss’ kingdom. With both Four Waters and the Stoneshapers seeking to expand and neither faction thrilled about the prospect of cohabitation, the adventurers find themselves in a position to influence the fate of both communities. Will they brave the shadows and seek the aid of the celestial garrison to secure the commune or will they launch a surprise offensive against the gnolls, giving the goblins the space they need to build their kingdom? Will the half-orc ever remember his name? Will Lord Antagonis ever dislodge that fid from his pooper? I don’t know but it’ll be fun to find out!
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I've had a busy couple of weeks and not a lot of time to work on this so I'm going to keep the intro short and get right into the story. This entry ends on a cliffhanger so you'll just have to keep reading if you want to know how things turn out for our heroes (though, after this session, I'm not sure if "heroes" is the right term for them.)
DAYS 80-84 THE CELESTIAL GARRISON
The adventurers’ return to Four Waters was met with mixed reactions from the community. While their continued explorations meant the prisoners could look forward to good news about the discovery of an exit, the group’s pack rat mentality and Rags’ use of his goddess’ powers to repair the damaged furniture meant many of the scavenging teams and craftsmen would miss out on the opportunity to earn their meals and equipment. Complaints were being made and, once more, the adventurers were forced to realize the impact their actions in the unexplored areas of the dungeon had on the prisoners in the commune.
Spishak Kilbane, halfling adept and Four Waters’ Minister of the Economy, informed the party of the trouble and asked them to allow the scavenger teams to retrieve any bulk goods or materials they discovered rather than repairing and transporting the goods themselves. To show there weren’t any hard feelings and to repay them for their past kindnesses, Spishak then offered them a set of block and tackle they could use to bring in gear for their own use. The adventurers accepted the gift and then took a day to rest before returning to the northern region. The half-orc would not be joining them as he had fallen into a piss-drunk coma and could not be roused.
Back in Region E, the party moved into a large room littered with garbage. A spider the size of a horse clacked its mandibles in one corner of the room but, unlike any of the previously encountered vermin in the dungeon, made no threatening movements toward the party. Pallas and Traxxus cautiously approached the creature, which merely followed them with its eyes but took no other actions. Whether the monstrous arachnid wasn’t hungry or it didn’t consider the party a threat, they could not tell. Even Traxxus’ probing of a nearby refuse pile did not stir the beast. “I’ll bet he’s hiding something in that corner,” quipped the halfling as the spider dumbly blinked half of its eyes.
Pallas, seemingly happy for any justification for unprovoked violence, responded to Rags’ words by hauling back on his warpike to swing at the spider. Traxxus joined in the melee by furiously whipping his chain at the creature and lashing hard against its chitinous hide. Before the dwarf could finish his swing, the frightened and wounded spider, which up to this point had been peacefully minding its own business I may remind you, sprayed Pallas with a thick sheet of webbing and ran for the nearest exit.
Traxxus and Pallas both quickly attacked the fleeing spider sending it hurtling to the floor as it attempted to climb up a wall and past the halfling. The corner of the room where the spider was sitting before it was mercilessly attacked and maimed contained nothing but more trash and the adventurers were really proud of what they’d done and had no trouble sleeping that night.
Through a tunnel north of the garbage-strewn room, the group came to a dim, gray and hazy chamber. The room was decorated with iron chairs and cushions arranged in a small pile on the floor in one corner of the room. Rags, Traxxus, Klibb and Shi entered the room while Pallas and Jayder explored another nearby chamber. Suddenly, from out of the haze, came a terrible howl. The shadow mastiffs, which had been hiding within the low-lit corners of the room, quickly surrounded the party and attacked.
Pallas quickly rushed to the dim chamber to aid his companions while Jayder simply dropped his staff and fled from the source of the frightful sound. Meanwhile, the pack of evil hounds were biting and tearing at the adventurers within the room. Traxxus and Rags struggled to remain on their feet as the mastiffs attempted to pull them to the ground and Shi prayed for Pharasma to silence their howls while the goblin, Klibb, simply did his best to escape the chamber. Rudeth, who had slipped away from the group hoping to discover some loot he could conceal from the party, ended up arriving to the battle just in time to see Jayder tripped by Pallas as the wizard was trying to flee the fight.
Shi had made it back into the hallway with Klibb, Rudeth, Pallas and Jayder when he noticed a door the party had blocked up with a piton was being pulled open by a pair of shadow mastiffs to the north. The hounds were trying to flank the party and Jayder was unfortunate enough to run right into them as the creatures escaped into the passage. Rags was now bleeding to death in the middle of the shadowy chamber and Traxxus was seriously wounded. The cleric of Pharasma called on his goddess for divine sanctuary and moved into the room toward his unconscious contemporary while Rudeth unleashed a blast of flame at the mastiffs attacking from the north. Jayder fell to floor as Klibb hid in a corner of the hallway and Rudeth unleashed another cone of flame. Pallas was nearly surrounded as Traxxus had tumbled out into the hall and the dwarf swung frantically into the beasts cutting down one here and another there as the creatures continued their assault. Things looked grim until Shi managed to revive Rags allowing the rat-man to channel the healing energy of Sarenrae to revitalize his companions.
With renewed vigor, Pallas managed to cut down another of the mastiffs and Traxxus was able to return to the fight. Even Klibb managed to sink an arrow into one of the creatures. Within moments, the final beasts were nothing more than wisps of smoky shadow dissipating in the air.
The adventurers split up once more after their fight with the shadow mastiff pack with Pallas, Rudeth Klibb and Traxxus heading west and Rags, Shi and Jayder heading to the north. Both groups discovered what appeared to be lived-in quarters. With the rooms’ occupants nowhere to be found the adventurers came to the decision that removing everything of value from these rooms would ensure that no evil creature could find and make nefarious use of the purloined goods. Though Rags was, at first, against this plan, he relented after he was told the items would be returned if their owners turned out to be friendly. Both groups eventually rejoined and discovered a vast ancient reference library containing an invaluable collection of large celestial tomes. It was obvious any scholar with the means to do so would pay a fortune for the library, but not one book weighed less than 20lbs. so the party decided to leave them on their racks with the exception of Rudeth, of course, who tucked a manual of planar knowledge into his sack.
South of the library, Pallas discovered a secret passage heading into the east.
The narrow passage led the party into a hallway that contained a locked door, which Traxxus promptly bypassed. The small chamber beyond the door was filled with bubbling laboratory apparatus and various tools of the alchemical trade. Whoever was using the lab hadn’t been gone long and Shi surmised they might return within the day. As Traxxus, Klibb and Rudeth searched the room for valuables, it was decided the party would wait within the chamber for the alchemist to return. Only a few minutes had gone by when the party suddenly heard a knock on the door.
“I know you’re in there,” came a high, gravely voice from the other side. “Back away from the door, and don’t try anything funny. I’m opening the door, and I won’t hesitate to end you.”
The adventurers prepared to meet the mysterious alchemist whose lab they’d invaded as the door creaked open. Standing in the hallway with an irritated scowl on its craggy face was a large gargoyle. “Who are you and what are you doing in my laboratory?”
The adventurers explained their purpose in the dungeon while the gargoyle eyed them suspiciously. “You’re in the wrong place if you’re looking for the celestials,” said the gargoyle, his ire somewhat diminished. “Now, why don’t you put back everything you stole from my shelves and step out of there? I’ll tell you how to find the garrison so you can go be their problem.”
“By the way,” continued the gargoyle, “Any of you run into a great big spider when you weren’t busy breaking into peoples’ workspaces?”
“Can you describe the spider?” asked Jayder.
“Yeah. He’s about the size of a horse. It’d be real hard to miss him,” replied the gargoyle.
“We saw that spider,” answered Pallas. “Killed him too.”
The gargoyle’s features immediately hardened as he clenched his claws. “No. You didn’t.” he growled. “But you certainly might have if I hadn’t found him in time. Northwest. Go. Now.”
The dwarf tried to claim the party was acting in self-defense when they encountered the spider, but the gargoyle wouldn’t have any of it. “Edgar would never attack anyone without provocation. Now get out of here.”
Pallas offered the gargoyle a potion to heal the spider’s wounds as an apology, but the creature only told him to leave it on the floor and go. As the party headed toward the garrison, the gargoyle went into its laboratory to clean up the mess the adventurers had, no doubt, left behind.
The group came at last to a large sparsely decorated chamber in the northwest of the region occupied by what appeared to be a powerfully built elf warrior with long white hair and flowing blue robes. “Greetings, strangers. I am Doj. You have come to the barracks of the Celestial Garrison. I expect you have a good reason for being here.”
The adventurers met with the garrison commander, a fierce looking female leonal named Kelara, after explaining themselves to Doj. Kelara had once been twelfth in line for command of the garrison but the earthquake and subsequent release of many of the dungeon’s prisoners saw her quickly rise in rank as many of the garrison officers fell in battle. Now she was in charge of less than a dozen celestials and had her hands full with a split in the ranks between her faction and a group of inevitables assigned to supplement the garrison.
The inevitables, Kelara explained, hadn’t been back to their home plane of Mechanus for servicing for over a thousand years. Without regular updates to their programming, the powerful constructs were beginning to lose focus on their original tasking. While still unquestioningly loyal to their basic duties, the inevitables had come to the decision that the best way to secure the dungeon was to enlist any creature they could find into the garrison, often by force. Needless to say, Kelara and the celestials were not pleased when the inevitables assembled a team of thugs and monsters to serve as foot soldiers. Unless something was done soon, (possibly within the next several hundred years by immortal standards) Kelara feared the celestials would have to confront the inevitables and show them the error of their ways. The easiest and least dangerous way to do this, Kelara continued, would be to bring the inevitables into contact with The Garrison Charter, an oath signed by all members of the Celestial Garrison. The charter was enchanted in such a way that any creature breaking their oaths to the garrison would receive a painful, though non-lethal, shock if they should touch the charter. Unfortunately, the charter was missing. Worse yet, half of the garrison’s ward staves were lost in the dungeon as well.
The ward staves were created for the sole purpose of securing the dungeon from evil creatures attempting to enter from the north. With four of the staves missing and the amount of time required to charge each ward, the celestials had barely any time to search out the missing staves and wage war on the evil creatures that already occupied the dungeon. In exchange for the party’s help, Kelara offered access to the garrison’s supplies and the assistance of their one remaining cleric, a contemplative hound archon named Sanjid. But first, the party would have to prove their good intentions.
Kelara informed the party of a group of undead shadows dwelling to the south. The shadows, she believed were being led by some sinister force. If the party could defeat the evil creatures, Kelara promised they would receive the aid of the celestial garrison. The party spent the next day resting among the celestials and getting a tour of their barracks though Klibb and Shi were under constant surveillance and repeatedly warned against touching anything or slipping in their behavior. The adventurers also discovered the lived-in chambers they’d discovered and emptied of treasure belonged to several of the celestials who were understanding, if not entirely pleased, with their actions. After returning the celestials’ equipment, the party moved south to hunt the shadows.
The adventurers entered the lair of the shadows and found many of the doors in the area had been damaged, left ajar or removed altogether. Luckily, the celestials had long ago placed permanent magical lights throughout the region and the shadows apparently had no way to diminish or destroy them so they would find it difficult to sneak up on the party. Nonetheless, it wasn’t long until the group encountered a pack of the creatures searching for victims to add to their unholy army. At an intersection of tunnels the adventurers were suddenly set upon by six of the undead spirits.
The shadows came at Traxxus, Rudeth and Pallas quickly reaching out with their strength-draining touch as Shi, Rags and Jayder summoned up reserves of magical might and holy energy to combat the monsters and Klibb, once again, fled to a safe distance at the first opportunity. It was much to the dismay of the party when they discovered their non-magical weapons and fire-based spells had little or no effect on the creatures and Pallas and Rudeth were quickly weakened by the evil spirits’ attacks. It was the holy radiance of Sarenrae’s light shining from Rags that ultimately saved the party and they quickly departed the shadows’ territory before more of the creatures could arrive. Along the way, they discovered a small room about the size of a closet that seemed to radiate holy energy.
The small chamber contained a raised pedestal upon which rested a six-foot silver staff covered in celestial runes. With no time to lose, the adventurers grabbed the staff and fled back to the celestial garrison’s barracks.
Kelara and Morkor, a powerful leonal warrior and the garrison’s second in command, were in discussion with Ember, the region’s lantern archon custodian, when Pallas poked his head into the large meeting chamber. “You guys lose a big silver staff?” the dwarf interrupted. The leonal commander’s eyes lit up when they fell upon the staff carried in by Rags. “A ward staff!” Where did you..nevermind..you’ve done a great thing returning this to us. Please rest and Sanjid will tend to your wounds.”
Sanjid helped to restore the party members while their conversation turned toward the future of the commune’s expansion. “What do you mean ‘expansion’?” growled Kelara. “We never agreed to this.”
“We just found your stupid stick,” retorted Pallas. “Consider it our fee. Besides, you guys have been down here thousands of years and you couldn’t find it so, the way I see it, you need us more than we need you.”
Morkor roared at the insolence of the dwarf and would likely have sent him to his ancestors if not for Kelara’s intervention. “Time will tell, dwarf,” responded the celestial commander. “For now, we thank you and you friends for your service and offer you the safety of our halls.” With that, Kelara and Morkor left the chamber. Back within the shadows’ lair a couple days later, the party would once again find need of the celestials’ hospitality.
The adventurers ran quickly toward the sound of pained screams coming from behind a battered door. Within the morbidly decorated and foul-smelling chamber, the party found a gaunt and frail-looking humanoid apparently in the act of self-flagellation. The creature was about the height of a dwarf with hairless skin, which resembled the scales of a snake. It’s sinister, yellow eyes darted toward the door as Pallas and Traxxus entered.
“Who, are you?” the creature hissed.
“We’re here to kill the shadows,” answered Pallas. “Who are you?”
“Phinadar,” replied the reptilian. “Phinadar Ssolasss. Hisss favorite.”
“Whose favorite?” asked Rags.
“Sseraxesss,” hissed Phinadar. “He’ll kill you all. He knowsss you’re here now. He’ll kill you all, but he won’t kill me. No. Phinadar will live. I hate him ssso.”
“How does he know we’re here and why won’t he kill you?”
“The shadowss tell him. They are his eyesss, his earss, sometimesss his voicce, but I’m hisss favorite. I was there at the beginning.” The reptilian creature became lost in thought then, visions of the past playing out in his mind.
“This guy’s crazy,” grunted Pallas. “We’d be putting him out of his misery if we killed him now.”
“You say you hate him. Will you help us kill Seraxes, Phinadar?” asked Rags.
The strange creature came out of his fugue. “No. I mustn’t. I can’t kill Sseraxesss. Neither can you. He’ll kill you all and you will go to the shadowsss. You will be his eyesss but I will live and I will hate him forever.”
“I’ve heard enough,” huffed Pallas. “I’m killing him before he can do anything we’ll regret.” And with that, the dwarf swung his warpike into the pathetic, repulsive, crazed and defenseless creature.
Phinadar’s body fell hard into the corner of the room, nearly split in two by the dwarf’s blade. The secrets his mind contained now dripped down the wall of the chamber and whether he had been a slave, a prisoner or an accomplice to the shadows’ master didn’t matter enough for anyone to intervene on his behalf. Not that any one of the adventurers had the inclination to consider these things…or the time. Presently, the room was filled with whispered curses and a dozen shadows sprung from their hiding places within the room.
Undead spirits surrounded the party, reaching with their cold, clutching incorporeal claws. With newly enchanted weapons, and freshly prepared spells, the adventurers huddled together and fought hard as the creatures moved in. Rags unleashed a burst of positive energy that severely wounded the undead, but they kept coming. It was then that Shi and Traxxus realized something was strange about the spirits. Some dark magic within the room was causing natural shadows to dance and sway as if they too were animated. Only half of the shadows within the room were a true threat and the rogue and cleric alerted their companions to the illusions. Within moments, the shadows were defeated but the party’s troubles were not yet over. Klibb, who had escaped into the hallway during the fight, shot back into the room shouting that more shadows were on their way from a northern tunnel. The party prepared to meet them as the goblin did the only thing he thought might be useful and looted the body of Phinadar.
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Welcome back to the World's Largest Dungeon. This is a big update for the journal. We've got the conclusion to the last session's cliffhanger, a solo session for Shi, the half-orc remembers his name and war breaks out between the shadows and Four Waters with the adventurers serving on the front lines. Who will live? Who will die? Who will rise from the dead as a horrible abomination against nature? Find out in the next thrilling chapter!
The World's Largest Adventuring Party:
Rudeth - Elf Bard/Witch
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pallas - Dwarf Fighter
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Shi - Human Cleric of Pharasma
Jayder - 1/2 Elf Abjurer
Kraum - 1/2 Orc Barbarian
Klibb - NPC Goblin Rogue
DAYS 85-88 THE SHADOW WAR
Pallas stood at the door to the chamber as the shadows drifted slowly and menacingly toward the dwarf. Meanwhile, Rags, Shi and Jayder prepared their spells and prayers while Klibb searched through the belongings of the dead, inhuman Phinadar for anything of use to the adventurers. The goblin discovered a soft, leather sack containing a mix of inscribed bones and what appeared to be a necklace made from a child’s skull and handed them to Traxxas but there was no time to determine the use of the grisly items before the shadows began their assault.
Jayder released a fireball into the passage beyond the doorway where Pallas did his best to block the shadows from entering the room. The explosion did little to discourage the incorporeal monsters and the dwarf was quickly becoming too weak to continue the fight. Praying for aid from his goddess one final time, Rags managed to blast the offending spirits with holy light, clearing a path for the adventurers to escape the room. Even as they fled for the celestial garrison, the group could hear the angry whispers of the undead echoing through the halls. It was only a matter of seconds before the entirety of the shadow horde would be upon them. Retreat was the only sane option and, to their great relief, the shadows did not pursue them into the garrison.
“Back again I see,” growled Morkor. “For creatures with so little need of us, you seem to spend a lot of time within the safety of our halls,” he smirked.
“Bite me,” wheezed Pallas as he collapsed under the weight of his equipment. The shadows had drained nearly every ounce of strength from the dwarf and even his ample frame could only take so much stress before folding.
“A tempting offer,” grinned the leonal, his sharp teeth glinting in the torchlight. “But up to now you’ve only been a rude houseguest and being an a55h0le is hardly a sin worth punishing. Enjoy your nap, little dwarf.”
Pallas and his companions woke nearly a day after their encounter with the shadows. Sanjid, the hound archon cleric, tended their undead-wrought wounds and, along with Rags, managed to restore everyone to fighting shape over the next day. Shi, might have assisted with the healing, but the cleric of Pharasma was missing.
“You’re companion returned to the commune in the south,” explained Sanjid. “We sent Spark, one of the lanterns, to guide and keep an eye on him.”
Shi had done just as Sanjid said. Uncomfortable under the watchful eye of the celestials, he had decided to return to Four Waters and, with Spark as his companion, encountered a trio of warriors from the commune and more trouble than he was prepared to deal with.
The warriors, led by the community store’s clerk, an ex-soldier named Aaron, had been sent to find a scavenger team, which had gone missing, while most of the commune’s inhabitants attended a celebration meant to strengthen Four Waters’ ties with The Goblin Empire. Aaron was quickly revealed to be a terrible leader when three shadows attacked the group and the former soldier hid behind Shi while his companions were slain and transformed into undead spirits. Spark, eager to do battle with the undead, chased one of the shadows out of the room as Shi and Aaron fled the remaining creatures through a small antechamber into the northwest region of the commune. Unfortunately, they left the spirit-barred doors of the room open as they ran.
The doors between the regions of the dungeon were built strong and were possessed of various abjurative qualities. Even incorporeal creatures such as the shadows could not pass through them without aid and, if that aid came in the form of a pair of fleeing humans, so be it. Shi and Aaron raced through the passages of Four Waters trying to keep ahead of the pursuing spirits and warning anyone they encountered to flee, but it did little good. Though most of the commune’s inhabitants were far to the southeast, there were still enough people milling about or working in the north to provide the shadows with conscripts for their unholy army. Shi and Aaron ran for the only place they knew they might find aid; Vrrar Hesjingi, the fountain chamber.
The lizardfolk, Kalhiss and Slissth, never left the fountain chamber. To the reptilians, the eternally flowing water of the room’s columns was a holy gift from their gods and ancestors so it was with great relief that Shi found the pair maintaining their vigil over the chamber. Unable to speak their draconic tongue, the cleric quickly (and comically) pantomimed the attack of the shadows, hoping the lizards would understand. Shi waited, desperately hoping for some sign of recognition from the lizardfolk and, when Kalhiss reached for his sword and pointed at the door, he feared they’d completely misinterpreted his message. However, the lizardfolk ranger threw the sword over his shoulder, grabbed his quiver and bow and placed his clawed hand on the cleric’s shoulder before nodding. With Slissth at his side, the lizardfolk would fight the shadows. Not far from the fountain chamber, Shi found another ally.
Shi led his team through a nearby meditation chamber hoping to find Ariel, the lantern archon, but was instead surprised to find a dark-skinned man kneeling in prayer with an axe at his side.
“Can you fight?” interrupted Shi.
The man finished his prayer, took up his axe and stared hard at the priest. “I’ve been fighting my whole damn life.”
The warrior’s name was Dillon, and he exchanged some words with Aaron that angered the clerk and hinted they’d known each other for some time.
With no more time to waste, it was decided Aaron would run to the Goblin Empire to warn Balian and the rest of the commune about the shadows while Shi, the lizardfolk and Dillon headed back into the north to close off their entry point. Realizing Dillon would need an enchanted weapon to harm the shadows, Shi handed the man the unholy morningstar Traxxus had recovered from The Killing Grounds and, to his surprise, the warrior didn’t flinch when his hand grasped the weapon.
Shi and his team slipped past a group of newly formed shadows into the north tunnels. It was the cleric’s hope that, if could he cut off the shadows point of access, Balian and the others could destroy the shadows remaining in the commune. Unfortunately, there was no way to know how many shadows were roaming the halls near the open door and, when a pair of the creatures heard Shi attempting to sneak past, Kalhiss and Slissth, along with their rat and snake companions, Nak and T’lakiss, were left to dispatch the evil spirits as Shi and Dillon ran into the commune’s forge to hide and search for anything to aid in their fight against the undead. Luckily for Shi, a living creature occupied the forge when he arrived.
Kate Farrier was never really one for large parties and preferred the whisper of the bellows and the beating of hammer on steel to the sound of merriment. The girl was hard at work when Shi entered the forge and, after hearing of the impending attack, tossed the cleric a capsule containing a thick, gray liquid.
“Spishak has been working on these,” said Kate. “I’m not sure what they do, but he mentioned something about spirits when he gave them to me. I was thinking of trying them out on some of the new weapons anyway so I guess there’s no time like your last time, right?”
By now, Kalhiss and Slissth had caught up with Shi and, thanks to Slissth’s druidic magic, both had recovered from the battle. Unfortunately, the tunnels leading back to the open door were now filled with undead who had heard the fight. Kate, not being much of a warrior, offered to distract the shadows while Shi and his team slipped back into the tunnels and then got a good head start before banging her hammer into a piece of steel while Shi and the others hid. With the shadows chasing Kate, Shi and his team were able to escape into the northern tunnels and make it back into Region E.
Shi, the lizardfolk and Dillon arrived to the chamber where this mess had started. Spark was nowhere to be seen, but the door to into the commune stood open to the south. As Shi approached the door, six shadows emerged from the walls of the room and rushed to attack. The group fled through the door and quickly shut it behind them. Shi had managed to trap the remaining shadows to the south, but now, as he and his team rested in the small, sealed antechamber, he realized he was trapped as well.
Slissth used the last of her magic to restore Kalhiss and herself to full strength while Shi and Dillon came up with a plan for how to escape. Unsure of whether or not Aaron or Kate had escaped the shadows to warn the commune Shi decided their only options were to wait to be rescued or to reopen the south door of the chamber and fight their way through.
“I’ve never relied on anyone for saving, and I’ve spent enough of my life trapped in small rooms as it is,” said Dillon. Facing death at the incorporeal claws of the shadows or imprisonment within the antechamber, the warrior revealed he was a serial murderer who’d spent many years in various prisons before being sent to the dungeon. He’d met Aaron while the clerk was serving as a prison guard for Lord Antagonis and enjoyed torturing the man over the irony of their past. After so many years behind bars, Dillon had reached out to Pharasma for guidance and found some measure of peace. “Death comes for everyone,” Dillon remarked. “I don’t really give a damn for those people out there but, the way I see it, we either die here in this cell or we die out there fighting those things. I’m not dying in no cell. I’m a fighter, so I say we fight.”
Shi was astonished. Had his goddess placed this man in his path for a reason? Even the lizardfolk who were unable to understand Dillon’s words seemed to comprehend their meaning. The group prepared themselves and opened the southern door.
Kalhiss was the first to strike. The lizard’s arrows found their mark and, thanks to Spishak’s mysterious gray goo, wounded the shadows, which now charged toward the doors. The shadows pressed in as Kalhiss and Slissth unsheathed their swords. The cramped passage made it difficult for Shi or Dillon to get into the fight but, as the lizardfolks’ strength began to wane, the pair fell back to allow the humans to enter the fray. At last, the group was able to clear the passage of the undead, but the lizardfolk and their animal companions were severely drained.
“You’ve done enough,” Shi told the ranger as he placed a hand to the creature’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Kalhiss seemed to understand. “Yth tira ti tir nomeno ihk wux,” he hissed as he helped Slissth back into the antechamber and closed the door. Shi and Dillon girded themselves for what was to come and slipped down the passageway.
Another quartet of shadows drifted through the passage ahead, and it was obvious Shi and Dillon would not be able to sneak past them. Conjuring up a beam of searing holy light, Shi attempted to blast the nearest creature but missed only managing to get the group’s attention. The shadows came fast and Dillon stepped to intercept them, smashing the unholy weapon into the first of the spirits. The shadows whispered in anger as the murderer’s blows broke them but, little by little, the creatures were wearing Dillon down. Shi continued to call upon the aid of his goddess to strike at the undead with holy light and, with one final spectacular ray, the cleric managed to destroy the final creature…or so it would seem.
A new group of shadows, drawn by the commotion, hissed and whispered menacingly at the end of the passage. Neither Dillon nor Shi had the strength to return to the safety of the antechamber, and the pair readied themselves for one final stand.
A blast of light suddenly filled the hallway. The shadows dissipated as they were torn asunder by holy energy. The cavalier, Balian, had finally arrived with reinforcements, and the shadows fled or fell before them. “You’ve given a good accounting of yourself today, Dillon,” said Shi as he turned to the murderer. “I think the Lady of Graves will be pleased when you finally go to meet her. Now, give me back my morningstar.”
The cleric of Pharasma would be very busy seeing to the funeral rites of those killed by the shadows when his companions finally arrived to Four Waters. In all, 26 people had been found dead and another 14 were still missing. Kalhiss and Slissth returned to the fountain chamber, though the ranger now offered his skills to help track down any undead who had escaped the battle. The murderer, Dillon, returned to his meditation, Kate to her forge and Aaron (who’d gotten lost in the commune’s tremor zone) was ordered back to his duties in the community store. As for Spishak’s marvelous spirit-fighting oil, well, it turned out to be a fluke. The halfling had intended to create a hangover cure and gave Kate a few of the capsules for testing. Of course, now that he knew what he’d actually created, the adept was hard at work attempting to recreate the formula.
With Shi busy dealing with the dead, the party had no choice but to enlist the aid of the half-orc barbarian who had spent nearly a week at Macready’s pub in a drunken stupor. “Kraum!,” shouted the half-orc as he sprang up from the torrent of water Rags conjured above his head to wake him. The half-orc finally remembered his name (though he still couldn’t remember getting the unicorn tattoo.) With everyone restored to full strength and Kraum restored to consciousness, the party returned to the shadows’ lair.
The adventurers moved through the halls and chambers of the shadows’ territory cautiously but, aside from a small force of the undead near the region’s entrance, they’d encountered none of the creatures for some time. Strangely, what few doors that had remained in the region were now somehow completely removed and missing. Knowing the shadows could not have removed the doors, Rags pointed out someone must be helping them. It was then that Traxxus heard what sounded like a sword being drawn from behind the remaining door of the room where the party had found the ward staff. “I’ve got this,” grunted Pallas. “No. I’ve got this,” retorted Rags. Suddenly, the door of the room flew open and a large man with a greatsword and the head of a dog leaped from the room! “No! I’ve got this!...Oh. It’s just you guys,” barked the hound archon. It was Sanjid, the garrison priest.
Sanjid had come into the area looking for Spark and found the lantern archon being chased by shadows. The two were resting in the ward staff chamber before returning to the garrison, but now decided to aid the adventurers in their quest to destroy the undead horde. Together, they finally came to a large chamber filled with debris. A crude stone throne rested in the center of the room surrounded by the pale, lifeless bodies of many humanoids. Most terrifying of all was the fact that there were no wounds upon the bodies. The party was moving cautiously through the room toward an open doorway in the north when they heard an evil, hissing whisper.
“Welcome to the throne room of Seraxes,” came the voice. “Our master has been expecting you, and he wishes to make you an offer.”
“Show yourself and I will send you to oblivion!” snarled Sanjid.
“Ahh, the celestials,” hissed the voice. “We only wish to escape the dungeon, but their wards keep us trapped within these halls. Allow us to leave, and we will trouble you no more. In exchange for this, we offer you your lives. If you agree to these terms, kill this celestial dog and his beacon and go in peace.”
“We refuse your terms!” Rags shouted. “Prepare for Sarenrae’s burning light and eternity, fiends!”
“You will serve the master one way or another!” hissed the shadow. “Kill them all!”
Shadows crept up from every corner of the room and from every open doorway. The things sprang up from piles of debris and from beneath every body. The party was surrounded.
Crowding together around Sanjid and Rags, the party fought against the overwhelming shadows while the two priests unleashed burst after burst of positive energy, Pallas swinging his warpike is great arcs, Traxxas and Kraum slashing with their swords and Rudeth, Jayder and Spark blasting away with spells or beams of holy light. Klibb, who lacked any sort of enchanted weapon, merely cowered next to Traxxas in an attempt to look as non-threatening as possible. Luckily for him, Sanjid and Rags were earning most of the shadows’ ire with their repeated channeling.
A few bursts of positive energy added to the attacks of Pallas, Kraum and Traxxas managed to destroy several of the undead spirits, but it wasn’t enough to hold back the horde. The things kept coming, and it looked as though the party would certainly lose a few of their own. Rudeth had already lost his beloved viper familiar when he sent the ensorcelled serpent to attack a shadow with a touch of positive energy and now the elf hovered on the verge of collapse from the spirits’ attacks. Meanwhile, the only thing keeping Kraum from falling was his great rage and, when two of the shadows drove their claws into the half-orc, the brute finally succumbed and fell dead on the spot. Fearing his end was near, Jayder dropped a destructive ball of fire directly on top of the party blasting several of the shadows along with his own comrades. A moment later, as a shadow reached forward to attack Klibb, the goblin fell back on his many years of self-preservation experience, curled up into a little ball and pointed at the wizard screaming, “He’s the one you want!”
The shadow, delighting in the goblin’s fear and convinced Jayder was the true threat, thrust its hand into the elf’s chest and hissed in triumph as the wizard fell to the floor stone dead. Sanjid then blasted the remaining weakened shadows into oblivion and shouted, “We haven’t any time to lose! We have to get out of here before they can regroup!” Clearly, the remaining members of the party would not survive another wave of the undead, which were, even now, gathering outside the chamber.
“He’s right, we have to go now,” seconded Rags.
“What about these two?” huffed Pallas. “We can’t just leave all this stuff here.”
“If you absolutely must loot the corpses of your companions, grab only what you can carry!” chided Sanjid. “I won’t abandon you to those things, but I’m not about to die for anyone’s greed. Now hurry! I think I know a place we can hide. I just hope they haven’t gotten to it.”
I swear suma dese tings is gittin ridcalus to deal wit
seraxus we's is cummin afta youse
They're in trouble if that wizard spawns into a shadow that can throw fireballs ...
now now turin we don't need your two cents in for the GM to totally mess wit our lives
we can mess our own selves up good enough wit out youse helpin get us dere
beisde that would be extra XP as far as I am concerned and I still have a full on count of healing spells for any lil nasyties cummin up oudda no wherez
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I guess one could say that wizard is about to become a shadow of his former self. Hah! I command you to laugh! Laugh or I shall have you fed to my hyenas!
I'd prefer a shadow that can swallow a man whole and drown him in pure negative energy before pooping the fool out as some sort of horrible zombie-like monstrosity but fireballs work too. Hmm, I'll have to put the court necromancer to work on that zombie-pooping shadow thing.
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I will say this about the World's Largest Dungeon; when the writers of this adventure latched onto a monster, they hammered the hell out of the players with that monster. The shadows get even more annoying and evil this session, lots of people die and Rags somehow manages to come off as a bigger jerk than Pallas. Luckily, Shi is bringing in reinforcements...reinforcements from the Celestial Garrison. You don't get much more Deus ex Machina than calling in the angels themselves...
DAYS 89-92 BESAR THE BOLD
The World's Largest Adventuring Party:
Rudeth - Elf Bard/Witch
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pallas - Dwarf Fighter
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Shi - Human Cleric of Pharasma
Rayder - 1/2 Elf Abjurer
Mark - 1/2 Elf Ranger
Klibb - NPC Goblin Rogue
Sanjid quickly led the party to a concealed door hoping the shadows had never discovered the entrance or found a way to get inside. The chamber beyond had obviously seen bloodshed, but there was no spoor of the umbral fiends. The party slipped past the broken weapons and furniture, ashes, dust and bones of the dead thinking they’d finally have a chance to rest after their close brush with undeath at the incorporeal claws of the shadows and came at last to what appeared to be a blasted and battle-worn bedchamber. Aside from the mess, the skeleton of a man slumped pinned to the wall by a spear in one corner of the room. An open doorway yawned beyond the skeleton’s resting place.
“This series of rooms once led to a temple honoring the gods of goodness and light,” quietly intoned Sanjid. “The priests must have died defending it from the demons when they broke free during the earthquake.”
As if on cue, a small table missing one of its legs suddenly rolled over, stood upright and began to float into the air.
“Are you guys doing that?” asked Rags to Sanjid.
“Leave now or forfeit your souls forever, evil ones!” came a ghostly reply from the table before slamming itself into a wall.
“We’re not the evil ones,” answered Pallas. “We were just chased in here by the shadows. Heck, we’ve even got a couple of celestials with us.”
“Demons disguised by evil magic no doubt,” replied the invisible temple guardian.
“What about this?” asked Rags as he produced his holy symbol to Sarenrae.
“You could have looted that off of any corpse,” countered the spirit. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“I believe that to have a friend, you must be one,” Sanjid suddenly interjected. “That all are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world. That the gods put the firewood there, but every creature must gather and light it himself…Should I go on?”
“You know the oath of the garrison? I…I thought I was the last,” answered the spirit. “I’m sorry. Since the earthquake, most of my guests have been tomb robbers and monsters chased in here by the shadows. My name is Iridinhael.”
Iridinhael had been a priest in the garrison temple before the demons broke free and assaulted the celestials. He was slain along with his brothers, but his spirit could not rest while the evil things ran rampant throughout the region.
“Most of you can rest in the temple,” offered Iridinhael. “The goblin stays out here. I don’t want him sullying up the place or stealing anything. I can’t leave the confines of these chambers, but I can keep an eye on the hall outside the concealed door for you while you rest.”
And so the party, minus Klibb, retired to the safety of the temple. The chamber seemed untouched by the ravages of time and demons and the group learned it was due to powerful divine magic meant to bar undead and evil outsiders from entering. Even Iridinhael had a difficult time entering into the temple he’d sworn to protect due to his spiritual form. However, scarcely an hour had passed when the ghost's voice came from the bedchambers.
“Activity in the hallway!” shouted the spirit. “The shadows have somebody with them, and they’re searching the walls.”
Sure enough, seven of the evil spirits were escorting four humanoids through the halls. It didn’t take them long to find the hidden door and one of the undead floated into the first room as the party gathered in the priest’s chamber.
“We know you are here,” hissed the shadow. “Our master offers you the release of your friends in exchange for your lives.”
One of the humanoids was brought forward, a human in the dusty garb of a scavenger from Four Waters.
“My name’s Garrett. They caught us in the forge, killed our guards, told us we’d be next if we didn’t go along peaceful,” said the man. “We don’t wanna die here. We..”
“That’s enough!” hissed the shadow. “Take him back to the others.”
“We want to talk to Seraxes,” demanded Rags.
“Our master is near, but he does not speak with lesser beings,” replied the shadow. “We will give you some time to make your decision.”
“We won’t need any,” answered the cleric. “I’ve got your answer right here!”
Rags suddenly jumped into the open doorway and blasted the retreating the shadow with a beam of searing white light. From somewhere out in the hallway, a deep, hollow voice cried out, “Kill them all!”
The shadows in the hallway fell upon the helpless prisoners as Pallas stepped into the doorway next to Rags. The dwarf and the rat could do nothing but watch in horror as the prisoners fell dead and the shadows turned their attention on the party. As the shadows of the dead prisoners rose to join the advancing undead, the group was quickly overwhelmed. Rudeth, cut off from his companions in the midst of the combat was swallowed up the evil spirits. The witch’s luck had saved him from death many times before, but it finally ran out when a shadow hovered over him and drove its claw deep into his heart. The elf’s pale corpse fell to the floor and the shadows hissed in triumph.
Traxxus, realizing things were quickly going south, grabbed Klibb and the two ran for the safety of the temple. “Retreat!” shouted Rags. “Get back to the temple!” Pallas, who was nearly dead on his feet, was suddenly scooped up in the teeth of Sanjid who transformed into an immense wolf and carried the dwarf to safety. When the hound archon noticed Spark had stayed back to cover Traxxus’ and Klibb’s escape, he dropped the dwarf in the hall and ordered him to fall back. “I can’t leave Spark. Go! We’ll catch up!” Meanwhile, Iridinhael was busy closing the secret doors to the priests' chambers before more shadows could come through.
The party waited in the temple, safe from the shadows, as Sanjid, Spark and Iridinhael fought the remaining spirits with bursts of positive energy and beams of holy light. At last, the hound archon entered the room, weakened by the touch of the undead and heavy of heart. Spark was dead. The lantern archon could not be become a shadow but that didn’t make him immune to the attacks of the undead and, unlike the lantern archon custodians Ariel, Brighteyes, and Ember, Spark had no hope of rejuvenating and returning to the fight. His light was extinguished and, while Sanjid didn’t blame any of the adventurers for what happened, Iridinhael pounded at the holy barrier that kept him from entering the temple, centuries of undeath fueling his frustration.
“That was some real fancy negotiating you did back there, cheesebreath!” shouted the ghost. “Not enough good people dying around here for you, is that it?”
After some time, the ghostly priest left the party alone to rest but, while Rags still felt justified in his actions, Iridinhael’s verbal assault had found its mark. The cursed cleric knelt in prayer to Sarenrae and asked for guidance. Rags felt the shadows would have betrayed the party and killed everyone if they had surrendered. He knew in his heart the evil spirits couldn’t be trusted, but had he acted too soon? He hadn’t even waited to hear if anyone had a plan. He hadn’t even asked. Recent memories of the dungeon came back to haunt him. It was he who gave the order to kill the gargoyle’s pet spider despite the creature’s apparent non-aggression. It was just a big, dumb bug. How could anyone have known it had an owner who cared for it? Then later, he stood by and did nothing while Pallas murdered the insane Phinadar without provocation. There was no denying the reptilian madman was evil after the party discovered his bag full of childrens’ bones and necromantic amulet but, until Klibb looted the wizard’s corpse, Phinadar’s only crime seemed to be his putrescent odor. Didn’t Sarenrae favor redemption of evil and teach that violence should only be used a last resort? Hell, both Klibb and the priest Shi had displayed some questionable behavior and it was obvious the celestials did not trust them yet the party allowed the pair to travel freely among them without so much as a dirty look (aside from Pallas, of course, but his face always looked like that.) Rags settled into deep meditation and recovered with his companions as he pondered the effects of his actions. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Shi was heading back into the shadows’ territory to search for his companions.
A bralani warrior from the Celestial Garrison by the name of Besar had come into the commune searching for Sanjid and Spark. A lantern archon named Lilig tagged along with him and the two eventually encountered Shi. The undertaker priest of Pharasma had recently finished laying the victims of the recent shadow attack to rest and was searching for companions to help him find the adventuring party. Shi had the luck to find an undead and demon-hating ranger named Mark living among the prisoners of the commune. Mark had heard legends of the celestial dungeon and its evil prisoners and came into the mountains searching for it. When he learned the dungeon had become Lord Antagonis’ prison, the headstrong ranger got himself imprisoned just for the opportunity to destroy his hated foes. Shi also had the questionable fortune of meeting the recently deceased wizard Jayder’s brother, Rayder. Rayder’s presence in the dungeon was owed solely to mistaken identity. Both Jayder and Rayder happened to be abjurers with similar skillsets, spells and abilities. Antagonis’ soldiers had such a hard time telling the two apart, they simply threw both into the dungeon to ensure they imprisoned the correct man. Shrugging his shoulders and muttering a gruff, “Whatever,” Besar agreed to accompany the three into the shadows’ domain.
Shi, Mark, Rayder, Besar and Lilig found the halls of the shadows to be eerily quiet until they reached the corpse-strewn throne room of Seraxes where a group of the undead had gathered to prepare for an assault on the party cloistered within the temple.
“Stay behind me,” said the bralani as he charged into the center of the undead. The wild azata warrior’s natural defenses would make it difficult for the shadows to land a blow against him, but the rest of the party was not so lucky.
Shi, Mark and Rayder were left with a decision to either proceed forward or retreat from the shadows whose attention was not drawn to Besar. The three decided to move forward and, at the first sign of danger, Shi enveloped himself within a mantle of divine protection hoping his prayers would keep the spirits at bay while Mark unsheathed his swords and attempted to fight through the undead. Rayder, whose brother’s scorched and pale corpse was laying only a dozen or so feet away, panicked as three shadows converged on him and, as his brother had done, cast a fireball at his own feet hoping to incinerate the undead. Mark and Shi cursed as the flames engulfed them and Besar, knowing the adventurers had little hope of holding off the undead shouted for Lilig to lead them to safety.
“Lilig! Get them out of here!” shouted the bralani, but there was no reply. Rayder’s fireball had destroyed the lantern archon. Moments later, Besar would look upon the animated shadow of the fool wizard who had killed his friend and remorselessly strike the creature from existence.
Shi and Mark somehow managed to slip past the few shadows that weren’t piling onto Besar and the ranger was able to pick up the trail of the cleric’s companions. Their tracks ended at a blank wall though Shi detected the presence of more shadows to the north. The creatures hadn’t noticed the pair, but the cleric knew they had only moments to discover the secret door before the undead caught them and he searched quickly for an opening. Discovering the release for the door with only seconds to spare, Shi and Mark were suddenly met by chair menacingly floating through the air of the adjoining chamber.
“Back, evil ones!” came the voice of Iridinhael. “You and your shadow masters won’t be adding anymore recruits to your army today!”
Klibb, who was no longer allowed into the temple now that the shadows were trapped outside, recognized Shi’s voice and tried to explain he was an ally of the party.
“It figures,” grunted the ghost.
The party spent three days resting behind the secret door as Iridinhael kept watch on the hallway and Besar, unscathed from his battle with the undead, arrived at the temple to hear the news of Spark’s death. Angered by the deaths of his comrades, the bralani could hardly wait for the party to recover their strength. Finally, they were ready to go and Besar led the charge as the group returned to Seraxes’ throne room.
The bodies of the four scavengers now lay around the base of the crude throne along with the bodies of four other scavengers and the bodies of Jayder, Rayder and Kraum. All of the corpses were drained of color and cast no shadows in the dancing light of the party’s torches.
“Show yourself!” bellowed Besar as he kicked over the throne and brandished his axes.
Eleven shadows emerged from the corners, floors and ceiling of the room. Battle was joined and the creatures charged at Sanjid and Rags, hoping to lay the priests low before they could channel energy. By now, the shadows had learned to avoid the furious bralani and they fled his swings in hope of finding easier prey. The ranger, Mark, delighted in the destruction of the undead as they disintegrated against his enchanted blades and Pallas and Traxxas did their best to keep the shadows from reaching the clerics. Soon, the shadows were all destroyed and the halls of the dungeon were quiet once more. Convinced Seraxes was still out there, Besar wished the party luck and charged off to hunt the creature down without waiting for a reply.
The party, along with Sanjid, searched the chamber and found that much of value was missing from the corpses. If Seraxes was still out there, it appeared he still had help from some corporeal source. The group quickly searched the nearby tunnels for a trail. Through an exit to the north, Pallas and Sanjid discovered another set of remains upon another throne.
The corpse on the makeshift throne was, perhaps, a few months old. It wore robes and a crude crown rested upon its head. “Seraxes?” Pallas queried. “I don’t know,” Sanjid responded. “But if he was trying to become a lich, I’d say he failed.” Just then, the voice of Rags came from the large throne room.
“Mark’s disappeared!” shouted the cleric. “Klibb thinks the ranger picked up their trail!”
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Welcome back to the dungeon, readers. This session, the party makes a huge discovery that could affect the future of the entire dungeon, Rags finds a little redemption, Klibb finds a little courage and Pallas goes back to being a jerk when he nearly kills his companions (though it isn't entirely his fault, more or less.) Enjoy.
The World's Largest Adventuring Party:
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pallas - Dwarf Fighter
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Shi - Human Cleric of Pharasma
Grimdar - Dwarf Universalist Wizard/Cleric of Nethys
Mark - 1/2 Elf Ranger
Klibb - NPC Goblin Rogue
DAYS 93-96 THE GARRISON CHARTER
It didn’t take long for the adventurers to catch up with the ranger, Mark. Whoever was traveling with the shadows had left a faint trail and the dedicated slayer of the undead had discovered their tracks led to an intersection of tunnels, one of which ended at a large room with walls plated in mirrored steel. Sanjid recognized the chamber and told the party it had once been used as a holding cell for powerful spellcasters, its construction inhibiting the use of magic, but it was obvious the shadows and their companion had not come this way. Choosing to head north, the party came to a small room that gave the hound archon pause.
Dusty, multi-colored robes hung from hooks upon the wall of the small chamber and a door in the west wall bore the insignia of the celestial garrison.
“That door leads to the vault of the garrison charter,” solemnly noted Sanjid. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s come through here. New recruits to the garrison were tested beyond that door and the vault was the last place the charter was seen before the demons broke free.”
“It seems we’ve lost the shadows,” said Rags. “We should check it out.”
“Then know this,” replied the archon. “As this is your first time here, I cannot accompany you through the door. You will be tested and, if you succeed, you will be allowed into the vault. I will wait here for your return.”
The group stepped through the first door and found themselves in a chamber empty of any decoration but a magnificent sword fixed firmly into the ground. Unfortunately for Shi and Klibb, the celestial wards against evil activated as the pair passed the threshold blasting them with sonic force. The goblin managed to avoid the trap, but the cleric was not as agile and stumbled into the room bleeding from the ears. Assuming the sword was trapped, the party left the weapon where it stood and passed into the next chamber proving they would not give into temptation. Once again, a celestial glyph activated as the goblin and cleric entered and once again the nimble rogue escaped unharmed while the undertaker priest was drenched with acid.
In the second chamber, the party discovered a dying man dressed in fine robes and laden with jewelry. The man cried out for help as he saw the adventurers who hurried to his side. As soon as his wounds were healed, the man vanished and, by demonstrating charity, the party was allowed to proceed into the third chamber. This time, fire assaulted Shi as he passed through the door and Klibb once again avoided the celestial ward.
Within the third room, each member of the party found himself alone with the exception of a huge mechanical spider blocking the door to the next room. The spider’s eyes glowed violently as it threatened with its blade-like limbs. There was no way to bypass or avoid the creature so the adventurers were given only two options; retreat the way they’d come or face the monstrous automaton. Without their companions to back them up, it would seem suicidal to attack.
Shi, uncertain of how to proceed, waited too long to come to a decision and his hesitation cost him. The spider’s eyes flared and the priest was reduced to ash by a bolt of lightning. Traxxus, finding no way to tumble past the creature, struck at the thing with his rapiers before being petrified by another of its eye beams. The ranger, Mark, stepped out of the room only to return a moment later, his eyes closed, believing the spider to be an illusion. The decision cost him dearly as the creature shredded his body into coleslaw. The cleric of Sarenrae, Rags, readied for an assault on the mechanical spider but was too slow. The beast bit and tore at the rat-man until his corpse littered the floor of the room. Pallas, hoping to talk his way past the machine, set his warpike into the corner of the room and attempted to convince the thing he was an ally of the celestial garrison. When this had no effect on the creature’s disposition, the dwarf retrieved his weapon, took a final drink from his enchanted mug and was immediately set on fire and flayed into a fine red mist.
The party members woke to find themselves together again in the now-empty third chamber, unharmed by the spider’s attacks. Rags, Traxxus and Pallas noticed the door the spider had guarded was now hanging open. However, Shi and Mark still saw only a closed and securely locked door. Traxxus and Rags had been rewarded for their bravery against the insurmountable threat of the construct (though he never had the chance to act, the priest had at least decided to fight the thing,) while Pallas was given a pass for having the guts to attempt diplomacy while unarmed against a far superior opponent. Shi was deemed unworthy of continuing for taking too long to decide on a course of action and Mark’s hedging and eventual attempt to disbelieve the spider was interpreted as an attempt to ignore a very real threat. What surprised Rags, Pallas and Traxxus was the sudden appearance of Klibb leaping through the door amid a cloud of freezing ice.
“Is this Hell?” asked the goblin. “I was all alone with a great spider and nobody was there to help me. I asked myself, ‘What would Traxxus do in this situation?’ so I poked the spider with my sword and…and it killed me.”
After convincing Klibb he hadn’t died, the companions turned their attention to the small table in the room.
Four cushioned chairs sat arranged around a small table, which held a large crystal in its center. A locked door stood in the east wall and no amount of force or deftness of skill would open it so each of the adventurers took a seat at the table. Immediately, a thin beam of light struck each of the adventurers’ foreheads and images of the dungeon’s history flooded their minds. They learned how, before the coming of elves and dwarves, the gods of good had banded together to create a prison for the worst devils, demons and other denizens of lower planes and filled it with traps and enchantments made to punish and (hopefully) rehabilitate them. As the mortal races began to emerge and discover magic, more evil creatures were added to the prison including powerful undead and dragons. Guardians, including the members of the celestial garrison, were placed into the dungeon and swore oaths to secure the monsters and keep them from escaping into the world above. By completing the tests, Rags, Traxxas, Pallas and even Klibb had earned the right to join the garrison. For Pallas, Rags and Traxxus, it seemed like the images in their mind were a kind of garrison orientation program. For poor Klibb, the images were a startling portent of things to come if he didn’t turn from the path of evil. The goblin seemed drained by the experience of the table, but pressed on with his companions into the next room. There, upon a small pedestal, rested an ancient scroll, which unfurled as the group approached.
The old charter detailed the mission of the garrison and its oath to fight evil and defend the mortal world followed by the garrison creed, and a nearby pen provided each of the adventurers a chance to sign their name and join the ranks of the celestial garrison.
That all are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
That the gods put the firewood there, but that every creature must gather and light it himself.
In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
That a warrior should make the most of what equipment he has.
That this garrison, its mission and its honor shall live always.
That all should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
That sooner or later...somewhere...somehow...we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
That all things change, but the truth, and the truth alone lives on forever.
I believe in the power of good over evil, my mission and my comrades in arms.
Rags, still feeling the weight of his recent actions, signed hoping he might make up for his transgressions. Pallas and Traxxus signed next (primarily for the benefits) and Klibb, still reeling from the visions he’d witnessed, signed out of fear for his very soul. The deed done, the group picked up the scroll and returned to their companions and Sanjid.
Sanjid held the charter with a reverence reserved for the holiest of relics. He explained how the charter had seemed to vanish after the earthquake, and that its return to the vault could only be a good sign. Forgoing the search for the escaped shadows, the party quickly returned to Kelara and the rest of the celestial garrison.
Kelara, Morkor and Ember gathered the members of the adventuring party into the main hall of their barracks. The loss of their friends, Spark and Lilig, still weighed heavily on their minds but the return of the charter provided some cause for celebration, and the party was restored to health and given fresh food and drink courtesy of Sanjid’s divine magic.
“Besar, Doj and Spers are out hunting down the rest of the shadows while Morkor and I maintain the wards here,” spoke Kelara. “Since some of you have made the decision to sign up with the garrison, I’m giving you the order to deliver the charter to the inevitables. You must convince them to touch the scroll. Only then will they know they have strayed from the path set forth in the charter.”
“When you return, we’ll get to the business of ‘initiating’ you into the watch,” she added with a grin.
The party, minus Shi who had returned to the goblin empire, collected their gear and headed straight for the inevitable camp.
Grimdar was just seeking to fulfill his dwarven ritual of toil when he wandered into the dungeon seeking an entrance to the Darklands two years ago. Unfortunately, he had a run-in with the inevitables and wound up conscripted into a team of humanoids referred to as The Redeemed. The Redeemed had all been given the “honor” of serving the celestial garrison by the inevitables’ leader, Tekarus, a kolyarut hoping to supplement the garrison’s flagging membership. Their team, made up of Grimdar, a pair of hobgoblins, an ogre, a lizardman, a kobold and a duergar had become a point of contention between the celestials in the west and the inevitables in the east with the celestials arguing that drafting evil creatures into service was both dangerous and an insult to the honor of the garrison. Now, as Grimdar stood facing nine barghests, the dwarf couldn’t help but think the inevitables had a great big, “I told you so!” waiting for them.
The dwarf and the lizardman, Cul’tharic, had just been issued their patrol gear and were waiting beneath the twisted, dry and leafless branches of an ancient tree within the common room for their handler, a suspicious prosecutor of a zelekhut names Morsaq, when a group of goblins burst into the chamber and immediately shifted form into a pack of wolf-faced demons. The barghests had been led into the inevitables’ barracks by one of the hobgoblins, a troublemaker called Morrigsen Skullbreaker. Morrigsen, chafing under the orders of the extraplanar adjudicators, had cut a deal with the pack and hoped to wipe out the inevitables to gain access to the hoard of celestial weapons he imagined they possessed. Leading the shape-changed barghests into the barracks, Morrigsen hoped to convince Tekarus the goblins were new recruits from the goblin empire. However, the hobgoblin’s dozen years of honing his liar’s tongue could not compete with the kolyarut’s millennia of experience seeking out and destroying oath-breakers. The jig up, Morrigsen called for an all-out assault on the barracks and sent his barghest allies forward to kill anything in their path.
The adventuring party arrived just in time to find Morsaq emerging from a pile of dead barghests. Grimdar and Cul’tharic were still in the common room fending off the nearest of the beasts and the party quickly joined in the battle.
The fiendish creatures opened up their assault with howls that crippled their foes with grief and, after seeing Pallas emerge from the hall to violently slash one of their own, turned their powers of enchantment on the dwarf who quickly succumbed and followed their order to take Rags out of the fight. The dwarf turned on the rat-man priest and dropped Rags to the floor with two slashes from his pike. The rat barely survived with the assistance of Klibb who dumped a healing potion down his throat. Mark, whose hatred for devils was only exceeded by his hatred for the undead, charged into the room and made short work of two of the barghests but caught the ire of Pallas when he cut down the dwarf’s “friend.” With things growing out of control and Mark becoming the next victim of the barghests’ charms, Morsaq placed a spell of paralysis on the warriors, hoping Grimdar, Cul’Tharic and the remaining strangers could handle the barghests while he was occupied. When both Mark and Pallas eventually overcame the paralysis, it became obvious the zelekhut would need to resort to more drastic measures. The centaur-like automaton strode forward and placed his hand upon the shoulder of each warrior. “You will suffer for any harm you bring to your allies,” intoned the zelekhut as a divine sigil burned itself into the warriors’ skin. Morsaq had no magic to end the charm on the two warriors, but he hoped a mark of justice would dissuade the adventurers from murdering each other. Unfortunately for Mark, Pallas didn’t consider the ranger much of an ally and attacked regardless of the curse.
The dwarf attacked Mark as the ranger stood helpless, still paralyzed by Morsaq’s spell. The half-elf survived the blow but Pallas, despite the curse of the zelekut’s mark, hauled back for a second swing. To everyone’s surprise, the goblin Klibb shoved the ranger out of the dwarf’s reach and kept Mark from danger long enough for his companions to end the fight. Pallas felt the effects of the curse the next time he swung his warpike at the ranger. As the blade of his weapon struck the half-elf, the dwarf felt great pain course through his body. Hoping the lesson would teach the dwarf to better protect his companions, the zelekhut had cursed the dwarf with the pain he inflicted on them. Furthermore, should any of the companions he betrayed come to further harm, Pallas would suffer half the wounds inflicted upon them. This meant that the dwarf would need to keep the half-elf from further danger unless he wished to risk his own life. Mark, who had seen Cul’tharic destroy the barghest, which had charmed him, hesitated to attack the lizardman when he realized he too would meet a similar fate. With the barracks still under attack, Morsaq ordered Grimdar to lead the adventurers to the rest of The Redeemed while he and Cul’tharic sought Tekarus and the other inevitables. Before he could leave, Rags attempted to draw the zelekhut’s attention to the garrison charter and, failing that, swung the scroll into the creature’s flank. A burst of light and sparks shot from the scroll and Morsaq winced. Rags suddenly had second thoughts about his rather uncouth method of gaining the large, deadly construct’s attention when the zelekhut stopped, glanced back and coolly muttered, “We’ll deal with this later.” It didn’t take long after that for the group to find another pair of the constructs’ conscripts.
Ackersan Redsword, the hobgoblin leader of The Redeemed, and the ogre, Croo, stood guard amidst a quartet of barghest corpses. The pair had been ordered to protect a small chamber leading into the barracks to keep the fiends from flanking the inevitables. Ackersan and Morrigsen were both originally from the goblin empire, but to call the pair friends would be a gross misstatement. Ackersan, unlike Morrigsen, thoroughly enjoyed serving the garrison and his positive attitude earned him the leadership of the squad. Unfortunately, the warrior had the leadership skills of a head of lettuce so the team usually followed the commands of his rival. Simple-minded Croo would likely be fighting at Morrigsen’s side now if it weren’t for the fact that he enjoyed the attention he received as a member of The Redeemed. Always eager to impress his captors in the most violent means possible, the ogre was constantly being reprimanded for his methods (not that it did any good.)
As the party arrived so too did another pack of barghests. The creatures quickly used their magic to enspell Pallas and Croo and all might have been lost had the pair not managed to momentarily resist the barghest’s commands. Retreating to the common room to regroup, the adventurers and The Redeemed found Morsaq, Cul’tharic and another pair of inevitables. One of the creatures, a massive onyx giant with fists that crackled with electricity and a voice like thunder bellowed at the charmed warriors and shook them free of the barghest’s enchantments. This was Persal, Slayer of the Unliving, a marut with an intense hatred for the undead.
“If we’re done here, we go to join our brothers,” boomed Persal. “You will accompany us.”
The party, understandably nervous about the prospect of once more losing Pallas and Mark to the control of the barghests, asked for further assistance from the inevitables and Pallas, sore from his curse, asked to be granted amnesty from the zelekhut’s mark.
“With Morsaq’s approval, I will remove your curse, dwarf,” replied the marut. “You and your companions will prove your loyalty to the garrison, and I will provide aid if necessary.”
With that, the adventurers, Grimdar, Morsaq, Persal and a kolyarut called Senar quickly moved to flank the attacking force of barghests while.Ackersan and the other Redeemed rushed to bolster the main inevitable contingent.
The party and their allies entered a great hall the barghests were using to infiltrate the inevitable barracks. The sounds of battle came loudly through a pair of doors in the north of the hall but, before the party could join the main battle, they would have to stave off the barghest reinforcements.
Pallas, Mark and Traxxus moved forward to attack while Rags and Grimdar cast spells from the second rank. Klibb, having no enchanted weapons with which to harm the barghests simply did his best to aid his companions where he might. Since signing the garrison charter, the goblin seemed determined to make up for any past misdeeds and showed bravery wholly uncommon to most of his race. With the magic of the inevitables to counter the spells of the barghests, the party made short work of the fiends and raced to join the main battle. Of course, by the time they arrived, things were well under control and the barghests were routed.
“I understand you have something for me,” came a smooth, mechanical voice. Morsaq had passed word that the party had brought the garrison charter and a tall kolyarut now approached the group. “I am Tekarus, Watcher of Bargains and leader of the garrison’s inevitables. Give me the charter. I assure you no harm will come to you regardless of the outcome.”
The kolyarut’s metallic hand closed around the scroll and once again sparks showered the ground.
“I see,” solemnly acknowledged Tekarus. “We are in error.”
The party rested among the members of the garrison for a few days after that. The inevitables granted the remaining members of The Redeemed their freedom and renewed their vows to the garrison. Grimdar the dwarf chose to join the adventuring party and Cul’tharic departed quietly while Ackersan and Croo asked to remain among the inevitables, pledging to continue the work of The Redeemed by reaching out to the Goblin Empire and Four Waters for willing recruits (despite the fact Ackersan still couldn’t lead a moth to flame if he was building a bonfire.) As for Morrigsen and his barghest allies, the hobgoblin rogue, was finally (if narrowly) defeated by Ackersan during the raid on the inevitables’ barracks and, surviving his wounds, now awaited judgment for his betrayal of the garrison along with his accomplices, The Redeemed’s kobold sorcerer, Klarihg’en and the duergar fighter, Killian Earthscar. The remaining members of the barghest pack were too scattered to regroup after their failed raid and fled the area though rumors of a second pack of barghests gave the garrison a new target in their mission to rid the region of evil.
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I think somebody cast a Confusion spell on the entire party this session. Chaos seemed to be the order of the day as the group broke up, got lost and ran afoul of haunted chambers, horrible insects, evil barghests and an old "friend." If you're a fan of split parties, you might just enjoy...
DAYS 97-99 WHATEVER HAPPENED TO WHATSHERNAME?
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pallas - Dwarf Fighter
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Grimdar - Dwarf Universalist Wizard/Cleric of Nethys
Mark - 1/2 Elf Ranger
Troy - Human Fighter
Klibb - NPC Goblin Rogue
Two days had passed since the barghests were driven from the inevitable barracks. While plans were laid to initiate the newest members of the celestial garrison, the party decided to return to Four Waters to offload some of the loot they’d discovered within the dungeon. For their aid in the battle against the barghests, the party was given the equipment and treasure recovered from Morrigsen and his collaborators. The traitorous hobgoblin and his allies were to be exiled, empty-handed, into the northern reaches of the dungeon beyond the wards where they would be unable to return to bother the garrison. Rags, finding the party had acquired a spare spellbook after the demise of Jayder, decided to try and find the mysterious gargoyle wizard the party had recently encountered. It was his hope that offering the spellbook to the creature at a reduced price might smooth things over between the gargoyle and his companions after their previous encounter.
The door to the gargoyle’s laboratory hung wide as the party approached. Nearly everything had been removed from the room. Only a few broken flasks and most of the larger furnishings and fixtures remained. With Mark’s help, Rags managed to discover some creature had collected the various apparatus and carried it to the south and through a concealed door, which led toward the commune. The same creature seemed to have come from an area south of the laboratory before cleaning out the chamber and leaving through the concealed door.
“We should track the creature back to where it started its journey,” declared Grimdar. “The only way to find out where the thing is now is to first find out where it’s been before.”
Rags, Mark and Pallas looked at Grimdar dumbfounded as the dwarf spellcaster repeated himself while never quite explaining his logic.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” replied Rags. “We already know where it’s been. It’s been here, it went this way and going back to where it started will only put more distance between us.”
“That’s ridiculous,” retorted Grimdar. “Don’t you know anything? Tracking the creature back the way it came is the only way we’ll ever get closer to it.”
“No. This is ridiculous,” groaned Traxxus. “We’re wasting time here. Klibb and I are going to look for the missing ward staves so the celestials will get off our backs and we can get out of here. You guys have fun looking for that guy who hates us.” And with that, the two rogues were gone. The celestials had ruined Pallas’ and Traxxus’ plans to hunt the gnoll enemies of the goblins by reminding them of their duties to the garrison. By signing their names to the charter, Pallas, Rags, Traxxus and Klibb had agreed to serve the garrison and the garrison’s first priority was the return of the two missing staves.
“The gnolls are evil and we should be destroying evil,” contended Pallas. “The commune’s scavenger teams can find the missing staves.”
“The same scavenger teams, which were murdered by the shadows?” replied Kelara, the leonal captain of the garrison. “If you want out of the garrison, just say so. I won’t force any of you to stay. Removing the threat of evil within the dungeon might be part of our mission, but our efforts are useless if we can’t keep the demons outside the wards from getting in. Go hunt the gnolls if that is where your priorities lay. ” Not wanting to lose their garrison memberships, the pair relented and agreed to seek out the missing staves before going after the gnolls. Now, the halfling and his goblin ward were off to find the staves alone while their companions argued in a hallway.
“We have to go this way!” protested Grimdar. The dwarf refused to budge on his position but offered no coherent explanation as to why the party should follow him and, finally, Rags, Mark and Pallas simply left through the concealed door following the tracks the ranger had discovered. Begrudgingly, Grimdar followed.
The creature’s tracks led through a door into the chamber where the party had discovered the large, peaceful spider, Edgar, which they had attacked and nearly killed without cause. The spider was gone, but it was obvious something heavy had been dragged through the refuse in the room. Eventually, the trail ended at the entrance to Four Waters and, realizing the residents would probably have noticed something as strange as a gargoyle and giant spider walking through the commune, decided they would pursue the bizarre wizard at another time. For now, it was decided Rags and Mark would find Traxxus and Klibb and return so the party could search for the missing staves as a team. Of course, Pallas had other plans and decided to leave with Grimdar as soon as the pair was out of sight.
***
Traxxus and Klibb had gone back to the scene of the battle with the barghests only two days ago after stopping to speak with the celestials. The angels had told them of two areas that remained unexplored since the disappearance of the staves and warned the pair to be on the lookout for the rumored second pack of fiends. Going through a large chamber strangely overgrown with trees and other plants, the rogues snuck along the walls toward a pair of doors to the south. On the other side, they discovered a quartet of barghests rummaging through a pile of torn sheets, blankets and other garbage. Quickly losing his nerve in the face of the beasts, Traxxus motioned for Klibb to follow him back to the rest of the party and the two departed unnoticed.
***
Pallas and Grimdar stopped in a long hallway hung with immense portraits. Each picture depicted a member of the celestial garrison and, though most of the subjects had apparently died before the party’s arrival, one of the paintings caught their attention. Within the painting sat Kelara, meditating within a snowy field. A placard at the painting’s base revealed the picture had been hung long before she came to control the garrison and, lacking the patience, interest or capacity to reflect on any of the images, the two dwarfs left the paintings to their dust collecting.
***
Rags and Mark ran into Traxxus and Klibb during the rogues’ retreat from the barghests and returned to where they’d left Pallas and Grimdar. Finding the dwarfs missing, the four decided to seek out the staves without them. If they crossed paths with the errant beards, so be it, but the ranger never bothered to track the pair. Whether it was because of absent-mindedness or just enjoyment of their absence he wouldn’t say.
The group eventually came to a closed door somewhere north of where they’d discovered the charter and Traxxus and Mark listened for movement on the other side. Detecting nothing, Traxxus opened the door and the hallway was immediately filled with an anguished scream of terror. Rags and Klibb, panicked by the scream, immediately fled the area while Mark and Traxxus, apparently oblivious to their companions’ frightened state, moved into the seemingly empty room to investigate. Three minutes later, the pair exited the room after finding nothing and realized they should probably find their missing friends.
***
Pallas and Grimdar were just exiting what appeared to have once been an infirmary when they encountered a mannish-looking human woman wielding a pair of Taldorian-style falcatas. The woman, most recently a scavenger guard for the commune, had been searching for the party for weeks in an attempt to join them in their quest for an escape from the dungeon. Identifying herself as Troy (her parents wanted a boy,) the woman joined the two dwarfs as they headed deeper into the dungeon.
It wasn’t long before the trio discovered a closed door at the end of a long hallway. The door was marked by a celestial glyph and a loud, roaring buzz could be heard from the other side. Pallas, curious as to the source of the racket, casually opened the door, breaking the celestial ward and releasing a cloud of jet and crimson wasps into the passageway. Grimdar suddenly felt his body grow numb and hot as the wasps’ poison coursed through his veins. Pallas, affected to a lesser degree by the poison, swung his warpike uselessly against the swarm as the insects dove and stung at his body. Troy staggered out of the cloud of wasps and rushed for an exit while Grimdar’s swollen, red body fell to the ground. Unable to combat the swarm, Pallas fled into the room the insects had exited and quickly closed the door.
***
Rags couldn’t control himself. The supernatural shriek from the empty chamber filled him with dread and sent him fleeing through the tunnels away from his companions. Eventually, the priest’s headlong tumble sent him through a small chamber where four barghests relaxed amid a pile of books and cushions. The barghests, taken by surprise, watched in confusion as the rat-man charged through the room and out an exit to the south. Traxxus, who had tracked Rags to the chamber, arrived just in time to see two of the barghests leave in pursuit of the cleric. The rogue quickly hid and returned to Mark to devise a plan. Quaffing a pair of invisibility potions, the pair attempted to sneak up to the barghests’ chamber but the fiends’ keen ears detected their presence and one of the creatures entered the passage to investigate the sound.
The barghest sniffed the air around the doorway and caught wind of Mark who hid in a small alcove near the chamber’s entrance. Unable to see his companion, Traxxus weighed the possibility of survival against the barghests and turned to leave Rags and Mark to their respective dooms. He was already 40 feet around a corner before he began to feel guilty of betraying his comrades and the garrison with his cowardice. Quickly, the halfling turned back to aid Mark who was being clawed and bitten by the pair of barghests in the hall. Together, the rogue and ranger easily defeated the barghests and moved to rescue Rags.
***
Pallas searched through the ancient chapel for an escape from the swarm of wasps outside the door. The corpse of a priest rested near the door to the room and the dwarf looted his remains before moving onto to search the walls for secret doors. It was then that Pallas heard the stony grind of the chapel door opening. Grimdar stood in the open doorway, his wasp-stung body swollen, red…and squirming. Pallas stood horrified as his companion’s mouth opened and a roaring swarm of wasps issued into the room. Pushing through the swarm, the dwarf fled once more into the hall closing the door to the chapel. Like some carrion-hungry beast, Pallas quickly stripped the limp form of Grimdar of its valuables only to be surprised a moment later when the chapel door once again opened. The swarm now occupied the body of the dead priest and, without the celestial wards to seal them within the chapel, the wasps were free to destroy and kill at their leisure. Terrified for his life and nearly dead from wasp stings and poison, Pallas fled the way Troy had gone before him and shut the door amid a flurry of insects. After that, his heavy feet didn’t stop until he reached the angel shrine in the Goblin Empire.
***
Traxxus and Mark tracked Rags to a closed door north of the barghests’ chamber. It was clear the priest had been dragged into the room and they just make out what sounded like creatures talking on the other side of the door. Traxxus attempted to stealthily open the door to hear the conversation but something inside the room noticed.
“Come in if you’re going to come in,” came a throaty growl.
“Is our friend in there?” sheepishly asked Traxxus without thought.
“Yes. He’s here. He’s been quite the informative little chatterbox,” replied the voice. “Why don’t you come in and join us?”
Traxxus slowly opened the door just enough to get a look into the room. A large barghest reclined in one corner of the room while Rags sat cheerfully at his side. Another pair of barghests stood ready to defend their apparent pack leader and, to the halfling’s surprise, another rat-like humanoid rested in the chamber near the large barghest.
Rags had been captured by the two barghests, which mistook him for their pack leader, Morat’s, newest pet, a female wererat he’d charmed into submission. The wererat, of course, was no other than Mina, a monk who had been cursed with lycanthropy during the original party’s battle against the sorcerer Longtail. Upon the rat priest’s delivery to Morat, the pack leader used his magic to charm and interrogate Rags who told him of the celestials’ impending raid on his pack and their search for the ward staves. It didn’t take long (or any magic) for Traxxus to spill on the purpose of the staves or their current mission to seek them out.
“Your friend here tells me you lot destroyed that treasonous b!+ch Sarraas and her pack of whelps with the help of the machines in the north,” said Morat. “This pleases me so I’m going to let you walk out of here with your lives. Your friend will join me and, when I’ve decided we’re a safe distance from the celestial garrison, I’ll send him back to you. I trust you’ll find my offer to be most generous.”
Seeing no present means of freeing Rags or defeating Morat and his pack, Traxxus agreed despite Mark’s protestations, the ranger’s hatred for the fiendish beings fueling his tirade. For now, the halfling deemed it best to escape and seek aid from the celestials. Besides, Klibb was still missing and Traxxus still felt responsible for the little guy.
***
Pallas was still a little sore from the wasps’ attacks but felt much better after Thorin’s divine healing. Recovered, the dwarf rejoined Troy who had run to the shrine to purchase a magical necklace of fireballs to combat the swarm and, together, they returned to seek revenge against the evil vermin.
“Wait here,” commanded Pallas as he took the necklace from Troy. “I’m going in.”
Pallas quickly opened the door to the passageway and rushed in closing it behind him. The swarm was still buzzing about the hall and made straight for the dwarf who tossed one of the fireball gems at his own feet with a cry of defiance. Unfortunately, the swarm, showing intelligence and agility beyond normal bugs, managed to avoid most of the blast while Pallas soaked up the flames nearly losing his enchanted bracers in the process. Once again the dwarf found himself surrounded by stinging insects as he made for a door in the north wall of the passageway. Troy, still waiting in the adjoining tunnel, could hear only the sounds of the erupting fireballs and the roaring of the swarm as Pallas fled through the north door.
“Ha!” wheezed the wasp-stung Pallas as he hurried away from the passage. “That dumb broad blew her gold on this necklace and never even got to use it.” And leaving the defenseless Troy to her fate, Pallas disappeared into the north toward the sound of a great clamor.
***
Traxxus and Mark discovered Klibb hiding near a glyph-marked door to the east of the barghest lair. Hoping one of the staves would be beyond the door, the halfling removed the ward and prepared to go through when Klibb alerted him to the group’s proximity to the edge of the region. According to a map they’d been given by the celestials, the door would eventually lead them into region “F” of the dungeon and, not wanting to risk whatever may be on the other side, Traxxus came up with a plan he hoped would help to recover Rags. The halfling led Mark and Klibb back to the barghests.
Hoping Rags would be set free if the barghests could be provided a quick escape, Traxxus informed the first barghest he encountered of the door to the east. “If you leave now, you can get there before the garrison arrives,” pleaded the halfling.
“I’ll tell the boss,” snarled the barghest. “Now get lost.” Hoping for the best, Traxxus and his companions left to find the rest of the party and the celestials. Eventually, the trio found a small chamber covered in a resinous material. A set of strange bone weapons rested on a table in the chamber and three doors led out through the east, west and north. According to their map, the group had found the quarters of The Heavenly Swarm, a colony of celestial formians who had once aided the garrison. The Swarm had apparently been wiped out in the chaos caused by the earthquake but a few of their weapons (along with a pair of restless shadows) still rested within the hive. Soon, the trio found their way to a thick resin door barred from the inside. Using all their strength and a little magical assistance, the adventurers were able to burst the door and discover the fate of the Swarm’s queen.
The husk of a huge ant-like monster rested in the massive chamber along with the bodies of several smaller formians. A quick search of the room revealed something had dispatched the formian queen by driving a still-present sword through her thorax. Mark could only guess that the loss of their queen had resulted in the deaths of the swarm, but he knew little of formians so couldn’t be sure. Aside from the hive’s treasure, the trio was pleased to find one of the missing ward staves glowing among the remains of the formians. The Swarm may have perished but they were, thankfully, successful in securing the staff from the evil outside the hive. It was around this time when Pallas appeared, having heard the sound of Mark, Traxxus and Klibb pounding on the queen’s chamber door echoing through the halls. Getting the rundown on what had happened between the two groups, it was decided the party should move with all due haste to the celestial garrison.
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Readers, it's been 100 days since the first party of adventurers set foot in the dungeon! Since then, the group has seen nearly 40 members and allied with or fought against an even larger number of strange characters. Well, some of those characters are about to return and we're all about to learn about how the choices a party makes can have a tremendous effect on how an encounter turns out in the future. I hope you're enjoying the journal and you stick around for the next 100 days!
DAY 100 - A GOBLIN'S CHOICE
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pallas - Dwarf Fighter
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Roch - Dwarf Universalist Wizard/Cleric of Nethys
Mark - 1/2 Elf Ranger
Troy - Human Fighter
Klibb - NPC Goblin Rogue
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Fighter
Morat, leader of the barghest pack, reclined on a pile of soiled blankets and cushions as his minions gathered their valuables in preparation for retreat. The rat-man priest, Rags, sat charmed by the beast and gladly informed Morat of all he knew of the prisoners’ commune and Argliss’ goblin empire. Morat grinned and announced the pack would leave immediately for the Stoneshaper warrens, trusting in the fear and respect his pack would elicit from their goblin cousins. Meanwhile, Traxxus, Mark , Klibb and Pallas returned to the Celestial Garrison in hopes of finding aid in rescuing their friend.
***
The adventurers stood at the entrance to a small armory. A strange hiss came from a corner of the room and the body of a tall, armored woman rested on the floor. Not wanting to risk a surprise attack, Pallas activated the last of the fireballs from the necklace he’d taken from Troy and engulfed the room in flames. If the woman on the floor had been merely unconscious or asleep, she certainly wasn’t going to wake now. The quartet slipped into the armory to examine the results of the blast and found most of the equipment had survived with only a few scorch marks from the fire. The woman, an elf from the look of her, wasn’t moving, but it was hard to tell what had killed her. In addition to the burns from the fireball, her skin had the pallor of a shadow victim and her body was covered in the bites and scratches of someone who had seen battle against a pack of fiends. The only identifying mark on her was the symbol of the Celestial Garrison inscribed on her armor but, before the adventurers could decide what to do with her, a trio of shadows emerged from the walls and corners of the room. Of course, by now the four explorers were well versed in dealing with the minions of Seraxes and the fight was over almost as quickly as it had begun. The group decided to pick up the woman’s body and return it to the garrison hoping the celestials might recognize her.
Many of the garrison members were engaged in a search of the eastern tunnels by the time Traxxus and the others arrived to the garrison. The few survivors of the barghest pack they’d fought only days before had fled into the east and it was believed one of the ward staves might be located there. Pallas set the body of the dead woman on the floor of the meeting chamber and gave Sanjid a report on what had transpired since his group had left.
It turned out the woman was no other than Sensil, the beloved of Doj. The bralani warrior maiden had gone missing a month ago while on patrol and Doj had spent nearly all of his spare time searching for her. Sparing little time to hear the tale, Pallas and his companions raced off to the armory in hopes of finding something to break the enchantment of the barghests. Wetoq, the kolyarut quartermaster, had nothing to prevent or break the barghest’s spell so the adventurers quickly returned to where they’d last seen the pack in hopes of stopping them before they could escape. It was then they noticed Klibb was missing. The goblin had apparently disappeared during the trip back to the garrison without a word. Whether he’d gotten scared of the upcoming battle and fled no one could say, but the idea that he’d been secretly charmed by the barghests and was returning to them as a spy was not completely out of the realm of possibility. The party had no choice but to move on without him and hope for the best.
***
Troy returned to the safety of Four Waters. Her first encounter with the infamous adventuring party had been a complete bust. Of the two dwarfs she’d met, one of them was now dead and the other had apparently suckered her out of an expensive magical necklace and left her to flee from an evil swarm of hell-bred wasps. As the fighter sat in the grand hall of the commune amongst the work stalls and meal stations, she couldn’t help but wonder if it might be better to strike out on her own or form her own group. It was then that she heard a group of fellow prisoners gossiping nearby. Apparently, a pack of wolf-riding goblins had been spotted racing through the east end of the region toward the border of The Stoneshaper Empire. They hadn’t stopped to talk to anyone and, rumor had it, a few prisoners were nearly killed when they were almost trampled by the pack. Intrigued by the story, Troy picked up her gear and headed east to investigate. Not so far away, a pair of adventurers was headed in the same direction for reasons of their own.
The dwarf, Roch, had been in the dungeon for a few weeks since being arrested for arguing over the price of a loaf of bread. He was to meet his end on the guillotine until a bureaucratic mistake got him sent to the dungeon instead. Since then, Roch had been trying to help out around the commune with his magic but, growing bored with the lack of a challenge in mending bags and healing minor injuries, the dwarf decided to seek out adventure in the dungeon beyond Four Waters’ borders. It was while sitting in Macready’s pub that he overheard a report of an insect swarm loose near the border to the north. Having nothing better to do since he finished off his moonshine, the dwarf went to check it out and, along the way, encountered a warrior with some knowledge of the dungeon.
Cul’tharic, the lizardman, had silently stalked south after leaving The Redeemed, hoping to exit the dungeon the way he got in but, finding the entrance to be a one-way gate, he’d stopped in the commune to speak with its two lizardfolk residents. Being from another tribe, Kalhiss and Slissth were wary of the reptilian warrior but soon came to sympathize with the fighter when they realized he was not here to challenge Kalhiss for his mate. Cul’tharic, it turned out, already had a family and wanted nothing more than to return to them. Though Kalhiss warned him of the apparent madness of the strange group of mammals attempting to find an escape from the dungeon, he conceded they might be his best hope for getting home. The lizardman considered this and decided the adventurer’s actions had freed him from the inevitables and he at least owed them for that. Gathering his things, Cul’tharic headed off to find the adventuring party.
***
It had been about four days since Shi left his companions at the celestial garrison. The priest of Pharasma had been busy working with the goblins to secure their region of the dungeon and, for his service, he was promised a residence in one of the tombs the party had recently cleared of undead. Having worked out a deal with the lantern archon, Brighteyes, to relocate a pack of blink dogs the celestial had taken into its care, Shi had saved the lives of hundreds of dog-hating goblins, which were being exterminated by the angry archon. His mission accomplished, the cleric stood at the throne of Argliss to deliver the news and receive his reward. It was then that the doors of the throne room burst open as a winded goblin rushed into the chamber.
“Barghests, Chief!” wailed the goblin, fear and excitement competing in his voice. “Barghests have come!”
“Settle down,” growled the hobgoblin captain Hammerfist, callously slapping the goblin to the ground. “What are you on about?”
But before the goblin could answer, a pair of the fiends pushed through the door to the chamber, their leader Morat close on their haunches.
The goblins at the edge of the empire’s borders had let the barghests through without challenge. To the goblins, these beasts were heroes of myth and legend. Barghest champions populated the nightmare tales told to every goblin and hobgoblin child and, now, here they were in all their unholy glory. The lead barghests, some riding their companions in goblin form, stopped long enough only to snatch one lucky goblin from his feet ordering the warrior to lead them to Argliss. To every goblin present this was a sign. The hounds of war were loosed and had come to lead The Stoneshaper Empire to victory and domination.
“The rat was right about one thing,” grinned Morat as he surveyed the room. “This ‘kingdom’ will serve me well.” Then, to Argliss, “Can’t say the same for the king.”
Argliss sat silently running his fingers through the fur of his loyal mount, a thin, black wolf-like beast panting beside the monarch’s throne.
“I hear you teach them to live at peace with elves and dwarves and men and gnomes,” Morat continued, gesturing at the assembly of goblins and hobgoblins about the room. “You teach them to trade. You teach them to read. I think you’ve forgotten what it is to be a goblin. You’ve forgotten how to kill, how to burn. You’ve forgotten your place. I will teach you.”
***
Pallas returned alone to the Celestial Garrison. His companions, Mark and Traxxus, had been ensnared by the spells of a group of barghests guarding the passage south to the commune. Worse yet, Pallas himself had let slip that Traxxus had a map of the region while trying to negotiate with the beasts. Fearing the enchantments of the barghests, the dwarf chose to retreat and seek help from the garrison.
Most of the garrison was still searching the east tunnels when Pallas arrived, but Sanjid informed the dwarf Doj had heard of the party’s discovery of Sensil and was heading toward the commune to lend his aid. Sanjid did not know which path the bralani had taken but, if Pallas hurried, he may run into Doj on his way back. While there, Pallas placed his hand upon the Garrison Charter, which now rested at the entrance to the garrison’s armory. A shock of divine energy shot through the dwarf’s arm, signaling Pallas’ failure to uphold the garrison’s virtues. The dwarf wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, but now wasn’t the time to figure it out. He raced back to where he’d left his companions.
Doj was nowhere to be seen. The celestial may have taken a different route or been held up so Pallas was going to have to face the barghests and his companions on his own.
“You still there?” shouted Pallas from around a corner. There was no chance of the heavily armored dwarf sneaking up on the creatures so he may as well make his presence known.
“We’re here,” replied a barghest. “Your companions are here as well. They’ve been telling us all about you. Seems you’ve made a lot of enemies. Why don’t you come over here? We’ll be your friends.”
Pallas had already succumbed to the magic of the barghests twice before and didn’t relish the idea of being their pawn a third time but, if he was going to rescue his allies, he’d have to confront the fiends. The dwarf moved around the corner and toward the sound of the barghest’s voice. Halfway up the tunnel he noticed Traxxus stepping out from around a corner behind him and Mark stepping out ahead of him (given the dwarf’s history with the party and general unpleasantness, it didn’t take much for the barghests to convince their charmed captives to attack.) Pallas braced himself and swung with the flat of his blade as the halfling attempted to roll past his defenses. Traxxus clumsily rolled into the weapon and fell quickly to the weight of the blow. A barghest immediately appeared next to Mark and attempted to charm Pallas who, perhaps through fear alone, managed to shake off the creature’s control. As the barghest retreated, Mark moved in, still angry over the time Pallas tried to kill him. One of the ranger’s attacks struck the dwarf who then beat Mark off with a thunderous blow. The dwarf had managed to incapacitate his allies, but the barghests escaped unharmed with the map entrusted to the party. It would be too difficult and dangerous to rescue Rags on his own so Pallas picked up Traxxus and Mark and carried them back to the garrison.
***
Having met in the tunnels on their way east, Roch, Troy and Cul’tharic traveled toward the goblin empire. It was near the border with the empire that they suddenly detected the presence of a wolf-like creature slowly creeping toward the grand hall. Cul’tharic recognized the thing as soon as it moved into the torch light of the tunnel and croaked a warning to his companions as he hurled a javelin into its hide. “Barghest!”
The weapon sunk into the beast’s shoulder as it moved forward attempting to slam into Troy. The fighter slashed at the thing and cut a long, horrible gash across its face and back. Then, before the terrified eyes of the three adventurers, the corpse of the barghest cracked open revealing the swarm of jet and crimson wasps, which controlled the dead thing’s limbs.
The cloud of stinging, biting hell-spawned vermin immediately swirled around the three adventurers. Cul’tharic, Troy and Roch stumbled through the things barely able to keep the wasps out of their mouths and armor. Thinking back to his tour of the commune when he first arrived, Roch suddenly realized they were near a room the prisoners called “The Box.” The Box was an airtight room with no doors. The adventuring party had discovered it while searching for Longtail nearly two months ago. Only a still-functioning magical gate allowed entry but the room was considered a death trap because it was devoid of breathable air. If they could lure the swarm into The Box, they might be able to suffocate the insects.
Roch tried to alert Troy and Cul’tharic to his plan but nearly choked on a mouthful of wasps. Meanwhile, Troy was being chewed-up by the vermin and Cul’tharic was close to succumbing to the swarm’s poison. Seeing the dwarf attempt to draw the insects through a tunnel to the north, the lizardman broke away and rushed to the grand hall to seek aid from the prisoners working in the area. Troy, in the meantime, helped Roch to lead the insects toward the confined space. The dwarf’s attempts to damage the swarm with magic had little effect but did manage to keep its attention, and Troy was finally able to lead the swarm into the large chamber containing the gateway into The Box.
Roger Baker, Four Water’s notorious butcher, stood near the portal to The Box laughing at some private joke as Troy burst into the room. With the swarm close behind, the woman rushed toward the portal pushing Baker to the floor and out of the way of the oncoming wasps. In a flash, the fighter and the majority of the swarm were transported into the dark, suffocating void. Then, finally overcome by the attacking swarm, Troy fell to the ground and the panicked wasps, seeking an escape from the room, began to enter her body.
Roch stumbled into the chamber behind the swarm and, seeing no sign of Troy, turned to Baker who cursed as he stood.
“Those things chased your friend into The Box,” growled Roger. “And good riddance to her.”
“You’ve got to help me get her out of there,” pleaded the dwarf.
“Screw that,” spat the butcher. “She pushed me, and that place is a deathtrap. Get her out yourself if you’re so anxious to die.”
Roch took a step toward Baker but the man fled into the dungeon before the dwarf could reach him. There was no time. Roch had to act quickly if he was going to save Troy from suffocation or death at the stings of the swarm so he...
Troy and Roch woke to the sight of a dozen concerned prisoners standing around them or administering first aid to their wounds. Cul’tharic and a posse from the grand hall had arrived just in time to pull the dying adventurers from The Box. It was largely thanks to the lizardman they were both still alive. Not only had he brought help but the scaled warrior’s powerful lungs allowed him to survive in The Box long enough to pull his companions back through the gate. As Troy coughed up a handful of dead wasps, she couldn’t help but wonder why there was a huge puddle of water on the floor.
***
Shi wanted nothing more than to escape from the throne room of the goblin king, Argliss. A pack of barghests had just arrived with what appeared to be a pair of wererats in tow. Of course, one of these creatures was Rags, the cursed priest of Sarenrae, but Shi did not recognize the other. The pack leader, a goblin/wolf hybrid thing about the size of a horse was now insulting Argliss and demanding the goblin abdicate his throne in accordance with some ancient goblin/barghest pact of some sort. Argliss’ hobgoblin captain, Hammerfist, glanced back at his liege to see the goblin was tightly clutching his scepter and seemed to be trembling. However, it wasn’t fear that caused the king to shake.
“I remember,” interrupted Argliss. “I remember what it means to kill and destroy out of fear and hatred and ignorance; what it means to fight and betray my own people for scraps. I remember what it means to be a goblin. I remember serving a cruel chief and watching my brothers die useless deaths, and I remember praying to dark, spiteful gods who answered my pleas with starvation and war and short, sharp knives in the dark. How dare you tramp into my home, the kingdom I fought and bled for to unite, and accuse me of forgetting what I was fighting against?!”
Argliss stood on the seat of his throne, accusatively pointing his scepter at the fiend before him. “You flea-feasted cur! You unmuzzled, hell-hated trough-supper! You think you can scamper in here with your pack of tail-tucked filth-wallowers and make of me a pupil?! Prithee you brought your books because you are about to be schooled!”
By now, none of Argliss’ followers had any comprehension of what their king was saying but they were pretty sure a fight was about to start.
“The little king thinks he’s an eagle,” growled Morat to his pack. “Fine. I will introduce him to the vultures.” And then, as Morat gestured at Rags and the wererat Mina, the barghest continued, “These two will be my wings.”
Hammerfist looked across to Shi as he hefted his greatclub. “This means they will fight for control of the empire; the barghest and its champions against Emperor Argliss and his.”
“I’ve just been drafted, haven’t I?” asked the priest. “I don’t suppose we can settle this over a dance competition, huh?”
“If you want to survive to furnish that new home of yours, you’ll fight for the king,” chided Hammerfist. “You should consider it an honor.”
On the opposite side of the hall, the charmed Rags glared across the room at Shi. “I hate to break it to you, Shi, but I can honestly say I’m not going to feel bad about this. You ready to meet Pharasma?”
“Not just yet, but I’m sure you won’t mind giving her my regards” Shi retorted.
“Ha!” laughed Morat. “It seems our champions are ready. Let’s do this!”
The goblins and barghests in the room fell away as Argliss leapt onto the back of the gaunt, coal-black hound at his side. This creature, a dreaded yeth hound called Padfoot, was a symbol of the goblin king’s power and, as Argliss’ voice rang through the halls filling his people with courage, the beast leapt into the air and soared over the head of Morat and his champions. Hammerfist quickly charged Mina and struck her hard with his massive club before the wererat monk could act and, though the weapon’s blow was cushioned somewhat by the lycanthrope’s natural resistances, she hissed with rage and pain. Meanwhile, Morat cast a spell of strength on himself and his champions while Rags attempted to hinder Shi with a prayer of silence. Shi evaded the enchanted priest’s attack and countered with a burst of sonic energy.
As the battle progressed, Argliss swung his scepter from the back of Padfoot unleashing a devastating fireball followed by a bolt of lightning, which wounded several bystander goblins and barghests as it blasted Morat, Rags and Mina. A subsequent, decidedly less-effective, activation of the magical rod caused grass to sprout from the stone floor as Morat laughed at the goblin king’s attack. Hammerfist continued to trade blows with the enraged Mina who bit and tore at the hobgoblin fighter as the warrior’s deadly club hammered her into furry paste. Then, with one thunderous blow, Mina’s head was shorn clean from her shoulders. The body of the woman stood as if frozen for a moment as it regained the original form of the one-time adventurer then fell beside its now-human head, a look of calm finally falling across her bloodied face.
“Looks like one of your wings has been clipped, Morat!” shouted Argliss from the back of the flying hound.
“This game isn’t over yet,” snarled the barghest. “In fact, it’s evolving. Try to keep up!” Then, to his on-looking pack, Morat howled, “Kill anyone who stands against us!”
Goblins, hobgoblins and barghests were quickly joined in battle as Argliss and Morat continued their duel. The barghest leader turned his attention to the wounded Hammerfist while the fight between Shi and Rags was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a pair of Morat’s pack who came to the aid the rat priest. Soon, Shi and Hammerfist were lying unconscious as Morat’s barghests made short work of any goblins offering resistance.
“It’s over, little eagle,” growled Morat. “Now, get down here. I have many things to teach you.”
Suddenly, a wall of fire erupted across the room cutting through Rags and a number of barghests as a wand-wielding gargoyle appeared at the now-open door to Arlgiss’ personal chamber. Rags was conscious just long enough to see the half-orc fighter, Hurk, appear beside the gargoyle as he cleaved into a pair of the burning fiends.
“Don’t you people ever give up?!” screamed an enraged Morat.
“Master Traxxus would never give up,” came the small, but firm, voice of Klibb as an arrow sped from the goblin’s bow and pierced the neck of the massive barghest.
…and straight onto the invisible blade of Bartleby’s rapier. “Hey there, your highness. You still owe me money,” the halfling quipped at Argliss as he dislodged his sword from Morat’s breathless corpse.
With the great barghest dead, the surviving pack members fled the goblin empire. The fiends’ reputation could not compete with the bravery of the goblin king and his allies or the strength the goblins derived from their new god. The few goblins and hobgoblins, which chose to side with the barghests were quickly rooted out and dealt with by Argliss’ loyal followers and those who had stood idle or shown fear in the face of the beasts were gathered up for “re-education.” As for how Klibb came to save the day, well…
…it seems the goblin decided to shadow the barghests and Rags back to the goblin empire when the pack made its way south. Maybe it was the weight of his past misdeeds or the newfound confidence he’d gained when he signed the Garrison Charter or maybe he just wanted to repay the kindness of the party who had protected him and trusted him with an enchanted bow? Maybe he just wanted Traxxus to be proud of him? Whatever it was, when Klibb saw the way the goblins were acting around the barghests, he knew he’d need help to free his companion, Rags.
Klibb’s first recruit was the gargoyle wizard, Farggallan. Farggallan, who wasn’t actually a gargoyle at all but a fellow goblin in disguise, had fled Region E after the adventuring party nearly killed his pet spider, Edgar, and ratted him out to the celestials, who broke into his laboratory planning to destroy the “gargoyle wizard” lurking nearby. With no place else to go, Farggallan headed south and ran into Shi who helped him destroy the evil master of the shadows, Seraxes, who was fleeing the bralani, Besar. Farggallan hoped Argliss would grant him sanctuary, but the emperor was suspicious of any goblin capable of harnessing the sort of power at Farggallan’s command and feared his people were not yet ready for a wizard to live among them. Helping Klibb seemed like a good way to get on Argliss’ good side so the wizard agreed to come along.
Hurk had been imprisoned in the goblin jail since Bartleby and the goblin betrayer, Pojies, captured him in the maze some time ago. Though Klibb was aware of the fighter’s lycanthropic condition, he’d also learned Hurk had been a good man before he was cursed. With most of the goblins busy with the barghests, Klibb and Farggallan easily freed the half-orc who readily agreed to fight the fiends. The rogue, Bartleby, was easy to win over. Argliss still owed the treasure hunting halfling for a number of jobs, and Bartleby knew the barghests would never pony up for the goblin king’s debt or provide him with so much work. After that, it was a simple matter of coming up with a plan.
Klibb discovered Argliss’ personal chamber had two entrances, one from the throne room and the second, a secret escape tunnel. Entering the king’s quarters through the escape tunnel gave the rogue and his allies a place to stage their surprise attack and Farggallan’s invisibility magic gave the team the ability to get the drop on the barghest pack. Klibb, who’d started off as a terrified Stone Spirit goblin outcast was finally a hero and, somehow, it never would have happened without the dysfunctional group of miscreants known as The World’s Largest Adventuring Party.
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Readers, it's been 100 days since the first party of adventurers set foot in the dungeon! Since then, the group has seen nearly 40 members and allied with or fought against an even larger number of strange characters. Well, some of those characters are about to return and we're all about to learn about how the choices a party makes can have a tremendous effect on how an encounter turns out in the future. I hope you're enjoying the journal and you stick around for the next 100 days!
DAY 100 - A GOBLIN'S CHOICE
featuring: The World's Largest Adventuring Party
Traxxus - Halfling Rogue
Pallas - Dwarf Fighter
"Rags" - Nezumi (cursed human) Cleric of Sarenrae
Roch - Dwarf Universalist Wizard/Cleric of Nethys
Mark - 1/2 Elf Ranger
Troy - Human Fighter
Klibb - NPC Goblin Rogue
Cul'tharic - NPC Lizardfolk Fighter
Morat, leader of the barghest pack, reclined on a pile of soiled blankets and cushions as his minions gathered their valuables in preparation for retreat. The rat-man priest, Rags, sat charmed by the beast and gladly informed Morat of all he knew of the prisoners’ commune and Argliss’ goblin empire. Morat grinned and announced the pack would leave immediately for the Stoneshaper warrens, trusting in the fear and respect his pack would elicit from their goblin cousins. Meanwhile, Traxxus, Mark , Klibb and Pallas returned to the Celestial Garrison in hopes of finding aid in rescuing their friend.
***
The adventurers stood at the entrance to a small armory. A strange hiss came from a corner of the room and the body of a tall, armored woman rested on the floor. Not wanting to risk a surprise attack, Pallas activated the last of the fireballs from the necklace he’d taken from Troy and engulfed the room in flames. If the woman on the floor had been merely unconscious or asleep, she certainly wasn’t going to wake now. The quartet slipped into the armory to examine the results of the blast and found most of the equipment had survived with only a few scorch marks from the fire. The woman, an elf from the look of her, wasn’t moving, but it was hard to tell what had killed her. In addition to the burns from the fireball, her skin had the pallor of a shadow victim and her body was covered in the bites and scratches of someone who had seen battle against a pack of fiends. The only identifying mark on her was the symbol of the Celestial Garrison inscribed on her armor but, before the adventurers could decide what to do with her, a trio of shadows emerged from the walls and corners of the room. Of course, by now the four explorers were well versed in dealing with the minions of Seraxes and the fight was over almost as quickly as it had begun. The group decided to pick up the woman’s body and return it to the garrison hoping the celestials might recognize her.
Many of the garrison members were engaged in a search of the eastern tunnels by the time Traxxus and the others arrived to the garrison. The few survivors of the barghest pack they’d fought only days before had fled into the east and it was believed one of the ward staves might be located there. Pallas set the body of the dead woman on the floor of the meeting chamber and gave Sanjid a report on what had transpired since his group had left.
It turned out the woman was no other than Sensil, the beloved of Doj. The bralani warrior maiden had gone missing a month ago while on patrol and Doj had spent nearly all of his spare time searching for her. Sparing little time to hear the tale, Pallas and his companions raced off to the armory in hopes of finding something to break the enchantment of the barghests. Wetoq, the kolyarut quartermaster, had nothing to prevent or break the barghest’s spell so the adventurers quickly returned to where they’d last seen the pack in hopes of stopping them before they could escape. It was then they noticed Klibb was missing. The goblin had apparently disappeared during the trip back to the garrison without a word. Whether he’d gotten scared of the upcoming battle and fled no one could say, but the idea that he’d been secretly charmed by the barghests and was returning to them as a spy was not completely out of the realm of possibility. The party had no choice but to move on without him and hope for the best.
***
Troy returned to the safety of Four Waters. Her first encounter with the infamous adventuring party had been a complete bust. Of the two dwarfs she’d met, one of them was now dead and the other had apparently suckered her out of an expensive magical necklace and left her to flee from an evil swarm of hell-bred wasps. As the fighter sat in the grand hall of the commune amongst the work stalls and meal stations, she couldn’t help but wonder if it might be better to strike out on her own or form her own group. It was then that she heard a group of fellow prisoners gossiping nearby. Apparently, a pack of wolf-riding goblins had been spotted racing through the east end of the region toward the border of The Stoneshaper Empire. They hadn’t stopped to talk to anyone and, rumor had it, a few prisoners were nearly killed when they were almost trampled by the pack. Intrigued by the story, Troy picked up her gear and headed east to investigate. Not so far away, a pair of adventurers was headed in the same direction for reasons of their own.
The dwarf, Roch, had been in the dungeon for a few weeks since being arrested for arguing over the price of a loaf of bread. He was to meet his end on the guillotine until a bureaucratic mistake got him sent to the dungeon instead. Since then, Roch had been trying to help out around the commune with his magic but, growing bored with the lack of a challenge in mending bags and healing minor injuries, the dwarf decided to seek out adventure in the dungeon beyond Four Waters’ borders. It was while sitting in Macready’s pub that he overheard a report of an insect swarm loose near the border to the north. Having nothing better to do since he finished off his moonshine, the dwarf went to check it out and, along the way, encountered a warrior with some knowledge of the dungeon.
Cul’tharic, the lizardman, had silently stalked south after leaving The Redeemed, hoping to exit the dungeon the way he got in but, finding the entrance to be a one-way gate, he’d stopped in the commune to speak with its two lizardfolk residents. Being from another tribe, Kalhiss and Slissth were wary of the reptilian warrior but soon came to sympathize with the fighter when they realized he was not here to challenge Kalhiss for his mate. Cul’tharic, it turned out, already had a family and wanted nothing more than to return to them. Though Kalhiss warned him of the apparent madness of the strange group of mammals attempting to find an escape from the dungeon, he conceded they might be his best hope for getting home. The lizardman considered this and decided the adventurer’s actions had freed him from the inevitables and he at least owed them for that. Gathering his things, Cul’tharic headed off to find the adventuring party.
***
It had been about four days since Shi left his companions at the celestial garrison. The priest of Pharasma had been busy working with the goblins to secure their region of the dungeon and, for his service, he was promised a residence in one of the tombs the party had recently cleared of undead. Having worked out a deal with the lantern archon, Brighteyes, to relocate a pack of blink dogs the celestial had taken into its care, Shi had saved the lives of hundreds of dog-hating goblins, which were being exterminated by the angry archon. His mission accomplished, the cleric stood at the throne of Argliss to deliver the news and receive his reward. It was then that the doors of the throne room burst open as a winded goblin rushed into the chamber.
“Barghests, Chief!” wailed the goblin, fear and excitement competing in his voice. “Barghests have come!”
“Settle down,” growled the hobgoblin captain Hammerfist, callously slapping the goblin to the ground. “What are you on about?”
But before the goblin could answer, a pair of the fiends pushed through the door to the chamber, their leader Morat close on their haunches.
The goblins at the edge of the empire’s borders had let the barghests through without challenge. To the goblins, these beasts were heroes of myth and legend. Barghest champions populated the nightmare tales told to every goblin and hobgoblin child and, now, here they were in all their unholy glory. The lead barghests, some riding their companions in goblin form, stopped long enough only to snatch one lucky goblin from his feet ordering the warrior to lead them to Argliss. To every goblin present this was a sign. The hounds of war were loosed and had come to lead The Stoneshaper Empire to victory and domination.
“The rat was right about one thing,” grinned Morat as he surveyed the room. “This ‘kingdom’ will serve me well.” Then, to Argliss, “Can’t say the same for the king.”
Argliss sat silently running his fingers through the fur of his loyal mount, a thin, black wolf-like beast panting beside the monarch’s throne.
“I hear you teach them to live at peace with elves and dwarves and men and gnomes,” Morat continued, gesturing at the assembly of goblins and hobgoblins about the room. “You teach them to trade. You teach them to read. I think you’ve forgotten what it is to be a goblin. You’ve forgotten how to kill, how to burn. You’ve forgotten your place. I will teach you.”
***
Pallas returned alone to the Celestial Garrison. His companions, Mark and Traxxus, had been ensnared by the spells of a group of barghests guarding the passage south to the commune. Worse yet, Pallas himself had let slip that Traxxus had a map of the region while trying to negotiate with the beasts. Fearing the enchantments of the barghests, the dwarf chose to retreat and seek help from the garrison.
Most of the garrison was still searching the east tunnels when Pallas arrived, but Sanjid informed the dwarf Doj had heard of the party’s discovery of Sensil and was heading toward the commune to lend his aid. Sanjid did not know which path the bralani had taken but, if Pallas hurried, he may run into Doj on his way back. While there, Pallas placed his hand upon the Garrison Charter, which now rested at the entrance to the garrison’s armory. A shock of divine energy shot through the dwarf’s arm, signaling Pallas’ failure to uphold the garrison’s virtues. The dwarf wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, but now wasn’t the time to figure it out. He raced back to where he’d left his companions.
Doj was nowhere to be seen. The celestial may have taken a different route or been held up so Pallas was going to have to face the barghests and his companions on his own.
“You still there?” shouted Pallas from around a corner. There was no chance of the heavily armored dwarf sneaking up on the creatures so he may as well make his presence known.
“We’re here,” replied a barghest. “Your companions are here as well. They’ve been telling us all about you. Seems you’ve made a lot of enemies. Why don’t you come over here? We’ll be your friends.”
Pallas had already succumbed to the magic of the barghests twice before and didn’t relish the idea of being their pawn a third time but, if he was going to rescue his allies, he’d have to confront the fiends. The dwarf moved around the corner and toward the sound of the barghest’s voice. Halfway up the tunnel he noticed Traxxus stepping out from around a corner behind him and Mark stepping out ahead of him (given the dwarf’s history with the party and general unpleasantness, it didn’t take much for the barghests to convince their charmed captives to attack.) Pallas braced himself and swung with the flat of his blade as the halfling attempted to roll past his defenses. Traxxus clumsily rolled into the weapon and fell quickly to the weight of the blow. A barghest immediately appeared next to Mark and attempted to charm Pallas who, perhaps through fear alone, managed to shake off the creature’s control. As the barghest retreated, Mark moved in, still angry over the time Pallas tried to kill him. One of the ranger’s attacks struck the dwarf who then beat Mark off with a thunderous blow. The dwarf had managed to incapacitate his allies, but the barghests escaped unharmed with the map entrusted to the party. It would be too difficult and dangerous to rescue Rags on his own so Pallas picked up Traxxus and Mark and carried them back to the garrison.
***
Having met in the tunnels on their way east, Roch, Troy and Cul’tharic traveled toward the goblin empire. It was near the border with the empire that they suddenly detected the presence of a wolf-like creature slowly creeping toward the grand hall. Cul’tharic recognized the thing as soon as it moved into the torch light of the tunnel and croaked a warning to his companions as he hurled a javelin into its hide. “Barghest!”
The weapon sunk into the beast’s shoulder as it moved forward attempting to slam into Troy. The fighter slashed at the thing and cut a long, horrible gash across its face and back. Then, before the terrified eyes of the three adventurers, the corpse of the barghest cracked open revealing the swarm of jet and crimson wasps, which controlled the dead thing’s limbs.
The cloud of stinging, biting hell-spawned vermin immediately swirled around the three adventurers. Cul’tharic, Troy and Roch stumbled through the things barely able to keep the wasps out of their mouths and armor. Thinking back to his tour of the commune when he first arrived, Roch suddenly realized they were near a room the prisoners called “The Box.” The Box was an airtight room with no doors. The adventuring party had discovered it while searching for Longtail nearly two months ago. Only a still-functioning magical gate allowed entry but the room was considered a death trap because it was devoid of breathable air. If they could lure the swarm into The Box, they might be able to suffocate the insects.
Roch tried to alert Troy and Cul’tharic to his plan but nearly choked on a mouthful of wasps. Meanwhile, Troy was being chewed-up by the vermin and Cul’tharic was close to succumbing to the swarm’s poison. Seeing the dwarf attempt to draw the insects through a tunnel to the north, the lizardman broke away and rushed to the grand hall to seek aid from the prisoners working in the area. Troy, in the meantime, helped Roch to lead the insects toward the confined space. The dwarf’s attempts to damage the swarm with magic had little effect but did manage to keep its attention, and Troy was finally able to lead the swarm into the large chamber containing the gateway into The Box.
Roger Baker, Four Water’s notorious butcher, stood near the portal to The Box laughing at some private joke as Troy burst into the room. With the swarm close behind, the woman rushed toward the portal pushing Baker to the floor and out of the way of the oncoming wasps. In a flash, the fighter and the majority of the swarm were transported into the dark, suffocating void. Then, finally overcome by the attacking swarm, Troy fell to the ground and the panicked wasps, seeking an escape from the room, began to enter her body.
Roch stumbled into the chamber behind the swarm and, seeing no sign of Troy, turned to Baker who cursed as he stood.
“Those things chased your friend into The Box,” growled Roger. “And good riddance to her.”
“You’ve got to help me get her out of there,” pleaded the dwarf.
“Screw that,” spat the butcher. “She pushed me, and that place is a deathtrap. Get her out yourself if you’re so anxious to die.”
Roch took a step toward Baker but the man fled into the dungeon before the dwarf could reach him. There was no time. Roch had to act quickly if he was going to save Troy from suffocation or death at the stings of the swarm so he...
Troy and Roch woke to the sight of a dozen concerned prisoners standing around them or administering first aid to their wounds. Cul’tharic and a posse from the grand hall had arrived just in time to pull the dying adventurers from The Box. It was largely thanks to the lizardman they were both still alive. Not only had he brought help but the scaled warrior’s powerful lungs allowed him to survive in The Box long enough to pull his companions back through the gate. As Troy coughed up a handful of dead wasps, she couldn’t help but wonder why there was a huge puddle of water on the floor.
***
Shi wanted nothing more than to escape from the throne room of the goblin king, Argliss. A pack of barghests had just arrived with what appeared to be a pair of wererats in tow. Of course, one of these creatures was Rags, the cursed priest of Sarenrae, but Shi did not recognize the other. The pack leader, a goblin/wolf hybrid thing about the size of a horse was now insulting Argliss and demanding the goblin abdicate his throne in accordance with some ancient goblin/barghest pact of some sort. Argliss’ hobgoblin captain, Hammerfist, glanced back at his liege to see the goblin was tightly clutching his scepter and seemed to be trembling. However, it wasn’t fear that caused the king to shake.
“I remember,” interrupted Argliss. “I remember what it means to kill and destroy out of fear and hatred and ignorance; what it means to fight and betray my own people for scraps. I remember what it means to be a goblin. I remember serving a cruel chief and watching my brothers die useless deaths, and I remember praying to dark, spiteful gods who answered my pleas with starvation and war and short, sharp knives in the dark. How dare you tramp into my home, the kingdom I fought and bled for to unite, and accuse me of forgetting what I was fighting against?!”
Argliss stood on the seat of his throne, accusatively pointing his scepter at the fiend before him. “You flea-feasted cur! You unmuzzled, hell-hated trough-supper! You think you can scamper in here with your pack of tail-tucked filth-wallowers and make of me a pupil?! Prithee you brought your books because you are about to be schooled!”
By now, none of Argliss’ followers had any comprehension of what their king was saying but they were pretty sure a fight was about to start.
“The little king thinks he’s an eagle,” growled Morat to his pack. “Fine. I will introduce him to the vultures.” And then, as Morat gestured at Rags and the wererat Mina, the barghest continued, “These two will be my wings.”
Hammerfist looked across to Shi as he hefted his greatclub. “This means they will fight for control of the empire; the barghest and its champions against Emperor Argliss and his.”
“I’ve just been drafted, haven’t I?” asked the priest. “I don’t suppose we can settle this over a dance competition, huh?”
“If you want to survive to furnish that new home of yours, you’ll fight for the king,” chided Hammerfist. “You should consider it an honor.”
On the opposite side of the hall, the charmed Rags glared across the room at Shi. “I hate to break it to you, Shi, but I can honestly say I’m not going to feel bad about this. You ready to meet Pharasma?”
“Not just yet, but I’m sure you won’t mind giving her my regards” Shi retorted.
“Ha!” laughed Morat. “It seems our champions are ready. Let’s do this!”
The goblins and barghests in the room fell away as Argliss leapt onto the back of the gaunt, coal-black hound at his side. This creature, a dreaded yeth hound called Padfoot, was a symbol of the goblin king’s power and, as Argliss’ voice rang through the halls filling his people with courage, the beast leapt into the air and soared over the head of Morat and his champions. Hammerfist quickly charged Mina and struck her hard with his massive club before the wererat monk could act and, though the weapon’s blow was cushioned somewhat by the lycanthrope’s natural resistances, she hissed with rage and pain. Meanwhile, Morat cast a spell of strength on himself and his champions while Rags attempted to hinder Shi with a prayer of silence. Shi evaded the enchanted priest’s attack and countered with a burst of sonic energy.
As the battle progressed, Argliss swung his scepter from the back of Padfoot unleashing a devastating fireball followed by a bolt of lightning, which wounded several bystander goblins and barghests as it blasted Morat, Rags and Mina. A subsequent, decidedly less-effective, activation of the magical rod caused grass to sprout from the stone floor as Morat laughed at the goblin king’s attack. Hammerfist continued to trade blows with the enraged Mina who bit and tore at the hobgoblin fighter as the warrior’s deadly club hammered her into furry paste. Then, with one thunderous blow, Mina’s head was shorn clean from her shoulders. The body of the woman stood as if frozen for a moment as it regained the original form of the one-time adventurer then fell beside its now-human head, a look of calm finally falling across her bloodied face.
“Looks like one of your wings has been clipped, Morat!” shouted Argliss from the back of the flying hound.
“This game isn’t over yet,” snarled the barghest. “In fact, it’s evolving. Try to keep up!” Then, to his on-looking pack, Morat howled, “Kill anyone who stands against us!”
Goblins, hobgoblins and barghests were quickly joined in battle as Argliss and Morat continued their duel. The barghest leader turned his attention to the wounded Hammerfist while the fight between Shi and Rags was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a pair of Morat’s pack who came to the aid the rat priest. Soon, Shi and Hammerfist were lying unconscious as Morat’s barghests made short work of any goblins offering resistance.
“It’s over, little eagle,” growled Morat. “Now, get down here. I have many things to teach you.”
Suddenly, a wall of fire erupted across the room cutting through Rags and a number of barghests as a wand-wielding gargoyle appeared at the now-open door to Arlgiss’ personal chamber. Rags was conscious just long enough to see the half-orc fighter, Hurk, appear beside the gargoyle as he cleaved into a pair of the burning fiends.
“Don’t you people ever give up?!” screamed an enraged Morat.
“Master Traxxus would never give up,” came the small, but firm, voice of Klibb as an arrow sped from the goblin’s bow and pierced the neck of the massive barghest.
…and straight onto the invisible blade of Bartleby’s rapier. “Hey there, your highness. You still owe me money,” the halfling quipped at Argliss as he dislodged his sword from Morat’s breathless corpse.
With the great barghest dead, the surviving pack members fled the goblin empire. The fiends’ reputation could not compete with the bravery of the goblin king and his allies or the strength the goblins derived from their new god. The few goblins and hobgoblins, which chose to side with the barghests were quickly rooted out and dealt with by Argliss’ loyal followers and those who had stood idle or shown fear in the face of the beasts were gathered up for “re-education.” As for how Klibb came to save the day, well…
…it seems the goblin decided to shadow the barghests and Rags back to the goblin empire when the pack made its way south. Maybe it was the weight of his past misdeeds or the newfound confidence he’d gained when he signed the Garrison Charter or maybe he just wanted to repay the kindness of the party who had protected him and trusted him with an enchanted bow? Maybe he just wanted Traxxus to be proud of him? Whatever it was, when Klibb saw the way the goblins were acting around the barghests, he knew he’d need help to free his companion, Rags.
Klibb’s first recruit was the gargoyle wizard, Farggallan. Farggallan, who wasn’t actually a gargoyle at all but a fellow goblin in disguise, had fled Region E after the adventuring party nearly killed his pet spider, Edgar, and ratted him out to the celestials, who broke into his laboratory planning to destroy the “gargoyle wizard” lurking nearby. With no place else to go, Farggallan headed south and ran into Shi who helped him destroy the evil master of the shadows, Seraxes, who was fleeing the bralani, Besar. Farggallan hoped Argliss would grant him sanctuary, but the emperor was suspicious of any goblin capable of harnessing the sort of power at Farggallan’s command and feared his people were not yet ready for a wizard to live among them. Helping Klibb seemed like a good way to get on Argliss’ good side so the wizard agreed to come along.
Hurk had been imprisoned in the goblin jail since Bartleby and the goblin betrayer, Pojies, captured him in the maze some time ago. Though Klibb was aware of the fighter’s lycanthropic condition, he’d also learned Hurk had been a good man before he was cursed. With most of the goblins busy with the barghests, Klibb and Farggallan easily freed the half-orc who readily agreed to fight the fiends. The rogue, Bartleby, was easy to win over. Argliss still owed the treasure hunting halfling for a number of jobs, and Bartleby knew the barghests would never pony up for the goblin king’s debt or provide him with so much work. After that, it was a simple matter of coming up with a plan.
Klibb discovered Argliss’ personal chamber had two entrances, one from the throne room and the second, a secret escape tunnel. Entering the king’s quarters through the escape tunnel gave the rogue and his allies a place to stage their surprise attack and Farggallan’s invisibility magic gave the team the ability to get the drop on the barghest pack. Klibb, who’d started off as a terrified Stone Spirit goblin outcast was finally a hero and, somehow, it never would have happened without the dysfunctional group of miscreants known as The World’s Largest Adventuring Party.
My path, LockWalt, Hurk, GeoFerr, Jayder, Rayder, Grimmdar, Roch.
This has been a great 100 days. Now onto the next 100, 200, 5.....
Velcro Zipper who you calling dysfunctional, We push and pull, scratch and bite, ignore and covet, just like everyone else. Oh, except that big over grown master of the prision.
We just need to remember that though some want to go it alone, we do better as a team.
I am speaking the true. I think.
What a $%#$ statement. Don’t believe it. Some lie when they speak and some speak when they lie. I know because I keep dying because.......NEXT battle please.
LockWalt, Hurk, GeoFerr, Jayder, Rayder, Grimmdar, Roch.
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How did the entry for Day 100 get double posted? Anyway...
Howdy, readers. If you’re still with us, you’ll know the party just finished off another region of the dungeon and that means it’s time for an epilogue and an update on how things are going with the people whose lives have been affected by the party’s actions. I’ve also got some campaign notes to share regarding benefits the party have gained by finishing Region E, a little bit of trivia about the origin of the creed of the Celestial Garrison and I’ve decided to write a few critical reviews of the regions the party has explored. I’ll post them at the bottom so you can skip them if you aren’t interested. First up, the newest party roster followed by our epilogue for Region E.
Traxxas = active member
Mark = active member
Rags = active member
Pallas = active member
Troy = active member
Shi = active member
Roch = active member
Cul'tharic = active member
Klibb = left party
Laze = left party
Marcus = left party, cursed
Mina = left party, became wererat, killed by Hammerfist
Hurk = left party, became wererat
Walker = left party, in Hell
Saelin = left party, killed by wererat Mina
Ranoth = killed by lightning bolt
Poker = killed by darkmantles
Lockwalt = killed by darkmantles
Foxy Loxy = killed by darkmantles
Air'elon = killed by lightning bolt
Runath = left party, killed by howlers
Chu = killed by lightning bolt
Ayla = killed by dire wolf
Thorin = kissed by vargouille, left party
Dorin = killed by ghoul paladins
Drax = killed by howlers
Dammi-tall = killed by bugbear
Dorian = killed by howlers
Marius = killed by bugbear
Annali = killed by phantasmal killer trap
Gofer = killed by ghoul paladins
Dan-Zig = killed by ghoul paladins
Mio = killed by ghoul paladins
Jin = killed by pendulum blade trap
Pojies = killed by ghoul paladins
Rayder = killed by shadows
Kraum aka The ½ Orc = killed by shadows
Jayder = killed by shadows
Rudeth Ravenlark = killed by shadows
Grimdar = killed by hellwasp swarm
REGION E EPILOGUE
In only a little more than 20 days the party explored and fought through Region E and their adventures had many repercussions throughout the dungeon. First and foremost among them, the prisoners of the commune were now in contact with the powerful group of outsiders known as the Celestial Garrison. Kelara and her forces were wary of allowing the prisoners to expand their commune into the region at first, but worked out an agreement with the elf diplomat Anemone granting the prisoners access to the southern reaches of their region. In exchange, the prisoners would supply the garrison with volunteers who would serve the new incarnation of The Redeemed as watchmen and auxiliary fighters in the event of an attack by demons or other monsters. The most virtuous among these volunteers would be given the chance to join the Celestial Garrison and sign the Garrison Charter. In addition, Kelara insisted her forces, along with The Redeemed, would serve as peace officers within the dungeon. It was the leonal’s hope the presence of the garrison would not only keep their new neighbors on the path of good, but provide them with some hope. In addition to the expansion of the commune, the garrison also saw the return to life of the old tree in the center of the inevitables’ common room.
The tree was long ago planted as a symbol of the garrison’s unity but began to die as the divide between the inevitables and the celestials widened. With the redemption of the inevitables, the tree sprouted new leaves and, as the bond once again grew between the two houses of the garrison, the tree once again grew green and strong. The return of a third missing ward staff discovered by the zelekhut Presin in the eastern tunnels only made the tree stronger and it seemed the Celestial Garrison was well on its way to recovering some of its former glory. Also, with the evil beasts and shadows destroyed or routed from the region, the ghost Iridinhael who haunted the ancient temple was finally able to rest. That is to say, he could rest if he wanted to. The spirit priest, once confronted with the possibility of his final reward, found he did not want to leave the dungeon. He was no longer bound to the temple where he had died and so he decided to haunt the celestial garrison serving as a mentor to aspiring garrison members.
The Stoneshaper Goblins were also greatly affected by the events in Region E. The survival of their empire, it turned out, hinged entirely on the decision of their king, Argliss. The final missing ward staff was discovered within the treasure of Morat’s pack after the battle in the goblin throne room. The goblin king knew he had found something of great value and, upon learning of the staff’s origin, realized, one way or another, the fate of his people was sealed. The celestials were bound to come looking for the staff and they would have little trouble or reservations about erasing his people from the map so attempting to hide the staff or ransom it for the empire’s survival would be foolish. Before word of the discovery could reach the celestials, Argliss donned a cloak and hood and bade Klibb show him the way to the garrison, leaving his crown and scepter behind. Thus “disguised” as an ordinary goblin, Klibb and Argliss made their way to the garrison where the goblin king returned the staff without question or any attempt at negotiation, only saying the goblins of the empire believed it was the right thing to do. Kelara accepted the staff herself and informed the king his people had earned the “protection and watchful eye of the Celestial Garrison” in exchange for their honorable deed. The barghest invasion of the goblin empire had another benefit as well.
Argliss was aware of a number of hobgoblins who believed the empire should enslave the prisoners to the west. These hobgoblins had grown bored and wished to return to the old ways of war and conquest. When the barghests came, a few of these warriors saw a chance to overthrow the king and sided with the fiends. Upon Morat’s defeat, most of these traitors were apprehended and executed for their disloyalty while Argliss secretly allowed some of the rebels to escape. In this manner, the king publicly proved his resolve while privately providing his more war-minded subjects with a new enemy.
The goblin wizard, Farggallan, was also affected by the adventurer’s actions. Farggallan, unbeknownst to all, had been the apprentice to a foul necromancer named Ezrael. Ezrael had wagered with a friend that he could teach the goblin to cast spells despite the creature’s innate fear of reading and magic. By appealing to Farggallan’s love of fire and destruction, the necromancer slowly made a proper spellcaster of the goblin and Farggallan quickly became the necromancer’s favorite pupil. This, however, did not sit well with Ezrael’s other apprentice, a scaled, child of the night named Phinadar. Phinadar and Farggallan hated each other. Phinadar attempted to win his master over by specializing in necromancy while Farggallan, amazed by the sheer potential of the arcane arts, became a universalist wizard. Phinadar’s decision would later be his master’s undoing.
Ezrael brought his two apprentices and a group of undead shadows to the dungeon hoping to uncover the magic of the ancient demons trapped within. As the necromancer and his minions pushed further into the dungeon, their slain enemies quickly added to the wizard’s forces and Phinadar, hoping to cull favor from the man, began to research a spell, which would empower the undead. One subject of his experimentation, a shadow named Seraxes, exceeded the abilities of all the others and came to be regarded as the captain of Ezrael’s undead forces. Ezrael was pleased, but his joy did not last long. Pushing too far into the dungeon, Ezrael came into conflict with the Celestial Garrison and was slain by none other than the bralani warrior Besar after Seraxes refused an order to defend the necromancer. With Ezrael dead, Seraxes seized control of the shadow forces and ordered the apprentices to retrieve the necromancer’s body. Phinadar, being weak of spirit and a natural boot-licker, complied while Farggallan, being far more willful, escaped the undead taskmaster and his new army of angry spirits. Seraxes, out of some small respect for his former master, had Phinadar place Ezrael’s body onto a makeshift throne and set to building his shadow army while Farggallan vanished into the tunnels using his magic to elude both the undead and the celestials.
The goblin wizard would have been happy to live out his remaining days near the celestial garden with a large spider he’d befriended until the party of adventurers came along. Their actions forced him to abandon his new home and, as he fled south, the goblin ran straight into the master of the shadow army and three of his surviving minions. Seraxes, once again being pursued by Besar, was filled with rage at the sight of Farggallan. The shadow demanded the goblin serve him out of respect for their former master, Ezrael. It was then that Shi wandered into the room interrupting the testy reunion. Seraxes, thinking he’d walked into a trap, attacked Farggallan and Shi who managed to fight off and destroy the shadows and their evil master once and for all. Farggallan and Shi traveled together to the goblin empire, and after the battle with Morat and his pack, the goblin wizard was given permission to live among the goblins as a teacher so long as he kept his arcane abilities a secret for the time being. Finally able to settle down without the constant threat of attack by undead or angels, Farggallan happily agreed. Shi also received a small tomb to call home when he wasn’t adventuring, and all he had to do was fight off a pack of barghests and save the goblins from an angry celestial.
Brighteyes, the lantern archon custodian of Region B, had adopted the pack of blink dogs living throughout the region and become very protective of the creatures. The dogs’ magical ability to teleport short distances was hindered by the magic of the dungeon making them easy targets for the dog-hating goblins. In retaliation, the archon was injuring and sometimes killing goblins he witnessed abusing his dogs. Argliss, fearing his entire tribe would be wiped out by a single immortal lantern archon, hired Shi to deal with the situation. The priest of Pharasma found Brighteyes in the shrine where his companions had found the holy spear Gwinol’yn. Surprisingly, the spear was back in the hand of the angelic statue and Brighteyes explained the halfling Bartleby had returned it, seemingly in exchange for some future favor. Regardless, Shi offered to find the blink dogs a new place to roam if Brighteyes would momentarily cease his attacks on the goblins. The lantern archon wasn’t happy with the idea of uprooting the pack, but agreed on the condition the priest would find an area of the dungeon where the dogs’ abilities would not be inhibited. To this end, Brighteyes informed the priest of a wizard who once lived in the east who might have found a way to breach the magic disallowing inter-dimensional travel within the dungeon. Recruiting the murderer Dillon and the crazed poacher Poddy Podmore from the commune, Shi borrowed a blink dog from Brighteyes and headed into the east. It was then only a matter of sneaking the dog past a hundred goblins and through the shrine of Norendithas. Luckily, Poddy managed to distract most of the goblins by setting a barrel on fire and riding it through the halls of the empire. Shi and Dillon, meanwhile, managed to either talk or intimidate their way past the sentries at the shrine, at one point even convincing a goblin the dog (with a blanket thrown over it) was actually a form of ooze they were removing from the empire for everyone’s safety.
Within the region to the east, Shi and Dillon led the blink dog into a section of tunnels where everything glowed with a blue light. The blink dog immediately began to flicker in and out of sight. Something about the blue aura was negating the wards on the dungeon and Shi had found the blink dogs their new home. The priest and murderer returned to Brighteyes and informed him of their discovery. In a few days, the lantern archon would escort his pack through the goblin tunnels and into the blue zone where their natural defenses would be enough to deter any goblins from attacking. Back in Four Waters, the commune was celebrating their newest heroes.
The fighter Troy and the spellcaster Roch recovered from their swarm-inflicted injuries and, after an examination of the wasps by Spishak and the gnome Thistledown, the pair, along with Cul’tharic were hailed as heroes for wiping out the threat of what turned out to be hellwasps. Left to roam the halls of the dungeon, the evil creatures could have easily killed most (if not all) of the commune and then moved on to wipe out the goblins. In recognition of their service, each of the adventurers was given a potion for curing poison, four vials of antitoxin and 1000gp worth of credit at the community store. The butcher Roger Baker, on the other hand, had earned a job carting excrement off to the garbage room after his role in the affair was discovered. It also turned out the large pile of small dead animals in “The Box” were victims of the butcher’s cruel sense of humor. Baker, of course, claimed he was killing the animals in order to prepare them for butchering but nobody was having it.
Eventually, the barghest-charmed adventurers were brought to their senses and the party reassembled at Macready’s pub to say goodbye to a friend. Klibb, the goblin rogue, was leaving the adventuring party to accept a new position with the Celestial Garrison. Klibb had become a hero to The Stoneshaper Goblins and, as a member of the garrison, he was assigned by Kelara to serve as a peace officer to the tribe. It would be the rogue’s duty to protect the goblins and ensure they did not slip back into their former evil ways. King Argliss, ever the evangelist, used the opportunity to declare Klibb a holy champion of The Stoneshaper and further proof of what the god’s teachings could do for his people.
From now on, one player may choose to play an aasimar character (my rule for these bonus races is basically one of each bonus race at any time i.e. one goblin, one aasimar, etc.) In addition to the new race, players may now attempt to join the Celestial Garrison.
The adventure provides a series of rooms to test adventurers who wish to join the garrison but, once a player has gotten through the tests, there's nothing stopping them taking any new characters through the rooms using the knowledge they have as players to beat all the tests. Therefore, I'm changing things up with the following achievement trait:
Garrison Member: As a member of the Celestial Garrison, the character receives a +2 bonus on all Will saves. The character may also purchase equipment from the garrison armory. These benefits end if the character ever performs an evil act or otherwise breaks the creed of the Celestial Garrison. The character may attempt to atone for any actions that cause him to lose this trait.
In order to qualify for the trait, a character must be of good or neutral alignment and perform three good deeds in the presence of a garrison member. The deeds must reflect the character's ability to resist temptation, perform charity and act with bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
The Creed of the Celestial Garrison (appearing in the journal entry for Days 93-96) is not written within the book for the WLD. The book only describes it as a typical paladin's oath or good-aligned boilerplate so I had to look elsewhere for something to use for the tenets of the garrison. With the basic description in mind, I looked up some info on one of my favorite, paladin-like heroes: The Lone Ranger. Fran Striker, who created the character, wrote up a set of rules for The Lone Ranger to live by and this creed (with a few adjustments) became the creed of the Celestial Garrison.
Region A Region A, with its warring tribes of evil humanoids and wererat antagonist, makes for a really good adventure for low-level parties. The region's elements reward players regardless of their tactics whether they try to kill everything in sight, ally with one or more of the humanoid tribes or attempt to pit the humanoids against one another. If I was going to change anything, I'd probably have the portal to hell spit out more than just stirges, darkmantles, rats and the rare owlbear; some fiendish bats, flopping fiendish fish or a few other low CR beasties would keep the fights from getting too repetitive.
Region B Region B is similar to Region A in that it pits three groups of goblinoids against one another. The canine monster trio (howlers, dire wolves & blink dogs) basically replaces the fiendish monsters of Region A and, instead of a wererat, the party gets to fight some really nasty ghoul paladins. I think this region killed more PCs than any other so far so keep your party clear of it until they're at least level 4. The main difference between "B" and "A" seems to be the focus on diplomacy. Parties who try to take out both tribes of goblins will quickly find themselves swimming in greenskins. It isn't impossible to win such a fight, but Argliss' goblins alone number over 100 and they all live really close to one another (they also have lots of worgs and a yeth hound.)
Region E Here's where things got a little crazy. This region is written for a group of adventurers level 4-6. It features about 20 shadow mastiffs, a little over 60 barghests, and nearly 100 shadows in addition to about two dozen outsiders ranging from CR 2-22. Fortunately for my party, the outsiders are all basically good guys. Needless to say, this isn't the best scaled adventure I've seen. I don't have time to rewrite the entire dungeon so I scaled back where I could and threw in some plausible enough excuses for why the celestials and inevitable hadn't just cleared out all the monsters with their godlike powers (the rift between the garrison factions and the constant need to recharge the wards were useful here.) Also, most of the macguffins in this region (the staves and charter) are hidden in really obvious places so it does seem a little strange the garrison hadn't found them. It isn't all bad though. The named NPCS all offer lots of good chances for role playing (I particularly like Phinadar and the hate triangle between him, Farggallan and Seraxes) and that's the real strength of this adventure. Unfortunately, it gets really difficult for the party if they pick the wrong allies in this region.
The party now has access to Regions C, F, and I. I'm not sure where they're going next, but I'll review the next region when they finish it. Something else I want to mention about the dungeon is that I'm trying to run it, basically, as written so I'm not adding or subtracting monsters or changing the plot for any region though I am allowing the dungeons' cultures to evolve in respect to the party's actions since I'm running this thing as one adventure and not a series of individual dungeons.
The final piece of advice I have for anyone trying to run WLD (for now anyway) is this: Encourage your players to stay away from evil alignments. The dungeon was built by good and neutral outsiders and the writers of the book seem to favor heroic characters. Many of the traps in the dungeon won't even go off unless an evil creature is nearby, and the dungeon rewards good characters (especially LG) with things like holy weapons and permanent energy resistance. A party consisting of mostly evil characters likely wouldn't last an hour in Region E where the CR22 leonals and CR15 maruts won't hesitate to vaporize evil creatures on sight.
I hope somebody finds this useful. See ya next time.
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I'm a little sad that I sold off my WLD a year or so ago to help pay for my X-Box. The above information would have been really useful when I first tried to run this. Suffice to say, still enjoying reading this :)
It's good to see somebody is still reading this beside my players. I've tried to keep it entertaining.
Have you considered downloading WLD? DrivethruRPG has it for the low, low price of $39.96.
I've had enough fun world-building this thing since the end of Region A to consider making this place its own campaign world.
Hmmmm, that is tempting. It'll definitely have to wait until my Kingmaker campaign is finished, until then I'll just have to enjoy the WLD vicariously through your game! ^_^
dear gods man it is MADDNESS on a scale heretofor unknown the shear number of dead left in our wake the broken lives the ....the ....other things
I am thinking we should do a web cast of a game some timeno one would think it were real