Adventure Path Reign of Winter

Game Master Almonihah

The dragonkin seems to have been carrying nothing but its Large glaive.

Selena takes a look at the glaive and considers using it, checking for magic and (assuming no curses on it) gives it a few swings, and looking horrible doing it.

The glaive is finely crafted, but not enchanted. It is, however, sized for a 12' tall dragon-person, which makes it look particularly ridiculous for a human-sized being to try to swing.

Fin tries to help Maka with the snow covering the dead creatures…but he looks to Quasit after only a few minutes. ”Q, unless we can somehow cover these creatures with snow by magic, it’ll take too long to cover bodies this big by hand…Selena, Saki, can that be done with your magic? If not, perhaps we should just make a beeline straight to Ivoryglass as quickly as possible?”

"They don't have to be completely buried, just inconspicuous unless you're right here next to them. I'm worried about flying patrols spotting them. But you're right, we can't linger here -- 5 minutes and then we need to be moving on. Use that ranger voodoo to help make it look natural."

She stops a moment, considering the slain bodies, then speaks again.

"I don't suppose any of you spell casters know how to animate the dead? Or even speak with the dead? This ryphorian might still be useful."

Despite his connection to nature, Kalchine doesn't have any spells that will help with covering the bodies. He definitely doesn't have any magic that will bring one of the corpses back to life.

He'll help Fin with obfuscating the scene of battle as much as possible.

Survival: 1d20 + 21 ⇒ (7) + 21 = 28

"Selina, you're always going on about snow stuff. Do some snow stuff."

Selena had been a bit distracted by the oversized glaive, but at Maka's prompting, she gestured with her hand and some of the snowdrifts shifted to cover the corpses.

"Ta-da! Snow stuff!" Selena smiles at Maka "Now don't go melting it down, or I'll have to put you on ice!"

"Ta-da! Snow stuff!" Selena smiles at Maka "Now don't go melting it down, or I'll have to put you on ice!"

"Yeah!" Maka cheered at Selena's snowy spectacle. "Don't worry I know, we're in sneaky mode."

"I don't suppose any of you spell casters know how to animate the dead? Or even speak with the dead? This ryphorian might still be useful."

"Ew! No. Why would we do that?" Sakitu looks scandalized at the suggestion.

"Yeah, snow stuff is more Selena's thing." Sakuti watches as Selena shifts the snow to cover the dead bodies. She is amazed at how effortless it looks.

"Ok. So now we head up to the fortress?"

"Ew! No. Why would we do that?" Sakitu looks scandalized at the suggestion.

"I'm still wondering how we're going to get inside the fortress without starting every alarm in the place. If we could question the ryphorian, we could find out what sort of magical wards are on the fortress, or if there are passwords, or a back door or something else useful."

"And if we could animate him, and we threw up a mist or a strong wind to obscure things a bit, we might be able to make it look like he's coming back from patrol with a few prisoners."

"But if we can't, then we can't. We'll figure something else out. I'm not crazy about necromancy myself, but sometimes you need to stretch the rules a little to get the job done. Anyway, I was just thinking out loud. Forget I suggested it."

"Ok. So now we head up to the fortress?"

"Yep, let's get moving."

Fin nods. ”Looks like we’ll have to do some climbing, Q…unless we have enough spell casting for all to fly? If we don’t, I can scout ahead, climb up a ways…and tie a rope for the rest of you, in the tough spots, any way…”

Assuming they don’t have a means for all to fly, Fin will do his usual scouting ahead thing, hiding in plain sight and using his rope of climbing for both himself and his friends when needed…

Since it’s a bit of a ways up, I’ll continue to take 10 on my scouting skills to speed things along, until we get to Ivoryglass. Also some climbing checks, if needed;

Stealth: 44
Perception: 30
Survival (Tracking): 23

Climbing: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (11) + 9 = 20
Climbing: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25
Climbing: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26

Surprisingly enough the climb up the glacier goes, as far as you can tell, unnoticed. After perhaps an hour and a half, you reach where the rough path leads and see the fortress of Ivoryglass up close.

Hexagonal walls that seem to be made of opaque ice rise dozens of feet from its base, sheer and featureless. A single entrance faces toward you, with a pair of small stone structures in front of it. The entire thing is built on some sort of translucent white stone that gleams even in the dim sunlight. The walls of the glacier rise up on three sides where this stone ends a few hundred yards from the walls of the fortress. Nothing else stands in the area, nor do you see movement around you.

Ahem, as I can do a lot to shape ice, I'm getting the distinct impression that I could tunnel through the wall or the glacier to get around the front gate. Would I be correct in that assessment?

Also, please tell me we are still out of sight of anyone who might be guarding the front gate, because I absolutely would halt the group before making such a mistake.

Fin whispers to Quasit. ”Looks too easy, Q…can’t believe they’d leave the gate unguarded. By your leave, I’ll sneak up, take a closer look, and report back…”

He’ll draw his bow, hide in plain sight in the dim light while moving closer to the gate, looking for any tracks, and staying alert for any signs of guards/traps, hidden or otherwise…

Stealth: 1d20 + 27 + 2 + 4 ⇒ (12) + 27 + 2 + 4 = 45
Survival (Tracking): 1d20 + 10 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 10 + 3 = 16
Perception: 1d20 + 18 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 18 + 2 = 35

Ahem, as I can do a lot to shape ice, I'm getting the distinct impression that I could tunnel through the wall or the glacier to get around the front gate. Would I be correct in that assessment?

Also, please tell me we are still out of sight of anyone who might be guarding the front gate, because I absolutely would halt the group before making such a mistake.

You're just peeking over the edge right now, out of sight of anyone watching. But there doesn't seem to be anyone from what you see.

The surface the fortress is built on seems to be stone, rather than ice. The part of the glacier looming above you is several hundred feet away from the fortress in every direction but the one you're coming from. The fortress itself does look to be made of ice, but Selena can tell it's been enchanted in some way so it may or may not resist her magic. You'd have to get close enough to detect magic on it to tell.

Fin whispers to Quasit. ”Looks too easy, Q…can’t believe they’d leave the gate unguarded. By your leave, I’ll sneak up, take a closer look, and report back…”

Quasit nods her agreement.

When Fin gets closer, he can see that the doors to the two small structures in front of the gate are open, a rhyphorian standing in each.

Spotting the guards, Fin sneaks back to his friends, whispering to Quasit, ”Two Ryphorian guards at the doors, Q…only entrances I saw…how do you want to tackle ‘em?”

"If there's only two of them we can probably rush them." Maka offered.

"We can also look for other ways in that don't involve 'dealing with' anybody, especially those most likely to be noticed as dead/missing in short order. I might be able to break in through the wall with some magic suppression and then ice shaping, or even easier if not a magic wall. Or even just tunnel underneath. Or find an unwatched part of the wall and scale the wall with snow. The stealthier we get in, the better opportunities we'll have for dictating the engagements to be in our favor."

"Ice Shaping..." murmurs Quasit as she considers her options. She turns to Selena. "How fast can you do that? Could you do it quickly enough to ice over the doors into those little huts where the dragonkin are sheltering? Seal them in securely?"

"This fortress is big. It would take a fairly long time to go all the way around it and the clock is ticking now that we've killed that patrol. And we don't know how thick those ice walls are--they might be several yards thick."

"It looks like the fort is sitting on a large flat stone surface. I don't know much about glaciers, but I don't think they typically have large flat stone surfaces on their tops, and I personally wouldn't build a huge heavy fortress on top of a big block of ice. Not a solid foundation. Which tells me there's probably a lot of magic in this place's construction."

"If there are really only two guys up there, then I'm guessing that gate has a lot of other stronger features and defenses, probably magic. The dragonkin may be primarily door wardens to either admit their own people or raise an alarm if they see hostiles coming."

"I think the gate is still our best and fastest way inside. If we had a way to make ourselves look like dragonkin or even Triaxians, I'd try to bluff our way in. But if we can incapacitate those guards even for a few minutes, then maybe we can get up close to that gate, study the place with a magic detection and identifying spell, and hopefully use the teleport spell to slip over to the other side. At least enough of us to open the gate for the rest of the group. From what I know of teleporting, which admittedly isn't much, the shorter the jump the safer it is. And the most likely place to find an open spot on the other side is right there at the gate, since we have to basically go in blind."

"So here's my plan -- Selena and maybe a couple others go invisible and sneak up close, seal in the guards, then study the magic on the walls and gate up close while the rest of us move up to join them. Maybe Selena can even use her snow merging spell to move up there camouflaged as snow, like a mole burrowing through the turf. Then we teleport past the gate, and if needed, open it long enough to get the others in."

"There will probably be soldiers on the other side of the gate, maybe a lot of them, but hopefully with the element of surprise we can deal with them before a general alarm is raised."

"What do you all think?"

Fin looks to Quasit, then to the guards, and back. He nods. ”I’d prefer taking ‘em out from distance…but I can’t take out both without a great deal of luck…your idea seems the best plan. Where do you want me, Q?”

Map of the exterior of Ivoryglass up now for your planning purposes

Maka nodded along as Quasit said a lot of things that made sense.

Fin looks to Quasit, then to the guards, and back. He nods. ”I’d prefer taking ‘em out from distance…but I can’t take out both without a great deal of luck…your idea seems the best plan. Where do you want me, Q?”

"And it will be bright and loud if I do it. Okay so who should go with Selena?"

"Any seal I make will be very short lived. But I think going over the wall is preferable. There haven't been any magics preventing that yet, so I can only assume they don't have such magic on this world. So that means going over the wall only needs to worry about detection. If we try to go over the wall, or through it, then either we make it undetected, or it'll be about the same as attacking the front gate, except for one thing. Many defenses and defense plans will be focused on the gate and the air, and thus any response to hopping the wall will face less coordination."

With a sigh "But if you want to insist on a frontal assault, if I seal the guards in, it will buy us a few seconds, but the guards will also almost certainly communicate to those inside immediately. And we'll need to identify and deal with the heavy and focused defenses commonly found on gates, such as murder holes, portcullises, reserve guards, various traps, etc. Gates tend to be focus points of attacks and thus focus points of defenses, often leading to them being more defensible than the actual walls. So if you want to go that way, we'll need to be prepared for the maximum response."

"But I think going over the wall is preferable."

GM, is this fort open to the sky? For some reason I had pictured it as basically a big cube of magical ice with no way in except the gate.

It's hard to tell without getting above it, but there aren't any structures inside that are higher than the outer wall at the very least, so it's a definite possibility.

Quasit considers Selena's advice carefully and sighs heavily as she does so, as if the act of sighing will buy her a few seconds before she has to respond.

"I don't see any parapet or rampart along the top of the fort, or evidence of any structure beyond the wall -- so it's very possible that there's no access from above. It might just be a very thick roof up there. And remember the ryphorians can fly, while we -- well, except you and Maka -- need magic to fly. That might lead to a problem if we get stuck up there with no way in."

"But you make a lot of good points. There's a really good chance that any plan ends up with us fighting those guards and them possibly raising an alarm."

"We can try all going invisible and creeping up there, but I'm not sure I completely trust that they won't have some way to detect us anyway. And without invisibility we would be approaching over several hundred yards of ground with absolutely no cover."

She shakes her head and sighs again, gnawing her lip.

"Let's look at Plan B again. Bluffing our way in. We just walk up to them like we belong here. We claim to be summerborn mercenaries from the other side of the planet or something, and we're bringing this Triaxian general we captured-" she points to Kalchine "-in for interrogation. It'll be a tough sell, since we don't have any written orders or tokens of their army to identify us, but it might at least get us close enough that we can get a chance to quickly overwhelm them if it comes to blows."

"Thoughts? Suggestions? Brilliant spells that might aid us?"

"Well they can fly so it stands to reason they'd think about that a lot more than us ground bound would when designing a fortified location. Even if it's not sealed off you bet they've got eyes and ranged weapons at the least looking high. Likely a few spells. Through the ice would like Selena said sounds much more promising to me... or lying to get our way in."

"Not to go doubting anyones ability to trick people but the further in we are the less questions that'll be asked unless we are near sensitive areas. So I'd say bypass as much as Selena can manage without excessive use of magic and switch to lying. That's what I'd think."

"Thoughts? Suggestions? Brilliant spells that might aid us?"

Forgeries

Maka will write out fake orders in draconic. Because somehow this use of the linguistics skill came up in a manor Maka would use.

Linguistics, Forgery attempt: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24

Maka's face lit up as an idea suddenly came to her. Digging through her bag in a hurry, she pulled out some ink and paper and set to work. With intense focus she moved her ink soaked brush in loose, uneven strokes. The end result being an odd, scratchy writing that, to Maka's estimation, looked like it had been written by a large, clawed creature.

Maka took a moment to study her creation. Something about it not quite seeming right about it. After a moment she crumpled the paper in her hand before unfolding it again. "Perfect! Here use this." Maka said before handing the "orders" to Quasit. Her face beaming with pride.

Quasit watches Maka working in silence, then accepts the paper when it's handed to her. Not speaking draconic, she turns it upside down after a minute or so, seeing if maybe that looks better.

"How do you know what military orders on Triaxus look like?" she asks, genuinely surprised and impressed. "And what does it say exactly?"

"Well the army hasn't seemed that army like and they'll all horrible, so I figure everyone in charge is just mean and bossy." Maka beamed with pride at her insight. "And don't worry, I kept it simple. Just told them to let us in and not ask any questions or they'd get eaten."

Hearing Maka’s letter, Fin chuckles lightly then shrugs. ”Either way you think, Q, I’ll go stealthily along with either Selena or Maka, if you please, to cover them if things go south…”

Sakitu listens to the plans. Everything makes her nervous but she still feels strong. She knows that somehow this will all work out.

"We are all going up there, right. Before we do, if we can take a few minutes I can improve our chances with some disguises."

I can do a disguise check but it takes 1d3x10 minutes per person. Probably is too long. But maybe we can afford the time for me to fix one person.

Maka happily let Saki work on a disguise for her. Sitting, mostly, still and silently humming a tune as her friend worked. "How have we not done this before? Stupid witch quest taking up all of our time. You should let me braid your hair next time we have a break. It's getting so long!"

Kalchine strokes his furry chin thoughtfully, and you can practically see his thoughts with his ears as they sway and flick back and forth and up and down.

As the false orders are handed over to Quasit, he unfastens his sword belt.

"Brandish this around, too," he says, handing over Rimefrost. "Tell them the general was so impressed by your abilities that he gifted it to you as a sign of respect. Or...I guess they may already know he's dead and you can say that you've been sent to return it to a secure location.

"Oh! Or that you captured me with it and brought me here for questioning."

disguise time: 1d3 ⇒ 3 x10 minutes

Disguise: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (11) + 12 = 23 GM, you can decide if I get the +5 modifier for "Minor details only" or not.

30 minutes... If you guys don't want to do this or want to stop because it's taking too long, that is fine with me.

When Maka plops down in front of her, Sakitu gets right to work on her. "Ok. So you're supposed to look fierce. Well, like, fiercer than you already look. Hmm. I'm thinking some paint on your face. Don't have any. Well, what about mud? Do any of you have some mud?"

Next Sakitu turns to her outfit. "These monk clothes don't look very intimidating and certainly not something that people around here would wear." She looks to Kalchine. "We're going to need your clothes. And you can wear Maka's. It doesn't matter if they fit."

By the time Sakitu is done, Maka can pass for a local soldier. At least unless someone looks carefully.

Fin smiles at Sakitu. ”Good idea, Hlao-roo; if it’ll save time, you can forego disguising me as I’ll hide and cover you and the others as we approach…and you could probably just make Q invisible…”

Bulvi watches Maka's creation from over her shoulder and gets an uneasy. look on his face. "Deception isn't your strongest point I'm not sure if that will pass scrutiny but without an example it'll probably have all sorts of issues we can't anticipate anyway." He looks at his fellow aliens and sighs. "This is going to be a tough sell one way or the other."

He pulls the fearsome hood of the wolf of the yeti up over his head. If they were going to look exotic and strange he was going to lean into it.

Next Sakitu turns to her outfit. "These monk clothes don't look very intimidating and certainly not something that people around here would wear." She looks to Kalchine. "We're going to need your clothes. And you can wear Maka's. It doesn't matter if they fit."

Haha well with Maka being 6'7" it's probably best that it doesn't matter they fit

Maka did her best to pull herself into Kal's clothing, difficult though the task might be. "Ugh Kal why are you so little!" Maka complained ass she pulled at the collar tugging on her throat.

Bulvi watches Maka's creation from over her shoulder and gets an uneasy. look on his face. "Deception isn't your strongest point I'm not sure if that will pass scrutiny but without an example it'll probably have all sorts of issues we can't anticipate anyway." He looks at his fellow aliens and sighs. "This is going to be a tough sell one way or the other."

"Yeah but it looks fine if you're a board guard who dosesn't really read it. Quasit just has to make sure they don't look at it too hard."

Yeah, I think it would be best if I tried to do the sweet talking. Let's save those invisibility spells for later, there might be some places inside the fort where we'll really need them."

"OK, so here's the plan: We are summer-born bounty hunters from another part of the planet hired by Yrax to capture this Triaxian fellow. Kalchine will be loosely bound and Chest Thumper will be carrying him under one arm. We walk up to the guards, hand them the order and ask to be let in to deliver our prisoner for interrogation."

"While we are talking to the guard, Selena will cast her Detect Magic spell and study the walls for precisely what magical wards are guarding the gate and the walls."

"If they actually believe this and let us in, then we're golden. If they don't buy it, we need to be ready to jump them. At least this way, we're up in their faces and can take them down quickly if we have to."

"Once they're down, we either teleport through the gate or tunnel through the wall, whichever is the better option."

"Maka, if they address us in Draconic, answer them in Triaxian. Hopefully we can smoothly keep the conversation in that language, so I can interact with them. Hopefully if I have any dialect or accent, we can explain it away by being from elsewhere on this world."

"Fin, I don't think we need you in sneaky mode. We're gonna strut up there like we have every right to be here, and on the off chance that they spot you, it might rouse their suspicions."

"If the negotiations don't work, and we need to fight them, I'll call out in Common to attack, just so there's no confusion among us."

"If the fight goes badly, Selena will cast her teleport and get as many of us away as she can. Then we can regroup and try something else."

"Sound all right?"

Holy cow, Maka is 6'7"? I had no idea.

A little apprehensive in foregoing his stealth, Fin nods nevertheless. ”Aye, Q. Let’s roll.”

Kalchine nods and gestures for Chest Thumper to pick him up but his ears flick slowly then quickly, a sign that something is bothering him.

Abruptly they stop as he realizes what it is.

"Wait! I just realized you're saying you're going to claim you're summerborn. If there are any summerborn alive, they're going to look much, much older than you. It has been winter here for decades and when I say 'here' I don't mean this area, I mean this world. My mentor told me that on your world there are different seasons in different places, which is fascinating but that's not how things work on Triaxus.

"You may have to stick with telling them what you really are, visitors from another world. It might help, actually. Keep the story the same but tell them that it was their side that found you and took you in and you're helping them because of that or because they promised to help you with your quest."

It has been winter here for decades and when I say 'here' I don't mean this area, I mean this world. My mentor told me that on your world there are different seasons in different places, which is fascinating but that's not how things work on Triaxus.

"Oh." Maka said with all the enthusiasm of a child who had had a magic trick ruined. "That's what we've been trying to stop on our world...but I guess it must not be that big of a deal then. I mean, things are more or less fine here right? Besides the bad army and evil dragons I mean."