Heathy's Isle of Dread Thread

Game Master Heathansson

Altai pushes up his faceplate as he watches the cleric work. "Seriously, what did we do? I assume someone's dead, but who?", he asks the dwarf.

Or should that be dwarfess? Dwarfette?

The "duskblade" answers;

"well.....first there was the Priest of Kord you were associated with. Then the former Witchwarden 'friend' of Hamfist. Then several more on each side.
Now, again,...." she points at the heartless corpses of Baldy and Not-Baldy, "and yet again your group, Riese's Regulators is involved.
However, you showed us mercy. And it's no small task to defeat the Scarlet Shroud.....your being culpable is simply illogical, given your recent actions.
It seems, then, we've made a grave error in judgment.

So, care to.....enlighten us as to the truth of what is transpiring here? There's something going on."

All clear; Pip's back I reckon.

"Certainly. Would you care to jump down this shaft?" Altai looks around the blood-splattered room. "I should clarify. You see these guys?" He points to the Dire Hunger monks and a couple of the thugs. "We did kill them. They were selling slaves to the drow and had kidnapped Stig here - when we came to retrieve him, they wouldn't cooperate..."

He points to the now-eviscerated proprietor and the extra-dumb thug. "They surrendered, and we tied them up before descending into the basement. When we came back up, they were dead, and, um, you guys ambushed us. Now, I'm sure you'd like to see the setup downstairs... Say, you don't have a Dispel magic or two memorised, do you?"

<Stig tries hopelessly to suck his gut in.>

"I have three scrolls....why do you ask?"

They convene; agree to go with you.

The Scarlet Shroud comes to after the cleric casts on her for a minute's time.

Superman. Batman. Captain America. Phoenix.
They all came back to life.

"I...." she starts; she feels 1 h.p. worth of good right about now, "I'm sorry....mis....under....standing...I..."

"Sure; let's go down there. What's down there? Knew about the Krimps. Didn't know about any drow here.
Other drow though. Drow with hastendeaths.
Oh, no....did they have hastendeaths? In the city?!?!"

<Stig tries hopelessly to suck his gut in.>

The dwarfwife laughs; "Ye've a need o training physick, you do!"

The little archer says, "sssssssh! He beat The Scarlet Shroud!"

"We killed off a bunch of hastendeaths out on the Forsaken Arch. Nasty little critters." Altai hops down and lands on the mattresses. He dusts himself off before wandering into the prison complex. "HEY KAGG! We're coming back with some more people! Now, the prisoners seem to be mainly drow, but they are trapped in these magical sacs that need to be dispelled. I was thinking of doing it later after bringing the sacs outside and there are too many of hem to dispel right now - I just wanted to get maybe one more prisoner out of their bags, just to hear where it came from. Oh, and watch your step - you don't want broken glass in your shoes."

"Yeah....the krimps would keep prisoners down here," says the duskblade; "keep them barefoot. Can't escape that way without shredding their bare feet."

She hands Altai the three scrolls of dispel magic. "I think you know what you're doing."

Altai takes the scrolls. "We might not need them - I'll give you back anything we don't use. The sacs bleed if cut, so the glass keeps the prisoners immobile as well. Who are these Krimp characters? Would that be the guy running the establishment?"

"Yeah....the bald guy, and the hirsute guy missing their hearts up above...so I guess Riese's Regulators aren't the Hearttakers then..."

"Krimp" is another word for "press ganger" who "Shanghai's" i.e. recruits sailors.

"I think they ought to fill in the Lotus Dragons' dungeon down here.
Nothing but an attractive nuisance to ne'er-do-wells..."

"The funny thing is that we were told that whoever - or whatever - is taking the hearts was connected to the drow who apparently have a warren down here somewhere... Now, have you ever seen anyhing like this? I'm almost impressed, myself."

Lotus dragons, drow, rakshasas... I've sorta lost track of who's who - and where. Also, is the drow babe still in place? Kagg may be trusty, but he's probably not the brightest guy around.

Oh; the kenku told you that there were some drow in warrens under the "old Piltdown" plantation; an abandoned plantation outside of town; I threw the Lotus Dragon digs in there to reintroduce Stiggy to the story ostensibly, and to move the story along a little bit.
I know; it's been a long one. The Lotus Dragon dungeon is pretty much tapped out now as far as exploration goes.

The masked vigilantes all shake their heads; "this is strange. Maybe the mindflayers (you told them about...) did this?"

Kagg is there, with prisoner in place.
"I watch her.....she go nowhere at all."

and these drow a.w.a. Kagg told you that the Silk merchants' mansion on Parrot Island is infested with rakshasas. The drow, who are now all blobs of fleshbags, were selling other drow to the rak's to eat.
Rakshasas like elf flesh. It's tasty.

"Could be. The drow we released seems to think so. Then, of course, there are the raskshasas..."

We give them a quick tour and show them the dead mind flayer and the rakshasa corpses, before telling them about the plan to bring the black sacs to the army HQ for dispelling and questioning.

They convene;
"Are you bringing them to the Kordii? I think that Witchwarden Tower would also like to be informed of anything that can be learned from these drow.
Kord and We Jas are at odds right now.....I'm hoping there's somebody in Kord's camp that doesn't like that happenstance; there are a few in We Jas'.....Sasserine was betrothed to a Kord's man, after all...."

Stigwold Mæch'Hæmmær wrote:

<Stig tries hopelessly to suck his gut in.>

The dwarfwife laughs; "Ye've a need o training physick, you do!"

The little archer says, "sssssssh! He beat The Scarlet Shroud!"

"Aye. An' mebbe a wee less rum an' wild boar. Ur nae. Ah wooldnae want tae weaken myself. Aam loch a precision Gnomish clockwark, ye ken."

<Smiles like a GQ man, then tries to lean on his hammer but ends up almost falling over.>

Her beard prickles; she scowls; looks at the archer....
"and I fain it were lucky on his part......gllllll......"

Can I find a sac that contains something different than a drow? If so, I'd like to free another prisoner.

They all look the same. Black skin melded heterogeneously into what looks like the beginning of a sculpture of a humanoid curled in fetal position.

gone for at least an hour; don't know how long I'll have it together past that time cos I'm kinda beat ass tired.

I seem to remember that some of the blobs didn't hiss affirmatively when we asked them earlier if they were drow. It's not particularly important anyway. If the Masked Mauraders will help us load up the blobbies, we can transport them to the temple of Kord and move on. Next stop is probably the drow dungeon underneath that plantation - after we've rested and regained spells, of course. BTW, did we get any XP for defeating the Red Raiders?

<Nodding at the lady dwarf, nudges Beldan in the ribs and mutters ...>

"Noo she's richt hot, ye ken whit aam sayin' laddie? Swatch at 'er silken beard."

<Pats Beldan on the shoulder overly hard, enough to knock him down.>

“Ooof!” Beldan picks himself up and dusts himself off. “Whatever tickles your nizzle Stiggy,” he says.

He then catches sight of the naked drow lady being guarded still by the caveman, and glances back at the masked avengers, blushing. “Ah … we were going to get her some clothes, soon as we found something suitable …”

"Hey, why don't you take the robes off one of the cannibal monks and give her that?"

8,000 exp. points each; between roleplay and/or wupping up on the Scarlet Shroud.

Later on,....guys get a care package to the tune of 10,000 g.p. each, ostensibly from somebody to do with the Witchwardens, by way of weregeld for the whole misunderstanding and whatnot....
I assume you also want to divvy up the loot/buy some stuff; in the next day hopefully I'll see if I can fugue into the next part with the drow prisoners handed over to the Church of Kord and whatnot.

Huzzah! So can we assume we load up the blobbies and get them to the temple of Kord without too much trouble?

Time for some scrolls!

Huzzah! So can we assume we load up the blobbies and get them to the temple of Kord without too much trouble?

Yep.

Looooooot!

Oh; it's 7; and don't forget the 10,000 each from your friend the Scarlet Shroud.

Yeah, that's in addition to the stuff under the spoiler. Who wants that +4 CON item?

Um, yes, we are seven... So everyone gets 8385 gold, 7 silver and 2 copper instead plus the 10000 from the Wee Jas people.

After a couple days, of resting and buying equipment and whatnot
(let me know when you're done with that)

Tormagal Gred, head of the Church of Kord, summons you all into his office;

"Well, we've been pretty well over these drow. They are a contingent of the drow Noble House of Vae. They were here, smuggling essentially drow prisoners-of-war into Sasserine, to sell to the rakshasas...
apparently they had a bit of a falling out with their mindflayer friends.
Additionally, they know NOTHING of another group of drow in the warrens under the old Piltdown Plantation, nor of this current "hastendeath" problem.

Here's what we know of that place: a.....wizard after a fashion, Silesias Piltdown, took ownership of the place twenty or so years ago; it's up in the hills to the south and west. His place is a little off the beaten path from the other plantations hereabouts. Apparently, he had some ideas about growing the chocolate plants up there in the hills.
Kept to his own.
Didn't have any hired workers.

He hadn't been heard from in a while....just sortof disappeared.
There's tunnels under his place though; they've been used over the years by different sundry types.

Apparently there's some drow there now, and they're nothing to do with these House of Vae drow, for all they seem to know."

Oh; and any questions for the captive drow, go ahead and ask away.

BTW, we obviously took the metal lotus flower that was attached to Stig. Altai'll spend some time trying to figure out what it is and what it does.

If the captive drow don't know anything about the Piltdown plantation, I don't have any questions, at least not now. BTW, we also turned in the scrolls and maps we took off the fire giant.

Right on......
"This is....distressing. Well, not to the Horns of Zelkarune.
Maybe preparing for a siege and massive amounts of hand-to-hand combat will keep them from taunting the Witchwardens over this whole Hearttaker debacle.

There are rumors going around now, about the rakshasas. People on either side blame the other for being in cahoots with them, if not totally infiltrated by the shapeshifters."

It's definitely Vudran, the flower.
Conjure magic. Very powerful conjure magic involved.

Being around it overly long makes one serene, sleepy.....sleeeeeepy...

"Rakshasas are mindreaders and shapechangers, and wily as well. They could be anyone, anywhere. It's not a comforting thought."

"Lots of misunderstandings possible.
Perhaps....they are setting up for the fire giants?
Corrupt from within, so that they can break into our walls?"

"I doubt that. Rakshasas eat humanoids - they have nothing to gain from a giant invasion. It is probably more of an unfortunate confluence of bad events. Still, they represent problems that must be solved. Drow, rakshasas, then the giants, I guess."

BTW, do we still have the satchel the giant kept the maps in? If so, I could scry on her, as we would have one of her possessions.

yeah; I reckon you snagged her boulder purse....the magic eightball says "the dungeonmaster has to think about what she's up to at this point cos that stuff went down 2 months ago or something, and he'll definitely come up with something tomorrow."

“Wow … that’s a lot of loot. I’m going shopping. Hey, who wants that amulet of health? I’ll take it if no one wants it, but it’d probably be of more use to Stiggy or Oso or someone.”

My vote is for Gittik over Stig and Oso, higher CON has other bennies for barbarians... Lots of treasure but I shall have to wait until next week before I spend it.

"Oh yeah, sorry, I overlooked Gittik ... heheheh ..."

Gittik has a +2 CON and STR belt and I have a set of homemade +2 CON and AC bracers.

I'll take it if nobody wants it. Was 11 hits from death last bout. Seems I'm the sponge.

“Hey Altai, those night-vision goggles you wear, you made those yourself, right? Think you can make me a pair? Maybe a bit smaller and more stylish than yours… Oh, doesn’t have to be right now, I can’t pay you in full yet anyway, but later on, when I have some more cash?

“Well, see, this guy down at the markets is selling a Cloak of the Bat, it’s good for hiding like my other cloak, but it also lets me fly and turn into a bat and stuff. But I can only do that when its dark, which is a bit useless if I can’t see in the dark …”

Hey, what's wrong with the good old black faceplate look? I can make one more of those without too much problems. And, yeah, Stig should take the CON belt - it'll give him the ultimate fighter statline: STR and CON 22 and everything else at 10 or less. :D

Scrying....scrying.....

the drums in the bullywug village are manic, as throngs of the slimy things dance and cavort; in the center clearing among the thatched leaf huts, the chieftain sits atop a mound of mud attended by two blue slaadi.
Before him a miserable sight. It would be piteable if it wasn't happening to the wretched slaughterous, unwholesome creatures known as bugbears.

The giantess stands before one particularly old, powerful, grizzled example of bugbear masculinity, tied to an upside down "X" of stout logs.....she approaches him with a sack full of something liquid and puts it....on him......the grizzled bugbear wails.
"They're in the water here......they'll follow the smell of your urine....and they'll swim up you with hooks....."

To the side, 5 other bugbears huddle; they are too bedraggled, too shocked to even show fear.

To one of the younger ones she says "Your father, Hurzchurn, would not join us, Vashkat. As such you are the nominal leader of your clan.
Will you join us, Vashkat? Or will you....prove your loyalty to your father?"

She gestures over to the upside down bugbear;

"The bullywugs are clanning up. They have put aside their differences.
They'd like to be friends with you, but you CAN NOT HUNT THEM FOR FOOD ANYMORE."

She crosses her arms before the bugbear;

"Will you join us?"

He shakes......."I don't see as I have a choice, Surtwife...."

"Good. YOu prove wiser than your father allready."

He speaks; "I have a problem though; there is one, Zargow, who will challenge my leadership. He might beat me....."

She smiles; "We are ruthless with our foes, my host....but we are sweet to our friends. STALKER!!!" She calls out to nobody visible....
"Go with our new friend Vashkat back to his people. Attend him a time.
Put knives in anything he asks you to put knives in....barring yourself of course."

The huddled host of bugbears are freed.