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Used the quadruped base and built a proto-red-dragon, which mechanically functioned like a red scaly tiger with fiery claws, since I never quite got high enough level to make the wings work, and I don't think there was an option to actually give it a meaningful breath weapon. As it was for a Kingmaker game, and the character may or may not have had some mysterious ties to the vanished Rorgavian king, who was associated with red dragons, it was all kind of thematic, more than strictly practical.
Servayn begins slowly slogging his way back to the others, his movements comically distorted by the effects of the haste spell, making him appear to move in fits and starts. "Your decision, milord." he says, clearly in no mood to trust these creatures, who, but for some turn of fate, were moments away from devouring them.
Servayn drinks a potion.
Realizing that, as usual, the terrain means that he can't step back and drink a potion without getting killed, Servayn attempts to cast defensively again.
He succeeds and appears in the distance, hopefully buying him time to get to do something this encounter.
Servayn cannot retreat, due to the boggy ground, without drawing an attack from the unhindered beast, so he stands his ground and attempts to call upon his power to summon defensively.
If the frog threatening him is dead, Servayn will book it back towards Malaswyn and Kalsgrim, making it to the formerly not-so-marshy area.
Servayn will slog a pace to the east and then another to the northeast, but otherwise continues heaving, his stomach long since empty.
Servayn steps one more pace to the north, wanting to be clearly out of the thrashing undergrowth, but is unable to do more than retch, at the moment.
Servayn recognizes the threat of the giant frog man's reach, and sidesteps in front of Kriger before continuing northwards out of the wildly thrashing plantlife, spluttering to Kriger, "Break left, or right, if you need to."
Servayn finds that the world has gone sideways, as the ground, already turned to muck, now comes alive to grasp at him, while the air fills with sulfurous smoke.
Unable to do more than attempt to control his unruly stomach, he moves directly north, pushing blindly past Kriger.
Servayn casts haste on the companions, hoping to help mitigate some of the effects of the mucky terrain.
"Zipping out the backdoor, or at least moving into the corners of this building, so that they have to enter to target us with spells (or bash through the walls...) seems like a good way to pre-empt whatever they've got prepared for us." Servayn repeats. "On second thought, leaving out the back is better. That reeking cloud spell will fill this entire building..."
"They are waiting to unleash hell upon where we stand. Shall we step out the back door and force them to come around the building to engage us?" Servayn says quietly. "Or at least move out of sight of the doorway, so that we are not within firing range of their spellcasters and the larger ones have to waste time battering their way in to us."
"Suits me." Servayn says, preparing to send his archons a command to 'light them up, boys,' once Kalsgrim gives the word.
Servayn says quietly to Kalsgrim, "I am inclined to kill these creatures, but if they seem like the sort of folk our nation can co-exist peacefully and productively with, I am willing to negotiate. Do you have an insight as to their nature?" Lacking any further orders, the lantern archons continue flitting about, avoiding coming anywhere near any specific boggard, casting continual flame on additional objects, so that eight separate areas are illuminated with torch equivalent light, not counting our own light sources.
If awakened, Servayn gets to his feet and calls up lantern archons, as requested, asking them to begin lighting the area around the building.
Servayn begins to conjure, and in the water, as near as the closest croak he can hear, a massive sea beast appears, dappled black and white in the light of the moon, displacing water with a splash as it appears. It immediately moves toward the nearest foe with a strike from powerful flukes and begins to attack.
"I tire of these creatures." Servayn says. "Do we wish to exterminate them and be done with it? There are beasts of the sea that I can conjure into these waters, that will give them of our displeasure."
"They seem particularly stupid, so I guess we will need to continue keeping a watch." Servayn says, looking a bit unsettled at the slow but inevitable slaughter that his conjuration is wreaking upon those who succumbed to the spell. If I end the spell, that's just more foes we will have to confront, if they strike again. And yet this is no true fight. This is distant butchery. Gorum would be displeased...
Servayn side-steps diagonally to the southwest and conjures up a bubbling patch of black oil beneath the boggards threatening himself and Kriger.
Servayn conjures forth black tentacles to erupt from the water in a vast area centered behind the northmost boggards.
Servayn wakes up choking and rises to remove himself from the cloud. Spoiler: towards river
"If you come near us I'm gonna kill ya, I'm gonna cook ya, and then I'm gonna eat ya!"
Ember lowers Servayn in the clear area, and he releases his grip to stand free, while Ember hovers overhead. "These creatures are utterly irrelevant to our mission, so if they do not wish to face us, then I suppose we can ignore them and continue doing what we have come to do." Servayn ponders aloud, "Although I do wonder who constructed this farmstead, or mill, or whatever it is..." He looks at the building, trying to ascertain if it is a relatively recent construction, perhaps built by recent settlers, or some decades old ruin of no consequence.
Servayn grabs onto Ember and Ember begins flying him west towards dry land.
Servayn takes a step forward (to the west) in the muck and gestures, causing a dull red wall of fire appears ahead of Ember, amidst the swarm of boggards.
Startled by the sudden appearance of the fiery wall, Ember delays his action, and then receives a mental communication from Servayn, turning in mid-air and taking a double move towards Servayn.
Servayn slogs his way two paces the north and a step to the west and unleashes a lightning bolt from his wand upon the boggards approaching his position.
Ember will leap forward through the air and come down just on the edge of the clear ground, outside of the marsh, in the direction of the farm house. Servayn doesn't care for the range, and begins to slog through the marsh, as quickly as he can. He draws his wand of lightning, as he advances.
Servayn conjures forth glowing energy to reinforce Ember's scales and then infuses him with arcane energy, causing his size to increase . Once this is complete, he urges Ember forward, and Ember takes to the sky and pounces towards the building, with a few strong wingbeats. "If there is an ambush, I suppose we'll know soon enough..." he says dryly.
"We should not separate, if only to keep your delicate hide close to Malaswyn's healing hands." Servayn says to Kriger, with a small grin, hoping not to offend.
Servayn will definitely dismount, both to improve Ember's maneuverability, and to give his sore tailbone a rest. Ember might be ride-able, and even saddle-able, but he's no horse, that's for sure!
"I am inclined to agree with sticking to the marshy areas, as we will be too vulnerable to attack from the water if we go upon the lake." Servayn offers. "Was there not a group, deputized the same time as ours, sent to tame this area? I do not recall clearly, as it was some time ago, but I don't recall hearing any great success on their part..."
"If so, and we can uncover signs as to their fate, or perhaps even locate survivors of such an expedition, we might at least put to rest any lingering questions their families might have."
Realizing that we decided to go to Drelev through the non-intuitive route of not following the group that just came from there, but instead 'as the crow flies,' Servayn whistles up three phantom steeds capable of moving across swampy terrain unhindered for Kriger, Kalsgrim and Malaswyn, before climbing aboard Ember and hanging on for dear life, as he begs his companion to stay low to the ground. The steeds appear to be made of thick black roiling smoke, shot through with dull red sparks, which hisses up from the ground and fills in a horse-shaped outline, as if the smoke is being blown into an invisible horse shaped glass container. Despite their ephemeral, and slightly sinister, aspect, they seem solid to the touch, and obedient to their respective riders.
If Kriger can't point out a handy route (that the bad guys used), Servayn can conjure magical steeds capable of moving through swampy terrain unhindered, although that will require us to leave behind any mundane steeds.
If they marched a raiding party of dozens (complete with trolls) through here, it shouldn't be too hard to find a path for our much smaller group. Servayn will ask Kriger if he can find one of the many routes the people who live here take, since there's apparently a Barony of some sort in these parts. If the route between Taztlford and Drelev is impassible, that tells us something new about our enemies, that they have magic powerful enough to transport many dozens of men many days travel...
"Another fort full of bandits on a lake. Seems to be a theme in these parts..." Servayn says distractedly. "We should at least send a message back to Providence to warn of a potential incursion, that they not be unprepared, as was the case the last time we encountered trolls out of their usual places, and that we will be a few days longer, dealing with matters here, so that rumors do not begin to cause unrest." he says, "Although we shouldn't include details of exactly what matters we are attending to, or our destination, in case the message reaches unfriendly ears..."
After a confused moment when he can no longer see a standing enemy, whatever spell that battle cast over Servayn fades, and he sees the wounded, and the fires, and begins instructing townsfolk to gather the wounded in the center of the community, so that Malaswyn can tend to them in one location, after any immediate bleeding is staunched. If any incidental fires have been touched off by the walls of fire, or other fiery events, he tells those with buckets of water ready to work to extinguish them, lending a hand in these efforts, as he would be of limited use attempting to succor the injured. Ember is directed to seek out any fleeing enemies, fly them down and bring back one alive, if possible, that we might question them as to the location of their bandit camp, and any forces that might remain in reserve, that we might fell this tree at its root...
Servayn will continue hitting clusters of foes with black tentacles (for big groups, preferred, since it does more than inconvenience it's targets), glitterdust and grease, in descending order of preference (and being willing to accept the occasional 'friendly fire accident' with those, as they cause no lasting harm, and if he can hit five bad guys with a glitterdust, he won't sweat temporarily blinding a single defender as well), until those slots are expended. He's not saving anything for later, and, if he runs out of spells, will resort to blasting with his wand of lightning. As much as possible, he will attempt to use these lingering area of effect spells to block off areas, and buy defenders some breathing room to regroup or pull wounded or non-combatants away from attackers. Ember will continue killing any near him, and when he finds none within reach, will leap into the air and drop onto a new group, to continue wreaking his own special brand of havoc. If Ember falls, Servayn will begin calling in swarms of mephits, to unleash their own stinking clouds, glitterdusts, etc. Through it all, roaring walls of fire, bursts of mystical embers blinding some while burbling black sludge brings others to the ground, and noisome oily tentacles erupt from the earth, while a dragon-like creature the size of a rhinoceros leaps about like an excitable kitten attacking milling ants, Servayn laughs like a madman, bringing chaos and fire in his wake.
Servayn turns to the fighting and moves at a breath-taking pace, still not used to the speed granted by his arcane haste. Once he sees a clump of foes within range, threatening the townsfolk, he targets the area with grease, glitterdusk or black tentacles, depending on the size of the group (and ensuring that if he finds a group large enough to effect with black tentacles, he doesn't catch any villagers in the spells effect, although he may be less precise about targetting grease or glitterdust, since those spells effects won't harm anyone on their own). Ember leaps again from the smouldering remains of the troll he has just butchered, and attempts to pounce into a new cluster of foes, splitting his targets up so that bite and bonus claw attack are directed at one soldier and a claw and wing each at a second and third target. (If he can't find a place to be within 10 ft. reach of three different soldiers, he'll try to find two together, or just give all six attacks to one lucky ducky...)
Ember leaps into the air again, attempting another charge-and-pounce on the next living troll within 80 to 110 feet (depending on whether or not haste is in effect). Servayn attempts to caste haste again, unsure as to why it didn't take effect last round and peering about for someone countering his spells.
Servayn calls upon arcane haste, while Ember attempts to take advantage of flight and his increased speed to charge and pounce at the next closest standing troll.
If there is any chance he can angle himself to hit two trolls with a single lightning bolt (without also striking an ally or innocent bystander), Servayn will attempt to set up that shot.
Otherwise, if he can get within 45 ft. of one of the trolls he will attempt to throw grease, and cause it to slip, trusting his damage dealing allies to make short work of it, if it does (and hoping to prevent at least one from attacking any more villagers, if possible)
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