Everyone in the chamber pauses, as hail and cold wind immediately pummels everything and everyone on the platform! For a brief moment, all combat ceases while everyone except Charaine and Indarin (who are too far away) reflexively covers themselves against the barrage of ice, hail and sleet that pours down onto the wet stone; Zuthara, already weak from her wounds, collapses into the puddles that now fill with slush and melting ice - she no longer fends off the hailstones as they pound her limp body and pile up around her.
Lookit! The storm damaged everyone in the area of affect! Oh, right, everyone except the Erinyes. You know, the enemy. Heh heh. That was a funny moment.
9/1/04: Thanks to all of you for understanding when I had to cut the session short and go to work at 10 pm; I got home at 4 am, got 3 hours of sleep, then went back to work at 8:30 the next day, until 6 pm. Ahh, the world of IT...
It is now time to move on, for this place is not safe...
"I'm Just a Sweet Necrophiliac"
(or, "You all walk into the room and see - * ")
The party breaks into small groups on the temple platform...
One group is dividing up Zuthara's equipment. One group watches with amusement as Todok positions the slain devil's limp body on the floor, inserts the Kuo-Toa high priest's holy symbol into the devil (should I even have to specify where..?), drops his pants and then mounts her.
(DM Note: Remember what happened to Triel..? OK.)
A typical human might be severely chafed by the holy symbol - but not Todok; between the blood and gore acting as a lubricant, and his damage resistance...he's just a "rough rider".
Meanwhile, Topaz has asked to claim the devil's longbow; she picks it up and says, "Hey, it's warm.......and.......... it likes me!" She stands alone from the rest of you as you watch a grunting Todok finish with the devil (eee-oo-eee-oo-eeee, eeee!); she seems to be stroking the bow as if it were a pet in her lap, nodding down to it and brushing her cheek on it. Some of you think she might be whispering to it.
Deciding to exit the temple from the top doors, Sizul and a grinning, suddenly less agitated Todok fly and lift up the rope bridge so the rest of you can tie it back where it was and cross over; Boric changes back to his human shape so he doesn't overload the bridge and Rahl crosses last, once you are all over - But, after hearing the creaking and snapping of rope, you all look back just in time to see the rope bridge break under Rahl's weight! With a heavy thud, he lands on the balcony 30' below; he lays there for a moment, cursing his luck and offering to stay back and not move...but he eventually rejoins you by crossing the other bridge. Todok casts Cure Moderate Wounds on him to heal his sprains and injuries.
You all are faced with a decision to either turn left or right at the end of the 20' wide passage; both turns lead to a hall that ends in stone double doors. Turning left, Henry is tasked with searching the doors; he finds no locks or traps and tries to open the doors - he fails. Boric steps up, opening them easily; beyond is a large chamber that features frescoes of Kuo-Toa emerging from the ocean and walking to holes on the ground - these frescoes extend all the way to the top of the 20' high walls.. As Todok flies in and begins circling around the room while you all enter, everyone takes up a position around the room supporting Henry, who has moved to the other identical doors at the far end of the chamber in order to search it, also.
But before he can search the door, something moves! Rahl and Busta see something near the ceiling move in the shadows...Todok lands to investigate, but as he turns to Rahl (who is explaining where he saw the movement) he is jumped from behind by a Kuo-Toa, who emerges from against the wall and buries a small dagger in his back! Todok's furious scream belies the fact that he was lucky to be screaming at all, having narrowly avoided an assassination attempt...
The party leaps into action - Busta moves and fires his crossbow, but misses... Charaine moves toward the fracas and Boric steps up and claws at the Kuo-Toa with his long reach, hitting him, grappling and dragging it in to him; but this Kuo-Toa isn't wearing armor and is quite slippery - it slides out from under Boric's grasp, does a somersault over Todok and moves across the room! Topaz fires her short bow, missing twice, as does Todok with 'Agony'; but Sizul, also with great reach, hits the Kuo-Toa mightily and staggers him.
Indarin steps forward and follows up with a Scorching Ray, which hits it and leaves it screaming. Lastly, Rahl moves up and heaves a great cleave into the panicked and burning Kuo-Toa that splits the creature from skull to crotch, putting it out of its horrible misery.
You all watch the smoldering halves of the creature bleed out on the floor, as Rahl smiles contentedly; the battle lasted barely ten seconds.
Moving to the door beyond, Henry verifies that it is not locked or trapped; unconcerned (or unaware), Boric strides up and opens the stone doors - beyond lay another dark chamber with a tall ceiling. Those holding torches or lantern eventually see what Boric and the others with darkvision see - a room almost 70' wide that extends beyond your vision into darkness; four slender columns help to support the ceiling 20' above.
You all hear low, muttering voices, like the sound of a crowded room in near silence; no words can be discerned, but Charaine informs you that she believes it to be a magical effect.
Sizul, Busta and Rahl advance into the room behind Boric, who is slowly moving towards the center of the dark room more out of curiosity than anything; Busta carries a torch, which illuminates the area as Todok flies though the doorway to cover - and reveals why you all thought the ceiling was only 20' above...
The ceiling in this room is actually 30' high - but, hanging from the ceiling by long ropes are dozens of corpses, mostly humanoids but with a few goblinoids mixed in; they hang upside down by the feet, shoulder to shoulder, with the tops of their heads cut off...
You can see their mouths slowly move and their limbs twitch randomly, in a pale mockery of life; the muttering voices are coming from these corpses!
Aside from Busta's torch, there are two faint sources of light in this large room; both are as small as candle light, but just sufficient to illuminate their area.
(DM note: Those with darkvision will see this earlier, but in black & white; for sake of gameplay, the time frame will remain constant - i.e., those with darkvision will not act on what they see any sooner than those who do not, since the description is being presented here for the first time in a constant frame of reference.)
A small circle is engraved in the center of the room, immediately in front of Boric, who is approaching it; it glows with a faint, pale blue light - just bright enough to dimly illuminate the circle and the surrounding 5'.
At the very back of the room, faintly lit by a similar light over 60' away, is a raised dais...upon which sits a throne made of what appears to be stitched-together skin; on the walls on either side of the throne hang dingy white banners that depict a dwarf in blue and white armor holding aloft a waraxe - both banners are apparently hanging upside down...
A tired looking dwarf in plate armor slumps in the throne; he has an axe in his lap and he lazily holds what appears to be a glass sphere in the palm of one hand - the light that illuminates the back of the room originates from this glass sphere! As you all realize where he is in the distance and identify him, he whispers harshly to you; the words echo throughout the room as they reach you:
"I prophesy your doom!"
*To be continued...*
9/8/04: Congrats on Rob's new dice (and hopefully the accompanying better rolls), as well as Sizul's dominant tactics that (possibly) saved the day and neutralized a major opponent - a Dwarven Fighter7/Dwarven Defender4 !
"Dwarve's Bane"
(or, "His sack is bigger now..!")
The party has been slipping into the room cautiously until now, with Sizul and Topaz along the left wall, Rahl to the right and a nonchalant Boric in the center along with Busta nearby; as Busta replies to the dwarf, "Your words are false, and will be your last...", Sizul takes wing, flying low along the floor to immediately right of the throne where the dwarf sits. When the dwarf begins to speak again, Indarin casts Silence on him, but he passes his will save; Busta opens fire with his crossbow, but misses...
The dwarf, whom you all surmise to be the one and only Zenith Splintershield, stands and throws the glass sphere at the back wall; it falls short, breaking to Boric's left, on the floor. The glass shatters, leaving a spray of shards and extinguishing its light; Charaine and Indarin warn the party that it was likely some kind of magical container - leaving the party glancing about nervously, expecting a foe to materialize...but nothing happens. Taking the opportunity in the moment of pause, Charaine casts Mage Armor on herself and Topaz moves into the room, loading her short bow; Rahl drink a potion of Bull's Strength in the back of the room, Henry drinks a potion of Hiding and Todok charges the throne. Boric charges the throne also, but his direct path takes him across the glowing circle in the center of the room - as he crosses it, he vanishes!
There is a moment of horror, but the group realizes that there is little they can do at the moment - they carry on, hoping for the best...
As Sizul arrives at the throne, he catches Zenith putting on his glowing steel shield and grabs him with a clawed hand, pulling him in close as he screams in protest; again taking advantage of the opportunity, Busta advances to the next pillar as he reloads and Indarin runs toward the opposite pillar from the back door - But Indarin is caught halfway there, attacked by an unseen force! She is hit twice before she reaches her destination; Rahl is also hit, seconds later! As the dwarf wrestles with Sizul, Charaine advances into the room also, along the left wall behind Topaz, who is aiming at the grappled pair and waiting for a chance to fire. Rahl takes a wide, wild swing in front of him - he connects with something massive, but invisible! No scream is heard, no sound is made - but there is resistance...
Henry moves into the room now, hiding along the left side of the room in front of Charaine; Todok charges into the fight and swings on the struggling dwarf - 'Agony' clangs loudly off of Zenith Splintershield's helm. Sizul, meanwhile, mauls the howling dwarf, pulling plates apart and splitting rivets. In the back of the room, Indarin casts Detect Magic in an attempt to spot the invisible enemy nearby while Busta moves up to the fight and punches at the dwarf, missing him... Rahl is again hit, twice this time - he is being staggered by constant, multiple blows; Charaine and Topaz both watch and wait, ready to assist if necessary. Rahl again swings into the air...and again, he connects with something! As Henry moves into a better hiding place, Todok again attacks Zenith as he wrestles Sizul, striking nothing but armor for a second time; also again, Sizul continues to maul the shrieking dwarf.
Indarin now scans the room for a magical aura that may reveal the enemy that attacks in the back of the room - she finds nothing. Busta manages to hit the dwarf twice with punches, but he shrugs them off as he continues to wrestle Sizul...he breaks free, and staggers toward the center of the room! Topaz now fires, but her arrow ricochets off of Zenith's plate armor. In the back of the room, Rahl makes a third mighty arc with his halberd, but connects with nothing - he swivels badly from the momentum. Seeing Todok's frustration at failing to be involved in the fight with Zenith, Henry begins studying the half-fiend, in case he may need to be "neutralized" after the battle... But Todok will not be denied...he casts Deific Vengeance on the dwarf from the dais, causing him to stop in his tracks and scream in pain! Sizul then catches up to the dwarf from behind and grapples him anew, beginning the cycle of torment again...
Seeing the battle far to close to her for comfort, Indarin decides to withdraw back out of the room; unfortunately, she crosses into the path of her unseen attacker - she is attacked again several times as she tries to retreat and falls barely 10' from where she started.
Boric, having been teleported immediately in front of the now-headless statue in the main temple, had for the past few moments been sprinting back up the stairs, across the rope bridge (which holds) and back to this room, where he bursts in through the doorway...
Busta hits Zenith again, once, while he again grapples Sizul; Charaine casts Wall of Fire out of her staff, to cut off a means of escape for the dwarf. Topaz again covers the fight, reloading and waiting. As Henry continues to watch the increasingly furious Todok, who misses again with his third swing, Rahl tries to recover from his fumble, but he again connects with nothing; Boric, joining the grapple between Sizul and Zenith, blocks out Todok, who now froths at the mouth as he tries to force his way into the fray. In the chaos, Sizul only hits once, but Zenith is beginning to tire and show his injuries; Busta and Charaine now hold back and cover the fight while Topaz moves to a better line of fire and Rahl tries to get out a potion of healing to drink, following another round of massive blows from his invisible tormentor. But before he can drink the potion, he is attacked again, and he falls; the glass vial shatters on the floor next to him...
Zenith again manages to break free from Sizul in a panic, but Boric still holds him; Todok attacks the partially-freed dwarf, and again, the blow glances off of a thick helm and throws off several sparks - Todok is growing unhinged... Boric, in classic bear-hug style, grips the dwarf with both arms and pulls - Zenith Splintershield is decapitated as his helm separates from the rest of his armor...his torso goes limp, as Boric laps at the fountain of blood that springs forth...
Hearing Topaz yell for backup in the back of the room, Sizul turns to another fight and moves toward where she is facing off against a foe that has dropped both Indarin and Rahl; Busta and Charaine move in behind Sizul, but Busta is caught too close and is hit by a massive blow. Topaz, already close to the action, kneels cautiously next to an unconscious Indarin and gets out a curative potion; she feeds it to her as she nervously glances around, covered by Sizul, Busta and an advancing, frustrated, furious Todok.
Meanwhile, near the center of the room, Boric drinks his own curative potion as he plays with both the body and the separated head of Zenith...
Reaching in between Busta and Todok, Sizul grasps at thin air, looking for a target - he finds none...neither does Busta; but, as he moves, he is attacked again..! He quickly counterattacks, hitting once out of three tries. Immediately after, both Todok and Topaz are attacked and hit, but Topaz still manages to feed the curing potion to Indarin, who sits up amid the crowd of the party and their invisible foe. Todok is now growling and going primal rage, as he drops his weapon and lunges into open space, clawing and gnashing - he still fails to connect with anything.
As Busta and Sizul advance, punching and clawing at the space in front of them, Indarin crawls away on her hands and knees to safety; both of them are hit, but they have covered Indarin's retreat...
At the throne in the front of the room, Charaine and Henry examine the area; Charaine sees a necklace and picks it up. Henry protests, but then concedes the need for magical analysis after Charaine has to fight off an odd sensation before putting the necklace in her backpack; he backs up, instinctively.
Topaz is trying to reach the stricken Rahl; she runs a long route to the left of the fight, but she doesn't know that the hidden creature has also moved... She is attacked several times, but she manages to navigate to the back wall and to the fallen Rahl...
Todok, going blind with frustration and fury, sees Topaz attacked and charges the general area around the pillar to her left; again, frustration and failure to draw blood! Nooo! Sizul has had enough of this cat and mouse game - he turns and breathes a wide cone of fire at the area where Todok is facing, covering him, the pillar and the entire area in flames as he barely misses Topaz to his right; Sizul hopes that Todok can resist his fiery breath, but he has been too injured already...Todok, scorched all over his back and wings, drops to his knees, then to the floor in a heap.
As Indarin casts Cure Serious Wounds on herself, Busta drinks a curative potion himself while Topaz finds Rahl alive and gives him a potion also; awakening, the first thing Rahl does is find a second potion and drink it, also. After several moments of healing up and waiting for another attack, you all begin to realize that Sizul's fire breath may have destroyed the invisible stalker...
Sizul walks up to Todok's limp body and rolls him over...he lives! But when he wakes up, he won't be happy...
In the front of the room, Charaine and Henry complete their thorough search of the area; they find nothing other than the thick gold chain from which hangs a finely made, silver cage. As the ring of fire that surrounds the central circle abates, the flames and smoke clear away, again revealing the pale blue glow behind - which illuminates Boric, as he plays puppets with a limp, headless corpse in one hand and a disembodied, helmeted head in the other.
Healing wands will soon have the group back at full strength - but your quarry is quite dead, and you have to return home sometime...
M
9/15/04: A changing of the guard begins…
"Todok's Last Ride with 'Peaches'"
(or, "Those aren't wrinkles!")
Following the battle with Zenith Splintershield, you are all healed back up to full strength with the wands of curing...but you are all mentally fatigued; you grow tired and wary of this place and its dank, slimy wetness. The incessant smell of fish is driving you all mad...or perhaps the Sea-Mother herself is silently waging war on your souls for what you did to her statue...
Wishing for some decent payoff from all this mess, you decide to search the high priest's flooded chambers in the back of the temple, after finding the last room upstairs structurally dangerous to enter; finding the water receded, you all proceed to search the rooms to either side of the meditation pool where Henry was almost lost a month ago. As Todok scans the room for magic, Henry searches the shelves using his goggles... In the corner, a tall clay jar emanates magic - the two of them move in to investigate. Henry carefully searches the pot, while Todok guides him; the jar may be glyphed, so Henry moves carefully - he's dealt with this kind of thing before (with Diera's help)...
Henry: "The last time I started here, so this time I'll just -* "
*BOOM!*
Henry and Todok are blown to the floor by an explosion that showers them in pottery shards, coins and bits of what may have been inside the jar previously; as the rest of the party takes cover behind the corner, they look at each other.
Todok reaches for his wand of curing...
Todok reaches for Henry...they (*Edited for content*)..."heal each other"... *ahem.
The party finally emerges from around the corner and find the two of them spooning in the middle of a debris and coin-strewed room that is otherwise blasted to ruin. Todok has begun to refer to the skilled assassin as 'Peaches'...
Gathering up all of the gold coins takes over an hour, but the party has finally gained some valubles off of their expedition; searching the second room that lies opposite this one, they find the same features and a second clay jar that also emanates a magical aura. Having learned their lesson, the group shields themselves by padding the jar with decaying Kuo-Toa bodies stacked against it; in an epiphany, Todok straps on one of the Kuo-Toa shields and bull-rushes the stacked bodies, in the hopes of breaking or toppling the jar behind all the bodies in the corner...
Todok: "Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhh-* "
*Thud-BOOM!*
The party, hidden around the corner again, sees a showering spray of fragments out of the room, just as before; but this time, it is accompanied by the sudden stench of rotting fish and a wet, sticky goo that covers everything in the room - including Todok and his bent shield... He again gets out his still-unwashed wand and begins 'healing himself' (this time by himself...but 'Peaches' watches anyways, with a gleam in his eye)...
Having enough of this literal mess (and the freakish sideshow as well), you all move to explore the last rooms of this forwaken complex; you all move downstairs, toward the last set of double doors on the ground floor of the main temple. Beyond is a long, wide hallway that ends in a four-way intersection; going left, you find a row of large stalls that apparrently used to serve as a craftworking and support area for the temple's denizens - the area appears ransacked and left useless. Moving to the opposite hallway on the right, you find the wide hallway ending in a large room that contains a pool...with a stairway that rises up and out of the ceiling to the right; a 20' wide grated tunnel exits to the left side of the room. Deciding to explore the more immediate areas first, you all turn back to explore the final hallway straight ahead, where another set of stone double doors await. After being searched for traps by Henry, the doors are opened; beyond is a dark room with Kuo-Toa bodies mounted on opposite walls on either side. Boric,Todok, Sizul and Busta advance in to scout the room - and a large section of floor upens up under their feet! Busta instinctively jumps backward and out of the way, but the others fall a full 30' onto a floor full of spikes below! Each of them are impaled at least once by a rusty iron spike set into the wet stone floor; as the party looks on from above, the three of them slowly get up...Todok decides to search the walls before flying out to assist the others in lifting out his larger party-mates.
As Todok scans the stone work in the pit, a dark shadow emerges from the wall in front of him - in a moment, he is enveloped, as Boric and Sizul take notice...the cloud congeals and begins to fly - at first, right through Todok! He screams and recoils as something cold and black tries to pull his soul away from his body as it passes through him!
As they always do, the group sees the horrific, ghostly shadow and leaps into action - As the huge wraith loops around and passes through Todok a second time (which leaves him reeling), Charaine casts Magic Missile through her new wand; five missiles pummel the creature, bursting as they pass into it! Sizul slashes at it - it maneouvers around his first swing (it's extremely agile for its size), but he catches something that resists on the second; Henry tosses an everburning torch down into the pit so the group can see it more clearly, as Rahl gets out his bow, Topaz and Busta both miss their shots and Indarin casts Summon Shadow to fight the creature with one of its own kind. Boric, in his usual style, attempts to engage the wraith directly, but grabs nothing but air...
As Busta, Topaz, Rahl and Henry continue their difficult attempts to hit the ghostly monster that swirls about the pit (almost filling it, actually), Sizul continues to slash at it and Boric continues to grab at it; they're not really sure if they're hurting it - at times they appear to break off wisps that dissolve in the torch light, but that seems to be all they're doing. As it passes through Todok again, Charaine casts her second Magic Missile (this time she gets three...), hitting once more; Indarin casts Searing Light, but fails to hit the fast-moving wraith with the white beam! Todok, feeling the instinctive fear behind having his life-force sucked out of him, drops "Agony" and goes primal - but his claws and gnashing fangs do little better than Boric's are...and Todok is now growing weaker by the second...
Busta tires of his crossbow...he leaps into the pit, using his martial skills to slow his fall and deftly putting on a display of his agility as he avoids one of the three spikes that hit him and minimizes the impact of the two that do penetrate his robes; above, Henry has stopped firing his hand crossbow, feeling it futile... Rahl misses again, but one of Topaz's two arrows air-bursts within the wraith, causing it to shudder! The monster shudders again from Charaines third volley of Magic Missiles and Sizul's continued swings - you can slowly see the wraith shrinking from the blows. But it continues to assault Todok; it passes again through the desperate warrior-priest...this final time, Todok is left pale and shaking on his feet. He looks tired, sleepy almost...then he stoops to the floor...kneels, as if to rest - then crumples to the cold stone, limp.
While Boric continues his flailing at the beast, Indarin casts Spiritual Weapon (which misses its attack); Busta leaps at the shadowy monster in a flailing attack of his own, but the wraith immediately turns to face the two fighters as it hovers over Todok's body. It immediately attacks Boric, who swats at the beast in vain! Charaine hits the wraith again, with her fourth volley of Magic Missiles - this time, five missiles spring forth from her hand; another one of Topaz's two arrows air-bursts inside the creature, while Rahl misses again and Sizul quasi-connects with one of his two blows. Indarin makes a second try at casting Searing Light, but again she misses the agile wraith with the beam of light, as her spiritual weapon pursues it around the pit. As Busta continues to punch into the wispy cloud, he feels one of his fists hit resistance... could the creature be weakening? After it attacks Boric again, Charaine hits it once more with her fifth volley of four Magic Missiles, which visibly slows it down; another one of Topaz's two arrows air-bursts into it, slowing it further, and Sizul connects solidly with both of his swings!
The wraith is slowing now and becoming a bit more opaque; as Indarin casts Curse of Ill Fortune and her spiritual weapon catches up to it and slices through, Boric retaliates and grabs hold of something tangible enough to squeeze, as Busta punches at the general area that Boric holds, hitting twice out of three tries. Charaine, having exhausted her Magic Missiles, resorts to her tried and true desperation attack...Fireball; knowing that Sizul is immune to her fire and Boric and Busta may be lost to the wraith in moments, she points her Staff of Fire into the pit and incants the activation word...
*FOOM!*
When the smoke clears, Sizul stands in the middle of the pit, searching for the wraith to reappear; Boric lies in a smoldering heap of charred flesh and melted hair, transformed back into a human... Busta had dove into a corner, avoiding the flames... For a moment, the group freezes in horror at what has just happened - but just as quickly, the wraith re-emerges from the wall and attacks again! Sizul quickly steps in front of Busta and breathes fire across the rest of the pit, squarely catching the approaching wraith - after the cone of fire dissipates, it is gone.
...But...
Busta sees something moving out of the corner of his eye; reflexively, he twists and dodges at it moves toward him - another ghostly apparition, smaller than the first, has risen out of Todok's corpse and attacked! Fortunately, Busta dodges it and Indarin acts quickly - she rebukes the new Todok-wraith as her spiritual weapon impales it. Unfortunately, the spiritual weapon's and Busta's retaliatory attacks break the priest's rebuking and the wraith attacks once more. Topaz scores one hit and Sizul slashes wildly as it approaches him, but it still hits - lucky for Sizul, he resists the weaker drain of life-force. Indarin casts Scorching Ray, hitting this time; the flames seem to affect the Todok-wraith, burning it away like thin paper. The spiritual weapon cuts through the remainder, and it dissipates silently...
And thus passes one of Erythnul's chosen, in the end a victim instead of the victimizer...destroyed by his own companions, never to reach the eternal battlefields of the outer planes to fight at his master's side.
But Fiendish blood is not easy to dilute, nor does it rest...
9/22/04:
"Todok is finally Tall/Sloppy Seconds"
(or, "My touch is easy...")
Following the unexpected passing of two party members to the Dread Wraith and the even more unexpected Todok-wraith (as well as the ever-anticipated Charaine-hits-her-own-allies spell), you all have decided to regroup and shelter in the Throne room for a day; although at full hit points, you all decide to take a short respite - taking a full day off for the spell casters to study and rest, while Sizul recovers his breath attack. Indarin animates one of the twitching, mumbling corpses fromt he ceiling, creating an odd experiment that results in a shambling, bumbling, semi-talking zombie that is of little use except as a distraction to the group. She studies it to pass the time, along with a peculiar necklace given to her by Charaine - a silver chain with a smallish charm in the shape of a cage.
During this time, some distance away, the remnants of another group - fleeing another portion of the Underdark - has encountered Kuo-Toa refugees (taking some consolation in their massacre, albeit mostly women and young) and learned of a recently abandoned settlement where they might find refuge and possibly scavenge for supplies and possibly even loot... Traveling for a day, they find the former temple complex and journey in to scout the ruins; moving to the upper floor, they happen upon a cracked door being guarded by an alert human who observes them warily while giving his cohorts time to rouse themselves and suit up...
Busta spies an approaching light, accompanied by footsteps and conversation - in common tongue! Alerting the party, he keeps the door cracked and watches the approaching trio:
A male Elf, a female Human, and a female Halfling approach.
The Elf wears light travel gear and carries a bow, nothing more. The Halfling wears a leather vest festooned with at least a dozen sheathed daggers in a sort of mock-scale armor. The human wears chain mail and carries a glowing staff, their light source. All three of them appear to be even more world-weary and cynical than you all; tired, also.
A standoff is in the making, but Rahl shoves Busta aside and throws the doors to the throne room open to question the strangers and offer them some devil jerky. While Charaine is absorbed in her studies and addled with guilt over killing Boric, Henry hides in the shadows of the room to study these three travelers; Sizul is indifferent, seeing them as just more meat-sacks to snack on, while Indarin is standoffish and rude, as usual. Topaz, is prepared, as always, but she warms to these three - the human is a bit homely, but the Elf is easier on the eyes and has a mysterious, dangerous air...she likes that.
The elf soon retreats to the shadows himself, more an act of caution than anything; he will eventually be known to you as Nameless, as it has been long forgotten by him during decades of solitary exile from his homeland. The human mage introduces herself as Syx, and calmly rebuffs Indarin's taunts as well as Busta's flurry-of-gropes; he deftly puts on a show of flexibility as he dodges several attempts by her to slap him... The Halfling identifies herself as Kei - a rare warrior-soldier mercenary among the little folk (but don't call her that).
Syx advances into the former throne room, inspecting the curious corpses and the overall creepy chamber; soon, Rahl has had enough of sitting around and is ready to finish exploring the lower level of the complex. Motioning for the rest of the party to follow, he loads up and steps into the glowing circle as a quick shortcut to the Temple chamber below. Syz, Kei and Nameless follow, curious as to the abilities of this group...
You all enter the final set of double doors on the ground level and turn right, facing the water-filled room that you all passed before, just before the horrible experience in the room straight ahead; this chamber is more mysterious, having only silent water ahead, a flight of stone stairs that lead out of it and out above the far corner of the room, and a grated tunnel exiting to your left. Deciding to let whatever lies beyond the grate remain there, you all turn and inspect the stairs; Henry has slipped into the shadows, as the rest of you all prepare for the unknown that awaits...
A wailing scream pierces the silence! Henry is spotted in the waist-deep water next to the stairs...he is flailing at the water as it froths around him! As you all gather at the edge of the pool, he leaps up onto the stairs and out of the water, his legs covered in bloody, bubbling bite wounds... Putting on Todok's former slippers of Spider Walking, Topaz traverses the wall all the way around and over to the stricken Henry, giving him one of her own healing potions (not being sure if he had one of his own). Feeling better, he drink one of his own and soldiers on, with Topaz covering with her new Short Bow of Flame. As the party giggles at Henry's misfortune, they nevertheless encourage him on to the top of the stairs, where a single, huge stone door awaits.
Henry is fully alert and cautious after being attacked by the tadpole-like creatures in the water; he approaches the door slowly and deliberately, while Rahl experiments with the water (he 'borrows' Indarin's stumbling quasi-zombie, ripping off an arm, tying a rope to it and tossing it into the pool to pull out samples of these creatures to study.
But, despite Henry's great care, before he can even begin to don his goggles to search the door...the very moment he touches the stone a broad stroke of lightning blasts down the stairwell and filling the corridor!
*CRACKLE!*
Henry is left sprawled and smoking halfway down the stairs, covered in burn marks and cracked, oozing skin; he doesn't move.
Topaz (who had wisely taken refuge around the corner of the stairs, on the roof above the water) suffered a minor scar on her head when she failed to pull her head back fast enough; she curses the marring of her beauty(?) but soon attends to her fallen comrade. She finds him alive...and feeds him more of his and her own healing elixirs to return him to health. What was giggles before has now become guffaws amongst both the veteran party members who know Henry, and the three new partners who are growing doubtful about his skills by the minute.
Syx casts Detect Magic and scans the area - the glyph that Henry activated is still there! While the party groans and considers leaving this place, Indarin hatches a plan; she casts a pair of spells on herself, giving her resistance and damage reduction to the electrical trap, and moves to the door. As Henry takes cover along with Topaz (using his own slippers of Spider Climbing), Indarin casts Stone Shape on the door to open a wide hole in the center; when the glyph discharges, she deflects and absorbs a majority of the lightning bolt while taking no damage from the rest!
Beyond the door is a bare room; on the opposite wall is a huge pair of stone doors, similar to others in this complex. The party, who until now has been distracting the Black Draconian/Kuo-Toa Fingerlings by throwing huge chunks of their presumed father's corpse into the water and scooting past as they feasted, deploys themselves throughout the room and down the stairs; Henry is sent forth once more to the door, as Kei watches from the back of the room and Nameless takes a flanking position in the right corner.
If Henry was dismayed by his poor luck in triggering a trap just as he touched the previous door, he feels truly cursed today, as the walls to the left and right erupt in a thick shower of javelins as he approaches three full paces from the doors! While Kei, being a Halfling, is unharmed (the javelins pass harmlessly above and in front of her), Nameless and Henry are struck by no less than five missiles each! With both of them left reeling from the multiple wounds, Henry crumples to his knees, in pain, frustration and agony as Nameless grunts and pulls out the javelins; adding to the horror is Henry's realization that the tips of these missiles have been coated with a toxin! Before he can flee or warn Nameless, he collapses on the floor, unable to move at all!
The party's casual teasing of the hapless rogue has turned now to concern - except for Indarin, who can hardly contain a laughter not heard from her since she skewered the randy rogue she encountered en flagrante delicto with the Alleybasher woman back at the "Lucky Monkey Inn"!
Rahl has had enough of these tricks - he rushes the doors and throws them open; beyond is an even larger room than the one before, with clay jars lined up along both the left and right side walls. At the far end of the room is an altar, but it appears unused in quite some time; stray scales on the floor indicate that this may have been the former abode of the black dragon that you all killed a fortnight ago. Taking care, the room is searched and another Detect Magic is cast; there are several items within the jars that are enchanted...but knowing what happened with the first two jars you encountered prompt caution. Fortunately, few of the jars are covered; Rahl and Sizul begin moving select jars out of the room and back into the trapped antechamber for closer inspection.
While a helpless and paralyzed Henry looks on, a jar is emptied onto the floor; coins spilling out to within inches of his face...followed by another...and another...and more after that... A single tear wells up in his eye.
When all is emptied and counted, some thousands of gold and silver coins are bagged up for transport back home, as well as several scrolls, a wand, and other items of note. For convenience of portage, Rahl hog-ties Henry and carries him like a piece of luggage with a rope handle.
There is a long walk back to Rauxes to make, and a skeletal black dragon to deal with at the surface...
M
9/29/04:
"Todok's Legacy/ Back to the Cusp of Night"
(or, "Bad Sack Karma...")
The day-long march back to the 'Pit formerly known as the Pit of Nine Jaws' is tedious and quiet, save for Rahl or Henry's rambling stories of your past exploits in the Underdark in this region; but as you approach the pit itself, you all grow more tense and quiet. You know what awaits and begin planning your attack.
Indarin is of the most use for this battle, as she will cast Hide from Undead - which will make you all effectively invisible to the black dragon skeleton; exiting the pit undetected, you plan to ambush the monster and cleave it before it can mount an effective counterattack. At the bottom of the pit, Sizul drinks a potion of Bull's Strength as Indarin casts her spells; soon, you all are climbing the stairs upward. Reaching the top, you see the creature near an opposite corner of the pit some 50 feet away - you all quicky exit and deploy in a semicircle around the beast, safe from it seeing or hearing you approach. Sizul, Rahl, Busta, Kei, Syx and Nameless take their positions, with Indarin 30' away, as Henry, Charaine and Topaz stay behind and out of the battle (Topaz has taken her short composite bow out, and scans the horizons away from the pit for any possible intrusions).
Attacking on cue, Kei makes the first move; but her slashes do nothing against the thick leg bone of the skeleton. Nameless, using a borrowed mace, glances off another leg harmlessly, but Sizul hits with a well-laid blow that shatters several rib bones and sends the shards careening off of the shields and armor of everyone else; Rahl follows up with just as deep a swing, shattering most of what remains of the dragon skeleton's left side and throwing a second spray of bone fragments. Indarin hits the skeleton with a Scorching Ray, which ignites its front torso, as Busta punches hard at the opposite side, hitting once out of three tries; Syx, having cast Fly before emerging from the pit, leaps above the dragon and casts Lightning Bolt downward into it, evenly chipping and scoring away shards off all of its bones.
Now you are all visible to the dragon skeleton; but before it can react, Kei has leaped up onto its left foreleg and is climbing up onto its shoulders, as Nameless swings his mace a second time, missing it again. The monster seems now to have found its footing, as Sizul, Busta and Rahl also fail to connect with their attacks; but Indarin follows her Scorching Ray with a second one, which also hits and burns away more of the skeleton. It attacks, biting Busta and flailing around at the foes that surround it; but its offensive is short-lived, as Syx fells it with a Scorching Ray of her own.
The battle raged for less than 15 seconds.
After sifting through the bones and taking souvenirs, you all begin the long travel above ground to Rauxes; it feels good to be above ground again - for about an hour, before the rain starts.
Arriving back at Rauxes late in the day, you all wait until nightfall to enter the Malachite Fortress; you find it even more dishevelled and filth-strewn than before; the Gnolls have certainly made this place more homey to them.
Rahl intimidates them, ordering a clean up of the Fortress as you all depart to have Zenith Splintershield resurrected so he can be delivered to your benefactor at the Cusp of Night; while there, you all are introduced to a previous acquaintence from when you first took control of the Malachite Fortress - a beholder by the name of Orbius Vhalantru, who offers you leadership positions in the soon-coming invasion of Outsiders to the Prime Material Plane!
But, there is one more quest to perform; a Paladin by the name of Alek Tercival must be recovered (by the same terms and conditions that you recovered Zenith Splintershield) before the final ceremonies can be completed. He cannot be located by scrying - Orbius does not know why; although the obvious possibilities (he has left the Prime Material Plane, he is being magically shielded) are unlikely, you must be prepared to face the possibility that he is aware of his fate and has taken measures to protect himself. He can be tracked down by his noble patron, a prominent merchant by the name of Maavu (whom you learn owned the warehouse that the umber hulk emerged from some time ago, thanks to some braggadoccio of Orbius' vampire assistant as he escorts 'nameless' off to a private party...)
Armed with this, you depart to your fortress to train and prepare for your next mission.
But a rude surprise is in store at the Fortress when you return - not only have the Gnolls failed to clean the complex and make it more habitable to humankind, they have ransacked the stores for whatever they could carry and fled! Cursing them and vowing to wipe out their clan, you all set to the task of training and research for the next few weeks, as well as some needed rest and housekeeping.
During the next four weeks as Indarin, Rahl and Topaz are focused on their craft and discipline, Syx sells her cargo of dragon bones and conducts research along with Charaine (who also trades in her staff of fire to finance the resurrection of Boric by the same neutral priest who resurrected Zenith), Kei becomes acquainted with the local street denizens with Henry's help, and Sizul oversees those "volunteers" from among Indarin's faithful in Zhadirune as they clean up the Fortress and move new supplies in from above. Her most loyal madam and her wenches are becoming the leaders of her hidden chapel and have even directed an informal 'service' in her absence with Indarin's dozen or so Vecna worshippers (that include even a couple of spellcasters). Indarin also identifies magic items from amongst the party loot before sequestering herself in prayer and study in her hidden enclave. She returns in three weeks...
Rahl has never left the Fortress, but he has been busy reading, deciphering and meditating on those documents and writings left behind in Todok's chapel; he spends days at a time poring over scrolls and the scrawl written in blood on the floor by his mentor. When he emerges from the chapel and declares himself ready to depart, he seems different somehow...the wild fury in his eyes has evolved into something more worrisome and sadistic...
Boric seems to have been confused a bit following his resurrection, but soon he finds familiar solace, joining Busta at the fighting pits and making money; with friends working the wagering, their profit margin has gone up nicely...
After the fourth week, Topaz returns from her own training and it is time to depart; you prepare to leave to the north; you supply the Fortress for another month and leave instructions for the Vecna cultists to guard the street entrance to the Fortress...
M
10/06/04: There was no game this week, due to several planned absences.
10/13/04: Syx entertains herself by taunting the City Guard…
“A Political ‘Action’ Committee”
(or, “Bringing home the bacon!”)
You have been instructed to find the missing Paladin Alek Tercival; the first step in finding his whereabouts is through his patron, Maavu – a prominent and populist merchant whom you discover has been a troublesome meddler in Orbius Vhalantru’s plans. Henry and Indarin learn through their local contacts that Maavu is to speak publicly in front of the City Hall to protest the raising of taxes on the people – a perfect opportunity to abduct him; you all are in rare agreement over the plan of action at this point. A strategy is formed to have Boric snatch Maavu off his podium and race away from the scene with his superior speed and much magical enhancement; several of you decide to monitor the event in case of trouble and the rest of you wait in a rented room at the Lucky Monkey Inn – a place you all know well.
Sizul, Topaz, Busta and Syx arrive amidst a throng of peasants, merchants and other lesser-class folk who have gathered in front of City Hall for a rare show of peaceful unity against the city’s tax rates; usually, civil unrest ends in massacres and public executions for days, but the Palace has been more and more distant from the local populace the past few seasons, and the Mayor is known to be a puppet – one now with no one holding the strings…and with anarchy at his doorstep. Busta prefers to stay on the street, taking up a discreet position at the corner of a building directly across from where a makeshift speaker’s platform has been built; Sizul, Topaz and Xyx take a position atop the roof of the very same building; they don’t raise much attention (except for the scattered murmurs caused by Sizul’s imposing presence) due to the large number of folk who have taken to rooftops to avoid the crowds and gain a better view.
After a short wait, the crowd begins to stir to anger as a group of tax collectors are escorted through a phalanx of half-Orc guards stationed in front of City Hall; they push the crowds back with the hafts of their halberds and break through the mass of people to allow the armed group past. Tension builds in the street, until a man emerges and takes a place on the platform. Raising his arms, Maavu calms the crowd enough to speak:
“Citizens! The Lord Mayor has received a letter of Challenge from Alek Tercival, Paladin of St. Cuthbert, which calls out Tereson Skellerang (the Captain of the Guard) as allowed by the ancient Law of Peers… In protest of City taxation, he intends to
- HEY! -* “
A formerly-invisible Boric has appeared on the platform, after Wind Walking there (courtesy of Indarin, who observes from the edge of the crowd a good block or so away); he attacks Maavu, grabbing and grappling him. As he moves off the platform with the struggling merchant (shocking the crowd by running up into the air, as if he were climbing up an invisible ramp), Indarin’s followers that she planted in the crowd follow her orders to incite a riot; in a moment, chaos is breaking out. Syx moves to the front of the roof and strongly presents her staff to the heaving throng; calling out an eldritch word that turns some of the crowd around to face her, she sends a barely perceptible pulse out from the staff – and the immediate area in front and a round the building she stands on breaks into anarchy!
Those who do not start fleeing the area turn on each other in an orgy of violence; men, women and children alike are either running in horror, standing limp and immobile (until attacked by someone) or are fighting amongst themselves! On the other side of the crowd, rioters have begun to attack the line of guards; three fall in the first few moments, but the other half-Orcs slay double that number. Longbowmen appear atop the cupola of the tower that stands next to the entryway of the City building; firing into the crowd near the guards, seven more fall to their arrows as the guards make a fighting retreat back to the doorway.
Busta enjoys the chance to randomly sucker-punch several people who run by, but there is other business at hand – Boric is climbing into the sky with Maavu, who has managed to produce a vial and is trying to open it while Boric fights and drags him higher into the sky, mauling him with his gauntlets as he goes. Before Maavu can drink the contents, Boric beats him unconscious – the vial falls from the sky into the street below; he is now just baggage – Boric doubles his rate of travel and proceeds to the Lucky Monkey, as those behind him scramble down to meet him there with the others.
Boric soon arrives at the prearranged room, entering by the outside second-floor window; they quickly tie up Maavu before slapping him awake.
“ *- …who the… what happened – WHO ARE YOU?!?”
As always, none of you are much into pleasantries; the threats come out fast. Rahl and Indarin lead the questioning, but you all are so focused on your prisoner, no one bats an eyelash when the shutters rattle and then blow closed – although the day outside is clear and mild…
As Rahl starts his line of questioning, the hair on the back of his neck stands up; his Barbarian instinct tells him to turn around and swing – which he does…but he hits nothing. In turn, he is slashed across the gut by an unseen weapon! Even as the robed, shadowy figure appears from invisibility, no discernable weapon is in his hands! Catching the party off balance, he slashes Rahl a second time with a wave of his hand and a burst of wind before anyone else can move; at the same time, a wave of magic-induced fear fills the room – but fortunately for the single-minded party, everyone resists except for Henry and the helpless Maavu, who still lies on the bed, tied up.
Kei leaps into action – within seconds, the figure is peppered with no less than six daggers – but the shadowy form is silent and doesn’t cringe from the blows; Boric, on the other hand, grabs solid handfuls of the creature and grapples it (as always). Charaine immediately fires a volley of four Magic Missiles into the dark figure, burning holes into it as Rahl attacks as best he can in close quarters – he misses. Indarin casts Curse of Ill Fortune, but the creature resists her magic… Maavu lies on the bed in fear for his life. Henry kneels on the bed next to him, wetting himself.
As Boric squeezes his shadowy foe, it doesn’t resist – it leans in close to him and inhales the very life out of Boric! But despite the weakening, Boric rends the creature apart as Kei dodges to the side; he does massive damage that would dismember a normal human, with Charaine adding a second volley of four Magic Missiles that blast away the remaining bits of the creatures’ torso. The quick battle is over; Henry and Maavu shake their heads as Kei retrieves her daggers from remaining shreds of tattered cloth.
Maavu is interrogated one more, but he appears genuinely grateful that you’ve saved him from an apparent assassination attempt. In moments, you all have untied him, as he tells you about the secret society ‘The Chisel’ (a society of high craftsmen) and where to find Alek Tercival. He had planned to meet him before today regarding the challenge to the Captain of the Guard, Skellen Tellerang, which was intended to expose the local government of corruption through the use of an ancient law that allows local nobility to directly challenge the authority of the military leader through single combat – with the victor resuming the post of Captain of the Guard. But now, Alek has now gone missing and Maavu was about to publicly indict the government in his disappearance.
As Sizul, Syx, Topaz and Busta arrive at the room, Maavu tells you all that if Alek is in hiding anywhere, it would be in the town of Redgorge, to the North – where the Chisel keeps a meeting place; in fact, he intends to flee there himself to avoid further attempts on his life. Rahl and Indarin play along with the merchant’s line of reasoning, suggesting it may not even be safe enough to travel and offering to go to Redgorge yourselves to seek Alek; he agrees, and tells you to answer “mortar” to the appropriate question in order to gain favor with the Chisel.
Maavu also imparts his concern about Alek…
“He has not been himself since he issued the challenge at our behest; he has been through a lot for a nobleman – a lifetime of not quite measuring up to his title and lineage, a career as a mediocre servant of St. Cuthbert – even recently, he sold much of his family’s accumulated art and various treasures from his adventures to an old family friend, Tygot, a retired adventuring partner-turned antiquities trader, in order to buy back his family’s ancestral manor house. Even worse, in the past weeks, all attempts to scry his location have failed; only a Divination spell cast by an old friend of his, Lady Jenya Urikas, gave us any glimpse of his whereabouts…and they were not good…”
By now, the room has fallen into silence. Maavu continues…
“The divination was, ‘Late on the path of Justice, trapped between glass and stone, he weeps where many can see him, but he can only see himself’; what that means is for the Gods to know. His last known location would probably be known by Tygot; Alek tells him much of the wilderness when he’s there to sell things – you know how curious Halfings can get. His shop is in the Artisan’s Quarter; good luck getting past the patrols (glancing at Boric, Sizul and Rahl)! If anyone knows where Alek was going next, it would be Tygot.”
“I’m going to lay low for a week, then travel to Redgorge to meet you; I’m sure I can persuade the Chisel to work out some kind of compensation for you in payment for my rescue – despite your fearsome appearance and apparent careers as mercenaries.”
“Good luck.”
M
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, but this chronicle is an excellent read! I've managed to scrounge up a small group, meaning myself and two others (we plan to make up for the lack of numbers with playing two characters per player or maybe use gestalt characters, not sure yet), but I've got a couple weeks to plan until one player is available (she's taking a ten day "field trip" with the college starting this weekend) so I'm plotting out my campaign. This will be my first evil adventure, and I've really learned a lot of little things from these chronicles. Things like motivations, interactions, personal lives, and recreational activities of evil characters that I never really understood before. I also really like the style and feel you've got, Marc, and I hope to be able to emulate at least a little bit of that (with my own little touches, of course) in this game.
This thread is like a textbook or an educational video for running and playing in an evil campaign. Again, thanks for posting this Marc, and keep them coming!
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, but this chronicle is an excellent read! I've managed to scrounge up a small group, meaning myself and two others (we plan to make up for the lack of numbers with playing two characters per player or maybe use gestalt characters, not sure yet), but I've got a couple weeks to plan until one player is available (she's taking a ten day "field trip" with the college starting this weekend) so I'm plotting out my campaign. This will be my first evil adventure, and I've really learned a lot of little things from these chronicles. Things like motivations, interactions, personal lives, and recreational activities of evil characters that I never really understood before. I also really like the style and feel you've got, Marc, and I hope to be able to emulate at least a little bit of that (with my own little touches, of course) in this game.
This thread is like a textbook or an educational video for running and playing in an evil campaign. Again, thanks for posting this Marc, and keep them coming!
Again, thanks for the kind words, man;
The players might not realize it, but - while not being the smoothest running Evil party I've played, they are among the most colorful, having the most developed personalities and histories of any Evil characters I've run.
I think this game may illustrate that it's possible to have an Evil character and still develop a rich story line that doesn't feature the party killing each other off over and over again...
(...Ironic - one of my players lost her third character to "friendly fire" last night...)
M
10/20/04:
"Boric the Pooh, Boric the Pooh.../ Indarin Isn't Used To Them Moving So Much"
(or, "It's Actually Gonne Be Warm...")
Following your forced meeting with Maavu, you all decide the next morning to visit 'Tygot's Old Things', an antiques and rare art shop in the Palace Quarter, where you seek the owner, Tygot; Alek Tercival is a friend of the retired Halfling adventurer and has been known to sell him relics he finds amongst other valubles.
Travelling the side streets and taking advantage of late morning crowds in the streets to cover your startling appearances, you arrive at Tygot's shop; the building is appointed more as a comfortable office and home than a shop, with fine furnishings and comfortable seats - Tygot greets you warmly, if curious at what would bring a suspicious looking group as yourselves to his establishment. The doubting, silent stare of his animal companion (what you eventually figure out to be an old blink dog) has you all somewhat on edge - especially after it blinks over to Charaine and sniffs at her while you all talk with Tygot.
Inquiries are made about Alek and where he may have been before his last stop here to sell items to Tygot; a meticulate recordkeeper, he points out all of the art pieces that Alek last sold to him before returning to a region known as the 'Demonskar' - a rift to the northwest that howls with an unearthly voice in the right weather conditions. Some of those items you all decide to purchase - some for investigation (a silver slab called the 'Hegemonic Plate') and some for personal use (Boric purchases a pink marble head of a fish-like creature for himself); Indarin casts Comprehend Languages and reads the Hegemonic Plate - she determines that the inscriptions belong to an ancient race and describe the construction of some magic item of great importance. Interesting, but the relationship to Alek's whereabouts seems vague - until Syx notes that attempts to locate Alek by scrying have failed and Divination has shown him to be "trapped between glass and stone"; you all will journey to the Demonskar, following a crude map scratched into the back of the silver plate by a hand other than the Paladin's own...
Leaving the next morning after securing the Fortress and leaving instructions with the Vecna cultists to guard it, you all make an uneventful 6 day journey north, to the village of Redgorge - an old town, ringed by a ruined series of walls that speak of an old battle of decades ago that ravaged this area; the town has never fully recovered from this, as over 1/3 of all of the buildings sit abandoned and in disrepair as years take their slow toll. However, occupied dwellings and businesses are in good repair, and the remaining town amongst the ruins is secure, if not prosperous. You arrive at the only inn in town, the 'Redhead Miner's Inn', and take up places at the bar for refreshment and rest from the road; you all take up most of the bar, despite it being rather long and quite adequate for a town this size - actually, this entire inn seems built for a population much larger than the one currently here.
The inkeeper, Mikimax, is jovial, even if he does take a second glance at you all - he sets out free snacks on the bartop and keeps up with brisk business, even after Boric declares "Drinks are all on me!" as you all enter. In retrospect, he has played the perfect diplomat for your group, bypassing any awkward entrances by your party members and suspicious looks by the townspeople - replacing them with cheers and yelled out greetings of, "Welcome, stranger!" and "Well met, large friends!"
A minstrel is casually plucking at his lute in the corner of the large room; he calls out to you all, "What can bind with water, sand and lime?" Remembering what Maavu had said a week ago, Topaz answers, "Mortar." After some small talk (and flirting with Indarin, which raises eyebrows among the rest of you), he introduces himself as the Honest Minstrel and invites you all to a meeting that is to take place shortly; he leads you all to a private, well appointed room in the basement of the inn and introduces you to the Foreman (the leader of the Chisel). The ornately frescoed wood walls tell you all the tale of the Chisel's founder, Surabar Spellmason, and how he magically built the Basalt Bastions that surround Redgorge (they lie in disrepair, but still formidable, to this day) and led the army that repulsed the fiendish army led by a Glabrezu General.
The meeting isn't long, but it is full of concern; the Foreman was worried about the absence of Maavu and Alek - after being briefed by your group, he is relieved for Maavu but even more worried for Alek. He believes that a force of Evil is afoot and is making the Chisel a scapegoat for a series of ill events, as well as influencing the Mayor's office; the Honest Minstrel notes that the authorities in Rauxes have been threatening to bring the township under its auspices as an excuse to invade and search the area with the half-orc mercenaries that have been hired in growing numbers to replace the regular City guard. The Foreman says that a dramatic public announcement of good faith, such as the public withdrawal of Alek Tercival's challenge to Skellen Tellerang, would do much to convince the Captain of the Guard to halt his plans - if he were here to do so.
The Foreman adjourns the meeting and escorts you all outside for a walk along the Basalt Bastions as dusk falls... You all ask him how to interpret the crude map drawn on the back of the Hegemonic Plate; he knows of the headless demon - an ancient statue some miles to the northwest. Based on that landmark, you can follow the map from there. Having booked large, comfortable rooms for the night, you decide to start off in the morning. Indarin has been exchanging glances with the Honest Minstrel all evening, and she makes her move; stars align, evil omens are exposed throughout the land, and shadows move to unseen forces - Indarin gets a piece of warm ass that night.
Twice.
Somewhere else in the world, a faerie dies.
With the sunrise, you all enter the wilderness and follow a wide gully with a stream running down the center into thickening woods; with the advancing of the day, the gully widens but grows shallower, eventually forming a wide creek with sloping sides and forest a dozen feet away. During your break for lunch, you can see a stone edifice breaking the treeline some distance down the same bank you are all on; after moving on, you cover the several hundred yards to the 'headless demon'.
On the northern bank of the 30' or so wide creek, set back about 15 feet from the water's edge, is a badly weathered stone statue of some form of humanoid creature that overlooks the creek; it's neck ends in a stump - the expressive canine head lies partially buried some feet away. Patches of mold, moss and lichens grow on the statue, but other vegetation appears to have been cleared away at some point recently; to the northwest, a narrow trail cuts through the thick forest underbrush. Boric decides to bathe himself and look for fish; he wades into the creek and does what bears do.
As you take in the scenery, some of you begin to notice that all manner of wildlife has grown silent - or never was there to begin with. Naturally suspicious as usual, you immediately take to scanning the surrounding forest - too late...
A black cloud of arrows flies from the treeline across the creek at all of you - and all of you are hit at least once, except for Busta, who deflects one and grabs the other right in front of his forehead (just like before), and Sizul, who's hide is just too tough; Boric pulls out the two arrows in his hide and shrugs off the pain, but the rest of you all are left grimacing.
Given a clear target now, Charaine sends a Fireball into the far treeline, to a chorus of screams; but as you all look to share in her satisfied grin, you all see her disappear - to be replaced by a crouched, severely singed gnoll in the exact same spot! As the burned, horrified Gnoll howls in fear of you, at that exact same moment, you hear Charaine's equally-horrified scream coming from the opposite treeline where her fireball detonated moments ago! Not able to worry about the wizard's predicament right now, Indarin casts Recitation as Boric charges out of the stream, attacking the nearest Gnoll he encounters. Busta moves in and finishes off the charred Gnoll in your midst with a flurry of punches, just as a second volley of arrows arrives; this one isn't as dense as the first, but several of you are still hit.
You all begin to notice that these arrows are poisoned, as Syx, Charaine and Rahl begin to feel weak! Already hit twice and even weaker from the poisoned arrows, Syx casts Invisibility and moves aside to tend to her wounds as Henry drinks an anti-toxin in the hopes of staving off the effects of the arrows; Kei and Rahl run into the creek to cross it - Kei by swimming and Rahl by wading. Topaz moves to one side of Sizul and fires her first flaming arrow with her "new" bow - and hits; some of you notice a visible arousal on Topaz's face after that hit, as if given a congratulatory kiss by some unseen paramour.
Charaine has suddenly appeared in smoking, charred underbrush, with moaning, injured Gnolls to either side of her - to make matters worse, there are many others, uninjured, closing in around her! She quickly casts Invisibility on herself and manages to avoid the multitude of wild swings made in her general direction by her attackers. Across the creek, Indarin casts Shield of Faith as she moves toward the bank on her side, while Boric grabs and rends apart an unfortunate Gnoll, unaware of Charaine's crisis nearby; Sizul joins the battle at his side, flying low across the water's surface and landing to Boric's left - impaling a Gnoll on his glaive as he comes to rest. As the Gnolls try to mount an attack against Boric and Sizul, Busta sprints into the creek, passing up a wading Rahl and a paddling Kei with strong, fluid strokes; he leaves behind Henry (who has decided that the fighters have the situation under control and retreats behind the statue to avoid missile fire) and Syx (who is casting healing spells on herself while invisible to save her own life).
*To be Continued*
10/27/04:
“Greetings from Todok”
(or, “it just ain’t the same stick”)
Topaz fires a pair of near misses across the creek at Gnolls who are reloading their own long bows, while Indarin gets out Topaz’s old bow to try it out for the first time; unknown to both of them, an invisible Charaine tiptoes slowly away from where the flaming arrow fell, near several angry Gnolls who are sniffing, listening and searching for her on all sides. Boric is flailing his way through the ranks of warrior Gnolls, clawing three of them to death at once while Sizul impales a third with “Bugswatter” to his left; in return, both Boric and Sizul are hit (Boric three times, Sizul once), but for slight damage from the Gnoll’s war axes. Busta is now emerging from the creek to join the fight, with Rahl behind him in the water and Kei paddling behind the half-ogre; Rahl actually reaches past Busta and clobbers one of the lead Gnolls on the head with “Agony”, leaving him injured and quite cursed! Syx launches a Fireball into almost the same exact spot that Charaine did, scorching a new group of Gnolls who had re-filled that area, as well as almost unknowingly torching Charaine and Busta!
Now huddled invisibly by the creek’s edge, Charaine drinks a vial of healing potion as Boric, Sizul and Busta shred the Gnolls battle line to her left – the three of them combine for four kills (there would’ve been more, but Boric wanted to make an example of the one Gnoll that hit him a moment ago…), but Boric and Sizul are each hit once in return as Rahl drops “Agony” and kills two Gnolls with his bare fists after realizing that these Gnolls are the same tribe that fled the Malachite Fortress! Indarin misses with her first arrow, but Topaz hits and kills a charred Gnoll bowman; Henry guards the flanks from behind the statue, while Kei is still paddling across the creek. Syx pauses, and then decides to fry another six Gnolls with another Fireball – along with Busta and almost Charaine, too! Fortunately, they both avoid serious damage.
While Charaine lays in the sand near the creek’s edge, the full fury of the party comes into clearer focus; in the next few moments, Boric, Sizul, Rahl and Topaz each kill another Gnoll, while Busta kills two - Indarin hits another with her first arrow and Kei hits one with her first thrown dagger, while Syx immolates another six Gnolls as well as Sizul!
The Gnolls spirit is broken (not to mention their fighting force); it’s time to mop up. Charaine and Indarin both take to healing concoctions, while Boric finishes off the last two Gnolls before they can even turn to flee.
The battle is over in less than forty seconds.
You all round up what useful equipment and loot they were carrying before debating whether or not to pursue their mates and young and wipe out the tribe forever (as Todok would’ve liked to), or to hold to your current path in pursuit of Alek Tercival; you all decide that the Gnolls have been sufficiently dealt with for the time being. It’s now time to heal.
Breaking out the wands, Indarin and Rahl (yes, Rahl, the new acolyte of Erythnul) heal the wounded – that is, everyone.
Rahl, pointing a stained wand at Henry: “Greetings from Todok...”
Henry: “It’s just not the same stick.”
You all are soon healed and ready to move; hiking along the narrow trail for 4 hours while following the rubbing of the Hegemonic Plate that Indarin made before leaving it at the Malachite Fortress, you all reach an old looking cave entrance in the side of a low hill. The path continues on, but some of you are guessing that this place might correspond to the location marked “Home” on the Hegemonic Plate; the popular consensus is to move on, but before debate can be made, Boric (who has been in bear form for most of the afternoon in order to blend into the woods more naturally) has walked into the cave to make himself at home. Indarin walks over to chastise the impulsive beast, but as she opens her mouth to yell at Boric, she is cut off by a horrific chorus or roars that sounds little like Boric!
As he entered the cave to take it as his own home, Boric was ambushed from above and to his left by a huge, hulking beast larger than even he! Twice, Boric manages to claw the monstrous beast before it gets a hold on him, raking him three times and grappling him. Henry rushes to the cave mouth, next to Indarin (who casts Light onto a dagger), to light the cave with his lantern while Rahl runs in to help; everyone else except for Charaine, Topaz and Sizul (who knows there is no space to accommodate his huge form) moves to the cave mouth, but they are blocked off by Rahl, who fills the cave. Rahl finds Boric scrambling to fight off the beast’s flurry of claw attacks; he mauls it twice, but is hit once in return.
The group is helpless to assist Boric – Indarin tosses her dagger and its Light spell just behind Rahl, who is unable to move past Boric to help him fight off the giant sloth; what he does do is cast Cure Moderate Wounds from his wand, successfully touching Boric as he fights. Everyone else can only watch, and wait. Syx bravely squeezes past both Rahl and Boric and enters the cave and then casting Shocking Grasp; he sees the sloth in full size, up on a ledge, wrestling Boric – who is fighting upwards. Running up to the grappling beasts, he manages to touch the sloth unhindered to shock it with his spell; but while Boric hits it twice with his claws and manages to pin the huge beast for a short moment, the giant sloth breaks the pin seconds later, throwing him backwards. He tries to re-engage the beast, hitting three times, but he fails to tie it up enough to keep Syz out of danger; seeing the easier meal, the sloth attacks Syx! She casts a second Shocking Grasp and hits it again, but it doesn’t stop; the sloth grabs her, mauling her deeply with its claws – but worse, it promptly gulps down the woman and swallows her whole!
Rahl casts a second Cure Moderate Wounds on Boric as he regroups and Charaine casts Mage Armor on herself, in preparation for possible combat with the sloth; the party is positioned to leap into action as soon as they can get past Rahl, but he still blocks the tunnel ahead. Following the tight path that Syx took, Henry bravely (and uncharacteristically) threads himself past the half-ogre and enters the cave; he sees Boric beginning to lose the wrestling match with the larger sloth, as it gains the upper hand, taking advantage of its greater size and the ledge it attacks from. It soon pins a shocked Boric, holding him close from behind and preventing the werebear from attacking!
But Syx isn’t going to be digested easily – using all the power of her faith, she Death Touches the giant sloth from within its gullet; at the same moment, Henry leaps to sneak attack the beast from its only exposed side – scoring a critical hit as he reaches high to clear the ledge and stab the sloth! The giant animal lurches and howls, almost lifting Boric off of the ground before collapsing onto the ledge in fits of suffering; Rahl finally is able to rush in and, reaching over a winded Boric and mercifully finishing off the sloth. Rahl then swiftly cuts the beast open and extracts a sputtering and shivering Syx from its gut.
Catching his breath and composing himself, Boric sizes up the cave, climbs up on the ledge, muscles the sloth’s corpse off of it, and lays down to nap.
But after healing up, you all remind yourselves that the trail continues on past this cave; according to the map that you took off of the Hegemonic Plate, towards the rift known as the Demonskar…
M
11/3/04: First full attendance in over a month – the day after the President is re-elected.
“Dumbass Meatbag“
(or, “Sneak, Sneak, Sneak“)
Having eaten Giant Sloth until bloated, Sizul, Boric, Rahl (and possibly others) decide that settling in for the night in a well-defended cave would be the best strategy for the night; you all rest peacefully and leave the cave the next morning – with leftovers in tow.
Throughout the drizzly, overcast day, you all march across rugged, wooded wilderness – the trail you follow does little to improve your conditions. You all hike all of 15 miles that day; as you eat dinner at a wide point in the trail, Busta and Henry hear a large bird land – or is it a bird? Boric (in bear form) rises and sniffs the air, moving in the direction Busta and Henry can best agree on where the sound came from; but before Boric can get into the woods, he sees something approaching through the forest – something humanoid and walking…
Emerging through the trees is a slim, beautiful Human or Half-Elf (you can only guess) female with alabaster skin and silvery clothing; from her back are gently folded, white-feathered wings! Before Boric can attack or even growl, she holds a hand up to him, and then after a moment, to the rest of the party; all Boric can do is smell the air and move around her as any bear would – the rest of you are still, for the moment…torn between hostility, revulsion and hatred…and fear.
“I’m very disappointed,” the Celestial says; “I had hoped that you were Alek’s rescuers – it appears that you are not. As such, you will not be allowed to join the dark forces at work here.”
Indarin addresses the angel first; “We are here to save Alek Tercival; we’re looking for him and were sent here by the Chisel, Maavu and the Honest Minstrel.”
*mmmm…minstrel...* - Indarin
“If in fact you are on your way to save Alek Tercival, then either you have either redeemed yourselves, or have motives that are not yet clear; I will give you the benefit of doubt this time, then, and give you a warning: Powerful forces of Chaos and Evil are afoot that are aligned against even you; I dare not remain here long lest I attract the attention of those forces. But the Lord of the Demonskar knows of your approach and even now his minions prepare for your arrival.
They shall use deceit and treachery against you, just as they did Alek before you; you must be resolute and he must be saved, for whatever reasons you have among others.
In ages past, I provided Surabar Spellmason a weapon to assist him in his conflict with the Lord of the Demonskar; that weapon was lost – ripped from Spellmason’s very tomb by a grave robber, and if I could retrieve it I still would not trust it to you. But I do know that it is near.”
Indarin and the rest of you begin to assault the angel with questions, but she knows no details of what has happened to Alek Tercival; you gain little but the knowledge that you are expected to the north.
She concludes, “That is all I’m at liberty to say; should you be victorious, you may truly redeem yourselves whether you realize it or not.”
The Angel then takes off, flying straight up into the gathering twilight until you no longer see her.
You all stare up, then at each other for a moment…then begin packing your things to march on into the evening.
Walking until the darkness and fatigue press on you all (or at least most of you), you notice that the trees are rapidly thinning as you travel north; the trail ends abruptly as it fades into broken, rocky ground. You all agree that it would be wise to camp under cover, so you back up several dozen yards and make camp among the last few trees where the trail ended. The past day’s clouds are beginning to break, as starlight and a waning quarter moon become clearer in the night sky.
Morning twilight brings quite a start to you all; the dawn reveals to you the sharp edge of the forest where you all slept and the first clear view of the sky in almost two days. Roiling yellow and brown clouds boil just above a lagged, barren horizon; you all can see for the first time the jagged edge of the Demonskar – you slept within sight of the edge and didn’t even realize it. The very ground between here and the rim of the blasted canyon is strewn with ridges of razor-sharp volcanic glass and broken stones; ruined strips of what was apparently the metal framework of ancient structures protrude from the ground like broken fingers from a shallow grave. Only yards away, now visible in the morning sun, is what appears to be a massive pipe, twenty feet across, which emerges where you all are and descends at a gradual slope into the ground, towards the Demonskar. Following your map, you all enter in near-single file and proceed in…
You all venture cautiously along, searching for secret doors and traps intermittently along the way; Henry is less than enthused for the idea of moving so slowly for miles on end, but with Sizul prodding him along with the butt of ‘Bugswatter’, he has little choice but to sneak on. After making a right turn at a major intersection of pipes, and then later on a second left, you all travel approximately five miles in a matter of five or so hours; as you walk, the barely perceptible echo in the distance has gradually increased over time to a constant rush, like a distant waterfall. Now, hours later, the rushing sound has become a rumble, then a constant roar, until it is a constant, near-deafening blast as you spot light reflecting into the tunnel far ahead. You have to yell at each other just to be heard, but you all press on towards the growing point of light that becomes a circle, and then an exit.
Emerging into the light of midday on a ledge above a wide pit somewhere on one end of the Demonskar, your senses are all overwhelmed – it is difficult to hear yourself yell, much less communicate with each other…sunlight sears your eyes after hours you spent underground, even with the smoke, mists and clouds breaking up the light…warm, humid air makes this area feel like a jungle in its climate and acrid, foul smelling sulfuric fumes seep from cracks in the surrounding stone and a bubbling mineral pool, fifty feet below on the floor of the pit. Sharp, jagged rocks protrude from every stone face, horizontal or vertical.
On the opposite side of the pit where the chasm rises away from you are a pair of gigantic metal tubes that protrude from the rock almost fifty feet above the ground, just above the top of the fissure you are in; a ramp of roughly hewn stone steps wind down to your right, into the pit. As the wind rises and sweeps through the fissure, the pair of looming metal chimneys issues a deep, thundering bellow that washes out all other sound and echoes across the landscape.
As the stone here is sharp, jagged and slick with condensation, Sizul decides to fly two of you down off of the ledge and to the bottom of the pit while Rahl sets himself up to rappel down the fifty foot drop; the more sure-footed of you walk down carefully, as Rahl lowers himself and Sizul returns for a second trip. At the bottom of the pit, you all can see more clearly the green-tinted mineral pool to your left as it whistles and pops with bursts of acrid smoke; the horrendous vapors overcome Henry, as he turns to vomit and he turns a pale shade not unlike that of the boiling pool. You also see an exit from the pit – a twenty foot high tunnel that appears to have been carved much like the steps from the ledge.
‘Vaprak’s Voice’ is dying down for a moment, as you all gather up and consider the cave entrance; a massive iron portcullis blocks the tunnel, while a small, barely two-foot tall opening sits just above it. As a burst of gas from the pool sprays the surrounding rocks with steaming, whitish droplets, Kei decides to climb the portcullis and search for a mechanism through the smaller opening – but she is stopped by the sight of something moving in it – something beyond!
With surprising lack of concern, Boric tries to lift the portcullis; he fails. Sizul assists him, but the both of them lift the barrier mere inches before dropping it; even with Rahl helping, all three of them can’t lift it more than a foot before it falls back down with a metallic crash that would be deafening, if not for the roaring cacophony in the background. The three large warriors decide to take a direct approach – they batter, pull at, bend and break through the portcullis until they’ve torn a hole large enough for them to all fit through; the process takes a full minute and ruins any chance of sneaking in, but you’re all through.
Beyond, the cave stretches and slightly bends to the right; with Henry nauseated and near useless for the time being, Kei sneaks in and proceeds along the right side wall, with the rest of you filing into the cave through the hold in the portcullis, single-file.
Sizul, Syx and Indarin notice that the ceiling rises sharply, from twenty feet to forty feet, several yards into the tunnel – they point this out to Kei, who is twenty feet ahead and oblivious to this; as she turns to hush the encroaching party, she sees several large heads peeking out from above the walled balcony above! Hoping that she wasn’t seen, she dives into the shadows along the cave wall – seeing her reaction, Sizul (who Indarin imbued with minor spell casting ability that morning) casts Shield of Faith on himself, while Rahl (who is still behind the portcullis with Topaz and a still qeasy Henry) casts Bless. Boric, who until now has been in bear form, changes into hybrid form while Indarin summons a shadow to clear out the balcony above – but Syx may have all but destroyed it immediately, as she casts Fireball up into the balcony area… You all are greeted by multiple screams as several Hill Giants are caught in the intense flames!
Charaine and Busta move out from underneath the balcony to see what’s been hit, but it’s at that moment that the Giants attack and begin throwing rocks down onto you! Fortunately, only Busta and Syx are hit; Topaz and Henry, meanwhile, back up from the cave mouth to try and spot the giants from the small opening behind them as Kei moves to the opposite cave wall just underneath the balcony and begins to climb up, using her slippers of spider climbing. Sizul, having an idea, moves farther down the tunnel to gauge how much distance he’ll need to fly up that high, as Rahl and Boric move up to ascertain your opponent’s position; Indarin casts Shield of Faith on herself and moves out from under the balcony, as Syx follows the fireball with a Lightning Bolt and Charaine summons a cloud of acid that elicits another chorus of screams from above, as well as curses and orders (in giant) to target the spellcasters! As Busta moves farther out into the cave for a better view, you all are peppered with another round of stones from above – Sizul is the only one hit, fortunately. Topaz sees a target pass in front of the smaller opening in the rock behind the action, but she misses her first shot.
Kei is now on the cave wall level to the balcony and Boric is ten feet up on the opposite side just as Sizul turns around and takes off in a straight line from down the cave tunnel – he climbs hard and breathes fire into the balcony, tormenting the giants once more! Rahl has moved back under the overhang to get out his climbing gear, as Indarin casts Scorching Ray into the balcony but misses; Syx, having been hit by a rock, casts Mirror Image to avoid further hits, but Charaine fires another charge from her wand – this time summoning a field of intense hail and sleet onto the miserable giants above. Topaz also scores a hit from behind, but Henry misses; in return, a more desperate hail of stones is thrown right towards the wizards – both Syx (despite the multiple images) and Charaine are hit!
The fight is at its peak, but the party’s warriors have yet to enter the battle; we’ll see how quickly they can clean up…
11/10/04: Welcome, Sean and Gus, into the group!
“The Mad Wizard”
(or, “Taste The Rainbow“)
Having reached an ideal spot to throw daggers from, Kei palm-throws a pair of daggers from each hand at the nearest Hill Giant; the first pair hits, but the second pair glances off of his thick hides and to the ground. In the tunnel below, Sizul has landed underneath the balcony after his fire-breathing run and Rahl has begun to climb up the left wall underneath Boric, who is ten feet above him; farther out in the tunnel, both Indarin and Syx cast Scorching Ray – they both hit and burn separate giants. Charaine, still reeling from being hit with a rock a moment ago, staggers under the protection of the balcony while Busta runs to the right wall and begins to climb up – but the giants regroup and counterattack! The giant on the right picks up his club and crushes Kei against the wall like a bug – but she survives; Boric is mercilessly clubbed twice by the giant defending the left side, Indarin is hit by a thrown rock and Syx is crushed to paste underneath another thrown rock – she is dead!
Firing through the small opening behind the giants, Topaz hits twice – while Henry struggles to load his hand crossbow as his stomach settles. Kei throws a second volley of four daggers and hits with all four on one target; climbing up the cave wall, Rahl stops under Boric – who is now beginning to fight the giant there for enough space to climb onto the balcony. He claws the giant once, but in return, the giant clubs him like a baby seal, twice! On the opposite wall, Sizul slowly climbs up another five feet while Busta, unhindered by bulky armor, climbs past; Indarin casts a third Scorching Ray and then retreats deeper into the tunnel beyond as Charaine steps out just barely from under the balcony and activates her wand of random energy straight up into the ceiling – but, as wild mages do, she hasn’t taken into account the affected area of the Concussive blast she created…While the ‘mad wizard’ blasts three Hill giants to oblivion, she also blasts Boric and Kei! They both survive, but not by much…
The giants are still regrouping – this time, they’re batting cleanup for Charaine! As Busta reaches the balcony, he’s clubbed by the giant on the right; on the left, poor Boric continues to get beaten down like Rodney King – his opponent clobbers him again, sending him off of the wall (past a frantically clinging Rahl) and crashing to the floor below, unconscious. Charaine is also hit by a thrown rock and falls to the cave floor herself, also unconscious. Topaz fires twice, but misses, while Henry staggers into the cave to assist the fallen.
Kei, despite the injuries she’s sustained, is on a roll – she hits with four more thrown daggers, as Sizul continues his crawl up the other side and Rahl takes Boric’s place in assaulting the balcony…
*Translated for those who do not speak giant*
Hill Giant: “Here comes the pain!!”
Rahl: “Bring it on, ass-hole!”
Hill Giant: *Kabong!* (Critical hit for 35 hit points of damage)
Rahl: “ARRRRGH!”
Indarin moves back into her previous position and casts her fourth Scorching Ray out of her wand, as Topaz and Henry move in from the opposite side of the tunnel to tend to the fallen Boric and Charaine (as they also encounter the mangled body of Syx); above them, Busta punches out the severely injured giant that was trying to defend the right end of the balcony and climbs over the wall, gaining the party’s first ground upstairs!
But the breach won’t last long… Kei misses with her next handful of daggers, Rahl misses with his first attack and a hard-pressed Busta elects to jump off of the balcony and land safely on the floor (after a few flips and glancing steps off of the cave wall) rather than face the last two giants alone. Following Busta, Rahl decides to jump rather than face another clobbering from his opponent; he fall isn’t as graceful as the monk’s was, but his injuries are minor. While the Hill Giants celebrate repulsing the party’s assault and position for the next wave, Indarin casts Cure Serious Wounds from her wand onto Boric – saving his life. Topaz covers Henry with her bow as he searches Charaine for healing potions.
Your assault begins anew – Kei hits with four more daggers and Sizul makes his first attack after finally reaching the balcony; he hits and almost kills one of the two last defenders, as they hit Sizul back and narrowly miss Kei with a thrown rock. As Indarin backs up and begins to search for new targets again, Rahl gets out his own wand of healing and uses it on himself while Henry feeds the vial of potion he found to Charaine and a just-revived Boric blinks and ponders thoughts of purchasing a long spear in the future… Busta joins in the recovery activity and drinks his own healing potion, while Topaz provides cover fire (missing twice).
Throwing her last pair of daggers, Kei finally kills the pin-cushioned Hill Giant on her side of the balcony! But, in her elation, she forgets about the final giant just beyond as she moves onto the balcony to support Sizul – it reaches out with his great club and smashes a surprised Kei into the floor like a tick – she is dead! Sizul tries to distract the giant but misses – and to make matters worse, he loses his footing as he tries to climb higher up the wall and falls to the floor! The surviving members of the party are quickly healing up for another assault on the balcony, but by the time you are ready, the last defending giant has fled!
You all quickly agree that you need time to rest and recover spells; climbing up into the closed end of the balcony hall and piling up the giant’s bodies as a makeshift barrier, you all rest there for the day. Mercifully, the giants do not counterattack – perhaps you’ve driven the survivor off. Eventually, the afternoon light fades into evening as it filters through the smoky haze of the Demonskar and through the small hole in the outside wall of your tunnel.
However, during the last watch of Sizul, he spots movement in the tunnel beyond and rouses the party; approaching from the darkness beyond…is a troll – followed by a comely-looking Drow woman and a Gray Dwarf! As usual, Sizul’s first instinct is to eat first and ask questions later, but Rahl steps in as the party diplomat, for the second time in as many months:
Rahl (to Drow woman): “What the hell are YOU doing around here?”
Drow: “Looking around.”
Rahl (to troll): “…and who are YOU?”
Troll: “Nnnnnnnnngggrrrh.”
Dwarf: “He don’t talk much.”
Rahl (to troll, in Giant tongue): (“What’s YOUR name?”)
Troll: (“I’m Green.)
Rahl: (“I can see that – I asked your name.”)
Troll: (“That what I say. GREEN.”)
Rahl: (“Oh.”)
And thus, new friends are made…
The Drow woman introduces herself as Alicinaira, expatriate of the Drow underworld; Indarin quickly notes that expatriates are usually from the losing side of a political conflict or religious internal housecleaning in Drow society. The silent glances exchanged all around signals the start of yet another blossoming friendship forged by the dark priestess.
The troll is a ‘friend’ of the Drow woman – they met long ago in the Underdark and found each other quite useful to the other for survival in the unforgiving caverns below; the dwarf joined their alliance not long ago and they journeyed to the surface in search of an exclusive portal to the outside that they could exploit for profit. The dwarf, ‘Will’, carries a dwarven war axe and wears armor, but is equipped lighter than a warrior.
Talking more as your party packs up to move again, you all learn that your new partners for the time being entered the cave complex through a different tunnel opening that you all did; they show you the way back whence they came – which leads into a large cavern that appears to have been where the Hill Giants lived. While the stench is diluted by the fumes of the Demonskar, this cave has obviously been ransacked by the surviving giant before he fled; there is nothing of worth here. The three newest party members point out that there are two other exits than where you and they each came in – a tunnel that leads off to one side and a great pair of rusty iron doors in one wall. Nodding at each other in your own recognizable way, you all shove Henry toward the iron doors and back up behind cover.
The iron portal is over fifteen feet tall and twenty feet wide, with a keyhole that could swallow Henry’s arm – but he makes his best guess that the door is not trapped and tries to open it; not quite understanding why the group behind him is snickering as the human groans and pulls at the door in vain, Green steps forward and shoves the little man aside while taking hold of the handle himself.
With a huge, straining pull, the door spits particles of rust out at you all – and begins to move outward; several long seconds later, you have pulled open both doors most of the way. The huge room beyond is drastically different than the natural caves behind you – the fine masonry is delicate in its appearance…Will notes that it doesn’t look like Dwarven work at all. The fifty-foot high, vaulted ceiling is intricately carved, and some kind of enchanted keystone in the center of the roof glows with an unnatural white light; the other source of light here is an eerie blue glow that emanates from a shiny steel forge set deep into the right hand wall. Both of these light sources illuminates a five-foot wide, ten-foot tall platinum and silver cage that sits in front of the forge; Indarin removes her necklace from under her clothes and compares it to the cage – they are identical!
As most of you take a covering position around the doorway, Boric strides up to the cage to give it a closer inspection; Rahl and Will follow closely behind. Boric stops cold after three steps – you all hear:
Boric: “Hey, is this yours? It’s real nice.”
Deep, booming voice: “Invader – you killed our guards!”
Boric: “Who, me? I didn’t kill anyone.”
Deep, booming voice: “Now you die!!”
Boric: “Ummm….”
Rather than let them act first, Boric attacks to his right; Rahl and Will see that you all have disturbed a pair of Fire Giants! To make matters worse, one of them appears to have a wand in his hands – which he uses to cast a spell on himself! Rahl reaches for Zuthara’s old Long Sword of Frost, knowing it will be useful; Will casts Ice Storm, which definitely angers the giants if they weren’t already…
Boric gets the jump on the nearest of the two giants and claws him once, but in return, he gets the clubbing of his life when the Fire Giant whacks him with his hammer (which is about the size of Indarin’s torso) three times! If the drubbing he got from the Hill Giant this morning was the worst beating of his short life so far, this makes it look like a Swedish massage; after three hits in the span of five seconds, Boric has been beaten from full health to staggered and desperate!
After such a start, the party’s morale has already taken a similar beating…will they escape with their lives?
M
11/17/04: Denise B. brings in a new character…
“Sizul’s Bane”
(or, “Feel the Power of the Forge“)
A battered Boric flees back out of the room, as Indarin moves up to meet him with curative spells; everyone is moving into position now, as Alicinaira casts Invisibility to conceal herself, Sizul drinks a potion of Bull’s Strength and Charaine casts Dispel Magic from the back of the room – which successfully dispels the displacing magic that was concealing one of the giants. Rahl moves across to the opposite side of the room to cover for Boric, but the giant-mage picks up a HUGE warhammer, moves forward and wallops him with it! Green the Troll moves in and covers the opposite giant on the right, but that one (having already beaten-down Boric) already is waiting in ambush…he catches the troll with a huge downward swing that crushes his head most of the way into his chest cavity – he is crushed to the floor as a bloody pile of green flesh!
The party is going from disheartened to panicked now – Henry hides, Alicinaira casts curative spells on Boric while invisible (as he drinks his own Bull’s Strength potion), Rahl retreats around a corner to seek cover, Topaz casts Darkness in the room for concealment and Indarin summons a Shadow to delay one of the giants (it attacks and hits, but is immediately killed by the giant in a single blow); Charaine further harasses the giants from afar (as well as hitting Rahl, continuing a disturbing trend) by casting Ice Storm and Sizul runs in to cover for both Rahl and Boric, while Busta and Will provide cover fire with crossbow and Magic Missiles, respectively. The other giant grabs a red-hot chunk of anvil from out of the forge and hurls it at Topaz, but narrowly misses her, instead taking a steaming chunk of stone out of the wall just behind her.
The magic darkness in the room is screening out the party as they recover from a disastrous start; Topaz, Will and Henry all use it to reposition – Will actually casts Lightning Bolt out of the darkness blindly, in the hopes of hitting the giant just beyond and to the right of where Green fell moments ago…he hits! Indarin casts Prayer (you all need it), Boric locates the giants by scent from the other side of the darkness and Charaine gives a potion of Barkskin to Boric; on the other side of the darkness…around the corner from the giants and behind Sizul (who fends the main giant off with his polearm as he slowly backs off, hitting once), Rahl cures himself with his wand as Busta reloads and takes up firing position behind Rahl. As the other giant throws a red-hot chunk of anvil (this time at Rahl, also missing), Alicinaira has a novel idea – summoning a small water elemental, she commands it to extinguish the forge behind the Fire Giants; but she doesn’t realize at the time that the forge’s fires are magical – not only does the water elemental fail to quench the enchanted blue flames, the elemental is itself destroyed by the flames!
Following her failure to deny the giants a source of heat, Alicinaira tries to assist the fighters by casting Faerie Fire blindly past the other side of the darkness at the giants; near the doorway, where she cannot see, a quickly congealing Green begins to glow purple…as Rahl continues to cure himself with his wand while Busta covers from behind with his crossbow and Sizul continues to fight a retreating battle single-handedly with his opponent (again hitting once, but taking a massive blow in return…). Moving to the edge of the darkness, Topaz fires her bow and misses while Will casts a second Lightning Bolt (again, blindly, but hitting again also) and Boric drinks the Barkskin potion that Charaine gave him. As Henry gropes his way left along the wall through the dark, Indarin summons a second Shadow that hits the nearer giant, weakening it further, but also getting utterly destroyed in return by a piece of glowing metal thrown back by the giant.
Henry emerges from the darkness in front of a huge stone chair which has an equally huge iron chest sitting next to it; as he moves to search it, Rahl barks at him to wait until AFTER the battle:
Henry: “Mmmmm….big chest…”
Rahl: “STOP!! Dontyoutouchthatchestlittlemanoryou’reDEAD!! DON”T Touch IT! DON”T!!”
Henry: “Ok, ok…I’ll just look at this chair…”
Satisfied, Rahl gets out his bow to provide the overmatched Sizul with cover fire, while Busta fires and hits from behind him. Before he can attack, Sizul is rocked by the Fire Giant by two massive blows – he chooses to withdraw and let the others take on the giant until he can recover…but his path of retreat into the darkness doesn’t account for the giant’s great reach – it reaches out and clobbers Sizul in the back of the head as me tries to move into the magical field of blackness, sending him crashing to the floor; no one sees him, but everyone hears his body crash loudly to the stone…and no one hears anything more…
…for Sizul is dead.
Will makes a wild, blind dash out of the darkness, relying on his superior intuition and judgment to run out right where he expected to and around the corner where Rahl and Busta are taking cover; Topaz, having just seen both her arrows deflected off of the giant’s armor, realizes that only she stands against him now and whips out her trusty rapier! Behind the darkness, Indarin casts Dispel Magic in an attempt to remove the obstacle to the spellcasters’ line of sight; she fails to remove it…also in futility, Alicinaira casts Command but fails to sway either giant from so far away – but the fully-healed Boric charges back into combat and attacks the lead Fire Giant! Green, after regenerating for the past thirty seconds, opens his eyes and sees the giant that killed him standing over him, about to attack Boric from behind – he grabs his leg and gnaws at it! Unfortunately, when he looks up, he sees a familiar sight – the giant, swinging a huge hammer down at him…then, again, the blackness of the void (for now).
As Boric ties up the first Fire Giant (hitting once and grappling him), Henry advances up close enough to try a sneak attack with his hand crossbow – he misses; Rahl, having seen his friend Sizul murdered by the giant, rages into battle, hitting the giant hard and staggering him for the first time. Busta moves and fires again for a second hit, while far behind, Charine hits with a volley of four Magic Missiles, Indarin casts Curse of Ill Fortune, Topaz fires twice (missing both times) and Will sacrifices his Lightning Bolt spell, reading it right out of his book and hitting the second giant for the third time with it.
Indarin and Charaine spot something entering the cave from behind them – a large, wolf-like fiend, obviously a spawn of the Demonskar… but before they begin to panic at a second front of battle possibly opening up, it speaks:
Fiendish wolf: “I must leave this place if I intend to survive; there aren’t enough souls here to sustain me. If you don’t eat me, I will lead you out of this place.”
Indarin: “OK, we can use the help right now; what do we call you?”
Fiendish wolf: “No.”
Indarin: “Fine, be that way.”
Fiendish wolf: “That’s what I said.”
Indarin: “Said what?”
Fiendish wolf: “My name.”
Indarin: “No you didn’t.”
Fiendish wolf: “No is it.”
Indarin: “You mean, yes you did. ”
Fiendish wolf: “I meant No.”
Indarin: “Whatever; go kill giants.”
Fiendish wolf: “OK.”
Indarin: “Good doggie.”
The tide is beginning to turn; Boric mauls the lead giant, hitting with both claws and his bite (although he fails to grapple the suddenly panicked giant); Rahl and Topaz miss with their attacks, but Busta hits, as does Charaine’s third and Will’s first volley of Magic Missiles – which finishes off the first Fire Giant! As Indarin summons yet another shadow to harass your opponents, Alicinaira casts Cure Moderate Wounds to try and revive Green more quickly; it works – and this time, when Green comes to, he knows better than to stick around…he tries to crawl away, but he underestimates the reach of the last Fire Giant, who clobbers him on the head again! The desperate giant then swings around and clobbers Boric from the side, since the other one hit Rahl before falling.
Henry is re-positioning himself to sneak attack the giants, while Boric continues to slug it out with the last giant, hitting twice and grappling his target; Charaine casts her second volley of Magic Missiles and Rahl steps over to hit the giant again – he falls to his knees, as Busta runs up to finish him off with a quick combination to the face!
The battle is over.
As you all watch, Sizul’s body slowly shrinks to it’s original, part-Elven size, as the magics he carried in him fade; one of you is not watching, though – Henry hungrily eyes the corner of the room, where sits an iron chest as large as a wagon…
M
11/24/04: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there was no game this week.
12/1/04: Play resumes…
"You Suck!"
(or, "I want to be rewarded with Sex...")
The Fire Giants' bodies have barely begun to cool (to the point you can actually touch them) when Henry is making his way towards the ten-foot long iron chest in the corner of the room - until Rahl grabs him by the neck:
Rahl: "You're not getting one step closer to that chest until the room is clear!"
Once the room is cleared, Henry manages after a few tries to pick the huge iron lock as big as his head; but the lid of the chest is too heavy - he asks Green to open it for him. As the troll does so, there is an audible hiss - he instinctively drops the lid, but it's too late...and Henry is already way ahead of him.
*FOOM*
A flaming cloud of fire envelops the area around the chest; Henry has deftly rolled aside to the floor, but Green is burned and screaming. Alicinaira calms the injured troll, however, with some of her Drow magic:
Alicinaira: "Here, let me take care of that..."
Green: "ARRGH! But it - .....mmmmmmmmm...."
Inside the chest is a second one, which is brimming with coins and loot! After some scooping, counting and bagging, you all have emptied the chest and hidden Sizul's body inside it, for raising from the dead at a convenient time.
Eight hours have passed, and it is now evening. You had been ready to move on since midday, but the spellcasters were depleted; now they are ready. You all group up and move slowly down a wide hallway that is illuminated by gowing metal panels along the top of the vaulted ceiling; they cast a pale, white light down a tunnel over one hundred feet long. One end, to your right, is caved in, but at the opposite end is a large chamber beyond the light.
Stopping at a stone door halfway down the right hand wall, Henry determines that there is no trap on it - but it also lacks handles and hinges... After failing to find a way to open the door, Green decides to batter it down with his brand new war hammer gained from the giants; a minute of intense bashing eventually cracks, then sunders the door - but Green is then immediately pummelled by several hundred pounds of rock and rubble that spill out of the doorway! But the troll shrugs it off - he digs himself out, and less than half a minute later, he's back to full strength.
At the end of the hall is a great double portal, made of thick, ageless wood bound by iron; it is not locked, but Henry can barely manage to crack a seam to peer out of, even after much effort. Boric helps him out with the door, and you all enter a wide, circular room with a domed ceiling; a single point of white light dimly illuminates the room, which features a fragile looking sculpture of some kind that contains many alien-looking chairs and flat slabs positioned in a chaotic pattern. There are three exits - one is caved in, one lays open at the top of some steps to your right, and the third appears to adjoin the original cave you entered from before climbing up to the overlooking balcony yesterday to fight the Hill Giants. You all begin to notice that the light in here is growing brighter; at just about the same moment, you begin to hear faint trumpets and Angelic voices that gradually grow louder - instinctively, again, you all burst into action. Being somewhat Evil, you prepare for battle as if you were anticipating another pair of Fire Giants, or worse...
The trumpets and Angelic singing are amongst you now, as a light mist has filled the room; you all move into ambush positions to either side of the exit tunnel, as multiple spells are cast in preparation. Busta hides in the mists to the left of the tunnel, Henry has disappeared to the right of it, and Green readies a mighty swing, also just to the right of the tunnel.
What appears in the tunnel archway are three more Angels of the type that you saw two days ago, in the forests surrounding the Demonskar - green skin, hairless bodies and heads and white feathered wings.
You all recoil in disgust.
Green swings as soon as he sees movement break the plane of the entrance - unfortunately, his target saw him as he swung and avoided getting the meat of the blow; she deflects his swing and speaks to him:
Celestial: “Calm yourself, for we are here to reward your bravery in cleansing this sacred place of an ancient and powerful Evil. You are worthy to drink of the sacred waters; take these as your reward.”
The three Celestials present you all with a tray full of crystal vials; within them is a clear elixir that resembles pearlescent water. Being the closest one there, Green reaches out and takes the lot of them – and immediately uncaps one and drinks it; as Will shoots Indarin an unapproving look, Rahl moves to intercept Green before he can open a second one.
Green: “This is our reward? I want to be rewarded with sex.”
Indarin: “This place isn’t quite cleansed; we’re looking for someone. The other angel told us to look here; she said we could find him somewhere around here.”
Celestial: “The one you speak of has his own tasks and we have ours; whether you accept our offering or not, our task now is done.”
Whether by chance, luck or design, Indarin’s attempt to entrap the three Celestials in a lie does not succeed. Nevertheless, you all are not complete in your mission, and you certainly aren’t swayed by the words of three Celestials who speak your praises. Despite their calm demeanor, you all press the attack, instinctively rushing into action. Alicinaira, who has been invisible, summons an Azer as fodder for the ensuing melee; 'No' casts Crushing Despair to demoralize your opponents (but unknowingly catches Henry in the area of effect), Rahl moves up and hacks one of them with his halberd, and Henry makes a successful Assassination attempt on the one on the right, scoring a critical hit on a sneak attack! Unfortunately, he fails to assassinate the Angel...some Divine influence prevents him from succeeding - he's crushed with despair.
While the Celestial on the right tries to gain favor with Rahl in order to get him to defend her (and failing the attempt), Green charges back in and swings again on the same angel he attacked before, crushing for more damage while Boric casts Shield of Faith in preparation for battle; Topaz misses her first shot, as does Busta, but Charaine prevents them from escaping by casting a Wall of Fire behind them! Indarin casts Recitation and Will casts a Lightning Bolt - but the latter spell fails to penetrate their magic resistance; but he and the other spellcasters are beginning to notice that these 'Celestials' are hiding behind enchanted facades as they try to defend themselves.
The party becomes concerned when another of the three 'Celestials' tries to charm Boric, but she fails - as you all breathe a sigh of relief; but the relief soon turns to worry again, as Green turns to you all and shouts:
"You all hurt friends with fire! You all BAD! You DIE NOW!!"
M
11/17/04:
“Sizul’s Bane”
OWWWWWWwww, Sizul had a BAAAAD day with those Fire Giants...That's what happens when a front-line fighter gets stuck with no HELP at the front line! ;-)
Marc, how are you handling the character transitions for all of the deaths? It seems from reading your journal that your team is well prepared to keep moving despite the carnage.
Do your players have replacement characters already created that they can then just bring into the game? Do you, as DM, have a few ready-made replacements on hand that they can choose from?
I'm asking because I expect similar mishaps in my own AP campaign.
Thanks,
Hurm.
OWWWWWWwww, Sizul had a BAAAAD day with those Fire Giants...That's what happens when a front-line fighter gets stuck with no HELP at the front line! ;-)
Things like that happen when the whole group runs AWAY to do their spellcasting and leaves you alone to be the meat shield... At least you didn't get it as bad as Green did - he got killed three times! (he just regenerated...)
Marc, how are you handling the character transitions for all of the deaths? It seems from reading your journal that your team is well prepared to keep moving despite the carnage.
Do your players have replacement characters already created that they can then just bring into the game? Do you, as DM, have a few ready-made replacements on hand that they can choose from?
I'm asking because I expect similar mishaps in my own AP campaign.
Thanks, Hurm.
Around the time of that week's session, I instituted a 'recommendation' that all players generate a backup character, to be approved and brought into the game, should their main character die irreversibly or they choose to not bring them back; this would shorten the 'turnaround time' to get the player back into the active game instead of being a spectator for a session or more.
I stress to all players that, as levels and challenges increase, they will eventually encounter the dreaded "save or die" rolls - and eventually, you will lose one.
Higher level characters mean more fun, more power, more firepower...but they also mean petrification gazes, massive-d6 spells, death rays, Magic Jars, etc...
M
Let me say that this has been riveting. I really appreciate you posting all of this for us, I check on it several times a day, thanks.
I was hoping that I might make 1 tiny request, is there any way that I could inconvenience you to list character name race class (maybe level) at the top? It is kinda hard (for me, at least) to keep track of characters. Thanks so much for the great log so far.
Let me say that this has been riveting. I really appreciate you posting all of this for us, I check on it several times a day, thanks.
I was hoping that I might make 1 tiny request, is there any way that I could inconvenience you to list character name race class (maybe level) at the top? It is kinda hard (for me, at least) to keep track of characters. Thanks so much for the great log so far.
To you and all the other readers...many thanks! It's a great feeling to be able to entertain a group of experienced players, then turn around and entertain the masses with the chronicle of the whole thing...
When I started out, I posted the party members at the time, with character changes happening in-story ever since (considering how many there have been...); I guess now would be a good time to re-list the party:
Will: Hill Dwarf Wiz7
Charaine: Human Wiz5/WildMage2
Indarin: 1/2Elf Priest of Vecna6/Master of Shrouds1
Sizul: 1/2RedDragon/Elf Ftr5
Topaz: Tiefling Ftr6
Boric: Evil Werebear5 (no class levels yet)
Henry: Human Rogue5/Assassin2
Rahl: 1/2Ogre Bar5/Ftr1
Alicinaira: Drow Sorc5
Green: Troll Bar1
"No": Barghest5 (Monst. Manual)
'Busta': Human Monk6/Ninja1
*(note: levels might be inaccurate, as I'm recalling old data)
I'm almost finished posting the entire chronicle for 2004, at a rate of one per day on average; I'll start a new thread when I reach the end of this volume and begin with 2005, so keep on reading!
Marc
OWWWWWWwww, Sizul had a BAAAAD day with those Fire Giants...That's what happens when a front-line fighter gets stuck with no HELP at the front line! ;-)Things like that happen when the whole group runs AWAY to do their spellcasting and leaves you alone to be the meat shield... At least you didn't get it as bad as Green did - he got killed three times! (he just regenerated...)
Yeah, I know, I just had to take that jab at the others for that! :-) And I think Sizul FELT the same as Green that day!
Also, re: Sizul: 1/2RedDragon/Elf Ftr5,
I THINK that Sizul was Ftr6 then, but not 100% certain.
OWWWWWWwww, Sizul had a BAAAAD day with those Fire Giants...That's what happens when a front-line fighter gets stuck with no HELP at the front line! ;-)
Things like that happen when the whole group runs AWAY to do their spellcasting and leaves you alone to be the meat shield... At least you didn't get it as bad as Green did - he got killed three times! (he just regenerated...)
Yeah, I know, I just had to take that jab at the others for that! :-) And I think Sizul FELT the same as Green that day!Also, re: Sizul: 1/2RedDragon/Elf Ftr5,
I THINK that Sizul was Ftr6 then, but not 100% certain.
...I also remember that you got dropped because you tried to disengage and miscalculated the Fire Giant's reach by a few feet... ouch!
M
...I also remember that you got dropped because you tried to disengage and miscalculated the Fire Giant's reach by a few feet... ouch!M
Well, I think I fought that battle adequately enough, but didn't get the backup I needed (nor any healing); then when I got hammered by that next-to-last hit, there pretty much was no choice but to retreat. And there wasn't a safe square to move to. I did the smartest thing I could think of at the time, get into the edge of the darkness to hurt the giant's chance to hit--but he got lucky. Sucks when that happens. Oh, well, it happens.
Around the time of that week's session, I instituted a 'recommendation' that all players generate a backup character, to be approved and brought into the game, should their main character die irreversibly or they choose to not bring them back; this would shorten the 'turnaround time' to get the player back into the active game instead of being a spectator for a session or more.
I stress to all players that, as levels and challenges increase, they will eventually encounter the dreaded "save or die" rolls - and eventually, you will lose one.
Higher level characters mean more fun, more power, more firepower...but they also mean petrification gazes, massive-d6 spells, death rays, Magic Jars, etc...
M
Marc, very entertaining. Your style of game is very much like my own, which is probably why I enjoy reading this thread. 2004 into early 2005 was a year long evil campaign for me, as well. And evil or good, the policy has been "bring a back up" for quite some time. The fact is, it can be a brutal game at times and stuff happens, so be prepared.
Marc, very entertaining. Your style of game is very much like my own, which is probably why I enjoy reading this thread. 2004 into early 2005 was a year long evil campaign for me, as well. And evil or good, the policy has been "bring a back up" for quite some time. The fact is, it can be a brutal game at times and stuff happens, so be prepared.
Ironically, the party of late has begun to feed on itself, with the warlock Stroud (yet to be introduced in this thread) prodding others in the party to make less effort to save others when down and in need of assistance - I'd give more details, but those are coming up in the A.P. Evil Variant 2005 thread...starting soon!
M
Dear friends;
The final post from the 2004-2005 Campaign Chronicle will be posted later this afternoon, bringing an end to this journal with the session synopsis dated December 8, 2004.
As a Holiday gift to the game group, I printed and distributed a copy of this journal to all of the players; subsequently, a new journal was begun after the following week's session. This journal will be posted serially, as was this one, in a new thread to follow tomorrow or the day after.
My thanks to a fine group of players and also to everyone who read and posted their opinions here on this thread!
Marc
The final game synopsis of this volume:
12/8/04: Between last week’s and this week’s sessions, three characters will die; oh, the horror!
“Boric’s Bane”
(or, “…I just had this horrible vision…Boric was about to – aaiiiiiii!!”)
The party spellcasters can see that the charm effects on your big fighters is going to be the end of you all, so Alicinaira casts Silence on the three faux Angels in order to block their spellcasting abilities, while Rahl gets in a second successful attack on his target, before backing up to heal and regroup; ‘No’ casts Charm Monster on Green to try and override the spell already on him – the result is a mentally tormented and confused troll who appears dazed and indecisive. While Henry repositions himself farther back in the room, Topaz fires twice around the confused Green, missing both times – but Green then attacks ‘No’ and hits with one of his claws! Charaine counters Green with a volley of five Magic Missiles, but before Boric can move up to attack, the most injured “celestial” creates some kind of force field around him – so he curls up for a nap. As Busta fires his crossbow (miss), Indarin and Will both attempt to dispel the force field around Boric, and both fail to do so; Alicinaira’s summoned Azer continues to harass his target, but he is woefully outmatched – and worse, his opponent touches him and leaves him weakened, while the other one tries to charm Rahl and fails.
Now visible, Alicinaira joins Topaz and Busta in their bow fire; she hits, as does Topaz (once out of two arrows), and Busta scores a critical hit! While Rahl turns back and charges back into the battle (and missing), ‘No’ tries to charm one of the “celestials” but fails to penetrate their spell resistance; it counters by creating a second prison around Rahl!
As Henry runs to the opposite side of the room to find a new position, Green stands idle, mumbling to himself about something not being right – just as Charaine hits him with a sonic blast from her wand of Random Energy! Indarin uses her Wand of Scorching Ray on the same target, but again, she fails to get through its magic resistance as Will also fails again to dispel the forcecage around Boric…but he may have benefited from that, since one of the three sisters has just charmed him!
The third sister attacks ‘No’ and hits with one of her claws, but she regrets the decision…as ‘No’ counterattacks, hitting with a bite and hitting critically with a claw herself; Green decides to attack ‘No’, but he misses with all of his attacks. Both Busta and Alicinaira reload their crossbows and fire again; she misses, but Busta hits, killing one of the three sisters – who is revealed to be a Green Hag, as her illusionary disguise dissipates! But Busta paid a dear price, having been hit by Green while moving past him to fire; he also was delayed long enough by Green for the hag to create a third forcecage around ‘No’ before falling to Busta’s crossbow. While Henry reaches his new hiding place, Topaz barely misses both of her shots, while all Rahl and Boric can do is wait and be ready to act; Indarin attempts a second Scorching Ray, which dissipates again, as do Charaine’s Magic Missiles – but Will’s Lightning Bolt gets through, hurting one of the hags severely and forcing both of them to cast Invisibility on themselves in order to escape!
While Green returns to babbling about his dilemma, Henry scans the room, Busta advances and Alicinaira moves in behind him, ‘No’ dimension doors out of her forcecage (must be nice to be an ‘outsider’…) as Topaz puts her bow away and draws “Riposte” as she moves forward; all Rahl can do is watch helplessly and wait…but Boric’s forcecage has been dispelled – and he advances out to attack Henry! Unable to escape, Henry is snatched up and mauled by the werebear! Charaine casts Dispel Magic and Indarin casts Invisibility Purge in order to reveal the two remaining hags, but they do not appear – while Will casts Fly to escape Boric!
Alicinaira moves over to the doorway you all entered from, to prevent the hags from escaping the room through here…and you all watch in horror, as Boric turns to you…growling, jaws dripping with entrails, as Henry shudders and goes limp on the stone floor…
Henry is dead.
The horrified silence of the room is sharply broken by Topaz’s screams of agony - as Green attacks her, hitting and rending with both claws as he bites her! Adding to the sudden downturn of events, Boric charges Busta!
Even the slippery monk cannot escape the werebear’s magically-enhanced grasp – he is dragged in, mauled and grappled! While Topaz returns a successful hit on Green, Charaine fires four Magic Missiles into Boric as Indarin fires a Scorching Ray out of her wand…but she misses the struggling beast, even while he’s standing still and occupied with the monk! The distraction of the two spells allows Busta a chance to wrestle free of the hulking werebear…and he miraculously pulls free – just as Will’s Fireball slams into the very spot where Boric stands!
Meanwhile, ‘No’ charges Green and bites him while he stares blankly at the pretty smoke coming from Boric; before the troll can react, she bites him again and claws him twice – leaving him torn and stunned! His feeble counterattack misses badly, but he is spared when Topaz misses her rapier thrust.
But the double threat of the troll and werebear has decimated the group more than any other foe you have faced… Boric now attacks Charaine, pulling her close and mauling her much as he did with Henry seconds ago – but she miraculously survives, thrashing and screaming in agony the whole time; in an act true to a Wild Mage, she points her wand squarely in between them both, speaks the incantation, and detonates another sonic blast on both her and Boric! The concussion fills the room, stuns and injures everyone (except a still-alert Busta) and actually drops the heavily wounded Green, but the real shock is in that both Boric and Charaine have survived the blast!
Busta has had enough of the battle for now; he retreats to drink a vial of healing potion…leaving only spellcasters to face Boric! Indarin, entering melee for the first time since being an acolyte, casts Inflict Critical Wounds on the werebear, which finally staggers him – then, Will fly’s overhead and launches a volley of Magic Missiles into him…
Boric drops a near-limp Charaine and falls backwards to the floor with a loud crash…dead.
As relative quiet begins to return to the large chamber, those who possess potions of healing dig them out and drink them, as Topaz steps over the unconscious Green and skewers him through the throat, twisting her rapier until he ceases twitching – knowing full well that he will regenerate and return to life, in time…and if not, oh well.
Rahl, coming down off of his rage, is helplessly imprisoned, for who knows how long…he stoops and surveys the casualties…powerless…
…as Will lands next to Boric’s smoldering remains and begins to pick through his belongings – after cutting off his scrotum to use as a spell component pouch.
But ‘No’ is sniffing the air…the body of one of the hags adds its stench of death to that of Henry and Boric, but she turns her head back to the group, as they lean against Rahl’s cage and begin to settle in for a long wait and rest…she says:
“They’re still here…”
*To be continued, throughout 2005 and beyond…*
Fun read, I did have a few comments though
1. Why did the characters return the children to the orphanage? Why not sell them, or leave them or something else evil.
2. The Main characters, being evil, seem to readily accept any new character that wishes to join them. Seems like this would be an easy group to infiltrate (if you were so inclined). I know that this is just part of having players bring in new characters, but it seems that this trusting and accepting nature should burn the group at some time. Why not go with more resurection/reincarnation scrolls that would let you at least keep the original characters around?
3. Are you finding the high mortality rate cramping your initial plot of hunting down heritics.
ASEO out
1. Why did the characters return the children to the orphanage? Why not sell them, or leave them or something else evil.
The party may be Evil, but they've been more of a mercenary, selfish, greedy Evil, not a bloodthirsty, kill-for-pleasure Evil. They also recognized (with some implied prodding from the DM) that they live in a very large city with a totalitarian power structure, where living below the radar is beneficial, especially for up-and-coming groups such as they. As a lower-level group, they favored not having the kids turn up missing and hunted for compared to a simple meal.
Having just faced a Beholder probably scared them straight for a few hours as well... ;-)
2. The Main characters, being evil, seem to readily accept any new character that wishes to join them. Seems like this would be an easy group to infiltrate (if you were so inclined). I know that this is just part of having players bring in new characters, but it seems that this trusting and accepting nature should burn the group at some time. Why not go with more resurection/reincarnation scrolls that would let you at least keep the original characters around?
Actually, the party quite literally charged a new character 3,000gp to join them once, as well as attacking another - he survived for three rounds and was allowed to join.
There's a lot of small details from the game that didn't make it into the synopsis - if I could remember everything verbatim for an entire week until the next session, each synopsis would be five pages or more, not just three!
3. Are you finding the high mortality rate cramping your initial plot of hunting down heritics.
Yes, it did; the death of Todok took the wind out of those sails. But then, that plot hook was more a justification for the party forming than anything else; following the resolution of "Flood Season", that plot was pretty much resolved by the party defeating Triel, Skaven and Tarkilar...
...at least for the time being ;-)
See you next thread!
M
Thanks for the quick response.
I've enjoyed reading your write-ups.
Have a look at my "The Other Side" campaign that I'm posting if you have a chance.
I'm currently running another campaign that I may post one day. One of the characters in it is a Grappler, much like your Werebear. I've been amazed at how effective grappling can be. My character is a Half Orc/Shifter Barbarian 6. He has Improved Unarmed Attack and Improved Grapple. When he rages and shifts, he is one mean dude. Then, the party cleric hits him with 'Enlarge' and 'Bull Strength'.
I can't wait to have an enemy cast 'Charm Person' on him...
ASEO out
Thanks for the quick response.
I've enjoyed reading your write-ups.
Have a look at my "The Other Side" campaign that I'm posting if you have a chance.
I'm currently running another campaign that I may post one day. One of the characters in it is a Grappler, much like your Werebear. I've been amazed at how effective grappling can be. My character is a Half Orc/Shifter Barbarian 6. He has Improved Unarmed Attack and Improved Grapple. When he rages and shifts, he is one mean dude. Then, the party cleric hits him with 'Enlarge' and 'Bull Strength'.
I can't wait to have an enemy cast 'Charm Person' on him...
ASEO out
I'll give that a read, sure!
Aah, 'Charm Person', the DM's great equalizer for power-fighters in the group...
You just read what happens when the front-line warriors get turned on the soft underbelly of the party..
DAMN I loved that fight.
M
2. The Main characters, being evil, seem to readily accept any new character that wishes to join them.
ASEO out
Well, one way of looking at it is like "The Princess Bride." Remember when Wesley recounts that the Captain said "at worst, I could kill you in the morning?" I think that kind of sums up the attitude of some characters sometimes. A new person can join, and if they screw up or anger the others, then the new character can just be eaten, etc. (Since several characters like Todok, Rahl, & Sizul usually felt they could likely wipe out new members if necessary). The $3,000 charge to join was another good one, too... :-)
2. The Main characters, being evil, seem to readily accept any new character that wishes to join them. Seems like this would be an easy group to infiltrate (if you were so inclined).
Most of it is basically allowing the use of out of character knowledge to keep the game running smoothly. (Keeping the game going is very important with a group as large as ours!) Once it is determined that so-n-so is actually somebody's new character, suspicions are dropped and play resumes. NPCs, on the other hand, are usually treated with much distrust if not attacked outright.
Chris
Yes, it did; the death of Todok took the wind out of those sails. But then, that plot hook was more a justification for the party forming than anything else; following the resolution of "Flood Season", that plot was pretty much resolved by the party defeating Triel, Skaven and Tarkilar...
3. Are you finding the high mortality rate cramping your initial plot of hunting down heritics.
I was wondcering about that.
This is probably not useful to this campaign which already has its own system. But for another campaign run along similier lines I wonder if it would not be easier to impose some kind of minor house rule that all evil characters have to come up with some kind of affiliation for the cult of Vecna (or any evil God of your choice) and then centre the basic plot lines around the machinations of that particuler cult and their Malovent Lord. That way the adventures could all ultimatly be tied into the schemes of the Diabolical God and the players can be evil and schemeing but within some kind of loose confines of their Dread Master. New characters can be more easily accepted if they are worshipers of the the same Vile Master and the plot line ultimatly moves forward since there is some kind of overriding story arch originating from the cult itself into which all the characters are affiliated and an understanding that their most Malevolent Lord will start arbitrarly making their heads explode if they go to far in defying his wishes.
Sort of an 'unholy' campaign. Good characters are easy in this regards because a little loot and the chance to right wrongs are all the motivation that is needed but with evil characters it strikes me that a slightly firmer grip on the reigns is needed to make beleivable motivations (kind of a paradox here...evil being more confining in some ways then good).
Obvously to counter this one would want the players to have open reign to develop side motivations based around greed and debauchery but they also have to also appease the Master and hope that power is their ultimate reward. This is made somewhat easier because presumably most of the players would have somewhere within their characters background some kind of explanation for why they turned to evil - the chance to get their hands on true dominating power at the end of the campaign story arc should provide part of the players motivations - though other character background explanations could no doubt be concocted.
I was wondcering about that.Obvously to counter this one would want the players to have open reign to develop side motivations based around greed and debauchery but they also have to...
Jeremy;
While keeping an Evil group of players within the oversight of an 'Overlord' to prevent spontaneous character-vs.-character infighting, abandonment of missions and loss of motivation for anything other than debauchery and chaos might be necessary, depending on the group of players...
It is a strong testament to the group that I have, in that I give them free rein to pursue whatever ends they desire individually and as a group - whether to pursue riches, sloth, power, influence, sex, drink, etc. - and they still manage to form a (mostly) cohesive "brigand platoon" of mercenaries, rather than degenerate into a self-feeding mob.
Ask anyone in the Mafia - infighting weakens all in the community, while cooperation (despite being Evil) brings greater rewards to the whole group. It is a MYTH that Evil creatures cannot form organized teams! Look at Bandits, brigands, slavers, tribes, guilds...they all work toward a common goal - power, wealth, influence...
There are also certain advantages to having a gaming group of all 21+ aged players...
M
While keeping an Evil group of players within the oversight of an 'Overlord' to prevent spontaneous character-vs.-character infighting, abandonment of missions and loss of motivation for anything other than debauchery and chaos might be necessary, depending on the group of players...
I guess its abandon of missions that I would be most concerned with. I'll switch to a modern game example as it might be a little clearer what I'm getting at. If I have two players and they each make a character. Player A makes a character who is a thuggish psychotic sex fiend with a penchant for attacking young girls while player B makes a power hungry assasin intent on taking over some third world country. I say that they start in Grand Central Square where they are approached by a guy in a trench coat selling a new brand of drug...
Well my players might take my adventure hook but it does not really seem to apply to either of their characters. Nor is their reason to believe that my next adventure after this will apply.
On the other hand if I start the set up with some minor restrictions in place I have an easier time. Now I say that whatever else might be true about their character their going to be working for Columbian Drug Lords as foot soldiers. Currently their patron is experiencing trouble due to unusually effective attacks by Columbian government forces and there are rumours among the peasants of Gringo's with black helicopters in the outback.
My players can still both make the same characters above. Now we know that Player A is prone to abusing local peasant girls while player B has ambitions to move up the ranks and hopes to use the organization for her own ends. But their both taking the adventure hook when they are told to go and investigate reports of a downed helicopter in the jungle on the edge of the organizations territory - since we already know that they are both at least initially foot soldiers in the drug cartel. Furthermore if one of teh characters dies I simply have the player roll up another character with the restriction that whatever else she believes or wants she definatly starts off in the pay of Columbian Drug Lords as a foot soldier and will be assigned as the still living players new partner.
Essentially their characters motivations are sublimated into the broader storyline. Same deal in a fantasy campaign where everyone is working in the same cult toward the same ultimate goals. Its not that the characters don't have other motivations its just that they also by design have motivations that are in line with the story arc as well.
Plus designing the cult itself might make offering adventure hooks rather easy...The players could soon get used to getting their marching orders from the an evil Beholder with a penchant for neglecting to mention important details that would have kept some members of the party alive until after they come crawling back from the mission. Later one might find that the Beholder is little more then a mouthpiece for a Draco-lich etc.
Not only is the cult a way to move the players onto the adventure and a easy way of explaining where new players come from and why they are incorperated into the party but it ultimatly is a source of adventure in itself as the party deals with the infighting involved in moving up the ranks of the order. It can also provide an interesting puzzle as the players learn to try and figure out what the ultimate plot of the highest echolons of the organization are before half of them die on the next mission.
Note though that a cult is not the only possible organization a DM could use. All sorts of organizations are possible - a group of conspirators say or an Evil Guild. Anything the DM can think up so long as it allows him/her to integrate new characters easily and keep the players taking the adventure hooks.
I know all to well the frustration of having your players render your storylines inert through ignorance in favor of their own colorful pursuits - I once created a module for my game, just to have the entire group bypass it in favor of pursuing an entirely unrelated goal...I threw out the module and ran random encounters at them...
But that's the nature of a random world where players control the choices; as a DM, I let the players choose their path and create the world around it, which is why strong-storyline campaigns just don't happen much with me...you could say that I'm used to it from running Evil campaigns almost exclusively. I'm good at making the game up as I go, rather than pre-writing 90% of it.
An old friend of mine would take six months to create three sessions worth of material - but damn if it wasn't so good as to be publishable! The problem is, someone else would have to DM for six months in between! :-P
I'm the opposite - I can sit down with book, paper and pencil with a new group, generate characters and I'll think up character backgrounds that tie them all together, give them a starting scenario and have them off and running by the end of the night - with nothing pre-written.
There are certain types of players and certain types of DMs; the best results happen when you get a group together that's complimentary. I think that happens, all by itself, out in the gaming community.
M
OK - I certianly see your point. In part I was thinking of the AP story Arcs when I was recomending something like a cult or some form of overarching story line for the party. That way the DM just has to modify the APs for evil characters and work the cult into the plot line and one can be pretty sure that the players will follow the AP story Arc.
One of the weak points of the APs is they are essentially linier. Players have to progress from one to the next with maybe a few side adventures thrown in.
Your wing it style method is certianly a very valid method. So long as you can manage to stay one step ahead of your players your good to go.
Persionally I lean a little toward your friends style of DMing. I like my campaigns to have over arcing storys but I don't like the adventure to be to much of a straight jacket.
What I do is a kind of matrix style layout. There is a broad overarcing story. All players are told what, broadly speaking, their goals are and some method is concieved of to explain how it is that new characters are welcomed into the party on a pretty constant basis.
Then I start the campaign and I give the players a few options on where they might want to start working toward their ultimate goal. In each of these adventures I drop lots of clues and hints to lots of different paths they could follow up that might lead them closer to their goals. After the adventurers have gone through one of the initial adventures they have as many as a dozen leads they could run down. Further adventures drop more hints. Some recomending adventures known about but not yet taken and others new adventures not before mentioned. So the players are always in control of where they are going and what they are doing but are somewhat limited in scope by their ultimate goals and by whats on offer.
Sure they can run down some side quests etc. but their not allowed to stray to far from the story line for to long.
Ultimatly however all roads lead to Rome and whatever adventure paths they took they will end up heading for their goal and the final showdown as they get into the higher levels.
One thing I find helpful in this sort of a setup is to reverse what is normally done at the begining of the session in most D&D groups. Usually its right at the begining of a session that everyone decides what the party is going to do. What I do is after the experience is dolled out at the end of the night I insist the players grab a soda (or a beer) and sit back and discuss their further plans with each other. I want them to decide where they are planning on going and what are they planning on doing for the next session.
Once they figure this out and report back to me I have at least a week to work out what their actions are going to do. With this system I don't have to make every adventure that I have been dropping clues about. All I really have to know is the basic gist of what the adventure would be about if the players where to follow this lead up. If they do follow up a lead I look up my basic notes and then flesh them out into a real adventure in the intervening week.
Usually with me the clues where pointing to some module (often in Dungion). So if they find information that there is a Leprachaun that knows something about what they are interested in, then I would grab Huddle Farm - rework it for 3.5 and modify it so that the players have to get the Leprachaun to tell them the relivent information - and presumably save the peasants from having their cows painted green along the way.
Jeremy;
Back when I ran 100% original material in the v2.0 days, I had a similar plan for story lines in my head, but I didn't exactly plot them out on a 'matrix'; considering how chaotic my group's choices tend to be, it works best for me. Of course, usually their driving motivation is greed, so if I dangle enough potential wealth in a certain direction, they'll follow...that works too :-)
M
Official closing of this thread:
The campaign continues, here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dnd/campaignJournals/anAdventurePathEv ilVariant2005ToThePresent
That should actually read:
Adventure Path Evil Variant 2003-2004
M
That should actually read:
Adventure Path Evil Variant 2003-2004M
Crap - I can't believe it took me this long to notice the typo - it should read:
PINK FLOYD IS REUNITING FOR "LIVE-8" !!!
WOO HOO!
Let's all hope this leads to some kind of new material.
M
It is done;
The campaign chronicle begun in this thread has been completely posted in the 'Adventure Path Evil Variant 2005 to the Present' thread; the campaign record is up to date, as of last week's game session.
I hope to continue to post to that thread on a weekly basis, usually by Friday or Saturday following the game that week.
Marc
Sorry - cross-post that was intended for another thread wound up here.
M
The campaign chronicle begun in this thread has been completely posted, between this thread and *the second one, here*; now that the Evil group is over, this particular story is over.
I have begun a new thread, chronicalling the adventures of the new, Good party:
*The AP Evil Variant Goes Good 2005-2006*;
The synopsis is up to date, as of last week's game session.
I hope to continue to post each week's session to that thread by Friday or Saturday following that week's game.
Marc
It's been a while since I posted here;
I just wanted to check in and keep both threads of this
Adventure Path Evil Variant 2004-2005
together, along with the thread for
The AP Evil Variant Goes Good 2005-2006;
The collective journal is up to date, as of last week's game session; my continued gratitude for anyone who's kept up with the whole story - you know all of us well enough by now to be a friend of the group.
M
It's been almost two years since I posted on this thread...
I just reread this thread, as well as
Adventure Path Evil Variant 2004-2005
and
The AP Evil Variant Goes Good 2005-2006
Even now, it's still a fun read; the group has, for the most part, moved on due to career, moves and children - doesn't it happen to everyone?
Best wishes to all of my players (three of which are still at my table) and readers who enjoyed the pinnacle of my game with me between 2003 and 2007.
I miss you all,
M
An excellent read Sir Marc, I look forward to perusing your other 2 campaign threads.