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For the past few weeks, we've been running a campaign set in Lilith's "World" D&D Campaign setting, a project that has become a bit of a collaborative effort of a great many people from Paizo to create a really interesting, fresh "Living"-style setting where the efforts of different player groups will eventually (hopefully) lead to ongoing changes and evolution of the campaign world. I've really come to love the World.
The campaign is set in Valadun, a homeland of the Maenid (from Expanded Psionics) an emotionally contrained race with bodies that sheen in sunlight because of a saturation of glittering psionic crystal in their skin. Valadun consists of a chain of tropical lands, many of which have a islander feel.
The characters:
Toman: from the House of Cyga, of the Western Plains of Battle, a wineskin half-orc samurai from a nearby continent called Penesha. He comes from a warrior house proud of its traditions which they claim remain unchanged for 1000 years. He has come to Valadun to avenge a tremendous slight to the honor of his family, wherein a group of mercenaries slew his father and broke the hereditary sword of his family line. With no sword, he travels only in his father's blood-scented armor and kills with his mailed fists. He has vowed to take 100 heads of Valadun warriors to restore the honor of his family.
-Player: Azure Samurai
Dalrond Kolaritus: a new monk of an the Disciples of Order, an monastic order established to defend the values of Law and self-control. They struggle to preserve the Maenid culture in an time when foreign lawlessnes challenges their ancient dignity and way of life. Dalrond grew up amongst the urban splendor of Kaseks, a metropolitan trade nation. Dissatisfied with his foreordained life as a wealthy aristocrat, but equally unfulfilled by the lifestyle of excess and rebellion he adopted to try and fight against it, he was finally offered the opportunity to study and become a Disciple warrior monk and uphold the pride of his culture. His parents were elated to have found something worthy to do with their wayward son, and he was grateful to escape an unfulfilling life. So now he wanders Valadun, trying to enforce the principles he's been taught, but inwardly finds this life acceptable but just as unsatisfying.
-Player: Grimcleaver
Ryek: The son of a powerful knight retainer from the kingdom of Varas, his family has held a tradition of loyal service in the king's army. He finds himself unmoved by grand ideals and little motivated to self-sacrifice. He finds more satisfaction in things that directly benefit him, that put mead in his glass and soup in his bowl. This has garnered him a mix of hero-worship and disdain amongst his own lands, depending on whether they know only of his family's honor--or if they have learned about his own sellsword nature. Not willing to pledge fielty to any man, king or otherwise, Ryek has forsaken his family's plans for him and strikes out into the world beyond Varas to make a life for himself as a mercenary.
-Player: Sel Carim
Story thus far:
Making his way to the coast, Ryek happens upon a small fishing village of palm thatched huts and walkways on the edge of a shallow fishing lagoon. He was hoping for something with a little more of a big city feel, but his grumbling stomach motivates him to stick around for the night at least, and he finds a little chowder house on the beach that offers rooms for travellers.
Meanwhile the monk, Dalrond wanders in, somewhat indignant from a recent ego blasting from his master, Rinar. The village is quiet, no real troubles aside from the everpresent threat of pirates and some concern about dead merfolk turning up in the fishing nets--nothing local. He decides to stay and see if he can find a way to be of help, and as he speaks with a couple of old sea salts fixing their nets on the docks he spots a troubled ship coming in. It's sailing at an odd angle, damaged from a recent storm. He asks to borrow the two men's small rowboat and takes off to find out their intentions and if needful to direct them to the village. As he rows out he stands in the boat, undoing his robe down over his waist, letting the sun glint off of him. Several boats have been deployed. In the first, most prominent is a fully armored wineskin half-orc. It turns out that a great many people aboard are sick and injured, and Dalrond takes the worst of them into his boat and speeds his way back to the village.
The chowderhouse gets converted into a triage, much to Ryek's chagrin. Being the only warrior Toman, the half-orc has seen since getting off the boat, and sensing the opportunity to collect another head, he begins to torment and bully the wandering mercenary. Ryek cautiously tries to brush off the rather imposing samurai who is obviously spoiling for a fight. Dalrond makes his way over, just to make sure things don't get out of hand--ready to interpose himself in case of trouble. Frustrated with what Toman regards as cowardice in Ryek, he offers the man an out. Go outside with him and prove to him that his skills are as feeble as they seem and the half-orc will be convinced that no glory may be had by killing him. Reluctantly, but somewhat bolstered by the monk hanging nearby, Ryek agrees.
The two face each other in the street, villagers scattering. Toman demands Ryek attack him with all he has, while he strikes a defensive stance. The first blow bangs off the wineskin samurai's armor and elicits a laugh from Toman who challenges him to strike harder. With a raised eyebrow, Ryek raises his two handed sword and strikes sure, a massive blow that leaves the bragging half-orc dying from the cut. Immediately Dalrond leaps to action, binding and stablizing the wound and summoning the village healers to take him into the triage. Dalrond talks with the head of the village. He has the samurai's armor stashed away, and convinces Ryek to help him recouperate the samurai. Ryek is convinced the blustering samurai is just too dangerous, and that it would be better to make sure he succumbs to his wounds and poses no further danger to anyone. Nonetheless the two men help the half-orc recover. They reach an interesting accord. Dalrond will help Toman get his heads, but will act as his conscience--so that the heads taken will be carefully chosen, so that the innocent or the virtuous are not sacrificed in Toman's desire for justice. Ryek has decided to go along as well, though whether his motivations are sheer directionlessness and the desire for company are his only reasons, or if he has other hidden agendas, remain to be seen.
Rumors tell of people travelling between villages, or up to the mountain mines, and never returning. Somewhat hopeful Dalrond leads Toman and Ryek out into the wild. They are investigated in camp by a giant scout ant, which sneaks its way in and begins to sniff around Ryek as he sits on guard. The ant is killed and in the area a strange ball is found, filled with cheesecloth soaked in ichor and wrapped in overlapping plates of ant chitin. Toman sniffs it and is disgusted, tossing it away. Ryek stomps it.
Some way into the next day's journey, the group is attacked by a large number of soldier ants. The fighting is fierce and both Dalron and Ryek are seriously hurt. It occurs that the attack might have been connected with the strange smelling sphere--that maybe the scent is a hunting scent that someone has been using to direct the ants to attack specific targets. Toman, enraged, sets off to go find and kill the one responsible, taking Ryek's two handed sword off his back and stomping off. Ryek and Dalron begin a slow, painful trudge to a nearby Varas fort, nearly two days of agonizing march with no sleep and minimal rest.
Toman retraces their steps to the camp, at a run, and begins to search through the surrounding wilderness, stamping around shouting for the coward responsible to show himself. He doesn't find him, but he does find a troll. The battle is doomed from the start, but the samurai cannot conscience retreat--and is mauled into unconsciousness.
The rest of the party make their way to the fort, are healed and talk with the garrison commander. The news that these ant attacks are being directed fascinate him, and Dalrond is able to petition the use of one of the Varas rangers, to help them find their friend. The ranger is a sinister half-knave elf named Nathus. They head out immediately, hoping their half-orc compatriot hasn't already gotten himself killed.
The site of the fight with the troll is found, as is Ryek's sword, blade smeared with gooey black troll blood. Enough of Toman's blood is found too, enough that the party are now convinced they're now looking for a body. Dalrond asks the ranger to lead them to the creature's lair, that he will lead the troll away after him and the ranger and Ryek can retrieve the body. It takes tremendous convincing, but they finally coerce the ranger into going along.
As they travel however, things turn strange. The troll starts off on an atypically long and direct journey at speed, not toward a lair but on a long overland trek. No remains of his feast, so apparently he has not devoured his kill. Strange.
Toman awakes in a slave camp. He is told by one of the other slaves of his fate. A family of yak folk have been gathering workers to tend them, having been exiled from their mountaintop homeland. Toman is put to work with a number of other slaves building a road in the midst of a canyon. Trained krenshar are left to shepherd the slaves and maul those who stop working or who talk too much. Toman makes himself a hero to the slaves, taking their punishments, directing their work, and ensuring they get enough rations. On the third day of his captivity, and well into developing a plot to escape, the rest of the party tracks into the canyon and spots the slaves.
The ranger lures away most of the krenshar, while the Ryek and Dalrond hike down the canyonside to take out the remaining krenshar and free the slaves. Just as they are ready to free the slaves, the yak folk taskmaster returns. Toman challenges him to combat and orders the slaves into combat. The krenshar are killed, and as they die, more fighters are free to join the battle with the yak folk, who has enlarged himself with his magic staff to 12 feet tall, and has summoned a djanni to defend him.
Slaves jump on him with bone knives sharpened from bits of bone taken from the corpses of other slave, plunging the knives into his shoulders and back, and getting thrown off with abandon. But the sudden attack gives Toman a chance to charge the yak folk and thrust his own bone knife twice into the overlord's belly. Meanwhile a maenid slave and Dalrond together use their screams of rage to blast the djanni, damaging it horribly enough that it retreats back and goes invisible. Finally the battle is won. The djanni appears. Cautiously the slaves and adventurers move up to meet with it. Dalrond addresses him, letting him know that his master is dead, and that if it attacks out of loyalty to its dead master that it is now freed from that duty.
The djanni says it does not fight out of duty, but it fights now against those who enslave its kind, that it will help how it can. It produces a hero's feast for the starving slaves and together the group plans how to free the rest of the slaves inside and defeat their yak folk masters...
Oh, for those that haven't been there, here's the entry on Valadun on the World Project:
http://www.dmtools.org/world/index.php/Category:Valadun
We had the next session...
Dalrond sneaks into the camp, stalking from building to building looking for the grandmother of the yak folk, reputed to be a fearsomely powerful dark mage. Finally he finds a secret stair leading to a cottage hidden among the canyon cliffs. Noting a fire escaping the chimney he is able to leap his way up onto the roof with sod and loam enough to plug it up, causing the house to fill with smoke. Minutes later the irate yak woman leaves, small and withered compared to the others. Seizing the opportunity, Dalrond leaps off the roof spear kicking her in the back of the neck. Over the course of the next few rounds he is able to subdue and finally kill the nearly blind old creature, feeling somewhat bad about it. Dragging the body into the cottage, he was surrounded by victims of ritual and experimental vivisection and a collection of dark impliments and tomes. His mind changed, Dalrond lights the cottage on fire.
Meanwhile Toman, Ryek and the slaves recieve the boons they requested of the djanni--Toman's armor and the magical scimitar of the lord of the yak folk. Thanking the djanni, they depart, storming toward the yak folk compound. Toman presents the yak lord with the head of his son, announcing himself and denouncing the yak folk prince's cowardice. The lord, clad in ornate bronze armor rages and charges. Toman charges. They meet in the central plaza and begin to clash. One of the yak folk princes, a dark cleric, raises his magic staff and calls forth a swarm of biting insects onto the battlefield. Ryek and the other slaves flee from the cloud of vermin leaving Toman and the lord of the yak folk to duel in the midst of the stinging swarm--being eaten alive even as they do so.
Dalrond and a handful of slaves make their way into the catacombs to take out the mate of the lord--also a powerful mage--so as to prevent her from making Toman's battle even more difficult. Finally they break her staff of frost and thereafter are able to kill her--though few afterwards are able to help with any other fighting.
After long minutes of fierce combat, Toman is forced to finally withdraw from the insects, having been eaten down to his last hit point. Ryek and a couple of slaves kill the priest son. Seeing all of his sons and wife dead, the lord of the yak folk, still covered in a cloud of carniverous bugs, holds up his staff, vowing as his last act to kill all those who slew his family. In that last instant, everyone who can tries to launch ranged attacks to bring him down. Finally it is one of the slaves who does, with a desparate attack that is finally the last straw that drops the big creature.
The captive household slaves run out to thank their benefactors, and provide healing potions and medical aid. They tell Toman that the daughters commanded their djanni to make them invisible so they could flee. Toman, the ranger, and a number of the most bitter slaves run off to track and kill them. Meanwhile Dalrond finds the area where the yak folk kept the troll as well as numerous other large dangerous monsters to use as body melding vessels. Together with Ryek they destroy them all. As soon as Toman's band returns they begin the process of looting the compound. It's agreed that the slaves having labored to build the place, should share ownership of it. The material possessions of the yak folk are gathered up to be sold, the proceeds to be split evenly among all parties involved in the rebellion, both the slaves and the adventurers alike. The party also looks to be gaining two members--a depressing soulcrushed gnomish slave, and a hill giant Toman befriended during the days he spent enslaved. The latter choice has caused deep foreboding on the part of Ryek and Dalrond...to the point of plotting some rather dark schemes.
Having hauled everything that could fetch a price onto the yak-folk's own massive cart pulled by a motley legion of massive horses, no doubt stolen from their former captives, the party and their train of freed slaves make their way up the winding trade road up into the mountains into Varas. At long last we come to a large city--one of the few large enough to liquidate the tremendous haul of loot we've won, and one of the few places to spend that much money. We each have 15,000 gold once we split it. Most of the party go to get drunk. Dalrond slips away, spends all but 3000 on a pair of winged boots, and flies his way off toward one of his order's old training grounds to donate the rest to the monestary. His old master is floored. When asked Dalrond says the money came "from donations" adopting typical Maenid susinctness. To his great suprize his master nods and accepts this answer, not seeking a longer report. Dalrond stands and swaggers back to the city with a small smile on his face. He'd been waiting a long time to do that. Meanwhile Ryek has outfitted himself with an intimidating assortment of masterwork armors, and Toman has repaired his armor, bought himself a barded warhorse and a horn of blasting--and not suprizingly has gotten himself into a fight. Toman finds a man wrestling anyone willing in exchange for an ever growing pot of winnings. Toman calls the man out, naming himself and asking the man's name. Then they wrestle on a platform, trying to push each other off. Toman finally kicks the other man solidly in the groin and as he collapses tells the man's dwarven relief fighter to keep the pot of money as he's only interested in having his name known.
Meanwhile Ryek and Dalrond desperately ply the streets looking for some lead for more monsters to fill Toman's headbag--unfortunately every story is either humans (who Dalrond is uncomfortable setting Toman against, lest he start getting too used to killing every human he sees) beasts (who have no names, and thus no prestige in killing) or giants (whom the Peneshans are too reverant of to ever kill--an act forbidden in their writ). Finally they find word of a band of orcs who have been pillaging the countryside. Not exactly the kind of wonderous battle that would form a bard's epic--but the best that can be found. Dawn breaks and the company goes off. As they travel, Toman mentions that his head-collecting would go quicker if they formed an army--so the kills of one would be the kills of all, with Toman as the general. Though Dalrond and Ryek immediately are hesitant, it is eventually promised them that such things work differently in Penesha and that by allowing Toman to become their "leader" they will lose neither their autonomy nor their ability to advise--for such are anethema to the writ. As such the pair give their lackluster acquescence.
Eventually they find themselves in a particularly rugged and uninviting area of steep mountains, the buildings built up on stilts so as not to be washed off by runoff from the mountains. It's on the borders of Kaseks from the looks of it--the mountains similar to the ones where the quarriers of Kaseks take the marble they sell across Valadun. Toman announces himself as the head of their three person "army" to the commander of the peasant levvy, and they seem grateful. They have thirty men guarding the entrance to their mines which are now the lair of the orcs, and are trying to rebuild from the damage they dealt in an earlier raid of the town. Toman shouts a challenge at dusk to the orcs within the cave, sounding his war horn. He then turns to the commander and tells him to take his soldiers and leave the fighting to his three men. The commander is insistant that his men are to remain in their guard position to keep the orcs that kill Toman and his men from spilling out into the town and then out to go pillage gods know who--but after much arguing is fine with moving his forces away to medium archery range. That has to do. Toman orders Ryek and Dalrond to set up camp and sleep until nightfall and so in bright sunlight and on bare warm greasy rock, the fighter and monk try their best to sleep. That night there's no response to their challenge, and so at daybreak they go in bearing a torch. Toman rushes forward, running ahead of the other two, confident in his fearlessness and superior vision. He steps in a spike trap smeared with offal, and immediately blames the local garrison and it takes intervention of the rest of the party to convince him that orcs are smart enough to dig a hole full of sharp sticks and cover it with sackcloth. The party goes no further than a few more feet when they hear the first sounds of activity--four orcs. Toman nearly singlehandedly kills all four, while Dalrond hits lots of air, and Ryek nearly succeeds in killing their torch. Toman has taken an axe to the gut and a spike through the foot--but is still good to continue.
And that's where we left off...
Okay so we're making our way down into the absolute black of the cave when the drumming starts, then rumbling up like an earthquake the roars and tramping of scores of feet. Toman sounds his warhorn. The horde comes pouring through, filling the cave. Toman says the dwarvish command word and activates the horn's magical blast--blowing out a cone that tosses orcs through the air, crushing them against stalactites and flattening them under the concussive blast, shattering bones and causing blood to bubble from their battered bodies.
A moment later the next wave comes roaring up, and as the monk and fighter keep them at bay the half-orc samurai blasts his magical horn again. Scores more die. The rest of the orcs retreat fleeing deeper into the cave. We pursue, but as we round a corner hidden orcs cast flasks of fiery burning into the narrow passage through which the others have fled. Unconcerned, Toman secures his mempo and jumps in, but slips in the fiery goo and goes down in the midst of the inferno, catching fire. Dalrond looks over at Ryek, obviously concerned, but doggedly leaps in after him. He also slips into the fire and is burning as well. Toman is already up, and flaming makes his way into the chamber, crushing and burning one orc to death and knocking a second down the screw shaft 50' to his death. Ryek attempts to aid the attack, by slinging a slingstone at one of the attacking orcs, but ends up hitting Dalrond as he jumps flaming to his feet in the attempt to put out his clothes--right in the back of the head and knocking him to the ground.
Toman, finally having defeated all the orcs on this level, uses his waterskin to put himself out and strides his way down the tracked spiral screw shaft to the next level of the mine, spear aloft and hungry for more blood. Burned down to his last hit point, Dalrond limps after, a painful blackened mess of blisters and melted flesh. Ryek, uncomfortably follows, knowing the monk will not abandon his samurai charge. Toman finally meets his end as several orcs come out of hiding and chop him from behind and in front with giant serrated war cleavers. It's a long painful hobble for Dalrond down the spiral shaft, but eventually he reaches the half-orc. He's too heavy to carry in all his armor, so Dalrond is forced to strip it from him and leave it behind. Step by step he drags the body of his companion back up the stair and from there Ryek helps carry him to the entrance of the cave. The leader of the garrison is there, and smugly ignores the horribly wounded party and their dead friend--that is until Dalrond introduces himself as Dalrond Kolaritus, son of Talorik Kolaritus of the merchant house of the same name. Upon hearing that he immediately sends for healing potions for Dalrond and a wagon to carry the three of them back to the Kaseks port city and to his family. Toman is taken and healed, but is bereft of his sixty-some odd heads as well as his father's armor. Dalrond is healed as well, but due to his condition has now formally been forbidden to return to adventuring or monastic life--his parents now unanimous in their resolve that he embrace his fated birthright to become a merchant aristocrat. Ryek is left to wander the beautiful trade city, now alone again and in an altogether foreign place of unknown mystery and intrigue...
So two of the three of us are making new characters. I'll let you know what they turn out to be when they're finalized!
Two new characters:
Azure Samurai has retired Toman and is now playing a young rakish bandit archer named Gawain from the nation of Arcourt, a realm known for its knightly tradition amongst the nobility and the yeoman archer tradition amonst the peasantry. Gawain is a highwayman, but rather than a brutish cutthroat, he opts to be more a flamboyant rogue--putting his ill gotten gains to good use and not taking anything that would do harm to the person he takes it from.
I've retired Dalrond Whiffs the Air, Monk of the Absent Fist, also known as Charcoal Boy or Freddy Kruger in a Gi--and have introduced Videnset Solemnasi, a smooth and sinister Knave Elf Hexblade/Fighter/Warlock. He distinguishes himself against much of knave elf society by the fact that he is not actually evil, though the distinction seems to be a fine one, it puts him as often on the side of truth, justice and galantry as it does on the side of indulgence and mischief. Thouroughly self-absorbed and concerned mostly with his own ego and desire to have a good time as well as deeply sensitive to the reputation of his race and responding to predjudice with contemptuous backlashes. He has been exiled to Ardane from the Dancing Maidens, for reasons that were entirely a misunderstanding and now has attempted to find the most savory locale he can, to try and make a new home for himself--and make himself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
So we played again today. Ryek, wandering the streets of the Kaseks trade city taking in plays and looking to set down roots. He pays to have his money stored in a vault, takes a look into the local housing scene looking to get himself a nice manor, and takes in a few city plays--being completely flustered and irritated by a particular noble lady who attempts to woo him, but instead finds herself just talking through all the good parts of the comedy he's watching to his increasing annoyance.
Videnset wanders his way in on one of the boats and sets himself up in the rich aristocrat section of town in extravagent lodgings where they provide free feasting to your room--somewhat like brazillian dining, where room service periodically just shows up with tasty morsels to offer--and where he need touch nothing but velvet, hardwood, and silk. He then wanders the outdoor bizarres in the cool of the morning, buying jeweled trinkets for himself, and retires to the casino to watch the games and try his luck at the various entertainments.
Gawain has made his way into town, bow unstrung to prove his innocent intentions, and dressed head to toe in impressive masterwork travelling clothes. Helping out a merchant whose wagon had tipped over (and helping himself to some of the high quality silverware scattered about in the process--thank you) he earns the thanks of the local guard and hopefully enough money to set himself up somewhere decent in town.
Everything changes however when bat-riding raiders come swooping into town. People are screaming, panic fills the streets. Videnset, seeing that none of the wealthy posh and utterly worthless folks in the casino are willing to do anything but gawk, he steals some of their money off the tables to teach them a lesson and then takes off into the street to go save the city...because a hero has to do these things of course. Ryek and Gawain are in the streets as the black blurs flash overhead, casting a shadow through the town and chase after them as well. Amid the rioting mobs fleeing the unknown attackers, the bats set down around a noble carriage and begin to try and cut their way inside. They are dark-skinned gnomes--probably svirfneblin, and as some begin to mechanically winch the roof off the carriage others stand by with a net and extra bats to abduct someone. Other bats patrol with bows to disuade the guards from foiling their plans.
Gawain climbs up on a thatched roof and starts putting arrows, two at a time into the bats, drawing almost the entirety of their defense toward killing him. He takes an arrow in the leg, followed by an arrow in the shoulder, but keeps firing arrows whilst also trying to stabalize his wounds and cursing loudly about his ruined clothes.
Videnset begins to fire volleys of eldrich hate at the raiders. The first strikes one of the sitting bats, causing it to take off. It's rider tries to scramble back in the saddle but gets an ankle caught in the reigns and is dragged upside down into the sky. A cleric of the raiders casts a wall of thorns, blocking the guards and Videnset from contributing much more to the defense, though he keeps shooting blasts of dark energy at the bats above as they circle to attack Gawain.
Ryek meanwhile, rushes out into the street, eager to steal himself a giant riding bat. He stabs one raider in the guts with his bastard sword (I'll laugh if I can say "bastard" sword but not "cocks his head") and bashes the rider in the face with an armored gauntlet, jumping into the saddle. The creature squalls its hate, but a thump in the nose with his iron fist is enough to domesticate the giant bat, and still fighting the bat's original owner, they flap the overburdened giant rodent awkwardly down the street.
The raiders get away with the girl they were trying to get, and Ryek and Gawain are able to get hired to rescue her. Videnset, on the other hand, retires to an upscale tavern with a group of hot rich noble girls who saw his heroics. The most appealing of them, he slips a love potion to in one of her drinks, and spends the rest of the evening with her on his arm. Gawain is able to get a mending spell cast on his bloodied and cut up clothes, and his wounds attended to. He also liquidates the silverware and some coinpurses in the process, but is foiled in his attempt to perpetrate an arrow-making scam (the plan being to take a bunch of money and orders and then ditch town) by local laws limiting trade that removes money from the city. So he returns to the more profitable idea of rescuing the damsel, hooking himself up with Ryek and going out into town to get roaring drunk.
The first part of the game was an attempt to get Videnset up to speed with the rest of the party. He's taken aside by a wealthy, if shifty, looking man during his night of carousing. The man offers him a business proposition. He offers a reward of 100 gold for the return of a special pendant worn by the young lady abducted that morning. To be precise, he offers 100 gold to "find" the amulet, and under those terms Videnset accepts. He's given good maps, a nice horse, and provisions for the trip, but is forced to rake one of the man's servants over the coals to even get half the promised gold up front. The gall!
Meanwhile Ryek and Gawain have taken to the woods with a slew of other adventurers to go find the missing noblewoman. Gawain slips off for a moment and happens upon to wealthy young men sitting on a log, scratching their heads over a map. They look pleased to see Gawain, that is until he fires an arrow past one of their ears and demands they hand over their gold. Gawain likewise has his mood ruined when three dark men with crossbows step out of the folliage demanding he and they all hand over their money. Gawain slips off his horse and tries futilly to coodinate an attack against the three readied bandits--in fact the two young adventurers toss out their bags of gold and hold up their hands. Gawain, undaunted, bolts around behind them with his longbow drawn and using the two men as living cover exchanges fletchings with the robbers. He kills them, but in the crossfire both of the men being used as cover take their share of arrows as well. Gawain appologizes as best he can, and goes to find the robbers' horses and whatever medical supplies they might have.
Videnset, having recently come into earshot of the battle, rushes in to see what is happening and tries to administer some aid to the wounded adventurers. Ryek hunts down Gawain and finds all sorts of dead and injured people, and begins quietly to add things up in his mind. Ryek and Gawain question Videnset, who was not at the meeting at the father's house. Videnset spills everything, that he'd been hired for 100 gold to find a necklace belonging to the girl, but that he's been shortchanged and as such figures his deal is forfeit. Gawain draws an arrow on him and says he has three extra coppers for him if he wants. Videnset, flustered by the threat tries to clarify that he has no intention of following through with the offer after having been cheated, but relations between him and Gawain get off to a rocky start.
As they travel together, they find one of the bat riders hanging by his foot from his leather reigns which are tangled in a treebranch, being pecked at by crows. After a good laugh at the rider's expense, Videnset blasts the man down and they get a chance--at a distance--to pick over the body. It's not a svifneblin. It's not clear what it is. Black skin and goggles to block the sunlight, build like a gnome, padded riding gear.
As night falls, it's decided that Gawain will take first watch as Videnset trances and Ryek sleeps. When they awake, they find their clothes sewn together and their horses gone. Furious and swearing revenge Ryek accompanies Videnset back to town. Videnset arranges a room for Ryek at the same lavish hotel and after a few drinks decides to show the warrior the dark underbelly of Kaseks--taking him to a secret speakeasy style fight club on the grounds of one of the city's wealthy aristocrats. They spend the remainder of the night plotting revenge and watching big gladiators break each other's noses and bat one another around with "merciful" weapons.
Meanwhile Gawain rides toward the camp of the bat riders, which is right where it was thought to be, up well above the timberline in the valley of a shallow mountain gorge with no cover but snow and bare rock. Gawain is able to get amazingly close, belly flat against the rock using every rise and crevace as concealment. He's able to see into their camp--and it's ghastly. They've piked the adventurer's they've killed on long poles and the ones they've taken alive they keep in crow cages, taking turns torturing them by burning them with torches. The screams are horrendous. He tries to get close enough to snipe them, or at least to see any sign of the noblewoman among the prisoners, but his luck runs out. He's spotted. A horn is sounded from the palisade tower they have constructed and the camp rushes out to the defense. The bat riders run up the ridge toward their bats, and archers take positions in the palisade to cover them. Gawain empties the palisade of enemies, taking them out one by one, painfully aware of his perhaps insufficient supply of arrows. He's also able to stop a few of the bat riders putting arrows into throats and flanks. Soon however the bats are in the air, and Gawain is forced to flee for the timberline under heavy fire. As he hunkers down behind the trees he sees their main defense--a line of sled mounted tower shields with archers hunkered down behind. They advance and get into position, the bats flying off toward the east, and all is quiet. No attack. They're waiting for something...
Gawain ponders adjusting his aim to maybe fire over the tower shields--or maybe try to ruin a few with armor piercing arrows, but ultimately just hunkers down and waits for what's coming to happen. What happens, ultimately, is bats fly over hucking knockout gas potions--stinking cloud maybe? Regardless, Gawain fails his save and immediately blacks out. This is about where his player just throws his hands up and goes to lie down on the lawn outside.
Ryek and Videnset party the night--and much of the morning away, until in the wee hours they stumble back home and collapse. Sometime in the afternoon they awake, bloated and hung over. They get baths and massages from the staff at the inn and are served various concoctions to take the edge off their misery. When they are finally ready to begin their day, the topic comes up of what to do about Gawain. Ryek suggests that whatever he's done is probably over. He's probably got the girl and has come back already. So the two men go to the house of the girl's father to see if he's back.
On the way they run into two men on horseback--horses that turn out to be theirs! It turns out the men were lost in the woods, having been given faulty maps, and just as despair had come upon them came horses out of the woods that seemed to know their way back to town. Thanks are exchanged and the horses are returned. Videnset examines the two men's maps and discovers they are intentionally wrong. He tells the men, and their eyes narrow dangerously and they head off to rectify matters with the individual who sold them the dodgy map. At the house of the noble, people are still signing up for the search, while others are returning emptyhanded. Lots of them have been robbed.
It occurs to Videnset that perhaps the robberies are themselves the purpose behind the kidnapping--to lure wealthy adventurers out into the wilderness, to separate and confuse them with faulty maps, and then to rob them. He proposes this to the noble who has been signing new adventurers to the hunt, suggesting that perhaps there will be better luck if they are allowed to hunt the bandits--for a bounty perhaps? They get an offer of 20 gold a head, which is graciously accepted. Videnset also betrays the noble who had hired him, telling the whole story to the noble he's been talking to with the hopes that things with him will get speedily sorted out...erhem.
Next they head to the stables to check on Ryek's now huge bat. Videnset is cautious, not wanting to run into any of the men who had contracted him to get the pendant. Ryek finds out to his chagrin, that the now huge bat is not nearly as willing to be bullied by him, and in fact tries to bite his arm off. After some scuffling they get into a reins tug of war, the huge bat winning and pulling Ryek cursing all the way back into the stable. Videnset goes off to perhaps find some kind of charm spell that might be cast upon the animal to bring it under control, and finding a nature cleric who knows just such a spell, brings him back along with him. The spell and some good old fashioned rearkicking get the bat into line, and anxious to try him out, Ryek bids Videnset hop onboard.
Off they flutter--really--really high into the sky. This is when it turns out Ryek has no idea how to really fly a giant bat, and so off they go on a random flight until the bat finally swoops down to grab up a young deer and then perches in a the lower branches of a huge tree to devour it--dumping Videnset and Ryek, hurt and completely lost out in the middle of nowhere. Doing their best to land navigate they make their way back to town...*sigh* inter the huge bat back in the stable (at the cost of much coin and bullying of the owners) and go out robber hunting.
They have the map that the guys who had been shot with crossbows had, and on it the ambush sites. Ryek and Videnset go from one to the next. Ryek pretending to be lost, while Videnset waits in ambush. Finally they strike paydirt and three surly robbers come out with crossbows pointed. Ryek chops one to bits, Videnset uses Earthen Grasp to first grab one, then the last. The first gets crushed to death, but the second is interrogated. Videnset puts a hexblade curse on him and gives him some mumbo-jumbo about how he has three days to get his friends to come out to a "meeting" at one of their wilderness hideouts or "something bad" might happen. Total lie.
But three days later there's a meeting, and the two adventurers lie in wait. Sneaking to the mouth of the cave, the bandits are discussing whether to turn tail and run or try to find and destroy their do-gooder adversaries. Ryek crashes the party, stabbing the weasley guy who looks to be the leader and a melee breaks out. Videnset invokes an arm of earth to guard the lake at the far end of the cave to block escape, and gets ready to give spell support. That's when the forest comes alive with angry shouts and the other seven bandits come out of hiding and charge. That brings the total to 12 bandits. Videnset climbs up the rockpile on the outside of the cave and nestles himself into 2/3 cover, sending out another arm to crush one of the bandit archers. As three rush in for melee he springs down from the rock face and lets them come to him, slicing each in turn with his Combat Reflexes--though for depressingly low damage each. He guts one the next round, but as more bandits join the fray, looses his masterwork sickle to an untimely botch. Undaunted he tumbles out of the combat, springs over to where the sickle fell and prepares for another attack. The bandits instead draw back into a defensive line to let the archers have another go at him. Videnset goes back to cover and invokes another of his earthen arms to crush another archer. One of the bandits hucks a potion of explosions that riddles Videnset with some shrapnel, but he's able to roll away from the worst of it. Then the bad part happens. Up atop the loose rubble, the first bandits close to attack him. He takes an attack of opportunity, botches and the rock gives out under him--leaving him flatfooted and prone, surrounded by enemies. They each take turns clubbing and stabbing him, and before he can get up the next turn, they put him into negatives.
Inside the battle has been rough and bloody, opponents with shortswords and daggers stabbing Ryek while two attacks at a time he chops and gauntlet mashes the hordes to bloody corpses. As Videnset falls, the mob that finished him, rush Ryek. The battle continues, with hacks and stabs and awful crunching until finally it's just Ryek and two more men. The one who betrayed Ryek has his back broken and is dragged into the pool at the end of the cave and is put in face down to drown. The other is given an ultimatum...if Videnset dies, so will he. The last bandit tries valiantly to save him, performing spectacularly as Videnset is one round from death, and granting Ryek a full +5 assist. Ryek has some healing, and all things factored in it comes down to a 50-50 shot. He needs to roll a 10. *clatter* a 1.
Videnset is dead.
The camera pans up as Ryek grabs the man by the neck and the back of the head and begins crunching him against the boulders at the entrance to the cave.
We decided to end the game there. Gawain's player frankly didn't want to know what happened to him, and Ryek's plans were to go see what happened to him. So it made a good break point. Besides this was the second character wipe where Ryek was the last man standing, so it seemed fitting to end it here rather than do another round of character gen...