I know that they have Battled The Scribler (almost TPK) I cant wait to hear about it
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Chosen by Desna
After a few days, Navan, Kerista, Drithnar and Jakardros decided to return to Sandpoint. They were weary from their adventure, and Navan faced the daunting task of bringing many people who had died in the giant raid back to life. After buying the diamonds necessary for some resurrections, Navan prepared the church for the great ceremony with the help of Father Zantus and some of the other priests. A large crowd of people gathered near the church to beg the cleric to resurrect their fallen loved ones first, but Sheriff Hemlock and his men, helped by Kerista, Drithnar and Jakardros, had to keep them out of the cathedral, so that the clerics could concentrate on the upcoming miracles.
The first person that Navan brought back to life was Shalelu. Then followed Erinar, the husband of Kerista’s sister Toloria, and later it was the turn of Larz Rovanky the tanner. All three were very weak from the ordeal of being brought back to life, but they gave their thanks to Navan. Their loved ones were allowed inside the cathedral and led to the quarters where the newly resurrected were slowly recovering. Jakardros spent the entire night by Shalelu’s side.
Navan had also tried to resurrect Father Garmos, the priest of Erastil, but the old man’s soul had politely refused the miracle, stating that he had already been an old man when he died, and that he preferred to give the chance to someone younger to live a worthwhile and enlightening life. He thanked Navan for his kindness, and wished him good luck in protecting Varisia from evil.
The following day, Navan once again performed some resurrection ceremonies, this time bringing back Hannah Velerin the midwife, and Das Korvut the blacksmith. He also tried to resurrect Savah Bevaniky, the owner of the town’s armory, but the spell mysteriously failed. He tried again several times, on other bodies, but without success.
Father Zantus and the acolytes of Desna were surprised to see the miracle fail for no apparent reason, but suggested that perhaps Navan was tired, or that Desna’s magic needed some time to recharge. That night, Navan contacted Desna via divination and asked her if anything was wrong. He did not receive an answer right away, but fell asleep after smoking some holy herbs, and was visited by an image of Desna that bid him to join her in her celestial realm for a while.
The following day, the staff of the Rusty Dragon alerted Drithnar and Kerista that their friend had vanished. Indeed, Navan’s room was empty, and it looked as though the cleric had mysteriously teleported away without leaving any note behind. For several days, the two companions searched for him in vain, and were joined by Ruh the next time she contacted them by Sending. Ruh tried all the magic she could think of to locate Navan, but to no avail.
Finally, a few days later, Navan reappeared by himself in Sandpoint. His companions were relieved to see him alive and well, yet were quite surprised at how his appearance had changed. His hair was now snowy white, and he wasn’t dressed like a Varisian vagabond anymore, but rather, he wore long immaculate white robes. In his eyes, they saw a peace and a wisdom where before there had been only wanderlust; but they also saw a powerful resolve, for now Navan had received a holy quest from his goddess. Though he never revealed the details of what he’d experienced in the holy plane of Desna, he told his companions that she had named him one of her chosen and had tasked him with the defense of all Varisians against the great evil from ancient times that was about to rise and threaten them anew.
Desna had also warned Navan that resurrection was not to be used lightly. Mortals were meant to be brought back from death only in the most dire emergencies, and it was for the gods to decide who deserved to return to life. Only the greatest heroes and champions of various faiths should be brought back from beyond death; though every mortal had the potential of being a creature of wonder, and each life should be cherished to the fullest, death was a natural part of the cycle of existence, and should not be thwarted.
So the rest of the victims of the giant raid were not resurrected, but rather, were buried with all due ceremony in Sandpoint’s graveyard.
Ruh’s studies
Now that the four companions had defeated Mokmurian and had saved Varisia from the invasion of an army of giants, they were more famous than ever. Once again, they were honored in a ceremony in Magnimar where they received medals, and they were admired by many. Yet their next goal was not clear: they’d heard about the wicked Runelord Karzoug, who was seemingly about to return, but they had no idea where he would appear, what exact form his threat would take, or how to defeat him. They felt a sense of urgency to find a solution to the menace, yet the information they could find was in the library below Jorgenfist – and the volume of information there would take several months for even Ruh to process.
So for the following months, Ruh spent a lot of time studying in Jorgenfist. Also present were Dwillvir the Frost Giant oracle, as well as Sebania, who also brought her two colleagues from Twilight College, Ralazan Stormcloud and Melrod Griggock, to study there with her. The wealth of information contained in the library, and from Mokmurian’s spellbooks, would greatly help the wizards of Twilight College, bringing that academy, which preached an unconventional way of using magic, on-par with the more renowned schools such as the Stone of Seers in Magnimar or the Acadamae in Korvosa.
As the months passed, Ruh had the chance to meet some of Dwillvir’s allies among the giants. From the Cloud Giants came the noble Duke Vidarian, a powerful bard who was as handsome as a god, and representing the Storm Giants was the Storm Priest Kamanar, a mysterious and gigantic purple-skinned cleric of Gozreh. They did not stay for long at Jorgenfist, but came several times to learn what Dwillvir, as well as Ruh and the other smaller sages, had learned from the ancient texts.
Ruh compiled some of the information she found on ancient Thassilon, and especially the Runelords, in a book that she handed to the Pathfinder society, which she had joined. The venture-captains were pleased with the submitted information, and several other pathfinders asked Ruh to show them where to find this mysterious library, but she kept the location of Jorgenfist secret for now, guessing that some of her fellow guild members were not of the most scrupulous kind.
She did, however, bring a few scribes from the Stone of Seers with her to the library, as well as her beloved master, Nulius Cornaban. The old gnome was immensely proud of his little apprentice. In the past few years, the aged mentor had been living a somewhat humdrum life in Magnimar, and his hair and skin had begun to show signs of the Bleaching that threatened the lives of gnomes who didn’t have enough excitement in their lives. But the discovery of all these ancient texts, the layout of the ruins of the Therassic Monastery, Ruh’s tales of victory over Mokmurian, and meeting the strange giants from the northern lands were tremendously exciting for master Cornaban, and all this blew a fresh wind of excitement into his life.
Ruh had chosen to bring the scribes from the Stone of the Seers because she felt that she could trust them more than the Pathfinders. She trusted Leis Nivlandis, the wise master of the Stone of the Seers, as well as the people under him. From time to time, Ruh was also invited to give a conference on ancient Thassilon, as well as on the art of conjuration, at the university.
Ruh decided to cast a permanent Arcane Sight on herself, and her now brightly glowing blue eyes surely contributed in giving her a heroic appearance.
Navan’s new life
Navan had been profoundly changed by meeting Desna. He now sensed that he had a purpose: the defense of Varisia. He felt more responsible for the Varisian people, and for the worshippers of Desna everywhere. He spent a lot of his time traveling Varisia, going from shrine to shrine and spreading his faith. Sometimes, he accepted to take a few acolytes with him to share his wisdom with them; other times, he traveled alone and explored the depths of his own soul at the same time as he explored the beautiful wilderness of Varisia.
Now and then, Navan also stopped for a few weeks in Magnimar, where he helped the priests of Desna take care of the temple. During those times, he also enjoyed Acacia’s company. Although the red-haired captain would’ve liked to have Navan at her side more often, she knew that she could not tame his free spirit, and she appreciated his presence when she could get it.
Near the end of the month of Arodus came Navan’s 29th birthday, which he celebrated in Sandpoint with his three adventuring companions, and with several of the people he’d grown to love in that beautiful town, including Father Zantus, Mayor Deverin and Ameiko, as well as of course his relatives, Kaven and Madam Mvashti.
The protectors of Sandpoint
Though there had been some tension at the end of the last adventure, it was just part of life as a couple between Drithnar and Kerista, and it was soon forgotten. The two lovers had the time to enjoy each other’s company in the few months after their victory over the giants. Kerista was happy to be at home in the coastal community, close to her family and the people she loved most. She and Drithnar were able to successfully keep things very quiet in the town during that time – they were easily powerful enough to deal with any miscreant, Sczarni, wild animal or group of nasty goblins who tried to cause trouble in the region. Indeed, the citizens of Sandpoint were very relieved to have two of their beloved heroes staying close by to defend them.
Drithnar, as a worshipper of Desna, wasn’t quite as comfortable as Kerista staying in the same place for so long, and he found himself traveling every now and then, going on hunting trips or exploration journeys of a few days at a time, sometimes alone, sometimes with his friends Shalelu and Jakardros, who also remained in the Sandpoint region after their last adventure.
Every now and then, Kerista and Drithnar also traveled together. They each bought a custom-made, very powerful weapon from the skilled smiths of Magnimar. Kerista got a massive adamantine Earthbreaker, adorned with the symbol of Sarenrae. It had been blessed by a high priest of her faith to cause terrible damage to evil beings. Drithnar’s new weapon was a beautiful cold iron longsword engraved with butterfly designs along the pommel, and engraved with giant runes which read “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”, a token of his hatred for his favored enemies.
They also traveled together to Korvosa, to return a magical shield that they’d found among Galenmir’s war trophies. Sebania had told them that it had belonged to Anstan Jeggare, a noble from a powerful family in Korvosa, who would likely pay a large sum to get the shield back. The two lovers were also eager to visit Korvosa, where neither of them had ever been. They went there despite the rumors of rampant chaos in the city. Indeed, its ruler, King Eodred II, had died earlier that year, leaving his arrogant young wife in charge. Apparently, Queen Ileosa was a poor ruler indeed, because plague and anarchy had raged in Korvosa in the past few months.
Once the two adventurers got there, they immediately saw that the rumors had been right: the city was in a sad state indeed. There had been many casualties from the plague and riots earlier in the year, and the populace was now living in a state of fear, with patrols of special warriors patrolling the streets, maintaining a strong grip over the city, to protect the citizens from thieves and other undesirables. It seemed that Queen Ileosa had not taken the chaos of the past months lightly, and she now held the city within an iron grip. Korvosa did not seem to be a pleasant city to live in, especially compared to Magnimar.
Drithnar and Kerista visited the estate of the Jeggare family, who received them well and were delighted to be given back their family heirloom. They listened to the adventurers’ tales of heroism with rapt attention, fascinated to be in the presence of two such heroes. In comparison the tales of Montlarion Jeggare, explorer, philanthropist and founder of the Jeggare noble house, seemed trivial indeed.
Although they received the hospitality of the generous house Jeggare, Kerista and Drithnar also spent a few days in the streets of Korvosa, helping as they could. Kerista cured a few poor people still suffering from the plague, and both of them helped some innocent people who were being bullied by thugs. It seemed like there was a lot to do in Korvosa to help restore peace and prosperity – the city guards did not seem to be doing a good job at all, in fact, in some cases, their harsh ways were making things worse for the inhabitants.
Yet Kerista felt that this wasn’t right – she and Drithnar were needed in Sandpoint. She felt that their destiny did not lie in Korvosa, but rather, that it was up to other heroes to help this city in peril. Thus, reluctantly, the paladin and the ranger sailed back to Magnimar, and later returned to Sandpoint.
In the weeks that followed, Drithnar began to consider forming his own troop of mercenaries, a group of skilled warriors who could travel Varisia and try to help those in need. Over the previous months, he and Kerista had spent some time training Sheriff Hemlock’s men to improve their fighting skills. Drithnar was very harsh on them, and the men grew to hate him over time; Kerista had a gentler touch, so she was much more loved. But the soldiers of Sandpoint had only limited potential and could only become so good, even with all the training in the world.
Drithnar had a more elite group in mind. He wanted to create a new order that would be somewhat like the Black Arrows. Shalelu was very interested in the proposal, Jakardros less so, as he felt his fighting days were mostly behind him. A few hopeful admirers of the two heroes also applied to join Drithnar’s group, though most were turned down due to their lack of experience and skill. Drithnar also contacted the two mercenaries that the group had met on their way to Jorgenfist: the dwarf warrior Goldbraid and the human bard Selkiar Farshelter, previously of Viorian Dekanti’s Whispering Blades mercenary company in Riddleport.
Wealday, Rova 21st, 4708
The Swallowtail Festival
On Rova 21st, the companions all met once again in Sandpoint to attend the town’s celebration of the Swallowtail Festival, a holy ceremony to Desna and the first day of fall. It was one year ago that day that Navan, Ruh and Drithnar had met Kerista, had fought together for the first time against goblin raiders, and had taken the first step into becoming the acclaimed heroes that they were now. Only one year had passed, and yet, it seemed like an eternity ago. So many things had happened!
Little children dressed up as goblins paraded the streets, bard sang songs, Varisian dancers impressed the crowd with their fancy moves, the notable citizens of the town pleased the crowd with fancy speeches of hope and victory against insurmountable odds, and of course, the heroes were celebrated as the main event of the festival, which could not have taken place without them, because there likely wouldn’t be much left of Sandpoint without them, between the goblin attacks, ghoul epidemics and giant raids that had threatened the community over the last year.
All four companions were proud and thankful for the honor, yet they were also a bit shy to be in the spotlight like this. All four of the heroes were somewhat introverted individuals.
Drithnar was painfully reminded of the unpleasant memories of growing up as a half-orc among a community that, despite its best intentions, pitied and mistrusted him. He had had to die to become somebody he felt comfortable being. He had to be killed by the woman he loved more than anything to realize that true love actually existed within his heart for someone more deserving.
Kerista remembered the horrors of Chopper’s rampage, and the following few years when she’d descended so far into madness that her own family had had to lock her up in an asylum. Only the holy light of Sarenrae had been able to cure her broken mind and give a purpose to her life.
The adventurers had come fully armed and armored to the celebration, perhaps out of a subconscious fear that the feast would once again be interrupted by disaster, but fortunately, that was not the case, and they were able to have a good time surrounded by their loved ones.
Around them, Kaven flirted with pretty women, since Shayliss had dumped him once she’d found out that he wasn’t a true hero like his brother. The gruff Das Korvut and the usually dour Larz Rovanky had found a new taste for life after they had been resurrected by Navan. Although they didn’t work as hard as before and people couldn’t get quite as much wares to buy, the two men laughed and cheered merrily during this festival, for the first time in many years.
This year, Ameiko had not cooked anything herself, since now her friend Bethana the halfling was in charge of the inn. Ameiko had something else that was occupying her thoughts these days: she was pregnant with Belven’s child!
Many travelers from Magnimar and Galduria had come to Sandpoint for the festival, and the town made great profit from the event. Sandpoint had become much more renowned in the recent year due to the dire events that it had survived, and many people had in fact traveled to the festival only to catch a glimpse of, and perhaps even talk to, the four now legendary heroes of Sandpoint.
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The characters are now level 12. Here’s some updated information about them.
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Navan Attaway (CG Male Human Rogue Level 2, Cleric Level 10) – Worships Desna
Str: 8 Dex: 18 Con: 12 Int: 14 Wis: 23 Cha: 14; AC: 20, HP: 96
Height: 5’10”. Weight: 136 lbs, Age: 29, Date of birth: Arodus 20, 4679
White hair, brown eyes, wears immaculate white robes over a light chain shirt, as well as a cool feathered hat. Fights with a crossbow.
Feats: Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus: Light Crossbow, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot, Crossbow Mastery, Silent Spell.
Weakness: Weaker Fortitude.
Skills: Appraise 6, Bluff 9, Climb 0, Concentration 14, Diplomacy 13, Disable Device 13, Disguise 3, Gather Information 3, Hide 6, Knowledge: Religion 6, Spot 13, Open Lock 12, Search 14, Sense Motive 10, Sleight of Hand 6, Spellcraft 6, Swim 2, Tumble 9.
Main gear: Flaming Light Crossbow +1, Periapt of Wisdom +6, Cloak of Resistance +4, Hat of Disguise, Gloves of Dexterity +2, Boots of the Mire, Ring of Protection +2.
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Ruh (NG Female Gnome Wizard [Conjuror], Level 12) – Worships Sarenrae and Nethys
Str: 8 Dex: 16 Con: 16 Int: 23 Wis: 10 Cha: 10; AC: 19, HP: 79
Height: 3’3”. Weight: 32 lbs, Age: 67, Date of birth: Gozran 27, 4641
Brown hair, glowing blue eyes, dresses like a gipsy. Has an elaborate Varisian tattoo. Fights with a small glowing staff.
Feats: Scribe Scroll, Wizard’s Staff, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Augment Summoning, Varisian Tattoo: Conjuration, Quicken Spell, Maximize Spell, Energy Substitution (Cold).
Skills: Concentration 17, Craft: Alchemy 10, Hide 9, Knowledge: Arcana 20, Knowledge: Religion 12, Knowledge: History 11, Knowledge: Geography 7, Knowledge: Planes 18, Spot 6, Search 8, Sense Motive 1, Spellcraft 19.
Main gear: Cloak of Resistance +1, Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Force Shield, Amulet of Natural Armor +1, Gloves of Arrow Snaring, Meta-Magic Rod of Maximize, Robe of Runes, Fogcutting Lenses.
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Drithnar (NG Male Human Ranger, Level 12) – Worships Desna
Str: 20 Dex: 20 Con: 15 Int: 12 Wis: 14 Cha: 8; AC: 26, HP: 99
Height: 6’1”. Weight: 210 lbs, Age: 23, Date of birth: unknown
Long black hair, green eyes, ruggedly handsome, wears a chain shirt under heavy traveler’s clothes and wields a Longsword and a War Razor.
Feats: Track, Dodge, Two-Weapon Fighting, Endurance, Mobility, Two-Weapon Defense, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Big Game Hunter, Lightning Reflexes, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Blind-Fighting.
Favored Enemies: Giants (+6), Undead (+2), Dragons (+2).
Skills: Balance 14, Climb 19, Heal 3, Hide 19, Intimidate 20, Jump 6, Knowledge: Nature 14, Ride 6, Search 9, Spot 17, Survival 17, Swim 5, Tumble 21.
Main gear: Cold Iron Keen Longsword +3, War Razor +1 (Aldern’s), Chain Shirt +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Belt of Giant Strength +4, Ring of Minor Cold Resistance (10), Ring of protection +2, Gloves of Dexterity +4, Cloak of Elvenkind.
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Kerista Vigandir (LG Female Human Paladin, Level 12) – Worships Sarenrae
Str: 22 Dex: 12 Con: 14 Int: 8 Wis: 14 Cha: 17; AC: 24, HP: 128
Height: 5’10”. Weight: 170lbs, Age: 19, Date of birth: Kuthona 9, 4688
Long dark brown hair, brown eyes, attractive but a bit on the heavy side, wears a beautiful golden plate armor and wields an Earthbreaker.
Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Iron Will, Weapon Focus: Earthbreaker, Big Game Hunter, Improved Critical: Earthbreaker.
Skills: Climb 1, Diplomacy 13, Knowledge: Religion 4, Ride 2, Sense Motive 17.
Main gear: Holy Adamantine Earthbreaker +2, Full Plate Armor +3, Ring of Protection +2, Sihedron Medallion, Cloak of Charisma +2, Belt of Giant Strength +4, Phylactery of Undead Turning.
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SINS OF THE SAVIORS
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Fireday, Neth 5th, 4708
Glass, Blood and Wrath
For about six weeks after the Swallowtail Festival, the companions went about their business in peace. Finally, it seems that adventure came knocking at their door once again. Ruh had taken the habit of contacting her friends via Sending spells every other day. Around noon that day, she contacted Kerista and got a frantic reply from the paladin: apparently, something dangerous had happened in Sandpoint, and Ruh and Navan were needed there!
The two spellcasters teleported into town and soon met Drithnar and Kerista within a large crowd gathered outside of the glassworks. Ameiko and Sheriff Hemlock were there was well, speaking with some of the workers.
Earlier that morning, two of the employees of the glassworks had been attacked in the basement. The other workers had heard their horrible screams from upstairs, as well as growls and howls that seemed to be emitted by huge dogs. They had fled the building, not wanting to risk a fate similar to that of their colleagues, or to the previous workers who had died a year before. They contacted the Sheriff, who in turn called in Drithnar, Kerista and Kaven. The three warriors ventured into the basement of the glassworks and found traces of carnage. One of the men’s bodies still lay on the floor, horribly mangled, while the other had obviously been dragged off toward the catacombs.
The three followed the bloody tracks and suddenly found themselves surrounded by mist. Several large, monstrous black dogs with leathery, spiky hides attacked them suddenly. While the heroes fought them, they had a feeling that something else was hiding in the mist. Kaven found himself paralyzed, but Drithnar and Kerista managed to slay two of the hounds. The presence in the mist called out in a strange tongue, and fled with the rest of the hounds. Feeling that this was very dangerous, Drithnar and Kerista brought Kaven back to the surface with them, deciding that they were better off waiting for Ruh and Navan to join them before investigating further. Kaven came back to his senses soon after, and by luck, Ruh happened to call just after the incident.
After having prepared themselves, the four companions ventured into the glassworks, under the excited eyes of a crowd of onlookers, who were eager to see the heroes in action. Only a few looked truly worried, and among them was Ameiko, who rubbed a hand over her swollen belly. Her family’s factory had been attacked from below once again. Was there no end to these waves of evil? Was there any hope for her child to grow up in peace in Sandpoint?
It was a very strange feeling for the four adventurers to return to the glassworks, and to the catacombs below them. As they walked from room to room, memories flashed back within their minds of the adventure they’d done a year before: finding the butchered workers and killing the goblins who’d murdered them; saving Ameiko and defeating Tsuto; their first battle against a Sinspawn; the fights against the Quasit “queen”; the fight against the flying Vargouille whom Navan had pinned to the ceiling with a perfectly aimed crossbow bolt; the brutal battle against Koruvus, the mutant goblin who’d almost killed Kerista in that room filled with terrible pits within which lived faceless, groaning zombies.
Overall, the catacombs were mostly in the state of the characters had left them. The corpses of their foes were still there, in an advanced state of decomposition. They saw the thick trail of blood, and the site of the fight where the bodies of two hideous dogs still lay, broken and hacked off by Kerista and Drithnar’s weapons. Ruh examined them attentively, and said they looked like some especially strong Shadow Mastiffs. Following the tail of blood, the companions came to the ancient shrine of Lamashtu, where the corpse of the unfortunate worker had been offered in sacrifice to the dark goddess.
The group then entered the quasit’s room and saw that the pool of cold fire was burning bright once again. Ruh thought that it seemed even more powerful than before. The energy of the pool was tremendous. The heroes poured a bit of blood inside, and a Sinspawn emerged. Thankfully, the group was now much more powerful, and such a simple foe did not threaten them in any way. After dispatching it, they poured more blood, and more, and more. Each time, more Sinspawn emerged, and were killed, but to their dismay, the companions realized that now, the pool didn’t seem to be draining of energy anymore.
“It seems as though something’s fueling it… we have to find the source!” said Ruh.
“Yes,” agreed Navan. “We should search the complex further.”
The rest of the complex was in much the same state as it had been a year before, with the exception of one set of stairs that had previously been blocked by rubble. It had now been cleared of rocks, but instead, it was now blocked by thick webs. From the stairs came a thick mist similar to the one Drithnar and Kerista had been stuck in earlier.
Deeper into the Catacombs
Ruh cleared the webs with a Flaming Sphere spell, and the group went down. At the bottom of the stairs was a dead end. The group unsuccessfully searched for secret passages, and Ruh decided to look with a spell, which succeeded in detecting a secret door in a wall. The adventurers opened it and entered inside a room so thickly filled with fog that they couldn’t see past five feet away.
“No problem!” said Ruh cheerfully, “I’ll use Mokmurian’s Fogcutting Lenses!”
Also, be careful when reading this section’s descriptions out loud. Some doors are mentioned in the boxed texts…but the PC’s aren’t supposed to be aware of them due to the Guards and Wards illusion.
The group walked forward carefully, ready for combat, guided by Ruh. They passed through a narrow tunnel within a caved-in section. Ruh could see a strange glow in a big room ahead of them, and to the right, a corridor opened. The walls, floor and ceiling of the room were covered with Thassilonian writing, some of which seemed to be prayers to Lamashtu, some which seemed to be only the ravings of a madman. Some of the writings were in blood, some in ink, others chiseled within the stone. While the heroes were wondering what to do, a mysterious rasping voice hailed them in a language that only Ruh vaguely understood: Thassilonian!
The man asked the companions what they were here for. He was hard to understand, because Ruh was still unfamiliar with the spoken version of Thassilonian. He tried speaking in Giantish, which went better, as he was able to speak with Navan and Drithnar in that tongue.
The companions learned that the man was called Zilamak and had once been a warrior in the service of Runelord Karzoug, in ancient Thassilon. He’d been captured and tortured by the vile Runelord Alaznist for information. Later, he’d been cast in a magical prison and had only recently escaped. He found himself disorientated and wondering where he was.
He also asked the characters some questions and they told him that ten thousand years had passed, and that the land of Bakrakhan had sunk under the sea, and that the ruins of this Hellfire Flume were now in a land called Varisia, below the town of Sandpoint. The man was surprised to learn that the land was no longer controlled by mighty runelords, but by aristocrats and merchant-lords who wielded no great arcane power.
The companions remained somewhat wary, casting divination spells at the man, who remained invisible within the fog – even Ruh couldn’t see him. They detected neither good nor evil from him. Since Ruh was surrounded by magical fog, if he had been invisible, she couldn’t have seen him with her Arcane Sight. The companions tried to get close to the man, walking into the north tunnel, but he seemed to cast a spell and leave.
The Temple of Lamashtu
Leaving that dead end, the companions entered the large room with the glowing floor. They saw that the red glow actually came from an enormous image of the face of Lamashtu’s three-eyed jackal. Ruh looked around and saw the remains of an ancient cathedral, with alcoves inside which were idols of Lamashtu. The entire place was badly damaged as though it had suffered from an earthquake. On the intact surfaces, Ruh could see more of the deranged writings.
There, the group was again contacted by the rasping-voiced man who asked more questions. The heroes also asked questions and learned that he’d seen a bent, long-limbed strange creature leading a pack of black monstrous dogs through this room earlier. The companions asked him to touch them, but he could not, as though he were some kind of invisible ghost. They also asked him about religion, and wondered if he knew who had lived in this despicable shrine of Lamashtu.
The conversation was interrupted by Kerista – who couldn’t understand a single word of it.
“Oh! Friends! I sense a great evil here!”
“It’s just this room, it’s a shrine to Lamashtu,” replied Navan.
“No, no, it’s a creature, it’s coming, look ou-“
But it was too late: the group was under attack!
A burst of chaotic lights and sounds erupted around the adventurers. Kerista was particularly affected by the chaos effect, and felt herself not only wounded, but also slowed. Ruh and Drithnar took less damage, and Navan was completely unaffected, being himself of a chaotic nature.
To their horror, the companions saw a huge demon appear before them in the eerie mist. The creature towered more than fifteen feet in height and was truly monstrous in appearance: its head was that of a terrible hound with glowing eyes, and from its massive torso grew two muscular arms with clawed hands and two even larger arms with wicked pincers at the end.
“A Glabrezu!” gasped Ruh.
Drithnar bravely ran ahead, dodging the swinging claws, and drove his sword deep into the demon’s bowels with a powerful blow. The creature roared in anger and pain, and then grabbed the ranger in his claws, painfully constricting him, and also bit him.
The companions heard the voice of the mysterious invisible man chant spells again – it seems that he’d fooled them all along and was in fact a foe. Two of the monstrous black hounds appeared near the group, one attacking Navan and the other attacking Kerista. Ruh, who was flying, was thankfully out of reach of them. The vile hounds bayed and the sound would’ve brought terror to the hearts of lesser mortals, but the brave companions fought on despite the sound.
Ruh unleashed a powerful Disintegrate spell on the demon, which gravely wounded him. Navan cast a Dismissal spell at it, but the creature resisted. Kerista, who was still reeling from the chaos hammer that had struck the group, attacked one of the hounds and wounded it with her powerful new weapon.
Drithnar was in terrible danger, grappled by the demon and attacked by its many strong limbs. He desperately tried to wound the creature with his war razor, but could not penetrate the outsider’s ultra-hard skin.
The invisible man cast another spell, and this time, a demonic wolf appeared behind Navan. It looked similar to the demon Malfeshnekor that the companions had defeated long ago, except that it was smaller. Poor Navan was badly maimed by the creature, and the dark hound. Then, he was attacked by the invisible man, who finally appeared before him: he towered at twelve feet in height, and wielded a wicked-looking falchion with saw teeth on its blade. The man’s black hair was long and wild, and one of his eyes was milky white. In the other eye was a raging fury: the madman clearly lusted for the destruction of the four heroes.
He chanted in a guttural tongue that seemed to be one from the lower planes, and the companions only understood the name “Lamashtu”. With great might, the man brought his blade down against poor wounded Navan, and he felled the cleric of Desna!
While he was laughing cruelly, Ruh cast a Greater Orb of Cold and a Quickened Magic Missile at the demon. The creature roared and looked very close to death, but it kept on fighting. Kerista, feeling despair at seeing Navan fall, turned around and slew the barghest that had recently appeared, cleaving with her mighty weapon and wounding one of the black dogs. She tried to kill the dog, but the creatures were very hard to hit, as they hid in the shadows of the mist, which even the light emitted by Drithnar and Kerista’s weapons wasn’t sufficient to disperse.
The end seemed near for Drithnar, who almost got cut in two by the powerful demon’s pincer. Meanwhile, Kerista was attacked by two of the hounds, and the companions could hear the barking and howling of several more dogs heading toward the battle. The priest of Lamashtu cast a protective spell on himself, and cast a Spiritual Weapon spell, making a shimmering falchion appear near Ruh, attacking her.
Despite this, the wizard cast a Maximized Lesser Orb of Cold at the demon, and slew it! The great being let go of Drithnar and roared in agony, as he was consumed by hellfire. And then he was no more. Kerista moved toward the summoner and smote him with a powerful blow of her holy Earthbreaker.
Drithnar, on the verge of dying, drank a potion and heard some hounds enter the room. He barely had time to lift his weapons as two of the beasts bounded toward him. Meanwhile, the other two hounds attacking Kerista managed to bite her painfully, and to make her fall down to the ground. The summoner, grinning, struck the fallen paladin with his wicked falchion. He then cried out in pain as Ruh blasted him with a Greater Orb of Cold. Kerista also managed to hit him from her prone position; by then, the evil man was badly wounded.
Bleeding from many wounds, Drithnar was bravely fighting the two hounds. He caused them nasty wounds, but also missed some of his attacks because of their shadow-hiding ability, although he had trained to fight invisible foes and was better at it than most warriors.
Two more hounds entered the room and headed toward the prone Kerista. The summoner, bleeding and frozen from his wounds, stepped back and healed himself fully with a single powerful prayer. Meanwhile, Ruh started summoning something. Kerista killed one of the hounds, but found herself surrounded. Still lying on the ground, she was in a very vulnerable position.
Meanwhile, poor Navan was still lying unconscious, bleeding more and more.
“Why did you attack us, you damned freak?” roared Drithnar in the tongue of giants.
“Because you defiled this temple with your unworthy presence and insulted the name of my mighty mistress, the all-powerful Lamashtu!” spat the summoner. “And for this, you will all die!”
Drithnar fought on, killing one of the hounds, but he saw yet two more enter the room. Things were starting to look very bleak indeed…
The summoner cast a Dispel Magic spell on Ruh, canceling her Overland Flight and her Mage Armor. The little mage fell painfully to the ground, but kept on casting her summons and called a mighty Celestial Polar Bear to appear behind her foe. The great beast struck the priest with both paws, wounding him and grappling him in a tight embrace, but alas, the man was protected by some magic and easily escaped the bear’s hug. Ruh then cast a Dispel Magic of her own at the man.
Kerista killed another dog, and was worried that she needed to get to Navan to prevent him from bleeding to death. Drithnar still faced two hounds, and the last dog was running toward Ruh, who was now vulnerable on the ground, being nastily wounded by the flying spiritual weapon.
The summoner dispelled Ruh’s bear, and the gnome tried to hit him with an Orb, but missed. Kerista stood up and healed Navan back to consciousness with her Lay on Hands ability, but she was badly bitten by two hounds doing so and got tripped back to the ground.
Drithnar slew another hound, but now, the summoner was gloating in glory: all four adventurers were covered in blood, almost dead, with two of them writhing at his feet.
“And now,” he chanted in Thassilonian, “I will sacrifice you in the name of glorious Lamashtu!”
He raised his fanged falchion high above his head, and brought it down in a great blow against Kerista. The paladin cried out in pain, with blood pouring out between the joints of her armor, and she went limp: she had been vanquished.
With a snarl, Navan reached out from his prone position and touched the summoner’s leg, unleashing into him the might of a Slay Living spell. The vile man looked down in surprise and suddenly shrieked in pain, as the powerful magic invaded his body. He dropped his bloody weapon, and paced back a few steps, shrieking louder and louder as he was consumed. Finally, he fell, slain by Desna’s will.
Alas, Ruh was faring poorly, having lost her magical defenses, and she was brought down by one of the dark hounds. Navan cast a Sanctuary spell on himself and tried to stand up to go heal his friends, but despite the magical protection, one of the hounds succeeded in attacking him, bit him, and brought him back down, biting him viciously and making the priest lose consciousness.
Alone among the group, Drithnar fought on, bleeding from many wounds. He faced four of the dark hounds by himself…
Yeah if you throw the kitchen sink at them in this room is going to be deadly ( but the boards said he would be a pushover)
Now I see what the Hounds are for Triping the PCs
Great story and I really like the idea of moving it back to the old Catacombs and it gives the PCs more time to build items and wander around
SO what happened to Navan is that purely Roleplaying change to his character?
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SO what happened to Navan is that purely Roleplaying change to his character?
Yes. The player had been struggling with the concept of Navan for a while. When he'd created him, he had a low-level, ruin-exploring, vagabond, Indiana Jones-like character in mind. As he got higher in levels, the concept and the reality of Navan clashed. Also, the character should've been a Bard or a Rogue in his mind. But he had to abandon levelling him up as a Rogue to level up as a Cleric, because that's what the group needed.
So we decided that he was changed by Desna herself to better represent his new role: a holy healer and defender of Varisia.
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Wow! Not what I expected to read.
What happened to the other NPCs (Kavan in particular) during this time? Is it possible that they were able to hear the fight and come to the rescue just in the nick of time. That way maybe your players could take over the group of NPCs and actually play out their own rescue. It might be more satisfying for them if they could do that, of course in doing so things could still go horribly wrong. Let us know what happens!
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Wow! Not what I expected to read.
What happened to the other NPCs (Kavan in particular) during this time? Is it possible that they were able to hear the fight and come to the rescue just in the nick of time. That way maybe your players could take over the group of NPCs and actually play out their own rescue. It might be more satisfying for them if they could do that, of course in doing so things could still go horribly wrong. Let us know what happens!
Basically, the other NPCs were waiting outside the Glassworks, trusting the heroes to handle everything (as they have done in the past). I guess they will be in for a disappointment when they see the state in which the adventurers come back out. Not in body bags, but almost.
Alas, I think we're not going to be able to play for about a month, due to a variety of reasons. :( :( :(
On the bright side, I get some time off to play Warhammer Online. :)
How bout your campaign notes and changes you made and would of liked to made
Do you have a Campaign Journal for your other game?
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How bout your campaign notes and changes you made and would of liked to made
Do you have a Campaign Journal for your other game?
Basically, you can get a good idea of what I changed by going through this log. :) Stat-wise, I did not change any encounter as far as I remember. I might start doing so in Sins of the Saviors, though, since encounters seem to become truly deadly in this adventure.
My other game, do you mean the Savage Tide one? If so, you can find it here: Belessa's Journal.
I was just telling my husband about your near-TPK (in very vague terms, since we're just starting Rise of the Runelords). Here's what he suggested (offered for your consideration):
Let Drithnar roll an Intimidate check against the remaining bad guys. Since the PCs just dropped the Boss, he should get a bonus on this roll. Yeah, he's bleeding, but they've lost their Boss, several powerful summoned critters, and most of their pack by now; retreating should be a reasonable option, and that would let Drithnar save the others, regroup, and return later.
Moon do you guys have any house rules or is it very standard?
My party is starting to form and I can see two totally differnt ways for playing (maxed out races with prestige classes compared to yours standard races standard classes)
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We use these house rules:
- Each character has action points that allow a reroll. The PCs have 5 action points per level, which get reset at each level up.
- We use a mana system which makes non-spontaneous spellcasters much more versatile and somewhat more powerful. Wizards, Clerics, Druids, Rangers and Paladins don't need to prepare their spells in advance, but they don't know all of the spells. So in essence a wizard with these house rules becomes somewhat halfway between a regular D&D wizard and sorcerer.
- We use a handful of spells not from the PHB, which help a bit (orb spells for the wizard and lesser vigor for the cleric).
- HP's are rerolled when levelling up until an average or higher result is obtained.
- 1's and 2's are rerolled when casting healing spells.
- All skills are class skills for every class.
- Resurrection-type spells do not cause a level loss. There is a "role-played" penalty, the character is out of the game for a period of time that feels right for the plot (this only came into effect once so far in the campaign ;) ).
- We don't keep track of encumbrance penalties.
- Flanking rules work differently for us. You only get flanking bonuses when the enemy is actually facing away from you.
That's all I can remember for now.
Dear Moonbeam,
hoping you'll start again updating your wonderful campaign journal, I'd like to send you .pdf files of your story so far. I joined all your reports with images and needed infoes collected around to use it for my upcoming RotRL campaign...
If you are interested write a mail to me...
francesco_berti2008@libero.it
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Starday, Neth 6th, 4708
Still alive…
Rays of sunlight were shining through the window, illuminating Navan’s bedroom. The cleric woke up slowly, wondering where he was. He seemed to be lying in a comfortable bed, and he didn’t remember how he got there. His body ached badly, and he felt that he was bandaged in several places. Turning his head, he saw that Father Zantus was sitting close to his bed, reading a heavy book.
“Navan! You’re awake, finally!” said the priest happily when he noticed Navan’s head move.
“Father Zantus… What happened?”
“You almost died, I’m afraid. You and your friends fought terrible fiends in the catacombs below Sandpoint.” Father Zantus held up the book he’d been reading: it was the unholy book of Lamashtu that Father Garmos had read before. “I believe that one of the creatures you fought was a mighty Glabrezu demon, from the description that Drithnar gave me.”
“Drithnar… is he all right? Are the others all right?” muttered Navan.
“Yes, yes, they’re quite all right. Kerista is being tended to by sister Teronia, and Ruh by Milenken. You see, not long after you all ventured into the Glassworks, Shalelu and Jakardros returned from their weekly patrol in the region. When she heard that you’d gone down without her, Shalelu became very agitated: she wanted to take part in the action. Your brother also wanted to prove his worth, so he and the two rangers ventured inside after you. It seems that they reached you all just in time, and found Drithnar facing four shadow mastiffs all by himself: the rest of you were all lying on the floor, barely alive. Thankfully, Kaven and the rangers helped Drithnar dispatch the last of your enemies, and then they all brought you back up.”
Navan considered this for a while. “How long have I been out?”
“About a day… It’s now Starday afternoon. We’ve healed you as best as we could. How are you feeling?”
“I… I think I can walk.” Navan sat up in his bed, then managed to stand up beside it. “I want to see the others.”
With Father Zantus’s help, Navan walked out of the bedroom and into the cathedral’s main worship hall. There, he found Drithnar, Shalelu, Kaven and Shayliss (whose interest in Kaven had resurfaced now that the man had proven his bravery once again). They all greeted him with a smile, and he heard again the tale of their rescue. For once, Kaven had been the heroic one, and he seemed to glow with pride. Navan smiled, and was happy for his brother: he now seemed on the right path, and deserved to be proud. He had saved his life.
Later in the day, Navan called upon the power of Desna to heal himself fully, as well as Ruh and Kerista. Though they rested for the rest of the day, they decided that the following morning, they would return to the catacombs. Since yesterday’s battle, thankfully, no sounds of monsters had been heard from below the Glassworks.
Mayor Deverin, Ameiko, Madam Mvashti, and Kerista’s sisters all visited them that evening, wanting to make sure they were all right.
Sunday, Neth 7th, 4708
The Summoner’s Poem
So the following morning, the four companions ventured into the catacombs once again. The mysterious fog was now gone, and a few doors were now visible in the walls, where none had stood before. In the cathedral, the corpses of the shadow mastiffs and of the summoner were still sprawled on the ground. Where the demon had once stood was now just a large pile of ashes.
The companions looted the summoner’s body, handling his foul blade carefully, for it caused them harm: it was an evil weapon.
The group explored the complex. They found some partly caved-in rooms where the hounds had lived. On the walls of these rooms, too, were written many strange words in Thassilonian. Ruh spent some time reading them, and noticed that one of the writings seemed to be the verse of a mysterious poem. It grabbed her attention, and she decided to try and find more verses elsewhere in the catacombs.
A long passageway led the companions to another room filled with writings, where Ruh found another verse of the poem. It spoke of Runeforge, an ancient place of great magical power that the Runelords had created long ago. She’d read about it in Jorgenfist’s library, but had assumed it had been destroyed during the fall of Thassilon. The writings seemed recent, though. Could that mean that Runeforge still existed, and that the madman who lived in these halls had known how to reach it?
Further into this corridor, the adventurers found a room warded by a powerful and evil spell, which Ruh managed to break. The room seemed to have been the summoner’s bedroom. The walls were, again, lined with all manners of writings, and there were sheets of parchment on the nightstand as well. They contained all kinds of musings about the current world of Golarion: it seemed like the man had woken from an eons-long slumber, and had only recently learned about the world through divination.
Also on the nightstand, Ruh found a powerful magical quill, which she took. She later discovered that it was a minor artifact called a Quill of Revealing, which was able to give much information to its wielder.
The companions continued to explore the complex, and Navan cast a True Seeing spell to ensure that they weren’t fooled by any illusions. They didn’t find anything else of interest, except more verses of the mysterious poem, which Ruh managed to piece together:
If magic bright is your desire,
To old Runeforge must you retire!
For only there does wizard’s art
Receive its due and proper start.
On eastern shores of steaming mirror,
At end of day when dusk is nearer,
Where seven faces silent wait
Encircled guards at Runeforge gate.
Each stone the grace of seven lords,
One part of key each ruler hoards;
If offered spells and proper prayer;
Take seven keys and climb the stair.
On frozen mountain Xin awaits,
His regal voice the yawning gates
Keys turn twice in Sihedron –
Occulted Runeforge waits within.
And now you’ve come and joined the forge
Upon rare lore your mind can gorge –
And when you slough the mortal way
In Runeforge long your work shall stay.
Ruh explained to her companions that Runeforge was a magical place that had been created by the Runelords as a safe haven for their agents to research magic. As each Runelord was the master of a specific school of magic, they needed a neutral place where they could collaborate, and benefit from the synergy of all of their magical aptitudes. It was a legendary place of learning and discovery for students of the arcane, but its location was kept secret. Since the Runelords were constantly scheming against one another, though, they created powerful wards around Runeforge, in order to ensure that none of the Runelords themselves could actually enter it and try to sabotage of the works of his or her rivals.
Those who joined Runeforge joined for life. The complex’s constant renewal of air and a magical matrix sustained those within without the need to eat, drink or even sleep. The final project the Runelords set Runeforge on was the development of ways they could escape the imminent fall of their empire. Each faction developed a unique answer to its Runelord, based upon the underlying principles of that faction’s magical traditions.
The companions discussed this intriguing place: if it indeed still existed, then surely, once Karzoug woke up, he would seek to harness its power. Either he would venture there, if the wards of old had crumbled, or he would try to gain control indirectly of whatever still remained inside.
But the heroes decided that things would not be so easy for him: they would try to gain access to Runeforge as well!
From the poem, Ruh understood that the “steaming mirror” was a metaphor for a lake: but which one?
The group then dragged the body of the summoner outside of the unholy chapel, and Navan cast a Speak with Dead spell on him. He managed to reach the soul of the vile man, and asked him the following questions:
“Where is the Steaming Mirror?”
“It is called Lake Stormunder, and lies many leagues to the north of here”.
“Where are the runelords now?”
“I do not know…”
“Which Runelord did you serve in life?”
“I worked for two of them. Officially, I was sworn to serve Alaznist, but in the end, I grew to hate her and chose to help Karzoug instead.”
“How can we neutralize the pool of evil magic in the cathedral upstairs?”
“I am not sure, but I think that can only be achieved by destroying the main pool of power, which was in Xin-Bakrakhan long ago.”
“How can we gain entrance to Runeforge?”
“Follow the writings on the wall…”
Journey to Lake Stormunder
So now, the companions guessed that the entrance to Runeforge was located close to Lake Stormunder. Feeling that time was of the essence, they decided to leave Sandpoint that very day and begin their journey. Before they left, though, Ruh took the time to identify the summoner’s items, though none of them were very useful for the group.
The companions gave their farewells to their friends and relatives in town, and then got ready for the trip, restocking themselves on provisions and adventuring equipment. Thankfully, even though Lake Stormunder lay very far to the north, the trip would be greatly aided by Navan and Ruh’s powerful magic. First, Navan teleported the whole group to the town of Ravenmoor. As usual, a few locals were very surprised to see the four heroic-looking adventurers appear out of the thin air. From there, Ruh summoned four strange, shadowy steeds, and astride these, the group traveled in the direction of Riddleport. The mounts galloped incredibly fast, and covered far more ground than even the best horse in Golarion. For the rest of the day, the companions rode, their hair and cloaks flapping wildly in the wind. Drithnar laughed and cheered as a feeling of wild elation overcame him, as they traveled through plains, forests and hills.
Finally, the companions reached Riddleport at sunset. Navan and Ruh had already visited the rough town before, but the sights were new to Drithnar and Kerista, who stayed on their guard: Riddleport had a bad reputation as a thieves’ den.
The group rented rooms at a local inn, and as they took their evening meals, heard a variety of rumors about trouble in the region. Clearly, even this place was in dire need of heroes. Alas, the four friends were already on a perilous mission of their own: they had no time to help Riddleport.
“I guess another group of adventurers will have to do the job for us in this place,” said Navan quietly.
“Yes. Maybe those guys over there,” said Drithnar, pointing at four other people sitting at a table in a corner. They had the looks of adventurers. One of them was a tall and powerfully built woman with wild dark hair. She carried an enormous sword at her side. With her were a muscular, dark-skinned man dressed in flowing silks, and a pale-skinned, white-haired man dressed in black. Also at their table sat a small gnome woman with green hair, and at her side crouched a massive white-furred leopard.
“Yeah, they seem all right, I guess,” said Navan.
Kerista frowned. “I do not like what I sense from that white-haired man…” she said tensely.
Moonday, Neth 8th, 4708
The next day, the companions traveled on the back of Ruh’s magical steeds again, and covered a great deal of ground. They camped under the stars, on the banks of the Steam River. Winter was already approaching this far north, and the nights were chilly, but the companions protected themselves from the cold by magic.
Eerie sounds came out of the night’s darkness as the companions stood watch, but they were mighty heroes now, and there were few creatures from the wilderness of Varisia that could prove much of a challenge for them.
Toilday, Neth 9th, 4708
Seven Stones
The following day, the companions traveled east along the Steam River, still astride Ruh’s magical mounts. Ahead of them loomed the menacing Kodar Mountains, the closest of which was Rimeskull, the side of which was adored with what seemed like an immense skull. During the morning, the companions met one lone hunter, who warned them that the mountain was cursed, and that many foul beasts such as orcs, giants and white-furred demons roamed the region, often coming down from the mountains to wreak havoc.
Eventually, the group reached the lake, and went around it toward the base of Rimeskull. Once they reached it, they were happy to see their goal: on a low hill stood seven ten-foot-high stones shaped like heads. Now that they were closer, the adventurers could see that the face on Rimeskull’s side was not a skull, but rather, a badly eroded human face, whom Ruh thought must’ve once represented the face of emperor Xin.
The seven stones on top of the hill were much better preserved, though. Each one represented a beautifully rendered face, with its mouth open. Ruh easily identified some of them, from the books she’d read: Karzoug, Runelord of Greed; Belimarius, Runelord of Envy; Sorshen, Runelord of Lust, and Zutha, Runelord of Gluttony. She guessed that the third woman was Alaznist, Runelord of Wrath, though she looked different than in other depictions she’d seen. As for that last two men, she guessed that one was the Runelord of Pride and the other was the Runelord of Sloth, but wasn’t sure which one was which.
Kerista stood before the stone that depicted Karzoug, and looked at him in silence. “So this is the villain that threatens all of Varisia,” she finally said.
“All of Golarion, maybe, if he comes back to power,” said Navan.
“Ain’t gonna happen,” said Drithnar. “We’ll make sure of that… So, what are we supposed to do here, Ruh?”
“Hmm… I’m not sure,” admitted the gnome. “The poem said to cast spells and prayers… But which ones?”
“Why don’t we ask Desna?” said Navan with a grin.
The companions waited while Navan prepared the Divination ceremony, a few dozen feet away from the statues. The ground was covered in snow, and there was even a bit of snow on top of the stone heads. Finally, Navan was able to reach one of Desna’s angels.
“Oh mighty celestial one,” he said, “how can we unlock the secret of the mysterious Runelord stone heads at the foot of mount Rimeskull?”
“Uhhh… I dunno…” came the reply.
Navan sighed. Of all of Desna’s wise angels, he had to contact one of the dull-witted ones. “Is there perhaps another one of your colleagues who might know the answer?” he asked, using Desna’s own luck .
“Oh, uh, let me check. Hold on a minute.”
Soon enough came another melodious voice within Navan’s mind: “To gain the favor of each Runelord, one must prove able to cast one of his or her favorite magical spells.”
“Of course!” exclaimed Ruh once Navan relayed that information. “It’s so simple! We just need to cast spells of the right school of magic at each of the heads. Let’s see… That would be… Transmutation for Karzoug, Necromancy for Zutha, Enchantment for Sorshen, Evocation for Alaznist… I guess Illusion for Xanderghul… and … hmm… I guess Conjuration for Krune and Abjuration for Belimarius? Well, let’s do it, then!”
“Wait,” said Navan, “didn’t the poem say something about this taking place at dusk?”
“Oh yes, that’s true… Well, I guess we’ll have to wait for a few hours!”
Indeed, it was then only early in the afternoon. The companions waited for a few hours, while Ruh gave them more information on Runeforge and the Runelords. Finally, the sun set to the west, illuminating Xin’s face in a brilliant crimson light on the side of Rimeskull.
At that time, Ruh noticed that now, each stone head was shining with an aura of magic, which she saw thanks to her Permanent Arcane Sight. Just as she had guessed, each head shone with a different aura of magic.
First, Navan cast an Inflict Light Wounds spell on Zutha’s statue. Immediately, the statue started to hum loudly, the sound reverberating throughout the valley. The companions saw that a small golden key appeared within the statue’s open mouth. After checking for traps, Navan carefully took the key with his hand. Nothing bad happened, and the group was now armed with a key. One down, six to go!
Then, Ruh cast an Acid Splash spell on Krune’s statue. Before the tiny orb could each (and possibly damage) the statue, its magic was absorbed, and the statue began to hum like the other. Navan then cast a Virtue spell on Karzoug’s statue, and Ruh cast a Resistance spell on Belimarius’s statue. The companions now had four keys at their disposal.
The Lord of Rimeskull
However, their ritual was rudely interrupted by a scream: “Dragon!!!” yelled Navan. The others looked up and indeed, they saw a huge white dragon swooping down toward them from the sky. A wave of fear washed over the companions, but they all stood their ground bravely. Only Drithnar was shaken by the sight of the terrible foe.
Ruh was the first to act. She cast a Haste spell, and ducked for cover behind a statue. Navan cast a Fly spell on Kerista, who cast a Cold Resistance spell on herself, and started flying toward the dragon. Then, the monster unleashed its powerful icy breath upon the companions. Kerista managed to partly avoid it, but Drithnar and Navan were completely covered by the cloud, and suffered nasty frostbites. Ruh, thankfully, was out of reach, hiding behind a statue.
Drithnar then cast a Bear’s Endurance spell on himself and moved next to Navan to receive a flying spell. Though his hands were shaking, he was eager to fight one of his favored enemies. Ruh came out from behind the statue and blasted the dragon with a Maximized Scorching Ray, which caused grievous burns to the ice creature. Navan cast a Fly spell on Drithnar.
Kerista flew toward the dragon, which bit her as she got close. Despite the pain, she called upon the favor of Sarenrae, and smote the dragon, shattering a few of its scales with her holy earthbreaker. But then, the evil wyrm roared and attacked her with all its might, greatly injuring her with claw, wing and tail. Drithnar soon joined the fight, and he too managed to pierce the dragon’s scales deeply with his enchanted sword.
While the battle was raging, Ruh cast two more volleys of fire bolts, one maximized and one quickened, though the first failed to pierce the dragon’s aura of magical resistance. Close by, Navan called forth the wrath of Desna, and a pillar of flame engulfed the dragon. Kerista managed to strike the dragon once more with her shining weapon, and the great beast, bleeding and smoking from many wounds now, turned around and fled toward the great face of emperor Xin: it was trying to reach a cave that opened at the emperor’s mouth, probably his lair!
While the dragon was trying to flee, Kerista and Drithnar both managed to wound it again, but soon, the dragon flew away and left them behind: it was much faster than them. Ruh then cast a Fireball spell, which inflicted heavy damage to the dragon: it was now barely able to stay aloft, and its entire body was badly burnt from Ruh’s merciless barrage of fire spells. But despite that, the great beast disappeared into the cave, out of sight!
Drithnar and Ruh immediately flew after it, but Kerista, who was grievously wounded, flew back down toward Navan, and they healed her most serious wounds. Once that was done, they flew after their two companions.
A large icy tunnel opened beyond Xin’s mouth. An archway, adorned with the Sihedron Rune, marked the entrance to the dragon’s lair. Drithnar and Ruh flew in, and made their way down a sloping, ice-covered passageway. They passed by two statues of warriors, one of which emitted some illusion magic. Not stopping to investigate, they continued down, and reached a great pit with ice-covered walls. They flew down three hundred feet into a great cave within which stood seven stone columns, with an even larger one at the center. In the walls of the cave, eight tunnels led further into darkness. In the northwestern portion of the cave sprawled a huge treasure, and on top of it, the vile white dragon was quickly drinking healing potions to try and recover from some of its wounds.
It roared a challenge when it noticed the two heroes flying down from the pit, but before it could react, Ruh unleashed another one of her deadly burning spells, and she slew the ice dragon!
The two companions cheered at their victory, and were soon joined by Navan and Kerista. They took a quick look at the treasure, but then Navan reminded them that they needed to get three more keys before dusk was over, and they flew back out of the cave.
They finished the ritual: Ruh cast a Ghost Sound spell on Xanderghul’s statue, and then a Dancing Lights spell on Alaznist’s statue. Finally, Kerista obtained the last key by casting a Zone of Truth on Sorshen’s statue.
The Heroes Victorious
The companions then flew back into the white dragon’s cave and examined the pillars. They found a little key hole inside each of them, but decided to wait before activating them. Indeed, they had spent a lot of magical energy getting the keys, fighting the dragon, and even casting the mounts to get there in the first place. They wanted to enter Runeforge full of energy, especially if Runelord Karzoug was waiting for them inside.
Therefore, they gathered most of the magical items from the dragon’s hoard, and teleported to master Cornaban’s house in Magnimar. The old gnome was delighted to see his apprentice appear there, with so many wonderful items, and his eyes grew even wider when Ruh told him of her victory over the terrible dragon.
The two gnomes then spent most of the evening together, identifying the magical items. Meanwhile, the three humans went to spend the night in their favorite watering hole, the Three Horns Inn. They felt very proud of their accomplishment this day: they had slain a mighty enemy! Though Navan and Kerista tried to keep a low profile, Drithnar, after a few pints of ale, could not remain silent, and started loudly bragging about the group’s victory to the other patrons of the inn.
Many of them already knew the adventurers by sight and had heard of their previous victories, here in Magnimar, and in the wilderness, against ogres and giants. Although Drithnar wasn’t a very good story teller, they were amazed at the tale, especially when the more charismatic Navan and Kerista joined in.
“I wonder if that was the legendary Arkrhyst that you finally laid low this day,” wondered an old man by the fireplace.
“Who is this Arkrhyst, old man?” asked Drithnar.
“Old Freezemaw, the Shoanti used to call him. A great old white dragon that lived in the Kodar Mountains and used to terrorize tribes of Shoanti on the Velashu Uplands, and on the western half of the Storval Plateau… It slew many men… I heard that many of those tribes still sing of those dark times. Many Shoanti heroes tried to slay Arkrhyst, but none ever survived.”
“Strange, I never heard about that dragon,” said the ranger.
“Well, his raids stopped about… two hundred years ago, I’d say. I guess most people thought he was dead and stopped talking about him. Well, looks like he really is, now!”
Then some of the patrons started asking Drithnar about the dragon’s treasure, and then, Kerista dragged her lover up their room, before he could divulge too much information that would encourage innocent people to travel to Rimeskull to meet their deaths.
Great to hear the game is back going again one of my favorite story hours
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Ditto :D. Eagerly awaiting the next installment (and what you do with Runeforge).
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I'll try to post our latest log sometime this week.
I would've liked to see more interaction between the various factions. I would've like to have more inhabitants - with many of them being just farmed like cattle by the others for sustenance or amusement.
The idea of a dungeon based on the 7 sins is great. But it is so hard to balance it, and make it applicable to a generic party. I think with some groups, it might be great, with others, like ours, not so much. I think for example my Savage Tide group is a lot more sinful than my RotRL one and would've been more colorful in this dungeon.
I will run the adventure mostly as written. I am not super skilled at encounter design, so I prefer not to mess too much with the adventures. But hopefully, I can use one of my strengths (NPC acting) to bring the denizens of Runeforge to life, as interesting and memorable opponents, for my player. Already, they did one of the 7 wings, and we had a lot of fun with the NPC's they encountered there.
Since these people have been stuck in the same g~! d+~n rooms for a mind-boggling amount of time, and are also strongly sinful, I am planning on making them quite insane. Hopefully, it will be fun to play (and read :) ).
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Wealday, Neth 10th, 4708
Selling the dragon’s treasure
The following morning, since the companions had access to such a huge amount of wealth from the dragon’s hoard, and since they were already in Magnimar, they decided to sell most of it and buy some new powerful items, or improve their existing ones, to be better equipped to face the challenges awaiting them in Runeforge. Since Runeforge likely hadn’t been open in a long time, they figured they could afford to take a few more days to prepare themselves.
Over the next few days, using Teleport spells, they managed to bring the dragon’s entire hoard back to Magnimar and sell it. Of course, they had first to clean things up by clearing away the dragon’s body with Disintegrate spells.
The adventurers took the time to contact some of their allies and to explain them the nature of their current mission. They kept Acacia, Sebania, Father Zantus, Master Cornaban and Master Nivlandis in the loop. Thanks to Acacia and Master Nivlandis’s influence in the city, they were able to get their magical items in only a week. Kerista had her already powerful armor improved even more, as well as her cloak of charisma. Drithnar took the mighty cloak of resistance they’d found in the dragon’s hoard, and also had Aldern’s war razor, his offhand weapon, blessed by the church of Iomedae.
“Why didn’t you buy a more powerful weapon instead, and have that one blessed?” later asked Kerista.
Drithnar grinned. “That weapon has sentimental value.” He flicked the knife open, and then closed again. “I like knowing that the cursed bastard’s weapon is now a holy weapon… and being put to good use. I like the irony of it.”
During that week, the characters received a lot of attention, as they were worshipped as heroes in Magnimar. They spent some time talking to humble folk, telling them of their stories, or helping them in simple ways, and mostly denied invitations to fancy parties with arrogant nobles.
Kerista got the chance to spend some quality time with her brother Goldar, who simply couldn’t believe how powerful and heroic his baby sister had become over the past year.
Navan also had the occasion of spending some time with the lovely Acacia… Additionally, he took the time to perform some divinations about Runeforge. He learned that the group did not risk encountering Karzoug in there, but that Runeforge was a necessary milestone in their journey to defeating their terrible enemy.
Wealday, Neth 17th, 4708
Entering Runeforge
And so, one week later, the four companions teleported back to the ice cave that had until recently been the white dragon’s lair. They examined the seven tall pillars that surrounded an even taller central one. Ruh recognized the runes engraved on the pillars, marking each one as belonging to a different one of the seven schools of Thassilonian magic. Following the directions of the summoner’s rhyme, Navan put the correct key inside each pillar, and turned it twice. Each time, the key was absorbed by the pillar, which started to hum and glow brightly. Once all seven pillars had been activated, beams of light shot from them into the central pillar, which started humming as well, and swirling with a myriad of colors. Eventually, a vortex swirled at its base, becoming a round portal that seemed to open into a long corridor of stone: the entrance to Runeforge! Ruh turned the whole group invisible, and then, gathering their courage, the four friends stepped through together.
After walking down the long tunnel for some time, the group entered a large round room at the center of which was a pool of brightly glowing liquid. Ruh could sense that powerful energy of all types emanated from the basin.
Around the room were seven towering stone statues, each representing one of the Runelords. They were facing the central pool, and engraved on the floor of the chamber was a huge Sihedron rune, with each of its branches leading to the feet of one of the Runelords. Behind each statue opened another long tunnel.
The companions looked at the beautiful statues, highly detailed and masterfully rendered. The fabled and infamous ancient wizards of Thassilon seemed quite majestic and threatening, surrounding the adventurers as they were. One by one, the companions examined them.
Directly ahead of them was a statue of Karzoug, a towering man with gems set in his forehead and hands, dressed in robes and wielding a burning glaive. They looked at him and knew him to be their deadliest enemy. They felt it was their destiny to face him in combat.
Next was Krune, a short, smiling man with a hooked nose and beady eyes, dressed in robes and wielding a spear. He seemed harmless and almost friendly compared to the impressive Karzoug.
Then came Belimarius, a heavyset woman with a sneering visage and an imperious stance, dressed in a flowing dress and wielding a halberd. She looked like a bitter, jealous queen.
Perhaps a source of Belimarius’s bitterness was the statue right next to her, who could not have looked more different. Sorshen was depicted as a voluptuous woman with a seductive look, large eyes and long flowing hair. Her statue was nude and wielding a double-headed guisarme. She was amazingly beautiful, and was everything Belimarius was not.
Navan, Ruh and Kerista then turned to look at the next statue, leaving Drithnar staring at Sorshen’s incredible naked beauty with his mouth gaping open. Kerista did not look happy.
The next Runelord depicted was Xanderghul, a strikingly handsome man with a close-cropped beard and a charming expression, dressed in extravagant clothes and wielding a lucerne hammer. He looked smug and imperious.
Then came Alaznist, a gothic beauty with wild hair and a somewhat insane expression; she wore a long flowing dress and wielded a thorny ranseur. The companions recognized her from the statue they’d seen in the catacombs below Sandpoint, in their very first adventure, and again more recently when they’d fought the dark summoner.
Finally, the companions looked at the statue of Zutha, an obese man whose flesh seemed rotten in places so that the bones were showing through. He wore a ragged robe and wielded a scythe.
The companions examined the room for a few more minutes. Ruh noticed that her entire surroundings emitted a mild aura of transmutation: the walls, the floor, even the very air. Also, the air smelled fresh, unlike in most dungeons. Ruh reminded her friends that Runeforge had been created to supply fresh air to its inhabitants, and to nourish their bodies by osmosis, allowing them to go without food, water or sleep indefinitely. From what she could see, it seemed that the ancient magic of Runeforge was still fully functional even after all these years. She was very excited: this was the most magical place she’d ever been in! Runeforge had been only a legend to her until recently, and she was likely the first wizard of the current age to enter it!
Ruh also explained to her friends that they weren’t in Golarion anymore. In order to protect Runeforge’s entrance and to increase its secrecy, the Runelords had created an artificial demi-plane, where they had put their creation. They were in a completely different world now, though the laws of physics and magic seemed the same.
In Drithnar’s case, it was easy, as he displayed wrath, envy and lust at various times. But the one he showed most was wrath, so that’s the one I assigned to him.
Ruh didn’t seem like a very sinful person, but on a few occasions, she showed wrath, like when she cruelly killed Mammy Graul’s poor little familiar as it was trying to flee, or when she killed the dragon Longtooth, even though he was now the PC’s ally.
In Kerista and Navan’s case, though, I could not find any sin that they seriously displayed. I discussed this with Navan’s played and he couldn’t come up with anything satisfying either. So we decided that these two had no sin associated with them.
So unfortunately, all I have is two wrath’s. :(
One thing I find a bit unbalanced, is that within the scope of the adventure, not all sins are equal. For example, having “wrath” is technically good, since you get a bonus in the halls of wrath (lots of fighting) and penalties in the halls of sloth and envy (no fighting). On the contrary, characters with the sloth or envy sin associated to them get screwed. :( )
Once they were able to pry Drithnar away from his admiration of Sorshen’s statue, the companions decided to visit the corridor beyond Karzoug’s statue first. A seemingly endless stone corridor opened before them. They started walking down the tunnel, and after some time, felt some resistance, as though a mental impulse was trying to convince them to turn back.
They had all been holding hands, but suddenly, they felt they became separated. Navan and Kerista found themselves together, near the end of the tunnel. A bejeweled door stood to the far right. Drithnar and Ruh were together as well, but still in the endless corridor.
Everyone was still invisible, which added to the confusion. They called each other’s names, but could not hear any answer. Navan and Ruh then both decided to cast a Sending spell. Ruh was the first to reach Navan, and they described what had happened. Ruh and Drithnar then decided to simply try to continue walking down the hallway, and eventually, they overcame the mental resistance and reached the other two. By that time, though, the invisibility spells had worn off.
The vault of greed
So the adventurers found themselves near the end of the tunnel. Looking back, it seemed, strangely enough, that the main hall of Runeforge was still only sixty feet away, even though it felt like they’d walked much more than that.
Navan and Drithnar approached the door to examine it, while Ruh looked for secret doors on the opposite wall, and Kerista stood watch, facing the main hall. The door was decorated with several gems, and had no visible handle or knob, but had a keyhole in its center. Navan saw no traps on the door, so he decided to try and pick the lock.
Unfortunately, as soon as he touched the door, a powerful mechanism pushed the door forward with incredible force. Drithnar was able to dodge out of the way at the last moment, but Navan was hit by the door, and almost got crushed against the opposite wall. The two women screamed, but thankfully, when the piston reset after a few moments, they saw that Navan was badly hurt, but still alive. The shortsword he’d carried throughout all of their adventures, but had never drawn in combat, had saved his life: it had gotten stuck horizontally against the wall, and had blocked the advance of the trapped door. Now, though, it was twisted beyond use.
Navan and Drithnar used wands of healing to restore the cleric’s health, and then Ruh decided to look for secret doors with a spell. Indeed, she found one on the opposite wall. Drithnar carefully activated it, and wasn’t the victim of any further devious trap, and he led the way into another corridor that continued in the same direction as the one they had followed so far. The tunnel’s surfaces were covered with beautiful polished wood, which was engraved with gold and silver Thassilonian runes. Ruh saw that they spoke of the glory of Karzoug, of his many accomplishments and incomparable power, wisdom and wealth. Here and there, ornate lamps illuminated the corridor with magical light.
After a few dozen feet, the companions reached an area of the tunnel that was blocked by a wall of strange swirling green mist, sparkling with silver motes of light. Ruh saw that it radiated conjuration and transmutation, but she didn’t know what it was. It didn’t look or smell like a Cloudkill spell…
Holding hands, the companions entered the mist, with Drithnar and Kerista in the front. Suddenly, and vaguely through the thick fog, Navan saw Kerista get shrunk, and those who held her hands felt her disappear. Drithnar started coughing madly, and ran out of the mist with the others.
Once he’d recovered his breath, he panted: “What the hell was that? What happened to Kerista?”
“I don’t know, I saw her diminish and disappear… Ruh, do you have any idea?”
“I’m not sure… I’ve never heard of such a spell before.”
“I felt it was trying to get into my lungs… and change me!” grunted Drithnar, who then let out a long series of curses regarding Karzoug and his traps.
The companions called out the paladin’s name, but got no answer. Navan then took a few minutes to cast a Sending spell to reach Kerista, but got no answer from that either, except for some faint sounds he could not identify. He then shared his suspicion that she’d gotten transformed into a small, harmless animal, perhaps a turtle or a toad, and was unable to answer. He asked Ruh, the group’s most powerful spellcaster, to try and dispel the magical trap.
The gnome cast a first Greater Dispel Magic, but the mist remained. She cast a second one, and again the mist remained. There was no sign of Kerista.
“Come on, Ruh, you can do it!!” said Drithnar encouragingly.
Ruh cast a third dispel, putting all of her energy into it, and her bright green hair flowed wildly around her head. This time, she was successful, and the cloud disappeared, showing the wooden tunnel continuing ahead and leading into a brightly lit room with a fountain in its center. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Kerista. But the companions noticed that already, the mist was starting to form again, so they hurried and crossed the warded area.
In search of Kerista
As they approached the room with the fountain, the companions heard some sounds of splashing water, accompanied by high-pitched giggles that sounded strangely impish. They entered the room and saw six small fish-like humanoids merrily playing in the pool, chattering in a foreign language. One of them suddenly noticed the adventurers and alerted its fellows, and they all turned to look at the intruders with wide, bulbous black eyes.
“These are water mephits,” whispered Ruh, “they are mischievous but not evil. They also speak Common, we should be able to communicate with them.”
Navan addressed the little creatures in a non-threatening manner: “Greetings, wee ones, we are travelers, and have entered Runeforge on order of Karzoug.”
“What’s Runeforge?” asked a first mephit.
“It’s this place, dummy!” replied a second one, hitting his colleague on the back of the head.
“Ouch! Oh really?”
“Yeah!” continued the second mephit. He turned back toward Navan: “You came to this place in the name of Karzoug, you said? Hmm, yes, that’s good.”
“Who’s Karzoug?” whispered loudly the first mephit.
“Shhh!! What business are you on, oh mighty…”
“Cleric of Desna…” replied Navan.
“… oh mighty cleric of Desna?
“Who’s Desna?” asked again the first mephit.
The second mephit, looking annoyed, replied: “She’s the goddess of wanderers, and the stars, and dreams. Stop interrupting me!”
Navan continued: “We just came through a powerful barrier of magical fog which barred our way. Do you know anything about it?”
“Oh really?” asked the second mephit. “We’ve never been that way. What’s there? Is there water?”
“No, there’s no water, there’s…”
“Aaaah, boring!” interrupted the second mephit.
“But how did you get to come to this demi-plane?” asked Navan.
“We know a secret way…I’m known as a very clever leader among my people, you know.’
A few giggles came from the other mephits, to whom he gave a dark look.
“What is your name?” asked Navan.
“My name is Kliplik,” replied the second mephit.
“And I’m Plikplook!” added the first mephit.
“Nobody asked you,” hissed Kliplik. “They don’t care. I’m the important one! I found a way into Runeforge, all by myself.”
“What’s Runeforge?” asked again Plikplook
Kliplik, furious, roared: “I JUST TOLD YOU, IT’S THIS PLACE!!” and he smacked Plikplook again.
Navan then asked: “I see, you actually do know that while you’re in this place you don’t need to eat or sleep, right?”
“Yeah, it’s great, we’ve been playing for… forever, it seems like.”
“And did you know that Runeforge had not been visited by people such as myself in ten thousand years?”
The mephits contemplated this in silence.
“What about the mean man?” said Plikplook. “There’s a mean man living here!”
“Yes, there’s a person living here, but he doesn’t look like you. Or like us,” added Kliplik.
“He kind of looks like them…” said Plikplook.
“Not really. These, they wear metal on themselves, it’s armor, it protects them in battle. But this man who lives, here, he… oh, but maybe you know him already?”
“No, no, please go ahead,” said Navan.
“He’s entirely made of metal,” said Kliplik. “His whole skin is made of metal. He’s all metal.”
“He’s very mean!” added Plikplook.
Kliplik, annoyed, said: “plik, please… shut up.” He then turned back to Navan: “He is surely a great servant of Karzoug.”
“Surely. And does he speak with you?”
“Yes, he curses at us a lot. I’m afraid we are on difficult terms with this individual.”
“Perhaps my friends and I could try to smooth things out…”
“It would be greatly appreciated, Oh priest of Desna,” replied Kliplik with a smile.
“Please, call me Navan. And my friends are Ruh, and Drithnar.”
The mephits bowed to the adventurers, who bowed in return.
Kliplik continued: “So yes, if you could please talk with him… You know, we realize of course that we’re only visitors in this place, we merely want to coexist peacefully.”
“That sounds reasonable,” said Navan. “Is there more water where he is, that he doesn’t allow you access to?”
“No, we can pretty much go to all the water. But sometimes we make too much noise, and we draw his attention.” Kliplik’s expression saddened. “He has wrought great evil upon some of my brethren.”
“That’s not acceptable. Tell me, where does he usually come from?”
“That way!” exclaimed Plikplook, pointing to the left.
“No, you idiot! It’s this way! This way!” said Kliplik, pointing to the right.
“And he never comes from the other way?” asked Navan.
“Never!” answered Kliplik.
“Actually, he does!” said Plikplook. “He came from the other way once!”
“Bah, you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“In the pool, did you happen by any chance to see a new creature that just materialized while you were playing?” asked Navan.
“Err…”
“A fish, maybe?”
“A fish?” asked Kliplik. “Not in this pool, but in other pools, there are some beautiful goldfish. We like looking at them and playing with them.”
“Thank you.”
“Sometimes we eat them, too,” admitted Plikplook.
“I understand, but know that in this place, you don’t need to eat, except out of gluttony.”
“It’s true that I rarely feel like eating,” said Plikplook. “But sometimes we do, just to stay in the routine.”
“Anyway,” said Kliplik, “I guess we’ll let you continue forth, and talk non-watery person to non-watery person with this metal man.”
“Sure,” replied Navan, “and I’ll make sure to try to help you with his problem.”
“And give our regards to Zagoog!” said Plikplook merrily.
Kliplik, discouraged at Plikplook’s stupidity, added: “And please give our kindest regards to… Karzoug.”
The companions got ready to leave, but then Drithnar gestured for them to wait. “I just forgot one thing,” he said. He turned toward the mephits and shook his finger at them. “If any of you little f***ers eats another fish while I’m here, I’m gonna kill you all, OK?”
The little creatures all started at him with wide eyes.
“All right,” grunted the ranger, “now we can go.”
Navan chuckled and apologized to the mephits: “Please excuse my friend’s nervousness, but four of us came here, and the last member of our group was transformed into a fish.”
“By that cloud?” asked Kliplik. “That sounds terrible.”
“Indeed,” said Navan. “Watch out for it. Thank you, Klil… Kilp… errr…”
“Kliplik,” said Ruh helpfully.
“Right. Thanks.”
Lord of Greed
The companions explored the complex, trying to locate Kerista. They found a few more rooms which contained fountains and pools of water, inside of which many goldfish swam happily, without a care in the world. The group was unable to get the attention of any of the fish: none of them seemed likely to be Kerista.
Ruh explained to Drithnar that if Kerista had indeed been the victim of a Baleful Polymorph spell, it was possible that her mind had been transformed just as her body had. Again, the ranger cursed Karzoug’s name loudly. In one of the room, Navan tried to break the enchantment on the various fish, but none of them changed shape.
At that moment, a sinister voice was heard from behind the group, speaking in Thassilonian:
“What are you doing here?”
The three companions turned and faced a flying man who was dressed in fancy dark green and gold robes, and who carried an ornate staff in one hand and a rod at his belt. He was bald and had long claws, but the most striking thing about this man was his skin, for it shone with a dark metallic color. It seemed to be made of mithral.
The man seemed surprised, and a little angry, too see visitors here. He had likely been alerted by Drithnar’s loud curses.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated.
Navan discreetly cast a Tongues spell on himself, and spoke to the man: “Oh great guardian of Runeforge, mighty servant of the great Runelord Karzoug, we humbly bow before you.”
At that, he and Ruh bowed, and with a quick gesture, Navan even managed to convince the defiant Drithnar to bow as well.
The metal-skinned man smiled. “Yes, that is the way it should be.” He stared at Navan and frowned. “Your skin. It looks so soft. How did it get like this?” he points with his long claws. “You are most… strange.”
“We come after ten thousand years,” replied Navan, “the way has been opened once more after the cataclysm.”
The metal man’s face twitched slightly. “What cataclysm?”
“Ten thousand years ago, Thassilon was shaken, like the rest of Golarion, and major darkness followed. Our great master, Runelord Karzoug, managed to survive, hidden in secret. Only now is he coming back, and only now does he need his strength, and for this reason, we’ve come here.”
“What is it you seek to do?”
Navan repeated the last verse of the summoner’s poem: “And now you’ve come and joined the forge. Upon rare lore your mind can gorge. And when you slough the mortal way, in Runeforge long your work shall stay. These are prophesized words, and these we’ve followed to this place.”
“To help in awakening Runelord Karzoug?”
“Indeed. Unfortunately, on the way here, we got caught in the magical mist, and one of our friends was transmuted and polymorphed into a fish. We were here in this room, trying to break the enchantment, hoping that one of these fish is our friend.”
The metal man gave no indication that he cared about Kerista’s plight at all. “What gifts do you bring me?” he asked abruptly.
“Oh mighty guardian, actually, the chest of treasure we brought was carried by the very person who was transformed, and now it, along with her, is in the form of a fish. How… ironic…”
The metal man’s eyes widened, and he asked in an angry tone: “This woman… she comes from outside Runeforge?”
“Yes… Like us, too…”
“She was unworthy…” The metal man seemed to be getting more and more upset. “Why was SHE carrying the valuables? Could you have not carried them yourselves? Now it will take time to recover the offerings, precious time, so precious… What was in the chest?”
“Gold… jewels of great values… sapphires.”
A glint of greed shone in the metal man’s eyes. “Yes, very good. How big were the sapphires?”
“Very big…”
“How big, exactly? Describe them precisely! How many carats?”
“They came from the hoard of a dragon.”
”How big a dragon?”
“A powerful old white dragon named Arkrhyst.” Navan then described in detail more pieces of the loot they’d indeed found on the dragon, but had in fact sold in Magnimar.
The description of the riches seemed to soothe the metal man’s humor. “Yes, this is a suitable offering. You have done well.”
“Indeed, we would not have come without proper gifts.”
“I am pleased to hear that the traditions of old have been retained. After all these… long years…” The man gazed in the distance, then turned back toward Navan, as if seeing him for the first time. “But your skin… what happened to your skin?”
“My lord, I do not understand what you mean, after ten thousand years, surely many things have changed, but one wouldn’t think that people’s skin would’ve changed even with time. And the images we’ve seen of lord Karzoug, although we’ve never had the chance to meet him in person yet, though we hope do so one day, show him with skin like ours, except he had great jewels embedded in it.”
A nervous twitch contorted the man’s face for an instant. “You are mistaken. His skin was like mine.”
“Ah.”
“Of course! It is ludicrous to think that the mighty Runelord Karzoug’s skin would be as soft and worthless as that of the slave race. The ruling caste of Shalast, the greatest people of Thassilon, all had skin like mine, as sign of their rulership over their lesser kindred.”
”Of course…” said Navan carefully, glancing at Ruh and Drithnar, who seemed to share his opinion that the metal man was completely insane.
The man kept rambling on: “Surely no lesser races could aspire to rule over Thassilon… with such vulnerable skin as your own… you understand?”
“Of course…Through powerful magic, though, we are able to get such a skin ourselves. But oh mighty lord, what is your name, so that I may address you properly?”
“I am Ordikon, greatest of the Lords of Greed. And you are?”
“My name is Navan, and these are Ruh and Drithnar.”
The metal man looked at each in turn, and then continued speaking to Navan. “I have felt our lord’s return. I have sensed it… I have seen the signs, in the pool in the central hub. It came…” the man stopped and seemed to be trying to remember something, then gave up and continued: “… some time ago, and we all saw it. All of the others saw it too. We were all pleased. We knew that something, at long last, was stirring. But I was the most pleased of all, for it was MY master who was stirring. None of the others gave any signs.”
“As it should be.”
“Have you been in contact with the others?”
“No, we came directly here with our gifts.”
“You are wise. They are treacherous. They could’ve stolen the chest. “
“Exactly.”
“You have been trained well. You see, there are some who sought to take control of all of Runeforge. To prevent the rest of us from working to prepare for Lord Karzoug’s triumphant return. But we destroyed them all. They are no more.”
“That is as it should. But who were they?”
“Jealous infidels. The Lords of Envy. They tried to control the central hub, using their wicked magic. Barring the way, stealing what was ours. They grew arrogant, and angered the rest of us. We all gathered up against them and laid them low. We destroyed the Halls of Envy.”
“Yes, as it should be. Belimarius was never a match for Karzoug.”
“Never.”
“You will also be pleased to hear that in the outside world, Alaznist, who was our master’s greatest enemy, saw her whole realm of Bakrakhan sink below the sea. It is destroyed.”
Ordikon erupted in a terrible and evil laughter. “Ah, ahhhh… These are some of the best news I’ve heard in… “ he paused again “ … so long…” He stopped and watched Ruh with great interest. “What happened to your skin?”
Ruh struggled not to talk. She didn’t want to blow it for Navan, and it seemed that whenever she talked to people, her friends always got upset with her afterwards. She knew Kerista’s life was at stake.
“We are servants, and if you want, we’ll try to get back our friend, and then…” started Navan.
Ordikon, now looking at the pool, interrupted him: “Yes, yes. This will take time. Precious time.” He was starting to grow angry again. “Why did you bring such an unworthy person into these halls? Was she your slave?”
“Oh mighty one, she was our bodyguard.”
Ordikon looked surprised: “Bodyguard?”
“Yes, that’s why she was carrying the chest.”
“Bodyguard? Was she a giant?”
“Yes, one we reduced to fit within these halls.”
Ordikon pondered this. “You were trying to find her in this pool here?”
“Yes, we didn’t want to disturb you before we recovered the chest, but alas, you found us first.”
“Yes, all this shouting I heard… It was bothering me.” He glared at Drithnar. “Was it this one who was shouting? Disrupting my peace? This ragged, dirty creature?”
Drithnar glared back in confusion, as he understood nothing of the conversation.
“He was merely trying to get the attention of the right fish, so that we could retrieve the treasure.”
“What’s the matter with you, slave?” he asked Drithnar as though he were a simpleton. “Growling and shouting in these halls of learned and cultured men… What kind of barbarian are you?”
Navan replied: “This man does not understand our fine language, my lord, he is also but a bodyguard. He carries things for us.”
“One of the lesser ones. Stinking Varisians! I can see it from his clothes.” He glared at the ranger some more, and when he turned back toward Navan, the cleric’s skin was now as metallic-looking as his own, thanks to the hat of disguise. Ordikon seemed pleasantly surprised, and smiled.
“My lord, we should see to the fish…”
Ordikon, smiling, agreed: “Yes. We should.”
The metallic wizard then tried to break the enchantment, but again, none of the fish changed shape. He growled in frustration: “This will take some time, it will take some time.” He gestured to Navan: “You have power… Try again to free your slave.”
“Do you know within which pool we might find her?”
“It could be any of them. It will be very long before I can receive my proper gift. And every moment that goes by… in which I don’t have this chest… something could be happening to it.”
The wizard was fuming, and now, he and the three companions could hear the mephits from the entrance room, playing in the fountain again. “What is that noise I hear?? Those imps… Those annoying imps… They are mocking me. Yes, they are mocking me and perhaps they have stolen my chest. Maybe they are playing with my gems at this very moment… “ He took a deep breath. “Excuse me, please,” and he flew over toward the imps, with clearly unpleasant business on his mind.
Navan called out after him: “Wait, my lord, we can deal with these beings, why don’t you instead keep looking in the other pools?”
“No, no, we must take care of them now. Dirty little thieves! Surely they’ve come here to steal my chest. Yes, it makes perfect sense. Why else would they be here!? They want to steal my riches… Like the others all did… I had to take care of them, you understand? I had no choice! They were stealing my things… They were imperfect… Their skin… Their skin, it was… you understand, you are like me?“
Navan, humoring him: “Yes, yes my lord.”
Ordikon kept on ranting: “They were slaves… Their skins, it was… it was pink! It cannot be… Don’t worry, I took care of them. And now… Now… I’ll take care of these fools!” and he flew away.
Drithnar finally got the chance to ask: “What’s happening?” The others filled him in. “So, do we kill him, or what?” asked the ranger.
The group followed Ordikon, and when they entered the main hall, they saw him kill two mephits with magic missiles. The rest of the little creatures fled deeper into the pool.
“Yes! Run, you little cretins!” Ordikon reached into the pool and took hold of Plikplook’s corpse, held it up with his clawed hand and crushed it mercilessly with a terrible laugh. “Little thieves, yes, that’s what I’ll do with all of you!”
Until then, the companions had not dared to attack him, worried that perhaps his metallic skin would be immune to anything except Kerista’s mighty weapon. But they felt that now they had a chance to catch him by surprise. They nodded at each other and sprang into action. Ruh could see many magical auras around him, and she cast a Dispel Magic spell at him, followed by another Quickened Dispel Magic, stripping him of most of his enhancements. His skin retained its metallic color, though.
The mage turned around and snarled viciously, “Traitors! You’ll not get my treasures!”
But before he could cast spells at the adventurers, Navan approached him and cast a Harm spell on him. Ordikon resisted the worst effect of the spell, but was still badly wounded and writhed in pain. Before he could act, Ruh cast a Maximized Scorching Ray and a Quickened Lesser Orb of Cold, killing him.
.
There’s something fishy around here…
The remaining mephits slowly came back into the room, while the companions searched Ordikon’s body.
“Are you all right? asked Navan.
“Yes,” replied Kliplik. “It’s not the first time he’s attacked us. And he killed Plikplook, so we’re finally rid of him!”
The characters found several magical items on Ordikon’s corpse, including a rod that Ruh immediately identified. Unfortunately, much to her disappointment, it was a mere rod of metal and mineral detection.
Drithnar chuckled. “What a useless item for this guy. It must’ve always pointed at him!”
The three companions then searched the rest of the complex, still looking for Kerista. This time, Drithnar cast a Speak with Animals spell, and tried to communicate with the fish. The first two pools of fish he met didn’t contain any fish that claimed to be Kerista.
In the third pool, the fish were noticeably smarter.
“All right you fish,” said Drithnar, “if one of you is Kerista, let me know, so we can turn you back into a beautiful paladin with shining armor.”
“I’m Kerista!” said one fish.
“No, I’m Kerista!” said another fish.
“They’re lying, I’m the real Kerista!” said a third one.
“I’m Kerista, and so is my wife!” said a fourth fish.
Drithnar wiped his forehead with his hand and sighed. “Holy Desna, grant me patience…”
Finally, at the fourth pool, Drithnar said: “Kerista, if you’re in there, bob up and down so we can save you!”
Among all of the fish, only one came to see Drithnar, and it moved up and down frantically. Navan concentrated deeply, and cast a Break Enchantment spell on that fish. Immediately, it transformed into a beautiful human woman dressed in a glittering golden plate mail armor. She stood up in the pool, dripping with water, and coughed up some more water.
Drithnar helped her out of the pool and hugged her tight. “Oh honey, I’m so relieved we’ve found you! I was terrified that we’d lost you for good and that you’d spend the rest of your days as a goldfish!”
Kerista coughed some more, and asked in a hoarse voice just what the hell had happened to her. The others brought her up to speed.
Once she’d recovered, she turned back toward Drithnar. “Thank you for your concern, lover, but I’m sure that if I’d truly been lost, you could’ve found solace in Sorshen’s arms.”
Drithnar blushed a little bit and cleared his throat. “Oh. Uh… Hmm… She’s just a stupid statue. She means nothing to me.”
Kerista didn’t seem convinced. “Hmmm-hmmm…”
Ruh and Navan had expended most of their powerful spells for the day, but they wanted to finish exploring this part of Runeforge before resting. In addition to the pool rooms, they found eight curious rooms that irradiated strong transmutation magic. Each contained some raw materials like sheets of cloth, stacks of lumber, blocks of stone, etc. To Ruh, they seemed like components that mages could’ve used to create some beautiful furniture, but why had they reverted to their basic components? In some of the rooms, the found old bones, probably rivals of Ordikon who’d been slain long ago.
The group also found a laboratory with alchemical equipment that could be used for a variety of transmutation experiments. A dead dog was lying on a table; the rear half of its body had been turned to mithral, like Ordikon’s skin, but it seemed the animal had not survived the experiment. Other animals could be seen in small cages elsewhere in the room: a cat, several rats, and a monkey with a white-furred face. Ruh tried to communicate with the rats, but they didn’t respond as usual. In fact, all of the animals seemed insane, or at least very unusual. The cat was lying apathetically in its cage, and the monkey was moving frantically, but clumsily, as if it somehow it had bad control over its movements.
There was also a large collection of books in the room. Ruh quickly went over some of them. Most seem to be about the subject of transmutation. She also found Ordikon’s spellbooks, which focused, obviously, on transmutation magic. She was surprised to see that some of his most powerful spells were written in a redundant manner, which took more space than necessary in his tome.
Past this lab, the group came to a hallway where ten golden statues stood. They were beautifully detailed, so beautiful and realistic in fact that the companions strongly suspected that they were old servants or foes of Karzoug, who’d been transformed into ornaments. Ruh knew that the greedy Runelord often reserved such a fate for particularly loyal subjects, and hated foes alike. The statues’ faces showed expressions of anger, surprise, or fear, which reinforced the assumption that they were live people who’d been transformed. But since the characters didn’t know whether these were friends or foes of Karzoug, they decided not to try to free them for now.
The final chamber of the halls of greed contained a large pool of chaotic, magical liquid. Ruh had to avert her eyes from the dazzling burst of colors that came from it: all schools of magic irradiated from the pool, where even the other adventurers could see bursts of elemental forces swirling around, and could also hear eerie sounds coming from there.
Ruh decided to read the books more thoroughly to try and understand this pool before trying to interact with it. The companions therefore decided to take a break, regain some magical energy, and give time for Ruh to read.
With only three characters at the time it might of been best for the mage to be a fool but man you could of at least given him a round of spells
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With only three characters at the time it might of been best for the mage to be a fool but man you could of at least given him a round of spells
I tried. I decided that one character would get a free attack as a surprise round. It was Ruh. Then we rolled for initiative. Navan beat Ordikon's initiative by about 3, and Ruh beat it by 1 I think. Poor guy never had a chance...
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Oathday, Neth 18th, 4708
How to kill a Runelord
After studying the bedrooms in the Vault of Greed, Ruh was able to determine how to use their magic to create furniture. She furnished one such room for herself and Navan, and another for the two lovers (making sure to create a comfortable-looking couch should Drithnar need it due to his recent display of infatuation for Runelord Sorshen).
Most of the companions did not actually sleep, instead, choosing only to rest, but Navan wanted to dream to reach his goddess. He cast a Divination spell before going to sleep, in order to find out more information about what he needed to do in Runeforge. Some hours later, he woke up with this message fresh in his mind:
“Within Runeforge lies the magic that will enable you to travel the last miles of your road to victory. And only in Runeforge can weapons receive the ancient enchantments that can truly spell a wicked Runelord’s doom. “
While Navan was sleeping, Ruh rested as well, and for about twelve hours after that, she kept reading quickly through the many books found in Ordikon’s laboratory. She found many very useful pieces of information in there. First, she learned some directions to locating the fabled city of Xin-Shalast in the Kodar Mountains. That alone was a fabulous piece of knowledge for any relic hunter, or Pathfinder.
But within the tomes, she also learned that journeying to Xin-Shalast might prove deadly to most people. The city was so high up in the mountains that the air there was very thin, and barely breathable. Worse, Karzoug’s fortress was higher still, sitting atop a very high peak overlooking the great city. In that fortress, the air was virtually un-breathable, spelling certain doom for those who sought to reach Karzoug there.
A powerful spell, however, had been created by Karzoug and his minions to allow them, who were still mere humans, to survive at such high altitude. Ruh read quickly through the pages of the complicated spell, which could allow a wizard to breathe in such thin atmosphere, along with a few companions.
Ruh also learned that the apprentices of the Runelords had been doing some heavy research to try and create weapons that could harm their enemies. The Runelords themselves were almost immortal – very few weapons or spells could truly kill them. But within Runeforge, it was possible to create Runeforged weapons – regular magical weapons that were improved through a complex ritual in the central pool of the complex.
The concept was that each Runelord’s deadly sin was opposed by two others. By gathering two major spell components from the opposite sins, as well as other regular components, it was possible to imbue a weapon bathed in the main pool with the power of a Runeforged weapon, protecting the weapon’s wielder from spells of that Runelord’s sin, and enabling the weapon to strike a deadly blow against the Runelord.
Ruh saw that some research had been performed on how to create weapons that could eliminate Karzoug’s three main enemies. Sorshen, Runelord of Lust, could be slain by a parasitic weapon created from a catalyst of Gluttony and one of Greed. Xanderghul, master of Pride, could be slain by a Miserly weapon, made from Sloth and Greed. Similarly, it would require a Covetous weapon, made from the elements of Sloth and Envy, to kill Alaznist, the Runelord of Wrath.
Some of the components required were listed in the tome. The main component to channel the sin of Greed was water from the elemental arcana pool deep within the Vault of Greed. That of Sloth consisted of holy water from the temple of Lissala, and that of Gluttony consisted of some unknown liquid, probably of great value, that could be found within the Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony.
Ruh explained to her companions that they needed to gather the components that opposed Karzoug’s greed and imbue their weapons with them. Most likely, those elements could be found in the wings of Lust and Pride. But the little mage had no idea what exactly they were looking for, or how to obtain it. Navan’s dream during the night matched what she just said. They decided to try and find something to bargain with, starting in the halls of Conjuration.
Before they did that, though, Navan carefully gathered a sample of water from the elemental arcana pool. It was dangerous, as he felt his mind being assaulted by the magical power within the pool, but he survived it and got the sample in a small glass vial. Ruh informed the group that the pool also had the potential to recharge some magical items, at some risk. The companions decided not to tamper with that just yet, though.
The Festering Maze of Sloth
The heroes got ready to continue their exploration of deadly Runeforge. They used a Dimension Door spell to bypass the deadly fog barring the way into the Vault of Greed. They found the main hub of Runeforge much as they’d left it. They took a look around, and decided to venture next into the wing of conjuration, which stood behind Runelord Krune’s statue.
Once again, after walking down the corridor for a while, all four companions felt a mental barrier opposing them. It felt especially strong for Ruh and Drithnar, who did not feel welcome in this place. Navan and Kerista were the first two to break the barrier, and they found themselves in a disgusting tunnel of eroded stone, filled with puddles of stagnant water, as well as a horribly acidic atmosphere. Their skin started to burn painfully at the air’s very contact, and they hurried to protect themselves against the acid though magic. Soon, their other two companions joined them, and had to protect themselves with similar magic.
The friends looked around. They were in a dismal place. All manner of disgusting vermin crawled on the floor, walls and ceiling. These unusual beings were seemingly immune to the effect of the acid in the air. A fat slug fell from the ceiling, on to Navan’s shoulder. With a grimace, the cleric quickly wiped it off.
“This place SUCKS!” stated Drithnar.
The companions continued down the hall and reached a circular room with a pool of stagnant water in its center. The remains of what might once have been sofas surrounded the pool. Perhaps, a long time ago, this had been a pleasant room used for relaxation. Not anymore, though. While the companions tried to go around the pool to reach the tunnel opening in the far wall, a disgusting transparent blob emerged from the pool to attack them, but was soon slain by a Flame Strike from Navan and arrows from Drithnar.
The companions reached an intersection. The walls and floor were still as dirty and eroded here. The place seemed long-abandoned.
“It’s almost as if the magic recycling the air in Runeforge is malfunctioning in this wing,” piped Ruh. “How outrageous that they dare to call this the wing of conjuration! Conjuration’s a wonderful school of magic, it’s not like this at all!”
“We know, Ruh, we know,” said Navan. “Drithnar, do you see any tracks on the ground?”
The ranger observed the floor for a while. “One man came here a while back. I’m not sure how long ago, but it wasn’t too recent.”
“Could it have been Ordikon?” asked Kerista.
“Maybe. The tracks are the right size.”
“All right,” said Navan, “let’s try the left tunnel.”
The group soon reached a small room in which stood two statues. It was unclear what they had once represented, because now they were eroded into only vaguely humanoid-shaped blobs. Navan kept a close eye on the ground, looking for traps, but all the others noticed a huge spider looming toward them in the darkness!
Drithnar and Kerista shot arrows at the creature, which skittered along the wall to reach them, and then Ruh slew it with a cold-energy Scorching Ray. Navan screamed in disgust when he saw the huge vermin’s carcass fall right next to him. Since his teenage years when he’d been bitten by a forest spider, and would’ve died if Kaven hadn’t carried him back to town, he was terribly afraid of spiders. He gasped in horror, and gestured for the group to retreat toward the intersection, even though the tunnel continued on the far side of the room.
The group continued straight, and reached another intersection. Unfortunately, Navan was so eager to put some distance between himself and the huge spider that he ran straight into a disgusting gelatinous cube that took up the entire hallway. He struggled for a moment, but was soon paralyzed, and started floating inside the transparent mass. Thankfully, he was still protected from the creature’s acid by magic.
His companions managed to slay the creature with arrows and spell, and once the monster deflated into a puddle of goo, Kerista grabbed hold of Navan and dragged him away. She managed to reanimate him with a spell. Wiping some ooze from his brow, she said: “You poor thing, you’re really not having a good day today…”
The group continued exploring. The halls of Sloth were indeed in a sad state. The group found some bedrooms further, with only some barely recognizable remains of furniture. One of the large bedrooms was infested with spider webs, and dog-sized spiders, which Ruh all killed with one mighty fireball. Another room held a black blob that the group killed with more spells and arrows. They found the remains of a storage room, and another large circular room with a pool of fetid water at the center. A thick cloud of toxic yellow smoke hung in the air here, and the companions dared not enter the room, but took notice of the inviting stone door on the far side.
They used a Dimension Door to appear behind the door. They seemed to be in the ancient bedroom of someone important. A skeleton was lying on the rotten remains of a bed. It wore only acid-damaged rags. The companions searched the room and the corpse, but found nothing of value or interest. Navan tried to contact the deceased’s soul with a spell, but he got no answer. Perhaps the soul had been gone for too long that it was out of reach from such a spell?
The group left the room by using another Dimension Door. They returned to the first intersection and took the central tunnel. On their left, they found what seemed to have once been a laboratory. A conjuration circle was engraved in the floor, but it was barely noticeable beneath the incredible quantity of disgusting centipedes that swarmed in the room. As if sensing their succulent flesh, the vermin started swarming toward the companions. Ruh cast some Burning Hands spell to keep them at bay, and destroyed many of the insects.
But more and more of the vermin crawled toward them, and each of the companions was bitten by the disgusting insects. Kerista and Drithnar swung their weapons madly around them, stomping their boots on the ground to try and kill as many of the insects as possible, and eventually, they managed to get rid of most of them, although they’d suffered some painful bites.
Nothing of value seemed to be within this lab. Ruh though that the summoning circle had once been used to call evil outsiders. She wanted to have none of that. Further down the hall, they found an empty room, and further again, a patch of green slime fell from the ceiling, but they all managed to avoid it. The heroes weren’t sure exactly what this green slime would do if it touched their skin, but they were relieved that they’d avoided it. They experimented to see what could damage it, and Ruh found that even a simple Ray of Frost cantrip could destroy a patch of the vile substance.
The group went through another pool room with another ooze that they killed easily, and then a hallway where they spotted and killed another patch of green slime. Eventually, they reached a set of massive stone double-doors, which led into a large, ornate room that was in better state than the rest of the complex. Two large basins of water decorated the room, as well as several statues and columns. On the far side of the room was a raised platform with a large idol of a goddess with the lower body of a snake, the torso of a woman, many wings on her back, and a Sihedron Rune as a head.
“That’s an idol of the goddess Lissala!” said Ruh. “Runelord Krune was one of her high priests in the ancient days.”
Another large summoning circle could be seen on the floor of this room. The companions entered carefully, eliminating a few more patches of green slime. They scanned the room for magic and evil, and found only that the summoning circle radiated some strong conjuration magic. The idol and altar produced no magic nor evil aura.
While the companions were examining the room, an enormous black blob, by far the largest they’d seen so far, came out of the leftmost water basin and started crawling toward them. Thankfully, the companions had noticed it in time, and they managed to destroy the terrible thing with arrows and spells before it could reach them.
Once that was dealt with, they examined the room, but found very few things of interest. Guessing it might be needed later, though, they took a sample of water from the right basin.
Navan decided to wait at the first intersection while the other three explored the final part of the complex, which had been located behind the giant spider’s room. They returned a few minutes later, empty-handed. It seemed that the Halls of Sloth had been abandoned for a long time ago, and held nothing of interest now, besides possibly some of the holy water from the temple of Lissala. The companions decided to leave and return to the central hub of Runeforge.
The Abjurant Halls of Envy
From there, they decided to try the Abjurant Halls next, since it would likely be an easy exploration: Ordikon had told them that the Wardens of Envy had all been slain. The heroes started walking down the hall behind Belimarius’s statue, and this time, they met no mental resistance to their advance. At the end of the hall, they reached a short flight of stairs leading down into a soot-blackened room, which had obviously been the site of a terrible magical battle.
At that moment, a booming voice surprised them from above, and when they looked up, they saw a large magical mouth addressing them from the ceiling, in Thassilonian words that only Ruh understood: “Stop! These are the Abjurant Halls of Eager Striving. Know that your powers will be crushed and you shall die! You are not worthy!”
She translated to her friends, who chuckled at the empty threat. Its arrogance seemed to match the way Ordikon had described the Wardens of Envy.
The companions carefully went down the short flight of stairs. The room beyond was in a bad state, its walls having been blasted by magical energy. A few frescoes were still barely visible, showing blue and gray-robed wizards casting spells of abjuration at dragons, giants and rival wizards. A few old bones lay in some corners of the room, and three tunnels opened in the damaged walls. But the companions’ attention was immediately drawn to a strange silver rod stuck in the ground in the middle of the room. It was crackling with energy. They approached it carefully.
“What the hell is it?” wondered Drithnar.
“It seems to be a rod that’s been fused with the ground somehow,” replied Ruh. “I’m surprised it’s still charged with energy after all this time. I can sense some strong abjuration magic emanating from it. How could…”
But she was interrupted by Navan, who’d been studying the device carefully: “EVERYBODY OUT, NOW!!!” and he started dashing back toward the entrance. The others quickly followed.
“What’s wrong?” asked Kerista once they’d reached the safety of the tunnel.
“That thing… it’s about to blow up…” said Navan.
“Really?” asked Ruh. “How fascinating!”
They observed the rod for a few more moments, with nothing special happening, and Ruh soon got impatient and took out a wand of magic missiles.
“Let’s see if I can trigger the effect!” she said, casting one missile at the silvery rod. Indeed, once the missile reached its target, the rod let out a bright purple explosion that filled the entire room.
“Oh yes,” continued the gnome, “I saw a magnificent discharge of abjuration energy!”
“What does it actually do?” asked Drithnar.
“I’m not sure. But if it’s a trap left behind by the wardens, we’d better not get caught in it!”
The rod wasn’t crackling with energy anymore, so the companions ventured back inside. They explored the complex for a bit, but it was in a state of utter destruction even worse than the Halls of Sloth. Clearly, Ordikon and the mages of the other wings had done a thorough job in wiping out the forces of Envy. Only two rooms and a few cramped hallways remained, the rest had all collapsed.
In one of the rooms, the group found a basin filled with a strange, metallic-looking liquid. Ruh saw a strong aura of abjuration coming from it. “It might be the special component required to make Runeforged weapons!” she said excitedly.
Navan nodded and took a sample of that water in a brand new vial. Once the companions were ready to leave, they noticed that in the entrance room, the rod was once again sizzling with dangerous-looking energy. From a distance, Ruh triggered it with another Magic Missile from her wand, and then the group safely returned to the central room of Runeforge.
The Halls of Wrath
The companions discussed which wing to visit next, and they decided to try their luck in the Halls of Wrath, where perhaps they might find fellow foes of Karzoug. They stepped behind Alaznist’s statue and carefully strode forward. Drithnar and Ruh, who’d both felt somewhat ill at ease in the previous two wings they’d explored that day, felt much better here. Their spirit was bolstered, and they felt ready to face any challenge. They quickly found themselves in front of an immense hall at the end of which was a thirty-foot-high platform, on top of which they could see an enormous iron statue of a warrior holding a bow, and with a rune drawn on its chest. “The rune of Wrath!” indicated Ruh.
On the entire far wall was drawn a huge mural of Runelord Alaznist, wielding her flaming ranseur, riding triumphantly on the back of a red dragon. For once, Ruh and Drithnar had been the first to pass through a magic tunnel, and it’s only a little bit later that Navan and Kerista finally caught up with them.
The four companions entered the room, and a loud alarm immediately sounded from the iron statue, so loud that it made the ground and walls vibrate.
“I think they know we’re here…” said Drithnar with a smirk.
“Good, I say,” replied Navan. He then cast a Tongues spell on himself, and addressed the statue in a loud voice: “Oh mighty evokers of this place, followers of Alaznist, come, for we have great rejoicing!”
The group waited for a few moments, but received no reply. They decided to start walking in the room, and soon enough, the statue animated, and drew its bow to fire on them. Quickly, Ruh cast Fly spells on Drithnar and Kerista, who started running toward the platform. Navan cast an Entropic Shield on himself and ran after them. But the statue fired three arrows of fire on Ruh, one of which hit her.
The companions approached further and further, and Drithnar was the first one to reach the platform. That did not go so well for him, though, as he got punched several times by the mighty golem, and he didn’t manage to do more than a scratch to it. Navan soon flew behind him, and cast a Heal spell on the badly wounded ranger. Kerista also approached, and hit the golem with one powerful strike from her adamantine earthbreaker. Unlike Drithnar’s weapons, hers seem to inflict nasty wounds upon the construct.
Ruh, who was now close to the platform, cast a summoning spell, and a celestial dire bear appeared behind the golem, and caught it within its mighty embrace. For a moment, the noble beast kept the metallic construct grappled, preventing it from attacking. Kerista and Drithnar kept pounding on their foe, but eventually, the golem broke free, and breathed a cloud of poisonous gas on Kerista, Drithnar and Navan. Thankfully, all three survived the toxic substance. The golem then turned and pounded on the summoned bear, badly wounding it.
Ruh cast a Lightning Bolt on the golem to slow it down, and the two warriors kept hacking at it. Kerista was leaving great marks with her earthbreaker on the statue’s surface. The construct’s artificial intelligence finally realized that Kerista was the biggest threat, and it turned again, smashing the paladin with a powerful blow. But it was too little, too late. The mighty woman resisted the golem’s blow, and she struck it again with her own great strength, and shattered its head. The iron golem fell to the floor in a heap of twisted metal!
Keeping a close eye on the tunnel that opened at the back of the platform, the companions took a few minutes to heal themselves. Ruh thanked the celestial bear for its help before it disappeared back to the higher planes. Then, the companions went down the tunnel and entered a bare room. On the floor were drawn two complex circles, one red and one blue. Both radiated strong conjuration magic. Ruh examined them for a while, and concluded that one of them was used to teleport people away, and that the other was a receptacle for incoming teleportation.
The Warriors of Wrath
The companions stepped into the blue circle, and reappeared in another similar room, which opened into a much larger room that seemed to be a sparring ground for warriors. Within that room, three men and three women stood, obviously ready for combat. They all looked in their early twenties, tall, muscular, with expressions of both anger and eagerness on their faces. They were dressed in chain shirts and carried greatswords, and their bodies were adorned with arcane runes. They looked like people who’d spent a lot of time lifting weights.
Closer to the companions, at the entrance to the room, were what seemed to be allies to these muscular humans. The adventurers recognized those foul creatures: Sinspawn, the monsters they’d fought in the cathedral below Sandpoint in their first adventure! The split-jawed monstrosities wore red metal breastplates, and wielded wicked greataxes.
Before the companions could try to communicate with them, the humans yelled war-cries in Thassilonian, and started casting a barrage of fireballs at the heroes, who were still standing on the teleportation circle. The blasts were terrible to withstand, and lesser mortals would instantly have perished. But the heroes were hardened warriors as well, and they resisted the impact. Drithnar avoided all of the attacks due to his tremendous agility, and charged the Sinspawn with a wrath-filled battle-cry of his own. Navan, who’d been contemplating ordering a retreat through the red circle, abandoned this idea: it was clear that Drithnar was behaving in an even more blood-thirsty manner than usual, and he would fight to the death.
Drithnar soon found himself surrounded by Sinspawn just at the entrance of the room. Kerista charged to his aid and struck one of the monsters with her holy weapon. Ruh then summoned a Wall of Iron at the entrance of the corridor, shielding the group of most of their opponents, and leaving only two of the Sinspawn on the heroes’ side: a good divide and conquer opportunity. Navan, who’d been gravely wounded by the fireballs, healed himself.
Suddenly, the movements of the two Sinspawn stuck on this side of the wall increased in speed: someone on the other side had likely cast a Haste spell. From the other side of the wall came some loud banging noises: the enemies were likely trying to bash through the wall with their weapons.
Drithnar and Kerista fought the two Sinspawn on their side. The one Kerista had wounded hissed furiously, and bit the paladin in the neck. Kerista screamed from the pain, and felt a surge of hatred well up in her heart. But her soul was strong, and she managed to avoid getting overcome by it. Channeling it as a positive motivation instead, she punched the Sinspawn away with a gauntleted first, and smashed her massive weapon against the creature’s skull, killing it instantly.
While Drithnar was still battling the other Sinspawn, Ruh flew up toward the top of the Wall of Iron, which didn’t quite reach the ceiling of the room, and cast a Maximized Fireball at the group of enemies closest to the wall. The terrible conflagration killed three of the humans, and badly wounded some of the Sinspawn and a fourth human. Navan flew up next to Ruh and cast a Dispel Magic on the area, removing the enchantments of some of their surviving enemies.
The humans of the halls of wrath seemed to be skilled both as warriors and mages, and three of the survivors cast Fireballs through the opening on top of the wall. Navan, Ruh and Kerista suffered nasty burns from the detonations. Drithnar, quick as lightning, avoided them all, but the Sinspawn he was fighting was not so lucky, and died from the blast.
There was no rest for the companions, for the Sinspawn finally managed to break a hole through the iron wall with their greataxes, and two of them stepped forth to fight Drithnar and Kerista. By then, Drithnar had sustained several nasty wounds from his enemies, and was bleeding profusely. Kerista slew one of the enemies with a mighty swing, and cleaved into the other foe, who was then pierced through the neck by Drithnar’s sword.
Before more enemies could come through the hole, Ruh plugged it shut with a second Wall of Iron, also blocking the hole at the top. The companions stepped away from the four bloody corpses of Sinspawn near the iron wall, and took refuge on the far side of the room, and started healing themselves. Soon enough, the sound of banging against the wall stopped: it seemed that the enemies had adopted a different strategy.
It took a few minutes for the badly wounded heroes to heal themselves properly with their wands of cure light wounds. Kerista completely drained hers healing herself.
Once the healing was finished, the companions prepared to return into the fight. They all protected themselves against fire by magic, and Ruh cast Greater Invisibility on the two warriors. Then, Navan teleported everyone in the middle of the training room on the other side of the iron wall.
The group saw that on either side of them was a room with two more teleportation circles. The man, the two women, and the two Sinspawn who’d survived the initial onslaught stood in these side rooms, and immediately sprang into action when they saw Ruh and Navan appear. A few more fireballs erupted around them, while Drithnar and Kerista rushed the enemies.
Drithnar missed miserably one of the women, tripping on his own invisible shoelace. The woman, not even aware of his presence, cast a Magic Missile spell at Navan. Drithnar took the opportunity that the woman let her guard down to strike her in mid-casting… and fumbled again! Thankfully, none of his companions noticed his ineptitude.
Near the woman was a Sinspawn who seemed to somehow smell Drithnar’s presence. The creature swung its axe in Drithnar’s general direction, but the ranger easily avoided it. Meanwhile, he kept attacking the fierce-looking woman, who was protected by some mirror images. He destroyed all of the images, then stabbed the woman several times with his blades, and she finally fell to the floor with a bloody gurgle.
At the same time, the rest of the group was battling the enemies on the other side. Ruh slew the last remaining man with a powerful Scorching Ray. The woman cast some Magic Missiles at Ruh, while Kerista engaged the Sinspawn in combat. Ruh burned her attacker to death with another volley of Scorching Rays, and soon after, Kerista and Drithnar each killed their Sinspawn opponent at almost the same time.
Finally, a peaceful silence came over the sparring room. The heroes had defeated all of their wrathful enemies! They quickly healed their wounds (which were few, since they’d taken no damage from the fireballs due to their magical protection), and then looked at the corpses. Each warrior had carried a magical suit of armor and a magical weapon. Those were well-equipped troops indeed… Searching the area, the companions saw that at the far end of the room was a mess hall, which contained no food or drinks, since such things were not necessary in Runeforge. Along the walls of the training hall were many doors, each leading into a bedroom made either for several humans, or Sinspawn. Those of the humans were clean and orderly, those of the Sinspawn were… unpleasant…
Although the companions had spent a lot of their magical abilities for the day, Ruh urged them to press forth. She was very upset at these people of the halls of wrath, who’d attacked them for no reason, before Navan could even try and talk to them. How dared they?! Now, they all deserved to DIE!!!
Mistress of Wrath (part 1)
The companions stepped through one of the blue teleportation circles in one of the rooms, and found themselves in a large room decorated with another mural of Alaznist triumphant, standing atop a burning tower.
“Are we sure Alaznist isn’t the Runelord of Pride?” asked Navan. “She’s got so many pictures of herself in this hall…”
Also set in the walls were several glowing weapons, some of which Ruh detected as magical. One of the walls of the room was blocked by a wall of swirling black smoke, from which Ruh saw some strong illusion magic. She advised the whole group to try and disbelieve it, and after concentrating for a bit, they all saw through the illusion, a great hall beyond, with two rows of thick columns, and an enormous Sihedron rune engraved on the floor. The rune was surrounded by a low circle of flames, and the entire ceiling of that immense hall was also covered in flames.
Navan had disguised himself as a warrior of wrath with his magical hat. Still under the effect of a Tongues spell, he called out: “Great one!”
After a few moments, a harsh feminine voice replied from the other room: “What is it?”
“Travelers with great news, milady,” replied Navan.
“What news are these?”
“News from the outside. News of the stirring of Karzoug. News of how the Halls of Greed have been breached, and Ordikon, killed!”
“Is this all you have to say to me, servant?”
“Yes, my lady, maybe you want to ask them more questions yourself? They are faithful followers of Alaznist.”
“Yes, I do. Bring them forth.”
So the group stepped through the wall of black fog and into the huge room with the flaming ceiling. They carefully walked down the central alley of pillars. To the right, Ruh was suddenly terrified to see the outline of a gargantuan shape which irradiated illusory magic! She also noticed to the left, the outline of a human-sized person hiding near a column. They must be invisible!
Suddenly, a booming voice pronounced some words in a terrible language that Navan understood: it was calling for the favor of some demons! Indeed, soon four large demons appeared near the huge magical silhouette Ruh could see. They had the head and wings of great carrion birds, and the body of thin, twisted humanoids. They cawed maliciously, and a glint of great evil shone in their eyes.
“Vrock demons!” shouted Ruh. “This is too dangerous! We need to flee now!” and with that, she cast a teleportation spell on the whole group, who reappeared instantly near the mephits’ fountain in the Hall of Greed.
A few mephits were there, looking more peaceful than the previous day.
Ruh described to her companions the two invisible shapes she’d seen, although she had trouble convincing them of truly how big the invisible demon had seemed. Indeed, it was even larger than the enormous Glabrezu they’d fought under Sandpoint, and she couldn’t think of any type of demon quite so large… And the thought that they were facing a demon lord was too terrible to contemplate.
Realizing the danger they were facing, but determined to prevail, the four companions decided to rest and recover their magic, and then to teleport back into the room with the burning ceiling. Most likely, the Vrock demons would be gone by then, and their summoner would be unable to call more before the next day.
I was worried for the group going into the Halls of Wrath without resting could of spelled doom lucky for the Arcane Sight
Hey can you post your notes for the Maze of Soth im thinking of adding something in there too
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Hey can you post your notes for the Maze of Soth im thinking of adding something in there too
The encounters I put in there were:
- 2 gray oozes (in 2 different rooms)
- 1 huge spider
- 5 medium spiders
- 1 gelatinous cube
- 2 centipede swarms
- 5 patches of green slime on the ceiling (falling down on PC's and requiring a DC15 reflex save to avoid; DC16 spot check to notice them before walking underneath)
- 1 black pudding
- 1 elder black pudding
- 1 room with a Cloudkill effect inside of it
As expected, none of it was much of a challenge for the PC's, but they still had to expend some resources to get through.
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ok, forgive me. I a post behind, but had to get the following thoughts down before I forget them.
Without actually searching through these posts, there are several examples of this Pride that come to mind:
1) very early on at the asylum where Navan and Drithnar (through some subterfuge) basically allow the prisoner there to contract ghoul fever so that they could follow it back to it's lair - as I recall, that didn't quite work out... This is clearly Navan being a bit selfish, and making choices for everyone in the group despite knowing that they wouldn't have made those same choices if given all the information he had. Kerista here was quite naive (shame on her), but Navan definitely took advantage of that.
2) Navan argued for the slaughtering of the ogre tribe (IIRC one of the tribes helping Barl). One might argue that this is wrathful, but in Navan's case I don't think so. For Drithnar I see this as more about a knee jerk reaction for vengeance, but for Navan it is more cerebral. I think he even asked Kerista to use her detect evil ability on the ogres. "See Kerista, they are evil, so they should be destroyed. Next time don't question me." ;) I'm paraphrasing here, but that was the general feeling I remember from that conversation.
3) Also Navan's dealing with his brother Kaven (after the betrayal was found out) was very much something he did on his own, without consulting others. It was a nice solution, but I'm thinking it could still be tied to a sin. What Kaven did clearly called for an execution, and I think some of the other characters were prepared for that (and might have been proposing that), but of course, Navan knows better than all of them, so he came up with his own solution. ;)
Kerista is a lot harder. I might have chosen Sloth. She lets the boys make all (well most) the decisions for her even when she doesn't agree with them. It might seem weak willed, but I think it's just easier for her to do that. But I don't feel as strongly about Kerista as I do about Navan, so I can see the argument for going with no sin.
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Once again, Chimpman, you amaze me!
I agree totally with Navan = Pride and Kerista = Sloth
I also initially considered giving them that.
But there are two levels of complexity at work here.
First, while there are 4 PC's, only one is actively role-played by a player: Navan. He likes Ruh as well, but due to her lower charisma, he does not role-play her much.
I try to flesh out and role-play Drithnar and Kerista, but when it comes to decision-making, I let my players take the choices. He's the player, after all. :) But for sure if a third person was DM'ing and I was playing Drithnar and/or Kerista as a player, they would take a much more active role in the group's decision-making.
Then, there is the matter of character behavior versus player behavior. Basically, Navan has the same personality as my player. So if I came out and said, "I think Navan suffers from the sin of Pride", it's as if I told my friend that he suffers from the sin of Pride. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that. Because the way he behaves while playing a super powerful imaginary character in D&D is so abstracted from the way he behaves in normal life, which is someone I like very much (or else he would not be my friend). I wouldn't want to make him feel bad.
I'd rather sacrifice a little fun in the adventure than to open such a can of worms with one of my best friends. :)
In the same way, my personality is very similar to Kerista's. I am a kind and accommodating person, I am very emotional, but I am not assertive. That could be seen as sloth, not being willing to fight for your ideas. But then I could justify these actions as well, and that would lead us far from D&D so it might not be the best place to discuss that. :)
I think the main difference between my player and me is that he doesn't get emotionally involved with the characters, and I do. A lot. So he tends to see the enemy NPC's as targets that must be slain at any cost (feeling no remorse when they die), and sees the good NPC's as somewhat clueless morons who can't defend themselves and need the PC's to save their lives time and again. They should best stay out of the way and let the "professionals" take care of the situation. But he is also a great strategist and makes very good stories as a DM.
I get very attached to my characters as a player, and as a DM, I get very involved with every non-generic-goon NPC. So while I have the quality of fleshing out the NPC's and making them interesting through acting, it's very taxing for me to be a DM for an extended period of time, because I put so much of myself into the NPC's, I feel sad when they get killed, or tricked, or made fun of. Because I have so much empathy for them, it's as if I received that treatment at some level. No matter how depraved the NPC is, since I have the job of playing that character, for the time I am playing him, I become him.
If you know anything about Myers-Briggs Typology, my player is an INTJ and I am an INFJ. That can give you an idea.
But basically, you totally understood the dynamic of the group. "Navan knows best".
Really, I have to say, I am very impressed at how deep and accurate your analysis of our story is. You're even bringing things up from the Skinsaw Murders. I am truly amazed.
Hey can you post your notes for the Maze of Soth im thinking of adding something in there too** spoiler omitted **
Yeah Im much more of a jerk DM the encounters would be much more difficult coming up to the game I will think about putting some stuff in there Oozes Puddings and that sort of thing
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:D
Anyway you bring up another good point about assigning sins to the characters, and it's one that I actually considered when reading through that adventure. Of course the way it's written makes it seem like fun to have a sin assigned to your character, but I could also see this kind of thing going horribly wrong if not handled properly. The bottom line is, if it's going to be a fun part of the game for both DM and players then by all means do it. If there is even a chance that it won't work out, you're better off just brushing over that part of the game.
Oh and by the way... I'm an INTJ as well... which usually means I empathize more with Mr. Spock, than I do with Captain Kirk or Bones. Hmmm... that being the case why am I wearing a gold uniform right now instead of a blue one? (hehe, truth be told the reason is that I probably suffer from some of the same defects as poor Navan does. Why settle for number 2 when you can be number 1, right?) ;)
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And it's funny that you mention Mr Spock, because he's often an example we use. My friend is also very Mr Spock-like in his reactions.
Basically, my friend and I have many points in common, but the Thinking vs Feeling aspect is definitely one where we are at opposite ends of the spectrum. He is a very kind person and can feel empathy for others, but in a very cerebral and unemotional manner. I am the opposite, I love people and get attached to them (even though, being introverted, I don't always show it).
In D&D, I deeply care about every non-trivial character I play, whether PC or NPC. OK, I won't burst in tears if Goblin #5 from room 18A dies, but still, I got sad when Orik (who wasn't even evil) got sent to jail, when the group needlessly killed Iesha's revenant in Foxglove Manor, when Mammy Graul's defenseless familiar was mercilessly butchered, and more recently with the bad treatment that the various denizens of Runeforge have received (we've already played the Iron Cages of Lust, but I haven't finished writing the log yet. Oh, my poor, beautiful little succubi <cries> ).
Sure, they're evil, but I still get involved emotionally when playing them.
Perhaps that's why usually, my friend is better suited at being DM (he's great at creating adventure plots and improving existing ones as you can see in my Savage Tide journal), and I am better at being a player because I create and "act out" colorful characters.
After we're done with this AP, I will try to make a lengthy post about my opinions of the AP and what I changed, and I will try to remember to post a warning about the Sins possibly creating some Real Life tension around the table if not assigned carefully.
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Oathday, Neth 18th, 4708 (continued)
Mistress of Wrath (part 2)
Navan summoned a Heroes’ Feast for the whole group, and they joyfully ate it while discussing what they’d encountered that day, and strategies for the upcoming fight. They also shared the feast with the water mephits, who especially enjoyed the fish, caviar and wine. The little creatures invited the characters to visit the elemental plane of water once they were done with their current mission.
The companions then rested for a few hours, in meditation or study, to recuperate their spells. Once they were done, they cast some powerful protective magic on themselves, and teleported back into the fire-ceiling room of Halls of Wrath.
Once there, they immediately saw a woman standing near a pillar a bit further away. She was very tall and muscular, with short bleached white hair. She wore a red and black breastplate, wielded a flaming ranseur, and had the symbol of Wrath tattooed on her forehead.
To their right, Ruh saw the hideous shape of the gargantuan demon clearly thanks to the See Invisible spell she had just cast. It was unlike any demon she’d heard about before: its head was a cross between a giant bear and a spider, with eight black eyes, and its body was vaguely humanoid, but also had a long scaled tail and some claws like those of a gigantic praying mantis.
The woman and the demon roared a challenge and prepared to face the heroes in battle. Navan was the first to act, and cast a Mislead spell to pretend he was hanging back, but in reality, he approached the woman from the cover of invisibility. Ruh tried to cast a Greater Dispel Magic and a Quickened Dispel Magic on the demon, but both spells were resisted. Drithnar charged the woman and stabbed her with his sword.
But by then, the enormous demon had approached Ruh and stabbed her painfully with one of its claws.
The mistress of wrath stepped away from Drithnar, and cast a spell which unleashed a bolt of Chain Lightning which hit Kerista, then Ruh, and finally passed through Navan’s fake image. Kerista came to Ruh’s side and struck the demon with her weapon. “Die, fiend!” she shouted, and her weapon glowed with even more holy power than usual.
Navan, from the cover of invisibility, cast a Harm spell on the lady, who screamed in pain, but resisted the worst part of the attack. Ruh, casting on the defensive as she was being attacked by a multitude of deadly appendages, threw a Disintegrate spell at the demon, but it only took minor damage from it. She immediately followed it up with a Quickened Scorching Ray of cold energy, which hit the creature for noticeable damage.
With a roar, Drithnar slashed the red-armored woman with his sword and war razor. Already weakened by Navan’s spell, she was cut to pieces by the furious ranger’s onslaught. But at the same time, the demon almost killed Ruh: it lacerated her small body with its merciless claws, tail and fangs. She almost perished that day.
Ruh couldn’t cast any spells to try and save herself: she’d finally fallen victim to the demon’s terrible gaze, and was paralyzed. Kerista tried to slay the demon before it could kill her friend, and smashed it twice more with her earthbreaker. Then, Navan, who was further away, grabbed Drithnar’s shoulder and teleported the both of them behind the demon. From there, Drithnar jumped and plunged his sword deep in the demon’s leg. The creature turned around with a roar of rage, and Drithnar slashed at its face with his holy war razor, cutting off some of its eyes, and finally cutting its throat. With a terrible sound of agony, the demon crashed to the floor. It was dead!
Master of Wrath
Ruh soon regained her senses, and Navan hurried to her side to heal her. Drithnar cheered in victory, raising his weapons above his head and letting out a roar of wrath that echoed in the hall.
“What’s that mark on your forehead?” asked Kerista after the echoes faded.
“What mark?” asked Drithnar.
“That mark… You’ve got the same mark as that woman on your forehead. What happened?”
“Huh??”
Navan and Ruh also said they saw the rune of wrath on Drithnar’s forehead. Puzzled, they looked at the woman’s body and were surprised to see that there was now no rune on her forehead. Had it somehow been transferred to Drithnar?
Actually, now that he thought about it, the mighty ranger felt some new energy in his body. He felt more powerful than before. He’d thought it was only the rush of victory over the mistress of wrath and the demon that he was feeling, but no, he felt like he was something more than before! He was now a pure embodiment of wrath… But of just wrath, he hoped, saving his rage for those who would harm innocents. He felt he had the inner strength to control that fiery anger, especially with the soothing influence of his beloved Kerista.
The companions then searched the room, and took the mistress of wrath’s magical items with them. They then passed through the wall of black mist, and examined the glowing weapons decorating the walls. Some of them were magical and valuable, but Navan saw they’d need to use a Stone Shape spell to get them out. It could wait.
After stepping through the blue circle, the group was teleported back into the training room of the Halls of Wrath. There, they saw that many of the bodies had been removed, and that two women and one man were busy cleaning up the place. When they saw the adventurers approach, they readied themselves for battle, but Navan gestured for them to stop. He pointed at Drithnar, who wore the mark of wrath on his forehead, and cast Tongues spells on himself and on the ranger.
“We have defeated your mistress!” growled Drithnar, pointing at his forehead. “I bear the mark, you see?”
The three warriors looked at him with astonished expressions. Finally, the man spoke: “Yes, you bear the mark. But who are you, what are you doing here?”
“We come from Golarion,” said Navan. “For ten thousand years, you’ve been trapped in this place, oblivious to the fact that Thassilon is no more. Oblivious to the fact that Bakrakhan is long destroyed. Resting below the waves of the sea.”
Upon hearing the words, the warriors displayed not sadness, but only anger, as if in a desire for vengeance.
“Oblivious to the fact that your era has ended...” continued Navan. He looked at Kerista, and she made a discreet gesture at him: she sensed evil within them. He turned back toward the three warriors. “You can now leave this place, leave Runeforge. You know the way out.”
“No,” replied the man. “We can’t.”
“Why is that?” asked Navan.
“We are… attuned to this place now,” replied one of the women. “We’ve lived here for so long that we can only leave through a gate, and alas, the knowledge to create one is barred from us. You see, according to our legends, a very long time ago here lived the Lords of Wrath, wizards of great power. They helped build this place, working with Runelord Alaznist herself. But alas, their bloodline ended eons ago, and much of their wisdom and lore was lost. For countless generations, my people have lived here. We are the descendants of the warriors who defended these wise wizards. We’ve stayed faithful to the old ways, and to the orders we were given: to defend these halls against invaders, and train tirelessly until the time would come when we would be called to march to the greatest battle of our lives.” She pointed to her two companions. “We, and all of our ancestors, have trained relentlessly, maintaining our bodies at the peak of physical perfection, and learning as much of the ancient battle-magic as we could.
“Unfortunately, the way to leave Runeforge requires a summoning circle, but we do not know how to activate one, or even for sure where one could be found. We think there might once have been some in the Festering Maze of Sloth, but we none can survive within those poisonous corridors.”
“We have…” grunted Drithnar.
“Then you know some defensive magic that was not part our training,” replied the woman.
“We’ve seen the circles you described, as we visited the other wings, destroying all who stood against us, as true embodiments of wrath,” said Navan haughtily.
“You are mighty!” said the man. “Who are you?”
“We are the heroes of Golarion,” said Navan, pointing at each companion in turn. “I am Navan, and these are Drithnar, Kerista and Ruh. We’ve journeyed here to prepare for the impending fight against Karzoug, the first of the Runelords to awaken. And what are your names?”
The man said he was called Arak. The woman who’d spoken about their history was called Bakra, and the quiet one was Lodria.
“Does Alaznist still live?” asked Arak.
“Her realm is long gone,” replied Navan. “As for her… I would think you would know.”
“We don’t,” replied the big man.
“We’ve heard nothing, except about five years ago,” said Bakra. “The pool at the center of Runeforge flared to life, and we all became aware of it: us, and the denizens of the other wings, at least those that still survived. But after careful examination, we were disappointed to discover that it was indeed Karzoug who was awakening. If he knew that among all of his followers, only one still lived, he would be sorely disappointed. Only a madman serves him now.”
“How many inhabitants are there in other wings?” asked Navan. “We’ve already explored some of them, and haven’t always found a lot of people in them. This wing is the most heavily populated one we’ve seen so far.”
“It’s the most populous if you only count living people,” replied Bakra. “But there are many who dwell in the Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony, who used to be among the living. But they now serve the wicked lich Kazaven, as puppets. They are monstrosities.”
“Undead?” asked Navan.
Bakra nodded. “There are few who live within the Halls of Pride and Lust, only a handful in each. And there once lived many in the Halls of Envy… but we crushed them all,” she added with a grin. “When they tried to take control of the central hub and prevent the rest of us from accessing it… We forged an alliance with Kazaven, Vraxeris and some of the others, to destroy our enemies. Our forces remained together for a short while, but although we, the guardians of wrath, are just and honorable, the wizards of the other wings are cowardly and treacherous. They tried to trick us, and we had to force them to retreat back into their holes.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Navan.
“About five years ago, not long after the central pool flared back to life. We wanted to study the pool, which had lain dormant for countless centuries. We felt so lucky that it was happening in our lifetimes! Perhaps the time of reckoning was finally at hand, and we would be able to leave this accursed place and march to war once again! Of course, Arak, Lodria and I were quite young at that time, and not well versed in the ways of magic. Our parents, may their souls be honored, might have unlocked the secrets if they’d had the time. But the war against the Lords of Envy was taxing, and many of them perished. But at least, their deaths were glorious, and our enemies paid for their treachery with their own lives.”
Navan nodded and considered this quietly.
“So, are you able to leave Runeforge?” asked Bakra.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“By the same way that we came in.”
“What is it?”
“The last passageway. There are seven wings, behind seven statues. But the eighth…”
“It’s a dead end!” protested Arak.
“It might have been until now,” replied Navan, “but not anymore, that’s where we came from. We unlocked the portal from Golarion, we found the ancient way into this place.”
“This is marvelous!” said Arak. He seemed truly eager to leave Runeforge. By his side, Bakra was also smiling brightly, but behind them, Lodria did not seem to share their joy.
“What is it you seek to accomplish here?” asked Bakra.
“We want to oppose Karzoug,” said Navan, “like you would do too in our position.”
“Are you raising an army?”
“We’ve come here to enchant our weapons in the central pool. You must know something about that…”
The three warriors looked at each other, and didn’t seem to know what the cleric was talking about.
“And what will you do with those weapons once they’re enchanted?” asked Arak.
“Kill Karzoug,” replied Navan with a resolute grin.
The warriors eyed the companions’ impressive weapons, as well as those they had looted from the mistress of wrath.
“You bear mighty weapons. And you now even have High Lady Athroxis’s ranseur. If anyone could be strong enough to slay Runelord Karzoug, then it must be you!” said Arak. “Have you an army already?”
“We have giants helping our cause…” replied Navan.
“We wish to join your army!” said Bakra enthusiastically. “We are good warriors, and we can use magic as well. I see you fought our brothers and sisters, surely you saw how skilled they are.”
“Yes, and they didn’t even give us time to try and talk with them, they attacked us right away.”
Bakra blinked in surprise. “Of course not! They would not try and disrespect you by talking!”
“Right…” said Navan. “Where do these other teleporters there lead?”
“To the fleshwarping laboratory. We were going to bring the rest of our fallen kin there so they might be reconstructed into new warriors, as we have done generation after generation.”
“Do you raise them as undead, is that what you do?”
The three warriors looked at each other, and Bakra explained after a few moments: “Life is bound by cycles. We are all born around the same time, we grow up together. When we reach the age of 24, we are allowed to mate… to create new warriors. Then, we continue our training over the years, but with time, our bodies grow weaker and weaker. We serve until the age of 44. By that time, a warrior’s body is inadequate to honor these halls, and his life must end. The warrior’s body is then recycled into the holy ones,” she said, pointing to one of the Sinspawn corpses. “We are young warriors, which is why we’re still not very skilled. We have not yet reached the age of reproduction,” she added, blushing slightly as she looked at Drithnar.
Indeed all of the warriors the group had met so far had looked very young, perhaps only twenty years old. Like Kerista, who was still only in her teenage years, for people their age, they were extremely powerful. Clearly, their intense and focused training made them the perfect warriors.
“Are there any older warriors still around?” asked Drithnar.
“Not anymore…” said Bakra, pointing again to the corpse of the Sinspawn. “This was my father.”
“Oh…” said Drithnar, feeling slightly uncomfortable.
‘And my mother died five years ago, fighting the Lords of Envy.”
“And she wasn’t turned into a Sinsp… I mean… A holy one?” asked the ranger.
“No, the foul Kazaven stole her body after the battle. He surely turned her into one of his minions…” said the woman sadly.
“How many more of you are there?” asked Navan.
“There are six more.”
“Lead us to them. We must talk to them, and make sure they recognize Drithnar as their new leader. We could use the power of your blades against Karzoug.”
The Fleshwarping Lab
The group followed the warriors to the other teleporter room, and appeared inside a large laboratory where six more warriors worked. A few corpses were placed on some tables, and at the far end of the room were alcoves filled with alchemical equipment, as well as a huge vat containing some foul-smelling liquid that some of the warriors were stirring. Judging from the traces of blood on the floor, it seemed that the corpses to be recycled were being placed inside the cauldron. The companions were reminded of the dark cauldron below Jorgenfist…
The warriors grabbed their weapons when they saw the intruders, but Arak and Bakra were able to stop them in time, and introduced Drithnar as their new master.
“That’s right, warriors!” grunted Drithnar. “I bear the mark of wrath now. I am your new master. My companions and I have slain Athroxis, and her big demon too. Now, if any of you give us any trouble, you’ll suffer the same fate. Are we clear?”
All of the warriors lowered their weapons, and bowed to Drithnar, their new master. But in the eyes of some of them glittered a spark of hatred for the strangers.
The companions discussed with the other warriors for a few minutes, and then, gathered together and spoke in the Common tongue.
“So, do you think we can trust them?” asked Drithnar.
“I can sense evil within them,” said Kerista. “And some of them clearly hate us, despite our mission of killing their sworn enemy.”
“I don’t think we can trust them just yet,” said Navan. “They’re definitely evil, but they’ve been bred as killing machines since they were born. They don’t know anything else. But Drithnar, you were looking to form your own band of mercenaries, they would be good candidates for that if we could control them.”
“Oh yes, they definitely would be,” replied the ranger. “But I’m not sure it would be wise to bring these warriors into Sandpoint. They could kill a lot of people there…”
“We could bring them to Jorgenfist,” suggested Kerista. “They might get along better with the giants.”
“Maybe. I think there’s hope for them. They’re all very young, maybe once they see the outside world, and we have the chance to explain them how life really works, they might have a change of heart and forget their evil ways. I mean, once we show them the taste of freedom…”
Kerista smiled. “Yes, I think they definitely deserve a chance! I feel bad for those poor people, having been stuck in this dreadful place for all of their lives…”
Navan nodded. “Worse comes to worst, we might use some Marks of Justice on them as well.”
Drithnar burst out laughing. “Oh yes, I like it… We’ll make a special patrol of them in Sandpoint, with Kaven as their captain… he he…”
“I don’t think we should take them with us yet, though,” said Kerista. “We can’t trust them yet, and if they tried to attack us while we were battling other enemies, we might die.”
“They would help a lot, though,” said Drithnar. “With them, we might raze the rest of Runeforge with little effort…”
“Hmm…” said Navan. “I agree with Kerista. Let’s not risk it yet. We’ll manage with just the four of us for now, like we’ve done so far.”
The cleric then turned back toward the warriors and addressed them in a loud voice: “Now that the cycle has been broken, no longer do the old ways apply. In a couple of days, we will come back here and lead you to Golarion. No more is there any need for the cycles of rebirth. Those that died today can remain dead. No more holy ones. YOU survived. YOU will be part of the new army that will march upon Xin-Shalast and kill Karzoug!”
A loud cheer came from the warriors, most of whom seem quite eager to participate in such a glorious battle.
“Yes!” shouted the biggest of the warriors, a huge man named Krog. “To victory! High Lord Drithnar, we will follow you to Xin-Shalast, we will follow you until we reach the Great Boneyard itself!!!”
“The great what?” whispered Drithnar to Ruh.
“The Great Boneyard. Pharasma’s realm. It basically means until death.”
“Oh. That’s good, I guess.”
“Until we return”, continued Navan, “clean this place up, and gather your belongings. For the first time in your lives, you will make a great journey. Honor them as you wish, but leave the dead as they are. This day, the dead will remain dead.”
Before he left, Navan took a sample of the foul liquid from the Sinspawn vat… Possibly another component for making the Runeforged weapons?
Arak, Bakra and a few other warriors asked the characters many questions about the outside world. The companions answered some of them, but explained that they were too busy to answer the others.
Drithnar asked questions about the other wings. The group learned that the Shimmering Veils of Pride were protected by a devious trap: two mirrors facing each other in a long hallway, which would create duplicates of anyone stepping between them. Those duplicates would then attack all intruders. The warriors of wrath explained that it prevented them from attacking the domain of Vraxeris, and that they had lost many warriors to this deadly trap in ages past.
In the Iron Cages of Lust lived an evil temptress, a demoness of great beauty, and her beautiful daughters, but they were wicked creatures and could turn a warrior’s head and making attack his own comrades. For that reason, the warriors of wrath had also suffered some losses when trying to invade the Iron Cages, and had decided to leave the vile demonesses alone.
The Shimmering Veils of Pride
The companions returned to the central hub of Runeforge, and headed past the statue of Xanderghul into the Shimmering Veils of Pride. Before the intersection, heeding the warning of the warriors of wrath, Ruh prepared herself to disable the deadly trap.
“I believe that mirrors of opposition can only create four duplicates per day! Therefore, I shall summon four weak creatures to disable the trap.”
She did so, summoning four celestial hawks. The magnificent creatures appeared, and Ruh sent them home right after she heard the sound of their doubles heading toward the group. The heroes easily dispatched the frail creatures, and were able to enter the Shimmering Veils of Pride unmolested.
While fun, that trap can be truly deadly and TPK material. Even if the characters are in big trouble, they can’t even use their usual tactic of teleporting to safety: the doubles are themselves, they think like them. So they can guess where they would teleport, and follow them there to continue the fight.
The encounter also led to a lengthy discussion about the exploits of Mirrors of Opposition. Do they create the opposite of the subject (i.e., is the image of a CE character, a LG character?) or are all images wholly evil and only bent on destroying their look-alike? If it’s really an opposite, then, high level wizards could create mirrors of opposition and place them in front of thieves, murderers, rapists, etc to form model citizens from them, and just keep the “originals” rotting in a cell. It seems like an item that could completely affect the world in an incredibly complex (and somewhat silly) manner. For example, my player was considering trying to capture every enemy from now on and trying to bring them here, to create two “good” copies of them.
The potential for exploitation of this item is endless.
Knowing that they were about to face a powerful illusionist, Navan cast some True Seeing spells on Ruh and Drithnar. The group then entered a huge room whose walls were like mirrors. At the far end of the huge room stood a gigantic statue of the Peacock Spirit, although Ruh and Drithnar saw that it was merely an illusion. They also saw that four men were standing throughout the room. They all looked identical: handsome, with shoulder-length blond hair, but each one wore a different elegant nobleman’s outfit, as well as a cloak of peacock feathers. The men were invisible, so Navan and Kerista did not see them.
The two who could see them quickly warned the others; Kerista concentrated and sensed some evil coming from the men.
“Who goes there?” called out the four men in unison. They spoke in Thassilonian, but Navan and Drithnar could still understand them due to the Tongues spells cast in the Halls of Wrath. “Who dares enter the Shimmering Veils?”
“We come from Golarion,” said Navan, “the way into Runeforge has been opened, and we were told we could find Vraxeris here.”
“What do you seek with the master?”
“We need to create a weapon that shall kill Karzoug.”
“You seek to slay Karzoug the Claimer?” said the four voices. “Why?”
“Because he poses a threat to all that we hold dear.”
“And what is that?”
“Thassilon is no more, and the country that now rose from the ashes is threatened by Karzoug. We need to defeat him. We’ve come to Runeforge to get runeforged weapons.”
“Who are you, and what are your names?”
Navan introduced the group once again.
“And you think the four of you are strong enough to defeat a Runelord?” asked the four men once again.
“Yeah,” replied Drithnar. “I bear the mark of wrath, see? All those who stand in my way get killed. Are you going to stand in my way, boys?”
“You dare address me so?!” roared the four men. “Brute! Surely someone so uncouth as you has no chance to defeat someone like me!”
“Please, there is no need for us to fight,” said Navan. “We have visited the Vault of Greed and have found evidence that the wizards there had been researching a way of killing Runelord Xanderghul with Miserly weapons made of elements of Greed and Sloth. We know that a similar weapon can be made with the help of what we could find in this hall and in Sorshen’s hall.”
“I imagine that, should I refuse your request, you will get violent, yes?”
“We were violent in other wings, so that is a fair assumption.”
“I see. And what is it exactly that you seek from these halls?”
“We don’t know exactly. We were hoping that you would know. Maybe all it takes is a feather from this idol, maybe it’s something else you have hidden in these halls. Ten thousand years in a single place, that might drive someone mad…”
“Yes…”
“Are you mad?”
“If I realize that I am mad, then I cannot truly be mad. Therefore, I cannot answer that question.”
“Makes sense,” said Drithnar with a nod.
The four feather-cloaked men all looked at each other. It was quite strange to hear them all speak in unison, yet Ruh and Drithnar saw that their movements were not coordinated, it wasn’t as if they were mirror images of each other. “Unfortunately, I do not know what you need. That knowledge is long forgotten, I’m afraid. Is there perhaps something you can do to try to help me remember?”
“Like cutting open your head?” suggested Drithnar. “By the way, if we kill you, then we can talk to your soul. Just thought I’d mention it.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t work on me. Just thought I’d mention it. I must think about this. I would ask you to please come back at a later time.”
“Unfortunately,” said Navan, ”I don’t think this is an option really, because we know that you are going to summon some kind of army to defeat us. Now we have you in front of us…”
“If I could summon an army, why wouldn’t I have summoned one already and conquered all of Runeforge?” asked the man.
“Because you wouldn’t have been able to summon it and keep it for ten thousand years, but maybe now…”
The man looked at Navan as though he was stupid, but since he was still invisible, Navan continued his tirade: “Are you alone here? With your doubles?”
“It matters not.”
“No, it does. Because it would be a sign of your sanity which might in turn influence what we’re going to do with your case.”
“It seems that our discussion has reached an impasse. But the fact that you’ve managed to slay a few crude barbaric warriors seems to have deluded you into thinking you, poor miserable worms, could match the power of Lord Vraxeris himself. I am now under the obligation of showing you the error of your reasoning.”
The Shadows of Vraxeris
From there, things got pretty ugly and a fight started. Navan cast an Invisibility Purge and rushed into the middle of the room, making all four men appear. One of the men then cast a Fireball on the group, and another cast a Feeblemind spell on Ruh. Drithnar charged the man on the far right, and Kerista started running toward the man on the far left. Both of these men cast a defensive spell on themselves.
Navan immediately cast a Break Enchantment spell on Ruh, restoring her mind. Two of the men cast Feeblemind spells again. Navan resisted the first, but Ruh was affected by the second, and returned to her state of extreme stupidity. She started to chew on her staff, watching the action in front of her with dumb eyes. Drithnar, immune to the wizard’s illusory defenses thanks to his True Seeing spell, struck true and slew one of the men. Kerista struck another one, who stepped back and blasted her with some Scorching Rays.
Navan cast a Silence spell on his dagger, and moved close to the two men in the middle. They realized what was going on and retreated toward the back of the room, one of them having the time to cast some Scorching Rays on Navan. Drithnar rushed toward that man. Kerista tried to destroy her opponent, but all of her attacks missed their target, as the wizard was protected by Displacement. The man laughed and blasted her with more Scorching Rays.
Seeing that Kerista was badly burned, Navan threw his dagger behind the two mages in the middle, and ran to the left side of the room, casting a Heal spell on the paladin. Both mages in the middle hit Drithnar with a Ray of Enfeeblement, greatly weakening him. He struggled to reach the first mage, and sliced him with his sword, only doing a superficial wound.
Kerista attacked with renewed vigor and hit her opponent with her earthbreaker. Navan cast a Hold Person spell on Drithnar’s foe, but the man quickly escaped the spell’s hold. The other mage next to him cast another Ray of Enfeeblement on Drithnar, but the ranger dodged it. He then managed to kill the other wizard despite his much reduced strength. Soon after, Kerista slew her enemy as well. She smashed his chest against the wall, and blood splattered all over the mirror there, but soon turned to water. The man’s skin lost its color, and his entire body soon turned to snow. Surprised, Navan looked around and noticed that both men Drithnar had killed had also turned to snow! They were clones…
Navan cast a Dispel Magic on the last enemy standing, who tried to cast a Feeblemind spell on him before dying, just out of spite, but Navan resisted, and Drithnar was able to slay the mage.
The fight ended, with Drithnar as a weakling and Ruh as a simpleton: a rare sight indeed. Navan didn’t have enough energy left to restore Ruh, they would have to wait before restoring her sanity. While Kerista watched her, Navan and Drithnar searched the men’s bodies and took their magical items. All of them had been clones… Where was the original? They then painstakingly searched the room, looking for secret passages, or anything of interest, but found nothing. Only the illusory statue and the mirrors… Mirrors, everywhere…
Eventually, they got tired of this, and teleported back to the safety of the Vault of Greed.
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“I imagine that, should I refuse your request, you will get violent, yes?”
“We were violent in other wings, so that is a fair assumption.”
Lol! Mr. Spock indeed! I love it.
Anyway, so far the dungeon crawl has been a fun read. I really like the idea of Drithnar and Kerista taking on the wrath warriors as "apprentices" as it were. Can't help but think they will cause problems somewhere, but it sounds like the fun kind of problems.
And I also agree that once befriended, the wrath warriors would have told them all that they knew about other parts of the complex. It doesn't lessen the adventure any to have them do so. For example, had they tackled Pride before Wrath, in all likelihood, they would have tripped that nasty mirror trap. They didn't though because they found out about it. I'd think of that as a reward for good role playing. Not as quantifiable as normal treasure, but a reward none the less.
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I'd think of that as a reward for good role playing. Not as quantifiable as normal treasure, but a reward none the less.
Yes, that's a good way to see it!
It's funny because I know that in Mary Yamato's campaign, the PCs also got those warriors as allies (although they went even further and actually raised Athroxis from the dead, I think).
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Fireday, Neth 19th, 4708
The Memories of Vraxeris
After resting for a few hours, Navan was able to restore Ruh’s intelligence. He then conjured up a Heroes’ Feast, and even though they weren’t hungry, the heroes ate politely. Then, they rested for a few more hours to allow Ruh to regain her magical energy.
Once they were ready, the adventurers teleported back to the Shimmering Veils of Pride. There, Ruh used her magic to detect a secret door in the far wall of the mirror-covered main hall. The group then entered an old study that was filled with a musky scent of decay. The source of this decay was apparent: the skeletal remains of a man sat at a nearby table. All around the room, the walls were lined with bookshelves containing many precious-looking tomes. The man had apparently died while writing a book that rested on the table.
The companions carefully approached the skeleton, because they felt some magic and evil radiating from it, but it turned out that it was no wicked undead. What they felt merely came from the magical items it was still wearing. Its black robe was surrounded by an aura of evil. The companions looted the body, and noted that this had probably once been the real Vraxeris: in life, he must’ve looked like the clones that they’d fought in the previous room.
The group explored the rest of the complex, and found some empty, unused rooms. They all radiated a faint aura of illusion, and Ruh suspected that they had once been decorated with magnificent illusions, which must’ve vanished with the death of Vraxeris. In one room, they made a gruesome discovery: dozens and dozens of skeletons were piled up there. Upon examining them, Navan and Kerista realized that they had all been human males of the same height and build. The same size as Vraxeris…
Ruh identified the items the group had found on Vraxeris and on Highlady Athroxis. Some of them were quite powerful, and the group divided them among themselves. Clearly, coming to Runeforge had given them access to powerful magical items that would aid them in their mission to destroy Karzoug; and they hadn’t even created the runeforged weapons yet.
After that, the group brought the black robe of the archmage to the disjunction field room in the Abjurant Halls of Envy, and left it there, hoping it would get destroyed by the pulse. Ruh was eager to read the journal of Vraxeris, but warned her friends that it would take some time. Since they felt it might contain some useful information, they gave her the twelve hours she needed to read it carefully, even though they’d rested recently.
While Ruh read, the other passed the time as best as they could, but there wasn’t much to do, since they were stuck in Vraxeris’s study, which was full of books written in a language they couldn’t read.
“Oh, this is terrible,” said Drithnar after a while. He let out a long sigh. “How could these people survive being stuck here for ten thousand years? I’ve only been in this room for a few hours, and I’m already so bored I’m about to commit suicide!”
During the waiting period, Navan also tried to perform some Speak With Dead rituals on the skeleton in the study, as well as on a few of those heaped together, but all of them resisted his spells. Finally, Ruh gathered her friends around her and read them a few of the more interesting passages in the ancient wizard’s journal. From what she’d read there, he had been a highly skilled Illusionist, not too far in power from the Runelords themselves! In his tome, he spoke of rival wizards such as Ordikon and Kazaven as being clumsy amateurs, whose skills were vastly inferior to his own. Perhaps some of it had been due to the man’s towering ego, but still, Ruh got the sense that he had truly been a genius.
He had devised a way to clone himself into a young adult version of his own body, effectively rendering himself immortal. The scheme had lasted for about ten thousand years, and had only failed very recently. Ruh was sure that those secrets could be sold for a large sum of money to a wizard versed in necromancy (which she wasn’t), but Navan warned her that most likely, if word got out that such a spell existed, many selfish wizards would seek to take it by force, since it represented a desirable alternative to becoming a lich…
Ruh nodded, and proceeded to read out loud a few more key excerpts from the journal:
“The Runeforge pool awoke! I first took this as a sign that Runelord Xanderghul had risen. When I arrived at the pool to investigate, it seemed that the others had come to the same conclusion. The foolish Wardens of Envy thought to disrupt the recrudescence, and with the aid of Kazaven, Ordikon, Athroxis and that lovely creature Delvahine, we were able to defeat them utterly. Their Abjurant Halls lie in ruins. Our treaty was short-lived, though. Kazaven absconded with the bodies and that treacherous wench Athroxis nearly burned me to death before I made it back here.”
(…)
“I was mistaken. Runelord Xanderghul still slumbers. It is that monster Karzoug who quickens and nears rebirth. Damnation! He must not be allowed to precede Xanderghul into the world, for he would rebuild Thassilon in his own inferior image, a testament to his own greed rather than one of pride in the work. He must be delayed or defeated!”
(…)
“I have managed to escape this place, to a certain extent. By astral projection, I can explore what the world outside has become. It is a brutish place, yet it pleases me to see Thassilon’s mark endures in the shape of our monuments. Still, the wilderness of the world vexes me. Gone is the empire I knew. Karzoug’s city of Xin-Shalast is now hidden high in the mountains, and when I finally discovered it, I found the spires where his body is hidden to be inaccessible, warded against astral travelers by the occlusion field around the peak of Mhar-Massif. As long as his runewell is active, I fear even a physical approach would be impossibly deadly. I must determine a way to pierce these wardings, and to send an agent in my place. No need to risk my own life before my clone is ready.”
(…)
“I have taken steps toward an alliance with Delvahine. She may be able to escape this place, for she was not of the original blood. At the least, she can call upon agents from outside, and perhaps through them we can secure servants in the outer world. She seems uninterested in Sorshen’s return; all the better for Xanderghul, that.”
(…)
“The Runeforge pool is the key. As I suspected, the occlusion field around Karzoug’s fortress in Xin-Shalast has a flaw. His lack of knowledge of the intricacies of Sorshen’s and my own lord Xanderghul’s powers have left an opening. My agents must use components infused with our lords’ virtues, extract the latent magic within these components, and then anoint their chosen weapons with this raw power. The Runeforge pool seems to have enough reserves to enhance no more than half a dozen or so runeforged weapons, but those enhanced with enchantment and illusion magic will be most potent against Karzoug’s defenses. They may even be pivotal in his defeat. For my own part, fragments of any of the mirrors in the Peacock’s Hall should suffice for component. Delvahine’s… equipment… should suffice for enchantment, although one might be wise to cleanse them before they are handled.”
(…)
“The search for an agent goes poorly. Delvahine seems more interested in her own lusts than aiding me. Worse, the lapses and fevers are increasing. I fear that I will be forced to see to Karzoug myself, in which event I will need to use the master circle I built into the Halls of Wrath to escape this place. Yet first, I must set aside my work on delaying Karzoug’s return and turn back to the final development of my 205th clone. I only hope I have time to finish before the dementia takes hold…”
Starday, Neth 20th, 4708
The Iron Cages of Lust
It was a difficult thing to keep track of the passage of time within Runeforge, but in fact, by that time, in the world of Golarion, it was early in the afternoon on the 20th day of Neth. The companions decided that their next destination should be the Iron Cages of Lust. Drithnar barely contained his excitement, but Navan reminded him that the Succubi would likely try to charm them. They must show resolve. They must show restraint. They must show discipline. They must protect themselves with Protection from Evil spells. :)
The companions ventured past the beautiful statue of Sorshen into the corridor behind it. Once again, they encountered a mental resistance as they progressed, but eventually, they all found themselves before a large metal door.
The door did not seem trapped, magical, or locked, so the companions opened it carefully. It creaked noisily as they opened it; the companions winced at the sound. So much for subterfuge.
The group soon entered an immense cathedral-like room; it was both magnificent and depraved. All around the room stood immense columns shaped in Sorshen’s likeness. They were all nude, and in a variety of enticing positions. Drithnar let out a low curse of appreciation as he looked from one to the other. The ceiling was covered by a huge painting of men and women involved in various carnal acts. Kerista blushed deeply as she looked at the statues and at what the painted men and women were doing. She truly did not feel comfortable in this place of vice. And she was sorely disappointed that her lover was so easily seduced by the mere statues of such an obviously immoral woman as Sorshen.
All around the room were golden cages which contained bodies. Most of them seemed to be long-dead skeletons, but one seemed to be a still-living man. In the center of the great room was a large pavilion of multi-colored silken sheets. From it emerged five stone giants. The companions were surprised to see some of their kind here – they had not expected it.
Also from further in the room appeared four winged women. They were all incredibly beautiful. Their bodies were icons of feminine perfection, with soft skin and curves that would drive most men wild. They were almost naked, but wielded ranseurs. But as could be expected, they were obviously of demonic origin: they had horns, claws and demonic wings.
“Succubi?” asked Navan.
“Alu-demons… I think,” replied Ruh. “The offspring of Succubi and mortal men.”
The women flew toward the characters with lusty smiles on their faces. They looked at each of them from afar, chatting among themselves and whistling in the companions’ direction. They seemed to be studying intently each character’s physique – they were mostly interested in Drithnar, but some also looked at Navan, and even Kerista, with appreciation. They spoke in a language none of the characters understood. But guessing that they understood the tongue of Giants, Navan addressed them:
“We are here to talk to Delvahine. Vraxeris sent us.”
“Vraxeris sent you?” replied a silver-haired demoness. She smiled. “Vraxeris had some beautiful boys like you in his closet and he never showed them to us before? How selfish of him!”
The other girls giggled.
“We come from Golarion,” said Navan firmly. “The way has been opened into Runeforge.”
At this, the women all cheered. “That’s great!” said a red-haired beauty. “Are there going to be more nice men coming to see us?”
“Possibly,” replied Navan. “I need to talk to your mistress.”
The redhead smiled at him. “Hmm… You’re a bit skinny for her, but you’ll do.”
“I like skinny ones!” said a third, black-haired girl with a grin. “He’s mine! He’s mine!”
“I saw him first!” spat the white-haired girl with a jealous voice.
“I want the big one!” said the redhead, licking her lips and looking at Drithnar. She winked at the muscular ranger and touched herself in a way that Kerista found most inappropriate indeed! Even Drithnar blushed at that.
The silver-haired girl flew closer to Navan, and the fourth woman, who had dark green hair, approached Drithnar, but the adventurers kept them at bay with their weapons.
“Let’s keep a polite distance, please,” said Drithnar. “We just met. We’re here to talk to your mistress. Can you lead us to her?”
The women smirked at the mortals’ defensive reaction. The black-haired girl approached the redhead, who’d been fiercely threatened by Kerista. She started caressing her comfortingly, and the two women kissed.
“Oh boy…” whispered Drithnar.
“I’m a bit confused,” said the silver-haired woman, caressing herself thoughtfully. “You say you come from Golarion, but that Vraxeris sent you. Can you explain that again?”
“Vraxeris is dead!” announced Navan imperiously.
“Oh really?” asked the green-haired woman. “We haven’t seen him in a while. How long has he been dead?”
“Two years”, replied Navan.
But the silver-haired girl didn’t seem to trust Navan. “But if he’s dead, why do you say he sent you?”
“We have to talk to your mistress. Everything will become clear,” assured the cleric.
Kerista, looking at Navan, and also at Drithnar with a warning glare, gestured that she sensed evil within the women. Ruh looked around and only saw some magic coming from the golden cages.
“But before you meet her,” said the redhead with a seductive smile, “allow us to properly welcome you in our home…” and she flew toward Drithnar.
“No,” said Navan firmly as Drithnar reluctantly kept the gorgeous red-haired woman at bay with his sword. “Go get your mistress now.” He eyed the five stone giants, who seemed prepared for battle. They were all male, and disturbingly enough, they were all naked, which showed them more about the creatures’ anatomy than they’d seen in their entire stay in Jorgenfist.
“Come on…” said the redhead with a wink.
“I will count to three, and then we’ll start walking toward the tent. I wouldn’t want to catch her in a bad position…”
He was interrupted by the four women who burst out laughing at that statement. Even some of the stoic giants smirked at that.
“Hold on,” said the silver-haired woman once she’d recovered from her fit of laughter. “Let me talk to her.” She remained silent for a few moments, then said: “Very well. She said you may enter her tent.”
Navan translated that to Ruh and Kerista, and Ruh cast an Enlarge spell on Kerista in case they would have to fight the giants. Immediately, all four Alu-demons giggled and pointed at the now gigantic paladin.
“Ooooh, look, they even brought a big toy for our giants to play with!” said the green-haired woman mockingly. “Why don’t you take off that ugly armor, big girl?”
Kerista blushed again, not understanding the words but guessing their meaning, and she very much wished that Ruh hadn’t done that. She could see clearly that the giants were eyeing her with hungry eyes, hopeful that after all these millennia, they finally had a decent-sized woman to pleasure them.
Delvahine’s playground
The group carefully followed the women into the tent. The five stone giants step back to let them pass. Inside, the tent was furnished with elegant and comfortable-looking pillows, cushions, rugs and silken sheets. The air smelled of sweet incense. It seemed like the perfect place to have orgy after orgy for thousands of years…
While the group followed the demonic women deeper into the tent, which was divided into several rooms, they kept a close eye on them. Now that they were closer to them, they realized even more how truly beautiful creatures they were. Kerista felt quite plain, fat and clumsy compared to them. Wholly inadequate.
Yet the women’s magnificent bodies were also marked with delicate scars, some from claws and some from whip marks. It seemed that whatever debauchery they took part in included pain as well as pleasure.
“I’m Eryalla,” said the redhead with a seductive smile as she turned to Drithnar. “What’s your name, big boy?”
“Dath… Drin…” the ranger cleared his throat, clearly having lost his wits in the beautiful woman’s presence. He was painfully aware of her almost-naked, perfect body so close to his. He felt a powerful urge to make love to her right that instant, but he steeled himself and replied: “Drithnar. I’m Drithnar. I have a girlfriend, and she’s twelve feet tall, so let’s leave it at that!”
The temptress chuckled softly and winked at him.
The group finally entered a room where another depraved beauty sat on an elegant chair. She was as gorgeous as the other women, but she looked even more demonic, and quite wicked. Her yellow eyes gazed at each character in turn, appraising them, and her smile showed delicate, pointed teeth. Her skin was decorated with purple tattoos, and she wore even less clothing than the others, if such a thing was possible. She had a black whip placed close to her chair.
The characters were flabbergasted to see that she was openly pleasuring herself with a bejeweled sex toy as they entered. She did not seem embarrassed at all, and neither did she seem particularly excited. She had the jaded look of someone who’s performed the vilest sexual acts over and over for thousands of years, so much so that she’s grown bored with them.
When they entered the room, the four girls went to their knees before their mistress. They seemed totally servile toward her, as if they were her slaves. At the four corners of the room stood beds with metal frames with leather straps attached to them. Clearly, much debauchery took place in this room, and the companions could imagine that the four slaves must’ve suffered countless painful treatments from their mistress.
“Ah, my daughters,” said Delvahine in a velvety voice. “What interesting guests you’ve brought me.”
As the characters moved to stand before Delvahine, the Alu-demons positioned themselves around the room. The silver-haired one and the black-haired one stood next to their mistress’s throne. With a sneer, Delvahine handed the moist sex toy to the silver-haired woman, and she made a gesture to the black-haired one. Obediently, the woman got on her knees and started pleasuring her mistress.
The four characters watched this with stunned expressions. They were not used to dealing with such openly depraved creatures. Kerista blushed a bright shade of red.
“So, tell me again your wonderful story,” said Delvahine in a sensual voice.
“We come here seeking an item that will enable us to create runeforged weapons, so that we can destroy Karzoug, the Runelord of Greed. That is our mission!” stated Navan proudly.
There was a thin mist in the entire room, emanating from the incense burners, and it made the characters slightly dizzy. Ruh saw that it had a taint of enchantment magic.
“And why do you want to fight Runelord Karzoug?” asked Delvahine.
“Because he’s a threat to our people.”
“And who are your people?”
“Varisians. The people who live in Varisia, the land that was once Thassilon. Ten thousand years have passed, but maybe you already know that; being the creature you are, I believe you are able to leave this place as opposed to the others. Aren’t you?”
Delvahine gazed at each character intensely, especially the two men. Her black-haired daughter’s attentions didn’t seem to bring her much pleasure or excitement. Perhaps she was longing for the touch of someone new?
“You are bold warriors, I can see it,” she said, her eyes resting on Drithnar’s powerful frame. “I’m sure we can reach some sort of agreement. We have some things that you want, and you have some things that we want.”
“Vraxeris told us that we need your ‘equipment’…”
Delvahine turned back toward Navan, looking at him with bored eyes. “I thought you said Vraxeris was dead. Your story doesn’t make much sense, my pretty man.”
“He is dead. His simulacrum were still there, though.”
“Did they tell you this, then?”
“No.”
“Because you killed them?”
“Yes. There was a … misunderstanding. I hope we can avoid one here, Delvahine.”
“Surely, we can. I assure you that you can find much more pleasure here than in the company of that arrogant fool and his puppets. Stay, spend some time with us. We will show you pleasure the likes of which you’ve never felt before. I see you already know my name, pray tell me yours.”
“I am called Navan, and these are my friends, Drithnar, Kerista and Ruh. We are flattered that you would offer us your… attention, but we must decline. We have a mission to focus on.”
“But surely you can take some time to rest… You must be weary. Or are you afraid that we would try to trick you? Are you afraid of what we can do to you?”
“We know your kind…” He pointed at Kerista. “And I can assure you that she’s not afraid.”
“That is most unfortunate. We have been alone for so long in this lonely place. We long only for the comfort of a loving touch. Think of how you could feel if you lay in bed with us… Look at me, look at my beautiful daughters. You can feel in your loins the pleasure we could bring you.”
The conversation was still taking place in the tongue of giants, so Kerista and Ruh had no idea what was being said, though they could understand some of it through tone and body language. Had she been able to speak, Kerista would’ve surely opposed the depraved succubus, for she truly felt no desire to touch the wicked women.
Navan closed his eyes to focus his resolve, for even he was tempted by the offer. Despite her sinful appearance, she was truly an incredibly attractive… creature. He found his heart beating faster as he imagined the contact of her soft skin against his. But he steeled himself and replied: “Business first. Tell us what we need to get from this hall to make the weapons to kill Karzoug. What is the item that Vraxeris was talking about?”
Delvahine sighed. “The first decent men to enter these halls in so many years, and all they can talk about is killing… What has become of humanity? That is very sad. But I do have the item you need to empower your weapons.”
“What item is that?” asked Navan.
“I have it here. In this tent. But it is very precious to me. You must do something for me before I give it to you.”
“Is it?” asked Navan, sounding dubious. “What can be precious to you but… flesh?”
“Flesh is the most precious thing, but still, this …”
Delvahine stopped in mid-sentence, and grabbed her kneeling daughter by the hair. She viciously slapped her across the face several times. “Voivod, you clumsy sow! What do you think you’re doing!?!” She slapped her again.
The other sisters giggled at Voivod’s beating.
“I should cut off your tongue if you’re not going to use it better than that!” spat Delvahine. She then gestured to the silver-haired girl. “Lelyrin, come here. I know you can do better than that useless bag of fat.”
With a smug smile, Lelyrin got down on all four and continued where her raven-haired sister had failed. Voivod meekly stood up and remained next to her mother’s throne. Her cheeks had been badly scratched by the succubus’s claws, and were bleeding. She was also crying bitterly from the humiliating abuse in front of the strangers.
Delvahine smiled contentedly from Lelyrin’s servile touch, and turned addressed the stunned characters once again: “I apologize for this interruption. What were we saying? Ah yes. I am prepared to give you what you need, but you must give me something in return.”
“What are we talking about?” asked Navan. “What is this item that we need? What does it look like?” Clearly, his strategy was to find out what the item was, butcher the women, and take it by force.
“It is an item of worship to Sorshen,” replied Delvahine.
Navan looked dubious. “You worship Sorshen, as if she were a goddess?”
“I don’t,” she replied, “but those who made this hall, did.”
“But you weren’t there at first, from what I understand.”
“Yes, I was. But unfortunately, the poor humans who built this place died over the years. They were always persecuted by the brutal warriors of the other wings.” She glared at Drithnar’s rune. “Especially those of the Halls of Wrath. I’ve managed to save my own life, and those of my daughters, but alas, our human companions have all perished. We are the only ones left.”
“You and your giants.”
“Yes. I hope you have no violent intentions toward us, for if we are to die, we would at least wish to feel the touch of love once more. I can see in your eyes that you do not trust me. Surely you have heard tales of what my kind can do. And you are sure that I am trying to trick you. And yet, you also cannot deny that you wonder what kind of pleasures your body might experience under my touch. Let me clarify it for you: it is impossible for you to being to imagine what it would feel like. My daughters and I can bring you pleasure the likes of which no mortal woman could ever give you. If you spend… five minutes in bed with me, and you manage to satisfy me, I will give you what you desire. Do you not find me beautiful?”
Navan looked around the room, at the beds with their leather straps. Whatever these depraved women did to entertain themselves seemed pretty intense. He didn’t think he would be able to survive it.
“I’ll do it,” said Drithnar in the Common tongue.
Navan turned to stare at him with wide eyes. “What??”
The ranger grinned back at him and replied: “He he, not really, I just wanted to see the look on your face. I prefer a lifetime with you, my beautiful Kerista, than five minutes with that woman.”
Kerista raised an eyebrow and asked him, “So you’re saying you’d rather spend five minutes with her than five minutes with me?”
Drithnar froze, as he realized that the compliment he’d tried to make had failed miserably. “Err… No… I… Err… ”
Kerista asked Navan, “What’s going on? They’re asking you to sleep with them?”
“Yes,” replied Navan. “Delvahine wants one of us to make love to her for five minutes in exchange for the component to make the runeforged weapons…”
“Don’t do it, Navan!” said Kerista. “They are wicked creatures!”
“I know… I know…” Navan looked at Delvahine and her daughters and hoped they didn’t understand Common.
“Is there something else we can do to get the item besides having sex with her?” asked the paladin.
Navan shrugged.
“Can you ask her? Can you cast Tongues on me so I can talk to her?”
“But why discuss with them when we can just kill them? We’re in a good position to kill them now.”
Delvahine glared at him, and Lelyrin stopped pleasuring her. She stood up, moving back to the side of the throne, and wiped her mouth.
“So what have you found in Runeforge, so far?” asked Delvahine in Giantish.
“We’ve visited some of the other wings.”
“Have you visited the one behind the statue of Karzoug, your enemy?”
“Yes.”
“And what have you found there?”
“Ordikon.”
“And have you killed him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill Athroxis?”
Navan pointed at Drithnar’s forehead.
“And you’ve also killed Vraxeris’s clones. So… It sounds like you’re methodically going through these wings, one after the other, killing everyone in your path. One might deduce that you intend to try the same thing here.”
“I’m debating it. Give us what we need and then maybe you’ll be spared.”
Delvahine smiled humorlessly. “’Maybe’. ‘Maybe’ we’ll be spared. Why, that’s very generous of you. And very presumptuous. So you’re telling me that if I give you this item, you’ll leave without a fight?”
“Possibly.”
She chuckled sarcastically. “Your offer does not tempt me. If you refuse our gift of pleasure, then you will be forced to accept our gift of pain. Attack, my daughters!”
And the fight started…
Pleasure and pain
Voivod, eager to redeem herself in her mother’s eyes, was the first to act; she stepped protectively in front of Delvahine, and she viciously slashed Navan several times with her ranseur. Navan concentrated on a powerful Harm spell, stepped forward, and touched her forearm with his hand. Voivod screamed in pain as the deadly energy was discharged into her body, but she remained alive. The green-haired girl, whose name the characters hadn’t heard, then sprang into action and slashed Ruh with her ranseur.
Drithnar, who stood next to them, looked around in disbelief. He’d strongly hoped that they could reach a peaceful agreement with the women. While he didn’t trust them, and understood that they were evil at heart, he also felt pity for those poor, adorable creatures who’d lived as prisoners in here for so many years. Surely his companions could’ve negotiated harder to gain the item through peaceful means. But now, things had come to blows yet again. And he found it nearly impossible to lift his weapons against the beautiful women.
“Drithnar!” yelled Kerista. “What are you doing? Help us!”
“Why can’t we all just… get along??” he asked, but it was a rhetorical question. He saw that it was now too late for that.
With a snarl, Lelyrin also stabbed Navan with well-aimed blows of her ranseur. Clearly, these beautiful girls also knew how to fight. Navan was now bleeding badly from the multiple wounds he’d suffered from Lelyrin and Voivod’s weapons. Both looked at him with hatred-filled eyes. They seemed willing to lay down their lives to protect their mistress.
“Sarenrae!” called Kerista, swinging her gigantic earthbreaker around the room. It started to glow with the pure aura of her goddess, and she brought it down against the lithe form of Voivod. She struck, and struck, and struck again, and the black-haired demoness died under the merciless assault.
Meanwhile, Ruh cast an ice Scorching Ray at Lelyrin, and then a Quickened Dispel Magic on Delvahine. Delvahine growled, but her attention was fixed on Drithnar. She cast a spell at him, then asked him in Giantish: “Drithnar, protect me! Knock out that gnome!”
“Yes, mistress,” replied the ranger. Now, he was truly under her spell.
Kerista noticed from the corner of her eyes. Damnation! Their Protection from Evil spells must’ve expired during the long discussion.
Ruh was now in a delicate situation. Both the green-haired daughter, and Eryalla, the redhead, were attacking her with their weapons. Drithnar turned around to try and grapple her, but at the last moment, Navan broke the enchantment on the ranger, who looked around, blinking confusedly. He roared at the treachery, and now, he was more motivated to attack the evil women. He drew his weapons and came to Navan’s aid, attacking Lelyrin. He slashed her several times with both of his blades, causing several bleeding wounds across her beautiful body. She screamed, but continued attacking Navan, also wounding him.
Kerista rounded on Delvahine, smiting her once, but the succubus managed to dodge the other attacks. She was very agile. Ruh cast a Phantasmal Killer spell on the green-haired woman, who didn’t see through the illusion (whatever it might’ve been), but only suffered minor damage instead of dying from it. She also cast a Quickened Haste on the whole group.
But the little gnome was in danger: Eryalla and the green-haired woman were cutting her up with their sharp blades. Delvahine cast a spell and disappeared. Navan immediately cast a Locate Object spell on her whip, and sensed that she was still in the room, close to Eryalla.
Drithnar, his blades whirling like a deadly metallic storm, pierced the beautiful silver-haired Lelyrin through the heart. She let out a final lustful gasp as her final breath left her body, and she fell to the floor. Meanwhile, Kerista turned toward the green-haired girl to defend Ruh. The little gnome focused through the pain and cast a Quickened See Invisibility, saw Delvahine, and cast a Greater Dispel Magic on her, but failed to pierce her magic resistance. She then screamed in pain as Eryalla cut through her flesh again with her ranseur.
The companions heard a roar from the entrance of the room, and several stone giants rushed toward them. Navan saw that, and when he turned back toward Delvahine, he was surprised to see Drithnar charging him with a roar. The ranger’s mind was being controlled again! Navan tried to dispel it, but failed. Drithnar tried to grab hold of him, but the agile Varisian ducked left and right, evading him.
Kerista was furiously trying to kill the green haired woman. Ruh was badly injured, and couldn’t last much longer against her two enemies. With a loud battle-cry, Kerista brought her weapon crashing down against the green-haired temptress’s chest, crushing it. She was then attacked by the first two giants, and suffered some nasty wounds from their clubs.
Ruh then cast one of her most powerful spells: Prismatic Spray, which hit three of the incoming giants, but with little effect all in all. She then screamed in pain again, as Eryalla’s blade cut through her side, and she felt some warm blood flow down her legs. The red-haired demon was now fighting more furiously than ever. She was the last one standing among Delvahine’s daughters, and tears fell down her smooth cheeks. She hated those adventurers so much, for they had taken the lives of her sisters. The little green-haired runt would pay! She stabbed her with all her strength, a blow which surely should’ve cut her tiny, puny body in half, but by divine intervention, it did not.
Delvahine’s voice shouted an incantation across the battlefield, and Kerista felt some magic trying to take hold of her, but she resisted.
Although they’d slain three of Delvahine’s daughters, things looked grim for the companions. Ruh and Navan were both very badly wounded, Drithnar was being mind-controlled and was trying to grapple with Navan, and Kerista stood alone against five giants.
Would they come to regret rejecting Delvahine’s offer?
Ending the Orgy
Navan looked around. Things were definitely not going the way he’d expected. He winced from the pain of the many wounds the daughters of Delvahine had inflicted upon him with their vicious ranseurs, and while he was trying to dodge Drithnar’s attacks, he could see that Ruh was about to get slain by the remaining daughter. Kerista stood bravely against the giants, but she too was now badly wounded. This was a fight the group could not win. They needed to escape and rebuild their strength!
Drithnar finally managed to grab hold of Navan, and he squeezed him in a bear hug. Navan concentrated on Desna’s holy power of freedom, though, and he was able to magically escape the big ranger’s grip. He saw that Kerista got hit several more times by the giants. She was powerful, but there were just too many of them. And there was no way he could touch Ruh, Kerista and Drithnar all at the same time to teleport out.
“Ruh, grab Kerista and let’s get out of here!” he shouted, and then he touched Drithnar’s shoulder and teleported out with him.
Thankfully, a moment later, the two women appeared by his side in the Vault of Greed. Ruh immediately collapsed from her terrible wounds. Kerista, who was still giant-sized, easily restrained Drithnar to give time for Navan to dispel his mind-control. The ranger soon stopped struggling.
“Argh, don’t tell me they charmed me again? Damnit!”
“It’s all right, love, you did all right,” said Kerista soothingly.
The group then quickly healed their various wounds, and cast some mighty protective enchantments on themselves: Protection From Evil, Displacement, and Stoneskin among others. Then, they teleported back into Delvahine’s tent.
Only two giants were still there, and Delvahine was giving them some orders. Eryalla was kneeling next to Lelyrin’s corpse. She held her in her arms and was sobbing bitterly. Delvahine immediately spotted the characters, though, and she yelled out to warn the others.
Navan, once again the first to act, cast a Harm spell and moved toward Eryalla’s side. He tried to touch her, but she deftly dodged out of the way. Ruh then cast a Quickened Lesser Orb of Cold and a Maximized Lesser Orb of Cold at Delvahine, which both hit.
The giants roared and move forward to attack. One of them hit Navan with his club. Drithnar charged and attacked the other giant, tumbling at the last minute to avoid the creature’s club attack. Delvahine and Eryalla both tried to cast enchantment spells on the companions, but their Protection From Evil spells protected them.
Kerista rushed Delvahine and struck her with her glowing earthbreaker. Then, the other three giants burst into the room, roaring with rage. Navan tried to touch Delvahine to unleash his mighty spell, but she also avoided his attack. But Ruh cast an Orb of Cold on Delvahine, and it struck true. She killed the succubus.
“Nooooo!!!” screamed Eryalla.
One of the giants hit Navan again, but Drithnar evaded the attacks of his two attackers with great agility. Swinging his blades with blinding speed, he slew one of the giants, and badly wounded the other one.
Eryalla struck Navan with her weapon, but Kerista moved to protect the cleric, and struck Eryalla three times, almost killing her from the impact. Navan placed his hand on the knee of the giant that was attacking him, discharging his powerful Harm spell into the great being. Ruh then cast some Scorching Rays of cold energy on Eryalla and that giant, slaying them both.
Drithnar and Kerista faced the three remaining giants, with Navan helping them from behind by shooting flaming crossbow bolts. Ruh moved in position and unleashed a Lightning Bolt that struck two of them, killing one. Kerista killed another, and finally, Ruh finished off the last one with a volley of Magic Missiles.
“SPARKILLO!!!” shouted the little gnome triumphantly.
The others turned to face her, blinking in surprise. “What did you say?” asked Kerista.
“Sorry… I thought I was someone else for a moment,” replied Ruh.
Delvahine’s toys
Victorious at last, the companions searched the room for any valuables and any item that might be the one required to make a runeforged weapon. But while the others were searching, Drithnar noticed that the beautiful red-haired Eryalla wasn’t quite dead yet. She weakly lifted up a hand toward him.
“Kiss… me…” she whispered.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m sorry…” he whispered back.
She winced, feeling her life slipping away from her body. “I would’ve liked… to taste your lips… on mine. I would’ve liked… to… feel…”
And then she was still.
“Be at peace, Eryalla,” whispered Drithnar, and he closed her eyes with his palm.
The adventurers found several useful magical items that had belonged to Delvahine and her daughters, including a Handy Haversack which contained a Tome of Understanding: a magical book who could make one reader wiser. Ever eager to gain better understanding of Desna’s teachings, Navan decided that he would read it at a later time. Ruh identified the various items, and those that were of use to the characters were distributed among the group.
Throughout the tent was an extensive collection of elaborate sex toys. They came in three categories.
First, those that made the characters chuckle and say: “Wow, those girls were real perverts!”
Second, those that made the characters wince and say: “Oh, that’s just gross!”
And third, those that the characters had no idea what they could possibly be used for.
But they still didn’t know what item it was that they needed to make runeforged weapons.
They walked out of the tent and checked out the cages throughout the room. All were empty or just contained an ancient skeleton, except one near the entrance, in which they found a man who was still alive. Judging by his muscular build, they thought he’d perhaps been a warrior of wrath once. He was naked, except for a spiked leather collar he wore around his neck. He was also… “impressively dimensioned”, so the characters clearly understood why the women had kept him alive. He must’ve made a good sex toy.
Indeed, it seemed to man had been used and abused beyond the limits of his sanity. He seemed incapable of understanding the characters, regardless of the language in which they addressed him. He seemed little more than an animal, eager to have sex. He grunted dumbly and tried to reach out at Kerista through the bars of the cage. She moved out of reach, and he started playing with himself… Feeling pity for the man, the companions discussed his fate. Kerista and Navan thought that his mind was beyond any of their spells to cure.
Navan then tried to use his necromantic magic to learn the nature of the item they needed. He believed the spell wouldn’t work on the demons, so he tried to contact the souls of the giants. The first two resisted his attempts, but the third one answered back.
“Which item within this hall do we need to create runeforged weapons?” asked the cleric in giantish.
“To create what?”
Navan sighed. “How come you giants were here in Runeforge?”
“We were part of the ancient slave race. We served Runelord Xanderghul, back in Cyrusian. We helped build Runeforge. Once it was complete, my brothers and I were brought inside to serve Lord Vraxeris, and we have for what seemed like an eternity. Then, he gave us away as gifts to Delvahine.”
“How come you didn’t die of old age?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there in this place any object of a cult to Sorshen?”
“… I don’t know… Maybe the statues?”
“Who was the lord of this place before Delvahine?”
“There were some human women, who were skilled with magic, but Delvahine killed them all long ago.”
“Can you tell me anything of interest for our quest of destroying Runelord Karzoug?”
“Errr… No.”
The companions then read again the passage from Vraxeris’s journal, and guessed that what he meant by Delvahine’s ‘equipment’ must mean one of the sex toys. They took one of the fanciest ones, and hoped it would work.
Before they left, they got the prisoner out of the cage. There was no lock or way to open the cage, as far as they could see, so they used Dimension Door. Then, Ruh teleported them out of the Iron Cages of Lust, into…
… nothingness!!!
Floating in Darkness
With a gasp, the characters realized that they were all floating in a black, endless void. Only on one side of them, could they see a huge mass of stone, floating in the abyss. Something had obviously gone terribly wrong with the teleport spell.
Ruh suddenly screamed. She’d been holding the insane man’s hand to bring him along, but now, she was holding what looked like a long-dead corpse instead. The body decayed faster and faster as she watched it, astonished, until it finally disintegrated into dust!
The companions were holding hands to avoid drifting away from each other. Thankfully, they could still breathe in this void.
“Ruh!!!” shouted Drithnar. “What in Desna’s name is going on???”
The little green-haired gnome looked around with wild eyes. “This is incredible! Fascinating!”
“It’s not fricking fascinating, Ruh!!” roared the ranger. “Are we going to die??”
Ruh blinked at him in surprise. “Die? Oh, no, I don’t think so. Probably not. But you see, when the Runelords created this place, they made it as a separate Demi-Plane, an artificial world if you will, disconnected with the Material Plane of Golarion. But as you can surely guess, the area that actually comprises Runeforge is much too small to reach to the extent of the Demi-Plane’s limit. This gigantic ball of stone we see there is the outer crust of the actual Runeforge. Everything that lies beyond it, where we now float, is just an empty void.”
“All right…” growled Drithnar, “can you get us out of here, pretty please?”
“Oh. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay just a bit longer to study this?”
“We’re sure,” replied the three others in unison.
“Oh. Very well, then!” And Ruh brought them back to the Vaults of Greed, this time right on target.
Once they were back to safety, they decided to rest before taking on the last wing of Runeforge: the Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony. Navan took out the Tome of Understanding from Kerista’s magical backpack.
“Time for some light reading before my meditation,” he said with a grin.
Not to nit pick but it one time ended a campaign but dispel magic doesnt need to penitrate spell resistance
And so are all 4 still only core classes?
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Sunday, Neth 21st, 4708
The Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony
After a period of rest, the companions prepared to explore the last wing of Runeforge: The Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony. Guessing they would face undead monsters there, Navan protected Kerista and Drithnar with Death Ward spells. Drithnar also cast a Barkskin spell on himself.
The heroes passed beyond Runelord Zutha’s obese statue and went down a dark hallway, encountering the usual mental resistance. Eventually, they all made it through and found themselves before a heavy iron door. They opened it and entered a round room with a flight of stairs leading up, on the far side of the room.
Before them stood six creatures that had likely once been men, long ago. Their skin was blackened and crawling with disgusting beetles; they wore tattered suits of chainmail. The sight of these creatures was truly horrible - Ruh and Drithnar found themselves gripped by fear, unable to act. A few of the mummies moved forward and attacked Drithnar, Kerista and Navan. They moved slowly, but were very strong. When they hit, some of the beetles tried to crawl over the bodies of the adventurers and infect them with a terrible disease: mummy rot.
Navan was able to free Ruh and Drithnar from their paralyzing dread with a Remove Fear spell, and Kerista turned two of the undead with the shining sunlight of her holy symbol of Sarenrae. Once she had regained her senses, Ruh cast a Maximized Fireball which hit three of the mummies, destroying one and greatly burning two others. Drithnar and Kerista fought ferociously, hacking at the creatures with their weapons, while Ruh shot bolts of fire (Scorching Ray), and Navan shot bolts of sacred moonlight (Searing Light) at them.
Eventually, all four of the undead who hadn’t fled the room were slain. The companions had all taken some nasty wounds from the creatures, but Ruh’s were the worst: her skin was starting to turn black where she had been hit. The companions immediately understood that she’d been infected with mummy rot. Thankfully, they knew how to cure it, and Ruh was able to cast a Break Enchantment spell on herself, which enabled Kerista to cure her disease.
Once everyone was healed, and that the bodies had been looted of their valuables, the companions climbed up the stairs and encountered the last two mummies in the dark corridor. A short fight ensued, and Kerista ended up killing both of the monsters with her holy earthbreaker.
The group then came to another circular room in which stood six statues, each facing a door that led further into the crypts. Each was adorned with a plaque indicating what the statue represented. Ruh read the names out loud:
House Inib, wine makers
House Chivvik, bakers
House Gorryan, cheese makers
House Hawfrey, butchers
House Aanstrin, confectionaries
House Xerriock
The statue representing each house carried what seemed to be the house’s specialty, from bottles of wine to loaves of bread, to candies. The last statue carried nothing, but looked very disturbing, with a hungry expression, and an open mouth showing teeth that had been filed to points. The crazed man looked like a cannibal.
All around, Kerista could feel an aura of evil. Likewise, Ruh saw an aura of necromancy tainting the walls, floor and ceiling of the entire complex. By studying it for a few minutes, she concluded that in all likelihood, some undead had been fused into the stones that had been used to build this place. Their presence generated the evil aura of necromancy, and probably acted to strengthen the undead in the crypts.
The companions then began exploring the crypts. It was a twisted, ancient maze. The place was beautifully decorated, with intricately ornate archways, gorgeous murals, and masterful carvings, but it felt forlorn, long abandoned. Many of the rooms held old coffins or sarcophagi, which seemed to have been emptied a long time ago.
The Crypt of House Inib
Eventually, they entered a crypt which contained an ornate golden sarcophagus on a plinth of white marble. The outline of a handsome man was engraved on the sarcophagus, and he held a sprig of grapes and a bottle of wine. The grapes and the man’s eyes glittered under the light of the heroes’ weapons: they were gems. Another plaque decorated the sarcophagus, and Ruh read out loud:
“Lord Anklerios Mankray Inib of House Inib;
Master vintner and beloved husband and father.
An assassin’s blade accomplished what hundreds of duels could not.”
The walls of the room contained many carved niches within which lay old bottles of wine. Before the companions could investigate the room, though, a sound made itself heard from a nearby room, and soon, the statue of a stern woman with no mouth emerged from the darkness. It glittered like iron, and stood over seven feet tall. It seemed to be the guardian of this crypt, because it attacked the adventurers.
“It’s an iron golem!” shouted Ruh. “Lightning slows it and fire heals it!”
Navan shot a few flaming crossbow bolts at the creature, and one of them manage to leave a burn mark on its surface: he thought Ruh was mistaken about the construct’s nature. Drithnar and Kerista moved to attack the monster. The construct slammed Kerista with an iron fist when she approached. The two warriors started hitting it; Drithnar’s weapons didn’t seem to be able to cause it any serious damage, but Kerista’s adamantine earthbreaker once again seemed to be a very useful weapon in this situation. It left some deep marks on the golem’s surface.
Ruh summoned a celestial bear, and then a celestial riding dog from a scroll. The two animals helped the warriors against the golem. She then fired an Acid Arrow at the golem from one of her wands, and was surprised to see that it healed it! Navan cast a Prayer over the whole group. The golem’s movements greatly increased in speed as it fought, and it tried to batter Kerista with its mighty fists, but even their metal was not strong enough to penetrate the paladin’s incredibly resistant armor.
The celestial bear then managed to grab hold of the golem and to wrestle with it. While the golem was trying to escape the celestial beast’s grasp, Kerista destroyed its head, and the construct finally fell apart under her mighty blows. The adventurers then saw that beneath the iron plating, it had in fact been made of clay, and Ruh finally understood why the creature hadn’t behaved like an iron golem after all.
The companions then looted the gems from the surface of the sarcophagus. They decided not to spend long hours scraping gold from its surface: they were now so rich that spending an entire day to get a few hundred gold pieces felt beneath them. Such is the life of powerful adventurers.
Drithnar also examined the ancient wine bottles, but Navan convinced him, after a long and detailed argument, not to drink their content. Though the ranger thought that wine got better with age, the priest of Desna explained that actually, the taste of wine follows a curve that peaks at around twenty years for most wines, possibly a few decades more for others, but that surely, after ten thousand years, the content of those bottles must be foul vinegar.
The Butchers Become the Butchered
The companions then explored many more empty crypts. They eventually reached a foul-smelling room which contained several stone tables upon which were placed six corpses. All of them were brutally savaged, and Ruh saw that some of their organs and limbs had been removed as though by a necromancer. She recognized the method used from things she’d learned from Vorel’s work in Foxglove Manor.
The corpses were still wearing the tattered remains of light blue robes. The companions understood that they must be the corpses of some of the Wardens of Envy who’d been slain five years before. Though the bodies had started to decompose (explaining the foul smell), they looked fresher than their age indicated: surely it must be Runeforge’s magic that prevented them from decaying at a regular pace.
The group explored two nearby rooms, and they became aware of a presence watching them from the “morgue”. They also heard the sound of a door opening nearby. They returned to the foul-smelling room, and saw a hideous shape hiding in the shadows: it was an undead with red eyes that glowed with ravenous hunger, and whose teeth were filed to points: they recognized that it must be what remained of the man depicted in one of the statues at the entrance of the complex: Lord Xerriock. He wielded a wicked-looking dagger, and charged Drithnar while muttering with a raspy voice in Thassilonian. He hungered for the ranger’s flesh!
As the fight started, several more dark-skinned mummies appeared from around the corner and attacked the adventurers. Drithnar suffered some nasty wounds from Lord Xerriock’s dagger, but returned the favor with his own sharp blades. Kerista fought several mummies, trying to protect the rest of the group from them. Ruh conjured a Wall of Stone behind four of the mummies, and Navan tried to turn the enemies, but failed.
Drithnar managed to dodge the man’s dangerous dagger: it clearly must have been powerfully enchanted, because its touch was pure agony. Then, Kerista turned two of the mummies with her sacred sunlight, and Navan turned one with his sacred moonlight. The monsters retreated against Ruh’s stone wall, and couldn’t flee.
Then, Lord Xerriock was slain by Drithnar’s attacks and an Orb of Cold from Ruh. Kerista killed the only mummy that hadn’t fled the holy symbols, and then the group destroyed the three helpless ones that were cowering against the stone wall.
Kerista then bashed an opening into the wall, and the group faced the last two mummies on the other side. Drithnar and Kerista stepped through the hole, while Navan and Ruh helped them from the other side, shooting fiery crossbow bolts, and flaming rays from a wand, respectively. The fight was quickly over, with Drithnar chopping off both of the mummies’ heads.
The companions then healed the wounds they’d suffered from the undead abominations. Strangely, though, they were unable to cure one of Kerista’s wounds: the one she’d suffered earlier, in her fight against the Clay Golem. The companions looted the undead creatures’ items, and Ruh learned that Lord Xerriock had been wielding a human-bane dagger: Drithnar had been lucky to avoid most of the deadly attacks made with that weapon.
Suspecting that they were now close to encountering the dreaded lich Kazaven, the companions cast some additional protective magic, including Bear’s Endurance on most of the group, and Spell Turning on Ruh. Searching the last few crypts of the area, the group faced about ten more ravenously hungry undead, but those seemed much weaker, and were easily destroyed by the holy symbols of Kerista and Navan. In one of the lairs of those monsters, the group found a magical golembane scarab.
By then, they had explored all that they could see in the crypts, and suspected that they had to locate some secret passages. Using a Detect Secret Doors spell, Ruh indeed found one in the room near the morgue. It opened into a narrow tunnel which led to a necromantic laboratory: on a table there lay another victim of the foul experiments taking place in these crypts. But the group did not take the time to investigate, because Ruh found another secret door in the lab. It led to another narrow tunnel that brought the companions to the lich’s inner sanctum!
The Battle Against Kazaven
Drithnar, who walked in first, saw that he’d just entered another laboratory with a few bodies on tables. Ahead of him and to the left stood a shriveled man dressed in ornate black and red robes, and who wielded a staff. Immediately to his left was also a towering monstrosity, a gaunt, gray-skinned horrible undead monster with a tiny, struggling creature protruding from its decaying entrails. It was truly disgusting.
The ranger reacted immediately and tumbled past the large gray monster to attack Kazaven. He struck the lich with his blade, but it had little effect on the ancient necromancer. Ruh was the next to enter the room. She was caught unaware by the gray terror, who clawed her and drained some of her life energy. Once the gnome saw what was in the room, she touched Kerista, who came right behind her, and cast a Teleport spell to bring them both a few feet ahead, right next to the lich. There, Kerista unleashed a deadly series of attacks on Kazaven, which caused great damage. Once again, Drithnar was disappointed to realize that his weapons caused much less damage than his lover’s.
Kazaven then cast a Quickened Displacement spell on himself, and targeted Ruh with a terrible Finger of Death spell… which got returned to him due to Ruh’s Spell Turning which was still active. The necromancer wasn’t affected by the magic, but still, he’d wasted his action. With a disturbing gurgling sound, the large gray undead, which some of the companions recognized as a Devourer, approached the three companions and unleashed a Confusion spell against them, but they all resisted it.
Navan then entered the room and cast a powerful Heal spell, and unleashed the positive energy on the Devourer. The beast screamed in rage and pain: it had not liked the experience, and turned to face the cleric.
Drithnar’s attacks missed most of the time, and the few attacks that landed did only minor damage. Ruh then dispelled Kazaven’s Displacement, and Kerista struck the necromancer again with her holy weapon, causing terrible damage. The lich then tried to hit Ruh with a touch spell, but missed the small, agile gnome.
Meanwhile, the Devourer struck Navan twice with its claws, each time draining some of the cleric’s life energy and claiming it for itself. Wincing, Navan protected himself with a Death Ward spell. Drithnar turned and attacked the Devourer, to help his friend.
Ruh then noticed something strange thanks to her permanent Arcane Sight. A humanoid-shaped invisible mist, which radiated illusion, was moving away from the fight, and she also noticed that the form of Kazaven himself radiated illusion. She immediately guessed that he’d used a Mislead spell to escape. After casting a Quickened Haste on the group, she cast a Greater Dispel Magic on the invisible mist. It then turned visible, and indeed, it looked like a misty form of Kazaven. She alerted Kerista to its presence, and the paladin struck the mist with her enchanted weapon, and she destroyed the lich.
Just a bit further, the Devourer struck Navan again, but now the cleric was immune to the energy drain. Calling upon the power of Desna, Navan blasted the Devourer with a ray of Searing Moonlight, and killed the creature.
The companions were victorious! It had been, all in all, a relatively easy fight thanks to Ruh’s Spell Turning and Arcane Sight spells. Kazaven had not managed to harm the companions at all…
I don’t like the Arcane Sight spell, especially when made permanent. It really trivializes many encounters and discourages the DM of trying to come up with interesting combat tactics or out of combat situations involving trickery through magic. Instead, using a brute force approach becomes the best way to go. And everybody loses because the fights become that much more boring.
I don’t like fights that are against a wizard-type BBEG because they so often go like this one: everyone gangs up on him, and they save against, resist or otherwise foil the one or two spells he manages to cast before he gets obliterated. I didn’t have much hope that Kazaven would pose a challenge, but literally, he did ZERO points of damage. My player was smart to cast Spell Turning ahead of time, and he was rewarded for it. But still, I feel bad that a LICH went down so easily. Come on. It’s a LICH!!!
If I DM another campaign using these rules, I will seriously consider asking the mage in the group NOT to take permanent Arcane Sight. As soon as Ruh took it, I had a feeling that it would be overpowered, but I let her take it anyway, to see how it would go (and because I prefer to err on the side of giving the players more freedom rather than not enough).
But unfortunately, I was right, and I find it’s making the PC’s life just a little bit too easy...
Navan healed the wounds and energy drain that he and Ruh had suffered from the Devourer. The group then searched the lich’s body and Ruh identified his items. They then continued to comb the complex, looking for secret doors by magic. They found a secret trap door in Kazaven’s chamber, as well as many more secret rooms. Some of those were empty, others contained only minor undead which Navan and Kerista once against destroyed with ease, but another contained a strange translucent crystal sarcophagus, from which Kerista and Ruh felt great magic and evil. It also emitted a terribly cold aura. Could it be the source of the complex’s necromantic energy?
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Hmm, you are right, I think I missed my DC30 Read Fine Print check.
But then I feel bad for dispelling an effect that the poor player spent some hard-earned XP to make permanent... :(
I will discuss this with my friend. I'd like to come up with a fair solution for both parties: the players not getting screwed by having their expensive permanencies dispelled, and the DM not getting screwed by the players being aware of every single magical gimmick going on in the campaign, 100% of the time.
The solution might be: no permanency spells for players... :/ But we'll see.
It's the first time we play above L9 in 3/3.5 edition, so a lot of these questions are coming up in this campaign. It's a great learning experience for both of us.
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Just getting caught up on my posts again. So much has happened here since I last read! It looks like the PCs are just about ready to exit Runeforge. Woo Hoo! Anyway you've provided quite a bit of insight on running this module, and I think it should benefit anyone wanting to DM the campaign.
I'll throw in my 2 cents on the whole permanent Arcane Sight issue as well. If you are reluctant to remove an effect that a PC has spent XP on (which I can totally understand) then there are 2 options:
1) Treat the effect as any other magic item - especially those with charges. They don't last forever, and a PC willing to create such an effect should be fully aware of this. Creating a wand or staff costs XP and at some point that wand or staff will cease to function. Creating a permanent effect on oneself is only going to last until you come up against someone bigger and badder than you were when you cast it. The effect can always be re-applied (if they are willing to re-spend the XP) and this time at a much higher level.
2) Assuming that you don't want to take the hard-line approach, then I would recommend a temporary dispelling. The PC can be hit by a dispell, effectively removing the effect for the rest of the encounter. After the appropriate number of minutes have passed then the effect comes back. I suspect that most mages worth their salt would attempt this as one of their first actions, but it might mitigate some of the problems you are experiencing now, at least somewhat.
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Sunday, Neth 21st, 4708 (continued)
The Arms of Death
The companions returned to Kazaven’s laboratory and examined the secret trap door they’d found within it. It opened unto a dark shaft that led to a room, about ten feet below. Using a combination of rope and Fly spells, the group climbed down into the room. It was rather small, with a low ceiling, and it contained three stone sarcophagi with dancing skeletons and corpses engraved on their sides. Kerista felt some evil coming from the sarcophagi, and Ruh saw that they radiated an aura of strong necromancy.
Kerista and Drithnar tried to open the furthest one, while the two spellcasters remained on the other side of the room. After a few moments, though, a terrible trap was triggered: dozens of skeletal arms extended out of the sides of all three sarcophagi and shot bolts of darkness everywhere into the room. The companions were hit by this negative energy: Navan was immune to it because his Death Ward spell was still active, and Kerista resisted most of it, but Ruh and Drithnar got badly hurt.
The skeletal arms continued gesturing: it seemed they were about to launch another volley of dark bolts.
“Gather around me, quick!” shouted Ruh.
The others ran to her side and touched her, expecting to get teleported out of the room, but once Ruh had chanted her incantation, the entire room went pitch black!
Kerista quickly started praying to Sarenrae for magical light, but the little gnome stopped her:
“Wait, Kerista! Your magic won’t work here: we’re surrounded by a field of anti-magic that I just created!”
Indeed, Ruh had summoned this circle to protect them from the effects of the deadly necromantic trap. The companions rummaged through their packs and took out some torches that had been lying there at the bottom, unused for a very long time. They lit them up and saw that, outside the reach of Ruh’s anti-magic field, the skeletal arms were still firing their deadly bolts every now and then. From the safety of the bubble, the companions opened the sarcophagi one by one.
The first one contained eleven spellbooks that seemed to have each belonged to a different necromancer. The second one contained another spellbook that had belonged to Kazaven, as well as some treasure that the companions took for themselves. The last sarcophagus was empty, and even though they tried their best, the adventurers could not find any secret compartment within it.
They then searched the other sarcophagi very carefully, as well as the rest of the room, but they found no secret doors anywhere. Before leaving, Kerista destroyed each sarcophagus with her mighty adamantine earthbreaker. Drithnar then climbed up the shaft, and helped his friends to climb back up with a rope.
The Crystal Sarcophagus
The group then returned to the room with the strange crystal sarcophagus. Intrigued, Navan left the anti-magic field and cast two divination spells to try to learn more about this place. The group guessed that it was the source of the necromantic power of the Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony.
An Augury told Navan that both weal and woe would come from destroying this crystal sarcophagus. A Divination spell about a similar question gave him this answer:
“The brave heroes who will destroy the curse of these crypts will be the target of the wrath of the ungrateful ones.”
The adventurers decided to wait for the anti-magic spell to finish. Once it was gone, they healed themselves (though Kerista still couldn’t be cured from the wound she’d sustained from the clay golem), and returned to the chilly room. Kerista then destroyed the sarcophagus, and once it collapsed into crystalline rubble, two large, dark ghostly shapes rose up from the fragments. They looked vaguely humanoid, but formed with shreds of dark hatred and pain. Their features could not be distinguished, but for small, glowing, cold blue eyes. With wails of anguish, the two wraiths attacked the party.
The first one touched Drithnar, who felt the cold hand of death grip his chest, but he was so strong that he resisted it. He slashed the ghostly form with his blades, but none of them harmed the creature; the ranger growled a curse.
The other wraith reached for Navan, and its touch was sheer agony to the unfortunate cleric. He cried out in pain, and his skin turned deathly pale from the contact with the revenant. Ruh cast a Haste spell on the group, and Navan protected himself with a new Death Ward, since the previous one had expired.
A glorious ray of sunlight suddenly shone in the dark crypt, as Kerista directed her holy symbol of Sarenrae toward the two undead creatures. The one that had attacked Navan shrieked in fright, and vanished through a wall.
The companions focused their attacks on the other one, who tried to slay Kerista with a touch, but she resisted it easily, as she was still imbued with the holy light of Sarenrae. Drithnar was able to harm the wraith this time, and Ruh shot a volley of Maximized Magic Missiles at it. Finally, Kerista destroyed it with her holy weapon.
The group left the room and returned to the very first room of the complex, where they’d fought the first group of mummies. There, the wraith that had fled returned to fight them. It tried to kill Ruh with a touch, but the sturdy little gnome survived the energy drain easily. Once again, Drithnar slashed the incorporeal undead with his magical weapons, and Ruh cast some Maximized Magic Missiles, but it was Kerista who dealt the final blow.
Now that things were quiet once again, the companions noticed that they could hear faint cries of damned souls, who seemed to finally be relieved. Using their magical senses, Ruh and Kerista saw that slowly, the souls that had been infusing the walls were now leaving this place to go rest in peace. The heroes had set them free!
But one question still remained: where was Kazaven’s phylactery? Indeed, Ruh explained to her friends that the only way to truly kill a lich was to destroy its phylactery. Otherwise, as long as the item still existed, the lich could reform within a few days, indefinitely.
To Anger the Peacock
Since they had used most of their spells in order to claim their victory over the Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony, the adventurers returned to the Vault of Greed and rest there. Ruh decided to use the Revelation Quill, which they’d found in the catacombs below Sandpoint, to ask some questions of the Peacock Spirit.
After letting the feather dip in a vial of ink for an hour, Ruh sat down at a desk, in front of a blank sheet of parchment Her first question would allow her to get a detailed answer.
“Where is Kazaven the Lich’s phylactery?” wrote Ruh on the sheet of parchment. She then replaced the Quill in the inkwell.
After a moment, the feather moved of its own accord, and hovered over the parchment. Elegantly, it wrote:
“Twice was the gluttonous one destroyed
By she who worships the sun.”
Guessing that meant that Kerista had somehow already destroyed the phylactery, Ruh decided to ask more questions of the artifact, but knowing that this time the ten questions to follow would receive shorter answers. The higher powers did not like to be questioned by mortal minds, and their answers were often short and elusive.
She wrote on the parchment: “Do you have any special friendship for Karzoug?”
“Slave” was the answer.
“Are you all right with us killing Karzoug?”
“Sacrilege”
“Do we have with us, on ourselves, right now, what is needed to go to the central pool of Runeforge and create weapons to kill Karzoug?”
“Unknown”
The gnome frowned in frustration. This Peacock Spirit was proving most unhelpful. But it felt good to have such a powerful creature answering questions at her whim. With a chuckle, she wrote down: “What is your favorite color?”
“Irrelevant…” was the answer.
Smiling to herself, Ruh asked another question, feeling like teasing the power behind a dead faith. “How many worshippers do you still have?” she wrote.
The Quill moved suddenly and spilled the contents of the inkwell on the desk, ruining the parchment and staining Ruh’s robe with a few splotches of ink.
Clearly, the Peacock Spirit had decided that the question period was over…
Once that was done, Navan summoned a Heroes’ Feast for the group and the mephits. The little water creatures, who had been sorely disappointed when the cleric hadn’t summoned any food the previous day, now cheered wildly at the chance to feast again. The companions noticed that there were now even more mephits present: clearly, word had begun to spread around the Elemental Plane of Water that a good time could be had in Runeforge!
Later that day, after they’d rested and recovered their spells, Navan healed the group’s remaining wounds. At last, he was able to cure the wound Kerista had suffered from the clay golem. Then, the heroes decided it was finally time to try and create runeforged weapons. But they still weren’t sure how to do it…
Navan cast another Divination spell, asking Desna: “What do we need from the halls of lust to perform the ritual so our weapons may kill Karzoug?”
The answer soon came: “The beautiful man knew how to kill his enemy. He died hundreds of times. Do not let his legacy die with him.”
Navan told this to the rest of the group, and they examined Vraxeris’s notes once again.
“Seems pretty clear to me,” said Drithnar. “We have to use one of Delvahine’s sex toys. He even mentioned we should clean them!”
“Hmm, I’m not sure…” said Navan.
The ranger chuckled. “What’s the matter, Navan? You don’t want to use those items? Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone. What happens in Runeforge stays in Runeforge.”
Navan smirked. “Yeah, yeah… But still, which one of these… things… are we supposed to use?”
“Pick one. Which one appeals to you the most?” Clearly, Drithnar was greatly enjoying himself. “If you were a succubus, which of these things would you like to play with?”
Navan looked at the items placed before him. “I have no idea. Actually, Kerista should be the one choosing.”
“What?!?” said the paladin.
Navan chuckled. “Well, which one would you choose? Hypothetically, of course.”
Kerista blushed deeply. “I… uh… I don’t know…”
The two men chuckled and returned to discussing what to do.
“I guess I’d pick that one,” finally said Kerista, pointing at one of the fancier items.
The two men turned to stare at her, flabbergasted. They hadn’t expected her to answer the rhetorical question.
Kerista stared back, blushing even more. “What? You guys asked for my opinion!!!”
Drithnar cleared his throat. “All right… I guess we’ll go with that one, then…”
Before they left the vault of greed, the companions decided to place the loot they’d gathered from their many victories in one of the bedrooms. Ruh used its magic to create a vault, within which they placed their treasure.
Also, they decided to experiment with the pool of elemental arcana located deep within the Vaults of Greed. Navan carefully approached the water, and placed a wand within it, using a long pair of pliers. He resisted the pool’s magical influence, and when he returned with the wand, they all saw that it glowed as bright as a torch. Using an Identify spell, though, Ruh detected that the item hadn’t gotten recharged.
“Maybe we’re doing something wrong?” asked Drithnar.
“I don’t think so,” said Ruh. “But the process is not a sure thing. The wild arcana contained here can have varying results depending on a lot of parameters. Why don’t you try again, Navan?”
The cleric obliged, trying to recharge several of the wands of healing that the group had depleted, or almost depleted, during their raid of Runeforge. He was able to slightly recharge two of those wands, but a third one got utterly destroyed by the energy of the pool.
Pride and Lust United
Later, the group returned to the central hall of Runeforge. They approached the pool, holding the two items before them: a shard of the mirrors of the Shimmering Veils of Pride, and one of Delvahine’s toys. As they got closer, the items started to glow.
“What do we do with them?” asked Navan.
“I think we have to place them within the pool,” replied Ruh.
They did so, and the waters started to glow with golden hue. Soon, thin wisps of energy rose up from the pool and writhed around the various weapons the characters carried. Navan asked Kerista to dip her cold iron shortsword into the pool. She did so, and when she took it out, it was glowing with power, and some Thassilonian runes were glowing along its blade. Kerista held it high above her head.
“By this blade, Karzoug’s reign will finally be ended!” she claimed.
“I don’t think so…” retorted a deep, booming voice coming from further ahead in the room.
To their horror, the companions saw the statue of Karzoug animate into a semblance of life. Its features contorted into a sneer as the gigantic idol of the Runelord observed the heroes who sought to defy him. His eyes widened in recognition: he’d seen them before!
“You! Again… I can’t help but be inspired by your optimism, but alas, your weapons will never reach Xin-Shalast. Your fate is death, here, in Runeforge.”
All four companions could understand his words: he spoke in the Common tongue. They recognized his voice, for it was the same that had spoken to them after they’d vanquished Mokmurian.
It was indeed the voice of Runelord Karzoug!
The ground shook as the statue came down from its pedestal and started slowly walking toward the adventurers.
“Crap…” muttered Drithnar as he looked at their gigantic enemy. Then, he took out his longsword and dipped it in the Runeforge pool!
Navan cast a Blade Barrier spell to surround the statue. “Kerista, dip your maul in the pool!” The paladin did so, holding the earthbreaker in one hand and the shortsword in the other. When she took out her earthbreaker from the golden waters, it indeed shone with power, but Kerista seemed dizzy, as though the influence of both weapons was assaulting her mind. With a metallic clatter, the shortsword escaped her grasp and fell to the floor.
Staying far away from the statue, Ruh cast a Spell Turning ward on herself, and cast a Quickened Haste on the entire group.
Then, Karzoug’s statue passed through the Blade Barrier. The blades bounced off harmlessly: he seemed impervious to them. A malevolent grin appeared on Karzoug’s face as he looked at Navan: “Imbecile! Do you think such pathetic magic can stop ME?”
He faced the companions from the opposite side of the pool, and brought his gigantic glaive down on Kerista, badly wounding her. “Insolent girl, you will be the first one to die!” he promised her.
“No, Karzoug, YOU will die!” retorted Drithnar as he raised his shining longsword in defiance. “I bear the mark of your enemy Alaznist upon my brow, and wield a weapon infused with the energies of Sorshen and Xanderghul! This weapon will be your bane!”
With these words, the ranger surrounded himself with the flames of wrath, and tumbled past Karzoug’s attacks, lodging his energized blade into the statue’s leg. Navan cast a Prayer spell around him. Kerista, who had regained her senses now that she’d let go of the sword, lifted her earthbreaker and moved to engage the statue. Karzoug struck her again with his glaive, but she struck him as well. Both her weapon and Drithnar’s seemed capable of inflicting serious wounds on the statue. Ruh cast a Disintegrate and a Quickened Scorching Ray at Karzoug, but he seemed immune.
The Runelord chuckled evilly as he looked down at Drithnar and Kerista, who seemed minuscule compared to him. “Yes, gather at my feet, you worms, and die!” His eyes glowed with a golden light for a moment, and the two warriors’ movements slowed down: he had just cancelled Ruh’s Haste spell. He then struck Kerista twice more with his glaive; she was now bleeding badly. Another such blow and she might be slain by Karzoug’s statue!
“Nooo!!!” roared Drithnar as he kept attacking the statue.
Quickly, Navan tumbled to reach Kerista, narrowly avoiding the ferocious sweeps of Karzoug’s great glaive. He called upon the power of Desna and unleashed a mighty Heal spell on the wounded paladin, closing most of her wounds. Kerista continued fighting with renewed vigor, striking the statue several times with her now even more powerful holy earthbreaker.
Ruh finally remembered that Orb spells are among the only magic that can harm a golem, and she cast a Maximized Lesser Orb of Frost followed by a Quickened Lesser Orb of Frost at the statue, causing great damage.
Karzoug frowned when he saw Kerista get healed. His statue had taken severe damage by then. Why wouldn’t these damned fools just DIE??
He then turned toward Drithnar. “Let’s see how YOU fare against the might of Karzoug, lackey of Alaznist!” he spat as he hit the ranger with two powerful blows.
Ignoring the pain, Drithnar fought back. He and Kerista were causing great wounds to the statue: it was almost destroyed! Navan tumbled around the pool to get behind Drithnar, but as he raised his hand to heal him, he realized that he risked burning himself from the ranger’s Fire Shield!
But then, Ruh cast two more mighty orbs of ice at the statue of the Runelord. With great blasts of blue energy, they caused the statue’s chest to crack open. It was only moments before its whole structure would collapse.
Rage and disbelief were plain on the Runelord’s face.
“This… this is not the last… come then, heroes. Seek me atop Mhar-Massif, if you value life so poorly. You should be honored to be the first fools executed under the banner of Shalast… in ten thousand…”
But he did not get the chance to finish his taunts: the statue finally crumbled to the floor.
Only six statues of Runelords now stood around the central hub of Runeforge…
The heroes had done it! They had vanquished an image of Karzoug, and they had slain all their enemies in Runeforge! And now, they had within their grasp the magical weapons that could kill the real Karzoug…
Navan dipped his crossbow in the pool, and Ruh did the same with her staff. All four companions felt that their weapons were now imbued with the sins of Lust and Pride. They felt a connection with the weapons, as though they now possessed a primal intelligence of their own. They felt urges of the two sins trying to influence their actions, but the companions’ hearts were strong and righteous: they would not easily be swayed.
Ruh identified the weapons and told them that they would provide great protection against harmful Transmutation spells, which were Karzoug’s specialty. Also, they would prove deadly against any Transmuter, and some shape-shifting creatures.
The mighty weapons were now even more powerful.
More than ever, the companions felt in touch with their destiny.
They were meant to destroy Runelord Karzoug and save Varisia.
And now, they had the tools to do it!
Hey whats going on with this great game?