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I am running some friends through Sons of Gruumsh.
I allowed them to start 4th level. None of them made humans. I was pretty generous with character creation..32pt buy, two starting values at 10. Any FR race. Regional feats for free, some bonus skills. Any WotC splat and Hyperconsciouness (for psions), but no Magic Item Compendium gear, though FR books were free game.
I did allow reserve spell feats and Tome of Battle. Seemed to actually work out well.
The cast:
Daelin: male tiefling swashbuckler3/swordsage1 (Broken Ones)
Gil-goland: male sun elf rogue2/wizard2 (he has a longer name...but everyone calls him Gil')
Bryan: male halfling rogue3/monk1 (Broken Ones)
Akenaten: male aasimar cleric4
The first session: (used spoiler tags to hide as it is fairly long)
Hitting the local taverns, and one in particular,the Rusty Bucket, Bryan bribes a barwench and shetells him that one of the missing Kalman Leiraghon frequented the inn and hung out with a Dwarven mercenary named Dorn Crownshield. Kalman had been talking about buying a map to a ruin in the Grey Wastes of THar. Dorn they discover was well respected and had spoken about taking "his younglings" out on their first "real" adventure. That was five days prior. Bribing a stable hand reveals that a half-elf woman with a pet raven had five horses and a pony stabled and ready for an adventure. They left also five day ago.
The person who sold the map to the boy, a man named Old Tom has skipped town.
Returning to Woarstern Nanther, the Outcasts present to him their leads and he agrees to provide mounts for them to find the "foolish children" before they got themselves killed. They have overheard of increased orc activity in the region.
After an uneventful and restful evening at the Crow's Nest Inn, the Outcasts head to the Northern Gate. Before they can get out of town, they are accosted by five thugs in the street. Three are killed, and the leader is captured, but one gets away. Two House Natali dwarven mercenaries inform the party that the unmarked thugs are heavies in the employ of House Leiraghon. Interrogating the man, they find that he was ordered not by old man Dornig Leiraghon but by his son Bremen. They dump the prisoner at the Nanther estate, obtain mounts and head into Thar while Woarsten Nanther works to gain support against House Leiraghon, contingent on the Outcasts having a successful mission of course.
The first day proves uneventful, but the night turns cold, and in the morning the Outcasts destroy a shambling ogre zombie. Later on the Glister Road, they foil an ambush by orc brutes. Celestial monkeys prove more hearty than Bryan, the halfling monk who is knocked into unconsciousness by a raging orc. Towards evening, the group finds a trail that diverges from the Glister Road that goes north into the heart of Thar. They travel a few hours and then camp on a low, rocky outcropping. That night Daelin discovers two mountain orcs watching the camp. They attack, but one is killed while the other is compelled to flee into the night thanks to a cause fear spell by Akenaten. Gil attempts to shock him, but ends up frying himself misjudging where his invisible arm would be. The Outcasts break off pursuit, but move their camp in the night to hopefully prevent the orc from finding them easily with reinforcements.
*****
I was pleasantly surprised by the interaction and investigative work that the players did. They did not hit all the leads, but gained a good idea of what the young scions were up to.
We will be adding a fifth player (possibly a half-orc or full orc barbarian/ranger)