Well after a month in mediation Kitty was able to achieve a rapport with his spirit animal. He spent the month living as a tiger in the wild and awoke to find himself face to face with the spirit. He did the very appropriate move of rising to his feet and say “let us hunt”.
Droodad however had a few interesting visions during her month. First she got to experience the first few days her boggin’s life from its perspective. Of course during this month there was a full moon. During which she once again found herself connected with the seed. This time she had a vision of a tree of a type she had never seen before. She did not comprehend the size of the tree until she realized that what she had assumed were ants moving around the roots were actually people. She could see that the tree was dying, its branches had lost leaves and some looked as if they were withered.
At the base of the tree was a circle of druids performing some ceremony. She could not tell what type of ceremony, only that it seemed to be a style of druidic ritual that she was not familiar with. The people themselves looked subtly different, but not in a way that she could put a name to. As the ritual rose towards its climax roots began to grow up and envelope the druids. By the time the ceremony had reached its peak the druids could no longer be see. All that remained was a perfect sphere of roots. Then the vision faded.
The final vision she had was of her teacher striding across a frozen landscape. She could sense that something was wrong. A feeling of something cracking, almost ready to shatter. Then she opened her eyes to find herself back in the cave with Kitty. The two of them had little trouble returning to the Isle of Beasts.
In the meantime Flyboy had not been inactive. He spent his time during the three months exploring that surrounding islands. One interesting place he found was a village of lizardmen on the Isle of Dread. These lizardmen worshipped Kord and Pelor. With their guidance he explored some ruins on the plateau. Although he did not find anything hostile, there were some interesting carvings. His goal like any good Gorathian cleric was to find any areas were there might be trouble and take care of it before the locals were slaughtered. He did find out about a group of something called “skinwalkers” on one of the islands.
Before the party set out to deal death and dismemberment to the skinwalkers they took the time to do some research in the city about them. They learned of the plot of the Demogorgan 20 years ago to access the material plane. The skinwalkers were of course some of his servants and the current leader of Farshore, a lady Vanderbourne was willing to offer a reward if they could take care of the few remaining skinwalkers that had apparently escaped notice.
They took some time to talk with the Josaline the Journalist as well. She provided some stories and mentioned that many of the temples on the islands in the area had place that were under water. She provided them with a scroll that would provide freedom of movement to each party member for 2 hours. It was up to them to use it carefully.
So they decided to proceed to the temple in question and clean out its inhabitants. Unfortunately once they reached the temple they were ambushed by eight skinwalkers. The Skinwalkers attacked with axes and javelins, but to little avail against this well armored party. Things were just heating up when Flyboy dropped down to deliver a little turning. I allowed him to take a domain from another book that would let him turn outsiders. Unfortunately this meant that 5 of the 8 skinwalkers took off running. On top of that another one failed to save vs Tasha’s Hideous Laughter and fell to the ground giggling.
When they went into the ruins to they were in for a nasty surprise. Unfortunately we didn’t finish that combat that night, so I will pick up there with my next post.
Heading down into the temple the party forgot one little important thing: healing. Now they weren’t badly hurt by the previous fight, but some of them had been whacked around a little. Going down the stairs into the main part of the temple they could see the passage had two doors leading off it close to the entrance, one on their side. There was also two other passages that broke off from the main one, again on either side a bit further on. The passage itself dead ended in a doorway about 70 feet from the bottom of the stairs. The first room had been used as a barracks and held little of interest. Flyboy insisted that the rooms be searched thoroughly before they moved on. His method of searching is to remove everything from the room and examine it as they do so.
Unfortunately this method of searching takes up a crap load of time. While he is starting this Blingy’s pet griffon, dubbed Blingy Jr. decided to indulge his curiosity by taking a look at the nearer of the two passages. Blingy of course came up to tell him to stay close. It was about this time that the door at the end of the passage opened. Out of the door came a very angry skinwalker barbarian who charged Kitty with his great axe. The single blow he landed almost cut the already hurt monk in half. The party could see just past the door another 3 skinwalkers getting ready to charge into combat.
Tin Man bravely stepped up beside Kitty to swing on the barbarian to help protect his friends and keep anyone from getting past. Wiz took the opportunity to wing a cold ball at the group and then run into the room that Flyboy and Brad were in. Flyboy came to the doorway and launched a few arrows, while Brad actually came all the way into the passage to do his shooting. Kitty threw a few punches at the barbarian and then stepped back, counting on Tin Man’s knightly training to keep the barbarian off him. Blingy was nice enough to provide some curing for the poor tiger.
At this point a strange man stepped out of the room. He was wearing full plate armor and carrying a bow. His skin was a mottled red color and smoke seemed to be leaking from the corners of his mouth. He issued a few orders to the skinwalkers and then raise his bow to fire at one of the casters. The skinwalkers charged forward to attack Blingy Jr., Tin Man and Kitty. At this point the fight was clustered up right where the passage Blingy Jr. was in split off from the main passage.
The barbarian used his turn to hack away at Tin Man. Tin Man wasn’t quite knocked unconscious, but he was knocked on his rear. He took the chance to play dead and hopefully keep his life. Surprisingly the barbarian stepped back instead of pressing his attack. The party used this slight reprieve to throw as many spells and arrows as they could down range. Blingy Jr. thoroughly shredded one of the skinwalkers. Tin Man when his turn came up actually crawled between Blingy Jr.’s legs to get to a bit of safety. At this point the man in armor walked up and breathed fire on most of the group, incinerating them pretty thoroughly. (The man is armor had a modified version of the Dragon Shaman class from the PHP2, in this case his power comes from and demon instead of a dragon.)
The party desperately threw just about everything they had at the shaman. Droodad tried to summon a few minions to help out, but before she could finish one of the skinwalkers hit her in the head, pretty thoroughly ruining the spell. The barbarian stepped up to the corner and tried to Blingy Jr. into bite sized pieces. Luckily he only hit once rather than twice and Blingy Jr.’s return attack left him nearly dead. Magic Girl finally caught up with the group (the player was finally able to make another game after missing most of a month) and pegged the shaman with a lesser orb of cold. Wiz decided that a cold ball would be appropriate, even if he did have to clip Blingy Jr. in the process. Unfortunately for me between Blingy Jr’s excellent reflexes and half-celestial nature he barely even noticed the blast. Droodad decided to get revenge for her spell by turning into a bear and mauling the guy who hit her while Oskaar lended a helping claw.
Blingy Jr definitely noticed the barbarian’s return swings. The two blows left Blingy Jr. clinging to consciousness with a mere 1 HP left. The shaman had survived to this point by downing a healing potion the round after he breathed. Unfortunately none of the enemies got another turn at this point as the party swarmed then and managed to finish them off.
The party of course looted the place thoroughly and made off with a little bit of treasure. The only really useful item for the party was the lesser acid assault crystal that the barbarian had had. Droodad and Kitty took an interest in the animal skins the skinwalkers had been wearing. They wanted to try to find a way to purify them and lay the souls of the animals to rest.
An examination of the temple and its inhabitants revealed that they had worshipped the Demogorgan. Sometime after he was killed they converted to the worship of Graz’zt instead. Flyboy set about destroying the place of worship and then organizing a mission to completely destroy the temple.
Droodad and Kitty took the skins over to the Isle of Beast. There they doused the skins in holy water and Droodad said druidic prayers over them. While she was busy with that Kitty tried to use his tiger spirit to reach the spirits of the skins. He got a feeling that he was able to connect to the spirits and that they went somewhere.
When Droodad returned to the village she had a visitor. Ian was waiting for her in the place she had been staying. He informed her that they had some new information about the tablets they had found on the orcs in earlier adventures. He was hoping they could return to help out. Magic Girl received a similar message in her sleep.
The visitation that Flyboy received was a little more urgent. He received his first visitation by the Shadow Lady, who true to form he never saw at all. Her voice however was easily audible. She told him that more information was available on the tablets and he was needed in the north as soon as possible. When he ask her how he should travel, she simply told him to come as quickly as possible.
Flyboy set about finding the fastest transportation he could. Apparently the only person in town who could possibly teleport the group was Lady Torsin Tightbutt, but she was not interested in seeing callers. Fortunately Brad remembered that she was a follower of Corellian and had met with Wiz and Blingy several times. So Flyboy asked Blingy to check on that while he went to look for a ship that could take them quickly.
Eventually Flyboy ended up speaking with the captain of the Sea Wyvern, the ship reported to be the fastest in Farshore. He was a little surprised when the captain turned out to be Gnoll. Still the captain promised he could get the party to Monmurg in 2 days, from there they could take a gate to Ian’s plane. He did warn that the trip out be somewhat rough. Flyboy’s response that that did not mater seemed to impress the captain a bit.
Lady Tightbutt said she was willing to transport them to Sasserine by teleportation, unfortunately this would require them to take a ship to Monmurg which would take at least 3 days, probably closer to 4 or 5. So Flyboy settled on the Sea Wyvern as the faster mode of transportation. After some convincing the party all agreed to come along.
As the ship set sail the party found itself wondering just how this ship was going to make the nearly month long journey in a mere two days. Once the ship cleared the harbor gates the dragon wings attached to the side started actually rowing the ship. This sped it up quite a bit, but still not enough to reach Monmurg in the time promised.
Their first real inkling of how the trip would be made came when a shout of “ready for changeover” ran out over the deck. The crew began to quickly strap down all unattended objects and strangely enough throw on coats. The reason for this became clear as a large gem mounted just in from of the steering column began to glow brightly. There was a flash of light and an odd ripple and the ship was suddenly in the middle of a snowstorm. The temperature went from tropical to arctic in an instant. The ship was now sailing a frozen sea on the quasi-elemental plane of ice.
Over the two day trip the ship would transfer to over a dozen different planes. Droodad’s attention was captured by the demi-plane of wood. The trip was safe, but the frequent planer shifts proved to be very unsettling, especially to Wiz. In the end they made it to Monmurg in the promised time.
There they quickly headed for the gate. Strangely a new decoration had been added to the courtyard that the gate opened to in Ian’s plane. A tall, beautifully carved stone statue stood there. Only Magic Girl, who had spent some time on this plane, recognized it as the stone golemn who acted as a captain of the guards for Ian. Any of the party who went close to examine the statue heard a whisper instructing them to proceed to an inn where a private room was waiting for them.
At the private room the entire party was met by the Shadow Lady. She informed them that they had reason to believe that whoever was stirring up the orcs was somewhere on the other side of the Crystaline Mountains, somewhere in the Dry Stepps. They were hoping the party could go investigate what is going on. They felt the party would be a bit less obvious then a group of gods and famous heroes going to investigate. They did of course promise to reward the party and since they were headed for a desert provided rings of sustenance enhanced with endure elements to all party members, including Brad and Blingy Jr.
The Shadow Lady suggested that they go through the giant lands west of Gorna as it would be the safest and easiest to explain way for them to get to the Dry Stepps. When they had found something out they should deliver it in person by going to Rechinda’s Isle. They should only send it by magical means if it was something of extreme importance that was time critical. Flyboy raised the possibility of them passing the information on in an emergency by one of them dying and seeing their god in the afterlife. The Shadow Lady allowed that this might work, but that it should be a last resort.
We ended the session here early because I have been having sinus trouble and wasn’t up to running more that night. I’m looking forward to what comes next.
Rest assured my loyal readers (if you exist) that I will update this week. The most recent session was a blast and something of a cliff hanger. The party is in a tight spot and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I would update tonight but I just got a shipment of novels from Amazon that I just can't resist.
Well, when we last left our adventuring hero’s they were about to set out on an important mission to find out more these mysterious clay tablets that the orcs were carrying. Of course this is supposed to be a secret mission, so Flyboy was thankfully intelligent enough to go looking for a cover story. In Gorna he asked around to see if any of the sages knew rumors about treasure out in the desert on the other side of the mountains. That line of questioning led him to a hill giant merchant who claimed that up in the giant lands there was a sage who specialized in tales and stories from the desert. The merchant was also willing to hire the party as guards for a small pay. The party lept at the chance to not only get where they were going, but actually make a few gold off the trip.
Arriving in the giant kingdom they were able to quickly and safely travel to the capital. This is a kingdom based on commerce and the streets and roads are well patrolled. The home of the sage they were seeking turned out to be a huge mansion carved of white marble. At the door was a wolf hound. Like the rest of the things they had seen in this land the hound was enormous, standing almost 8 feet tall at the shoulder, taller than any party member. As a wizard Wiz immediately recognized this as someone’s familiar.
As the party approached, letting Droodad go first, the hound addressed them in common and asked them to state their business. They said they were seeking advice from the sage and were willing to trade or pay for it. The hound led them into a giant’s library. Some of the books were almost he size of the characters. Wiz was instantly captivated by the thought of perusing the massive volumes. The sage was there waiting for them, and they were a little surprised when she turned out to be an elderly woman. Admittedly she was a Frost Giant, but she was still obviously quite elderly.
Back when the party had been hanging out near Farshore Flyboy had taken an interest in Olman carvings. He had several copies of the carvings from the various temples he had been able to find, he was able to trade copies of these for several services from the sage. First she did allow Wiz to look threw a few of the books that he could actually lift. Second she provided some interesting tales from the desert that they might want to look into. Finally she was able to provide a map with some of the hazards and major trade routes marked on them.
The oldest legend she was able to provide them with information on was the Domed City. This was a city that was supposedly so thoroughly warded that it had survived the Invoked Devastation which created the desert millennia ago. The people in it had supposedly left it to try and make their way out of the desert and were not able to take many of their belongings with them. Anyone who could find the city would be wealthy beyond imagining. The two most common locations mentioned in the legend was the deep desert (where the party didn’t want to go) and the exact area that the party wanted to explore.
A much more recent rumor said that a partially intact city from before the Invoked Devastation had recently be unburied by the shifting sands. The desert is a fickle thing of course and it could easily be reburied soon. It was supposedly many miles south of the only lake on the map she gave them, and very near the area they were headed to.
The final tale was that something had moved into an area of the desert far north of their intended destination. What this thing is, no one knows, but it is evil enough that the tribes in the area are avoiding the place.
Not wanting to waste more time the party quickly set out to finish crossing the mountains. They decided to travel at night to avoid the heat of the day. The first night out was going very well, right up until they saw what looked like the ruined base of a tower. The low circle of boulders seemed worth investigating so Flyboy and Droodad, who was wild shaped into hawk form, flew a bit ahead of the party to investigate. They were more than a little surprised when it reared up and spat some sort of sticky mucus at Flyboy.
Flyboy managed to dodge just enough of it to keep his arms and wings free. They could that what they thought was a ring of stone was actually a 90 foot long centipede with some very good natural camouflage. Droodad immediately turned and headed back towards the party just as fast as she could. Flyboy decided not to even waste time turning around, so he flew right on past it just as fast as he could. He ended up further from it than any of the other party members. The party started running up as quickly as possible and Wiz took the time to drop a coldball on top of it.
In a very impressive turn of speed it was able to charge right up to Kitty who was out in the lead. Had the creature only been able to bite once per round this would have been a quite easy fight for the party. What made it a little dangerous, and painful, was the creatures willingness to trample many of the characters into the ground to get to others. Silent Man and Oskaar both found themselves trodden into the group repeatedly and several others had that unpleasant experience at least once. Magic Girl was very, very unhappy when she was hit by glob of mucus that glued her to her magic broom, she was able to order the broom to rise out of reach. She also did not appreciate the 12 points of dexterity damage that it poinson caused her when it bit her.
Still the combine firepower of the group was enough to eventually bring it down. After a quick gut check of the creature the party hurried off into the night. That same night they spotted what appeared to be a tent camp. They were heading towards it when a voice spoke from out of the dunes and demanded to know what they were doing here. They claimed to just be traveling through and the voice demanded to know if they had purchased water or travel rights. After a little negotiating and a desperate attempt by the party to spot where the voice was coming from Kitty coughed up the money for the whole party to purchase water and travel rights.
The party was a little surprised when the dune itself seemed to rear up out of the ground. As the sand cascade away they realized that they were face to face with a Sun Giant. With great ceremony the giant took out a small square of cloth (although to a human it would be the size of a small blanket) and an ornately worked watersking. He carefully took a small amount of water into his mouth and then spit it on the cloth, soaking a good part of it. As long as the cloth remained damp with his spit it would grant them water and travel rights. Kitty was smart enough to fold it up and put it in a haversack where the extradimentional space should keep it from drying out for quite a while. As they were not guests, they were asked to leave as soon as possible.
The rest of the night and the camping during the day went without trouble. The next night started out easily enough until shortly after midnight. The last two encounters were a little surprising, but this time the surprise was total. The party was caught completely unware when a troll wearing a mithril breastplate stood up out of the sand to slash Kitty across the back. The troll was in the middle of the party, several party members had gone past him without noticing him at all. Kitty did not appreciate the pain as the claws bit in, but what really concerned him was the agony of a portion of his life force draining away as the troll struck. ((The troll had the ability to bestroy 2 negative levels with each claw and his bite.))
Silent Man was the only one whose reflexes were fast enough to act before the troll could rip away Kitty’s life. He charged in dealt a massive blow to the beast. The beast’s counter attack left him barely clinging to consciousness and feeling almost completely drained. ((1HP remaining and 6 negative levels make for an unhappy sword sage)).
Droodad had been ambling along in bear from thanks to her wildshape ability, so she and Oskaar stepped up to rip into the troll. Their hits were brutal enough to attract it’s attention, but far from what would be needed to stop it. Magic Girl, Flyboy and Brad all remained airborn, content to throw ranged attacks into it from out of reach. Wiz dropped back as quickly as he could and pulled a Melf’s Acid Arrow wand and began to throw acid arrows down range. Kitty wisely chose to withdraw. Tin Man interestingly enough pulled out a taglefoot bag and threw it at the troll. Blingy took the time to begin casting spells to make himself more dangerous, assuming that he would only get one or two attacks on the troll.
Silent man also withdrew out of range, so the troll turned its attention to Droodad. His attacks easily ripped into her just like they had into Silent Man. Unfortunately she was not as tough Silent Man, so she slumped down unconscious and drained, but not quite dead. As the ranged fighters threw in everything they had, Tin Man was the next to step up and attempt to melee the monster. It was brave gesture and probably saved Droodad’s life. Kitty circled around and used his prayer beads to bless the party, while Blingy continued to buff his weapon. Blingy Junior attempted to heal Silent Man, but he was too close to the troll. The troll smiled as the shirt it wore under the armor glowed slight and absorbed the healing magic for him. This repaired all of the actual damage he had taken, but not most of the other wounds.
The Troll turned now to Tin Man. Tin Man was luckier than his friends only suffered one claw swipe and a bite, but this was still enough to leave him feeling drained and badly injured. Blingy decided he was finally ready and so he and Blingy Jr. charged in a ripped into the troll. The Troll did manage to claw Blingy Jr on his way in, but it was not enough to prevent the griffon ripping into him. Blingy now magic flaming lance was also brutally effective. Yet it was one final magic missile from Magic Girl that rendered the monster unconscious. The subsequent many minutes of beatings the troll suffered at the hands of an enraged party ensured that it would never rise again.
It turned out that it had risen up out of a concealed lair which the party happily raided. The lair contained some beautiful items and quite a bit of money. It help no magic items, but as the troll was wearing several the party was not disappointed.
Kitty actually recognized a gold and amber bottle stopper as having the seal of his cloister on it. The monk who raise him had been famous for making liqueurs and hard spirits, but something like this would only be given to the oldest and most respected of monks. Why it was all the way out here is a mystery.
Now the party finds itself in a very dangerous situation. Many of the characters are weakened in a way that will not easily heal. They are 6 nights from the nearest town if they head on. They are only two and a half nights travel if they turn back from their mission. They are in a very hostile and dangerous desert. What they do now is up to them.
((Two important notes. First is that I don’t run negative levels the usual way. The penalties for having one are unchanged, but a player cannot permanently lose a level. That is something I hate and something that I would quite a game over. It takes so much work and effort to get up a level as it is, that that is ridiculous. Instead negative levels remain until they actually make the saving through or have restoration cast. Considering the DC to remove them and the penalty the negative level imposes to that save, they may have these negative levels for quite some time.
Second is that while the abilities of the monk class are supposed to be martial arts/shaolin monks, the setting as they have been in it is very medieval/western culture. So the monks in this campaign live in western style cloisters and are action/attitude wise based off medieval/western monks.))
Quick negative level count:
Blingy Jr - 2
Kitty - 2
Tin Man - 4
Silent Man - 6
Droodad - 6
A grand total of 20 negative levels dished out. On top of that for every 2 negative levels the troll did 1 point of vile damage, which is even harder to heal...
Over the next two or three days and nights the party slowly tried to heal up. The simple damage was easy to fix, but the negative levels were much harder. Between the DC and the penalty everyone need a nat 20 to save for at the first few levels. Sill a level or two did come back here and there. They decided that the mission was important and that they needed to press on.
Around dawn the next day they finally encountered some other travelers, or so they thought. They came across an oasis on the side of a dune which had three travelers packing up camp to set out for the day. Most of the characters were a bit distrustful of this, but Wiz and Tin Man were not so careful. So they came right into the oasis to talk with the other travelers.
The travelers were quite willing to say that they were almost home and would get there soon. They ignored any questions about what their home was called or its exact location. They were quite happy to let the party share the oasis with them, after all they were leaving soon. Wiz was even bold enough to take a drink.
Eventually Wiz started to grow suspicious about how vague his new friends were being. A few of the comments they had let drop weren’t sitting well with Wiz. As the sun began to peak over the edge of the horizon Wiz and Tin Man prudently stepped out of the oasis. This wasn’t a moment too soon as mere seconds after they stepped out the oasis and all its inhabitants vanish in the morning light. There was nothing left behind to indicate that the oasis had ever existed.
Those with some knowledge of nature were able to realize that this was a fey oasis. A very dangerous occurrence in the desert as anyone who was in it when it disappeared would go with it. When it returned they would then be fey creatures bound to the oasis. Wiz and Tin Man only barely escaped this fate.
Of course drinking or eating anything of the fey world has its dangers. Wiz was almost doubled over by an unexpected pain from his back. He quickly removed his torso armor and the party was surprised to see that he had grown wings. Not feathered wings or gossimar wings, these wings were made of a thin ice, with jagged edges. Unfortunately solidly constructed plate armor and wings don’t mix well. So Wiz has had to give up his armor for the time being.
As they headed further south they eventually came to the edge of what their map called the Burning Sands. It was a huge salt flat at a much lower elevation than the rest of the desert. It looked like it used to be an inland sea that had long since dried up. The map the party had showed all the trade routes going around it, which they took as a sign to do the same thing.
After traveling for a night around the edge of the burning sands they came to a ruined ancient city. From the style of the building it seemed to predate the Invoked Devastation that created the desert in the first place. Unfortunately most of the city was buried under sand. Still what appeared to be one of the more wealth sections was accessible and as the sun rose the party set about exploring it.
Wiz was using detect magic to try and pick up on any valuable items that might have been left behind. The first trace of magic he picked up was coming from a fountain in the main room of a two story building. The building was still very much intact. Once the party cleared the sand away from the fountain it started to flow with cold clear water. Most of the party decided it was time for a quick and refreshing drink.
At this point Kitty and several other heard what seemed to be someone sneaking away from the group. Kitty and Tin Man turned and tried to sneak after the sound to see what or who was there. The person they were following always seemed to be just around the corner although to their sight and smell the person seemed to be injured. Kitty followed the person until he went into the kitchen and caught up with him just in time to see him tumble down the stair into the basement. The man appeared to be a well dressed merchant with an injured leg. Wiz’s hawk followed them as they went.
In the meantime Wiz and Magic Girl set out to explore the other hallway. They quickly came to a room that used to be either a dining room or ball room. It was made of marble and had exquisite carvings on the wall. The wall facing the burning sands has dozens of windows. Between the windows murals were carved into the wall that hundreds of years ago would have exactly matched the coastline and ocean outside.
Silent Man decided he wasn’t interested in what the others were up to so he climbed up the outside of the building to the roof using his slippers of spider climbing. Flyboy and Brad circled around the building in the air and noticed what looked like a blood stain by the back door and so came in to land just about the time that man Kitty was chasing fell down the stairs.
Droodad was wondering where everyone was disappearing to, so she asked Oscaar. His reply was “oh they’re just following the dead guy.” Which prompted a shout of “What dead guy?!” and started the whole mess off.
Kitty went down the stairs and tried to use his bead of healing to heal the injured merchant. Flyboy and Brad both landed and headed for the back door. Droodad took off, sprinting after Kitty and Tin Man. Wiz was more than a little surprised when a cloaked and bandage wrapped figure appear beside and and laid a hand on his shoulder. Where the hand touched all the water seemed to be leeched out of the flesh, leaving Wiz’ shoulder a dry husk, and of course it was incredibly painful. While Wiz’s hawk flew down into the the basement Wiz looked through its eyes. He used the hawk’s eyes to D-door himself and Magic Girl into the far corner of the basement. Magic Girl tried to walk to the stairs, but as she passed the fallen merchant he reach out and grabbed hold of her ankle. The illusion on him dropped and he pulled her down, revealing what appeared to be a salt encrusted zombie. At its touch the skin of her withered and desiccated. Tin Man finally made it to the kitchen himself, pulling at his bow as he moved. Unfortunately for Wiz he had D-doored directly beside the other zombie in the basement, which promptly grabbed his leg as well and pulled him down.
Seeing Magic Girl in trouble Kitty started pounding on the zombie, attempting to kill it quickly. Flyboy could have only barely squeezed himself down the stairs, but could not have gotten around Kitty’s large frame. Still while he couldn’t reach, his turn undead could, and it was quite effective against the zombie, but it couldn’t reach far enough to get the one trying to chew Wiz’s ankle off. Droodad and Oskaar made it to the kitchen and were looking around trying to decide what to do, when the cloaked figure moved from the dining room to the kitchen and unleashed a cone of sand on everyone in there that seemed to strip their skin off with ease. Wiz set about trying to freeze the zombie attempting to eat him by unleashing small cones of cold (spell reserve feat from complete mage). Magic Girl tried to escape the grip of her captor, but failed miserably. Tin Man shot an arrow at the cloaked figure and then retreated around the corner. The zombie that had been holding onto Magic Girl fled as fast as he could from Flyboy and ended up in the corner of the basement cowering. The grappling with Wiz tried to pin him but failed.
From here the fight went quickly. The cloaked figure was able to unleash a few more spells before being driven off. One of the spells tried to cook the brains of several party members and ended up dealing some significant intelligence damage to several. The party was able to dispatch the two zombies before much else happened.
At this point they started searching the house carefully and did find that quite a few gold coins of ancient minting were hidden on the second floor. Also on the second floor was a room that had once had a map carved into the wall. A make whole spell helped repair what little remained of it, but it was still of great interest to Flyboy who took rubbings of everything he could.
The more interesting thing was what Silent Man found on the roof. Hidden by sand was a massive magical circle. Eventually the spell casters were able to determine that it was a circle for gathering and storing magical energy from the surrounding area. Around the outside of the circle were runes that would make it difficult to detect. From outside the circle a detect magic picked up almost nothing, inside it picked up enough magic to cause significant pain. Strangely enough the circle did not seem to be drawing energy from the direction of the burning sands.
Magic Girl also found something interesting. She examined the murals of the former ocean in the dining room with some care. There found a very small carving of what appeared to be an island far off in the distance. The accuracy and detail of the murals made the party believe that the island either currently did or had at least at one point existed. They decided to carefully take a bearing on the island, and if they could find another such bearing they would eventually be able to triangulate the position of the island.
A much more dangerous thing they discovered is that the wounds inflicted by the zombies and the touch of the cloaked figure did not heal easily. It would slowly recover with proper hydration and treatment, but it was slow going. So the next night, more injured than ever, the party set off into the sands yet again.
The next night’s travel was fairly uneventful, although the party did spend a few tense moments hiding from the shadow of a Roc. The following night they came across a large number of cacti. Droodad was just sending Oskaar out to collect a few pieces of cactus when a large mass of cacti stood up out of the sand. This strange creature appeared similar to an ent, but made of cacti instead of trees.
It sized the party up and seemed to relax slightly when Droodad used her wild empathy to try and make contact with it. It looked at her and then nodded towards the south east. She wasn’t sure what it wanted so she addressed it in sylvan, hoping to get it to speak. It simply nodded south east again and then started jumping up and down on one leg. Unnoticed by anyone Oskaar had snuck over to the creature and was trying to climb up its leg. Eventually the creature swatted at Oskaar and sent him flying. Droodad was too busy laughing (and happy to collect the thorns Oskaar had been holding when he was sent flying) to chastise him. Oskaar’s cheerfulness and enthusiasm was quite undaunted by the experience.
Heading in the direct the creature indicated the party eventually came to a small oasis with large stone blocks scattered around in a strange pattern. Droodad realized that the stone blocks market the position of the sun at dawn and dusk on certain days of the year. There was also a great sense of peacefulness around the place. The party was quite willing to stop early and rest here and it would prove to speed their recovery somewhat.
Flyboy’s curiosity got the better of him, so he began scouting around. He quickly realized that there was something strange about a nearby large dune and as he circled around to the far side it was easy to see what that was. Apparently the dune was actually an enormous scorpion, easily 120 feet or more in and that twice that wide. It looked like a dune from one side because it had not moved in so long that sand had piled up against it.
The entire party came over to carefully examine it. They realized it was still alive but in some sort of magical sleep. After much discussion they elected to leave it alone and hope it never woke up.
Several more nights travel finally brought them to the town of Kanak where they hoped to heal up, resupply and find out some information. Flying a little ahead Flyboy noticed that the gate did not seemed to be guarded and that there were what appeared to be gaps in the wall. He quickly came back to tell the rest of the party. The party approached the gate together and could easily see what seemed to be gaps where the walls were damaged.
As they passed through the abandoned gate they could see the town was destroyed. There was no movement or signs of life here. Fully 1/3 of the town was buried in sand and the rest was burned and destroyed. Something had destroyed this place, and done a very thorough job of it.
Just out of curiosity, any readers out there of this journal besides my own players?
Just out of curiosity, any readers out there of this journal besides my own players?
Naturally good Cap'n, naturally. *Re-lurks*
Well, this session took a little bit to get started, but some very important things came up.
Our brave band of heroes began exploring the ruined city cautiously. They first sent Wiz’s familiar flying over the city to scout. Interestingly it found that some of the rubble hand been rearranged to spell out something. The party decided to direct their search of the city in that direction.
As they went through the city they could see dead bodies everywhere. Men, woman and children of all races had been mercilessly hacked down. Kitty was able to smell orcs all over the city and even find a few places where much orc blood had been spilled. Yet there were no orc bodies, weapons, armor or arrows anywhere. The city also seemed to have been looted thoroughly.
They came to the rearranged rubble without much trouble. It was on the edge of the section of the city buried in sand. After some examination Wiz was certain that this was once a wizard’s tower. This we confirmed when a careful examination found a ruby monocle, 800gp of diamond dust and a partially destroyed spellbook.
The words spelled out in the rubble were a variation on orcish that none of the party had seen before. Doing their best to translate it, they came up with “the unclean shall be purged”, a very ominous message. Here Kitty also found another scent that he had not noticed before. Previously it was covered by all the other orc scents, but apparently not one of the orcs had set foot in the wizard’s tower. This scent was very similar to that of an orc, but with some strange differences. He (quite accurately) likened it to the difference between the smell of a regular elf and that of a drow.
From here the party spread out a little bit to explore the city faster, but considering the several hundred bodies littered about the town, they decided to stay fairly close together. Just in case. After some time they located a few signs that orcs had been around besides just the smell, such as a finger or two, pieces of armor, traces like that. They also found two or three other dwellings that likely belonged to arcane casters. Just like the wizard’s tower the only scent inside the buildings was that of the strange orc.
Eventually they started to explore the area buried under sand. Here a detect magic turned up some strange results. They found a collection of broken magical items shallowly buried under sand. It included broken potion bottles, torn cloaks, smashed rings and many other types of items. As Wiz and Magic Girl studied the items they became convince of two things. Firstly that the items had been deliberately broken, some of the items could not have had that happen to them by accident in the fighting. More troubling was the realization that all the destroyed items were of arcane make. They were certain that not a single item there was crafted by a divine caster.
The party decided to camp in the town that day, since they had used up what remained of the night and part of the next day searching the place. They would set off that night to try and find the orcs that did this and learn what they could.
Kitty was easily able to track the massive number of orcs that had left the place. It only took a couple of hours to reach their campsite. Apparently while the party had spent the night and morning searching, the orcs had been camped only a short distance away. The orcs traveled during the day, the opposite of the party. The camp area was huge. Depending on how friendly the orcs were there could be anywhere from 100 to 500 or so orcs. The party was quite thankful that the orcs split up into two dozen groups when they left the camp. Kitty could smell that all but one of the groups was carrying the bodies of dead orcs. That one group was the smallest of the groups, containing 8 or 9 orcs and the 1 strange smelling orc, had no bodies with it. The party decided that following this group was their best bet. Strangely enough while there was scent trail to follow, there was no tracks of any kind left by this group.
Considering how close they were the party figured that if they pushed themselves they could catch up with that group tonight. Four hours later they came across the bodies of a gargantuan scorpion. It had been shot with orcish arrows and large chunks of it seemed to have been ripped away. It had obviously crossed paths with the group the party was following. A quick search of the area turned up 4 orcs buried in shallow graves. The orcs had been stripped of their weapons, but not their armor. In almost all orc cultures this was a sign that at the least the death was not an honorable one, although this did not mean it was necessarily a dishonorable one. Unlike in the city the bodies had been left behind and curiously the arrows had not been retrieved from the carcass.
It was only an hour later that the party was able to see three tents camped around a small watering hole. They decided that the best course of action would be to sneak up. So Kitty and Silent Man would sneak around to come in from the left, while Droodad would sneak around and come in from the right. Blingy had Blingy Jr. fly him upwards and began buffing himself, ready to swoop in and provide help where needed. Tin Man stayed behind with Magic Girl and Wiz to protect the two as they provided long range support. Finally Oscaar would fly straight into the camp, although about 40 feet overhead. (Flyboy unfortunately wasn’t here for this session, and wasn’t able to have anyone run his character.)
This was a good plan, they got pretty close before they got spotted. Unfortunately the lone guard that they didn’t see until they were right up there did seem them about the same time. In an obviously well practiced move he threw a rock into one of the tents and stomped on the group twice.
It was at this time that the camp site stood up.
Apparently the camp had been made on a gigantic turtle made of sand. It was 60 feet wide and over 80 feet long. When it stood up Kitty and Silent Man were already on its back. Droodad was able to grab hold as it rose out of the surrounding sand. Droodad, Kitty, Silent Man and Blingy immediately set upon the guards cutting them down quickly. The guards did buy leader enough time to throw down Bite of the Weretiger and Spirit Jaws, marking him as a druid. Magic girl used her broom to try and get enough height to throws spell at those on top of the turtle’s back, which since it was now over 20 feet off the ground was a little hard to see. Tin Man decided to try and nail it with an arrow that bounced off the turtle’s armor. Wiz also threw a minor spell towards the turtle. The turtle’s head emerged from the shell as it charged towards Wiz and Tin Man, those being the only two to actually damage it. Not that it really notices the measly 27 points of damage.
The druid decided to take advantage of the party’s proximity and unleashed a quill blast which proved to be quite painful. Equally painful was when the turtle turned its head back around and unleashed a blast of sand that scoured quite a bit of flesh off the party’s bones. As the fight progressed both Magic Girl an several others would find out to their dismay just how much reach the turtle’s long neck gave it.
Unfortunately for the druid with the entire party surrounding him he didn’t last long. Silent Man landed a crit that broke his jaw and would have kept him from using spells, but the druid died before his turn came up again so it didn’t matter. Oscaar ripped into him hoping to get another kneecap as a chew toy, but failed for now.
Once the druid dropped the party hoped the turtle would no longer be under his control and would turn peaceful. Too bad that wasn’t the case. They threw what they had at it, but it could take a LOT of punishment. They were only through 12% of its HP when Silent Man threw another crit at it. I have been using the Paizo crit deck, and I ruled that if one of his maneuvers gave some sort of magical damage, like cold or fire, then he could chose the magical crit. In this case the magical crit let him make a suggestion to the creature. It was a will save DC 19, and despite a +16 will bonus the creature failed the save with a nat 2. The party hoped that the suggestion combined with Droodad’s wild empathy would be enough to convince it to leave peacefully. They elected to hold their actions to see what it did. Tin Man almost screwed this up because his character was too far away and ground bound so he could not see or hear what was going on. This would have been a problem except that he was using a ring of true strike (command word activated) to get a guaranteed hit every other round. Luckily this was the round where he was activating the ring, instead of pissing of the possibly friendly creature.
The suggestion and wild empathy were sufficient. The turtle sank slowly into the sand and was not seen again, at least for now. The party really, REALLY wants their own one of those. This left behind the 5 dead orcs and their treasure. The party has not had time to examine the orc druid’s body in detail yet, but they have noticed the clothing. The type of cloth he is wearing comes from across the desert and is very rare and expensive. Next week should see more interesting facts come to light.
The turtle would have taken a lot of killing, since it had 1000 HP, DR 10/- and its lowest save was the will at a +16. The party also didn’t have a chance at making a save against that breath weapon, not with its HD and con. At least the party managed to avoid getting trampled.
Also Kitty was doing a lot of very, very good speculating about what is going on. I won’t say which of his guesses are right, but almost all of them were spot on. It is nice to know that I walked that fine line between making the hints puzzling and making them impossible. I've played with GMs who thought their puzzles would be easy to figure out, but they gave so little information that the only way it would make sense is if you actually knew what was going on already. That gets really frustrating.
A few important bits of information that I forgot to include in the post. When they found the orc bodies burried with the gargantuan scorpian they did not have any of the clay tablets that they had found on orcs before. When they caught up with the orcs on the turtle they not only had very well carved tablets, the best seen so far, there was also a bad in the strange orc's tent that had 4 tablets in it. The orc himself did not have a tablet. Instead he had a masterwork greataxe carved with the symbol of the tree.
He also had what appeared to be a section of tree root three feet long and more than foot thick. It had strange runes carved in it that were filled with sand. There didn't seem to be anything to seal the sand inside the grooves of the runes, yet not a single grain of sand fell out as they examined it. A detect magic showed that it onces had extremely strong magic, but it was now expended. While it was extremely high level they did not think that it was of epic level.
After taking time to police the camp and collect their thoughts, the party began a thorough examination of the bodies, especially that of the druid. From the outside they could tell that he was a bit taller than a normal orc, with longer limbs, longer tusks and slightly different musculature. A very, very successful heal check by Droodad led to an examination of his internal organs that was very surprising. It seemed he was almost a different species from the orcs the party was used to. One surprising thing was that normal orcs are mostly carnivores and rarely have meet in their diet. He on the other hand was an omnivore.
The orcs were carrying quite a few magical items, some from the town that was sacked and some that it seemed likely had been brought with them. All the magical items were of divine manufacture. In addition there were several sacks of valuable personal items. Stuff like holy symbols, wedding rings and other items stolen from the town.
From here the party had several options on where to travel. Silent Man claimed to have business in the south east, which is the direction the orc was headed in. The party decided to head in that direction in hopes of finding out what the orc was up to in that direction.
Heading south was fairly uneventful for two full nights of travel. However when they were uprooting camp to begin traveling on the third night they noticed something a ways off. Coming closer it turned out to be a caravan headed in the opposite direction that was setting up camp for the night. The party decided to approach and see if they could get any useful information out of the caravan.
They agreed to let Blingy talk, which proved to be a very good decision. He convinced the guards to let them in to see the leader of the caravan. The party was quite willing to talk about the devastation they found when they had reached Kanak (I finally remember the name of the destroyed town while writing this). The caravan leader found this very unsettling information.
The caravan leader revealed that they had been on their way to Kanak to ask for help defending their home town. Their town had been having severe trouble with orcs for the last eight years and now they believed that a big attack on the town was coming. He had been chosen since he was the cousin of the mayor of Kanak. Obviously Kanak would not be sending aid.
He asked the party to return with him to the town and they agreed to do so. Silent Man was quite happy about this since it was only about fifteen miles from his goal. The party elected to give the sacks of personal belongings they had found to the leader of the caravan in the hopes that they could either be returned to relatives or given a proper burial in lieu of the original owner’s bodies. The party’s words took on a very grim light when the caravan leader opened the bag and found a blood splattered necklace that his cousin’s wife wore constantly.
The caravan turned around and head back the way it had come the next morning. On the way Kitty worked with Wiz to gather some information from the caravan guards who had fought the orcs in the last few years. He was very eager to get the information as the trouble with orcs on the other side of the mountains had only been going on for less than a year. Kitty was especially curious about what sort of magic the orcs had been employing. According to what he could find out the orcs had a number of magic users, both arcane and divine, in the first two years. Sometime in the second year magic users got rarer until about the fourth year. At that point they started using more and more magic user until they actually seemed to have more of them than when the trouble started. After listening to description of the magic used, Wiz was certain that the magic users for the last several years were all divine casters.
When they finally reached the town there was a flurry of activity as the town tried to prepare its defenses. Several times the party was asked for interviews about what had happened and what they knew. Silent Man disappeared for 5 days to take care of a personal mater. In the meantime the party managed to keep themselves entertained. Kitty actually tried to work on using the senses of his spirit animal to track things, although some of his better ideas on that would have to wait for access to other things.
From here the party decided to try and take the shortest path to Rechinda’s Isle. This path would have them cross the Crystalmist Mountains and come out on a small strip of land between the Jotund Mountains and the Stormwoods. This will not be an easy route. There are no passes they know of to do this, so they will have to rely on their ability to blaze a trail over a treacherous mountain range. Also if they get too off course it could be very dangerous. Go too far north and they come out in the Stormwoods. Go too far south and they end up in the Jotund mountains which since it is also a mountain range they could get lost never realizing they had gone too far. Still it is the shortest route by many days.
The first days travel in the desert towards the mountains was without much difficulty. The second day was more challenging as the party came across an orcish ambush. One or two of the party members was able to spot the ambush at a decent distance. Unfortunately the ambush spotted the party much sooner.
In the opening rounds 6 orcish archers stood up and let fly with a total of 12 arrows, 2 per orc. All the arrows were aimed at Wiz, and 5 of which hit, including 1 crit. He was rooted in place by the crit and almost rendered unconscious by the combined damage. Tin Man moved forward and Kitty circled around to the side. The entire party except for Kitty was lashed by an Ice Storm cast by a druid orc. Kitty was kidney checked by an orc rogue that hadn’t been seen.
The fight was shaping up in a fairly standard way until Droodad decided to throw down eye of the hurricane. This handy spell did managed to throw Wiz clear of the fight, but it nearly knocked him unconscious in the process (he had 8 hp left and it did 7 subdual). More important Tin Man got thrown over to where the archers and druid were, not a good place to land prone. He was more or less by himself at this point. The spell effectively divided the combat since it picked up sand and basically made a 40ft radius hemisphere of swirling sand that no one could see through.
Tin Man finally showed just what he could do here. He may not have done much damage but he absorbed massive amounts of punishment as the druid and several of the archers laid into him. Despite two crits by the archers and two sets of claw/claw/bite with power attack by the transformed druid he survived and didn’t even go unconscious (although he did end up at 0). In the meantime the mook archers and the few melee mooks ended up not lasting too long once someone managed to get to them.
The rogue wasn’t able to stand up to Kitty one on one, especially when Blingy and Blingy Jr. swooped in to make it 3 on 1. He wasn’t about to stand there and get murdered, so he activated an item to turn invisible. This got him away from Blingy and Blingy Jr., but not Kitty. Kitty was able to use his recent training and focus the sense of his spirit beast and see invisibility for a short distance. He almost managed to take town the rogue, but the rogue was able to get behind a sand dune and hide using purely normal means. Eventually he slipped away from combat.
The druid also ended up fleeing, along with one of the archers. This particular archer managed to confirm a critical hit once per round for three rounds in a row. He will definitely be showing up again in the future, and not as a 3rd level archer. I’m looking forward to that….
Sir Perf Ye Olde Archer, a chap with a fondness for kidney pie.
Cad the Scaliwag, Sir Perf's henchman and comrade-in-forks with the kidney pie fetish.
Chef Drew of Id, the orc druid with a psionic talent and a knack for cooking live adventurer. Also a member of the kindey pie club.
^_^
Sir Perf Ye Olde Archer, a chap with a fondness for kidney pie.
Cad the Scaliwag, Sir Perf's henchman and comrade-in-forks with the kidney pie fetish.
Chef Drew of Id, the orc druid with a psionic talent and a knack for cooking live adventurer. Also a member of the kindey pie club.
^_^
Hmmmm, so many fun ideas this brings to mind. Not psionic (I banned that for a reason), but maybe a grappler. I wonder how a druid with reaping mauler and warshaper levels could do....
I agree with you Cap. That archer really does scream out "re-occuring" sniper menace. Deepwood Archer perhaps?
I agree with you Cap. That archer really does scream out "re-occuring" sniper menace. Deepwood Archer perhaps?
Hmmm, an interesting suggestion. I think I may have to break out some 3.0 books for updating. I seem to remember some REALLY nasty sniper classes from back in the day. Ranged Disarm and Ranged Pin feats all seem intriguing. It may be a while before these guys reappear. I want the party to be at the level where I can get really creative....
I agree with you Cap. That archer really does scream out "re-occuring" sniper menace. Deepwood Archer perhaps?Hmmm, an interesting suggestion. I think I may have to break out some 3.0 books for updating. I seem to remember some REALLY nasty sniper classes from back in the day. Ranged Disarm and Ranged Pin feats all seem intriguing. It may be a while before these guys reappear. I want the party to be at the level where I can get really creative....
Order of the Bow Initiate FTW, at least 2nd level, then combined with an "orc vs elf" variant of Deepwood Sniper.
Hmmmm, so many fun ideas this brings to mind. Not psionic (I banned that for a reason), but maybe a grappler. I wonder how a druid with reaping mauler and warshaper levels could do....Sir Perf Ye Olde Archer, a chap with a fondness for kidney pie.
Cad the Scaliwag, Sir Perf's henchman and comrade-in-forks with the kidney pie fetish.
Chef Drew of Id, the orc druid with a psionic talent and a knack for cooking live adventurer. Also a member of the kindey pie club.
^_^
An innate magical talent that relates only to the "id" part of the name was the intent good Cap'n. :) "Psionic" is another name for "Spell-like Ability" after all.
Perhaps he has an innate ability that attempts to dispel Freedom of Movement effects protecting a foe? Or better, just good old-fashioned Id Insinuation (built as a specific ability perhaps) as the orc's 'opening gambit' ability? ^_^
Well to you readers, rest assured that Sir Perf, Cad and Chef Drew will definitely make another appearance. As the first reoccurring villains (and first really named villains) they will make use of every available resource, under handed tactic and dirty trick at their disposal. I have some VERY ugly plans for the party, including a few nasty surprises I haven’t ever sprung on players before. If the players could see my evil grin when I think about them, well they might decide it would be best not to show up for the game that day. Still, it will be several sessions at a minimum before the party meets them again.
Two small things that happened sort of book keeping wise. Blingy had been looking at the cavalier class, and I was willing to let him change his character form a Cleric to a Champion of Freedom (Palladin, but chaotic instead of lawful). This will make for a nasty character in the long run, in part because Blingy Jr. is going to be both his special mount and his cohort. Although he is breaking a tradition for the game by not having Blingy Jr. being smarter than he is.
Second back months ago in Monmurg Wiz had bought and freed a very large Blink Dog. It wasn’t until now that we could find time to make up stats for it, so it hadn’t been doing anything until this session. He is also making it a cohort and he hopes eventually his familiar. At this time we have 8 characters with 4 cohorts, making about a 12 member group. Fortunately the players who have a minion have been very good at keeping things moving smoothly and taking the minimum amount of time possible for their turns.
One big thing. Through her meditation with the seed she carries Droodad has reached a new plateou of connection with it. At this point her nightly meditations have taken the connect as far as it can go. It has made her a lot tought, wiser and more in tune with nature and life. The seed itself has also changed slightly. Now small cracks can be seen running all over its surface and in the cracks it is possible to see the green of new growth, as if it was preparing to sprout. This should have actually happened before they reached the last town, but because it was a one-on-one type of thing that needed to be RPed, it took some time before we had a chance to do so. The RP around this has been great, and I hope she will someday do some journal posts.
*Hic!* HUZZAH to yer party o' scurrilous adventurersh Cap'n!
Hoists his mug in a toast, then promptly passes out at oh-dark-morning.
After a very nasty and disappointing battle the party set out again. They were a little irritated that the only treasure of note they captured from the last fight was a bunch of masterwork arrows and mighty longbows. After a few hours travel Wiz’s hawk noticed something interesting up ahead. It turned out to be the stumps of four marble pillars. The area they served as the corners of was a 30ft by 70ft area. A little bit of digging into the party’s collective knowledge of history made them pretty sure this was the top level of a tomb of someone very important. They were pretty sure that it predated the desert in the region, making it an amazing find if still intact.
A few good deductions and liberal use of a Summon Nature’s Ally II wand saw the cap stone that would protect the entrance to the tomb being uncovered. The party dropped down and started to investigate. With the exception of Blingy Jr. of course, the hole was a little small for him. Actually Flyboy had to be D-doored by Wiz into the first room. This room was the same dimensions as the area above it and the walls were covered with decoration. Mainly it showed rich farmland being work, but there were a few scenes of other trade. The party guessed that the decorations showed how the owner of the tomb had acquired his wealth in life. Interestingly the scenes on the far wall were unfinished and the stone slab sealing off the rest of the tomb was unadorned, quite usual. From this the party guessed that the guy was such a jerk that after he died the people working on the tomb elected to say screw it and bury him without completing the tomb.
Seeing as how night was falling and they had this nice room out of the way, the party elected to pass the night in the entrance room of the tomb. An interesting choice, but one that paid off as nothing came by to bother them. The next day a debate arose amongst the party. While some wanted to loot to their hearts content, others had strong objections to grave robbing. The argument was going in favor of simply leaving it undisturbed when Droodad decide to see what was ahead without removing the door.
Droodad used a little druid magic to turn herself into an earth elemental and simply earthglided into the floor and past the door. She tried to surface and look around just on the other side of the door. This would have work wonderfully if it weren’t for the fact that her head emerged in the middle of a swarm of scarab beetles (think The Mummy). The beetles managed to tear out quite a bit of scalp before she was able to duck back into the earth.
She moved a further forward and tried to look around again. This time she was able to actually get a bit of a look around. She could see that the tunnel slopped further down and then took a turn. Of much more concern was that there were at least two swarms of scarabs just waiting for the party to open the door to the tomb. Of course since the door wasn’t open the swarms didn’t hesitate to come scurrying over in her directions. This was more than enough by her standards.
So the party packed up and headed into the mountains. Luckily for them Droodad has put the skills into getting a GREAT survival check. The first trouble comes when they find themselves approaching an avalanche zone. Unfortunately the party doesn’t have enough flyers to easily carry everyone over in one shot and this looks to be a pretty dangerous zone. So they can try to figure out a way through, head north and risk ending up in the Storm Woods or head south and risk ending up in the Jotun mountains. They elect to divert north. Late in the day they come to a second avalanche zone, but this one doesn’t look at bad or as large. They realize that if they give Wiz a chance to prepare a few fly spells they can easily all make it across. So they rest for the night nearby. Unfortunately there really isn’t that much in the way of flat space on the mountain, so they have to rest where they can.
That night Kitty, who’s sleeping spot is one of the most elevated, and Flyboy, who has very good darkvision, both see something moving in the darkness further upslope. Kitty tries to wake one of his sleeping companions while Flyboy uses a daylight spell to see what they are dealing with. Unfortunately what they are dealing with looks like a pair of boulders with legs and an eye stalk. This creature is called an avalancher and proceeded to show the party exactly why. (I looked over the rules in the creature and the DMG for avalanches and found them really pansy, but they weren’t in the actual avalanche zone so I didn’t make it as bad as I wanted to.)
As the torrent of rocks swept over the party Droodad, the blink dog (who I will name later) and Wiz’s hawk familiar were all swept away. Luckily for Wiz, Magic Girl actually had the presence of mind to grab the hawk as it was swept past her (she was sleeping downhill from the two of them), thus saving the poor birds life. Droodad managed to maintain her presence of mind enough to wild shape into a hawk and barely able to fly clear. The blink dog was not able to focus enough to use his powers, but was able to find purchase in rocks and rode out the rest of incoming rubble.
The party's counter attack was swift and vicious. Evrard’s Black Tentacles kept one in place and eventually wrung the life from it with a bit of help from the party. The other was badly wounded but tunneled underground and escaped by turning the tunnel to mud behind it. The party has now settled back down to sleep and hope the rest of the night will be calmer. Tomorrow they press on and hope to reach the other side of the mountains.
So the party still had a lot mountain ahead of them. They were realizing that their initial estimate of how long it would take to cross was….generous. Since they hadn’t been able to find anything like a pass through the mountains they were upping their time estimate to 5 days instead of 2.
As the part went Wiz decided to attempt to actually put into use his connection with the nature of cold. He practiced trying to control the movement of snow through shear will power. While he did have some limited success his control needed significant work.
As they continued on their path wound higher up the range until they were well above the snowline. The next major piece of excitement came when they were following a relatively narrow path along a cliff face. Up ahead they could see that the snow along the cliff face was packed much thicker. There were a good chance if it was disturbed it could cause a massive and VERY lethal avalanche.
Wiz went forward to try and use his new found control over snow to move the snow out of the way and avoid an avalanche. There was also some worry that it was simply a disguise for an ambush. Wiz was not able to move the snow, but since nothing tried to eat him the party decided to continue on. They did this as quietly as possible to avoid setting off an avalanche. Blingy and Blingy Jr. flew a wide loop to bypass it.
Unfortunately as they were trying to cross the reared up and swallowed several members of the party. Droodad, Oscaar, Tin Man and Magic Girl were all swallowed by the massive creature. A few of the more learned party members recognized this as a massive snowflake ooze. Wiz’s attempt to control snow had been enough to convince it not to attack him, but the other party members were a different story.
As the party set to cutting their friends free Wiz attempted to use his connection to cold to talk it out of attacking. Unfortunately Kitty discovered very quickly that bludgeoning damage caused it to split in two instead of taking damage. This was not a pleasing discovery. Eventually all the party members swallowed manage to worm their way out, more by luck than skill (considering the grapple check difference it was either the ooze rolled a 1 or the player rolled a 20, that took less time to happen than I hope for). Once Wiz switched to threats rather than negotiation and the two oozes were at low HP the pair quickly slid down the cliff face to get away. Feeling unusually merciful the party let them get away.
As the party continued along they eventually noticed a cave hidden behind a sheet of ice. Exploring it a bit they realized that it was the start of a very large cave system that traveled in the general direction of their destination. It might provide a shortcut, or it could increase their time greatly. Eventually they decided to attempt the shortcut.
Luckily the part of the cave system they traveled was easily traversed and mostly uninhabited. They quickly reached furthest cave in the system. Droodad was certain that this was past the mountain range, unfortunately it also proved to be over 100 feet underground. The party quickly hit on a good solution for how to deal with this. Droodad used her magic to transform into an earth elemental that could move through the ground with ease. Then all party members removed their various hold items and climbed into the party’s portable hole. It took 2 trips plus a D-door by Wiz to accomplish it, but eventually they surface.
Too bad they were of course and surfaced in the Stormwoods. This strange land had enormous trees with trunks 30 and 40 feet across. Droodad was very worried since the tees were frequently only about 10 or 15 feet apart, MUCH too close for such massive trees. Also this area got so much rain it only saw sunlight once a month or less. During their entire stay here they were drenched in a massive downpour that never ended. What could cause trees this large to spring up a live?
Stretching her senses she could tell that the entire area was incredibly saturated with some sort of druidic magic different from anything she had used or come across. It wasn’t evil or twisted to unnatural ends, which she was grateful for considering the power of it.
Thankfully getting out of the Stormwoods was a simple matter of heading south. Unfortunately they were not able to get out of the Stormwoods without incident. After a short time traveling Kitty who was in the lead caught a brief glimpse of movement, but couldn’t see what it was. He didn’t have to wait long for it to show up. The party was swarmed over by dozens of small fast moving creatures.
As the creatures swarmed over the party like piranhas they weren’t able to get a good look at what they were fighting. Droodad, after getting bitten several times before she even realized she was being attacked, thought quickly and tried to use her magic to drive off the creatures. She chose to once again employ the spell Eye of the Hurricane which she figured would be able to easily knock the small creatures unconscious without harming them or her party permanently. Had she tried this somewhere else this would have been a pretty much perfect tactic.
This is the Stormwood. Her magic immediately raged out of her control. The hurricane quickly grew to the point where it was tearing apart trees and sending all the rest of the party flying. Droodad herself soon found it hard to breathe as the hurricane sucked away most of her air and eventually passed out. The only other character to loose consciousness was Magic Girl, very nearly died from the beating she took during the storm.
As the party regrouped and revived their fallen comrades they assumed the creatures had all been killed. This wasn’t true, the little things were quite used to dealing with hurricanes, but the survivors had vacated the area. The party wasn’t able to find any intact corpses. They found several heads of what looked like cats with elongated jaws and much bitter than normal teeth. The legs looked like emaciate cat legs, but were jointed like a spider’s leg. The main bodies were long, thin and scaly, and indicated that the creature had at least 3 pairs of legs.
Thanks to the missing trees the party could now tell that they were only about half an hours travel form the river that formed the edge of the Stormwoods. They could also see that in the short time they had taken to regroup the trees which had been destroy showed significant growth. It was almost possible to visibly see the trees regrowing.
As the party reached the much safer side of the river they camped to heal and recover. As they waited several of the party noticed an approaching group of cavalry. As the cavalry approach they noticed that they were wearing the symbol of Lady Rechinda, exactly the people the party wanted to see. The soldiers over the next two days escorted the party to Rechinda’s Isle. There they met Rechinda and her husband who showed them a second, more secret gate system that Ian had created. This linked place and peoples that he new personally. This let them reach the drow city of Galiama’idana.
Wiz was less than thrilled to hear he was going to be going to a drow city. He is not among the elves that believe the drow are actually trying to reform, but a Rechinda’s request he was willing to try and keep his hate hidden. Once they arrived he was quite pleased that they were met with a “normal” elf named Ivy. A few of the party better versed in history recognized her as a member of the adventuring party that once contained Oskar, Barbara and Ian. Wiz immediately started flirting with her. I need to check with the character’s player to see how she would have responded.
When they finally had a chance to report all they found, it was a cause for great concern. In turn they learned that most of the desert was now almost impossible to scry. Considering how large an area that it, it was very, very disturbing. Also one nation on the other side of the mountains that the party had skirted had slowly spreading areas that were unscryable. This nation was composed mostly of orcs, ogres, goblins and similar creatures.
The party was reward with either money or mostly with difficult to find information that was specifically found for the characters. Wisely all those who were offered information chose information. Now the party has some time to pursue their own agendas for at least a little while. And much more importantly they can finally sell loot and buy new stuff. They have been getting REALLY antsy about that.
I’m afraid this week’s entry will not be too exciting as the party spent most of their time buying and selling items. Thanks to the fact that they haven’t been able to get to a decent sized town for quite a while means that they a big backlog of treasure they wanted to get rid of. They did correctly keep the potions and scrolls, as well as a few very useful items. Tin Man did not get a full share as he picked up a VERY powerful and VERY expensive sword.
Also Flyboy’s player has been asked to leave the group by the group for number of reasons. So Flyboy and Brad are gone. We may be replacing him at some point, we’ll see what happens. Magic Girl may also be asked to leave for a couple of reasons.
Well in the midst of this buying and selling frenzy the party decided to take 3 months off from adventuring to get training, make items and take care of some personal matters. There was some good RP that came out of that.
Kitty spent two of his months training to try to learn to use his spirit companion to track creatures on the ethereal plane, and he is pretty sure he almost has it. After that he may continue to train it use it to enhance his senses. He also spent a month attempting to learn to manifest it as an aura around him that strengthens him. I get the impression that this is more for the cool aura effect than any sort of bonus it might provide, and I can respect that.
Droodad spent a lot of her time and a good portion of her money enchanting her armor herself. She still needs to get back to me as to how she wants to spend the rest of her time.
Tin Man spent his time training in several feats. He wants to take a prestige class called Stalwart Defender from the Mercenaries book published by AEG. A class that’s sole purpose is to be a tough as nails meatshield. Thanks to the training he can pick up his first level of it the next time he levels up.
Silent Man had disappeared in the desert for 5 days and no one in the party knew why. The reason was that he was following his scroll and went to meet with the masters from 2 of the 8 styles. These two told him about a ritual he would have to perform before they would train him. He would have to mine and smelt the ore for a sword he would make himself. Before he smelted the ore he would have to keep it with him at all times. He would have to rub it on all parts of his body and never stop touching it for more than a few moments. Then he would smelt it and forge the sword himself. After that the first creature that he killed with the sword would have it spirit absorbed by the blade. That spirit would lend strength and a kind of life to the blade. It was forbidden to take the spirit of a “thinking being”, a phrase subject to much interpretation.
Silent Man decided to finally call in the boon that Oskar’s while had given him. Instead of asking her to forge an item for him, he asked her aid in forging the item himself. She was very impressed by this and agreed, she promised that any material that could be mined in this kingdom or any where she could lend aid he could take, he could also use her own tools and she provided some training and advice herself.
Silent Man decided to up the stakes of his task by selecting Magma Admantine as the metal he wanted to forge. This was admantine that absorbed the elemental energies of the quasi-elemental plane of magma. Powerful and rare stuff. While the material can be forged and given an edge, it always appears as if it was molten metal and gives off a lot of heat. Unfortunately so does the raw ore. To do this he needed to hold the glowing hot ore to his body constantly for 3 days. He only survived the experience thanks to some powerful healing magic provided by the queen. The experience which he managed to endure, including hold the metal to his crotch, left him with some minor resistance to heat (2 points to be precise). It also left him with absolutely no body hair at all. This may grow back in time, but if so it will take a long while.
The sword he forged was of amazing quality, almost a match for some of the works the queen turns out. She was quite proud of her temporary student’s accomplishments. Normal a sword of this material would need a special hilt so that those attempting to wield it do not burn their hands. His does not since he is now somewhat resistant to fire.
He spent the next two months training in Two-Weapon Fighting and Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting so that he can use a Katana in each hand. One will be the blade he just forged (and needs to name, I forgot to tell him that part) and the other will be one that was passed down to him and is his item familiar.
Also through the help of Blingy he was able to find an unusual item. He was looking for glove of Dex +4, but the item found for him is a little different. It is a pair of gloves made of a scaly deep purple leather that was correctly identified as deep dragon hide. It does provide the bonus he was looking for, but in addition it allows unarmed attacks as if the wielder was armed and has some other enchantments that the sellers were not able to figure out. The asking price was quite steep despite bargaining, but eventually he decided to pay it.
Wiz took the first few days attempt to make the blink dog his new familiar (this was actually done on Tuesday, one on one). To do this he asked the guards of the drow city if they had seen any signs of displacer beasts nearby. The guards admitted they had in the Great Cavern. The Great Cavern was a cavern of mind boggling size. It roof soared as high as 2 miles off the ground in place and it was larger than some kingdoms above ground. With the blink dogs help he was able to track the displace beasts to their hunting grounds, where he had to kill them on his own.
It proved to be a pack of 4 displacer beasts, but not ones of any unusual size or abilities (I figured 4 CR 4s was a good challenge for a solo wizard). The fight was brutal and short and in the end only Wiz survived. Then the blink dog put his nose in some of the blood and touched it to Wiz’s forehead, sealing their bond. The rest of his time off Wiz spent studying and researching his magic and learning to fly better.
Blingy after taking responsibility for selling off the parties items and locating new ones for them to buy, spent a lot of him time going around the country side healing, preaching and generally acting like a champion of freedom should. He was also laying the groundwork for the knightly order he wished to found once he is more famous.
There was one item that caught his eye and led to the set up of the party’s next adventure. It was a ring made of strands of mithril set in a hardened glass. The glass was so clear that when he wears it, it looks as if a halo composed of spiderweb thick mithril is floating around his finger. At the appearance alone he was hooked, but it is quite magical. It acts as a ring of sustenance, a ring of arming (which can store weapons and armor), provides cold and fire resistance 1 and supposedly has other powers that can be unlocked later by someone who discovers the right methods. Not surprisingly the merchant wanted far more than Blingy had. He offered to sell it to Blingy for a much reduced price if Blingy could acquire a few items from a deserted keep located on the edge of Perrenland.
Now the thing to remember is that Perrenland is a very dangerous place thanks to the Undead War which occurred 100 years ago. During that time the entirety of Perrenland was infect with negative energy. Now all creatures in it, right down to the grass, are undead and “live” off this negative energy. This means that anyone who wants to adventure there must have a way to protect themselves from the negative energy for as long as they are there.
The party was having trouble figuring out how to do this, so Droodad requested Ian’s aid. He introduced them to a former companion of his Laura (can’t remember the character’s original name for sure). Laura was half-celestial human and an incredibly powerful cleric of Pelor. She was also, as Kitty so aptly and ironically put it, a cougar. The males in the party immediately got a lesson in what it was like to feel like a piece of meat being sized up.
Laura was willing to help the party as long as she was compensated, and she wasn’t talking about money. She was most interested in Kitty, who simply could not bring himself to be whored for the sake of the party. Luckily Blingy, Silent Man and Tin Man did not share his reluctance. Especially once they discovered that she was very good in bed (considering how much experience the character has, she better be good). Laura agreed to not only protect the party from the negative energy, but to also transport them there magically and provide a few buff spells to aid them.
The party now believes themselves prepared to face the keep in Perrenland, next week we will find out just how true that is.
For those of you who have any suggestions, hints, villains or other things bad, mean an nasty for the party, feel free to post it as a spoiler. I have spoken with the players in the game and they understand that anything posted as a spoiler is off limits and considered cheating to read. Anything not in a spoiler tab is fair game.
Dont worry Cap, if I have any ideas I'll let you by private mail :).
Dont worry Cap, if I have any ideas I'll let you by private mail :).
Feel free. The email I use is Darkorinth@hotmail.com
The trip to Perrenland was quick, but not uneventful. As they crossed the border they felt a wave of sickness wash over them. Despite the protection provided by Laura the negative energy was still almost overwhelmingly powerful. Droodad and Wiz also got a strange sense of something “massive” that was strained to the breaking point and just beyond. It was as if they were looking at glass and could see the cracks getting larger and larger before the final break that would shatter everything. Droodad had felt this feeling before in a vision during one of her meditation sessions. Of course the question is just what is cracking?
For the record the items Blingy was asked to retrieve was a foot stool, a shield and sword with matching crests and if possible the signet ring of the lord of the keep.
The front gates were shut, but they were also made of wood. After 100 years it wasn’t very good wood anymore. Blingy was easily able to push through the rotted wood, at this point he had decided not to bring Blingy Jr. in with him. One or two followed him cautiously into the main room. However caution doesn’t seem to be something Oscaar grasps too well. He flew right into the middle of the room and through telepath told Droodad that he once again saw dead people.
From two of the side rooms skeletons rushed in to attack the party. A few of the skeletons were armed with swords, but most were armed with stuff like brooms, serving trays, rolling pins and in a few cases chairs. It seems the serving staff had a bone to pick with the party. The only dangerous part of the fight came when a pair of bodaks emerged to attack the party along with the skeletons. Unfortunately the lovely death gaze attacks came to naught (although without certain house rules there would have been 2-3 dead bodies). The most amusing point came when Tin Man tried to bust through the rotted door and managed to roll a nat 2.
After winning the battle Blingy immediately marched back outside to tell Blingy Jr. that he had changed his mind and that Blingy Jr. had better get over here. The next bit of excitement was waiting for them in the keep’s kitchens. There they came face to face with ghostly swarms of rats, mice, birds and other vermin. The big danger from the swarms was their ability to drain str, which nearly destroyed Wiz. That’s not hard since he has an 8. Between Wiz and Silent Man the party was able to scrape together enough damage to destroy the swarms without any losses, although it was a close call.
Being damaged in both health and strength the party was not looking good, until Blingy had the bright idea of asking Laura for help once again. A promise of another night saw her casting a single spell for the party. Of course that healing magic was more than powerful enough to wipe out all the injuries they had sustained so far.
The main floor was now clear and the party decided to head up before heading down. The first room they came to upstairs was the servant’s quarters. Here there were several skeletal bodies along with the perfectly preserved body of a little girl clutching a doll. They were more than a little worried about the body of the girl with the doll, since by now it should be a skeleton just like the others in the room. They were very, very cautious about approaching the girl with the doll. However since the girl didn’t jump up and eat them they felt safe. There was some argument over what to do with her, especially since she appeared to have died of a type of plague. I have to admit that I can’t remember what they did with the body.
After quickly searching two empty guest rooms the party came across the bedroom of the daughter of the lord of the keep. Her belongings had not faired well in the 100 years since she died, but the furniture was mostly intact. Wiz was brave enough to search her dresser and found her jewelry, which unlike her other belongings didn’t really rot away during the last 100 years. He slipped them into his pocket in secret. He claimed this was because he wanted to sell them later instead of letting Droodad yet again claim jewelry as part of her treasure.
The final room on the upper floors was the lord and lady’s bed chamber. As the party opened the door they were treated to an interesting sight. Upon the large bed lay the body of the lady of the house, the corpse of her lord knelt by the side of the bed, her hand still clasped in his. The skeletal remains of his retainers stood still in their armor as if standing guard for all time. The party hesitated to disturb such a scene.
Of course this is an adventuring party, so they didn’t hesitate for long. Various party members moved into the room, without much coordination. Once they got too close (and Wiz tried to swipe one of the guard’s swords) the lord of the castle stood up and turned to face him. One or two of the party member recognized him as a greater zombie, a very dangerous type of undead that first appeared during the undead war. He was not happy about the party’s plans to loot his keep, steal his signet ring and disturb his wife’s corpse (they hadn’t actually planned on that, but he isn’t really going to be reasonable about this). He and the 5 sword wraiths serving as his guards attacked. The fight is currently unfinished.
The creation of a greater zombie is a horrifying process that requires the victim to still be alive. Living creatures survive because of the life energy their innate connection with the positive energy plain gives them. An undead of course survives off negative energy, but their connection with the planar energies is not the same. The process of creating a greater zombie takes the victim’s connection with the positive energy plan and replaces it with one to the negative energy plane. This process takes them directly from living to undead without them dying. As a result they are in many ways far stronger than most undead. The stronger their connection in life, the greater in death. (It is a template I made up, a lot of it is based off the base creatures pre-undead con score.)
Next week we will have a new player join the group. The gaming group had decided to allow Silent Man’s RL brother to join the group, since they have asked Flyboy and Magic Girl to leave. He has very little experience with D&D, and all of it bad. He does have some experience with Rifts and Starwars. I helped him make a Rogue 5/Invisible Blade 4 that should be pretty nasty. It’s a character that shouldn’t be too hard to play, but should be very good. He will be joining next week I expect.
Good. Glad your getting some new blood Cap. Never hurts as far as keeping the game alive is concerned.
I am both sad and strangely proud to say that most of the damage dished out to the party during the fight was not done by the lord of the keep or his guards. They put up a valiant showing and nearly killed several party members, but only with help. The majority of damage done to the party was by the party members. Wiz was the big damage dealer as in the first two rounds he unleashed a cone of cold and cold ball, both of which hit more party members than enemies. Later a second cone of cold caught more enemies than party members, but it still caught some party members. Droodad also whipped out a neat little spell called meteor strike which came within a few points of felling Blingy. By dent of sheer fire power the party was eventually able to overcome the lord and his guards, but as Silent Man has commented in his journal, their party coordination is somewhat lacking. We shall see how things develop in the future.
Blingy, acting as a Champion of Freedom, said appropriate last rights for the bodies so that their spirits might rest in peace. This did not even noticeably slow party’s looting of the body of course. Blingy found himself the proud new owner of a holy shield and Sunblade that also had the Vicious power. These would probably serve him far better than they had their last master.
The party decided to take a trip back to a nearby town courtesy of Laura’s magic. She decided to head to the Grand Marches as a place to easily find some creature comforts. Of course the party also has some ties here which is all to the good.
While there Blingy received a visit by the party’s soon to be new member, who I will call McStabby. He entered dressed in black and wearing a mask, which the party has not seen him without so far. He was interested in joining them so that he could make some money. They had recently been spreading around quite a lot of treasure after all. Blingy decided to let the others know about this before making any promises. Some of the other party members were less than pleased to be informed that they had been “Summoned”. This was of course the servant’s wording rather than his.
The next day the party returned to the keep and set about exploring the bottom floor. Down here they quickly came to an intersection. To the left and right were well constructed wooden doors that seemed to have escaped much of the ravages of time. Ahead they could see a small room with a metal door that seemed to be the entrance to a dungeon area.
Following the left had rule, they had McStabby check the left hand door for traps. It was not only not trapped, but unlocked. More importantly he could tell that it had been opened relatively recently. Not a good sign. Blingy was quite loud in telling him to move back so that he could bust the door down.
The party was more than a little surprised when as he burst through the door hand on either side of the door ripped into his sides and one of the pairs of hands pulled him down to grapple him. Kitty rushed in without actually seeing where their opponents had hidden themselves. So one of the two Abyssal Ghouls was able to rip into him with some devastating sneak attacks. The other Abyssal Ghoul who had grabbed Blingy proceeded to pin him and give him a French kiss. (The book says they do wisdom damage to a pinned opponent using a several foot long smoking tongue, exactly how else should I have described this process?) Wiz was the first to get well into the room using his quite good tumble skill (not a bad choice of skills for a wizard). Unbeknownst to him this put him right beside the third opponent in the room. The finally opponent was quite happy to turn back from his gaseous form and tear into our hapless wizard. The wizard recognized this as a type of undead demon vaguely related to a vampire (same book as the abyssal ghouls).
The battle quickly turned ugly as the party struggled to all get into the room and involved in the action. The ghoul that wasn’t grappling someone and the demon positioned themselves well so that the ghoul was able to sneak attack easily. Things were looking grim until Blingy managed to pull himself out of the ghoul’s grasp. He then took his new Sunblade and unleashed a vicious smite on the demon that was still trying to turn Wiz into a Jiz saw puzzle. This definitely caught the beast attention, and unfortunately his position meant he was flanked by the demon and the ghoul. He put all his strength into laying two final hits into the demon. His desperation was enough to split the demon’s head but as the demon’s brains splashed on the floor the retribution from his vicious sunblade was enough to render him unconscious.
From here the ghouls has little chance. They did their best and did brutalize several party members, but in the end they were not able to put the finishing touches on anyone. The party now had time to look around the room and realize that it was a desecrated temple of Corellian. Blingy wished to consecrate the place, but that wasn’t possible unless all of Perrenland was somehow cleansed of the horrible taint. He had to settle for taking the holy symbols and tapestries so that they could be purified and returned to the church.
One interesting thing Wiz attempted after being severely injured was to absorb his own cold magic to heal himself. This was not something he had tried before, but his focus and will (not to mention luck) proved sufficient to pull it off this time. The question is just what does an ability like this mean? His research did tell him that in the deepest parts of the elemental plane there are some elementals that are so closely tied to their element that they instead of being supported by positive or negative energy live the living and undead are, they are instead supported by the elemental energy of their plane. This has the effect of making them immune to both positive and negative energy based effects. They are of course healed by their planes energies. This may be something Wiz will strive for, but power always comes with a price.
Once again the party asked Laura for healing, which she provided in the form of a Mass Heal.
The party skipped looking in the dungeon since the items they were looking wouldn’t be in a prison and prisoners rarely had worthwhile loot (no matter what WoW may claim). So they went right. Again the door was neither trapped nor locked. Thankfully there was no sign of it having been opened recently. The party was a little more quite and subtle about opening the door this time around. Not that it mattered, after all the room was mostly empty. The only thing left in the room itself was the remains a few chests.
The far wall on the other hand had strange gap in it that seemed to be coated in a green slime (not the creature). Wiz and Droodad were both able to sense that this was some sort of planar effect. Normally gaps between planes look like windows or gates, where they are naturally occurring or not. This was different, and like nothing they had ever heard of before. Here it seemed like thanks to something like a fault line some of the plane had actually slipped into the material plane. It also just happened to form a tunnel which looked to connect to another tunnel. Wiz was able to recognize it as being connected with the quasi-elemental plane of ooze.
The party decided to dash through one at a time taking minor amounts of acid damage in the process. Silent Man got tired of waiting for his turn after a while and used one of his martial powers to teleport himself to the other side of the tunnel. Wiz slapped himself for having not thought of it himself.
Once in this natural tunnel the party could go left or right. To the left there was a distant light and the tunnel sloped slightly upward. They assumed that this was probably the way out, so the turned right and headed deeper underground.
I could use some help with something.
Sir Perf ended up Fighter 9/Order of the Bow 2. He is a very nasty customer thanks to a few little pieces of gear that he plans to brutalize the party with.
Chef Drew is almost worse. He is a Druid 11 who likes grappling people. To make the grappling easier he likes to turn into a Giant Crocodile with wildshape. The wild shape is of course the trigger for his two contingent spells, Rightous Might and Bite of the Werecrocodile (used stats for Bite of the Werebear, but different flavor). He even has a plan for casting spells while grappling someone.
Of course they have brought along minions. And they have even trained with the minions so they have teamwork advantages.
If the party pull it's act togather and starts working as a group then these guys will only rip them a new one. If they don't.....well as a song I enjoy says "let the bodies hit the floor".
Of course Cad, Perf and Drew all have a way out, and are more than happy to bug out when getting to low HP.
Well for all our bloodthirsty readers you will probably be happy to hear that we have had our first true fatality. There have been a number of what Turin used to refer to as technical fatalities. There are a number of house rules I have that make is unlikely for a player to die. If not for those house rules there would have been at least half a dozen fatalities before.
Well the party decided to proceed deeper into the darkness of the tunnel. They didn’t have to go far until they could see that the tunnel made about a half turn into a larger room. The entire party could hear there being who were around medium sized moving around in the next room. McStabby could also hear a much larger individual moving very, very quietly; too bad he didn’t mention that to anyone else. Wiz actually loaned McStabby his ring of invisibility so that he could scout and remain hidden. Of course since McStabby is a human he couldn’t scout very well. It’s also not like the party hadn’t announced its presence, considering how many light sources they were toting around in a completely dark cave.
Well those inside weren’t going to simply wait around for the party to get it’s act together. The party was a bit startled to see a soft light illuminate the cave and hear a weak voice call for them to enter. As they started to enter they could see an undead sitting on a stone throne. He looked like the body of an old man with 90% of the moisture sucked out of it and a dark purple energy that seemed to be holding him together. Wiz would later identify it as a Grimweird, a type of undead that summons other creatures to fight for it. Cowering on either side of his throne was a pair of extremely attractive human women. They were manacled, obviously in fear and showing bruises and other signs of abuse. There were also two large natural stone columns, one on either side of the room.
As several party members readied themselves to attack, Wiz stepped forward between his party and the undead to try and do some sort of negotiations. The party and the undead actually talked for a little while, with much maneuvering. This last right up until Wiz’s pet blink dog tried to D-door closer to the undead. Unfortunately he had enough spellcraft track where the blink dog would end up and a readied action to summon a creature when anyone tried to get that close. I was hoping some party member would charge in and run smack into it, but this worked too. So the blink dog tried to appear right where a Huge Fiendish Spider had. At this point all hell breaks loose.
As the fight gets underway it turns out that McStabby had snuck right up to a hidden opponent, a strange large humanoid undead with fingernails that can stretch up to 20ft to skewer people. It hit him a few times before stepping out to help guard the Grimweird. The two women prisoners ran from the Grimweird, which did take an AOO on one of them and missed with a nat 2 roll, and threw themselves on the party’s mercy.
The fight took on an unexpected path when Blingy tried to charge the large undead and accidentally tripped over the leg of one of the two slave women, later Tin Man would also trip over the leg of the other slave woman. Afterwards he discovered that his new holy shield could at times produce a Sunbeam effect that was quite devastating to the undead. As the party began to throw its firepower at the undead the slave woman threw herself at Wiz begging for him to save her and kissing him. The other slave woman tried to do the same with Droodad but slipped and fell on her face.
The Grimweird dropped somewhat quickly but the larger undead was made of much tougher stuff. After two rounds of being tangled up by the slave woman let out a scream of “Succubi!!!” and D-doored away from her. Droodad turned into a bear and took a bit at the head of the one clutching her skirt. The succubus realized the jig was up and turned back to normal. She sent a few threats towards the other slave woman and teleported over to where Wiz was to grapple with him again. She was able to kiss him again and her well chosen use of suggestion actually end up getting him to D-door the two of them away from the fight.
Unfortunately nobody in the party has put ranks into sense motive except for McStabby. So no one was able to tell for sure that the remaining slave girl was also a succubus. In fact it they bought it so thoroughly that Tin Man actually moved into position to protect her. Of course she threw her arms around him gratitude as soon as the large undead finally fell to the party’s attacks. Her kiss and quite whisper of “I’ll take you to paradise” quite overwhelmed poor Tin Man. Not surprising since the will DC against the suggestion was a 24.
So she teleports out and he was quite willing to go with her. I’m sure no one is surprised at this point that she was also a succubus. She of course sucked him dry and later deposited his corpse in his quarters in the capital of the Grand Marches. She gave the body back since the other succubus was hoping to later tempt Wiz to the dark side. This didn’t stop her from taking very single potion and wand he had, along with one or two small magical items. He only kept his money since it was stored in the party’s portable hole instead of on his body. Not surprising since I not only enforce encumbrance rules, but actually make players include the weight of their money in that. Gold gets heavy, and it’s really fun watching the players go “we’ve just found a ton of (gold/silver/copper/etc), now how are we going to carry all this?”
In the room the Grimweird and company had occupied the part eventually did find the items that Blingy had been seeking. These were quickly looted and the party returned to Laura and departed Perenland for the time being.
Well the party now has an interesting dilemma, and not one I’ve seen arguments about before in any group I can remember. The party was torn between raise dead and reincarnation for bringing Tin Man back to life. As Tin Man wasn’t alive to make is wishes known I asked the player to leave the room. Wiz was leading the argument for reincarnation while Blingy was pushing for raise dead. This was quite funny and eventually devolved into an argument over who was the leader of the group, which was downright hilarious. Silent Man and I had a hard time not falling out of our chairs laughing. While the issue of who the official leader was did not get resolved, the party did eventually go with raise dead.
From here they took two weeks off before they planned to head out on a mission for Kitty. Apparently the origin of Kitty’s temple lies far to the west. It is north of the desert they visited only a few months ago. He was smart enough to look for someone to scry the area first so they have some idea of just what they are walking in to.
I could use some help with something.
** spoiler omitted **
Crud, wish I'd seen this one a week ago ... d'oh!
Nice ... death by succubus ... man I hate them ... but at least you (usually) die with a smile on your dessicated husk of a face!
I could use some help with something.
** spoiler omitted **
Crud, wish I'd seen this one a week ago ... d'oh!
Nice ... death by succubus ... man I hate them ... but at least you (usually) die with a smile on your dessicated husk of a face!
Never fear, that particular spoiler is at least 2 weeks away at this point, maybe slightly more. I may see if I can get one of the players to take detailed notes.
So, regarding
Perhaps just as important will be the 'set up' for the next encounter with the party - time of day, terrain, structures (or lack thereof), bodies of water (or lack of same), etc - that Perf, Cad and Chef Drew will be taking advantage of with thier mooks in tearing into your dozen characters or equivalents... :)
No one ever takes Silent Mans warnings seriously.
Of course it was too late (even after my sense motive check of 50+) by then.
No one ever takes Silent Mans warnings seriously.
Of course it was too late (even after my sense motive check of 50+) by then.
That's what happens when no one can hear you. :)
On the upside, at least you're not in immediate danger of a horrible, agonizing death... well, that I know of.
No one ever takes Silent Mans warnings seriously.
Of course it was too late (even after my sense motive check of 50+) by then.
That's what happens when no one can hear you. :)
On the upside, at least you're not in immediate danger of a horrible, agonizing death... well, that I know of.
True. Maybe I should start using flash cards.
No one ever takes Silent Mans warnings seriously.
Of course it was too late (even after my sense motive check of 50+) by then.
That's what happens when no one can hear you. :)
On the upside, at least you're not in immediate danger of a horrible, agonizing death... well, that I know of.
True. Maybe I should start using flash cards.
It’s true that you jokingly called them succubi when you first saw them. It’s too bad you didn’t say it as something other than a joke, ask for a sense motive check or take any action that seemed to indicate you were suspicious of them. If you had you would have gotten a sense motive check much earlier. Also while your 50+ check was good enough to see through one of her lies, you didn’t do anything about it. You didn’t take any action or tell the other party members.
As I see it the two biggest problems the party has cropped up in this adventure yet again. You guys have very little coordination or communication. Those 4 free words per round may not be much, but they can matter.
So, regarding ** spoiler omitted **
On his first appearance he turned invisible more than once and activated a wraith strike, although no one was able to observe how. He only did the wraith strike once, although that may have been due mainly to opportunity. He is chaotic or neutral evil. He fought with two weapons and was able to get two off-hand attacks per round off. He does have the Darkstalker feat from Lords of Madness. It has no prerequisites.
In previous encounters the orcs have met Wiz, Droodad, Blingy, Blingy Jr., Tin Man, Oscar Silent Man and Kitty. Wiz’s Blink Dog and whoever McStabby replaces his current character with (he is changing characters this coming session). They don’t know their alignments, but they do know their classes pretty well, although they believe that Silent Man is just a fighter. The PCs so far are not using any skill tricks or teamwork benefits and almost no buff spells.
Sir Perf and Drew both took the versatile feat so that they could get hide and move silent as class skills. This let them take the ambush teamwork benefit to keep their mooks well hidden. Every single mook effectively has 14 ranks of hide and move silent to set up the ambush. Sir Perf also has his team trained in the one where they all fire when he does and get a big benefit for it. He brought along a belt of battle so that he can get his full round of attack and still organize their fire. Drew trained his team in the one that lets them charge through each other’s spaces. They are barbarians and their main job is to try and tangle up the party to keep them from getting to the archers. If Cad has minions they should either be scouts or rogues and mainly there to let him do his job better.
The current plan is for the trio to ambush the party while they are going through a relatively narrow mountain pass, with a nice ledge/overhang to give Perf and his boys a sniper’s nest. The party will have along an orc mage who will be offering information in exchange for his safe passage to Ian’s plane. Their main goal is to grease him. Any party members who bite the big one are just gravy. If any of them gets much below half HP they’ll use a pearl that acts as a Word of Recall. Each of the trio has one but the mooks don’t. Too bad for the mooks. If one bampfs out the other two will soon follow. They care far more about staying alive than winning. It’ll probably be later in the day, but before evening.
That is true but if you look at from a players point of view it just seems so much more fun that way to see those "I told you so" moments that seem to pop up so often in our little group and everyone just having a big laugh at each others expense, its just so awsome.
That is true but if you look at from a players point of view it just seems so much more fun that way to see those "I told you so" moments that seem to pop up so often in our little group and everyone just having a big laugh at each others expense, its just so awsome.
True, true. If Droodad had actually been there I'm sure she would have seen through it pretty easily. Thankfully some of you are still gullible.
So, regarding ** spoiler omitted **x
Cap'n...
Male Orc
Neutral Evil Medium Humanoid (Orc)
Initiative Bonus: +10 (6 Dex +4 feat)
Speed 30'; Hide/Move Silently +22
Darkvision 60'; Listen/Spot +15
Hit Points: 88 (11d6 [55 rolled hp] plus 33 CON bonus)
Languages: Orc, Common, Dwarven, Giant and (one of the other Orc bonus languages).
Ability Scores
STR 20 (+5) (= 16 +4 racial)
DEX 22 (+6) (= 20 +2 level advancement)
CON 16 (+3)
INT 16 (+3) (= 18 -2 racial)
WIS 12 (+1) (= 14 -2 racial)
CHA 18 (+4) (= 20 -2 racial)
Rogue 11th level (Wilderness Rogue Variant, UA p 56) (PFCS p 49: Poison Master)
BAB +8/+3; Grapple +13; Melee Attack Bonus +13; Ranged Attack bonus +14
Fortitude +9 <+14 vs. poisons with antitoxin> (base 3 +3 Con +3 resistance)
Reflex +18, Evasion (base 7 +6 Dex +3 resistance +2 vest)
Will +10 (base 3 +4 Cha +3 resistance)
FEATS:
Light Armor Proficiency; Proficiency with all simple weapons, falchion, great axe, rapier, shortbow and shortsword.
(Falchion and great axe are racial and martial weapon proficiencies for orcs.)
1 exchanged for Hand Crossbow Proficiency: Force of Personality (CHA bonus on Will saves) (CAdv)
1.Combat Expertise
1 flaw: Improved Initiative
1 flaw: Improved Feint
3.Quick Draw
5.Two-Weapon Fighting
5 trained: Darkstalker
7.Death Blow (CAdv)
9.Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
10 trained: Dual Strike (CAdv)
11.Deft Strike (CAdv)
2 flaws = -2 penalty to AC = flat-footed Touch AC of 8
AC: 25 (Touch AC +9 armor bonus)
Touch AC: 16 (10 -2 flaw +2 deflection +6 Dex)
Skills: Balance +20 (14 ranks +6 Dex), Bluff +18 (14 ranks +4 Cha), Climb +17 (12 ranks +5 Str), Craft (poisons) (trapmaking) +17 each (12 ranks each +3 Int +2 circumstance), Disable Device +12 (7 ranks +3 Int +2 circumstance), Escape Artist +20 (14 ranks +6 Dex), Handle Animal +15 (14 ranks +1 Wis), Hide +22 (14 ranks +6 Dex +2 competence), Listen +15 (14 ranks +1 Wis), Move Silently +22 (14 ranks +6 Dex +2 competence), Search +10 (7 ranks +3 Int), Spot +15 (14 ranks +1 Wis) and Use Magic Device +18 (14 ranks +4 Cha)
Skill Tricks (6 ranks = 3 tricks): Group Fake-Out, Spot the Weak Point, Escape Attack
Teamwork Benefits (2): These I leave to your discretion
Class Features: Trap Sense traded in for Poison Master: poison use AND poisons delivered as part of a sneak attack have the initial saving throw DC increased by 2 (Trap Sense bonus -1); Sneak Attack +6d6 = +7d6 with vest; Evasion; Trapfinding; Uncanny Dodge (DEX bonus to AC); Improved Uncanny Dodge (15th+ rogue or equivalent to be flanked); Special Ability: Camouflage (as Ranger's ability of the same name) will gain Hide in Plain Sight if he lives long enough to achieve 13th level
GEAR
150,000 gpv gear allowance
Pearl (Word of Recall), command word item, one-use [carries 3 of these: 2 worn as earrings with the third - and first to be used - as a nose ring] (2,376 gp each = 7,128 gp)
2 +1 swords of subtlety (44,620 gp; 4 lbs) (hardness 11, hit points 3 each) (+4 attack and damage when he is making sneak attacks with these weapons)
- Melee +15/+10 dealing 1d6+6 (19-20/x2) sneak attack melee +18/+13 dealing 8d6+9 (19-20/x2 = 9d6+18)
- two-weapon melee +13/+13/+8/+8 dealing 1d6+6/1d6+3 sneak attack two-weapon melee +16/+11/+16/+11 dealing 8d6+9/8d6+6
- 2 doses of purple worm poison: DC 25 initial DC 27 if delivered as part of a sneak attack initial 1d6 STR, secondary 2d6 STR (1,400 gp; CAdv pp 97-98)
Rogue's Vest (DMG2 p 271) (29,600 gp) (+2 competence bonus to Hide & Move Silently; +2 bonus on Reflex saving throws; increases sneak attack damage by 1d6 to 7d6)
+5 mithril shirt (26,100 gp; 10 lbs; max Dex +6; 0 armor check; +9 armor bonus; hardness 25; hit points 45)
+3 cloak of resistance (9,000 gp)
+2 brooch of protection (8,000 gp)
Explorer's Outfit (10 gp, 8 lbs)
Efficient Quiver (1,800 gp; 2 lbs)
+1 composite shortbow {+5 STR} (2,750 gp; hardness 6, hit points 6) & 50 +1 shortbow arrows (2,301 gp)
- projectile weapon ranged attack +16/+11 dealing 1d6+7 (20/x3 = 3d6+21)
Handy Haversack (2,500 gp; 5 lbs)
- wand of invisibility (4,500 gp; fully charged)
- Masterwork Artisan's Tools for Craft skills (110 gp, 10 lbs)
- 6 additional doses of purple worm poison (4,200 gp)
- an everburning torch (110 gp, 1 lb)
- a full waterskin (1 gp) and 2 weeks' trail rations (7 gp) in one side pocket
- 6 tindertwigs (6 gp), 6 smokesticks (120 gp) and 4 vials of antitoxin (200 gp) in the 2nd side pocket with the wand, tools, torch and poison
- 20 bags of caltrops (20 gp), 20 flasks of lamp oil (2 gp), bedroll, a whetstone, a spare explorer's outfit, masterwork thieves' tools and remaining weight allowance of 4 lbs in the main compartment
- remaining budget/valuables/gear worth/valued at 482 gp, 9 sp, 9 cp
TOTAL ENCUMBRANCE of 29 - 32 lbs
6 orc-reared guard dogs with MW Studded Leather Barding (1,500 gp) {225 gp each, all are trained & have MW nonhumanoid studded leather barding} - these are Cad's first line of attack, via a simple bird call ... MM pp 271-272; AC 18 instead of 15, otherwise the same statistics and bonuses; note that the barding only counts as 10 lbs
encumbrance, so the vicious beasties aren't slowed down unless reduced to a 1 or 2 Strength. (Their barding is a light load all the way to as low as a 3 Strength!)
Recommend fairly crude (Rambo movie 1 style) traps be set up around the ambush site, say DC 20 Search/Disable or so.
(Given Cad can 'take 5' and set up DC 22 mundane traps with ease, well...)
Cad's "mooks" are a pack (3-6) of Awakened Megaraptor Scout 3s that he raised from hatching until they were awakened as adults by an Chef Drew a few years ago. Individually they are named (in order) Fang, Claw, Talon, Chomp, Gut and Barf (depending on how many of the pack you wish to use). They are VERY loyal to Cad, consider Chef Drew and Sir Perf to be excellent drinking buddies and think elves are the best menu item since humans. They don't talk much, and scare the bejeebus out of the other mooks - probably due to the fact that the raptors have intimated they would happily EAT the face off of any that disappoint Chef Drew, Sir Perf or Cad. They could have as many as 3 teamwork benefits (due to having 12+ HD) but Cad, Chef Drew and Sir Perf cannot (due to not having 12 or more HD).
Orc Scout-Raptors
Huge Magical Beast (Augmented Animal), individual CR 9
10d8 racial HD plus 3d8 class HD = 13d8 total HD [8 +54 = 62 averaged hp from HD, not counting CON bonus hp]
Hit Points: 156 each (62 +78 +16 toughness){if maximized, hit points = 198 each <104 +78 +16>}
Speed 70 ft. (60 +10 enhancement); Hide/Move Silently +16 = +21 with gear
Initiative +10 (3 Dex +1 competence +6 feats) {They work VERY well indeed with Cad the Scaliwag}
Low-light vision, scent; Listen/Spot +19
Space/Reach 15'/10'
AC: 21 or 22 skirmish (11 +6 natural +4 armor)
Touch AC: 11 or 12 skirmish (10 -2 size +3 Dex)
Talons +13 melee (2d8+6) and 2 foreclaws +13 melee (1d4+3) and bite +13 melee (2d6+3) amulet = magic strike and their natural weapons = talons +14 (2d8+7) and 2 foreclaws +14 (1d4+4) and bite +14 (2d6+4) or by weapon
Special Attack: Pounce (natural weapons on a charge = +16 AB for all of them)
BAB: +9/+4; Melee Attack Bonus +13; Ranged Attack Bonus +9
Grapple +24 (9 +6 Str +8 size)
Fort +17 (7+1 = base 8 +6 CON +1 competence +2 resistance)
Reflex +15 (7+3 = base 10 +3 DEX +2 resistance)
Will +9 (3+1 = base 4 +3 WIS +2 resistance)
Languages: Orc and one other language from those known by Chef Drew; speech is a mixture of yelps and other noises - see the Jurassic Park movies, especially #3 - with raspy Orcish as their primary spoken language. They do relish the terror on the faces of those who realize too late that the raptors are intelligent...
Ability Scores: STR 22 (+6), DEX 16 (+3), CON 22 (+6), INT 12 (+1), WIS 16 (+3), CHA 12 (+1)
Feats (6 from HD plus 1 from flaw plus 2 trained = 9 total): Proficiency with natural weaponry, light armor, all simple weapons, hand axe, throwing axe and short sword.
Multiattack/Improved Multiattack (trained), Improved Initiative (flaw), Toughness (+16 hp)(1st), Run (3rd), Track (5th), Improved Initiative (7th), Skill Focus: Hide (9th), Quick Reconnoiter (11th) and Stealthy (13th) {+2 Move Silently & +5 Hide total}
Cannot use projectile weapons & -1 on attacks with thrown weapons (Flaw)
Class Features: Skirmish (+1d6, +1 competence bonus to AC), Trapfinding, Battle Fortitude (+1 competence bonus on Fortitude saving throws & initiative checks), Uncanny Dodge (DEX bonus to AC), Fast Movement +10', Trackless Step
Skills: Balance +8 (5 ranks +3 Dex), Climb +11 (5 ranks +6 Str), Hide +16 (16 ranks +3 Dex -8 size +5 feats), Jump +19 (13 ranks +6 Str), Listen +19 (16 ranks +3 Wis), Move Silently +16 (11 ranks +3 Dex +2 feat), Spot +19 (16 ranks +3 Wis), Survival +16 (13 ranks +3 Wis) and Swim +10 (4 ranks +6 Str)
Skill Trick: Twisted Charge (CScdrl)
GEAR (All sized Huge & Nonhumanoid) (NPC Gear Allowance of 35,000 gp each):
Cloak of Elfhunting (equivalent to a cloak of elvenkind) (DMG p 253) (5 lbs) (2500 gp)
Ankle Bands of Elfhunting (equivalent to boots of elvenkind) (DMG p 250) (5 lbs) (2500 gp)
Amulet of Mighty Fists +1 (6000 gp)
Vest of Resistance +2 (5 lbs) (4000 gp)
Tunic of the Mountebank (otherwise as per the cape, DMG p 252) (5 lbs) (10,080 gp)
Mithril Shirt (50 lbs) (0 armor check, max Dex +6, +4 armor bonus, Light armor, hardness 15, hp 80) (8,800 gp)
Each carries a Wand of Cure Light Wounds (fully charged) for Cad or Chef Drew to use on them to rapidly cure them of lost hit points. (750 gp) These are medium-sized devices that Cad or Drew takes care to secure. The raptors themselves cannot use or manipulate them - they do know about them however.
Each also carries a well-wrapped and delicious Kidney Pie of Cure Moderate Wounds [2d8+3 hp cured] that is likely to be the source of any blown rolls for perception / stealth considerations on their part. (300 gp)
A padded and quilted purse with 60 silver coin (2 lbs), worn beneath their armor on a cord (6 gp)
Not counting weapons, each raptor has an encumbrance load of 72 lbs - however, as Huge creatures their Light load is 4x normal for thier strength score. If tagged with a ray of enfeeblement at maximum possible effect at 10th level, they drop from a 22 to a feeble 11 STR. Or, their light load drops from 692 lbs to 152 lbs, more than double their encumbrance load without weapons.
WEAPONS (Huge x4 cost, x5 encumbrance)
Throwing Axe / Hatchet (32 gp, 10 lbs) (10' range increment) (2d6+6 Slashing melee or thrown with crit 20/x2 for them - basically, these are throwing-balanced medium great axes) (hardness 5, hit points 10)
sheaf of 3 Spears (8 gp each, 30 lbs each, hardness 5, hit points 40 each) (3d6+6 one-handed or thrown melee; 3d6+9 two-handed melee damage; 20/x3 crit; thrown range increment of 20') - worn with a "quick release" strap that only requires a non-provoking move action to drop the spears.
Total encumbrance of 172 lbs, 100 lbs of which is pretty easily droppable / throwable. If they are expecting to deal with foes that routinely use rays of enfeeblement, they will set up their spears about the ambush site at 'end of round' points. Due to their Trackless Step, their preparations at an ambush site leave no evidence save for the cache(s) they may make. Another acceptable alternative is to set up in camouflaged hiding positions with spears at easy reach for throwing.
It was very deliberate to not select Quick Draw for them, however if they survive long enough to gain 2 more scout levels, it is recommended that they learn Quick Draw at either Scout 4 or when they gain their 15th HD at Scout 5. If you want to get REALLY disgusting, they'll branch off into Barbarian levels...
So, regarding ** spoiler omitted **xCap'n... ** spoiler omitted **
Mwahahaha. Turin you have out done yourself, this will be perfect, with just one or two tweaks I can think of. Excellent.
Mwahahaha. Turin you have out done yourself, this will be perfect, with just one or two tweaks I can think of. Excellent.So, regarding ** spoiler omitted **xCap'n... ** spoiler omitted **
^_^ I'm glad you like the stat block. I look forward to hearing about dismemberments and mutilations and ... well, you get the idea. :)
EDIT:
Turin! Once again I must salute you. I will bin my own suggestions, as they pale in comparison with the malevolent munificient magnificence you have created.
Silent Man and the boys had best be on their toe's.
Turin! Once again I must salute you. I will bin my own suggestions, as they pale in comparison with the malevolent munificient magnificence you have created.
Silent Man and the boys had best be on their toe's.
Peebo-T (from the chatroom) is going to use the bottom-most stat block for his group's journey across the Cinderlands en route to Scarwall in his CotCT campaign.
Yet he strangely wishes to refrain from TPK'ing his group ...
Nothing wrong with suggestions Calavingian :) Evah!
I apologize for the long silence. School, a complicated schedule and a missed game session has led to this. Hopefully things will be back on track by the end of the coming week, more or less.
When last we left the party they were preparing to head out to help Kitty track down the origin of his monastery. Unfortunately since he missed the session where they would have started that the party went with a different adventure. The party, minus Droodad who has gone off for some personal meditation and reflection decided to help escort Silent Man to a city in the nation of Suundi where supposedly there resides someone who can train him the secrets of another style he uses.
Now the problem with getting to Suundi is the fact that has no gate and is completely surrounded by nations ruled by the Scarlet Brotherhood. Now the Scarlet Brotherhood is Lawful Evil. Our erstwhile party has some good tendencies and very strong chaotic tendencies. So they decided the best way to stay out of trouble would be to stay out of those areas. This seemed an especially good idea as the Scarlet Brotherhood had recent acquired itself an arcane wielding group that called themselves the Red Wizards. No one was quite sure where they came from, but their power was quite formidable and worked with the Scarlet Brotherhood.
The party decided to head to the Lendore Isles and from there take a ship to Suundi as that is the closest gate not controlled by the Scarlet Brotherhood. Here they met a strange member of the crew who would eventually follow them for a while.
(This is McStabby’s new character as he was unhappy with his rogue. Despite the existence of the Monk class there is no “oriental” area in the game at present. However he really, really wanted to play a version of a character from a video game. I think it’s the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I could be wrong. So he ended up sailing here from where ever I end up putting the oriental area. I seem to be completely unable to get the name pronounced right, which is something like Liu Bo, so the character will be called Lobo from now on. Mainly because it amuses me.)
Unsurprisingly their ocean voyage did not go uninterrupted. They were eventually set upon by two ships sailing the flag of the Scarlet Brotherhood. The captain of the party’s vessel quite accurately assumed that the approaching ships were acting as privateers to discourage trade with Suundi. The much worse news was that the two privateers had much faster vessels than the party did.
The pirate fight was quite a bit of fun. Some of the highlights include the expression on Wiz’s face when he discovered that each vessel has a spell caster dedicated solely to counter spelling. Each vessel in addition to minions had a wizard who used attack spells, a wizard who counter spelled and monk. A fun spell called Ram’s Charge I believe (2nd level spell from the spell compendium) sent Blingy off Blingy Jr.’s back and into the drink. This would have been a lot more entertaining if he hadn’t had a ring of arming which prevented me from having him dragged to the bottom of the ocean by the weight of his armor. One of the monks, a Halfling, ran up to Lobo and proceeded to lay the smack down. 6 hits, 3 of which were crits sent the mighty warrior well into unconsciousness. Unfortunately Lobo had retribution armor which also put the monk unconscious.
Eventually the party captured the vessels without slaughtering too much of the crew. Both the counter spellers and one of the other mages managed to get away thanks to a teleport spell. The party eventually struck a deal with the captain of the vessel that had been carrying them. He would take the two ships, expand his operation and eventually start paying them a fee.
The made landfall and head for the city Silent Man was searching for. Along the way they found the entrance to a small section of the underdark. Their interest was sparked when they saw two passages out of here and the signs of a very high level magical battle. The decided a little side trip might not be out of order.
Cap'n
As I recollect, the "oriental" areas of Oerth, in relation to the Flaaness, is southwesterly - roughly the distance from say, Maine to the southern border of Brazil with Argentina in real world terms. It can be sailed directly - if one knows where to go without getting eaten along the way there and back of course. Without that, the characters could hoof it simply by following the coastline ... but that method of exploration is (usually) safer from the (cramped) confines of a sailing ship with a competent crew as back up...
I would imagine the journey to be equivalent to the real-world journeys from Europe across "Asia Minor" and over to the westernmost edge of the desert at the western edge of China - in other words, the actual Silk Road. ^_^
If you're of a mind to have them hoof it rather than sail - either way the journey would be arduous (depending on one's generosity of course).
Good Luck ! :)
Well, I’m going to make a long story short. The section of the Underdark was home to a Beholder and his many minions (being able to use Charm Person and Charm Monster at will has its benefits). Booby traps such as vats of molten lead, permanently animated boulders and a strategically placed pit and spike traps served to keep the party on their toes. The welcoming committee of barbarian minotaurs dished out damage left and right. Finally the beholder himself provided some entertainment before falling before the party’s blades. Tin Man actually RPed being charmed quite well.
Eventually they did reach their destination and dropped off Silent Man for his training. (Silent Man has missed some sessions recently due to a car accident. He is alright and we hope he can rejoin us soon). The party then hired the wayfarer’s guild to send them all to Farshore for some shopping and R&R.
Here Blingy hired the Fabricator to make him a flying ship. He only paid for the ship itself, not for the VERY expensive enchantment that will allow it to fly. He hopes to make enough money for that very soon.
Many of the party members also decided to join the arena in Farshore as gladiators. Wiz put up his own little challenge that he and I will play out later. In the meantime Blingy, Tin Man and Kitty took a challenge being offered by one of the senior members of the arena. The prize was a 1 year contract for the services of a moderately skill (10th level) fighter and a “camp follower”. Blingy felt this was a little too close to slavery for his taste so he enlisted the help of his companions to free the two from this duty.
The opponent of a Wartroll Duskblade (I made him one on the spur of the moment, and now I realize that their spell list SUCKS). The fight was nonlethal, which meant the wartroll had to use a merciful sword. Of course the party members got to use their regular weapons as no weapon they had could deal the troll lethal damage.
The fight was long and hard and a very, very close call for the party. The main saving grace was well into the fight the troll lost his temper and went all out against Tin Man. Unfortunately for the troll not only did he not hit, he managed to pop a blood vessel in his eye that made it difficult for him to see. From there on he landed almost no blows on the party. This was good for the party as they were collectively on their last legs. (The troll pulled a fumble card which gave him a miss chance for 4 rounds and I KEPT RILLING THE DAMN MISS CHANCE.)
The party did finally go with Kitty to explore the ruined temple that was supposedly the original home of his order. They hired the Wayfarer’s guild to take them there and back, since the trip would have been very, very long otherwise. The first day at the temple proved very boring. The party couldn’t find any hidden door, monsters or anything else remotely interesting.
Early on the second day something that had been nagging at the back of Kitty’s mind came to the fore. He remembered that in the temple he grew up in the training hall had a large depression in the center. It was used for a few unusual exercises designed to improve flexibility and balance. Of course many a new student had questioned why they used the depression when there were other methods that worked better. The answer was of course “tradition”. Yet there was no depression like that here in the remains of the training hall.
When Kitty went to examine the place where the depression should have been he found that the flagstones there were able to shift just a little bit. He realized that the exercises he had done as a novice might be the key here. He was right, but it took his several attempts to prove it. As he did the exercises correctly the stones would slip just a very little bit and lock into place. As he performed the final movements the floor dropped away revealing an entrance to an underground area.
Descending into the depths the party found themselves in an underground tunnel leading only one directly. After a short distance the tunnel went through a 40ft square room. In this room stood 4 figures wearing hooded robes. All that could be seen of the figures under the robes were a pair of glowing red eyes.
The party did attempt to talk with the figures, but the figures were having none of it. The fight was swift and brutal. Once defeated the robes proved to be completely empty. Wiz eventually identified them as a version of a Dread Guard (of course with LOTS more HD and monk abilities). From here Kitty continued on alone as the remaining tests and secrets were ones that should only be seen by a member of his order. (Hopefully we can play that out at some point).
(Question for Turin, what is the Fabricator’s actual name? I don’t recall you ever giving him one in the Savage Tide campaign. Also the version of the Savage Tide player’s guide that we had had several organization in Sasserine and how to track your rating with them. I downloaded the player’s guide from Paizo but it didn’t have that. Anyone have a copy of that? I want to use it as a basis for the arena in Farshore in my campaign.)
I never gave him an actual name in the Savage Tide campaign - I recall that his real name was/is Murrinin. (At the time, the name was associated with glassworking - in this case, some kind of 'signature bead', as far as I can tell. I used the name for a long time - as in, before I had any information on what a murrinin apparently is.) Vitruvius, a Roman architect's name, is also acceptable I would think.
PHB 2 has the organization rules you'll need to run the arena organization. That arena was, in and of itself, not detailed in the adventure/campaign - it was the one you went into with Da Fighter and Ineptus as I recall.
I do not recall the specific issue number - I'd guess 354 or 355 of Dragon magazine or about 155 or so of Dungeon. I'll let you know when I dig them up unless some one else is kind enough to linky it (or otherwise provide the issue information) for you.